The Missing CUE

IF YOU HAVEN'T heard anything about the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) this year, that is probably because it has not managed to meet yet. CUE will hold its first introductory meeting this week and its first major session November 15, exactly two months after Harvard registration.

Glen W. Bowersock '57, chairman of CUE and associate dean of undergraduate education, says CUE has not met yet because the Faculty Council only recently announced which of its members have volunteered this year to sit on CUE, which is composed of five Faculty Council members and five students from the Educational Resources Group (ERG). Since the Faculty Council members are elected in May of the preceding academic year, it would seem logical to assign faculty to the CUE at the same time. But Charles P. Whitlock, associate dean of the Faculty, who assigns Faculty Council members to subcommittees such as CUE, explains he doesn't ask Faculty Council members which subcommittees they would like to serve on until late September. He admits he might run into complications if the Council membership changes over the summer.

One would assume, however, the Council could make substitutions for faculty drop-outs in the fall without too much hardship. After all, the ERG has managed to set up its subcommittees and has already met four or five times.

In addition to late faculty appointments, Bowersock attributes CUE's painfully slow start to difficulty in finding a time when all ten members can attend. But judging from past performance, even when Bowersock does find a time when all ten members can meet, less than half the faculty members are likely to put in an appearance.

James Henderson '80, a student CUE member this year and last, recalls last year "some faculty members rarely ever showed." Often Bowersock was the only faculty representative present. Willa Brown '81, a CUE member last year, says she can't remember "a time when all five faculty members have been there."

The CUE attendance records of some faculty members are more shameful than others. Alfred Crompton, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology and a CUE member last year, appeared once or twice at the beginning of the year, then mysteriously vanished. "Professor Crompton never came to any of the meetings, and then he shot down one of our proposals--tutorial legislation--at the Faculty Council meeting," Henderson recollects. Crompton concedes he went to "singularly few" CUE meetings, explaining he was otherwise engaged "with an enormous number of commitments." (He added he did not recall specifically the debate on tutorial reform. "Is that where they wanted more tutorials?" he asked.)

Richard J. Herrnstein, professor of Psychology and CUE member, says he went to CUE meetings last year, when "there wasn't a stronger priority." Consequently, Herrnstein attended "occasionally," Henderson notes.

BUT CHRONIC faculty absence, like the delay of the first CUE meeting this year, is only one aspect of the Faculty's longstanding disinterest in maintaining CUE as a serious contributor to Faculty policy. CUE was set up in 1969 as part of the Faculty reorganization plan to make recommendations on educational policy to the Faculty Council, which in turn decides whether to send the suggestions on to the Faculty in the form of legislation.

Most CUE faculty members perceive the committee as a "forum" where students and faculty interact, but as Henderson points out, that is hard to do when the faculty don't show up. Herrnstein is fuzzier about the purpose of CUE. After a long pause, he ventured that CUE is "a point of contact for whatever reasons."

For most students, though, CUE is supposed to be the one organization which directly works with the Faculty Council and proposes educational changes to the Faculty. But no matter how persuasively a CUE student member defends a student proposal--such as the recommendation last year to expand credit for study abroad--all decisions ultimately rest with the Faculty Council, and no student is allowed to participate in Council discussions. With Bowersock's permission, a CUE student member may present his case to the Faculty Council, but he must leave before the Council begins debate.

CUE student members then depend on the faculty members of CUE to defend their case before the Faculty Council, but in the past the professors have rarely relished the task. Because the CUE rarely takes a vote--preferring to "reach a consensus," as Bowersock calls it--and because many of the faculty members remain silent during much of the CUE discussions, students often have no idea what faculty members think of their ideas. "We figure if they are quiet," Henderson deducts "they (the professors) don't object."

This interpretation apparently was misguided. The Faculty Council's resounding rejection last May of the CUE study abroad plan, which CUE students assumed CUE faculty members supported, is the most glaring example. "They acted like they were taking us seriously," Brown said, adding that throughout the discussions the professors "nodded their heads" sympathetically. Bowersock says he believed all CUE faculty members backed the students and was "surprised" when all but one rejected study abroad. Cromption says he missed that Council meeting and did not get around to voting.

Bowersock theorizes that faculty members are hesitant to speak at CUE meetings because students seem so eager to make their points and "wave their hands with gusto." Because the CUE is open to guests, many ERG members attend the meetings and Bowersock believes the professors find the imbalanced ratio--sometimes 25 students to two or three faculty members--"overwhelming." Professors seem less anxious when lecturing to vastly larger student audiences in class each week, but then monologues and dialogues are two different things.

Herrnstein says he thinks students do most of the talking because they are more inclined "to feel that things need to be changed." Sadly, the Faculty lacks the motivation to experiment.

Faculty members did speak up when CUE debated the Core Curriculum last year, Henderson observes. "When the Harvard national image is at stake," he rightly reasons, the Faculty finds its voice. But when it comes to purely student issues such as study abroad, faculty members slip back into the background.

The only proposals which eventually become faculty legislation are those which the Faculty originally wanted passed. Dana Leifer '80, a former CUE student member, says the issues CUE discussed "were all generated from the Faculty." Because Bowersock writes the agenda for each meeting, faculty concerns get top billing. "Everything we do is pointless unless it's something the Faculty supported to begin with," Henderson says.

Most of the time the Faculty Council has already decided, Brown explains, and CUE approval is "just a formality." Heather McClave, professor of English and former CUE member, criticizes the students' fatalistic attitude, claiming they may in some cases push their ideas through, though the process is "an uphill battle."

Looking back over her year's service to CUE, Brown feels disheartened and "pretty hardened to the idea of student participation." Like most of the students, she started off "thinking we were going to change a lot, make a difference." But now that a year has gone by, the only change Brown can point to as student-inspired is a pamphlet on study abroad which the Council agreed to print this year.

The lack of Faculty commitment to undergraduate education is, as usual, at the center of CUE's troubles. Until the Faculty makes a serious attempt to respect undergraduate needs and to respond constructively to their criticism, CUE will remain one of the many "student-faculty committees," set up more to ease faculty conscience than to give students a meaningful role in setting educational policy.

IN THE MEANTIME the Faculty should take certain steps to improve CUE's effectiveness. For one, Whitlock should make it clear to Faculty Council members who volunteer for CUE what the commitment entails. Perhaps such a warning would discourage the Cromptons who have better things to do from joining the committee. Faculty members should also understand the issues CUE considers. McClave, for instance, says she did not speak up at the CUE discussions on the Core two years ago because she was "not well-acquainted with the Core legislation." This is incredible considering that CUE discussed nothing but the Core that year.

In addition, students should have more access to the Faculty Council. Bowersock says the Council discusses confidential matters and student presence would "inhibit freedom of discussion." The Council, however, could easily include students in debates on specific issues. Keeping Council meetings secret inhibits freedom of discussion more seriously--by preventing debate between faculty and students.

Finally, CUE should meet more often, starting early in the fall. Faculty members who cannot attend regularly should resign.