Bio Preregistration

The Biology Department will require preregistration for optional biology tutorials, a letter-mailed last week to concentrators states.

Biology students interested in the tutorials must choose in mid-April among 22 proposed classes, the letter said. Although the preregistration is non-binding, it is the first ever at Harvard, Associate Registrar Jay A Halfond said recently.

But Halfond predicted that preregistration will not become common practice at Harvard. "It probably wouldn't work in any course [except] tutorials where the students are pretty much sure of taking them," he said.

The Undergraduate Committee of Biology, composed of administrators and faculty members, hoped that preregistration would permit the department to offer more tutorials, John E. Dowling, a professor of biology on the committee, said last week.

"If we have a minimum of eight students per tutorial, I will fight to get all 22 of them authorized," Dowling said.

In the past, the department was able to offer only 12 tutorials, most of which were either far too popular or too crowded, he added.

Students contacted recently do not seem to feel threatened by the new policy. "If they're not willing to hold tutorials below a minimum enrollment, then it's good to find out now," Daniel M. Kaplan '85, a biology concentrator, said.