Teaching Guidelines

The Committee on Undergraduates Education (CUB) yesterday adopted a new set of guidelines and suggestions for evaluating undergraduate teaching, which will take effect next fall.

The guidelines represent recognition of the weaknesses in Harvard's undergraduate program and call for more stringent selection and evaluation of teaching follows and teaching assistants, Sidney Verba '53, CUB chairman and associate dean of the Faculty for Undergraduate Education said yesterday.

As a part of this proposal, the Faculty Council will consider rules concerning undergraduates who assist in course instruction sometime next month, Verba added.

The rules under consideration include minimum standards for the assistants such as having at least sophomore standing and "a superior record and competence in the subject area of the course," Verba said.

Currently, undergraduates teach in most lower level math, science, and applied science courses, Deborah Hughes Hallot, professor of Mathematics, said yesterday.

The recommendations also encourage faculty members to obtain 5-week student evaluations of section leaders and to hold precourse seminars on teaching.

Some of the new measures will be published in the annually revised Handbook for Instructors.

Provisions which will be carried out through purely administrative channels include providing special funds to recognize graduate instruction and reviewing annually each department's policy for selecting and evaluating teaching follows and assistants.