Bracing for a Change

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) is once again a hot topic at Harvard. While the College and the Core monopolized the Faculty's attention for over a decade, the grad school is now getting its share of the limelight. Five departments have changed their graduate programs in the past year, and the GSAS itself is receiving its first searching review in 15 years.

The most prominent step in the review, is the recently appointed Strauch Committee, chaired by Leverett Professor of Physics Karl Strauch, formed this summer in one of A. Michael Spence's first actions as Dean of the Faculty. The committee expected to spend the school year interviewing students, faculty, and administrators in an attempt to gauge the state of the GSAS.

But the Strauch Committee is only one of several efforts to re-define the GSAS. In the Government Department, for instance, curricular reforms enacted this summer were aimed at combatting over-specialization. And in University Hall Spence has chosen to reduce GSAS bureaucracy by not replacing Jeremy W. Rusk, who retired last spring as associate dean of he GSAS for administration.

Since the last full-scale review of the GSAS was conducted in 1969 by the Wolff Committee--who focused their attention on the size of the grad school--conditions have changed, professors and administrators say. Not only has the size of the GSAS been reduced since the reforms of the early 1970s, but even more importantly, the Wolff Committee's vision of the grad school's purpose and direction is non somewhat outdated. "The waters have been muddied in the last five-six years, and it's time now for someone to determine what the nature of the graduate school is," says C. John Friesman, assistant GSAS dean for academic planning and administration.

The Strauch Committee is expected to analyze the GSAS's role in the 1980s and 1990s, says Peter S. McKinney, Spence's acting dean of the grad school for the academic year. The major issues appear to be should the GSAS expand to meet the larger academic job market of the 1990s, and if so how much; should the GSAS prepare students solely for academic life; what structure of admissions, advising, and placement should be implemented; what balance should the GSAS draw between departmental autonomy and Byerly Hall centralization?

POWER STRUGGLE

It the last question that complicates the matter. The GSAS administration in Byerly Hall has expanded dramatically since the Wolff Committee report--to the dismay of some departments--and the issue of who actually runs the GSAS gets mixed up with the broader policy issues.

"Individual units at Harvard are autonomous, right down to the individual professors.... It's important to remind (the administrators) that the final word on graduate education rests with the departments," says Professor of Literature Joel Porte, former director of graduate studies in the English Department.

"The grad school is a funny animal, and some people suggest that there is no graduate school that what there is is 50 departmental programs," McKinney says. "There is built in to this situation a tension between the departments, which rightfully believe themselves to be the determinants of the programs, and the central administration, which has a reponsibility to keep watch over these 50-odd programs," McKinney adds.

The power struggle has been going on for the past decade, ever since former deans of the graduate school Edward T. Wilcox and Burton S. Dreben '49 implemented the current need based financial aid policy in the early 1970s. Using the centrally administered financial aid as a wedge, according to one account, the GSAS bureaucracy swelled under the seven-year deanship of Edward L. Keenan '57, who stepped aside in July.

Dismantle Me

But since the departure of Richard A. Kraus, Keenan's associate dean for administration, for the State Senate in January of 1983, "things have been cut back already," says Friesman. The offices of students affairs and special students have merged, as have admissions/financial aid and academic planning/administration Friesman says.

If professors hope that the Strauch Committee will further dismantle the obtrusive GSAS bureaucracy, they are likely to be disappointed McKinney predicts. The committee may recommend "exactly what we're doing now. I frankly think it's a certain outcome."

Strauch and Spencer were unavailable for comment this week.

CURRICULUM CHANGES

At least four Harvard departments have examined their grad programs in the last year and found them wanting, or at least in need of updating. The most dramatic change was in the Government Department, where a two-year student-faculty study led to a large-scale de-specialization this summer. New grad students in the department must choose among four basic fields of study--international relations, comparative government. American government, and political philosophy. "It was possible for people to take the Ph.D. in areas that were too specialized. But today they don't have the luxury of teaching in disparate fields, especially at small colleges," says Professor of Government Morris P. Fiorina, the department's graduate student advisor.

The Economics Department also changed its graduate program last year, implementing in the fall of 1983 a "modular" approach to the first year econometrics and economic theory classes. Spence, who served as chairman of the Ec Department last year, was reportedly instrumental in the transition to the new program. Other reforms include a mandatory first-year statistics class and an optional two-week pre-registration math seminar.

The back-to-basics moves in these departments--and the reform of grad programs in the History and English Departments and elsewhere--may portend a trend. "There's a cycle to these things not unlike the cycle of general education," says Phyllis C. Keller, associate dean for academic planning. "The last round of revisions ... was in the mid to late 60s, when the size of the graduate programs reached their peak" and they could afford to specialize, Keller adds.

STUDENT ANOMIE

Fifteen years ago, the Wolff Committee report noted that "the gravest current problem in the Graduate School is the one summarized by the well-worn but convenient word 'morale.'... The themes of belittlement, isolation, and neglect ran contrapuntally through the chorus of complaint."

"I think morale is better than in 1969-70, but then it couldn't be much worse," says McKinney. "The psychological atmosphere is better now."

Others say these problems continue to exist, though not quite so "contrapuntally." For instance, an internal Government Department survey of current graduate students found that one third either had "Ambivalent/mixed feelings" or were "Sorry I came to Harvard." Ninety percent felt that the department offered too little guidance and/or counseling.

The GSAS is supposed to take up the slack. "There is a concern that graduate students get full, personal attention. It's tough being a graduate student, and I think people are becoming sensitive to those needs," says Nancy S. Reinhardt, assistant dean for student affairs and special students, whose office coordinates student services.

But it is unclear whether enough is being done, and the Graduate Student Council has been quite vocal in the past with its complaints about life in the GSAS. For instance, in the spring of 1983, 300 grad students petitioned the University to centralize the school's administrative offices along with a lounge, cafe, and word processing center.

"There's no community," says one grad student. "A large part of your waking hours are spent with the same people." Yet the lounge was opened in Lehman Hall rather than Byerly last fall (14 years after it was first proposed), the placement service was merged with OCS-OCL, and the housing office was just farmed out to the Lehman Hall basement.

A University Hall survey conducted last spring--another indication of the GSAS's coming into vogue--is expected to give a clue to how widespread the students' gripes areCrimsonJeffrey B. MinkovitzPeter S. McKinney, acting dean of GSAS.