Honors Proposal Won't Hurt Present Students

If simplified honors requirements go into effect next fall, as seems likely, students who entered Harvard in the fall of 1984 and before will have the best two systems, the Faculty Council voted yesterday.

The register's office will automatically determine which set of rules accords students enrolled during the transitional period higher standing, Assistant Dean of the Faculty John R. Marquand said yesterday.

"The current set of rules will be available to any student who originally enrolled in September, 1984 or before, regardless of when they graduate" if the Faculty votes for the proposed honors system, said Marquand. "It's the Harvard custom for there to be reasonable amount of grandparenting whenever rules change," he added.

University administrators said the new legislation is likely to pass at next month's full Faculty meeting.

The 19-member Faculty Council's proposal bases all honors degree on grade point averages (GPA's) for all courses taken, and on departmental recommendations, rather than on the complex distribution requirements of the existing system.

The proposal also eliminates the "two-thirds rule" which currently requires honors students to achieve an honors grade (B-or higher) in at least two-thirds of their courses taken outside their field of concentration.

The Council also recommended that the Faculty be allowed to take the students GPA levels without grandparenting, in case grade in flation a large increase in the number of students receiving honors grade or the Faculty decides to notify the number of students graduating with honors, Marquand said. He added that the new legislation is not expected to decrease the current 70 percent of students graduating with honors.