CAMPUS CRITIC

WHEN HE first took office in 1971, President Bok noted in a speech to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that the teaching skills of teaching fellows were all too often lacking. He suggested that TFs receive formal training, that departments offer basic courses in teaching skills to graduate students, and that faculty members meet weekly with their teaching staffs.

Sixteen years later, Bok's suggestions remain valid. For not only do TFs often lack necessary pedagogical skills, but section leaders in Core courses especially are largely ignorant of the University's larger curricular strategy. Harvard's high-minded educational ideals, noble as they may be, cannot be realized unless those who do a substantial portion of the teaching know how to further them.

Much of the problem, however, is imbedded in the structure of the University. With its relatively small faculty, abundance of large lecture courses and chronic shortage of qualified section leaders, it is naive to think that simple solutions could cut to the core of the problem.

As it now stands, for example, there is a disincentive for professors--even in small courses--to grade the work of their students. If they hire a graduate student grader or two, these students can earn surprisingly good money and finance their educations. Were a professor to grade these exams, however, he would not only have to invest his time, but he would deprive his graduate students of their supper. Correcting such perverse educational incentives will not come easy, but respect for undergraduates and their educations demands a concerted effort.

IN THE meantime, stopgap measures are in order. While they will by no means solve the fundamental problem of a university which relies too heavily on marginally-qualified TFs, they will help remove the worst features of the current situation.

First, the myth that all section leaders are adequately qualified scholars and teachers must be exploded. Professors should accept the fact that some of their TFs are inept and attempt to compensate. They should make it more comfortable for students to complain about section leaders and should permit students to switch sections simply on the basis of disliking a section leader. In Ec 10 currently, dissatisfied students are forced to come up with far more creative excuses.

Such refusals to acknowledge the hodge-podge nature of section teaching at Harvard sacrifices the well-being of undergraduates at the altar of expediency. It may be more convenient to treat students like a herd and prevent section switches, but to do so is to fail to treat undergraduate education with the respect it deserves.

And students should not hesitate to complain about a lessthen-adequate section instructor and should feel no compunctions whatsoever about raising a stink and switching out. Further, we should have no qualms about asking professors to regrade exams if we doubt the competence or judgment of our graders. Professors, after all, are--technically, at least--responsible for assigning all grades.

Another potential solution would require the involvement of the University. It should not permit TFs with repeatedly low and unacceptable CUE guide ratings to teach until they present evidence that they have seen the light and amended their ways. Once again, however, the financial aid structure of graduate study makes such a simple yet effective suggestion seem utopian.

THE CUE Guide annually publishes the evaluation ratings students give their professors. The CUE also compiles statistics on the quality of section leaders, but it refrains from publishing them. Why? Since section leaders are essential elements of most Harvard courses, there is no reasons for hiding the ratings of those who have previously taught sections--unless, of course, there is something compromising to hide. Were the evaluation ratings of each and every person who has ever taught a section made public, students would no longer be in the dark about the varying quality of various TFs.

Try telling even the most gullible undergraduate that all section leaders are roughly equal, let alone qualified, once these statistics are readily available. Such a plan would wind up driving the worst teachers out of the TF market. Ec 10 especially should practice the free market dogma it preaches.

Speaking of the market, the guru of Ec 10, Adam Smith, had a surprisingly relevant thing or two to say about college teaching. Martin Feldstein, however, might find this Smith just a bit disconcerting.

In what amounts to a nearly perfect commentary on the current state of Harvard teaching, Smith wrote: "If in each college the tutor or teacher, who was to instruct each student...should not be voluntarily chosen by the student, but appointed by the head of the college; and if, in case of neglect, inability, or bad usage, the student should not be allowed to change him for another...[it] would not only tend very much to extinguish all emulation among the different tutors of the same college, but to diminish very much in all of them the necessity of diligence and of attention to their respective pupils...

"The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the master. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master, and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students in all cases, to behave to him as if he has performed it with the greatest diligence and ability."

Two hundred and eleven years later, Harvard should worry less about its own ease and make undergraduate education more of a priority. As it now stands, both the University and its students fool themselves into thinking that the education here is first-rate. But it actually is so only in random cases. The quality of education must be based on something more substantial than the luck of the draw. This is the second installment of a two-part series on graduate student teaching at Harvard. Part one appeared yesterday.