Registering the Problems of Sections

When Christopher W. Cowell '92 went to the first meeting of his computer science class, he could not understand the teaching fellow. But the problem was not the topic--it was the section leader's English.

"The English was so bad that I made a phony excuse to transfer to another section," says Cowell.

And another student, who asked not to be identified, says his intial section leader in Physics 55b this term solved problems on the blackboard without uttering a word because he knew so little English.

Administrators, like Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education David Pilbeam, downplay the problem of TFs whose first language is not English.

"Frankly, I think [language problems happen] a lot less than the almost mythological proportions one hears about," says Pilbeam. "Many of our foreign graduate students do just as well, if not better, than our other teaching fellows."

Nearly every undergraduate has a horror story to tell about teaching fellows, but even if many of these stories are exaggerated, they do reflect problems in the way Harvard teaches.

At the College, sections are supposed to provide students with individual attention and a chance to develop the ideas brought up by the course. But students say sections are often plagued by inexperienced leaders, lack of coordination with professors and inconsistent grading.

Last year, the Undergraduate Council sent Pilbeam and Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence a series of recommendations on ways to improve sections, according to David R. Golob '89, a member of the Committee on Undergraduate Education and the former chair of the council's Academics Committee. And while Golob says some of the recommendations have been adopted, he adds that there is still room for improvement.

Last fall, a Crimson reporter accidentally discovered a memo distributed to Anthropology 10 teaching fellows, telling them how to get around their lack of expertise in the course material.

"Remember, however weak your own background, the students know even less," the memo stated. " 'That sounds like a good paper topic' is a good answer to questions raised on more specific/detailed points that you don't or can't get into and one you can use repeatedly to humorous effect."

Stephen L. Black, the professor who wrote the memo, says he issued the letter to allay the fears of a specific section leader who was unfamiliar with one area of the course.

"It is impossible for any TF to be equally well-versed in all areas," says Black. "The memo was written for the first section of the year to reassure them, as sort of a pep talk."

And he adds that the section leader who was unclear about fossils "went to another TF's section to learn more about the bones."

The Making of a Section Leader

The process of selecting teaching fellows varies greatly from department to department, but there are certain guidelines that administrators say are consistent. Fluency in English is a prerequisite, and professors prefer section leaders who specialize in the subject.

Partly for this reason, the majority of section leaders are drawn from Harvard's graduate schools. According to Susan Lewis, director of the Core, most of those staffing Core sections come from Harvard's graduate schools, specifically from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

She says that in 1986-87, the last year for which figures are available, 332--or 85 percent of those teaching in the Core--were registered graduate students at Harvard. Of these, 88 percent were from GSAS, with the remaining 12 percent drawn from other graduate schools.

But difficulties arise when there are not enough specialists to match the number of TFs needed.

"One of the problems that I'm sure we're not alone in having is that the demand for sections is higher than the number of qualified teaching fellows at the graduate schools," says Henderson Professor of the Psychology of Personality Brendan A. Maher, the newly appointed GSAS dean.

"Consequently, we have to get them from outside our departments or sometimes from MIT, and while they may be perfectly good, we don't have the records on them that we have on our own."

Chris Thomas, a graduate student who teaches Literature and Arts C-14, "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization," put it another way. "You simply aren't going to find 23 to 24 Homeric specialists in GSAS."

"Terrible Situation'

Jim Wilkinson, director of the Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, says the current job market has caused a reduced pool of graduate students from which to select TFs.

"It's just a terrible job situation out there, and we simply have less people in the graduate schools," says Wilkinson. "The alternative is to limit the size of courses, and that's something a lot of people don't want."

"Consequently," he adds, "we have to do things like pull faculty from other departments, and while I know it sometimes results in a level of teaching we don't like to see, that's some of the reason for the Danforth Lab."

The crunch for sections leaders with expertise also means that most graduate students at Harvard are tapped to teach courses. Some--who might not otherwise lead sections because of poor command of English--are asked to teach because there is no one else, or they may seek section jobs in order to subsidize their tuition.

According to Pilbeam, Harvard's financial aid program for graduate students, "while not stated in a formal sense, comes out to [guaranteed teaching positions for them] in almost all cases."

"Some graduate students receive offers of support contingent on their doing some teaching, and the result is that most graduate students finance their time by doing some teaching--be it in tutorials or sections," he says.

Planning Problems

In addition, professors say, shopping period creates problems in planning sections. Because course enrollment figures are not known in advance, additional teaching fellows must often be found after the term starts.

"The chances of finding someone who's trained in the area and available at the last minute are slim," says Maher. "The only way to avoid understaffing is to pull faculty from other departments."

This year, the University shortened shopping period to 10 days, saying this policy would make it easier for professors to get enrollment figures quickly and schedule sections earlier.

Maher says other universities at which he has taught either require students to pre-register or eliminate sections altogether.

"But I think that as long as Harvard wants to have small teaching sections--which it ought to--and as long as it wants to give students flexibility with course selection--as it ought to--there's going to be a problem."

"We can work on it," he adds. "But I think that our solutions will always be limited by those two factors."

The associate dean says problems with sectioning and course planning have raised calls for pre-registration.

"There's quite a large number of faculty in favor of pre-registration, especially at the beginning of semester when a lot of problems arise in the larger courses," says Pilbeam.

And the course catalog is not structured to make pre-registration an option.

"If there were a smaller, more stable course catalog, from which students could get solid information and be better able to rank course preferences, pre-registration might work. But currently, it would be extremely unfair to require students to pre-register."

Pilbeam says he believes limiting enrollment in certain classes is the best solution under the present system.

"What I would like to see is capping in courses where we know we won't be able to staff it above a certain limit, like in lab courses because of space limitations, or in extremely large courses, like those in the Core," says Pilbeam. "It's a more responsible reaction on our part to put together a strong academic program, which is after all our priority."

Pilbeam says arguing that students have an inalienable right to take any courses they want is "short-sighted."

"It's a question of it being the 'least bad' alternative. In the long run, it's ultimately more honest [to limit enrollment]," he says.

Administrators say one of the reasons students and faculty members are more concerned about sections today is a renewed interest in undergraduate education in general.

Wilkinson calls it "a reaction to a period when less attention was paid to teaching [and to] subsequent pressure by students who want teaching to be on a high level."

And Pilbeam says such an emphasis is cyclical.

"I think there's now more interest and concern with the undergraduate program," he says.

"Ten years ago, there was intense activity devoted to the Core, but there's only a finite amount of attention you can pay to one area, and so now I think we're back into thinking about concentrations and other aspects of the undergraduate curriculum."