Faculty Council Considers Limiting Summas

Concerned by last year's sharp increase in the number of seniors graduating summa cum laude, the Faculty Council at a Wednesday meeting discussed making fewer students eligible for the College's highest honors, council members said.

Summa status is now decided by a combination of grade-point average, thesis quality and departmental recommendation.

"The question now is, do we raise the numerical [grade cut-off] level, or do we let things be, or do we go to a system that involves greater discretion and examination of individual cases?" said Professor of Chinese History Peter K. Bol, who sits on the council.

Last June, 115 seniors graduated summa cum laude--36 more than the previous year. And the numbers of eligible students seems to be increasing, Bol said.

"It's a big problem because it seems not to be a one-year blip," Bol said. "There's evidence based on juniors that this is going to continue."

Some Faculty members link the increase in the number of summas to a general trend toward grade inflation, which boosts GPAs without signifying greater undergraduate achievement.

Despite the higher numbers of summas, however, Faculty opinion about the continued validity of the summa designation varies.

"It's still a pretty small number, under 10 percent," said Professor of History Andrew Gordon '75, who graduated summa cum laude in East Asian Studies. "It doesn't sound like a dramatic opening of the gates of mediocrity."

Junior Faculty Benefits

In addition to addressing the problem of too many summa cum laude graduates, the council also discussed benefits for junior faculty.

Harvard only offers tenure to Faculty members at the rank of full professor, and most new tenured professors come from other universities where they have already achieved a reputation for scholarship and achievement.

According to a draft report submitted by the Resources Committee, which advises Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, the practice of only tenuring renowned scholars causes problems for the University.

"The report concluded that the relative unlikelihood of promotion to tenure at Harvard, as contrasted with 'tenure track' schools where promotion from within is common, is a serious obstacle to recruitment because the academic job market is so bad that new Faculty members fear they may not be able to find good positions when the time comes to leave Harvard," said Bernbaum Professor of Literature Leo Damrosch, who represented the Resources Committee at the council meeting.

Damrosch said the council discussed ways to improve the quality of life for junior faculty, including adopting a new type of housing subsidy that would nor restrict junior faculty to Harvard-owned housing, and changing a conference travel allowance of $800 to apply to all academic travel.

The council also debated benefits for junior Faculty members who have small children, citing the rising costs of day care, Damrosch said.