Neglected Upperclassmen

The advising committee deplores the lack of personal contact between upperclass students and faculty members in all departments of the College. But it is mainly concerned with the five largest fields, in which the depersonalized system of education has come into fairly general practice. That the fields of Economics, English, Government, History, and Social Relations should house 60 percent of the upperclassmen and yet have only 32.7 percent of the total faculty manpower is cited as the cause for concentrators in these fields receiving "an education which is markedly different from that received by concentrators of other departments."

There is little that can be done toward equalizing the student faculty ratio in the different from that received by concentrators of other departments."

There is little that can be done toward equalizing the student faculty ratio in the different departments, however. Endowments to special departments and permanent faculty assignments are made with regard to many factors other than the short-range popularity of the fields. Thus when a field like Social Relations zooms to a top position in a very few years, the students in the field are exposed to fewer faculty contacts than the concentrators in the well-named Classics department, for instance.

Since the worst advising situation exists in these five fields, and the greatest number of concentrators are also in these fields, the committee has some justification in saying that "the most serious deficiency in the present advising program would be eliminated if means could be found for putting this 44 percent of the upperclassmen (those in the five fields who do not receive tutorial) in regular, significant, direct contact with instructors."

Undergraduate Seminars

Group tutorial is the device introduced for remedying this "most serious deficiency." Everyone in the five departments who is now on individual tutorial would be taken off this arrangement, except for perhaps the top five percent of the juniors and seniors. Then all sophomores, and the juniors and seniors not on individual tutorial, would be tutored in regular five-man seminars.

These tutorial groups would meet every two weeks, and the procedure would be much the same as that in conventional single tutorial: Reading would be done in material outside of the course requirements, and emphasis would be on writing and discussion.

The tutors to handle these seminars will be drawn from faculty members from the rank of full professor down the line. Presumably a new hiring-and-incentives system would be inaugurated along with the group tutorial plan in order to entice high quality Ph.D.'s into the field of tutorial instruction.

IN the 23 remaining departments--the smaller ones--tutorial remains under the control of the particular departments. They are free to continue as they have--offering either partial tutorial or no tutorial--or to adopt the group system.

To remedy in another way the mass-education tendencies of the Harvard system, the committee makes a second large-scale proposal--that the Houses should be more fully developed as units in themselves, decentralized "colleges."

Says the report: "At Harvard, which has all the advantages of a great university, the Houses can provide also all the important advantages of a small institution if they are properly developed. But. . . the individual Houses (must be) small enough to be manageable units for social, athletic, and activities purposes. . . (they must) have a genuine function in the educational program of the College beyond that of dormitory and dining hall,"

The emphasis on the Houses is to be attained by establishing House Deans. Those Deans would replace the present Senior Tutors, and would have considerably more prestige, as well as more powerful functions.

House Deans

The House Dean would have powers in his House corresponding to the powers that the College deans in charge of discipline now have. In addition he would be in charge of coordinating the advising program in his House. He would see that all the students in his House who took group tutorial under the five large departments had tutors who also were associated with that House. (This again helps lay emphasis on the Houses as educational centers. the House Dean would keep a record of the tutorial (and academic) activities of all his students, as reported to him by the tutors in all departments at the end of each term.

System Solves Advising Problem

The House Dean system would help solve another of the problems of existing advising system. At present the central Dean's office is the catch all of students' troubles. Since the advising system as a whole is comparatively now and has little central organization, the final weight in all problems falls upon the head of undergraduate students. This great responsibility, the report argues, keeps the Dean of the College from functions which are more important in the

Need for Coordinationlong run. The House Dean system would relieve him of the myriad personal problems that fill his days.

As a final recommendation, the study asks that a committee on advising be act up, with the Dean of the College as chairman. This committee would coordinate the Houses, the departments, and the special services, thus providing team work, efficiency, and unity of purpose, the lack of which is so lamented in this survey of the existing advising system