Dean Ford has shown that he and the rest of the CEP will welcome advice and criticism from undergraduates is implementing the new Gen Ed program. His suggestion last week that HPC evaluate General Education courses every year opens a new area of educational policy to undergraduates. The HPC, of course, has virtually ignored Gen Ed in its plans for quadrennial audits; and the long faculty debates have smothered most undergraduate enthusiasm for theoretical discussion. But members of the CEP hope that new course offerings in the Gen Ed program will stimulate a little creative thinking among students, and that the HPC will be able to channel their idea to Ted Wilcox and the Committee.

This initiative in seeking criticism from students is certainly encouraging. Ford, moreover, is probably right in his judgment that the HPC, preparing reports and working informally for the Committee on Educational Policy, provides potentially the most efficient means of institutionalizing the process. But unless the HPC revises its present methods of evaluating courses, the yearly reports it submits will be of little value to members of the CEP. So far the HPC has represented only a narrow range of opinion and interest on the panels it has appointed to investigate departments.

In accordance with the procedure approved last October, the HPC has delegated responsibility for compiling information to the chairmen of these panels, who are assigned to investigate their own departments. It has given the chairmen complete freedom in selecting panel members, but has usually failed to provide them with clear directives for investigation. As a result, the chairmen have worked primarily with the needs and questions of fellow concentrators in mind. And, since a majority of the members of the panel also have been concentrators, it seems almost inevitable that the reports should be geared to these specialized interests.

In beginning its work on General Education courses, therefore, the HPC should insure that a wider range of academic bockgrounds is represent. It should exercise direct control over the selection of panel members, and give clear instructions to its investigators. The HPC should work more closely with the student body, whose opinions and ideas it must transmit, as well as with the CEP, whose questions it must answer. Failing to adopt this approach, it will miss the exciting opportunity that Dean Ford and the CEP have presented.