Government Audit

But by a stroke of luck, the most successful audit (in terms of proposals accepted) was the first and most highly-publicized one, the Government Department audit. That audit combined hard-working subcommittee members with a cooperative department chairman, and the spill-over from that success has set the tone for the whole program. "It acted as a catalyst for other departments," Riesman has noted; he feels that it helps a reform-minded Faculty member to be able to say authoritatively that "the students want this." Chalmers too thinks that the audits have been the HPC's most valuable contribution. "They make people on both sides explain their position, and build up an intelligent dialogue," he explained.

The audits scheduled for next year are Architectural Sciences, Biochemistry, Social Relations, Social Studies, Romance Languages, and History, which will probably be the major effort. Henry R. Norr '68, the HPC's current chairman, hopes to shift the emphasis of the audits from a department's bureauctic regulations to the substance of departmental offerings and the quality of teaching. Whether audits with this new emphasis meet with the past cooperation from departments will be an interesting test of how institutionalized the program has become.

HPC's Nemesis: Pass-Fail

The HPC's nemesis, which hung it up for a year, was pass-fail. It wreaked any amount--depending on who is relating the story--of damage to the committee's morale, prestige, and future.

To reduce a confusing chronology to comprehensibility: the HPC's second group of members, with Ronald L. Trosper '67 as chairman, began early in their tenure to consider two questions--liberalizing the rules for taking a free fifth course, and experimenting with ungraded courses as were being tried at Princeton and Brown. Someone, on one of those Friday afternoons, suggested combining the two ideas in a proposal to allow students to take a free fifth course on a pass-fail basis. This combination, some members maintain, was the first mistake.

Time ran out last spring, and the committee began the year with the same question: what to do about the fifth course policy, and what to do about pass-fail. Encouraged by Dean Monro, and tired of going over the same ground again and again, the committee wrote the framework of a pass-fail fifth course proposal and presented it to the Faculty's Committee on Educational Policy for approval and details. Acceptance by the CEP would mean that Faculty approval was virtually certain. With Monro presenting the HPC's case, the CEP accepted the proposal and filled in the administrative details. It stipulated that the pass-fail option, once declared for one course, could not be switched to another or dropped.

New HPC Differs

Meanwhile, the fall term ended and a new HPC took office. Monro suggested that the CEP send its pass-fail proposal, in final form and ready for a Faculty vote, back to the new HPC for its approval. "I expected that the HPC would approve it and that we'd be sailing right along," recalls Monro, who watched "in distress" as the new HPC members decided that the proposal did not give pass-fail the flexibility they hoped it would. For fear of arousing the students' resentment, Monro said little as the new committee disowned the proposal and wrote out a new one asking that pass-fail be attached to a fourth course, as well as a fifth.

"That was my second mistake," Monro says now. "First I should have let it go through the CEP without sending it back to the HPC. The Faculty would have voted it without hesitation and from there we could have gone on to a four-course pass-fail in a few years. And then I should have made a firm speech to the HPC, but I didn't want them to look like a rubber stamp."

Monro blames himself for the mess. Chalmers, who supported the new committee's stand, blames the psychology of both the CEP and the HPC. "It was a case of each trying to second guess the other," he explains. "The HPC asked for what they thought they could get, and the CEP gave what they thought was wanted. Each should have gone for what they wanted in the first place."

The four-course proposal must now go through the CEP process again next fall. Its chances, on the face of the evidence, do not look good. Monro will be gone--not, of course, that he would have championed the new proposal in any case. "And frankly," he says, "the CEP is tired of talking about it. Any discussion next fall will be tempered by the feeling that the HPC's membership is changing in February, and the new group may disown it all over again."

Discontinuity

Membership turnover and the resulting discontinuity will always be a problem; it is that way for any undergraduate organization. And when students attempt to work closely with a permanent Faculty the problem is highlighted. "The Faculty can afford to take the long-term perspective," current chairman Norr has commented. "They will be here. But we're coming and going, and we don't care about five years ago or five years from now. It makes them think that we're impatient. Well, I guess we are."

The long-range effect of the pass-fail mess, and the underlying problems that caused it, will become clearer next year. Former chairman Trosper is more optimistic than Monro. "People have short memories," he has said, noting that the Faculty might be impressed by the HPC's willingness and ability to rethink a position thoroughly. But aside from prestige, another unfortunate consequence of the year-long hassle with pass-fail was the opportunity cost: the HPC did little else.