Toward the end of the fall term, the committee did propose "alternative routes" to fulfilling the language requirement, such as linguistics or comparative literature courses. The proposal was duly passed on to the CEP, where it stands a good chance of someday reopening the Faculty debate on the whole question of the language requirement. But so far nothing specific has come of it.

Atfer Pass-Fail: What Next?

Henry Norr recalls that "when we finished pass-fail, I suddenly had the, realization that, now that we could go on to something else, there was really nothing to do. It was too late in the year to start something, and I began to wonder if the HPC is really as firmly established as Dean Monro seems to think."

Norr, an activist by nature ("It wouldn't be bad for the HPC to shoot off a little now and then"), does have things in mind for next year. He wants to look into the possibility of liberalizing requirements for independent study and for setting up a central independent study office to recruit (and possibly pay for) Faculty and then match them with interested students. He would like to make it easier for students to set up courses and even concentration programs of their own. One HPC member has received a grant to do his thesis on the sophomore slump, and the committee may continue some rudimentary work it began this year on the problem.

Norr also plans a major study, in conjunction with the HUC, on the Houses. It will cover everything from House courses to overcrowding to parietals to the possibility of allowing graduate students to replace undergraduates who wish to move off campus.

Next Year: No Monro

There will be one major difference in the fall. Dean Monro, the source of continuity through the HPC's three terms, will be gone. It is hard to overestimate the role Monro has played on the committee. From the beginning, he has been one of its strongest supporters. When the old HCUA decided to abolish itself, it gave the college a referendum offering a choice between the HCUA and the new HPC-HUC. Conspicuously absent was the choice of nothing at all; the HCUA feared, quite rightly, that if given that choice the college would take nothing. As it was, less than half of the college bothered to vote. Reed Ellis remembers Monro telling him that if the college didn't vote itself a student government, he would set one up himself.

Monro, who attended about half the HPC meetings, saw himself as an ambassador, "running back and forth" between students and Faculty (the Dean sits on the CEP but has no vote) presenting the views of each to the other. "A Dean should have an eye on strategy," he commended recently. "He can help students bring the pieces together by encouraging the strong things, nursing things along, making them more effective. But he has to be careful not to make it his committee."

There was no doubt that Monro enjoyed the role, and on occasion used the HPC as a sounding board for some of his pet ideas. "It was great to have him," Norr says. "He took a lot of the guesswork away, and gave us his vast knowledge of administrative history and his immense good will."

Riesman, who watched the committee for a year, agrees. "Students usually think of the Faculty as their friend and the administration as their enemy," he said. "Monro showed that sometimes the reverse can be true. He gave the HUC some leverage amid the shoals of academic vested interest."

Next year the liaison role will fall to the new Dean, Fred Glimp. "A lot will depend on what Glimp does," Monro commented. "I advise him to make a lot of it."

To anyone not familiar with the vaguely apathetic consensus which keeps the Harvard system running smoothly, the HPC must seem a strange breed of student government. Masters handpick 14 students, and the dean takes the students' case to the Faculty. Former chairman Trosper, commenting on the educational liberalism of some professors says, "students have to run pretty hard to keep up with some of the Faculty members."

Chances are that it will seem increasingly strange to the Harvard community too as months pass. The HPC seems now to exist in a vacuum. It is sheltered above by the good will of Monro and below by the apathy of the masses, from ever having actually to define its role. Established by student referendum to "cooperate with Faculty and administration," the HPC has played it just that way. It sees its role, in Trosper's words, as "providing a structured way to present student opinion in some semblance of a well thought-out consensus. Then we have to trust in the Faculty's ability and willingness to listen to reason." Most students and Faculty members, chairman Norr feels, "respect the HPC in a vague way. We have a certain amount of good will to build on."

It is, undoubtedly, a fine game to play, this mutual respect and reasoning together, and it is safe to say that the HPC will keep playing it as long as it can. But, as the Radcliffe hunger strike, the organized movement for parietal reform, and the growing pressure for off-campus living at both Harvard and Radcliffe indicate, the natives are getting restless.

Uneasy Period Ahead

Monro, for one, sees the signs, "We are entering an uneasy period of time in the fall. Dean Monro, the source mented last month. "There is no question but that we should have a greater undergraduate voice in running the college. It's refreshing for everyone, and the Faculty wants to be reasonable. The problem is how to organize this growing feeling into an effective force, and we're feeling our way. The HPC is the best thing we've had yet, but it won't be the last."

"I don't know if we've contributed a hell of a lot," Norr reflected recently. "We take advantage of our opportunities, such as they are. The administration will always pat us on the back without giving us too much; and students, after all, always want something, but not too much."

"Too much" is a relative thing. It will be interesting to watch the HPC and see how it responds if and when students want more