When confronted with vigorous agitation for the privilege of student representation on faculty committees, Dean Sizer recommended that students sit on the Library and the Lectures and Publications Committees. Some students were still dissatisfied with this arrangement. They wanted a say in curriculum changes, and therefore wanted to be seated on the Faculty Committee on Academic Policy. (FCAP) To protect their exclusion, they formed a "mirror" student committee to study the problems and to exert some student influence on the FCAP.

By December 1966, Dean Sizer agreed to let students sit on the FCAP and on the Admissions Committee. But some members of the faculty still question whether these high-level administrative groups are the best forum for a student-faculty dialogue.

Course Evaluation

Other forms of communication are indeed being initiated. A spontaneously formed student group published a course evaluation book last fall which has sparked much debate. The book collated student comments and criticisms, and then offered the faculty members the opportunity to reply in print. The question of course evaluation was again raised by a student faculty panel discussion, and by an ad hoc committee which recommended changes in the grading system. Initiative came from both faculty and students for the creation of an independent student-faculty committee on instruction to continue to discuss teaching evaluation, curriculum changes and grading.

A proposal for the coming year would allow student participation in Area (broad departmental units) meetings. And the course evaluation book will include evaluations of entire Degree programs instead of the less significant individual courses.

Students admit that the faculty is uniquely accessible at the Ed School, and that many members have indicated that they too see a need for encouraging a collegial atmosphere, for seriously evaluating their own educational offerings, and for creating a channel for serious student opinion on school policies. The critical push for reform has this year been organized and focused, largely through the efforts of the Student Association and the course evaluation committee, on topics of great significance for the educators themselves.

The Law School

Student agitators for reform at the Harvard Law School found too that the law faculty was not only willing to provide them with a channel for their complaints, but was far less hostile to specific reforms than the students might have suspected. In November of 1966, Dean Griswold appointed twelve members to a joint student-faculty committee to discuss all issues of student complaint. Independent agitation for such a committee had come from individual students, from Professor Clark Byse who used these students as his allies to start the faculty moving toward reform.

Many students were immediately suspicious of the joint committee and feared that it would serve only to thwart more radical student action. But Dean Griswold selected as members just those students who had expressed greatest interest in instituting changes, and designated Clark Byse their Chairman.

After a few quiet weeks, two second-year students decided to prod the committee into action. They wrote an open letter, invaluable as a well-reasoned document of student concern, outlining the areas in in which reforms were needed. It questioned the rigid numerical grading and ranking system, according to which the student's access to important "Honorary" extra-curricular activities, and possibly his future career plans, were determined. Criticism extended to the Honoraries themselves and suggested that many positions be opened up to free competition and that the School provide more activities and practical internship experiences.

The two student authors also raised the issue of discrimination in job placement, and recommended curriculum changes which would provide for more electives, promote extended writing experience, expand cross-registration with Harvard graduate programs, and explore the advantages of smaller classes. Wide-spread agreements with these complaints was manifested in two public forums held to discuss reform at the Law School.

The student-faculty committee has since acted rarely as the initiating force for change. It has taken up the issues suggested to it, and passed these on with recommendations for action to the appropriate faculty committees. The joint group was instrumental in eliciting Dean Griswold's public statement against discriminatory hiring practices in February of this year. The committee also approvide the plan for a one-week reading period for first-year students, and supported the Curriculum Committee's recommendation that all second-year course requirements be abolished. It issued its own plan for reform of the Honoraries which met with much hostility and little support but also stimulated further discussion among the Honoraries themselves.

The success of the reform movement will ultimately rest on student's understanding of what is needed to liberate themselves from the rigid and often depressing effects of the Law School system. Change in the grading system and the expansion of extra-curricular activities, two issues which the student-faculty committee will bring up next year, might be the key to success. Law students now have a ready-made committee to publicize and deliberate student problems -- they must see that it remains effective.

The Planners

Students in the Department of City and Regional Planning in the Graduate School of Design have organized their own association to advo- cate educational reforms and to keep the students and faculty mutually aware of their discontent.