"The committee is Harvard's digestive system," a Nieman fellow observed the other day. "A problem arises; a committee swallows it up."

If that analogy is accurate, then many committees have swallowed--perhaps digested--a lot of problems at this University over the past two years.

Committees, and sub-committees of committees, have been everywhere, taking up an incredible complex of issues. The most prominent has been the Faculty's Special Committee on Recruitment and Retention of Faculty, which turned in a 119-page report last month--replete with 15 tables of research data--that recommended, among other things, the abolition of the instructor's position at Harvard and increased pay scales for junior faculty.

In addition to that committee, the past year has seen the creation of or reports from: a) a committee to study the future of Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, b) a committee on the condition of Harvard's existing athletic facilities, c) a committee on the future of the Harvard House system, d) a committee on creating a program of Afro-American studies at Harvard, e) a committee on the uses of computers in Harvard instruction, and f) a sub-committee of the established Committee on Houses which took up the impact the opening of a 10th Harvard House in 1969 will have on the existing Houses and on off-campus living at Harvard.

And this list includes just the more publicized committees of the year. Many more have been created to take up problems of less concern to the general Harvard public.

The question of why the committee remains. Can't Harvard's established offices solve their problems by themselves? What does a committee do that they can't do, and why have committees been resorted to more often in the past few years than ever before?

Unlike many universities, Harvard has a long-standing tradition of faculty control over the educational process. This is the spiritual strength of Harvard, but potentially a source of administrative weakness.

250 Amateurs

The tradition theoretically means that a collection of chemists and critics, sociologists and historians, governs a complex of offices and institutions that comprise the university. One senior faculty member, speaking informally, summed up the situation last week, noting, "The faculty is not trained as a legislative body. It can't meet more than once a month." At any given meeting of the Faculty, there will be perhaps "250 disorganized amateurs," grappling with issues, many of them purely administrative, that they either do not care to trouble with or feel themselves incapable of handling well.

This is where the committee comes in. "If the committee is representative, when in doubt, go along with the committee," the senior professor said, speaking for most of the Faculty's attitude on issues which come up at meetings.

Two Kinds

Specifically, this is where two kinds of Harvard committee come in--standing committees and special committees. There are, at present, 37 standing committees within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. They exist, in general, to maintain those parts of Harvard that either cross the boundaries of academic departments--or are not closely related to actual instruction at all.

The standing Committee on History and Literature is an example of the first type; the standing Committee on Houses is an example of the second. There is a standing Committee on Dramatics (it administers the Loeb Drama Center). There is a standing Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical Physics. There is a standing Committee on Graduate and Career Plans (it administers the Office of Graduate and Career Plans). There is the very influential Committee on Educational Policy. Standing committees run the Carpenter Center of Visual Arts, the athletic facilities, and the Bureau of Study Counsel.

Standing committees "rejuvenate" themselves each year, as Dean Ford puts it, by dropping wearier members and signing on new ones. Occasionally, a committee outlives its usefulness and the Faculty, on Ford's recommendation, votes to dissolve it.

This is what happened to one-time standing committees on Advanced Standing and Freshman Seminars. Once those programs ceased being new phenomena, ceased having the initial shake-down troubles new programs have, their special committees became unnecessary. The Committee on Educational Policy absorbed the functions of the Advanced Standing committee and the Committee on General Education absorbed those of the Freshman Seminars committee.