Both courses and extracurricular activities also keep the H-R students out of sight. They tend to flock toward the time-consuming laboratory courses, such as the infamous Chem S-20(organic chemistry--60 lectures, 100 hours of laboratory, 13 exam hours of it during the summer._ Outside of course, the H-R students, continuing their winter habits fragment into innumerable small groups centering about activities ranging from the drama to the pinball machines at Tommy's Lunch. (Certain fans of both tend to claim that these two activities are not entirely dissimilar.)
Given the relative invisibility of H-R students in the Summer School, the girl who came to Cambridge looking for a Crimson husband may eventually give up, shrug her shoulders, and head for Lamont. This, no doubt, is another factor pushing the Sum- mer School toward a more serious academic orientation.
Besides the normal Summer School courses, a number of special programs exist under the auspices of the School, and they too help to make the school more serious than it once was. The programs include:
* The Intensive Summer Studies Program, begun in 1966, which brings 70 students from Southern, predominantly Negro colleges to Cambridge for the summer. The students take one regular summer course, and also a special tutorial. (The program is a joint venture with Yale and Columbia, which also take a similar number of the students each summer.)
* The Faculty Audit Program, which plays host to 20 faculty members of Southern Negro Colleges. The faculty members in this program audit Summer School courses and also attend special seminars.
* The International Seminar (originated by presidential aide Henry Kissinger, when he was a Harvard government professor). Under this program, about 30 foreign officials, scholars, labor leaders etc--whom Kissinger described as "standing on the threshold of national prominence"--study at Harvard during the summer.
Despite such special programs and what appears to be an increasing seriousness on the part of the students, the Summer School still remains a most relaxed way to come to Harvard, if only for two months. It is perhaps symptomatic that the second paragraph of the Harvard News Office release describing the 1969 session read as follows:
"As usual the eight weeks of intensive study will be alleviated by plays, tours concerts, lectures, dances, sports, and Wednesday afternoon punches in the shade of the Yard."
What this means is that the Summer School legend continues, indeed perhaps that there is still some truth to it, at least enough truth that come the Winter of 1969-70, the dining hall conversions may once again turn to the triumphs or tragedies experienced under the Cambridge summer sun