ALONG WITH the decline in the strength of sense of faculty community, the House system has lost its hold on many students. The mounting pressures on faculty time and changed faculty orientations have lessened the intellectual benefits of the Houses to the students. Such decreased intellectual benefits and what are felt by many students to be increased liabilities of control have combined to make the Houses, as presently conceived and operating, less attractive than they were even a very few years ago.

This is not to say that they do not continue to serve well a good percentage of Harvard students, or to question that they remain one of Harvard's great strengths. But apartment living-even with high Cambridge rents, frequently inferior facilities, and other serious drawbacks seems, from their conversations, to be tempting to many Harvard undergraduates at least for the moment, although this, of course, clashed with the view that Harvard should take pains not to aggravate the Cambridge residential problem.

Much of what we have said about undergraduates applies, perhaps in even greater measure, to first-and second-year graduate students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. This appears to be particularly true of students in the humanities and the social sciences. The report of the Wolff Committee has discussed these problems, and we cannot now add significantly to its analysis.

It would be a serious error to consider the foregoing discussion of troubled areas as representing the entire picture. Much, very likely most, of the work of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences continues to give teachers and students the intellectual and emotional satisfaction that has made Harvard what it long has been. However, despite the central role of that Faculty, a great deal of the glory and importance of Harvard lies in the professional schools. We have not had time to sample faculty and student opinion in these schools to anything like the same degree as in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. However, our impression is that the greater commitment of the students, the smaller size of the full-time faculty, and constructive measures already taken by many of the schools have made the problems of most of them considerably less acute, although there are significant variations.

While we do not minimize the gravity of these and other problems, we are sure we are expressing the sentiments of all except the tiniest minority of the University community in saying that violent means for their solution are inadmissible. Such measures cannot be tolerated anywhere in society and least of all in an institution dedicated to reason and freedom. The seizure of University Hall was the work not simply of a small group dedicated to the overthrow of society but of a dissident faction of that group. There is no way to insure that such tactics will not be repeated. The task rather is to assure the great mass of the University community that reasoned views with respect to change will receive proper attention.

II

GIVEN THE historic decentralized character of Harvard, solutions to many of the problems we have noted lie within the grasp of each of the faculties. Debate within them has already given rise to various efforts at reform. Both the statutes and the traditions of the University permit each of the faculties broad leeway in determining how it should function, consistently with Harvard's fundamental commitment to academic excellence.

At the present stage of the debate, we can see no reason to set any rigid limitations upon this process. The work of reappraisal on intrafaculty matters must be initiated and carried forward primarily by faculty and students engaging in the most intimate kind of dialogue at the departmental and faculty-wide levels.

On some issues, including the important one of student participation, we perceive no immediate need for uniformity either among faculties or among subjects, although we think faculties could well learn from discussions with each other, and experience might ultimately indicate the desirability of some University-wide standards.

The nature and content of the curriculum, the time required for its completion, such revision of teaching methods as may be needed to restore the intimacy that once prevailed between students and senior professors, and the adequacy of existing methods for testing candidates both for tenure and non-tenure appointments are also the primary responsibilities of the various faculties.

Another matter, initially for faculty consideration, but ultimately of University-wide concern, is that each large faculty may have to be so organized that it can operate effectively through a properly constituted representative body. An exceedingly important matter and one requiring early consideration by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is the merger with Radcliffe.

In contrast, to matters where a degree of diversity may not be undesirable, we believe that, pending the development of University-wide standards with respect to the permissible limits of political protest, there should be the greatest possible endeavor to achieve uniformity. To that end we recommend that the various faculties give speedy and favorable consideration to the Resolution on Rights and Responsibilities adopted on an interim basis by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on June 9, 1969 and to the actions thereon by the Governing Boards in September, 1969.

While much can be done within the faculties, important problems requiring solution on a University level have already surfaced and more are bound to do so. We have just mentioned one-the development of University-wide standards with respect to obstructions of processes and activities essential to its functioning and of fair procedures for their prompt enforcement. Another is the responsibility of the University to the communities where it operates and its relationship to a still wider society in a multiplicity of contexts.

Closely related to this is the planning of the University's future growth and development. While questions relating to admissions are in large degree the responsibility of individual faculties, they have implications, both financial and otherwise, for the University as a whole; and other issues with respect to investment and financial policies have been raised.

Still other subjects that may require action at the University level are the increasing number of programs offered jointly by two or more faculties and the establishment of standards with respect to outside activities of faculty members. Moreover our statement that certain matters are the primary responsibilities of a faculty does not mean that the University can turn its head away if these are not fulfilled.

III

WE HAVE given much thought to the question whether Harvard's present set of central institutions can be improved or altered to enable it to deal more effectively with such issues. Almost the first point brought to our attention after our appointment concerned the enormous burdens which the expansion of the University and its new problems have placed upon the President, and the consequent need for strengthening the central administration to case these burdens and provide other officers who will be in a position to detect trouble areas before these reach serious proportions and who possess sufficient stature that faculties and students will feel satisfaction in communication with them.