Drifting off
An Overseers visiting committee to the Graduate School of Design (GSD) reported that the school suffers from a "drift away from professional competence" and is "out of touch with the best people, and the best work" currently done in the four major design disciplines.
The sharply worded, confidential report was the second critical evaluation of the GSD to receive wide publicity in less than one year.
One week later, the Overseers cancelled the next meeting of the GSD visiting committee, scheduled for April 1977. In essence, the Board abolished the current committee, composed of Overseers' appointees, as memberships expire before the next scheduled meeting with the GSD.
A shot in the arm
Harvard did not escape last fall's swine-fluvaccine fervor, and the University Health Services (UHS) set up a vaccination program. Seventeen per cent of the eligible Harvard community members took the shots before the program was discontinued. The vaccine appeared to provoke a rare syndrome--producing temporary paralysis--in isolated cases, and federal officials decided to end the mass-immunization effort. UHS did, too.
Health care
The University Health Services announced last fall it would pay up to $150 for abortions, although it will not perform them. Students who hold moral objections to abortions can ask for a refund of the 59 cents in their health care policy that covers the plan. Harvard is the last of the Ivy League schools to cover abortions.
Calendar shenanigans
For years, Harvard students have asked the College to consider changing the calendar to place exams before Christmas break. This year, the Faculty magnanimously decided to start and end a week earlier next year to coincide with the Med School calendar. But it left everything else in its traditional place by slicing days off vacations. Thanks a lot, premeds.
The CIA connection
Eight years after the undergraduates took over University Hall and found records linking Harvard faculty members to the CIA, the University issued guidelines this spring on Harvard-CIA relations, forbidding any active intelligence work by University employees. Most intelligence work is covert, so it's hard to see how the University plans to enforce its rules.
Leavetakers
In an effort to ease the confusion surrounding leaves of absence, the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life voted this fall to fine students who tell the College they're taking time off after August 20. Maybe it'll help balance the budget.
Strength in solidarity
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