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If you have to take one of the Language Placement tests, you stand a decent chance of flunking it. After all--if you were any good in your language, you would have gotten that 560 or better on your Achievement Tests. Harvard has a basic language requirement, and if you screw up the test, it'll cost you four hours a South Africa question, it is possible the Corporation may listen a little more carefully.

EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS

This was the year of the Core. You've all heard of it, but you probably don't understand it. Don't worry--you're not alone. After the nation's press got through trumpeting the Core as a major educational revolution, it's a wonder anyone could figure it out.

Harvard's new Core Curriculum is the product of a few years of careful and wide-ranging study of Harvard's curriculum and General Education program--the first major such re-evaluation since 1945. Prompted by complaints about Gen Ed's intellectual shoddiness and overgrowth, Dean Rosovsky began the re-examination of Harvard's undergraduate curriculum.

Last year, Harvard decided on the format of the Core--students would be required to take a total of eight half-courses in five major areas--Literature and Arts, Historical Study, Social Analysis and Moral Reasoning, Foreign Languages and Cultures, and Sciences--that would contain a number of precisely-defined courses designed to teach specific "modes of thought." This year, Rosovsky and other faculty members set about drawing up these courses--with the help of a few token students forbidden to talk to their peers about the shape of the Core. When the courses were unveiled this spring, many students wondered again what the fuss was all about. At first glance, the courses seemed as diffuse and specialized as Ged Ed. This fall, however, will tell if the guidelines for teaching "modes of thought" so exhaustively debated by the Faculty will have any effect.

In other attempts at educational innovation, the Faculty passed tutorial reform legislation last year mandating that senior faculty members teach a certain percentage of tutorials. Glen W. Bowersock '57, associate dean of the Faculty for undergraduate education, pushed the reforms through an unwilling Faculty. But no one has indicated how they will be enforced.

Educational crossfire also hit two interdisciplinary majors: Afro-American Studies and Women's Studies. A coalition of concerned student groups this year led protests against what they say as systematic attempts to weaken the Afro-American Studies Department. Ever since Af-Am's stormy birth ten years ago, detractors have attacked its academic validity. They believe Af-Am has no methodology and could better be studied through an interdisciplinary committee. But supporters say the demotion to a committee would cripple Af-Am by removing its right to tenure professors and choose its own curriculum. This fall an Overseers' Visiting Committee will give its opinion.

A group of women this year also fought to get Women's Studies established as a department, but they had to settle for a list of courses relating to women in the catalogue. Many of the courses, however, do not seem to have much to do with women.

TOWN-GOWN

Animosity between Harvard and Cambridge runs deep, but observers say last year marked one of the lowest points ever in their hate-hate relationship. Among the reasons for the tension include Harvard's tax-exempt status, which deprives Cambridge of millions of dollars in taxes. Harvard does pay some in-lieu-of-tax money--paid to local government voluntarily instead of property taxes--but Cambridge officials' eyes glitter when they talk about that potential revenue.

It is Harvard's extensive real estate holding in Cambridge, however, that cause the real town-gown friction. The University owns so much land that last year it created its own real estate company. Harvard's behavior as a landlord, however, has not been particularly exemplary. The University tried to use its rights as a large real estate holder (in the Square over 20 per cent) to block a proposal to limit the height of buildings in Harvard Square. The city filed a lawsuit challenging Harvard's move.

A number of tenant groups have also clashed with the University, pointing to eviction attempts and, in one case, health code violations. One prominent Harvard tenant, the Thomas More Bookshop, recently lost its Holyoke St. store because Harvard rented out the space to a pizzeria. The shop, one of the only ones devoted to scholarly religious works, will move to a spot Harvard provided in Holyoke Center--one its owner says she cannot afford.

These incidents, among others, prompted the City Council to send a letter to the Board of Overseers protesting Harvard's "consistent poor judgement and insensitivity" in its relations with the city. And Cambridge officials are still worried about Harvard's future plans for its real estate. This election year will undoubtedly heat up the battle still more