Three weeks ago Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky devoted much of his annual report to defending the quality of Harvard's undergraduate teaching, and he focused at length on the Faculty's large reliance on graduate students as section leaders, graders, and counselors.

"The rumored weaknesses are familiar," Rosovsky wrote. "It is said that...too much of undergraduate education is entrusted to teaching fellows, and that too little is conducted by the regular Faculty."

Rosovsky's remarks summarized what many observers see as the University's greatest weakness: despite Harvard's almost unparalleled reputation as a research institution, too often the nuts-and-bolts aspects of teaching fall into neglect. Graduate students, forced to earn tuition money as teaching fellows (TF's) thus become responsible for much of an undergraduate's classroom experience.

The issue has become a hot one among both students and administrators. In addition to Rosovsky's report, the Undergraduate Council last month issued its own study of the problems associated with TF instruction. Admissions officers frequently find themselves defending the College's instruction against this reputation. And in recent years officials have created a center for the study of teaching, special funds for TF training, and even a university professorship (see accompanying article) with the intention of improving the Harvard classroom experience.

Sidney Verba, associate dean of the Faculty for undergraduate affairs, has spent much of his three years in that post implementing these new programs.

"The bulk of them are effective." Verba says of the University's staff of some 900 TF's. But he adds that "I don't deny there is some bad teaching going on."

Most TF's come from the ranks of second- and third-year graduate students, although in the natural sciences, the sheer size of many undergraduate lecture courses has forced departments to use first-year grad students as section instructors.

Nearly every course taught by the Faculty (except discussion classes) employs TF's to lead once-a-week discussion meetings, grade tests, and hold office hours. Professors hire their own staffs--a task which, for some larger courses, means finding 20 to 25 knowledgeable grad students--and expect them to devote an average of ten hours a week to the job.

For TF's working in two or three courses, this commitment can at times make for an exhausting workload. But administrators defend the experience as valuable preparation for later academic careers.

Career Preparation

"It is not just work. It's part of the academic culture, a sense of community with associates," says Patricia A. McWade, associate dean for graduate admission and financial aid. She notes that up to 80 percent of the Faculty's grad students list teaching as an ambition.

"For the vast majority of graduate students, relevant teaching experience is an integral part of professional training," explains a University hand book.

Typically a grad student receives financial aid (if eligible) from the University for his first year at Harvard, and beginning with his second year here, he is implicitly expected to earn a teaching stipend. Second year grad students receive $6600, in subsequent years the salary escalates to $7480.

Many critics of the system cite this financial aid structure as a major problem, since it virtually forces a grad student to instruct undergraduates, regardless of his teaching ability.

The University publishes a Teaching Fellow Handbook which attempts to address this issue, saying. "The relationship of the Teaching Fellowship to the Financial Aid Program of the Graduate School should not be such as to lead to systematic violation of [the ideal of TFing being a learning experience]."