Still To Come
Relatively little business was left outstanding when Harvard's administrative machinery ground down last spring, so College administrators will start out with a fairly clean slate this term. Among this items left open for further debate this fall, however, are increasing contact between students and Faculty and a possible revaluation of the freshman housing lottery.
Last year, spurred on by the two-year-old Undergraduate Council, College officials discussed these matters with council members and agreed to consider them further this year. The College will take the first step toward improving student-faculty contact by distributing a survey to establish what students consider the ideal amount of contact, according to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.
One proposal on this matter that will take effect immediately is a coupon system which allows students to take their professors to lunch at their House or at the Union free of charge. Coupons may be picked up in Dean Fox's office.
The first order of business for the Undergraduate Council will probably be electing new officers. Once new leadership is place there, expect some discussion on the ever touchy issue of the housing lottery.
Open discussion on the topic sponsored by the council last spring failed to reach any consensus, but the committee on housing plans to devote more time to the issue this fall. The College is reportedly waiting for a firm proposal from the council before it takes up the issue again.
More immediately, a crop of new House masters and senior tutors will greet returning students in Dunster, Cabot, Lowell, and Mather Houses, Myra A. Mayman, director of Radcliffe's Office for the Arts, will take over for departing Cabot Masier Warren E.C. Wacker and Associate Master Ann Wacker. Mayman will hold the post for a year while a search for a permanent replacement is conducted. Joining Mayman at Cabot will be incoming senior tutor Elizabeth Hart '76.
In the river Houses, Terry K. Shaller '72 and Assistant Professor of Mathematics John M. Lee will take over as senior tutors of Mather and Lowell Houses, respectively. Last spring it was announced that Professor of Anthropology Sally Falk more would become the new master of Dunster House.
If all goes well, students will not be greeted by construction workers and scaffolding. Officials say renovations in Dunster, Eliot and Kirkland Houses should be completed by the time students move into the dorms.
Around The Grad Schools
It's business as usual at most of the University's graduate schools this fall, but a few new twists pop up here and there. Perhaps most dramatic is the faculty migration at the Divinity School that has sent that institution scurrying in search of seven new scholars.
The turnover is striking for a school with a faculty of 40 (15 if which are part-time) that has not made a tenured appointment in seven or eight years. At least two of the seven planned appointments are for tenure spots. Among the departing faculty is former Div School dean Krister Stendahl, who will abandon his teaching post to become bishop of Stockholm in the Church of Sweden.
It's really finally here. Almost. The much heralded, long awaited New Pathway program--designed to offer more humane medical training through smaller classes and hands on teaching--will start to start this fall. This year, the applicants will try for the 25 places in the first-ever class, for next fall. A preliminary draft of proposals, approved over the summer, named committees who are now working on faculty recruitment, allocation of educational resources, and curriculum development.
Also, February will see the opening of a new 15-story building at the Med School, on Shattuck and Francis Streets in Boston, straddling part of the old Brigham hospital. In the planning for at least five years, it's been under construction for the last two.
Four floors are for the Genetics Department, and two are the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a resource for Med School faculty. The rest of the space is for research by Brigham and Women's staff.
Spirits should be running a bit above average at the Graduate School of Design, which just completed its first year in the black in quite some time. Administrators there claim part of the reason for their erstwhile budget woes was the decision several years ago to move the Planning Department to the K-School, resulting in the loss of one-third of the GSD's tuition income.
This year the department will be reestablished at GSD independent of the public policy-oriented department at the K-School, instead emphasizing the physical aspects of urban planning and design. Although the K-School will offer the degree, the move will allow Design to add a third department to its Architecture and Landscape Architecture Departments.