After years of attention to developing the Core Curriculum and otherwise examining the academic needs of undergraduates, the Faculty has taken notice of some problems peculiar to the lives of those somewhat more experienced educational consumers--graduate students.

An extensive review of the Graduate School of Arts and Science initiated last summer by new Dean of the Faculty A. Michael Spence, is expected this spring to call for improvements in both the administrative structure of the school and the services provided students.

One focus of concern is the lack of social and academic support currently available to the school's 2300 students, who do not enjoy a House system or even a single place on campus for advising and counseling. Possible solutions include closer ties between grad students and the College through new House affiliate programs supplementing current tutor networks.

Closer CUE Guide Editing

Can you tell the difference between the CUE Guide and the Confi-Guide?

Some professors are apparently having trouble distinguishing between the official course review, published by students in cooperation with Harvard, and The Crimson's annual tongue-in-cheek appraisal of academic fare. The problem, they say, is that the official, survey-based CUE Guide is getting too subjective in its written summaries of what students are reporting in the course-end CUE polls.

The Harvard guide should include more statistics, the critical professors say, allowing undergraduate readers to make more complete conclusions on their own without relying on the writeups. Towards that end, officials are expected this spring to propose a revised set of course surveys, as well as new editorial guidelines for the annual book.

May I Take This Chair?

The plodding machinery of Harvard's appointment process brings several prominent junior faculty members up for review this spring. Limited funds and the low rate of turnover prevents the University from offering permanent positions to all its promising scholars, a problem which has made Harvard a risky starting point for aspiring professors.

Among those scheduled to learn their fates before the end of the year: Associate Professors of Government Stephen T. Holmes and Michael J. Sandel, both political theorists; and Paul E. Starr, the associate professor of Sociology who last year won the Pulitzer Prize for his analysis of the American medical system.

A New Path to an M.D.

Three years after beginning study of how Harvard could better train prospective doctors, Medical School faculty this spring will select the first group of students for an experimental program in medical education, set to start this fall.

Emphasizing computer-aided learning and small group instruction instead of textbook-cramming and large lectures, the Med School's "New Pathway" will be taken by 25 of the 165 students in the next entering class. Educators hope the program will produce compassionate doctors capable of both providing better clinical care and grasping new--and, some charge, dehumanizing--medical technology.

Fewer Honors for Us

Responding in part to the somewhat remarkable statistic that more than 70 percent of undergraduates receive their degrees cum honors, the Faculty is expected to act this spring to make the distinction a bit more distinctive.