Because of a technical problem in the production of yesterday's paper, the following piece was partially obliterated. We apologize to our readers and have reprinted it in its entirely.

AFTER YEARS of debate and deadlock, the Faculty last week approved a series of sweeping reforms to the legislation governing honors degrees. The final decision--a voice vote with only one dissension--belied the unlikely differences of opinion that had stood in the way of common sense since 1982, when the subject of reform first surfaced.

Many professors continued to harbor minor objections to the proposed changes last Tuesday, as the brief debate in the University Hall faculty chamber revealed. But in the end, they swallowed their objections to endorse a long overdue package of improvements.

The new honors regulations, which will become binding beginning with the Class of 1989, replace a system fraught with loopholes and complications. Where confusion and inequity once reigned, the revised code institutionalizes simplicity and fairness.

The critical difference is that at the new system uses a straightforward scale of grade point averages and counts all letter-graded courses toward a student's GPA. In order to receive College-wide honors under the new regulations, a student will have to attain a minimum overall GPA in addition to meeting separate departmental requirements. The College-wide standards agreed upon are an 11.0 GPA for cum laude in General Studies, 10.5 for cum laude, and 12.0 for magna cum laude. Requirements for summa cum laude are subject to annual adjustment by the Faculty.

Under the old system, only two-thirds of the courses taken outside a student's concentration count toward the GPA computation for College-wide honors. The so-called two-thirds rule opens a Pandora's box of administrative headaches and potential injustices.

The sheer complexity of the formula prevents students from accurately gauging their honors status on a running basis. Only on the eve of graduation can the Registrar's Office authoritatively dispel their uncertainly, correcting what are frequently false expectations.

For those with a talent for untangling red tape, the two-thirds rule also opens broad new horizons for academic distinction. The two-thirds rule excludes from the honors calculus all courses taken to meet concentration requirements and one-third of the courses taken outside a student's concentration. These dual exemptions offer the politically minded honors candidate a rewarding exercise in gerrymandering; courses can be juggled to achieve the optimal mix of grades in the various categories. Thus, by employing a simple sleight of hand, the deft senior tutor or undergraduate can shroud sub-standard grades in new-found respectability.

Thanks to the new legislation, the Two-Thirds Twist will grind to a halt in 1989. Until then, the Registrar's Office will compute students' honors according to each set of rules, awarding the higher degree where the outcomes differ. Somehow, it's hard to conceive of the new system working to any one individual's advantage--but it should work to everyone's collective advantage, eliminating the loopholes by which some undergraduates cop inflated degrees.

Since the introduction of the Core Curriculum, the old honors system has been living on borrowed time. Compounding its other flaws is the simple fact that one of its key provisions is obsolete. The old regulations require summa recipients to earn two A or A-grades in each of the General Education divisions outside their major. With the phasing out of the General Education program in the coming years, satisfying that requirement would soon prove problematic. "The Committee on Undergraduate Education [CUE] and the Faculty Council were sympathetic to the purpose of that requirement, but hesitated to create a system that requires the allocation of courses to areas after the General Education fields disappear." Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education and chief author of the new legislation Steven E. Ozment wrote in a report to the Faculty last week.

GIVEN THE current system's conspicuous shortcoming, one can only wonder why reform was so long in the making. Three years ago, a proposal by then Dean for Undergraduate Education Sidney Verba '53 was blocked on the floor of a Faculty meeting. The Faculty" returned the proposal to the CUE for further study. The issue of reform seemed destined to languish in a bureaucratic twilight zone until Ozment entered University Hall in September and revived the cause.

In 1982, and again this year, most of the debate centered on the merits of a so-called mercy clause allowing students to discard a few of their lowest grades. Neither the Verba plan nor the successful Ozment plan included such a provision.

Proponents of the controversial amendment argued that it would encourage students to enroll in more challenging courses while forgiving the errors of freshman inexperience.

The problem with the mercy provision is its inherent blindness--it forgives the guilty along with the innocent, discounting legitimately deserved bad grades and making the entire system less discriminating.

Defending his proposal before the Faculty, Ozment observed rightly that the Administrative Board has the power to compensate for low marks "when circumstances rather than ability" influence a student's performance. Mistakes are part of life, and a consistently solid record will balance a few blemishes, the dean added. His arguments were apparently convincing.

A second sticking point was Harvard's preponderance of honors degrees. Approximately 70 percent of Harvard students graduate with honors--more than at any other Ivy League college. Some professors called for measures to reduce the proportion of honors degrees and bolster the prestige of Harvard laudes.

Although the new regulations raise the minimum standard for cum laude in General Studies from a B-to a B, they were not designed to curtail the number of honors degrees awarded annually. Through some statistical mystery, the slight tightening of requirements is expected to translate into several more honors degrees each year.

More Harvard undergraduates receive honors partly because 80 percent choose to undertake the tutorials and theses required of honors candidates, Ozment said. Maybe more are honors caliber to begin with. "Students who come to us as the pick of the crop across the nation tend to remain such after four years at Harvard," the dean observed. Somewhat more dubiously, Ozment also argued that raising standards could be self-defeating because it would increase the already substantial pressure on professors and teaching fellows to inflate undergraduates' grades.

Three years after an almost indistinguishable proposal met overwhelming opposition in the faculty chamber, only half a dozen professors rose to challenge Ozment's logic. His idea's time had come.