Late Study Cards Show No Increase

Reducing shopping period from two weeks to one has had little effect on the number of students who are filing study cards late, a College official said yesterday.

Registrar Georgene Herschbach said that 129 of the University's approximately 6400 undergraduates did not file their cards on time. Although Herschbach said she did not have exact data from previous years on the number of late filers, she said this year's figures were comparable.

"We were not startled by the number of late study cards," Herschbach said. "That number resembles previous years."

Prior to last year, students were given two weeks from registration to hand in the cards. In an "experimental" effort to speed up sectioning, the College last year decided to cut shopping period down to one week.

Upperclass students this semester were required to turn in their study cards on Friday and first-year students on Monday. Since the system is no longer considered experimental, students turning in late cards will be fined $15, Herschbach said.

"I think that the core faculty prefers the shortened shopping period," said Elizabeth W. Swain '63. "We can be fairly certain by the third class meeting that everyone has heard the preliminaries of the class."

Moral Reasoning Offers One Course

Moral Reasoning is for the birds--the early birds.

Moral Reasoning 32, "Reason and Evaluation," is the only course being offered in that section of the Core this fall, and it is taught at 9 a.m. And even that course was originally scheduled to be given in the spring, according to Mellon Professor of the Humanities Thomas M. Scanlon, who teaches it.

"It's not so much trouble getting professors as a difficulty balancing them between fall and spring," said Susan W. Lewis, director of the Core Curriculum. "We try to distribute classes equally, but all those teaching Moral Reasoning are trying to balance a number of needs."

But first-year student David J. Kennedy said he thought the problem indicated a lack of committment to the needs of students.

"If Harvard really buys into the logic of the Core Curriculum, they would try to make it a little easier for students to fulfill," Kennedy said.

He added that the 9 a.m. lectures did not deter him from taking the class because he was used to an early commute to high school.

Scanlon said the early hour is "just the time it's always been. I can't really offer justification for that."