"The next [capital] campaign, which will begin the moment I leave office, should concentrate on the Houses," Rudenstine said. One student then asked if anything was being done to cut down on large class sizes and increase focus on undergraduate teaching. Rudenstine said it is difficult for professors to balance both research and teaching. But he said the University does not make any attempts to misrepresent its student-faculty ratio.

"There's truth in advertising," Rudenstine said. "We don't hide the fact that our classes are larger, that our undergraduate student body is larger. But we still have the best student body. We still have, across the board, the best faculty and the best resources." But, he said, attempts will be made to improve the student-faculty ratio.

"We can increase the size of the faculty and keep the number of students the same, which is what we plan to do," Rudenstine said. "But it will probably take a decade, so you might not see it."

The recently highly discussed topic of grade inflation also made in into the evening's discussion.

Though Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 has recently claimed that an influx of black students during the 1970's led to grade inflation, Rudenstine said that the explosion of graduate and professional schools is the true cause.

"The faculty over the last thirty years have begun to realize that the transcript matters," Rudenstine said, explaining that an increased number of graduate schools led professors to give better grades so that Harvard students would not be at a disadvantage.

"Often, your degree as an undergraduate is not your last degree, so you're worried about your transcript," he added.