In the Spring, Tra-la

Once again this January the Office of the Provost will switch on machinery that will turn out, some three months later, the little annual booklet entitled "Preliminary Announcement of the Courses of Instruction." And once again, unless it initiates a a few simple changes and precautions, the Committee on Educational Policy will publish a catalogue that does not provide students with sufficient information.

It has been the function of the Committee on Educational Policy, of which the Provost is chairman, to go over the courses submitted by the various departments, to recommend changes, and finally to submit the embryo catalogue to the entire Faculty for approval. This year the Committee should examine the prospective catalogue not only in terms of the courses it will announce, but also in terms of what it will say about those courses.

Between the preliminary and final editions of the current catalogue, the Anthropology Department changed its announcements from something approaching zero to something approaching a model for such laconic departments as Economics, Government, and Social Relations. Its descriptions do not challenge the ideal set up by the General Education courses, but space limitations bar universal application of such liberal accounts. Nevertheless, the few lines it devotes to each of its offerings, at a time when the advisory system frequently consists of a semi-annual signature, provide non-concentrators with some concept of what the course is about. This leads to wiser planning of programs, which in turn should cut down petitions for course changes and many other early-term confusions.

Fuller descriptions would be of benefit mainly to upperclassmen on the hunt for distribution courses. Concentrators presumably know their own field, and Freshmen have a reasonable advisory system, the Crimson Confidential Guide, and a limited choice of courses. With this in mind, careful editing of the catalogue could relax the lack-of-space pressure by raking out much non-essential material. In the current edition, space-eating incongruities run rampant: with one exception, not a single line is devoted to any middle-group Economics, Government, or Social Relations course, while Biology 106b, for instance--a graduate course entitled "Mycology"--is lovingly described as "morphology and classification of Basidiomyeetes and Fungi Imperfecti."