Scholars in GE

General Education is gradually getting ready to take on its big, new role in undergraduate instruction. Last week the University announced the appointment of the first full professor and five assistant professors in GE. This means that when the Faculty's new program for guided distribution and compulsory GE starts working next fall, GE will claim half the teaching time and will pay (out of its own budget) half the salaries of the six recent appointees. With a core of teachers it can call partially its own, GE will be able to plan its future with confidence and competence.

Last week's promotions also signified a new concept of the way a teacher spends his time. Because each of the appointees will divide his working hours between his academic specialty and GE, there will be no segregated faculties of specialists on the one hand and general educators on the other. Such segregation has been tried at other schools, generally with two results: intra-faculty friction and decreased efficiency among general education instructors.

This is not likely to happen here. The system of parallel appointments (Professor LeCorbeiller's new title is "Professor of General Education in the Physical Sciences and of Applied Physics") means that laymen as well as fellow-specialists can share the knowledge of the scholar. And the scholar will still have time to keep up with his specialty.

The new division of departmental loyalties and teaching time may not go smoothly in the near future. But if the Faculty can make the scheme come off, the level of a Harvard education will take a long leap upwards.