Piecemeal Reproach

Piece by piece the Faculty has been processing the Bender Report. Three days ago it passed half that report, the half concerning Dean's Office decentralization that had previously wound a trail through two faculty committees. The second half, which deals with the tutorial-for-all provision, has already been through one committee, and presently is under study by the Committee on Educational Policy.

Without the extension of tutorial currently under consideration, the Bender Plan would mean little more than a new location for the present Dean's Office, a change far less impressive than the major program that Dean Bender's committee had in mind. By its vote ast Tuesday, the Faculty reaffirmed its faith in the principles of the Bender Report; it has yet to give those principles force.

Beyond the shift in the administrative and disciplinary focus, last Tuesday's faculty resolution includes among the new Senior Tutor's jobs that of co-ordinating tutorial and departmental advising. This is so vague that the leaders of the five largest departments, who have been ominously muttering about departmental sovereignty, could easily maintain their grip on tutorial, a grip that in the past has often led to neglect of undergraduates.

A second difficulty is the question of personnel. Originally the Bender Committee expected that permanent faculty members would take on the seven Senior Tutor positions, but it has become obvious, as the faculty recognized in its resolution, that no one above assistant professor will have anything to do with the job. Since these younger men will be busy trying to attain permanent status, and since they will lack the experience of an older man, this is a serious setback for the Bender Plan. But it does not justify throwing out an otherwise sound program.

It is the first of these deficiencies that the final version of the tutorial-for-all provision must correct. The original report called for an extension of tutorial in the five largest departments, an extension allowing all students in those departments except a handful of senior honors candidates to take tutorial in groups of five. The large departments objected to this as soon as the report was released, some saying that individual tutorial should be retained for more students, others that tutorial for all is impracticable, and still others that their department lacked the money. The Committee currently working on this provision must reconcile these views to the basic principles of the report.

No matter what the Committee on Educational Policy does to the second half of the Bender Report, it must at least define carefully the power to be wielded by the Senior Tutors. And it should make sure that these powers include some control over tutorial arrangements in the Houses, for without this, "Senior Tutors" and "tutorial for all" will be empty verbiage.

The Bender Report is an integrated program, and it is unfortunate that the Faculty had to split it up; but it will be even more unfortunate if the Faculty--for-getting the deficiencies of the first half--leaves the very same deficiencies in the second half.