Reports Examines G.E.'s 'Weaknesses'

To most undergraduates, the Students Council is an accepted and durable function within the University. While few students protest against the Council, the majority regard it with a fair amount of apathy. The Council itself realizes and goes along with this condition.

It follows that most of the work done by the Council attracts the interest of only a limited number of men. The reports undertaken by Student Council committees, for all their limited appeal, have nevertheless carried weight in administration decisions. The Student Porter Report, released in February, advocated, and to a certain extent directly influenced, all of the major streamlining in the porter scheme.

Last Monday night the Council heard and passed on the longest report in its history. The report "attempts to find out what G.E. attempts to do, how it does it, and what success G.E. has achieved." Chances are that report, based on the reaction of students, section men, and instructors to the G.E. program, will be considered whenever an important change in the program is considered.

General Education at Harvard had its beginnings in 1946, following a report in the previous year by the Provost entitled General Education in a Face Society. In 1947 the student Council issued a report on the initial eight courses, and said that the first year of G.E. had been a "general success."

Lesser Success

The report of last Monday night, coming only five years after the first one, said that, "The success of G.E. as measured by the attainments of its basic aims cannot be said to be very great... G.E. has had only modest success both in its effect on students and in their conception of its objectives."

It is an accepted fact that the University has "committee great educational and financial resources to General Education." There are 37 G.E. courses listed in the present catalogue. The Council report goes on to say that "There is a clear indication... that the basic aims of G.E. are not getting across to the students and that G.E. courses are not so obviously distinguishable from survey courses."

The report attempts, however, to study the success of the G.E program from all possible angles. "If the ultimate aim of all human education," says the report, "is the living of a better life. Involving a better judgement of values (whatever "better" may mean here), perhaps it may be said that G.E. has already jusitified itself." To this remark the committee added a qualifying footnote: "It should be remembered that we have only been evaluating G.E. within the framework of its own theory and goals."

"G.E. has achieved its objectives only to a limited degree," the report continues. "But there are other ways of measuring its success." (i.e. not within the framework of its own goals). "Though it is difficult to obtain a great deal of controlled information on the point, we do feel that G.E. has increased the value of a Harvard education."

"We do not attempt to say by how much; but G.E. is, we feel, certainly successful in this sense. Many good courses are now offered that would not have been offered but fo General Education; many good teachers are becoming interested in educational theory and being trained in a new one. We feel that the General Education Program is far more satisfactory than the old distribution system."

The G.E. Polls

The committee used a statistical system in recording students opinion of G.E. Questionnaires wre mailed to 674 students, of whom 73% replied, Section men, who were also polled, returned only about half of their essay-type questionnaires.

Regarding the focal point of interest in G.E. courses, "41% of those answering for a first course... (only) ... found the lectures the nost important part of the course for its understanding; 38% thought the reading contributed most, 12% the sections, and 6% the essays, 3% did not answer. Of those who took two courses, 43% thought the lectures in the second course most important for understanding; 43% voted for the reading, 10% for the sections, and 6% for the essays.

"These figures contract with the views of many of the section man who answered the questionnaire... They seemed to feel that the sections had an essential role to play in helping the students understand the realtionship between lectures and reading material."

G.E. Grades High

The committee found that grades in the G.E. courses ran high. "Of the students answering for a first course, 17% got A's, 45% B's, 32% C's, 3% D's; only one person out of the 402...(who replied for a first course)...got an E. Those who took a second course did even better; they had 21% A's. 55% B's 19%, C's, 4% D's, and 1% E's. It must be remembered however," adds the committee, "that 48% of those who put down their Rank List Group were in groups I, II, and III.

"In both cases together the majority of students (about 61%) felt the amount of time they spent was "about right." But whereas only 10% felt they had done "too much," 29% felt they had done "too little."

"The subjects matter was thought to be a little more difficult than average. For the first course, 54% said the subject matter was "average". In difficulty; but while 19% called it "easy" or "too easy," 23% said it was "difficult" or "too difficult." 3% falled to answer the question. For the second course, opinion was a little more evenly divided: about 43% called the work "average," 30% "difficult" or "too diffiuclt," and 29% "easy" or "too easy".

The committee made four major recommendations for the G.E. program. The most important of these is that "the present program be continued without change for a trial period. If at the end of this period, the number of students who want a change of some sort is still very great: if Natural Science concentrators still find Natural Science lower level G.E. courses too easy; and if too many people must be exempted under the "Natural Science rule" and under the discretionary powers of the faculty Committee on General Education: or if a reasonable combination of them results; we would recommend these changes.

"Two lower level G.E. courses should be required, one in each of the two areas outside the student's area of concentration. To encourage the students to take a lower level G.E. course in-his area, these courses should be counted as related for concentrators."

The second major recommendation is that "More people might grasp the essential objectives both of the course and of G.E. itself, if the reading insome of these elementary courses were greatly limited. This does not mean that the courses should be made easier. The same amount of work of even more should be demanded, but the emphasis should be more on the intensive study of a few important examples."

The third major recommendation is that there be more lower level G.E. courses, which "would raise the number from four to least five full courses given every year." (The Faculty recently voted fifth courses in the Humanities and the Social Sciences.)

The last major recommendation is that papers be designed to relate what a student has learned to his own experiences, rather than merely parapharsing the ideas of an author.