Yale Boasts Scholars of the House

Every Wednesday night, ten Yale seniors gather in a small, comfortable room for several hours of discussion and intellectual exchange. Built around these meetings and the informal dinners which precede them on alternate weeks, the Scholars of the House Program has for the last seven years been a unique factor in the Yale curriculum.

This program started after World War II, originally intended to give qualified veterans, older and more mature than their classmates, an opportunity to work independently during their last year. So successful did the experiment prove that it has been continued, though the veteran has long since disappeared from the campus.

Today's Scholars of the House are allowed extensive privileges for their own investigations, research and writing--the only requirement, states the University catalogue, is "a finished essay or project which must justify by its scope and quality the freedom which has been granted." Though he is given four course credits for the senior year's work and may receive special distinction or one of the two "dean's Prizes" set aside for this select group, the Scholar of the House attends no regular classes.

The great responsibility which the freedom of this program places on the individual does raise occasional problems; because of this, the governing Faculty Committee reserves the right to drop anyone who may not measure up to standards. But the Committee picks its men very carefully, and misjudgements are rare.

In addition to its function as an individual research study, once a week the program becomes an enlarged version of Harvard's group tutorial. These frequent meetings are devoted to the reading and discussion of reports on the individual projects.

Believing the program should represent a wide cross-section of the College, the Faculty Committee tries to keep the Scholars as diversified a group as possible. Though the English department, and especially the creative writing field, is always well represented, the present group of Scholars includes as well a historian, an economist, a government major, and even a biologist.

Expand Program

Through the exchange of ideas which results from this interaction of different fields of study, the scope of the program is expanded still further. "We may not understand much of what is being said about the kidney functions," commented one English major in the group, "but it certainly starts us thinking."

Just as it has been doing for the past seven years, it is likely that the Scholars of the House program will continue to turn out creative individualists for many years to come. Now that the system is no longer an experiment at Yale, its founders, with a special eye to Harvard, have strong hopes that it may take hold in other colleges within, the next few years. As one senior noted, "Scholars of the House would do 95 percent of the class no good at all, but for the few who do measure up, it's a great thing.'