Cum Laude in General Studies

Honors undoubtedly represent to the layman academic achievement of any kind, but in scholarly circles they have always indicated a particular excellence--in the writing of a thesis. The very terms-- summa, magna, and cum laude, --stem from awards given in the Middle Ages for the reading of theses or discourses. At present, however, a number of Harvard graduates get honors degrees without writing theses, through the program of Cum Laude in General Studies. While CLGS is often used to allow people with low marks as lowerclassmen to write theses, it also allows people with high marks to avoid this particular intellectual exercise. Given the original nature of honors, it seems a distortion to give them to people who do not write theses in fields in which they are at all practicable.

Proponents of non-thesis honors urge that brilliant students ought to be given a free choice whether to concentrate more heavily in their field or to branch out into new distributions. To make a thesis requisite for all honors would seem to force a commitment to the academic life, a thing of some distaste to the future non-educators. This attitude represents a view prevailing in American education, a view supposedly adapted to the needs of American society. Apparently, the mental precision developed by the thesis is no longer considered the essence of education.

The thesis, however, is not totally irrelevant to the American scene. By stimulating the mastery of a specific problem, with exact, creative thinking, the thesis can act as a great developer of character. In this way, it can benefit not only the incipient scholar, but the future businessman, who can look back on the one great creation of his college days while riding "on a shoe-shine and a smile."

If the thesis then is still a vital part of liberal education, and should remain central to any honors degree, the problem remains of rewarding the unusually intelligent student who has no desire to spend a good part of his senior year on a narrowly defined project. Seemingly, the reward of getting A's should be enough for those who do not wish to continue in the academic life, and if a grade transcript is not enough for the exceptional, a Phi Beta Kappa key would sufficiently represent to society one's undergraduate achievements. Honors in General Studies, merely as a reward for high grades, is a perversion of the Honors degree, and can become a too easy escape from a thesis rather than an achievement of true honor.

The intelligent student, however, who may for some particularly compelling reason wish to avoid writing a thesis, should not be excluded from honors--if he can stay within its purpose. If every student receiving Cum Laude in General Studies were to do some intensive and creative project in his senior year, even a project outside his field of concentration, the program would be entirely acceptable.