Dean's Report Praises Course Reduction Plan

Provisions for course reduction are the "most immediately promising field for the enrichment of the college experience," Dean Leighton has stated in his annual report to President Pusey.

Commenting on the three Advanced Standing programs, Leighton said that he believes the "time has come to encourage more students to break out of the course patterns which now dominate undergraduate education."

Last year, the first time the program came into full operation, 16 juniors and 13 seniors obtained course reductions in one or both of the two terms. This spring, 20 undergraduates are enrolled in the program.

Leighton's report points out that course reduction, in itself, is "not a worthy end, but the spirit of adventure and the possible accomplishments of our more able students set free from the regular four-course pattern to work out projects of their own choosing at their own pace are objectives well worth seeking."

Stressing that the concept of course reduction is not new to the University, Leighton said that in the years 1937-41, when the College was smaller, an average of 91 juniors and seniors participated in the plan each year. He added that the plan met with general approval at that time.

Expansion of Course Reduction

Course reduction can be expanded now, the report said, because the wartime depletions of the tutorial staff have been overcome and because of the hope of reduced crowding in the Houses.

The other aspects of Advanced Standing--admission of eleventh graders to the freshman class and admission of qualified secondary school graduates to the sophomore class--Leighton viewed with more qualified approval.

He pointed out that experiences during the war with students of below average age who came to College brought no observable ill effects, but he emphasized his doubt of a change in one of the "basic assumptions about American education" that the "best place for a schoolboy or girl is school."

In the academic year 1955-56, five students were admitted to the freshman class from the eleventh grade.

Fifteen Given Sophomore Standing

During the same period, fifteen students were given sophomore standing without previous college work, including thirteen students from foreign schools. The report pointed out that the University has long accepted credentials from accelerated foreign schools for sophomore standing, but that the plan has not until recently been extended to American schools.

Leighton termed the "most promising" development in advanced placement the availability of placement examinations at all College Board centers in the spring of 1956. Previously, the University had to rely on the College Board tests themselves, or administer special tests after the student came to college.

Now, however, the tests can be taken before college, a factor which Leighton sees as an encouragement to students and schools to push preparatory work beyond conventional limits.

The report commented that the controversy between schools and colleges over the merits of advanced standing has died down, but noted that the fundamental questions of waste and possible enrichment of college curricula remain.