Faculty Votes Today on Fate Of Visual Arts

The long-range status of the Visual Arts at Harvard may be determined this afternoon at a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Members of the Faculty will be asked to vote on three motions of the Committee on Educational Policy representing, in effect, a toned-down version of the Visual Arts Committee's Report, which was made public last year.

These motions include: 1) the establishment of a Faculty Committee on the practice of the Visual Arts to propose courses and to recommend appointments "in the Practice of the Visual Arts;" 2) the encouragement of cooperation between those parts of the University connected with the Visual Arts; and 3) the approval of construction of a Center for the Visual Arts and of a Theatre as part of the program for Harvard College.

Originally the Visual Arts Committee, headed by John Nicholas Brown, had recommended the establishment of a division of the Visual Arts and of a Department of Design. A CEP subcommittee, however, decided that the proposed division would only create administrative confusion and that a Department of Design was too much like a "pre-professional art school." The CEP has in effect adopted its subcommittee's modifications, and it is on these that the Faculty will be voting.

At the same meeting, members will also be asked to approve the establishment of a Standing Committee on Teaching. This is the chief recommendation of the Committee on Teaching, which will present its printed, 41-page Report.

President Pusey appointed this committee, headed by Oscar Handlin, professor of History, a year ago to investigate "Harvard's responsibilities with regard to the impending shortage of teachers." Its report includes several statistical studies of job expectations of selected members of the Class of 1957.