Shift from Essay To Research Goal

Harvard, as Paul H. Buck has said, is a "university college," where interplay between the college and graduate school curricula is fairly unique. Columbia, for example, has two separate faculties, and there is little opportunity to utilize both. The Columbia College register can offer juniors and seniors only seminar groups which are "conducted like their graduate prototypes."

"We welcome all qualified undergraduates," state the chairmen of three large departments--English, History, and Government. These departments have no set policy for admitting undergraduates into "200" courses; the various instructors are free to decide. Qualification depends--in theory--on Rank List standing and prerequisites; in practice these are often a joke.

Many instructors will not consider undergraduate petitions, in order to keep number low and quality high. In the English Department especially, however, the undergraduate is generally able to pick and choose. Of the 16 conference courses primarily for graduates, eleven have undergraduate attendance. In several cases, the juniors and seniors in the course far out-number the graduates; this is especially noticeable in Professor Bush's poetry courses. Modern Irish prose and poetry also attracts about 75 per cent undergrads.

One-Third Undergraduates

Walter J. Bate, chairman of the English Department, estimates that one-third of those taking "200" conference courses are in the College--sophomores, as well as juniors and seniors. According to this year's figures, 37 per cent is the actual total. One reason for this large amount of undergraduates interested in advanced English courses is the constant flux in the department. Every year is an off-year for a number of classes; usually, it seems, those helpful on general examinations. In American literature especially, those who miss the middle group course go right into the "200" section. Moreover, the advanced courses take over where the introductory surveys leave off, offering the student a chance to investigate more thoroughly an author or work to whom English 7 or 10 gave only a lick and a promise.

The History Department, with 15 conference courses offered this year, serves the largest graduate body of the three departments. Less than one-tenth of the enrollment in conference groups is undergraduate. This is barely 2 per cent of all undergraduate history concentrators. Since there is less turn-over in the middle-group courses, and less chance that a period will not be covered, the History Department keeps its "200" courses literally, as the register announces, "primarily for graduates." There is also less undergraduate demand in this department for seminar work. Myron P. Gilmore, departmental chairman, has suggested that the history faculty "may well consider enlarging the number of conference courses for undergraduate participation."

"Perhaps we are unjust," Samuel H. Beer declares, but the Government Department keeps its graduate program small, in order to attract only the best people. Seventy-three graduates participate in the program. All but two of the fourteen courses currently offered, however, have undergraduate members. Nearly 30 per cent of the enrollment in these courses is undergraduate. This percentage of participation has showed little discernible difference between the bright upperclassman and the beginning graduate student. A concentrator in the department for three years who is involved in writing an honors thesis may well be of higher caliber than the first-year GSAS student.

Often, however, the undergraduate in the "200" course gets more than he bargained for. He may be bored by his middle-group courses; he may be what Beer calls a "flashy" student. But the conference course means a shift from the "essay discipline" to the "research discipline." And when it comes to doing research, rather than recording somebody else's opinions, even the good student may, in Beer's words, "be breathing pretty hard when he gets through."

For the undergraduate may enter a "200" course merely to try his hand at it. His classmates, however, are graduates steeped in the discipline. The archetype of the perpetual graduate, the professional scholar with 8 or 9G after his name, emerges from the D-level of Widener at rare intervals to watch the progress of the seasons. After squinting in the sunshine, he returns to painstaking research into the use of umlaut verbs in the 13th century.

This hyperbole has some basis in fact. The report compiled by Dean Elder in November made reference to the situation. "The emerging Ph.D," he said, "is not what we mean by an educated man, a man who combines wide-ranging learning with an attitude of simplicity and vividness, and who commingles good taste with an excited curiosity. Rather, he likely has become a sort of expert plumber in the card catalogues or other areas, and neither as teacher nor scholar will he throw off this inhibiting heritage."

The hard-working graduate may be pedantic and methodical by necessity. Concurrently, the undergraduates in a particular conference course may provide stimulation and enthusiasm--they are less hampered in their approach. Bate suggests that this antithesis--routine vs. creativity--may be intensified in conference courses because they are attended by the brightest undergraduates, but not the highest-ranking of the graduates The latter will "bop up" into the solely graduate seminars. Gilmore feels that the graduate may be "drier" because his aims are more professional, his exams more searching, his work more exacting.

But Beer maintains that if the graduate's concern is with a "niggling, pedantic search for details," it is the department, rather than the student, which is at fault. "If you cast your net terribly wide" in accepting graduate students, he explains, you may well get graduates who are not as good as the Harvard student. In that case there will be prejudice for the undergraduate on the part of the instructor.

The graduate school trains people for research, the kind of deep research being done by faculty members, which results in books and articles relevant to the non-academic world. The graduate course should, and in most cases does, encourage this kind of work. Just as the bright secondary-school student is encouraged to participate in college-type courses, the top undergraduates can become acquainted with the graduate discipline.

Graduate school is professional school. The purely graduate seminars put a premium upon original, creative scholarship and technical ability. In these higher level seminars there is no place for the most intrepid undergraduate. The English and History Departments have already tightened the Ph.D. requirements, in an effort to give the GSAS student a more concentrated and individualized professional training. The Government Department, too, is in the process of revising its program. But whereas graduate training is made more rigorous on its higher levels, the conference courses remain static. Although both graduates and undergrads are nominally subject to the same requirements, the long paper, the research project, the extensive bibliography, and special examination questions are aimed at the graduate. Moreover, in many cases any grade lower than B-plus is considered unsatisfactory for the graduate.

Taking a graduate course often constitutes a "dry run" for the junior or senior who is considering graduate school. He is not yet subject to the pressures or professional standards of competition. The recent CEP report recognized the honors candidate should receive the personal attention possible through small tutorial groups and independent, directed study, such as provided by the conference course.

Two Stereotypes

Opening more graduate conference courses to those qualified--whether juniors or sixth year GSAS students--can help alleviate two stereotyped situations. First, the bored upperclassman, cutting lectures in his survey courses, tossing off papers the night before for an easy B; the other, the dry-as-dust graduate whose vision is narrowing to the confines of his special field. CEP changes in tutorial and course requirements allow the undergraduate more flexibility. Revisions in the Ph.D. program are directing the time of senior faculty members to graduate tutorial work. For the high-ranking student who feels his middle-group courses expendable, and personal attention more desirable, a wide range of graduate courses can provide him with a training in scholarship.PAUL H. BUCK