Martin Bars Gen Ed to Auditors After 15 Crowd Pennington Section

Harold C. Martin, Director of General Education A. has ruled that upperclassmen and graduate students may not audit sections of the required freshman course.

Martin acted after fifteen upperclassmen and grad students attended the first meeting of Frederick A. Pennington's Honors Gen Ed section. "They were overwhelming the freshmen," Martin said.

Pennington felt the effect of barring the auditors after the class began was to make the freshmen "much more shaken than before." He felt the presence of the auditors had caused no disturbance until they were dismissed.

To accomodate the disappointed auditors Pennington is covering the same material in a non-credit seminar sponsored by Adams House.

House Master Reuben A. Brower, who is also a professor of English, agreed to sponsor the seminar.

For his Adams seminar Pennington has drawn fifty students. He has entitled the seminar "The Critical Process and the Verbal Construct."

Intensive Analysis

In his classes Pennington, a teaching fellow, uses the "new critic" method of intensive textual analysis. He strongly opposes the "precious flower" approach to literature which deals in general appreciation and fears that intensive analysis destroys the beauty of a work.

Despite urgings from Pennington, director Martin said he has no intention of changing the style of Gen Ed A. Martin said he felt it was important to continue the present system of allowing "each section man to use the idiom most congenial to him."

To Print Views

Pennington will present his recommendations for altering Gen Ed A in an article in the next issue of Comment Magazine which is published by the Harvard Political Participation Council, an undergraduate organization.