Section Men To Be Studied By Overseers

The teaching fellowship--a mainstay of the college's educational machinery for the past 23 years--will be subject to a critical review today by a committee from the University's Board of overseers.

The Committee to Visit Harvard College, which each year reports to the full Board of Overseers on one aspect of undergraduate education, will spend the day talking to students, administrative officials, senior Faculty members, and teaching fellows themselves.

harvard's practice of allowing graduate students--as teaching fellows--to work as course assistant and section men has provoked continual questioning since the fellowships were established in 1939. The most frequent criticism had been that the teaching fellows are more interested in their research than their teaching.

Today the committee, headed by Albert L. Nickerson '32, will hear talks on the role of the teaching fellows in various departments, and seek to learn the undergraduates' view of their section men at a luncheon with 16 seniors. One student was chosen from each of the Houses, and to get a one-to-one ratio between students and committee men, David W. Bailey, secretary to the Board, invited seven other student leaders to the luncheon.

The committee's intensive schedule begins at 9:30 a.m. when the Overseers will hear an introductory speech by Dean Ford and talks by John P. Elder, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and William M. Peterson, lecturer on physics.

After the luncheon, representative of General Education will address the committee. Then Dean von Stade will host a tea in Kirkland House where there will be discussion of the teaching fellows' role in the Houses.

Paul H. Back, director of Widener Library and originator of the teaching fellowships, will finish the day with a speech at a dinner for the Overseers Committee.