Hist. & Lit. Tutorial Gets Faculty Approval

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences yesterday gave final approval to the proposal for non-graded, credit tutorial for sophomores in History and Literature.

The vote, which according to Dean Ford came after about ten minutes of discussion, was on the question of whether or not the tutorial should be graded. The question of whether or not it should be for credit was decided by the Faculty Committee on Educational Policy at its meeting two weeks ago.

Under the terms of the proposal, the tutorial will be a half-course running throughout the academic year. Now that sophomore tutorial has been given credit status, the requirements for History and Literature concentration will go up by half a course. The new requirement will be 7 1/2 courses, with 2 1/2 as tutorial.

The only other credit sophomore tutorial is in Social Studies. Called Social Studies 10, it is a graded, full-credit, full-year course. This winter the History Department considered instituting credit sophomore tutorial, but the Department has for the present abandoned the project.

History and Science--the one other field which has been investigating the possibility of granting credit for sophomore work in tutorial--has been described by a spokesman as "watching the History and Literature proceedings with great interest." He said that the History and Science committee is "giving the idea serious consideration."

The main argument in favor of credit sophomore tutorial is that the University owes sophomore tutees recognition for their work and recognition means credit. The main argument on the other side is that credit sophomore tutorial emphasizes the early commitment of students to a particular field.

Many of the tutors in History and Literature regret the necessity of giving grades for sophomore tutorial work when the student is not getting credit At present, students are graded on their work, but the grades do not go on their official course record.