Student-Based Reform Hits Grad Schools

They are dissatisfied with the style of graduate school life, and feel stifled by the overemphasis on theory or facts which seem irrelevant to their social conscience and wider human interests. Students want to be lawyers and architects and economists while they are students, to live the discipline rather than study it.

It is difficult to imagine that Harvard's graduate and professional schools ever produced students over-whelmingly content with their education. In the past they expressed their dissatisfaction with post-graduate studies in general malaise, specific criticisms, or just plain bitching. Yet because the students felt this dissatisfaction was private and personal, they rarely communicated their discontent effectively to fellow students or to the faculty and administration of their schools. Since early 1966, however, Harvard graduate students have brought their complaints into the open.

Criticism of post-graduate education has taken many forms, and clearly reflects the different conditions at Harvard's various schools. Notable examples of student discontent and active agitation for reform can be found at the Medical School, the School of Education, the Law School, the Graduate School of Design, and within the Department of Economics in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Each student reform group built its case on specific issues, but it also seems clear that Harvard graduate students share general concerns.

Quality

Their overriding interest is in the quality of their own education. Much of the student dissatisfaction focuses on three issues. Students specifically question the value of required curricula -- the relevance of courses to problems and practice in the real world, as well as the quality and method of the teaching itself. Secondly, they seek a closer and more significant relationship with the faculty. The desire for a collegial community of scholars, teaching and learning from each other, motivates many of the demands for reform. And finally, students assert that they should play a larger role in determining the educational and administrative policies of their schools.

These three general concerns focus on improving the process of postgraduate education. The actual reform movements of the past two years attest to the fact that students do have something worthwhile to say about this process.

The Med School

In January of 1966, twenty-five second-year students at Harvard Medical School, frustrated by the lecture system which makes up the bulk of the second year curriculum, petitioned their dean for the privilege of studying the course material independently. Dean Ebert granted the petition, though the number of actual participants dropped from twenty-five to five. Those five still feel that the experiment was a personal success, although they may have scored lower on the minutely detailed final exams than did the bulk of their class.

The experiment was not continued this year and the impetus for student-directed innovation in the pre-clinical years seems to have died. Instead, a faculty committee has taken up the broader question of curriculum reform and has issued recommendations which could dramatically reshape the Medical School system.

Dean Ebert appointed this group as a subcommittee of the faculty Curriculum Committee. The critical debate initiated by the second-year experiment undoubtedly encouraged the Dean to begin an investigation of long-needed reforms. The committee, led by Dr. Alexander Leaf, worked over the summer and submitted its report to the faculty last fall. The members tried to re-assess what a medical school should be teaching its students, and questioned the wisdom of allowing each medical department to offer a required course which burdens the student with perhaps irrelevant facts and details. The members recognized that students had differing needs and interests which the school might try to meet.

The subcommittee report recommends that broad interdepartmental courses be substituted for the department requirements, courses which will teach the student a method of acquiring medical knowledge and provide him with a general background of essential information. Departments would offer specialized electives to deal with specific problems in depth, the workload of requirements would be lessened, new courses would be offered, and professors would be given a chance to teach small groups.

The Medical School faculty has discussed this report at monthly meetings throughout the year. The recommendations have met with stiff opposition from hospital doctors who teach the two clinical years, and from professors who fear the loss of power and autonomy by the departments. Other faculty claim that the Medical School, as a professional school, should not attempt to offer the flexibility of an academic graduation education. The subcommittee report, if not delayed indefinitely, might emerge from the faculty in a watered-down form which would institute meaningless changes. Attempts at reform by small groups of students and faculty seem stifled by outspoken commitment to the status quo among their fellows.

The Ed School

At the School of Education, this commitment is not stifling, but the students observe a substantial inconsistency between the goals which the school espouses and the educational process by which these goals are supposedly attained. The Ed School, in accord with the purposes outlined in the Scheffler Report of 1965, proclaims its commitment to training excellent educators who will also be agents of social change. Students accept this goal, but feel that their education is not living up to it.

The voices of discontent claim that students suffer from gaps in the curriculum, from boring and conventional teaching methods, and from the lack of an effective voice in school policy decisions. Dissatisfaction came to a head in February of 1966 when several ad hoc groups formed to agitate for specific reforms. A group of thirty students asked for two supplementary non-credit seminars on group process and social change, and their request was granted by Dean Sizer. A smaller group began its own study of the problems of urban education, a crucial area which they felt the school was ignoring.

When confronted with vigorous agitation for the privilege of student representation on faculty committees, Dean Sizer recommended that students sit on the Library and the Lectures and Publications Committees. Some students were still dissatisfied with this arrangement. They wanted a say in curriculum changes, and therefore wanted to be seated on the Faculty Committee on Academic Policy. (FCAP) To protect their exclusion, they formed a "mirror" student committee to study the problems and to exert some student influence on the FCAP.

By December 1966, Dean Sizer agreed to let students sit on the FCAP and on the Admissions Committee. But some members of the faculty still question whether these high-level administrative groups are the best forum for a student-faculty dialogue.

Course Evaluation

Other forms of communication are indeed being initiated. A spontaneously formed student group published a course evaluation book last fall which has sparked much debate. The book collated student comments and criticisms, and then offered the faculty members the opportunity to reply in print. The question of course evaluation was again raised by a student faculty panel discussion, and by an ad hoc committee which recommended changes in the grading system. Initiative came from both faculty and students for the creation of an independent student-faculty committee on instruction to continue to discuss teaching evaluation, curriculum changes and grading.

A proposal for the coming year would allow student participation in Area (broad departmental units) meetings. And the course evaluation book will include evaluations of entire Degree programs instead of the less significant individual courses.

Students admit that the faculty is uniquely accessible at the Ed School, and that many members have indicated that they too see a need for encouraging a collegial atmosphere, for seriously evaluating their own educational offerings, and for creating a channel for serious student opinion on school policies. The critical push for reform has this year been organized and focused, largely through the efforts of the Student Association and the course evaluation committee, on topics of great significance for the educators themselves.

The Law School

Student agitators for reform at the Harvard Law School found too that the law faculty was not only willing to provide them with a channel for their complaints, but was far less hostile to specific reforms than the students might have suspected. In November of 1966, Dean Griswold appointed twelve members to a joint student-faculty committee to discuss all issues of student complaint. Independent agitation for such a committee had come from individual students, from Professor Clark Byse who used these students as his allies to start the faculty moving toward reform.

Many students were immediately suspicious of the joint committee and feared that it would serve only to thwart more radical student action. But Dean Griswold selected as members just those students who had expressed greatest interest in instituting changes, and designated Clark Byse their Chairman.

After a few quiet weeks, two second-year students decided to prod the committee into action. They wrote an open letter, invaluable as a well-reasoned document of student concern, outlining the areas in in which reforms were needed. It questioned the rigid numerical grading and ranking system, according to which the student's access to important "Honorary" extra-curricular activities, and possibly his future career plans, were determined. Criticism extended to the Honoraries themselves and suggested that many positions be opened up to free competition and that the School provide more activities and practical internship experiences.

The two student authors also raised the issue of discrimination in job placement, and recommended curriculum changes which would provide for more electives, promote extended writing experience, expand cross-registration with Harvard graduate programs, and explore the advantages of smaller classes. Wide-spread agreements with these complaints was manifested in two public forums held to discuss reform at the Law School.

The student-faculty committee has since acted rarely as the initiating force for change. It has taken up the issues suggested to it, and passed these on with recommendations for action to the appropriate faculty committees. The joint group was instrumental in eliciting Dean Griswold's public statement against discriminatory hiring practices in February of this year. The committee also approvide the plan for a one-week reading period for first-year students, and supported the Curriculum Committee's recommendation that all second-year course requirements be abolished. It issued its own plan for reform of the Honoraries which met with much hostility and little support but also stimulated further discussion among the Honoraries themselves.

The success of the reform movement will ultimately rest on student's understanding of what is needed to liberate themselves from the rigid and often depressing effects of the Law School system. Change in the grading system and the expansion of extra-curricular activities, two issues which the student-faculty committee will bring up next year, might be the key to success. Law students now have a ready-made committee to publicize and deliberate student problems -- they must see that it remains effective.

The Planners

Students in the Department of City and Regional Planning in the Graduate School of Design have organized their own association to advo- cate educational reforms and to keep the students and faculty mutually aware of their discontent.

The planning students formed the Harvard Association of Planners (HAP) in March of 1967. They specifically wanted to gain representation on important faculty committees. It seemed clear that students could contribute to the Building Committee's planning for the Design School's new center. Students also wanted to be able to express their opinion on crucial curriculum and requirement changes which the Department often seemed to spring on them. A constitution for the group was approved by the planning students in March, a discussion series held by the HAP became a popular success, and Dean Sert granted permission for two students to join the Building Committee.

Students made their most effective showing before the Visiting Committee from the Board of Overseers in April. An ad hoc committee, with members from all Design departments, had gathered student criticisms and suggested reforms into a well-reasoned and comprehensive assessment of the school. Such a longterm analysis had never before been presented by the students, and the Visiting Committee was impressed with the display of organization and consensus.

The HAP has since requested that agendas for meetings of the Administrative Council and the Curriculum Committee be published so that they might request representation in certain discussions. The Association will publish a course evaluation book in the fall to provide for joint student-faculty evaluation of the curriculum.

Design students, and especially the planners, are pleased with their successful organization and their initial attempts to increase student-faculty interaction. But the faculty is still hedging on the question of allowing students in on policy decisions, and the long-term suggestions for reform still rest in the hands of the Administration and the Overseers.

A group of first-year students in Economics also began in March of this year to articulate the unhappiness and grumblings registered by individuals. After several weeks of discussion among themselves, the group presented a memorandum of complaints to the faculty which they felt represented half of the first-year class. The document criticized the overemphasis on rote theorems and proofs in two basic courses, complained that the faculty was inacessible and overly concerned with maintaining its research empire, and put in a plea for a more critical approach to the teaching of economics which might avoid blind acceptance of models and economic masters.

Common Issues

In general, these student movements for educational reforms in medicine, education, law, design and economics, diverse as they may seem, do share certain concerns and have advocated in common the issues of curriculum reform, increased faculty interaction, and participation in policy decisions. The activists seem motivated by the conviction that their opinions are not only relevant but important, and by the unwillingness to accept the educational process as a static system which they cannot question. Their gripes are no longer personal but public and well-articulated. Discussion is satisfying for a time, but it is action which they seek.

Reformers also share common problems. Conservative faculty response forces delays in student plans at best, and entirely thwarts reform at worst. Equally frustrating for the activists is the conservatism and apathy among their fellow students. They usually cannot claim to speak for a majority of their classmates, nor even reflect a climate of opinion. Law and medical students are satisfied with the system which will make them successful lawyers and doctors. Design students, in a small school which inevitably molds them into an intimate community through studio work, are perhaps best able to achieve a consensus of opinion. So while the activists are now more critical, vocal and well-organized, they remain essentially a minority.

Not Revolutionary

None of the reforms which these minorities have advocated are basically revolutionary. Only a few of the students might propose an overthrow of the entire post-graduate educational system. They would question the values which the system inevitably projects on the students, and scoff at the reverence in which society holds its products. Most of the graduate reformers reflect rather the concerns with power, with style and with participation which characterize many reform movements of the 1960's.

They know that power is to be achieved through organization and at the same time are learning how best to organize themselves. More important, they believe that power should be shared, not held in awe by those who happen not to have it.

Living the Discipline

They are dissatisfied with the style of graduate school life, and feel stifled by the overemphasis on theory or facts which seem irrelevant to their social conscience and wider human interests. Students want to be lawyers and architects and economists while they are students, to live the discipline rather than study it.

Finally, they assert that they have the right to participate in shaping the process which so shapes them. They suspect the Establishment of trying to thwart their innovative tendencies, they understand the corruptive effects of power, they believe they must participate in changing the system before it swallows them.

While many of the specific reforms they advocate may be tame, the philosophy they propagate is not. It will be significant if this philosophy, shared by youthful workers for Civil Rights, in the War on Poverty and within the Black Power movement, can be carried effectively into the graduate and professional schools -- the former bastions of secure traditionalism