Keep 148-9

THE CHAIRMAN of the Social Relations Department will ask his Faculty to take an extremely serious action on Tuesday--he will ask its members to vote to drop from the department's offerings next year Social Relations 148 and 149, courses with a combined enrollment of over 900 students. The chairman, Roger Brown, has suggested that the leaders of the two courses, Thomas J. Cottle and Jack Stauder, both assistant professors, apply for General Education sponsorship. But this is hardly any solace. Gen Ed Director Edward T. Wilcox refuses to estimate the chances of the courses' approval under his program. The leaders of Soc Rel 148 and 149 do not think the chances are good.

But whether the chances are good or bad, Roger Brown has distinctly failed to come up with a reason for dropping the courses from his department's rolls. Somehow, Brown thinks the courses "belong better" under Gen Ed--he seems willing to risk killing a highly successful course just to maximize the specificity of departments. And even if we accept this as an admirable goal, Brown will somehow have to account for other courses on social change within his department, courses with a different point of view on social change from 148 and 149. Brown also brings up arguments on "irregular" grading, "unqualified" sectionmen, "activist" sections. But these arguments have all been heard before, both by the Soc Rel Department and by the Faculty's Committee on Educational Policy--and the courses have been approved and then reapproved.

Certainly, it is a serious matter when a department chairman tells one of his Faculty members that he cannot teach a course anymore without an adequate explanation for such a decision. The freedom of Faculty members to teach what they want within Faculty regulations is obviously an important principle for any university to preserve.

BUT THE case of 148 and 149 goes far deeper than the preservation of this freedom. The two courses present a radical point of view on social change in America--they are virtually the only courses in the Catalogue to offer this point of view. Since Brown and the other opponents of this course have failed consistently to offer a sufficient explanation for booting the course out of their department, since they have continually harassed the course leaders with arguments that have been resolved as long ago as the CEP meeting of October 9 (when Dean Ford called 148 a "valuable experiment"), since the courses' opponents have not visited sections or talked with a considerable number of students taking the courses, and since they refuse to be specific about the alleged "irregularities"--because of all these things, it can only be concluded that the course is being opposed on political grounds. Roger Brown and the other opponents do not want a radical course in their department.

If this is true--if the course is being opposed on political grounds--then a decision to stop it would be calamitous for this University. There are 633 students taking 149, learning about the Chinese Cultural Revolution from a man who spent two years there while it was going on, learning about radical organizing from radical organizers, learning theories of social change from Soc Rel and Ed School grad students. The course, for those involved, is a new and exciting educational experience, as well as an exciting personal experience. The course, by any imaginable criterion--enthusiasm, enrollment, achievement--has been an overwhelming success. Perhaps that is why some members of the Soc Rel Department seem so bent on getting rid of it.