Faculty Members Take Their Tea--And Their Time

And would I, after tea and cakes and ices.

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

The Faculty answered J. Alfred Prufrock's question yesterday spending two hours in polite discussion after convening over tea and cookies in the Faculty Room of University Hall. No motions were put forward, none passed, but the Faculty members got their choice of tea or coffee along with baked goods for half an hour before settling down to business.

Tea before meetings is an old tradition which had lapsed since the Spring of 1969, when the number of members attending meetings forced the Faculty to move first to the Loeb Drama Center, then to Sanders Theatre. In the aftermath of the University Hall bust in 1969, there were sometimes two meetings a week to handle all the items on the docket.

Last month's meeting was cancelled for lack of business.

A silver tea urn got the afternoon off to an inauspicious start yesterday, when its handle jammed. After years of desuetude, the machine seemed reluctant to return to its old functions. The staff worked over the urn for a few moments, and got it back into shape as the Faculty began to queue for tea.

The urn stood on a table at the south side of the room, under the portrait of President Emeritus Nathan M. Pusey '28, the last man to preside over a Faculty meeting in the room.

Faculty members began drifting in at 3:30 p.m. just as tea began, and about 70 were present by 4 p.m. when the meeting was scheduled to start. Dean Dunlop came early and circulated through the group, although he abstained from tea.

President Bok arrived just before the scheduled meeting time, went directly to his seat without passing the tea, and began the meeting. At about 4:10 p.m., the 131st professor filed in--giving the meeting a quorum.

The meeting itself was in two parts, the first dealing with the readmission of a graduate student by the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities and the voting of degrees for students graduating in the Fall term.

In the second part of the meeting, Ernest R. May, associate dean of the Faculty for Undergraduate Education, read the results of a survey of the departments of the Faculty. May reported on the ration of faculty to students, size of courses, and number of teaching fellows in the departments.

Although he did not make any motions, he noted the relatively low student-teacher ratio in some graduate courses, and suggested that a redistribution of faculty time might be in order. His report will be circulated in printed form in the near future.

The Faculty also voted approval of the catalogue for the Harvard Summer School, a move which met with little opposition