Faculty Council Contemplates Honors, World Order Studies

The Ad Hoc Committee on Honors yesterday asked the Faculty Council to consider setting a fixed number of honors grades outside a student's field of concentration as a prerequisite for magna cum laude and cum laude degrees.

The proposed amendment would require honors grades in six half courses outside the area of the student's field of concentration.

Under the proposal, students who fail more than two half courses could not graduate with departmental honors unless they compensated for each extra failure with an honors grade in still another course outside the area of the field of concentration.

Francis M. Pipkin, associate dean of the Faculty for the Colleges and chairman of the honors committee, said last nigh the proposal is still tentative, but that he thinks when finalized it "should make everyone happy."

The legislation the Faculty passed last month requires honors grades in at least half a student's non-concentration courses, while the standards in effect until July 1977 require honor grades in at least two-thirds the student's letter-graded courses outside his field of concentration.

The council will discuss the tentative proposal next week.

The Faculty Council yesterday decided it will not endorse a proposal by Kary W. Deutsch, Stanfield Professor of International Peace, and several other faculty members that the Faculty make the Ad Hoc Committee on World Order Studies a standing committee.

The council proposed that the committee member consider remaining an ad hoc committee, or forming by themselves or jointly with the Center for International Affairs a Standing Committee on International Affairs.

The committee could not go to the full Faculty without the council's endorsement, but Deutsch said yesterday he believes it will choose one of the other options.

However, Deutsch said he does not know which one the committee will choose.