Sidney Verba to Be New Gov Chairman

Sidney Verba '53, professor of Government, will replace Harvey C. Mansfield '53 as chairman of the Government Department after this academic year.

Verba said yesterday "grading will not be a big concern of mine," and that his first and most important task as department chairman will be to expand the Government faculty to increase the teacher-student ratio and the number of course offerings.

Mansfield, who has been department chairman for three years, was expected to step down this year since the position is generally offered to senior faculty on a revolving basis.

Verba will be chairman for four years, but will go on leave for two semesters at some point, Dean Rosovsky said last night. Verba said he accepted Rosovsky's offer of the chairmanship last week, although it has yet to be officially announced.

Verba said yesterday he would not try to set any type of departmental grading policy. He also indicated yesterday that there would be some changes in the Government tutorial program.

As part of a Mansfield policy partially intended to curb grade inflation, teaching fellows for sophomore and junior tutorials must submit to the department for review all student papers to which they give A, A-, or below B- grades.

Verba said yesterday, "It would not be appropriate to use the chairman's power to ask teaching fellows to justify their grades."

Verba added that because he could not enforce any kind of grading policy or review on senior faculty he does not plan to enforce it on junior faculty members, whom he does have some control over, since this would put students with teaching fellows at a disadvantage.

Mansfield, who said Verba's selection "was very widely approved" by the members of the department, added that under him the Government Department has done all it can do at the department level to stop grade inflation and that now it is up to the University.

Nancy Rosenblum '69, Jayne Assistant Professor of Government and head tutor, said yesterday she did not think Verba could change the present policy of reviewing tutorial grading since under University rules the Faculty cannot allow unsupervised grading, although it is done in many courses.

Verba said another important concern of his will be to find adequate staffing in the area of American government. He said that more faculty and courses in American government is needed since most political scieince work is concentrated in this area.

He said he hopes to "go out and search" for top talent to fill the department's empty chairs. "It's a mistake to just look for the big names," he added.

Sophomore tutor Constance B. Smith said last night she hopes Verba will bring changes to the tutorial program since she considers the present paper review in sophomore tutorial "a rather insulting policy; if they have enough confidence to hire us they should trust our grading."

Three Government concentrators contacted last night said they will be glad to see Mansfield go--mainly because of his self-declared war on grade inflation.