ERG Elects Students to CUE; Representatives Discuss Issues

The Educational Resources Group (ERG) elected five students to serve semester-long terms on the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) at a meeting Wednesday in University Hall.

Daniel M. Berman '79, Victor P. Filippini '80, William A. Groll '80, Gregory M. Kee '79 and Maxine S. Pfeffer '81 were the top five vote-getters at the election and will serve on CUE until the end of this academic year.

The five students wrote position papers and answered questions at the ERG meeting before they were selected from a field of about 15 candidates.

The committee is the only body at Harvard concerned with undergraduate education containing student representatives. CUE is comprised of five student representatives, five faculty members and an administration chairman.

While most of the new committee members said CUE had considerable influence upon faculty decisions, Pfeffer doubted that a purely advisory student-faculty body could adequately provide for undergraduate input into decision making.

The new student committee members agreed yesterday that evaluating future proposals for a core curriculum would be the major issue confronting the committee during their term.

"The main thing I would like to see are good general courses for the non-concentrators that would, meet their interests, while still providing them with a well-rounded liberal education," Filippini said yesterday.

The electees expressed general agreement in their views on a number of other issues that CUE will be examining.

"In the tutorial programs, senior faculty are just not meeting their responsibilities," Groll said yesterday. Pfeffer last night proposed "the institution of standing student departmental committees to insure consistent tenured faculty participation."

Berman said he hopes CUE's planned establishment of a prize for teaching for non-tenured faculty would "provide incentives for junior professors to devote more attention and time to teaching as a worthwhile end in itself."

Kee said yesterday inconsistencies in House course offerings had aroused faculty hostility but that "the program should be saved because it has the potential to be an excellent academic experience."

Kee also said reading period in its current form was "absurd" but that faculty intransigence made prospects for change of the academic calendar unlikely.

After voting for the CUE members, ERG selected three co-chairmen to guide the group's future activities. Debra Gelin '79, Robin Hacke '80 and Bonnie Norman '80 were chosen by lot from six candidates.