Council Discusses Drop in GSAS Size

The Faculty Council discussed yesterday the effects of declining enrollment in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) on teaching staffs and suggested possible alternatives to the use of graduate students as teaching fellows.

The council brought up the issue in a general discussion of Dean Rosovsky's annual report, a comprehensive review of GSAS, to be released next month.

Edward L. Keenan '57, dean of GSAS, said last night that at the recommendation of the Wolff report on the GSAS in 1969, the school has been cutting enrollment to better serve each student. This year's entering class is roughly half the size of the class ten years ago.

Enrollment is also declining because the tight academic job market discourages people from seeking advanced degrees, Keenan added.

Some departments are having trouble finding enough graduate students to teach sections and tutorials. Keenan said the problem will become more acute in the next few years as enrollment continues to decline and teaching fellows are needed for the Core Curriculum.

Limited Demand

"The kinds of courses undergraduates flock to are in some cases precisely the fields in which graduate opportunities are not good," Keenan said, citing American History, Government and Folklore and Mythology as examples.

The Government Department, partially in response to the shortage of graduate students, this year set up junior seminars taught by Faculty members as an alternative to junior tutorial, generally a smaller course taught by graduate students, Keenan said.

Council members also suggested possibly reinstating the teaching rank of instructor, a post for Ph.D. holders below the rank of associate professor but above that of teaching assistant.

Harvard largely abandoned the use of instructors in the '60s when the University could not attract new Ph.D. holders to fill such a low rank.

Keenan said the reinstitution of instructor posts would help fill teaching posts and would also help provide employment for Ph.D.'s. He added, however, that the costs and benefits of the move have not been worked out in detail.

Lee Smolin, a fourth--year student at GSAS and a member of the Graduate Student Council, said yesterday graduate students have other concerns about the teaching fellow system that Rosovsky's report should address.

Graduate students enrolled in fields such as Celtic Studies, which is taught to few undergraduates, sometimes have trouble finding teaching fellow posts although they could teach in other fields.

Another problem with the assignment of teaching posts is that some graduate students need more time to complete their studies than others. Students can usually only secure teaching fellowships for four years although they may need to hold teaching jobs for longer, Smolin said.