Case Histories: Fun and Games With the COI

The Commission of Inquiry (COI) yesterday released its long-awaited report on the conduct of Harvard police and other officials at last May 2's antiapartheid demonstration. But not all of its investigations have covered topics as weighty. In the past, the COI--which for most of the '80s has been littleknown and even less used--took on criticisms of the Coop's textbook-buying procedures, charges of monopoly levelled against Harvard Student Agencies, and allegations that an English professor gave unfair advantages to students who attended an Adams House review section. Those stories:

Cooperation with the Coop: In 1971, a professor named Herbert Bloch wrote to the COI that he was dissatisfied with how the Coop was handling its textbook ordering. "Because there is no established mechanism at Harvard for handling such complaints, the Commission undertook to investigate the matter itself," says the COI's report on the incident. After several meetings with Coop directors, it made several recommendations to improve faculty-Coop relationships, two of which it sought to implement.

The COI found several problems with the Coop, and the investigation revealed several interesting facts about the Coop's textbook buying policies. In particular, the report reveals that the Coop's textbook department was operating at a 6 percent annual loss, and that it covered those losses from operations elsewhere in the store.

The report also showed that in a five-semester period, professors did miserably in estimating how many books would be needed for their courses. Book sales were estimated correctly (within 20 percent of actual enrollment) 251 times. But professors overestimated the size of their courses 2557 times, while underestimating 535 times.

In response to these and other problems, the Commission recommended that:

* The Coop should make every effort to find, train and keep, "key staff members of the textbook department;"

* The Coop's chief textbook buyer needed more assistance;

* Professors should return their book request forms to the Coop earlier--any form "arriving later than six weeks before the start of instruction is late;"

* New class enrollment estimates be drawn up to make sure the number of books is close to the number of students;

* Professors and buyers should pay special attention to foreign materials, which take longer to ship and are often delayed;

* More floor space should be given to textbook sales.

"The recommendations of the Commission were arrived at with the full cooperation of the Coop management," says the report on the incident. It adds that while Coop officials stated their intent to implement all the recommendations, the COI was most, concerned with the third and fifth suggested reforms.

Trust-busting: "HSA is an inefficient conglomeration of student businesses which hides behind the shield of a Harvard-enforced monopoly while it enjoys the luxuries and benefits of the Harvard name."

In 1972, this view--as expressed in The Crimson--was pretty widespread on the Harvard campus, according to the COI report. So when it received a letter from the Kirkland House master and senior tutor raising allegations that HSA was a privileged monopoly which had a negative effect on academic performance, the COI undertook an investigation of the student-run business.

Its main recommendations were:

* Students with unsatisfactory academic records should not be allowed to become HSA managers or assistant managers;

* The position of the president should be eliminated, with those duties to be assumed by HSA's board of directors;

* Students on scholarships "should constitute a fixed minimum percentage of all HSA employees;"

* HSA should make a full financial disclosure, including distribution of wages and profit shares "to scholarship students, loan students, and other students;"

* The student employment office should maintain a list of all student businesses that meet University regulations for such types of entrepreneurial activity (in the interest of providing alternatives for student jobs and "eliminating undue favoritism of HSA by the University)."

A-House discrimination: In 1974, three students complained to the Commission that Professor of English Robert J. Kiely gave Adams House students and students who attended his office hours an unfair advantage in preparation for the final exam in his English 166 course.

The students said that neither Kiely nor section leaders scheduled review sections. But during reading period, Kiely was persuaded by an Adams House resident to hold a review session in the house dining hall. The review session was advertised only within the House. Thirty people attended.

The complainants said that Kiely gave away important information--such as the exam format and examples of questions--and said those who didn't go were discriminated against

Although Kiely told students in attendance at the review session to spread the word, students said this could not be done in time. Many didn't receive the information until just prior to the examination, if at all.

In its investigation, the COI compared grades of those with the additional information to the grades of those without for the final exam, midterm, and paper. It found that the midterm and paper grades of those with the information at the final were slightly lower than those without. The final exam grades of the students with the additional information, however, were nearly one-third of a grade higher (i.e., B to B-plus).

The commission made no recommendations for correction of the incident, other than to urge professors to prevent such a stiuation from happening again. The COI publicly acknowledged, however, that "a mistake was made when information concerning the forthcoming examination in English 166 was provided to less than the full class."

The commission said that the incident was regrettable, but that there were few avenues for grade modification. The COI determined that while the grade differential was significant, it represented less than one-third of the overall grade because of the weighting of the final exam. In the end, no grade modification was proposed.