Shopping Period to Lose Five Days Next Semester

This spring's two-week "shopping period" may give Harvard students their last chance to choose classes at a leisurely pace.

Notices distributed to students in their spring registration packets warned them of an earlier fall registration date and a shorter fall course selection period.

Upperclassmen must register on Friday, September 16 next fall, and not on Monday, September 19 as previously planned. And next fall students must submit their study cards only five class days into the semester, instead of the current 10 days.

The announcement was signed by Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education David R. Pilbeam.

According to Undergraduate Council member Andreas Beroutsos '88, the decision was simply a return to previous policy. He said that Harvard made the shopping period two weeks long in the early 1980s, when registration deadlines conflicted with a Jewish holiday.

Pilbeam said yesterday that the deans shortened the shopping period in order to help large courses organize sections earlier in the semester. "A number of them [currently] don't start section meetings until the third week of the term," said Pilbeam.

Under the existing system, Pilbeam said, professors often make section assignments before they know which students have actually registered for their courses. The results are academically "undesirable," he said.

But the announcement from Jewett and Pilbeam said the changes are only an experiment. "We plan to review how well these changes work next fall and consider whether there should be any further modifications," the letter reads. "If the changes are not helpful, we will revert to the system that is currently in place."

Before making the changes, the deans consulted the council's academics committee, said Beroutsos, who chairs that panel. Beroutsos said councilmembers "generally agree with the move, "but thatthey did not take a vote on the shopping periodchanges.

The shorter shopping period will hurt enteringfreshmen most because of their inexperience, saidBeroutsos. Freshmen do not have concentrations andare rarely sure where their academic interestslie, he said.

To compensate for the tighter deadlines, thedeans waived penalty fees for dropping and addingcourses during the second week of classes andrequired professors to have syllabi available byregistration day. Council member Thomas D. Warren'88 said he had objected to an earlier draft ofthe plan that did not contain these provisions.

Faculty members in charge of sectioning largecourses also praised the letter. "I can't imaginethat it will not be an improvement," said WeraHildebrand '79, a course administrator in the Coreprogram.

"The main advantage is that everyone settlesdown to work earlier," said Hildebrand, whoarranged sections for the 949 students inAssociate Professor of Government Michael J.Sandel's Moral Reasoning 22, "Justice," last fall."Teaching fellows will know how much they will bedoing and how much they will make."

"Teaching fellows will know how much they willbe doing and how much they will make."

Assistant Professor of Economics Lawrence B.Lindsey, the head section leader for SocialAnalysis 10, "Principles of Economics," said thenew deadline would also help his course, which wasthe second largest at Harvard last semester.Lindsey said the changes will help him findappropriate classrooms earlier than usual nextfall and will prevent students from falling behindin the course.

Students interviewed yesterday had mixed butmild reactions to the changes. Many agreed withBeroutsos' opinion that freshmen would suffermost.

The decision to cut the shopping period willhurt students looking for Core courses, said ScottDuncan '89. "It's really good to be able to shoparound since so many of them are kind of bogus,"he said