On Coeducation It started out to be a good idea, this joint issue with a upplement on Bryn Mawr-Haverford coordination, Es war in Traum, After we started soliciting articles, that is, e began to wonder whether this coordination between «| ur purportedly progressive schools was as real as we had taken for granted, Sure, there are some shining examples of bi-college = cooperation: the federated Economics Department, the : mutual Russian Department, the joint activities in the arts, coeducational classes, the fast for Vietnam, Harry A ine the bus, the meal exchange, campus mail, and the : inevitable social life, . However, what we were looking for was some insight -into the potential for Future Coordination--but all we zx Coordination, Meanwhile, the Haverford and Bryn Mawr Arts Councils rejected our proposal for a joint arts : festival. We couldn’t even find any political a’gogos to #e¢ write an article about the fast, let alone on possibilities - for a joint conference of some sort, Any sort, At this _ 888 point we weren’t being picky. * The most hope, it would appear, is for future co- * ordination in the academic sphere. What Mr, Schmidt # suggests in his article on the foreign-language depart- = ments might be feasible in any department of the two : colleges, Since students. may. take courses at. either : school, why offer the identical courses at both Haverford #: and Bryn Mawr? With greater coordination, fewer dupli- : cate courses would be offered, and professors would be se left free to teach a greater variety of courses, From an =# administrative viewpoint, it is unlikely that many more % departments will be federated, but coordinated course # offerings are as desirable as a coordinated calendar, oe and are hardly out of the realm of possibility, = Truthfully, the most disappointing thing about evaluat- = ing bi-college cooperation was discovering that by and see large neither students nor ee ake seem to q ES anticipate any further coordination, The preceding sug- | = gestion to eliminate duplicate courses is practically ‘ the only immediate possibility, It would be unfortunate, # with so much potential at each school, for bi-college “ coordination to remain static. Granted, coordination already exists to a considerable : extent, which is half the reason sor this joint issue, But Bryn "Mawr and Haverford are not known for leaving : : things half-done, We hold the conclusion of this editorial, therefore, to be self-evident: it would be advantageous or both Bryn Mawr and Haverford in nearly every way if the two colleges were to merge into one magnificent co-educational institution, Self Gov Solution Self-Gov is circulating a questionnaire that explores , the relation of the student to the honor system that. administers her social behavior. The central issue is the perennial clash of personal standards with community responsibility, and a thorough evaluation is long over- due. A student in residence at Bryn Mawr has voluntarily entered herself as a member of the college community for a four-year term. No individual interpretation is possible on this matter, Her acceptance of a dormi- tory room is tantamount to a declaration of citizen- ship, . ’ The Self-Government Association is a student organiza- tion dealing with student concerns during this residency. When Self-Gov abdicates its position or allows its func- tions to become hazy, the administration may step into the vacuum, A general confusion of respective roles has recently been evident, with freshmen turning first to the dean in moments of crisis instead of carrying their bewilderment over conduct regulations to the hall president. The present situation has characterized Self-Gov as the defender of the individual and the administration as the champion of community cooperation, This dis- tribution of support is a distortion of the proper redlms of responsibility, Community life is a central concern of students and falls under the jurisdiction of Self-Gov. . In its present self-examination, Self-Gov is enter- taining the prospect of a statement of policy and the task of rendering explicit the ambiguous discredit clause. Such measures are minor steps that do not strike at the core of the difficulty. A formal regulation can be just as easily ignored as an indistinct hint, as exem- plified by the frequently perpetuated and observed violations of the smoking-in-rooms rule that are neither curbed nor reported, An official statement would serve only to cloud the issue by adding another unfounded pronouncement to the present litter of specific rules and vague policies, The response to the smoking rule is symptomatic of the general attitude toward Self-Gov that plagues the campus, The general philosophy of the social honor system is submerged in a welter of rules, some ar- chaic and fuzzy, others painfully detailed and irreve- lant to the lives of many students. Entering fresh- men are indoctrinated at once with a large dose of Self-Gov principle, but the pressure to pass the rule exam leads to a preoccupation with the myriad details involved in winning a passing grade. The returning hordes of upperclassmen, spouting doctrines of priva- tism and personal rights, further negate the concept of community ties, The most effective remedy for this state of affairs is education, and the most effective instructor is’ the hall president. Freshmen should be taught early that Self-Gov is «a philosophy of independence and consid- eration, allowing room for freedom of principle with- in a framework of mutual respect in- the dormitory and in the college community. Upperclassmen need to be reminded of the foundation beneath the restric- _ tions; the hall meeting is the obvious channel of instruc- 22: tion, Be Self-Gov is a representative organization with a double responsibility to students as individuals and as a group, Rules are a means of enforcing minimal i: standards ‘for the benefit of the group without inter- Ed fering with the rights of the individual. The proper em-3 ae phasis must be restored to the general. understanding * of Self-Gov, and education through hall presidents as = links of liaison is the simplest, most efficient correc-: tive, 3 neice Activities F Undergrad, at its meeting this week, decided to poste : pone until next fall any further consideration of the rais- ing of the student activities fee. Two facts, immediately : evident, make this seem particularly unfortunate. First, the degree of general interest in the subject: of the activities fee and the level of general knowledge : about the actual and potential uses of such a fee are: at present remarkably high. Postponement of a decision : on this matter will necessitate a massive re-education : of opinion in the fall when there will be an entire class of new freshmen, ss to have an appreciable effect on the quantity and/or caliber of next year’s activities, it would have to be 2: agreed on now, for it is now that next year’s calendar 2% of events must, in large part, be set up. ae Two different proposals for the increase of the fee # have been put forward--the first, one of $1.00, which #% would serve mainly to compensate for inflation; the = second, one of $9.00, almost doubling the total, which, = while it would probably not enable a radical change in % such things as the type of speakers secured, might well 2: make more feasible the arranging of topical programs : : extending over several days and providing a concentrat : ed exposure to various aspects of the same subject. : An educated student opinion has recently been polled on : the matter of a fee increase; the general response wa not merely favorable, but enthusiastic. It was scarcely : i a mandate for inaction. % Sampling of Professors Favors Pass-Fail _ Before a pass-fail system is Seriously considered by the faculty or administration, there are many practical questions which the students ought to keep in mind. Sev- eral of these came up in an interview with Mrs, Alice Emerson of the Bryn Mawr Political Science Depart- ment. After commenting that the new policy of drafting students probably was the cause of an increase in in- terest in this system in men’s colleges, she said that its many other advantages applied very well to Bryn Mawr. She thinks that it is “certainly something we ought to try.’? The two purposes she sncihains a pass-fail system as being able to implement are: 1) giving students a chance to explore new areas other than their major; and 2) working for a general de-emphasis of grades. The pass-fail courses a. student takes thus ought not to be a fifth course, because theoretically the student ought to be working just as hard asif she were receiving grades, If pass-fail were presented as just ‘another way to audit a course and so were not taken as seriously as it might be, discussion-based courses could be ruined by pass-fail students continually being unprepared. This brings up the problem of what kind of courses a student might take on a pass-fail basis. We asked several girls which courses they would like to take this way, and no one specific course or field was men- tioned particularly often. In fact, a surprising number of girls said that the option of pass-fail wouldn’t make any difference in their course choices. This sug- gests that no one course or courses would be inundated with pass-fail students, ‘Another question to be settled is whether or not the teacher should know the student is taking his course ‘on a pass-fail basis or not. If not, should the girls re- ceive number grades on papers and exams even though these won’t go on the record? The University of Pennsyl- vania’s new plan specifies that teachers will not know the difference between pass-fail students and regular ~ ones. Mrs. Emerson’s point of view was that the faculty should know the difference, so they wouldn’t have to spend the time over their numerical grades. She also felt. that it would be_impossible at Bryn Mawr to keep ~ a secret of who was taking a course on what basis. What about the responsibility of the Deans’ Office? _ Should they encourage students to take their pass-fail | options in a. variety of courses, or let the student take them all in one field? (All this goes on the supposition that students would not be allowed to take a course in their major or for graduation distribution requirements as pass-fail.) Mrs. Emerson suggested that four semes- ters oyt of 31 could be taken as pass-fail, Mrs. Emer- son was inclined to let the student use her pass-fail time as she wanted, after emphasizing to her the pur- poses of the system. Miss Frederica de Laguna, anthropology, when asked to comment on a possible pass-fail plan for Bryn Mawr, recalled its similarity with the second semester of her senior year at Bryn Mawr, At that time, there were no senior comprehensives and all the grades were compiled by the end of first semester, so no grades received during the second semester were recorded for graduate school applications or for graduation class standings. Miss de Laguna’s first reaction to the plan was that it would make taking a fifth course easier, which she does not see as particularly advantageous. However, if it would in any way make school more fun (as she remembers second semester of her senior year was), she would be willing to try it. Basically, though, she was not sure if pass-fail would make much difference and advised everyone to wait to see how the new curri- ‘culum would work out, as well as how pass-fail worked in other schools, before new changes are initiated here. Her main point was that the Bryn Mawr grading sys- tem wasn’t such a burden that it needed to be avoided at any cost. In anthropology, she has found that‘her ma- jors have no real problem in getting into graduate schools, grades,’ was her attitude. Richard Du Boff, economics, was all in favor of some kind of pass-fail system for Bryn Mawr. He saw it as a possible step toward a much needed increase in flexibility in student-teacher relationships. The pass- fail system could introduce an atmosphere in which students would be encouraged to be more imaginative in their approaches to classes, in other words, to make ‘student application’? a more diversely expressed activ- ity. He thought a pass-fail system would be particular- ly adaptable to Bryn Mawr because of its small size and — the supposed high intellectual quality of its students. Es- “sentially he seemed to think that sucha system could very _well lead to the kind of démotratic education Mr. Oppen- heimer discusses in his article on page 6, Mr. Melville Kennedy, political sciénce, also ex- pressed an interest in adopting a pass-fail system, He was in favor’ of ‘‘anything to encourage experimenta- tion’’ in the eens aaa Mr. Du Bott, “he was con- “Students are frightening themselves over cerned with introducing more flexibility into the college situation. He didn’t feel that grades deterred many stu- dents from taking. courses here, but he did feel that ‘pass-fail would encourage students to take a fifth course, which, unlike some of his colleagues,he saw as a point in the system’s favor. He also said that a pass-fail system in creating flexibility, might in some way help ‘to integrate Haverford offerings, which ought to be en- couraged in any way it can.’? Discussing Haverford’s pass-fail plan, he said that any such plan would be use- less unless it was geared into the college’s credit ar- rangement. Kit Bakke The College News Editors-in-Chicf Terry Jones Lavid Millstone Nanette Holben E Kit Bakke 2 Associate Editors. .... eo tee 6.00 8 6 8 8 eS Maryanne Spriegel Business Managers ...... . + wwev es Fern Hunt, Diane Ostheim, David Wilson The Haverford News is entered as second-class matter at the Haverford, Pa. Post Office under the Act of March 3, 1879. The News is circulated on Fridays throughout the academic year to students and subscribers. The College News is entered as second buen mat- tes at the Bryn Mawr, Pa. Post Office under the Act of March 3, 1879. Application for re-entry~at the Bryn Mawr, Pa. Post Office filed October Ist, 1963. Second Class Postage paid at Bryn Mawr, Pa. Founded in 1914 Published weekly during the College Year (except during Thanksgiving, Christmas. and Easter holidays, and of Bryn Mawr College. The College News is fully protected by copyright. = Nothing that appears’in it may be reprinted phen ; OF oes méboet pores siO8 | of the Ediege te Chiat, na aie RES