Directional for Tutorial

Much of enthusiasm which the junior retains for tutorial after his first year of it is not due to any excellence in current procedures. Most students, in a poll taken last spring, heartily approved the concept of tutorial, but were more pleased with the potential they saw in the system than with actual operation. Tutorial work, they claimed, too often lacks direction. Also, there has been little incentive for spending study time on tutorial work when the hours might mean a better grade in a credit course. Since thoughts for improving this situation have ranged from a distasteful compulsory tutorial to a plea for better tutors, no action had been taken. With this background, the decision of the Economics Department to institute oral examinations for all juniors is especially worthy of consideration by the five other major departments. With the exception of History and History and Literature, which already have junior general examinations, these other three fields could benefit from a similar plan.

Junior oral examinations can provide a convenient scale to measure the worth of a year's tutorial. Because the student's own tutor would head the board of examiners, all questions asked during the orals would be related to the year's work. Concentrators could still pick their own field for junior tutorial and the questions would be framed around this choice.

In addition to giving both tutor and tutee a better view of the year's progress, junior orals would frequently be good preparation for the senior year. Many honor candidates come up against orals when much more than a tutorial grade is at stake, and any experience in this type of examination can only be to the good.

As administered by the economics department, the proposed orals would serve a purpose apart from evaluation and experience. Juniors who had previously been in the non-honors category and who made a strong showing in the examination would be allowed to switch to honors if they wished. Thus, the orals plan would go beyond summing up past performance and could serve as a spur to better work.

The English department, conscious also of the aimless groove into which tutorial can fall, has experimented with a tutorial plan fitted into regular section meetings. The superiority of the Economics plan is evident: tutorial can remain unfettered by the limitations of one particular course and still-be assessed at the end of the year.

Economics tutorial can gain a boost from its program of junior oral examinations. Government, English, and Social Relations need this boost just as badly. Tutors in these fields might well consider the Economics plan as a practical, effective way to achieve both increased interest and improved tutorial performance.