Far-Reaching Changes Could Come From Study Of English Department

Dissatisfaction within the English Department has spawned a student-faculty committee with a broad mandate to recommend changes in the department's undergraduate program.

The committee, according to department chairman Morton W. Bloomfield, "will try to redefine the whole meaning of the English major-for example, the role of creative writing and how historical we have to be."

Bloomfield will appoint three senior faculty members and three junior faculty members to the committee this week. Three underclassmen also will serve on the committee, which will make its recommendations to the English faculty next fall.

The faculty approved the committee at a meeting last Tuesday on the recommendation of John M. Bullitt '43, professor of English and chairman of the department's Committee on Undergraduate Studies. That committee has met throughout the year with seniors in English representing each Harvard and Radcliffe House.

Junior Exam

Also approved Tuesday was the Committee's recommendation for changes in the exam traditionally required of all English concentrators at the end of their junior year. Students now will be allowed to substitute a course in one of the three areas covered by the exam for the corresponding section in the exam, and the exam no longer will count toward the average that determines the honors with which an English student graduates.

The changes will go into effect for this year's juniors and for these seniors who have not yet taken their junior exam. Seniors who already have taken their exam will have their grade counted only if it improves their average.

John B. Radner '60, assistant professor of English, is trying to organize elections in each Harvard and Radcliffe House for a committee of underclassmen English concentrators, similar to the already existing senior committee. Student representatives on the new student-faculty committee will be drawn from this committee of underclassmen.