Writing Off New Plans For Expos

Harvard likes to operate quietly and settle its fights in the family, without any public outcry. So it was quite a surprise this week when Jean H. Slingerland, assistant director of Expository Writing, said she may resign because of the Faculty Council's apparently routine rejection of a proposed change in the Expos program.

The proposal--which Slingerland helped Gwynne B. Evans, director of Expository Writing, to draft--would have released about one-third of next year's freshman class from its Expos requirement in an effort to decrease Expos class sizes without increasing the department's budget.

But the whole proposal was apparently based on a misunderstanding.

Sources close to the Faculty Council said that last spring Evans asked then-acting Dean of the Faculty Franklin L. Ford, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, if he could increase the Expos budget. Ford reportedly said he could not.

So Evans and Slingerland put together their proposal assuming they had to stay within the present Expos budget, about $160,000 a year, and never asked the council for a budget increase--although the council and Dean Rosovsky are, sources said, willing to consider a raise in Expos funding.

Meanwhile, the council was far from pleased with the proposed change in Expos. Most of its members, sources said, felt Expos is a necessary part of everyone's freshman year.

So the council rejected the plan, and Slingerland talked about resigning--but the fight over the Expos plan is probably best viewed as a carryover from the confused transitions of last year, not a sign of future battles within the Faculty.