Expos: A Sudden Resignation

The office that handles Expository Writing, the only course that everyone at Harvard takes, had a new staff and a new structure this year: Gwynne B. Evans, professor of English, was its director, Jean H. Slingerland, a graduate student in English, his assistant, and there was a new four-member Standing Committee on Expository Writing.

In early December the standing committee, along with Slingerland and Evans, proposed a new structure for the Expos program. They were low on money and overburdened with large classes, so they arrived at an obvious conclusion: cut back the number of students in Expos, and the money will go around better as class sizes shrink. They proposed an exemption from Expos for students with SAT and advanced placement scores above a cutoff level.

The proposal went, as proposals do, to the Faculty Council, and the council was not especially pleased with it. Releasing one-third of the freshman class every year from Expos seemed like an extreme move in a college so heavily oriented toward writing skills. After a series of discussions and meetings with the Expos people over a period of four months, the council was admanatly against the proposal. Slingerland talked to John B. Fox Jr. '59, Rosovsky's assistant, and found out that Expos classes were not actually as large as she had indicated to the council. The next week, after an emotional meeting with Rosovsky, she resigned from her post.

It's hard to say whether Slingerland resigned out of pride or because she thought the move would accomplish something, but most council members and U Hall observers seemed to regard it as an unusual exercise in futility. After the storm blew over, the council gave Expos a little more money and sent the office a nice conciliatory note--and next year, all freshmen will take Expos, under a new standardized curriculum. The whole affair is harldy likely to make anyone think that stormy resignations get things done at Harvard.