CUE Delays Submitting Buffer Idea to Fac. Vote

Efforts by the student-faculty Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) to create a two-day buffer period during reading period stalled yesterday when the committee decided the issue needed further study before being put to a vote by the Faculty Council.

At the last meeting of the CUE two weeks ago, the committee supported a plan to cancel classes on the Thursday and Friday before exam week in order to give students a break from work. The committee suggested compensating for the loss of the two class days by having classes on two holidays during the semester.

Problems

But the initial proposal has run into several logistical difficulties, leaving the future of the plan in doubt.

The first problem arose Sunday night when the Undergraduate Council passed a proposal for a two-day break that did not mention making up the lost class days, said CUE member Steven A. Colarossi '86.

But faculty members of the committee said the plan must include making up the classes cancelled during reading period.

"The scientists and others feel very strongly that for these two weeks in classes that rely on labs and demonstations need that time in the classroom," said CUE chairman Steven E. Ozment, associate dean of undergraduate education.

"It's difficult for the faculty as a whole to tell individual faculty members how they should run their class," Ozment said.

Undergraduate Council members said that a two-day break without making up the class time would not disturb courses dramatically. "This semester is long enough. If a professor can't compensate for one missed lecture there is something wrong with his course," Colarossi said.

Additionally, the committe has discovered potential difficulties in trying to hold classes on scheduled holidays.

Eva S. Milofsky, administrative assisstant to Ozment, said the committee learned from Robert E. McGaw, an attorney from the university's Office of Legal Counsel, that Harvard would have to receive a permit from the city to hold classes on a holiday. But the university could reveive a permit a maximum of only six days before the holiday, which would make scheduling impossible, Milofsky said. However, McGaw is currently investigating the possibiltiy of making a pre-arrangement for the permit, she said.

Another sticking point involves paying university staff for working on a holiday. If departmental or tutorial offices were kept open, all staff would be paid overtime, Milofsky said.

Ozment announced yesterday that he will appoint a student-faculty subcommittee to meet within the next few weeks to review the council's proposal and the logistical difficulties, Ozment said.

"The issue is more complicated than we thought. We're not quite as sanguine as we were at one time," Ozment said. "But I do want to bring it before the faculty council for disscussion this year."