Juniors, Seniors Freed From All Physical Training Requirements

Only Freshmen and Sophomores will be required to take physical exercise beginning with the short summer session, Dean Hanford announced last night. Juniors and Seniors will not take any required athletics at all, he said, and the number of hours for Freshmen and Sophomores has been reduced from four to three.

When the regular fall term begins in September, it will be the first time since the spring of 1942 that all undergraduates have not had to take physical training. Before 1942 only Freshmen came under the program of compulsory athletics.

Approved by Faculty

The change, said Dean Hanford, has been approved by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in order "to adjust the physical training program more closely to actual practice and conditions as they exist today." At the time the present system was adopted, the Faculty pointed out, the great bulk of students were going immediately into the armed forces; most of the men now going into the services from Harvard College are members of the Freshman and Sophomore classes.

It was desirable at that time, and still is, Dean Hanford said, that students planning to enter the armed forces be in as good physical condition as possible; but the conditions have changed so that the theory applies almost entirely to Freshmen and Sophomores.

Laboratory Schedules

Another important reason for the revision of the plan to eliminate all Juniors and Seniors in the future is the fact that many members of the two top classes have during the past few years been exempted entirely or partly from required athletics because of laboratory schedules or outside work.

With the reduction of the number of hours of exercise to three per week and the application of the program only to men in the Freshman and Sophomore classes, a stricter policy in regard to exemption will be followed, Dean Hanford said.