Economics Tutorial

It is good news that tutorial has come back to the Economics Department. Until this new move, the Department seemed to have dropped the undergraduate's status to an all time low, so far as the Division of History, Government, and Economics goes. This was brought about by the Department's unsuccessful attempt the year before to have its cake and eat it. At that time there was a "course" giving credit to students writing a thesis, but including no tutorial at all, which was a combination that the Faculty's Committee on Educational Policy did not consider cricket, since the requirement for honors is 16 courses plus a thesis. When the Economics Department found this out, it decided to leave the honors candidates holding the bag--which contained 16 courses and a thesis--and went about spending its money on better things, than tutorial.

So--good news that it is--this return of tutorial is actually the fulfillment of an obligation to undergraduates. It is this, at least, according to the standards of the rest of the Division. In fact, Economics tutorial will still amount to much less than Government or History tutorial, which honors Juniors get as well as Seniors. So there can be no cheering the Department's decision as an omen of the return of the entire tutorial system. It is far from that.

All this to the side, the fact remains that students in one of the College's larger fields will get tutorial for credit in their Senior year, if they are honors candidates, and that can make a big difference to those students. It can make a big difference, that is, if the Economics Department takes its tutorial seriously and does not let it turn into "advising," which has happened in some other departments, and if students take it seriously and do not treat it as if it were peripheral to their course work, which has happened throughout the College. Half-hearted tutorial, either from above or below, is not worth the time, the money, or the trouble.