Michigan System of Working Off Probation Was Unworkable at Harvard Centuries Ago

"We would have a difficult time sending boys down to Stillman Infirmary to empty bedpans," Dean Harlan P. Hanson '46 said last night, commenting on a new system of academic punishment at Michigan University. The new plan requires students to work off penalties, instead of being suspended.

Two Michigan students--one male and one female--are currently spending 16 hours a week as orderly and nurse's aid in the university hospital, and giving their salaries to charity. Working off punishments was decided upon because the university felt that in view of the present world situation, suspension "could no longer be justified."

Comment by the Deans' Office indicated that suspension can be justified, at least at Harvard. Assistant Dean Thomas E. Crooks said that he did not think that working at Stillman would make the wayward student "any readier to study." Dean Leighton said, "We used to have 'rustication,' whereby students worked on farms, but that went out a couple of centuries ago." No changes at the University are foreseen.