Out of the Fogg

Die to the occasional confluence of several bloated courses on the same examination date, there are certain days when the Registrar's Office cannot find enough adequate testing rooms for all the examinates. Whenever this happens, University Hall places the overflow in Fogg Large Room.

Hapless members of this overflow must descend to the bottom of Fogg, seat themselves in the cramped and uncomfortable chairs, and adjust their eyes to the miniscule candlepower developed by the room's scanty and misdirected illumination. This last adjustment is the most difficult, and the delay caused by all the squinting and straining required is a harsh and unnecessary burden, especially for those in courses like Humanities I where each question on a three-hour exams needs three hours to write an adequate answer.

So long as the Fogg Large Room is the only spare hall which the Registrar's Office can fall back on when the big courses come hot and heavy, there is some excise for its use. But now that Burr Hall has opened in all its vitreous glory, there is no longer any reason for damning undergraduates to the depths of Fogg. The new building contains two lecture halls, each with a seating capacity of over two hundred, enough to take care of most large courses.

Noticing the steep pitch at which Burr Hall's plush-backed seats are set, some people have claimed that examinations there would strain Harvard's keep-temptation to-a-minimum policy. But this danger is only present in courses whose exams require terse and short answers. Since final exams in most courses are of the essay type--it takes more than a quick wandering plance to gain any profit from a neighbor's essay--this objection is quite limited and easily overcome.

This year, regrettably, the exam listings took their final form before Burr Hall became available, and consequently the new lecture rooms are not scheduled for use. Despite this, however, there is no reason for the transferring the three non-Fine Arts courses, now assigned to Fogg, to Burr Hall. Although changes in location usually involve some confusion, there is still plenty of time to give students advance notice. And if the University still has qualms when the time comes for those exams, it can nail a sign to the Fogg portico announcing the change in unmistakable terms. And when undergraduates are faced with next year's exam period, they should be able to forget about the Fogg Large Room forever.