Seminar Role Shifting Now, Monro States

Dean Monro admitted last night that by opening Honors tutorial to all concentrators the College has caused a "shift" in the function of the House seminars, but he said there was no reason why open tutorial and House seminars could not both continue.

Monro was "uncertain" as to exactly what form the seminars would take next year, and pointed out that the Houses need not all follow the same policy toward them. He said that he and the House masters were "collecting information" on the existing seminar programs. Monro receives periodic reports from the House offices on each House's seminar offerings, and has discussed the matter this term with the House committee chairmen.

The seminars, though originally aimed at non-Honors concentrators, are now valuable because they can "strengthen the intellectual life of a House" at all levels, Monro said. He commented that the overall goals of the seminar program, such as furthering Faculty-student contact, did not depend on the seminars' being oriented toward one particular student group.

When the House seminars were first discussed in 1958, Richard T. Gill '48, Allston Burr Senior Tutor of Leverett House claimed that the seminars, if organized as substitute non-Honors tutorials, would be as unsuccessful as the regular non-Honors tutorial programs which several Departments have offered in the past. But Gill's response to the problem of the non-Honors concentrator was to suggest changing the Honors program to its present, open form, rather than to alter the seminars.

The actual opening of the seminar program took place last winter, when the University gave each House a small budget to finance its seminars.