English and the Gill Plan

The English Department stands firm as the major holdout against the Gill Plan of 1961, which recommended a voluntary honors tutorial and thesis program for anyone in good academic standing. The report stipulated that honors grades earned either within or outside a student's department should not be required for honors candidacy.

The English Department, which in 1959 had opened its honors tutorial to all concentrators, reinstituted in 1961 a non-honors tutorial and an exclusive honors program.

The department now offers English 98 (junior honors tutorial for credit) only to concentrators of Group III or above who have received an A or a B on their sophomore essays. This fall the rank list requirement has been lowered from Group II, and the sophomore essay grade will be replaced by a grade for the entire year's work in sophomore tutorial. Those who satisfy only one of the two requirements for English 98 may now take honors tutorial without course credit, and those satisfying neither may take non-honors tutorial. Junior honors candidates who qualify on their general exams then go on to take English 99 and write a thesis.

Walter Jackson Bate, director of undergraduate studies in English, justified the exclusive honors program as recognizing outstanding achievement during sophomore and junior years and providing an incentive to work hard. It is doubtful, however, whether the members of English 98 take much pride in the fact that some of their fellow tutees are not receiving credit and that others are out of the running for honors. And even if dangling a carrot were a respectable means of encouraging scholarly achievement, what the English Department is dangling looks more like the Sword of Damocles. Rather than encouraging the sophomore to try harder, the English Department's requirements are more likely to deter him from taking any difficult couses.

The policy of exclusion cannot help implying that the English Department believes some of its concentrators cannot do honors work. The rest of the Faculty however, has agreed that Harvard students in general are capable of both intensive tutorial work and a thesis.

Bate explained in 1961 that a non-credit honors tutorial might be aimed at those students capable of honors work but not well enough prepared in English literary history to dispense with a full schedule of departmental courses. This reasoning has evidently not influenced the present standards, because sophomore rank listing has nothing to do with preparation in English, either historical or critical. A sophomore's grade average may well cover three science courses and a Soc Sci. In any case, members of English 98 can take four departmental courses in addition to tutorial.

Bate further proposed in 1961 that credit tutees carry a work load equivalent to that of two courses, and non-credit honors tutees carry a work load equivalent to that of only one course. This scheme has never become formal department policy. In practice, however, some tutors do assign less work and give less time to their non-credit tutees. The department has admitted that non-credit tutees can do honors work, and it requires no given amount of preparation in English before junior year. Students in non-credit honors tutorial, then, should receive the same degree of attention as those in English 98.

Furthermore, if honors juniors not receiving tutorial credit deserve to do, and often are doing, the same tutorial work as those in English 98, there is no reason why they should not receive credit. In effect they are forced to take five courses while members of English 98 may elect to take only four.

The English Department's restricted honors program directly contradicts the Faculty's judgement about the capacities and rightful privileges of the Harvard student. The department cannot point to any unique conditions, inherent in the teaching of English, that justify its program. If the Department insists on maintaining its restrictive policy, it should at least recognize that rank listing is not a valid criterion for admission to honors work. The department awards honors degrees solely on the basis of departmental work. Surely a sophomore tutor's estimation of a student's abilities in English need not be balanced out by a compilation of grades based on courses which may have nothing to do with English.