Harvard Sponsors Two Students At Conference on Free Schools

Two student members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE), Richard S. Tilden '71 and Steven R. Bowman '72, traveled to California last week to attend a threeday national conference on free schools and to investigate experimental college programs.

After attending the conference-sponsored by the New Schools Exchange, a national coordinating group-in Buellton, California, Tilden and Bowman visited free universities and studied the curriculum programs at Stanford, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley.

Their trip was sponsored by the Winthrop House curriculum-reform study group which, like all the House curriculum groups, had received $500 from Dean May to spend for curriculum research.

One result of the trip is the four proposed curriculum changes released yesterday by the five student members of the CUE. The proposals call for elimination of the general education requirements, self-structured majors, establishment of a general studies program, and a better advisory system.

"Harvard is deplorably behind in education. The education is so uptight and unlifelike. We hope to work through the CUE to open students' eyes to this so there can be at Harvard a semblance of the freedom we saw at the free universities," Bowman said.