Save Shopping Period

SHOPPING PERIOD, a Harvard tradition for as long as we can remember, could die as early as next year.

The Faculty Council will soon consider instituting some form of pre-registration for classes, in an effort to help Harvard apportion classrooms and teaching fellows more efficiently. Members have said the council will not approve any plan preventing student from changing tentatively selected courses. But some administrators do support financial penalties for students who switch course selections after opening day. Those sanctions would effectively curtail the freedom to shop around for classes that is now one of Harvard's wisest academic policies.

The Faculty Council should reject any proposal for pre-registration that could bind students to courses chosen before terms begin. Certainly the College could poll students on their probable course choices ahead of time; more efficient assignment of classrooms and allocation of section leaders can only help undergraduates, albeit indirectly. But provisions for course changes that entail financial penalties, cumbersome paperwork, or notations on a transcript that a student had switched courses must not be included. And the council should solicit student opinion before weighing any alternative.

Shopping period, whatever the inconveniences it creates for administrators, is one of the few safeguards protecting undergraduates from unsatisfactory lecturers or unpredictable courses. Students exposed to dreary orators can switch courses freely, for ten days at least; undergraduates unaware of course requirements or concepts can avoid being locked into classes that don't turn out to be what their name suggests.

Almost as worrisome as the possibility of the effective elimination of shopping period is the prospect that pre-registration could pave the way for more limited course enrollments. Other colleges which require early registration often put ceilings on course sizes to reward early registrants. We counsel Harvard to reject this policy. The University should also urge professors with unexpectedly large classes to announce their plans for dealing with overflows at their first lecture, if not earlier. Too often, faculty members suddenly announce the exclusion of various groups--like non-concentrators, or members of a given class--well into a course's second week.

Many academic procedures at this College deserve to be revised; shopping period is not one of them.