B-School Recruiting

To the Editors of the Crimson:

In your October 4, 1988 edition you printed an article entitled "New B-School Rule Breached." In the article you accused a Business School professor of violating the students' Grades Non-Disclosure Resolution. If you had printed even the first line of the resolution in your article, you certainly would not have been able to make this accusation.

The first line of the Grades Non-Disclosure Resolution which was passed by the students of the Harvard Business School in May 1988 states:

"We the students of the Harvard Business School, so that we may promote a more equitable evaluation process in recruiting, hereby assert that recruiters should not request grades in interviews."

The key words here are recruiting and recruiters. The spirit of the resolution is not that first year honors should not be awarded or given to faculty members, but that recruiters should be encouraged to lessen the importance of first year grades in their hiring process. In an effort to assist the General Affairs Committee, the student government body, in their implementation of the resolution, recruiters were informed over the summer of the new student referendum. The Faculty did not and were not asked to sanction the non-disclosure of grades as an official School policy as was stated in the article.

No where in the resolution is it mentioned that the Faculty should not be given the list of first year honor students. In fact, it is necessary that faculty members receive a list of students who have been recommended for first year honors in order to officially vote honors. The General Affairs Committee was informed that the Faculty members would receive a list of first year honor recipients for the academic voting process.

It was unfair and inaccurate of your reporter to accuse a faculty member of violating a "new B-school rule" when that rule is non-existent. What was passed was a student resolution. The strength of the resolution does not depend upon the Faculty but upon the students who have chosen to bind together in refusing to release grade information to recruiters.

Given these facts, the professor had every right to release the names of the students who received first year honors. He did not breach any officially sanctioned policy of the Harvard Business School, and he did not violate the student resolution. He simply read the names of honor recipients in his own class to his own students, not recruiters or reporters. Quite appropriately, he sought to recognize, in a personal way, the outstanding achievement of his students. Such personal attention and caring in student/faculty relationships is strongly encouraged at the Business School.

The professor was unnecessarily accused of breaching a guideline which does not exist. If the reporter had seriously examined the meaning behind the student resolution, he would not have been able to assert the same accusations. The professor deserves an apology from the reporter and your newspaper. Anthony J. Mayo   Assistant Director MBA Program Administration