Times, They Are a-Changin’

The Committee on Undergraduate Education is presently engaged in a transition of great consequence. The fundamental structure of our core academic program is in flux. The very organization of our undergraduate education may be overhauled. Nothing, we imagine, could possibly be more demanding of the Committee’s time.

We refer, of course, to their proposal to increase the time awarded students for travel between classes—assuming, of course, that someone bothers to create more courses that actually count toward General Education. “Harvard time”—the colloquial name given our unofficial seven-minute lateness-amnesty window—is a venerable institution here. We question, then, why would anyone deign change it? Are students truly so sluggish that seven minutes is an insufficient ambulatory period?

We are rarely late to our classes. Perhaps it’s because our bodies are in peak physical condition. Or maybe it’s just because we rarely attend class. But why bother going, or changing the duration of the passing period for that matter? After all, lecture videos always start on time and if Hollywood has taught us anything, it is to not meddle with time travel—err, travel time. Nevertheless, for those who are routinely late, we have come up with several solutions, each better than any that we’ve heard proposed thus far.

Instead of increasing travel time across the board or lengthening classes, we could instead adopt a cellular service style pay-per-minute lateness plan. Is Expos in your five? Or maybe we could borrow CNN’s hologram technology, such that we could be beamed into lecture each morning. If that fails we could switch to “Stanford time,” in which lateness is excused up to three hours.

If the CUE decides to proceed with any readjustments to our schedules, we hope they consider a creative solution. In this era of transition, let’s be sure we take a few extra minutes of pause ourselves before rushing into change.