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Harvard Regulations

Harvard Economics Department Votes on Course Rules, 1912

Treasure room, Widener Library at Harvard University ca. 1915

Votes 1, 2 and 3 taken by the Harvard economics department in the Spring of 1912 provide a few details how the courses designated “Group Two: For graduates and undergraduates” were to govern the admission of undergraduates and the differential course requirements for the two types of students.

_______________________________

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(INTERDEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE SHEET)

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 8, 1912

Dear Lawrence:

You may be interested in certain votes recently passed by our Department. They are part of a general movement for stiffening our instruction and discipline. With reference to the fifth vote, I may add that we have it in mind to arrange next year for some systematic visiting of our courses for undergraduates (very likely by Hanus) with a view to getting suggestions. The sixth vote (and its corollaries) was intended to give instructors a defense against being pestered by requests for postponements on the part of undergraduates.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]

F. W. Taussig

President A. Lawrence Lowell.

 

[Brief biography of Professor Paul Henry Hanus (1855-1941), Chair of Harvard’s Division of Education, 1906-1912 ]

____________________________

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(INTERDEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE SHEET)

[Carbon copy]

 

Cambridge, Massachusetts

VOTES PASSED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS [pencil: April + May 1912]

  1. That such undergraduates only as are candidates for honors in the Division, and are in their last year of undergraduate work, shall be admitted to courses primarily for graduates.
  2. That graduate students enrolled in courses of the Second Group (for graduates and undergraduates) shall be exempt from all tests except the mid-year and final examinations, but shall be expected to do additional work, as may be arranged by the several instructors.
  3. That in those courses of this Second Group which meet ordinarily but twice a week, the instructor shall hold conferences at least once a fortnight with the graduate students taking the courses.
  4. That the scope and method of instruction in courses of the First and Second Groups shall be matters for Departmental consideration.
  5. That the Department shall arrange for adequate inspection of courses of the First and Second Groups.
  6. That theses by undergraduates shall not be accepted if handed in at a date later than that set by the instructor for the course, except in case of illness, or other unavoidable reason for postponement accepted as satisfactory by the Chairman of the Department and the instructor.
  7. That the same principle (vote 6) shall apply to written exercises of all kinds, and to stated conferences. Failure to attend a conference for a thesis, unless excused on the grounds above noted, shall preclude acceptance of the thesis.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers, 1909-1914 (UAI.5.160), Box 15, Folder 413.

Image Source: U. S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Treasure room, Widener Library at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, ca. 1915.