In the archived Columbia University graduate economics department papers one finds an extended discussion about a university administration initiative in 1955-56 to adjust teaching loads to meet a fiscal crisis. The economics chairman, Carl S. Shoup, asked the young economic historian on the faculty, David Landes, to brief him on the teaching situation at Harvard. The following “note to self” by Shoup offers an obiter dictum or two that one would not be able to glean from published Harvard catalogues alone, e.g., “This system is also well suited to a coeducational program.”
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Interdepartment Memorandum
Date: February 18, 1955
Carl S. Shoup
Memorandum for Files
Record of Conversation with David Landes on Harvard
Technique of Handling Graduate and Undergraduate Classes
Landes tells me that at Harvard in economics, there are three kinds of courses. First is an elementary course for undergraduates in which there is one lecture a week before a class that may range from 50 to 300 students or perhaps even more. Another two hours a week is taken up with section work handled by graduate students who are somewhat below our instructors in terms of the amount of their responsibilities (I understand from Hart that in some of these elementary courses one lecture will be given by one professor, another professor will come along the following week and so on). This professor is a senior man whose chief interest is in the graduate field. Nevertheless, there seems to be considerable competition among the senior professors for the privilege of giving these big lectures. Not all senior professors give such lectures and not all are competitors for the task.
Then there are mixed courses containing 20 or 30 students or so, some of the students being undergraduate and some graduate.
Finally, there are the graduate seminars attended only by graduate students.
In no case does the graduate professor have to take care of the mechanics of grading undergraduate examination papers, taking attendance, etc. All these chores are handled by the young assistant.
As a result, there is no well-defined undergraduate faculty in economics as there is in Columbia. Landes thinks this system is undoubtedly the most economical, but it has the drawback that the undergraduate student who reads the catalogue and thinks he is going to get some big name to teach him in his beginning course finds that he does so only to the extent of sitting in a large group and listening to the professor without ever getting any personal contact with him.
This system is also well suited to a coeducational program.
Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economic Collection, Box 5, Folder “Budget Meeting—1955-1956”.
Image Source: The Harvard Gazette August 30, 2013 photo of David S. Landes.