Concentration Proposals Start to Move Past Council

The Faculty Council yesterday endorsed all of the recommendations put forth in the first third of the report from the Task Force on Concentrations, but decided to send only half of the proposals to the next Faculty meeting for a vote.

The other half of the recommendations will go directly to Dean Rosovsky in the form of council resolutions.

However, the most controversial proposal made in this section of the report--that the current Faculty legislation setting a quota for senior faculty participation in department tutorials be rescinded--received only indirect approval.

Instead of explicitly moving that the legislation be rescinded, the council decided on a motion asking each department to report its tutorial policies to Glen W. Bowersock, the next associate dean of the Faculty for Undergraduate Education.

The motion says Bowersock should then propose an alternative to the current legislation, which states that senior faculty should teach at least 30 per cent of the concentrators in each department.

The council also approved the appointments of four Freshman Council nominees to the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR). The students have thus officially broken the seven-year old student boycott of the CRR.

No one on the council objected to the appointments, Francis M. Pipkin, associate dean of the Faculty for the Colleges, said yesterday.

The first resolution that will now pass directly to Rosovsky is that the number of concentration programs should not increase.

The second resolution asks that future visiting committees for the departments should be smaller, should meet less frequently but for more time, and should include more career professionals.

Two of the last three resolutions charge Rosovsky with undertaking a study of senior faculty input into tutorials in each department and with investigating concentration programs that could be eliminated.

Rosovsky yesterday declined to comment on these last two resolutions.

Concern

The first of the Council's five motions to the Faculty focuses on the need for increased concern for concentrators in each degree program, and includes a requirement that the members of each department meet annually to discuss undergraduate curriculum.

Under another motion, each concentration would have to require a progression from the basic to more specialized courses in its program.

Paul C. Martin, professor of Physics and chairman of the concentrations task force, said yesterday he was "very satisfied" with the council's approval of the report's recommendations.