Faculty Clarifies ‘Summa’ Policy

At yesterday’s faculty meeting, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences affirmed that students are expected to earn A-range grades across all areas of study in order to be considered for a summa cum laude degree.

Though this policy has been practiced for the past several years by the committee of the Faculty Council that makes degree recommendations, they had not been explicitly stated in faculty policies.

In order to make summa requirements more clear to students—to promote “truth in advertising,” as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles said yesterday—the Faculty approved an amendment to the official Faculty policies on granting degrees.

The amendment reads, “Historically, the Faculty has expected to see A or A- work in any two half-courses in each of the broad curricular areas.”

Professor of Greek and Latin and chair of the Classics department Richard F. Thomas raised an objection to the language of the amendment, pointing out that it does not make A-range grades across all areas of study a requirement.

“I think the language doesn’t direct students to what is expected of them,” Thomas said. “If we are legislating an actual principle [that students must receive A-range grades across all areas in order to qualify for a summa degree], we should go ahead and make that a requirement.”

Dean for Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82 explained that the Faculty Council had chosen to use this wording in order to leave “wiggle room” for exceptional cases.

When the number of summa degrees awarded by the Faculty reached 160 in 1996, the Faculty passed legislation in 1997 which suggested that the percentage of summa degrees awarded to Harvard undergraduates should fall between 4 and 5 percent of the graduating class. The number of summa degrees awarded today averages roughly 140 per year.

That 1997 change included a provision that it be reviewed in five years, prompting the current review.

As part of the review, Pedersen and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz will contact “those concentrations that have recommended more than 10 percent of their graduating seniors over the past five years for highest honors to remind them that highest honors recommendations are meant to reward superlative work,” according to a letter to the Faculty circulated at yesterday’s meeting.

On the three-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Faculty also discussed yesterday how it will handle requests for information about students by government agents in light of attacks.

Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn raised the issue during the question period of the meeting, expressing his concerns that the University was not prepared for how it could respond to requests for information about students unrelated to a criminal investigation, as has happened at several other universities.

Mendelsohn recommended that the University develop a policy for handling such requests.

University President Lawrence H. Summers expressed similar concerns for the issues raised by Mendelsohn, but he said that, to his knowledge, Harvard has not to date been solicited for these kinds of information.

He also said he was resistant to the suggestion of developing a blanket policy for handling such requests because of the difficulty to anticipate every possible scenario in which government agents might solicit the University for information about its students.

Summers said the University would cooperate fully with lawful criminal investigations of students but would be “unwilling to lend support to any investigation...motivated by no more than racial profiling.”

Summers also noted that given the governmental investigations that followed the events of Sept. 11, he has instructed the registrar to contact the General Counsel’s Office, which would in turn contact him, in order to craft a University response to any governmental inquiry.

The Faculty also discussed yesterday ongoing changes in the financial aid plan of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).

GSAS Dean Peter Ellison gave a brief history of the improvements made in the school’s financial aid program since 1998. While the standard full financial aid offer to students in the humanities and social sciences in 1998 included two years of full tuition and two years of a 10-month stipend of roughly $13,000 per year, first-year graduate students this year were offered packages that included five years of full tuition, two years of a stipend totaling $16,200, a summer stipend worth $3,000 and a guarantee of a position as teaching fellow during their third and fourth years.

But Ellison said there is still a great deal of room for improvement in the GSAS financial aid program.

He spoke of extending summer stipends for students, noting that most students spend their summer doing research and writing.

“The idea that students are students for 10 months is an anachronism we’d like to leave behind us,” Ellison said.

Ellison said that such improvements in financial aid packages were necessary not only to improve the academic experience of students but also to help GSAS compete with other graduate schools. Ellison pointed out that since 1998, the yield on GSAS applications for students in the humanities has improved from just over 50 percent to 65 percent.

Ellison also discussed the need to improve financial aid packages for students in the natural sciences, particularly given concern over the pressure placed on first-year graduate students in the natural sciences to either teach or serve as a research assistant.

Summers seconded Ellison’s concern for improving financial aid for graduate students, noting its particular relevance to the College, given its heavy reliance on teaching fellows.

At yesterday’s meeting, Summers also introduced new University Provost Steven E. Hyman to the faculty. Hyman officially started in the post on Monday.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.