Word: failings
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...thrown on its own devices, the HPC was able to convince the Faculty that the fourth-course pass-fail idea is workable. The HPC turned to what Norr calls "a lot of politics" -- a letter to Dean Ford, conferences with CEP secretary Edward T. Wilcox, and visits to individual CEP members...
Norr told the CEP that pass-fail would allow students "a different kind of educational experience within the courses they took." Without grades they would be freed from "pressure to regurgitate the official line," and a few might use the three hours on a final exam to tell the instructor what they really think...
...whatever reasons, the CEP voted to approve pass-fail in principle two weeks after Norr's testimony...
Other problems are more substantial and are still unresolved. The Faculty decided not to try to stiffen the Harvard definition of "pass" for purposes of pass-fail, but individuals may still be able to impose a stricter definition on their own courses...
Under the CEP legislation, an instructor has the right to bar pass-fail from his course. Few are likely to be so blunt. "It would be churlish of an instructor to say 'take me 100 per cent or not at all,'" Riesman comments; "I think most can be chided out of such totalism...