Word: fails
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...debate began 40 years ago when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) approved the first pass-fail option at Harvard. Henry Ford II Professor of Social Science David Riesman ’31 said at the time, “Most students here take too many courses. They chop their emotional energies into too many little bits. We should be encouraging students to play from weakness instead of strength, but the system here puts pressure on the student not to extend himself in areas where he’s awkward because he fears not doing brilliantly...
...changes allowed students to have one of the usual four half-courses per semester graded pass-fail, excepting requirements like the Core Curriculum. It also delegated concentration credit policy to each department, in an effort to appease faculty wary of students taking too many pass-fail courses, which, at that time, was an effective compromise for addressing a new and revolutionary desire for academic freedom...
Unfortunately, Harvard’s pass-fail option has changed little since then. It was revolutionary in 1967, before the introduction of similar programs at some peer institutions like Brown and Princeton, but it is unimpressive today. Though students can supposedly opt for as many pass-fail courses as they want (though rarely more than one per semester), concentration credit policy is still subject to departmental whims...
...educational luminary that supposedly encourages the pursuit of “veritas,” Harvard’s Faculty should liberalize the pass-fail option by mandating concentration credit policy for pass-fail courses in all departments. Departments should accept any relevant courses for concentration credit—whether those courses are letter-graded or not—with the exception of foundational or introductory courses. Right now, the risk-taking it was meant to encourage remains limited purely to students’ electives, and has little impact on our serious academic pursuits, which all count towards the tyrannical...
...common occurrence in our otherwise hyper-P.C. environment. Straight people don’t say, “That’s so gay” because they understand why it might be hurtful; but knowledge about mental illness is often lacking and misinformed, and many underestimate (or fail to consider) the severity of mental illness and the grief that jokes at its expense may cause. The Harvard community should be commended for the sensitivity and support it has shown to students who have partaken in mental health-related activities over the course of April (arbitrarily designated...