Word: pbk
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...Pusey suggested that PBK may have outlived its original function, which was to draw attention to the academic side of college life. At Harvard academics get enough attention without any help from PBK, and perhaps it is time for the fraternity to find another function...
Lately, some Faculty members (including at least one Allston Burr Senior Tutor) and even undergraduate PBK members have also complained sub rosa about Harvard's chapter of PBK. Disgruntled with some choices, they have criticized election procedures...
Harvard's chapter is unique in PBK because the undergraduate members choose their successors. At all other colleges, the dean announces the eight or sixteen people who have the highest grades in their class, and that is that. At Harvard, seven "Graduates," including some faculty members, the graduate secretary of the chapter, and a dean representing the Administration, are supposed to assist at each election, and they, like the undergraduates, have one vote each. In practice, those "Graduates" that come to elections generally just supply information when asked...
According to the handbook for new members of PBK, election means "recognition of intellectual capacities well employed, especially in the acquiring of an education in the liberal arts and sciences." Instructions to the electors interpert "intellectual capacities well employed" more narrowly as "scholarship." "Good character" is also relevant (PBK presumably excludes outright criminals), but the phrase "achievement in extracurricular activities" is an anathema...
...Advanced Standing or has taken a leave and has been in the College for only a year and a half. Then, many feel, even the grades are too few to be reliable, and the ordinary juniors are at a comparative disadvantage. But this is an internal problem of PBK. The more general problem of criteria of choice remains...