Dartmouth Course Guide

The appearance of the fourth edition of the Dartmouth Course Guide, 1970, the student-published review and evaluation of courses and professors, provoked a predictable spate of letters to The Dartmouth, both approving and condemning. The Guide is a hefty, 168-page, paperbound book which evaluates all departmental major fields of study and some non-major programs such as black studies and environmental studies. In addition, it reviews 180 individual courses.

These critiques are based, in part, on questionnaires sent to students asking comments on courses given during the fall and winter terms of the past academic year. Students were asked to rate such things as knowledge gained, interest created, organization of subject matter, reading, examinations, and evaluations of papers.

Hailed as a "commendable, sometimes impressive job," and a "'starting point for serious evaluation," the publication has also been faulted as "distorted and fallacious," "contradictory," and "based on unreliable data." One evaluation called it "a consumer's report which should not be taken too seriously lest it lose its usefulness."

In addition to the critiques of the courses and departments, the book publishes the statistical material gathered by the questionnaires as well as the questionnaire itself.

Editor-in-Chief Kenneth M. Bruntel '71 was assisted by Eric M. Danoff '71, executive editor; Christopher D. Crosby '71, managing editor; Thomas G. Jackson '71, publisher; William S. Orosz Jr. '71, general manager, and 12 associate and assistant editors and 105 writers. The book sells for $2.50 and may be purchased from Dartmouth Reviews, Inc., 301 Bartlett Hall, Hinman Box 749, Hanover, N. H. 03755.