The College
preliminary to the special meeting of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees on November 20-21, when action will be taken on two all-important questions of year-round operation of the College and coeducation, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences met on October 25 and voted approval of the recommendation of its ad hoc Committee on Year-Round Operation:
"To achieve year-round operation and thus make possible an increased enrollment and the matriculation of women by September 1972, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences recommends to the Board of Trustees that, beginning with the Class of 1976, the Dartmouth A.B. should be granted in recognition of successful completion of 33 courses, including all earned course credits granted upon admission, and that the residence requirement for graduation should include one summer term.
"The Faculty of Arts and Sciences endorses the CYRO Report and recommends to the Board of Trustees its immediate implementation."
Although the issues of year-round operation and coeducation are linked, the Trustees earlier made it clear that they wished to consider the year-round question on its merits as an educational concept. A special study committee of faculty and administration members was accordingly appointed last May. After a summer-long study the committee brought in its report this fall, recommending a year-round academic calendar of four terms of approximately equal length, as an enhancement of educational opportunities and as the most practical means of introducing coeducation by September 1972.
The CYRO recommendation that a 33-course requirement for the baccalaureate degree be substituted for the present 36 courses would permit a reduction from 12 to 11 in the number of terms normally required to complete a degree program. A total of six terms in residence, including one summer term, would be required for the degree.
The CYRO report recommends greater emphasis on off-campus pro- grams, including the development of new ones. It also proposes an increase in freshman enrollment from 800 to about 1000 in each of the next four years, so undergraduate enrollment by 1975-76 will rise to 4000, of whom 3000 would be men and 1000 women.
The report further recommends new housing to accommodate the additional 200 students who would be admitted, if year-round operation is adopted, and to provide facilities for the 3400 on campus students by 1975-76. Under the plan, approximately 600 of the 4000 students would be away from campus each term, for off-campus study programs, work-study projects, or vacations.
The Trustees this month also have before them the report of a special Trustee-Faculty committee which studied the relative merits and feasibility of an associated school for women versus fully integrated coeducation. In that report the committee agreed unanimously on five basic principles: (1) that all applicants for admission be evaluated by an office with a single Director of Admissions, (2) that financial aid criteria be administered equally for all undergraduates, (3) that there shall be a single Faculty of Arts and Sciences for all undergraduates, (4) that all undergraduates who fulfill the degree requirements shall be awarded the Dartmouth College degree, and (5) that with respect to the quality of life at Dartmouth, all undergraduates shall be subject to the same regulations administered equitably by the appropriate College officers.
