Document 4: "Harvard or Radcliffe College Tutorial Report and Syllabus," Cambridge, Massachusetts, 22 May 1963, Elaine DeLott Baker Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

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Introduction

   In my sophomore year I got permission to craft my own major, "Sociology and Art History", which began with an individual tutorial with Francesca Cancian. At the time, I was living with my "boyfriend," a graduate student in government who I met through a Widener library coterie (see headnote to Document 7). We started dating in the fall and made arrangements to live together that spring. I told my parents that I'd be living with my high school friend, Irma, who lived in Cambridge; I told the Radcliffe authorities I'd be living at home. The arrangement seemed natural to me, based on my Israel experiences. By chance, Ms. Cancian lived in the same apartment building as my boyfriend and I, which my tutor and I tacitly acknowledged, though never openly discussed. I recently contacted Ms. Cancian and asked her how she viewed my co-habitation at that time, which was a clear violation of Harvard/Radcliffe rules. She answered that it was not a "big deal" and that that she herself had lived with her husband before marriage. I consider the tutorial report fair, if not generous, although I don't agree that I was more of a historian than a sociologist; I would characterize myself as a participant observer, a term often used by anthropologists to describe their relationship to the societies they studied.


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HARVARD OR RADCLIFFE COLLEGE TUTORIAL REPORT

(See "Information for Instructors", Section 4)




TUTOR'S COMMENTS:

She is by far the most intelligent of my students this year. She is extremely interested and well read in certain historical problems, especially the French Revolution. She is capable of very clear and complex thought. Her problems as a student are: 1) erratic work habits, 2) fallure to work on courses in which she is not interested, 3) fallure to consistently work up to capacity even when she is interested. She is very independent and somewhat bohemian; definitely not grade oriented. She seems to antagonize instructors who value neat appearance and promptness. I was unable to teach her much about social science methods; she still thinks primarily like a historian. She should be encouraged to do more work on scientific method and research techniques. She should definitely be in the honors program.

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