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Show fin approach toward better universities "... I have much more faith in students stu-dents than do many of my colleagues. col-leagues. I believe they bring more to our institutions than they ever did before. I believe we make a mistake when we ignore their ideas and their reactions, when we allow them to be wasted on irrelevant rebellion. I believe the only way to escape from the strictures of stultifying tradition tra-dition is to seek innovations from all sources . . ." (Ed. note: Mr. Gale is a teaching associate in the Department of Journalism. This the last part of a three-part article on the relevancy rele-vancy of today's university.) BY DON GALE Another area where changes are drastically dras-tically needed is in the classroom and in the methods of teaching we employ. Rosemary Park, president of Barnard College, suggests: "Let us force ourselves to state minimum mini-mum requirements for our degrees, hot in terms of academic bookkeeping but in terms of substance. Let us reduce the teaching year for the student, leaving him to work by himself, to read by himself, as is standard practice in other lands. Let us insist that it is a privilege to be a student, not a right, that the university is no welfare state open to all but only to those who will develop an intellectual conscience and accept the discipline which comes from specialized knowledge." Miss Park states the objective well. But how is that goal to be reached? The first step is to limit all classes to no more than one formal instruction period per week. This would force students to do more work on their own in order to cover the subject matter. It would force the teacher to concentrate his efforts more on motivating the student to learn than on dis-: dis-: seminating knowledge, more on placing in- formation in perspective than on viewing a two-dimensional panorama of fact and opinion. It would allow the granting of I credit on the basis of substance rather than ! on the basis of attendance. It would make I possible the increase of teacher "load" ; rather than further decreases, exposing the experienced and exiciting teacher to more f students in a more meaningful way. It would provide a training ground for gradu-;' gradu-;' ate assistants and young instructors. I In addition to the one hour of formal I classroom instruction another period of v time could be scheduled for the class during the week. This might be called a laboratory period or a study period or a i seminar period. It could be totally flexible, I its frequency and length to be determined " by the subject matter. (For example, lower "... limit all classes to no more than y one formal instruction period per i week. This would force students to , do more work on their own . . ." J . division classes would presumably require more scheduled study hour time than upper division classes.) The size of these study groups should be limited to 20 or 25 j students. Attendance should be strictly voluntary. No instruction should be offered. of-fered. Instead, there should be in the room a resource person who could very well be a graduate assistant or a teacher in training. Students should be encouraged to come to the meeting room to study or to discuss j. the subject among themselves or to per-l per-l form laboratory work in the subject matter j,; area. Hopefully, the teaching professor would make a practice of visiting the study i sessions on occasion to answer questions or 0L to stimulate discussion. But any informa-yE informa-yE tional exchange to occur during these he study sessions must originate from the students stu-dents themselves. If a student received no (; value from these sessions, he simply would nC not attend, but the burden of producing a ,p; valuable interchange would rest upon him. "' Would the plan work? Of course. Be-cause Be-cause as one wise professor of long experi-ence experi-ence told me recently: "Within the limits of time and ability, students will do what-i: what-i: ev is asked of them. That is one reason Jf they come to college." 1S This plan asks more of the student, but " offers him more in return. He will learn f- to work on his own, to motivate himself f toward learning, to make value judgments and critical assessments on his own. (I am reminded of Stuart Chase's example in lc 'he Tyranny of Words." Twelve anonymous anony-mous poems were sent to hundreds of stunts stu-nts taking courses in literature, with the request for detailed interpretation. The in- member. He may change this assignment at any time simply by requesting the change in writing and substantiating the request with one or more reasons. The obligation of the faculty member is to meet with his group of students (never more than ten or twelve) once every two weeks in an informal infor-mal situation for discussion and counseling. The "Free" student docs not register for classes. Instead, he periodically files "Requests "Re-quests for Credit" toward graduation. The credits he needs for graduation roughly parallel those of the "normal" student, but he is allowed some leeway to set his own requirements. He may request credit on the basis of criteria of his own devising. For instance, he may decide that to receive three hours credit for English literature it is sufficient to read all of Shakespeare's plays two critical works and write a paper outlining out-lining his response. He may decide to attend at-tend classes and take the examinations for a mathematics class because he doesn't feel as strong in that area; at the end of the quarter he submits his examination grades for credit. Buring one quarter he may decide de-cide to concentrate on philosophy courses, & reading extensively in two or three areas, attending lectures, and spending some time with the philosophy instructors. The "Free" student does not register for any class, but no instructor can deny him admission, nor can instructors include him on their roll books. "Free" students retain their status only -by showing progress based on their own projected program of study. They might be given some special privileges such as study carels in the library or special study rooms. : One additional service is asked of "Free" students. They are requested not re- , , quired to submit evaluative reports of 1 courses, instructors, departments, and the university itself. These reports are filed in ! ! the office of the academic vice president (or similar official), and a copy is for- i warded to the individual or department ' concerned. Thus, the "Free" student performs per-forms a part of the critical function so ! j desperately needed. j j If I were teaching a class which was attended at-tended by one or two "Free" students each quarter, I would feel some satisfaction. On the other hand, if "Free" students occasionally occa-sionally attended early class sessions but soon dropped out, or if I received one or two critical reviews of the class, I would feel some compulsion to improve my offering offer-ing - no matter how secure my tenure. Certainly, there are shortcomings to this ". . . there are a few students who are self-motivated. They learn despite de-spite our strictures rather than because be-cause of them. At present we offer them little on the campus, and more importantly, we obtain little from them . . ." proposal. A few charlatans would obtain degrees fraudulently. But that occurs at every institution right now. I have much more faith in students than do many of my colleagues. I believe they bring more to our institutions than they ever did before. I believe be-lieve we make a mistake when we ignore their ideas and their reactions, when we allow them to be wasted on irrelevant rebellion. re-bellion. I believe the only way to escape from the strictures of stultifying tradition is to seek innovations from all sources. American universities have been criticized criti-cized heavily from many quarters. And rightly so, for there is much room for criticism. criti-cism. It would be a mistake to say that higher education is in desperate trouble, because as Fortune magazine pointed out four years ago, the "knowledge" business is the fastest growing business in the United States. It is precisely during such prosperous pros-perous times that pressures for efficiency are the least. We can get by with what we have; we have gotten by with it for many ' years. But higher education could serve our society much better by making just a few basic improvements. 1 have suggested three of them: (1) Revise the criteria and procedures proce-dures for obtaining advanced degrees; (2) reform the instructional system and its credit-hour base; (3) provide a control group of students and faculty to help evaluate performance. terpretations varied widely, of course, but "what confused the young people above all was that authors' names were omitted. How could they be expected to judge verse unless they knew who wrote it?" In addition to producing stronger students, stu-dents, this plan would provide greater flexibility flexi-bility in class scheduling and would provide more and better instruction with a smaller faculty using fewer classrooms more consistently. consis-tently. I believe that in a relatively few years a plan similar to this will be operative on more university campuses. It will be augmented aug-mented by increased library facilities, improved im-proved publication capabilities and probably prob-ably continuously scheduled television "lectures" in special rooms where students come and go as they please. But it will take an exceedingly strong institution to make the first step in this direction. It will undoubtedly incur the wrath of the American Association of University Uni-versity Professors, and old-guard, numbers-counting numbers-counting accrediting organizations will more likely withdraw accreditation for a period of time. Only the strongest institutions institu-tions are willing to undergo that kind of academic blackballing. There is, however, one step in the right direction that can be taken by any degree-granting degree-granting institution right now - without waiting for the pacesetters. On many campuses students have organized or-ganized what are commonly called "Free" universities. The statement of purpose of the Free University of Utah reads, in part: "The Free University exists, first to raise questions in the minds of today's students that are not being answered in the university's univer-sity's courses, and second to provide students stu-dents with an opportunity to become involved in-volved in their own education. This can be " ' . . .Within the limits of time and ability, students will do whatever ir asked of them. That is one reason they come to college one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences ex-periences obtainable at the University." Free Universities are organized and operated by students, usually with the consent con-sent and cooperation of the administration. Some succeed. (Reportedly Stanford's Free University courses in "Beginning Touching" Touch-ing" and "Advanced Loving" are unable to find sufficient laboratory space.) Other's falter. (Response to the first offerings at this institution was as disappointing as. caviar.) But wherever it occurs the Free University experiment points to the desire of students for more meaningfulness and less trivia in their classwork, for more freedom free-dom and less structure in their academic lives. They want to relate, individually, to their society, and they want to do it under their own power using their own initiative. Some institutional efforts have been made to respond to student needs in this area. The Ford Foundation helps support an Honors Program on many campuses. It is intended to both reward and challenge the superior student. But in practice the program simply results in "more of the same." Honors students attend the same classes as other students; they simply do more work, read an extra book or two, and "... whenever it occurs the Free University experiment points to the desire of students for more meaningfulness mean-ingfulness and less trivia in their classwork, for freedom and less structure in their academic lives. . ." meet periodically to report on their progress. pro-gress. The cynic might well view the Honors Program as being more a criticism of standards than a response to student needs. The Ford Foundation also provided grants for experiments in totally unstructured unstruc-tured education at three colleges Allegheny Alle-gheny in Pennsylvania, Lake Forest in Illinois, Illi-nois, and Colorado College. Those experiments experi-ments are still underway, and results have not been reported. However, there is an experiment which all institutions could try and should try. It requires no foundation funds, and it serves to correct some of the problems which exist. The experiment is based on the establishment of a parallel path toward a degree, geared to the individual rather than the group. Most students are more comfortable com-fortable in a structured learning situation. They like to be told where they are going and how to get there. They like the security secu-rity of well-defined assignments, the comfort com-fort of accumulated credit hours, and the satisfaction of comparative grades. But there are a few students who are self-motivated. They learn despite our strictures rather than because of them. At present we offer them little on the campus and, more importantly, we obtain little from them. I believe we should make use of these self motivators as a sort of campus control group, at the same time giving them a great deal of freedom in return. A small percentage of students - say two percent should be selected as members mem-bers of a special group through application and motivational measurement. They are not called honor students - hopefully they represent a cross-section of academic ability - but "Free" students or something of that nature. A similar percentage of faculty members those dedicated to advancement ad-vancement of education are also named part of the group. Each "Free" student requests re-quests assignment to a specific faculty |