Clippings on School Admissions (Folder)
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November 24, 1976 - May 30, 1979

16 pages
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Division of Legal Information and Community Service, Clippings. Clippings on School Admissions (Folder), 1976. 2bf3de01-729b-ef11-8a69-6045bddc2d97. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/1d108431-bd3b-420f-a057-a539a7a45913/clippings-on-school-admissions-folder. Accessed July 11, 2025.
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F. t i / n Making It, as a Black, at Harvard and Radcliffe NEW YORK TIMES. 1 1 / 2 4 / 7 6 By David L . Evans CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— So much has been written about the illegitimacy of special recruiting efforts for minority students,- black students’ disillusion ment and "reverse discrimination” that the mere presence of blacks at selec tive institutions has more and more begun to ilm-ply substandard oreden- tials or relaxed admissions Rolioies. Why is this? One reason is the almost total absence of news-media coveaiage of the successes of black students. This one-sided coverage ha®, in many cases, become an excuse for inaction and a belief that nothing can be done with out "lowering the standards.” Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges have no special programs for minority stu dents, but the more than 400 black undergraduates here have not escaped this unfair criticism. The first marshal of the Harvard College Class of 1976 visited the People’s Republic of China, was a Harvard National Scholar, a member of the news board of The Harvard Crimson, and was admitted to the graduate progtam- in East Asian Stu dies at Harvard. The. All-American captain of the 197S Ivy League championship football team now plays for the Chicago Bears and during his four years at Harvard was viewed as a campus folk hero! (“You couldn’t meet a more genuine person,” a classmate said.) The treasurer of the Radcliffe Class of 1976 chose to study sociology at the London School or Economics on a Rotary Fellowship instead o>f accept ing a place in the graduate school a t either Princeton or Yale. She is sorely missed at Harvard, especially a t the Kennedy Institute of Politics, where she served on the student advisory committee. The president of the Crimson Key (1975-76), who is now in his first year at Harvard Law School, was also a marshal of the Harvard Class of 1976, a National Scholar, and a direc tor of the Harvard Cooperative Society. All four o f these members of the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of 1976 — Ronald Wade, Danny Jiggetts, Mary Johnson, and Marvin Bagwell — are black. Their accomplishments contra dict the recent publicity about black students on selective college cam puses. That image is in need of a re appraisal, lest it continue to register as one of individuals undeserving of the desirable positions that they oc cupy. But despite the adverse publicity of the last six or seven years, black men and women continue to excel in diverse ways reflective of the best Harvard traditions. Although averaging above the 94th percentile on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, and thus belonging to the cream of the crop of all college-bound teen agers, black students who come to deserving of a fairer shake and of the Haa-vard far too often receive the respect commensurate with their dis- coolest, most ambivalent reception played abilities and courage as in- givey to any upwardly-mobile ethnic , dividuals. group that has ever entered these ivied One would hope that by now a dif- walls. The polite black student still ferent picture would emerge from this finds some of his white peers suspi cious and probing. “They are often trying to silently confirm that ‘awful something,’ ” ex plains one black student, "so even a casual conversation takes on a nasty competitiveness. I feel I have to be wary of making the little mistake that -will confirm what they are seeking— proof that ‘reverse discrimination’ is what brought me here.” Yet the average black student at Harvard/Radcliffe, like his or her white counterpart, is in academic rank “group III.” This rank or a higher one qualifies a student for the Dean’s List. There is something meritorious about young people who persist to ward an education in this often un settling environment when they are told that they are not qualified to be here, when there is only a handful of black faculty members and adminis trators as examples (despite Harvard’s affirmative-action plan) and when the smallest gathering of black students is labeled self-imposed apartheid, or anti- intellectualism. Although beset by many discouragements, black students have made outstanding contributions to the university community; they are particular campus than that painted by seven years of limited news coverage. David L. Evans is senior adm issions officer o f H arvard/R adcliffe. T H E N E W Y O R K WEUNKSDAY. V C Y O B E R li, 1'), About Education Report Backs Colleges on Use of Race as Entry Criterioi By EDWARD B. FISKE Colleges and professional schools are vigorously engaged in affirmative-ac- tion'^adnlBslons-program, and any re strictions on their freedom to use race as a criterion for acceptance could sub stantially reduce the participation of minority students in higher education, according to two officials of the Educa tional Testing Service. These were the basic conclusions of a study conducted by Warren W. Will ingham and Hunter M. Breland of the service for the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education. The two research psychologists found that, by and large, graduate and profes sional schools were enrolling minority- group students in roughly the same proportion as these students were rep resented in college graduating classes. On the other hand, blacks and other minority-group students arrive at both college and graduate and professional schools with “substantially lower” grade-point averages and standardized- test scores than whites. “To us this is evidence of strong af firmative-action programs on the part of the selective colleges and universi ties as well as medical and law schools," said Mr. Willingham. “It also suggests that if you do not permit schools to take race into account— if you insist that they look only at grades and test scores— then the effect will inevitably be to reduce the number of minority students in admission.” The role of race In admission to col leges and universities has become a major issue in higher education in the wake of a suit brought by Allan Bakke against the Medical School of the Uni versity of California at Davis. Mr. Bakke, who is white and was denied admission to the school, alleged that he was a victim of “reverse dis crimination” because minority candi dates of lesser academic ability were accepted through a special admissions program. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the case. The Testing Service’s study was part of a report on “Selective Admissions in Higher Education” published several days ago by the Carnegie Council. The report concluded that race was a rele vant factor—among many others— în determining who should be admitted to colleges and professional schools. The council also opposed fixed quotas and urged colleges to put their admis sions criteria “up front” for public scrutiny. The study, which was carried out with the assistance of two consultants, Richard I. Ferrin and Mary Fruen, found considerable evidence of a com mitment in the admissions policies of American colleges and universities. Number of Whites Entering At the college level, for example, ac cording to data from the American Council on Education, the percentage of nonwhites in entering classes in creased from 10.1 percent in 1967 to 13.8 percent in 1976. Mr. Breland noted that the latter figure were “still some what lower than the percentage of mi norities in the 18-year-old population.” On the other hand, the figures for minority college graduates show a con siderably different picture. Figures from the National Board of Graduate Education indicate that in the spriv of 1974 minority students received only 7.8 percent of bachelor’s degrees awarded in this country. According to the Council on Education nonwhite stu dents made up 11.4 percent of those entering four years previously. “The basic problem seems to be retention rather than unwillingness to accept minorities,” said Mr. Willing ham. “For various reasons, including financial problems and the general level of educational disadvantage, mi nority students are persisting in college at the same rate as whites.” Further evidence of colleges’ commit ment is seen in figures on the relation ship of academic ability to college selectivity, according to the Education al Testing Service researchers; Mr. Willingham noted that blacks i also tended to be under-represented in moderately selective colleges and over represented in colleges of low selectivi ty. “The situation seems to be that blacks, especially the most able ones, are either getting financial aid and going to the selective schools, or they go to the community college down the street, or to predominently black col leges,” he said. “They don’t go to the colleges in the middle.” The researchers found similar pat terns in the admissions policies of medical and law schools. In the fall of 1975, according to fig ures from the Association of American Medical Colleges, 41 percent of black applicants were accepted by medical schools, in contrast to 37 percent of whites. Mr. Breland noted, though, that f two predominantly black medica schools in the sample were discounted then the acceptance rates would hi “roughly equal.” Further figures, however, show that medical schools were, on the average, accepting blacks with less demonstrat ed academic ability than whites. Blacks accepted by medical schools in 1975 . had a mean grade-point average of 2.89 in college while those not accepted had a mean average of 2.70. Whites who were accepted had a mean of 3.52, whereas those not accepted had an average of 3.28, or 0.39 points above that of accepted blacks. Similar patterns hold true in relation to scores on the Medical College Ad mission Test, the researchers found. “Obviously we have affirmative action going,” said Mr. Willingham. The Data on Law Schools Regarding law schools, a 1977 study by the Law School Admission Council reported that whereas 59 percent of white applicants to law schools were accepted, the figure for blacks was only 39 percent. “This looks like discrimination, but it really isn’t,” said Mr. Breland. “If you look at the grade-point averages and results of the law boards, you see that within any ability level the black acceptance rate is higher.” Among students with Law School Admission Test scores of 500 to 549 and undergraduate grade point aver ages of 3.00 to 3.24, for example, 90 percent of black applicants were accepted as opposed to 84 percent of Chicanos, 60 percent of “other mi norities? and only 50 percent of whites. The Decline of Black Enrollme^fln Universities I B y Solveig Torvik After a decade of battling to break down the barriers to a college degree, many black stu dents seem to be turning then- backs on the ivory tower, They are disappearing in dra matic numbers from the California campuses they once fought to enter, particularly in graduate pro grams and at the more prestigious universities. The most telling evidence that something has gone awry with efforts to get minorities into the higher reaches of higher education is the follow'ing: 1 • Stanford University has seen its mmority graduate student en rollment decline, from a total of 533 in 1973 to 388 last year. Minority undergraduate enrollment, mean- whEe, increased except for Ameri can Indians. • Graduate school enrollment by blacks at the University of California campuses has dropped by nearly 20 percent in four years, the graduate enrollment of ehica- nos has declined by 4 percent and American Indian enrollm ent is down by nearly 8 percent. Future of Muni Fares The San Francisco Public Utilitira Commission received a report yesterday spelling out the consequences in revenue and ridership of a number of proposed Municipal Railway fare increases. federal funds, he said. “Somewhere down the road there will be a Muni fare increase,” PUC General Manager Rich ard Sklar said. Yesterday’s report, prepared by the private consulting firm of Gruen, Gruen and Associates, tried to predict what would happen if a various fare increases were enacted. The Gruen study estimated that a simple increase in the base fare to 30 cents, with nO change in the flve-cent student and senior citizen discount fare, would provide an extra $1.2 million in revenue. It would mean, however, a 2 percent decline in. the number of riders. ' Muni’s basic problem, Sklar said, is that while it cost $38 million to operate the transit system in fiscal 1968-89, and $85 million in fiscal 1978-79, it will cost an estimated $186 million to provide essentially the same service ten years from now. An increase to a 50-cent fare, with a ten-cent discount fare, would mean an extra $14 million, but a 12 percent drop in riders, the study estimated. “No fare increase in the world is going to make up that entire amount,” Sklar said. An increase could make up some of the difference, with the rest coming from increased state and The study noted, however, that even an ■ increase to a 75-cent fare during peak commute' hours, with a 5¢ fare for other hours, would provide for Muni’s financial needs only through fiscal year 198384, assuming the current levels of state and federal funds remain constant. er, are stronger academically than before, and Stanford is admitting a larger percentage of those who do apply, he said. ■Walker said it does not seem to be a case of graduate work at Stanford proving too difficult for minorities because their retention rate is about the same as for whites. “Minority students are begin ning to find that the Ph.D. is not as attractive economically as it once was,” he said. Since 1972, Stanford’s enroll ment of new black graduate stu dents dropped over 30 percent, while chicanes dropped 25 percent. But 12 more chicanes enrolled this year than last, a possible reflection of the growing numbers of chicane students completing undergradu ate degrees. The decline continued this year for blacks. • At the same time, UC’s un dergraduate black enrollment de clined nearly six percent, and chicane and American Indian un dergraduate enrollm ent has in creased. whose personnel recruiters seek minority students fresh out of college and lure them with good salaries and management training opportunities. Many of these stu dents are too poor to continue financially unrewarding graduate studies. “There’s a ̂feeling we don’t want them,” Cox said. “That’s not true.” The Bakke decision by the U.S. Supreme Court does allow UC to use race as a factor in admis sions, she noted. through teaching assistantships and grants. Financial aid has not d*a- clined for those at the m aster’s degree level, so that is not a factor either. Walker said. , The declines in minority enroll ment, for which educators have no clear explanation have come at a time when graduate and under graduate enrollment at four-year colleges has held steady or in creased. These changes mirror a national trend. Chronic lack of financial aid, the psychological impact of the Bakke decision and even allega tions of “Institutional racism” are all suggested as reasons for the decline on many campuses. The drop in enrollment of minority students reflects an equal drop in applications. Seeking the cause, however, educators most often cite a “brain drain” by businesses and industries The decline is expected to intensify the shortage of minorities in professorial ranks. Universities already under the gun of federal affirm ative action requirements complain they are unable to find enough qualified minority profes- “They’re getting creamed off by industry,” said Alice C. Cox, assistant vice president for student academic services at UC. Businesses holding government contracts also are monitored for their minority hiring practices under federal law. Some say minority students have been discouraged from trying to enter graduate and professional programs since Allan Bakke won admission to UC Davis Medical School with a lawsuit charging reverse discrimination. Jay Jones, president of the Black Law Students Association at Berkeley, contended that the uni versity never did defend its special admissions program for minorities wholeheartedly. That perception has filtered down into the commu nity and shows up in the number of minority applicants to law school, he said. Normally 280 to 300 minori ty students apply to Boalt Hall, Jones said. This year there were only 200. Stanford has not tightened c*- altered its admissions procedures in any way regarding minorities, h e said, and it has no “quota” o f mmority seats. Another factor, according to Jones, is that many graduate pro grams offered by universities faU to prepare students to work on the special problems of minority com munities, so would-be students are finding other means of bringing about social change. “I think the pressure is off,” said John Leonard, chairman of Berkeley’s Graduate Assembly, re-“ garding university recruitment of minorities. “They can come to the univer sity on the university’s terms,” Leonard said. He contended the university is less inclined to adapt Itself to the needs of minorities than it was when they first ap peared on campus in the ’60s. UC is now trying to identify “barriers” to minority students that might be preventing their enroll ment. A survey of 129 members of the National Association of State Uni versities and Land Grant Colleges showed black graduate school en rollment dropped nearly 2 percent between 1976 and 1978 while all other categories increased. Stanford officials express cau tious hope that they have stemmed the tide: In 1979 four more minority students enrolled in graduate pro grams than last year. Associate dean Arthur Walker, asked to explain the pattern of apparent dis^fection of minorities for Stanford s graduate programs, said, “It’s a bit of a mystery to us.” He discounted Stanford’s high tuition as a factor, since Ph.D. students, with the ekceptloii W those hi eflucSHon, are support^ . CXCIII NO. 68^ it Cream of the Crop? Elite Colleges Consider Many Factors in Search For a Mix of Students Going Beyond Test Scores, Duke Panel Seeks Talent, Diversity and Also ‘Spark’ Gumbo of Porkers & Whizzes By Anthony Ramirez Staff Reporter of T h e Wa l l St r e e t J o urn al DURHAM, N .C .-It 's a sunlit Thursday morning, and around a long wooden table, a college admissions committee squints at thick books of computer printouts and argues about a black high-school senior with much promise but bad grades. One of 12 children from a Detroit ghetto family, he wants to attend Duke University here, but his case perplexes admissions offi cials. Although they want to admit more blacks, this young man ranks in the bottom fifth of his class, and his scores are just av erage on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which is said to measure college potential. “He’s scary,” mutters Edward Lingenheid, Duke’s admissions director. Yet the Massachusetts prep school that the student is attending on an affirmative-action scholarship is one of the best private schools in the country. It backs him strongly, saying his character and leadership ability are outstanding. Painstaking Process After a few minutes of sharp debate, the committee, swayed mainly by the school’s praise, decides to accept him. He is one of more than 6,800 high-school seniors who want to get into Duke’s freshman class next fall. Only 1,000 will make it. Every year, elite colleges and universi ties get tens of thousands of applications from anxious high schoolers throughout the nation-and launch a painstaking selection process that most other schools don’t bother with. By mid-April, the colleges tell most of their applicants that they aren’t getting in. Watching the admissions committee’s delib erations here at Duke for a few days shows the sifting and sorting that lands some stu dents in the college of their choice, and leaves others-often with almost identical grades and test scores-rejected. lik e other selective institutions, Duke wants a “diverse” student body. The reason tng is that a kind of gumbo of top students who are different, either in the lives they have led or the talents they possess, pro duces opportunities for learning that books don’t provide. To admissions officers, get ting the right mix requires the work of rea sonable people trying to judge reasonably. To high schoolers and their parents, the pro cess can often mean apprehension and mys tery, followed by disappointment. Many Pressures The mysteiy is an inevitable result of the highly subjective criteria many schools use. Stanford University, for example, wants ac ademic ability and a “high energy level,” says Fred Hargadon, admissions dean, but doesn’t stipulate minimum grades or stan dardized test scores. Mr. Hargadon men tions a high-school student who runs a busi ness earning $120,000 a year, “We find that Interesting,” he says. Harvard University will admit students with average scores on aptitude te s ts -if the students “add some thing to the campus,” says William Fitzsim mons, admissions director. “The best possi ble mix is a student body in which students teach other students.” Here at Duke, picking “diverse” college freshmen is hard work, made harder by many pressures. The alumni office wants al umni children. Coaches want athletes. The music department wants musicians. The fund-raising office wants rich kids. Local boosters want North Carolinians. Minority groups want minorities. The faculty wants smart kids-but not “grinds” interested only in grades. And all the while the admissions commit tee is possessed by a fear of failure, of pass ing over a potential leader and rewarding a workaday mind. At one admissions meeting, Steven Vogel, a Duke zoology professor, asks an admissions staffer, “Why with such a fantastic pool of applicants do we get so many porkers?” Duke, which some educators call “the Harvard of the South,” could probably till much of its freshman class mechanically and objectively by picking those in the top 10% of their high school who also scored su perbly on standardized tests. Some parents think that’s the way the system should work. Burden on Upper-Middle Class “I ’ve been called anti-Semitic, anti-Ital ian, you name it,” says Mr. Lingenheid, Duke's 34-year-old admissions director. “But in what sense are kids qualified? That’s what admissions is all about. Sure, Johnny may have high testing, but he ought to, father’s an M.D. and mother’s an M.A from Columbia. Johnny’s gone to Europe over the summer. He’s gone to the finest prep school. He’s totally different from a promising black kid from Newark, who’s got 12 brothers and sisters, and whose peers hang around street comers all day.” Duke searches out students from disad vantaged backgrounds, Mr. Lingenheid says, and as a result, “There’s often a tre mendous burden on children of upper-mid dle-class parents-whites or minorities-to prove that they’ve taken advantage of the things open to them. Have they just slid along on their opportunities?” Almost all the critical admissions deci sions are made by the admissions commit tee-m em bers of the permanent admissions staff of nine plus any professors and admin istrators who want to get involved. The per manent staff’s five men and four women are mostly in their 30s or late 20s. Five are Duke alumni. Five have teaching experi ence. One, a man, was a college cheer leader. Two are black. The admissions marathon begins in early Please Turn to Page 2S, Column J Creatn of the Crop#- Elite Colleges Search For a Mix of Students Continued From F irst Page December, when the first applications trickle in. In all, the staff must ponder more than 8,000 applications (counting an extra 1,200 for the engineering and nursing schools), most of them in about nine weeks. Even with the hiring of seven part-timers (mostly faculty wives) to evaluate applica tions, each permanent staffer must study thoroughly as many as 50 applications a day. The fatigue is evident. " I want to know if I goofed,” says David Belton, an admissions staffer, asking advice from other staffers about a candidate. He says he had only two hours’ sleep when he read the applicant’s folder. (The candidate, after review, stays rejected.) Each application usually is read twice, first by a part-timer, and then by a perma nent staffer. They rate a candidate's aca demic and extracurricular records, assess ing both categories with letter grades from A through G. A student rating ”A/A” is hardly ever rejected, and one with a ”G/G,” the lowest rating, is hardly ever accepted. Almost all cases fall in between. Readers score the apparent difficulty of the applicant’s high-school courses, how well the student did in them, what his counselors and teachers think of him, what the reader thinks of the application as a whole, and the quality of the high school. This last category is Duke’s “very own, very esoteric” assess ment of “several thousand” high schools na tionally, says Mr. Lingenheld. After two close readings, each applica tion is reviewed by three to five admissions staffers, plus a faculty member and the dean of minority affairs. Typically, a staff member will “present” applications from one section of the country. The staffer acts as an advocate for applicants; his faint praise can be damning! The committee works from a 1,140-page computer printout that contains each candi date’s standardized test scores, class rank (if available), reader ratings, sex, race, whether there’s a Duke alumnus in the fam ily, whether the athletic department wants the student, and whether the fund-raising of fice wants the parents. Essays Also Important In most cases a staffer hasn’t met the.ap plicant (an interview isn’t required). So usu ally the committee must base its decision on a catalog of numbers, recommendations from high-school teachers and counselors, and intuition. Also important are the two essays stu dents must write-one describing their ex tracurricular activities and the other dis cussing a topic that concerns them. The black student from the Detroit ghetto, for example, submitted a well-written essay on the decline of inner-city schools, helping off set his mediocre S.A.T. scores. That stu dent’s case also got strong support from Da vid Belton, a black staffer and minority-stu dent recruiter. What’s more, the committee hoped that by taking him, other blacks from his prep school, with higher grades and bet ter test scores would be encouraged to apply next year. In other cases, the judgment is simpler. One applicant is an 18-year-old boy from rural Georgia. The class valedictorian, he scored 750 in the verbal and 730 in the math sections of the S.A.T. (800 is the maximum). His physics and chemistry teacher writes that he is an only child “adopted by older than usual parents (his father died this past fall) of rather limited financial means. These factors have made him more mature and self-reliant than most students of his * age.” A counselor says that his parents’ ed ucation was “minimal,” and that they have been “bewildered by this bright young man.” The student says in his essay that his two main extracurricular interests are writing and comic books (he buys 30 a month). “Many people scoff at comic books,” he writes, “and consider them juvenile. I feel, though, that these people are over-generaliz ing and maintaining a closed mind. Comic books occupy the unusual position of pres enting both literature and art simultane ously, combining the two media.” Sign Him Up The committee loves him. “Sign that boy up,” says Mr. Lingenheld. Sometimes the committee cares more about an applicant’s background than inter ests. A girl born in Taiwan has fairly strong grades and average test scores. Her counse lor says her work would have been better if she had lived in this country longer. For most of her life she has lived in Libya with her parents, a Nationalist Chinese army doctor and nurse now stationed there. For the last six years she has lived in the U.S., attending three Southern schools and cur rently a New England prep schiMl. Her brother and two sisters attended Duke. Although her writing is uneven, her Eng lish instructors praise her for insight and forcefulness in class discussions. “She’s had a tough life,” Mr. Lingenheld tells the com mittee. “This kid’s been on her own for a long time, and she’s shown drive and prom ise. There’s also this strong alumni connec tion.” The committee accepts her. In another case, alumni in the family don’t help. A New Jersey applicant comes from a longtime Duke family that has been trying very hard to get him in. Terry San ford, Duke’s president, includes a note in the student’s folder, saying he is “Interested” in the student’s application. “I believe his grandfather graduated from Duke,” he writes, "as well as his father in 1954. I un derstand that his only choice is Duke.” Many Lack “Spark” Mr. Sanford’s note doesn’t swing it. Al though talented in biology (the student scored a near-perfect 780 on his biology achievement test), he is basically a C stu dent. The committee turns him down, with out discussion. A major quality the committee looks for is “spark.” One student, typical of many, seems to lack it. The son of a prosperous Harvard graduate, he is trying to decide where he’s going in life. For “anticipated career” and “anticipated major” he has checked “un decided.” Gifted in mathematics (a 790 on the math section of the S.A.T.), he is only a B student overall. The committee considers his extracurri cular activities lackluster. He is a stamp collector, a Boy Scout, and a Sunday-school teacher, who also plays the piano and guitar and sings. On Duke’s scale, his grades X extracurricular activities rank him a “D/D.” Nevertheless, an admissions staffer in' eludes a note in the student’s folder: "Bad soph year but super scores. I really like him. Fine student-admit if possible.” His high school also recommends him “with enthusiasm,” but an admissions staf fer who interviewed him notes his “lethargic demeanor.” David Miller, another staffer, says his admission would be “tantamount to saying scores can get you in.” The student writes, “Years from now, all the pressure of this decision will probably seem funny. But right now it seems very im portant to get it all sorted out. 1 will be re lieved when the work and the waiting are over and commitment has been made, for better or worse.” The committee rejects him. Open Admissions Ruinous? Let’s Look at the Class of ’ll By Kenneth Libo City College is still reeling from the disastrous effects of the City Univer sity crisis. Moreover, the community at large, beset by more than its share of ills, is easy prey to any eloquent preacher of negativism. It is therefore hardly surprising that self-fulfilling prophesies of doom aimed at the Col lege have been receiving more than their share of attention in the news media nowadays. While I would defend anyone’s free dom to disseminate such dire predic tions, I nevertheless disagree with the thesis that the open-admissions expe dience has caused irreparable damage to the College. Such attitudes are pre dicted on unrealistic ideas of what the College should or ought to be. To be sure, we did go through a halcyon period from the 1930’s through the mid-1960’s in which we received more than our share of the best pre pared students in the city. Nevertheless, it is shortsighted to assume that any radical departure from such fortuitous circumstances leads necessarily to tragedy. Actually, through its involvement with open ad missions, the College has returned to what it was like at the turn of the century, a time when a largely in digenous student body was being sup plemented by a wave of newer students. Then, the sons of poor immigrants from Eastern Europe began entering the College in droves, while now dif ferent minorities are repeating the same pattern. A closer look at these two periods reveals additional similarities. Old- time instructors and middle-class par ents alike looked with disdain and suspicion at these “lower-class” new comers. Many, like Israel Davidson ’95, could barely read and write English. One day Davidson’s drawing instructor commanded him to go to the black board and draw a carrot. Davidson was embarrassed. A mere greenhorn, he did not know the meaning of the word. Nevertheless, he graduated with hon ors and later became a distinguished scholar of medieval literature. A 1904 C.C.N.Y. teacher’s report on the state of education a t the College might just as well have been written today. Most City College students then rarely heard standard English spoken in the home. It was therefore necessary to devote a large number of hours in many classes to reading, writing and speaking English. " I t is no reflection on the efficient work of the College,” the teacher notes, “to say . . . that the majority of our students' who fail in the examination for teacher’s license do so because of weakness in English, whether of accent, grammar, idiom or fluency.” Another similarity between then and now is the public school backgrounds of those who aspire to a City College degree. In 1906 in a public school on Henry Street there were 80 children in a classroom built for 40. The teacher, herself practically a child, was kept so busy keeping order that she had no time to teach. Her main subject was discipline. According to Abraham Cahan, editor o f The Jewish Daily For ward, school authorities then believed that the offspring of immigrant Jews were incapable of becoming anything better than clerks, and therefore en couraged them to obey and not to think. Those who made it to City College did not necessarily graduate. Morethan 1,000 students were accepted each year, but fewer than 150 received de grees. Those who did make it were put through a five-year program of inten sive education. According to Felix Frankfurter ’01, it was a great institu tion then for the acquisition of dis ciplined habits of work. This tradition is still maintained at City College by a core of hardworking teachers who instill in their students an awareness that the College offers them a last chance to make something of them selves. Many graduates of the earlier period went on to make significant contribu tions in business, the professions and the arts. Though only a few, like Felix Frankfurter and Morris Raphael Cohen, scaled the heights of their professions, many others achieved success and recognition on a smaller scale. Paul Abelson ’99, the son of a com mon laborer, established arbitration machinery for the apparel trade under the National Recovery Administration. Benjamin Antin ’10, who worked as a boy in a dismal Lower East Side sweat shop tor $3 a week, represented the 22d District of the Bronx in Albany from ,1923 to 1930. William Auerbaoh- Levy ’l l , a ragged youth whose talent for drawing was encouraged at City College, lived to see his etchings hung in the Library of Congress and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. For such people, this plain College was the only passport to a better way of life. Recalling their college years 40, 50 and 60 years later, many con fessed a deep sense of gratitude to the College for the faith it placed in them — a faith matched by no other institu tion of higher learning in the country. There is no reason why City College today cannot continue in the tradition of educating such people. All that is required is an unshakable faith in our selves, our students and the democratic way of life. __________ Kenneth Libo, an assistant professor of. English at City College, assisted Irving Howe on the book "World o f Our Fathers." THE PROMISE OF OPEN ADMISSIONS: AN EVALUATION AFTER FOUR YEARS AT CUNY Leslie Berger and Jeanette B. Leaf In recent years, open admissions has been a controversial subject, with supporters defend ing it on theoretical grounds as a means by which schools can educate students who are academically unprepared for college. This study examines the first class to be admitted under the open admissions policy at the City University o f N ew York in order to answer the questions and criticisms surrounding the program. Data have been com piled and re viewed in areas such as the allocation o f open admissions students, the scholastic progress o f the academically disadvantaged, and the retention and graduation o f open admissions students. I n Se p t e m b e r 1970 the City University of New York admitted its first class under the new policy of open admissions. Since its founding in 1849 as the Free Academy, the university has attempted to respond to the social, political, and economic milieu in which it existed. Its growth paralleled that of New York City, providing educational opportunity for the successive waves of immigrants who settled here throughout the 1900s. Open admissions was specifically initiated in response to the needs and demands of the most recent newcomers to the city, the blacks and Hispanics, who were sorely underrepresented in the college community. Having approved the new ad missions policy, the Board of Higher Edu cation stipulated that the policy adhere to the following guidelines: 1. It shall offer admission to some uni versity program to all high school grad uates of the city. 2. It shall provide for remedial and other supportive services for all students re quiring them. 3. It shall maintain and enhance the standards of academic excellence of the colleges and of the university. 4. It shall result in the ethnic integration of the colleges. 5. It shall provide for mobility for stu dents between various programs and units of the university. 6. It shall assure that all students w'ho would have been admitted to specific community or senior colleges under the admissions criteria that we have used in the past shall still be so admitted. In increasing educational opportunity for all, attention shall also be paid to retaining the opportunities for students now eligible under present Board poli cies and practices. Although the open admissions policy was formulated centrally by the Board of Higher Education and was on behalf of all individual colleges, its implementation was not centrally organized or administered. W ith each of the eighteen colleges being for the most part autonomous, considerable 155 E D U C A T I O N A L R E C O R D Vol. S7, No. 3 diversity was exhibited by the colleges in their strategies to fulfill the intent of the open admissions guidelines. Although this diversity was desirable and beneficial in many ways, especially in providing the col leges with flexibility to meet the specific needs of their individual student popula tions, limitations have been incumbent on research assessing the effectiveness of open admissions for the university as a whole. Differences exist between the campuses in the composition of student bodies, in aca demic requirements, and in grading poli cies. Nevertheless, the aggregate data sug gest important findings that are widespread and consistent, transcending such institu tional variations. The progress of the first open admissions class has been the subject of intensive study. Entering students In interpreting the following results of the fall 1970 class, the reader must clearly keep in mind that the implementation of open admissions was dramatically sudden. The university moved from a restricted meritocratic system to a completely open system without delay and without a period of gradual transition. Consequently, in 1970 more than 35,000 freshmen entered com pared to 20,000 in 1969. Based on place ment examination results, only 51 percent of the entering students did not need re mediation in reading or in basic mathe matics. Nine percent of the students needed intensive remediation in reading and 22 percent in mathematics. An additional 40 percent of the students needed moderate remediation in reading and 27 percent in mathematics. Not a single college in the City Uni versity was equipped in the fall of 1970 to provide the educational environment es sential for the academic success of under skilled students. Adequate campus facilities were not available for the students, and not enough teachers were adequately qualified Leslie Berger is the university dean for academic evaluation at the City University of New York, and Jeanette B. Leaf is the coordinator of testing and research at Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York. 156 in basic skills training. Insufficient planning and funding were evident— and \-ery im portantly, considerable faculty resistance" to the new students existed. Allocation The allocation of students to the various campuses of the City University is a vital component of open admissions, for it de termines the academic, ethnic, and eco nomic composition of each campus. The purpose of open admissions was to rectify the inequities resulting from the traditional merit system of admissions, which was based on high school grades and standardized test scores— two factors that are strongly related to socioeconomic status. It was hoped that greater access to the City Uni versity by minority group students would in crease these students’ chances for social mobility and decrease the poverty and urban blight of their communities.^ During the years 1969-74, the six enter ing freshman classes showed an almost un interrupted increase in the number and percentage of black and Puerto Rican stu dents, with both groups substantially in creasing their representation the very first year of open admissions. Tire number of entering black students increased from 2,815 in 1969 to over 12,000 in 1974. Puerto Rican students showed a similar trend, al though their increase was not as marked; enrollment of Puerto Rican students in creased from 1,215 in 1969 to 5,624 in 1974. The immediate prime beneficiaries of open admissions, however, were white stu dents. Although the percentage of white students comprising the freshman class de creased with open admissions from 80 percent in 1969 to 75 percent in 1970, approximately 10,000 additional white stu dents enrolled in 1970 in comparison to an additional 5,000 black and Puerto Rican students combined. Thus, while all groups benefited from the new admissions policy, a greater number of white students enrolled in the universih' than black and Puerto Rican students. 1. T h e data compiled on the allocation of stu dents are from Data Book (New York: Office of University Management Data, C ity University of New York, 1 9 7 4 ). T H E P R O M I S E O F O P E N A D M I S S I O N S Berger L eaf Campus variations From the beginning of open admissions, concern was expressed over the variation from campus to campus in the proportion of black and Puerto Rican students allo cated. Tlie racial balance of an individual campus is largely a reflection of student choice and of the demographic characteris tics of the neighborhood in which the campus is located. The Board of Higher Education modified the allocation system several times in the first three years of open admissions to correct a des’eloping pattern of economically and educationally disadvantaged students becoming dispropor tionately high in certain colleges. In 1969 the majority of the entering freshman students at all the senior colleges were wliite, w'ith the percentages varying from 88 percent at Queens College to 70 percent at Baruch College. Five years later a much wider range existed among the senior colleges, with 76 percent of the fresh man class at Brooklyn College being white but only 32 percent being white at City College. W ith the advent of open admissions, the community colleges experienced similar ra cial composition changes. In 1969, the year prior to open admissions, three of the six existent community colleges (Borough of Manhattan, Bronx, New York City) had a nonwhite freshman class of 40 percent or more. Critics claimed that this phenom enon of overrepresentation of minority stu dents in certain community colleges was due to the tracking of such students into two-year, vocationally oriented programs. The remaining three community colleges (Kingsborough, Queensborough, Staten Is land) closely approximated the senior col leges, with less than 20 percent of their freshman classes being nonwhite before open admissions. Undoubtedly, geographic location was one of the major elements un derlying the disparity among the commun ity colleges in enrollment of ethnic minorit)’ students. W ith the continuation of open admissions the disparity within the two groups of community colleges was greatly exacerbated. Borough of Manhattan, Bronx, and New York City Community Colleges, the three colleges that had enrolled signi ficant proportions of nonwhite students prior to open admissions, became predomi nantly nonwhite by 1974. The remaining three community colleges (Kingsborough, Queensborough, and Staten Island) experi enced relatively little change in the ethnic composition of their freshman classes, with enrollments of nonwliite students remaining 20-30 percent. Access by disadvantaged In addition to effecting the racial com position of the university as a whole, open admissions, by definition, proiided access to higher education for many students who would not have qualified under the old academic achievement standards. Using the high school average as the index measuring academic achievement and open admissions status, unisersity enrollment figures show that the percentage of open admissions stu dents increased at the senior colleges from 40 percent in 1970 to almost 50 percent in 1973. The greatest increase in enrollment was for the most academically disadvantaged students, those with high school averages below 70. By 1973 these students consti tuted over 12 percent of the freshmen at tending the City University. Modifications made by the Board of Higher Education in the allocation system were effective in bringing about a reasonably equitable dis tribution of these students in the senior colleges. The greatest difference between the senior colleges in the composition of their freshman classes has become the percent age of students with high school averages above 80. By 1973 only three of the senior colleges (Brooklyn, Hunter, Queens) en rolled freshman classes with a majority of students having high school averages above 80 and presumably being academically pre pared for college work. Tlie percentages of these nonopen admissions students enrolled at the other senior colleges ranged from 47 percent at City College to 26 percent at York College. For the community colleges as a whole, the percentage of enrollments in each of the three high school average categories desig nated by the University (Below 70, 70- 157 E D U C A T I O N A L R E C O R D V ol. 57, No. 3 74.9, 75 and above) remained relatively stable during the first four years of open admissions. W ith the exception of several minor variations, the students were almost equally divided among the three high school average eategories, resulting in mueh higher enrollment of academically disadvantaged students at the community colleges. The data show that in the years 1970-73 the percentage of students with high school averages below 70 ranged from 31-36 per cent at the community colleges, in com parison to 4.5-12 percent at the senior colleges. In summary, the City University began to achieve in the first year the fundamental goals it had set under the open admissions policy. Increasing numbers of students from underrepresented ethnic groups, especially from the black and Puerto Rican com munities, were enrolled at the various col leges. Also, with high school achievement requirements being waived in 1970, a greater diversity in the entering students’ level of college preparation resulted. The complex allocation system underwent sev eral res'isions to assure greater equity among the colleges in the composition of their freshman classes. Academic progress Tire feasibility of open admissions is necessarily dependent on the academic achievement of students admitted under this policy. Tlie entering class of 1970, the first open admissions class, has been fol lowed up intensively by the university (most notably by Dr. David Lavin), providing soluminous data on issues of concern and thus clarifying one of the most problematic issues, the success of the program. Several measurable criteria have constituted the major elements in Lavin’s studies assessing the academic progress of open admissions students, these criteria being: (1) grade point average; (2) credit generation; (3) credit ratio; (4) grade point average and credit generation combined. Academic suc cess has been defined by these criteria and with these qualifications: (1) a grade point average of 2.00 or more; (2) credit genera tion to equal 12 or more credits earned per semester; (3) the ratio of credits earned to credits attempted to equal 0.75 or more; and (4) a grade point average of 2.00 or more and credit generation to equal 12 or more credits per semester. The first two years Studies have documented the importance of the first two years of college in determin ing students’ ultimate ability to earn a degree. ̂ For those students attending the senior colleges, it was found that as high school average increased, so did the per centage of students earning a satisfactory GPA of 2.0 or higher. This finding is not surprising, for, by definition, the open ad missions students (those having high school averages below 80) cannot be expected to achieve at the same level as students meet ing the traditional admissions standards. Nevertheless, the data is supportive of open admissions, confirming that a significant proportion of previously ineligible students are capable of meeting the GPA require ment of the City University. The figures for the 1970 open admissions enrollees range from an average of 35 percent for those students entering with high school averages below 70 to 70 percent for students with averages between 75.0 and 79.9. The criterion credits earned, or progress toward the degree, also showed a strong re lationship to high school average. As high school average increased, so did the per centage of students earning 48 or more credits over four semesters. Academic re strictions imposed on open admissions stu dents (such as enrollment for non-credit bearing remedial courses) partially account for the difference between open admissions students and regular students. Data indi cate that after two years, 25 percent of students with high school averages below 70 had earned 48 or more credits, the percentage increasing with each high school average group to 79 percent of regular students meeting this standard of achieve ment. 2. T h e source for data on academic achieve m ent of open admissions students is Lavin’s Open Admissions at the City University of New York: A Description of Academic Outcomes After Two Years (New York: Office of Program and Policy Research, C ity University of New York, 1 9 7 4 ). 158 T H E P R O M I S E O F O PE N A D M IS S IO N S Berger 6- L ea f Credit ratios Although relatively few open admissions students progressed at the same rate as regular students, especially those in the two lowest high school average groups, high percentages of open admissions students did acquire a credit ratio of 0.75 or more. The figures imply that although open ad missions students enroll for fewer credits than regular students, a majority of them succeed in completing the courses in which they do enroll. Among the four measures of academic success under consideration, the most .positive outcome obtained for all entering students, regardless of the student’s overall high school average, is the credit ratio. Finally, two combined academic criteria are considered— the achievement of 48 or more credits and a GPA of 2.0 or better. As expected, fulfillment of this last condi tion of academic success is for all students the most difficult of the four conditions included in this analysis. High school aver age predictably is related to the incidence of attainment of the designated achieve ment standard. The percentage of students meeting the combined criteria increases abruptly from 17 percent for students with high school averages below 70 to 76 per cent for students admitted with averages above 80. Thus, the higher the grade point average, the greater the success rate. The strong positive relationship found at the senior colleges between each of the four academic variables and high school average is similarly evident at the community col leges. Furthermore, community college stu dents demonstrate the same strengths and weaknesses in academic achievement as senior college students; that is, the highest percentages for students meeting the success criterion are for the variable credit ratio, while the lowest percentages are for the combined variables of 48 or more credits earned and a grade point average of 2.0 or better. In addition to underscoring the relation ship between high school average and each of the four academic variables measuring academic success, the data also lends itself to a comparison between the senior colleges and community colleges. Two fundamental facts are noteworthy. First, for any of the four academic variables analyzed, little or no difference exists between the senior college and community college students en tering with high school averages above 80. The majority of these students consistently meet the standards designated for academic success. This finding suggests that regular students are likely to perform equally W'ell academically in meeting the minimum standards of success regardless of whether they enter a senior college or a community college. Tlie second fact disclosed by the data is that, unlike regular students, higher percentages of open admissions students meet the criteria for success at the com munity colleges than at the senior colleges. For each of the four variables and within each of the three high school average groups below' 80, a difference of 10-16 per cent exists between the senior college and community college students achieving the success criterion, the difference favoring the community college students. Retention and graduation Ultimately, the criterion to which both critics and advocates will turn in ascertain ing the success or the feasibility of an open admissions policy is whether a student graduates. The descriptive and comparative data obtained by the City University of New York over a four-year period are of national as well as local significance. The follow'ing analysis of this complex issue be gins with the retention patterns of students during the first two years, which are most critical in determining whether or not stu dents will subsequently graduate.“ Retention rates obtained after the very first semester provide several noteworthy facts. As expected, high school average was positively associated with retention, although to a lesser degree at the community col leges than at the senior colleges. Of greater significance, how'ever, is the fact that aca- 3. D ata on student retention and graduation are from Student Retention and Graduation at the City University of New York: September 1970 EnroUees Through Eight Semesters (New York: Office of the Chancellor, City University of New York. 1 0 7 5 ). 159 E D U C A T I O N A L R E C O R D Vol. 57, No. 3 dcmic performance during the first semester was more closely related to retention than high school average. For e\eiy level of high school average, students who met the pre scribed standards for academic performance were much more likely to return the second semester than those students who failed to meet the standards. Retention rates were significantly higher for students who earned ( 1) a grade point average of 2.0 or higher; (2) 12 or more credits; and (3) 0.75 or more of the credits attempted. Furthermore, of the three academic variables considered, the last (credit ratio) was the one best differentiating between students who re turned the second semester and those who did not. Finally, longitudinal data show that 6 percent of the senior college students and 13 percent of the community college students attended City University during the first semester only. Fourth semester figures By the fourth semester a marked reten tion difference existed between the high school average groups and between the senior and community colleges. For the university as a whole, continuous attendance throughout the first four semesters ranged from 49 percent for students with high school averages below 70 up to 77 percent for students with averages above 80. Al though the positive relationship between high school average and continuous attend ance was similar for both senior and com munity colleges, the attendance rates at the senior colleges were higher for every high school average group. That is, regardless of high school average, senior college students were much more likely to remain in at tendance than community college students. By the end of the fourth semester, 72 per cent of the senior college students as com pared to 52 percent of the community col lege students had been in continuous at tendance. Fourth semester retention figures are higher when all students attending are con sidered because this figure includes students who had withdrawn from the university during any of the three previous semesters. I ’he fourth semester overall attendance was 77 percent and 61 percent of those initially enrolled at the senior colleges and com munity colleges respectively. These figures, higher than the figures for continuous at tendance, reflect the fact that 18 percent of the students who had withdrawn earlier subsequently reenrolled at the City Uni versity. Graduation rates Having considered retention after the first and fourth semesters, the final time period to be undertaken in this analysis is the eighth semester, which has, by tradi tional standards, been considered the last semester for the majority of students who graduate. Twenty-two percent of the senior college students and 24 percent of the com munity college students graduated by the end of the eighth semester. Variations exist among the students by high school average and arc more pronounced at the senior col leges. For example, only 3 percent of stu dents with high school averages below 70 graduated from senior colleges, whereas 16 percent graduated from community col leges. This disparity exists for every high school average group and is smallest for students with averages above 80. Among these students, analogous figures are 32 per cent graduating from senior colleges and 41 percent from community colleges. The graduation rates cited above require two qualifications. First, a substantial num ber of City University students withdraw every semester, with many returning in later semesters. This attendance pattern is not unique to the 1970 open admissions class, having been documented in an earlier study.* Max found that 48 percent of the City University students graduated within four years, but that over 70 percent grad uated after seven years. Tlris phenomenon has been largely attributed to the fact that many students find it necessary or desirable to be employed while obtaining a college degree. A second qualification that places the low figures for on-time graduation into better perspective is the fact that noncredit remedial courses or smaller credit loads prescribed during the first year of enroll- 4. See Pearl M ax, How Many Graduate (New York: C ity University of New York, 1 9 6 8 ). 160 T H E P R O M I S E O F O P E N A D M I S S I O N S Berger 6 Leaf inent necessarily delayed graduation for many open admissions students. Comparison to national data The graduation data is especially mean ingful when compared to national data. For the senior colleges. City University grad uation rates after four years were lower than national rates for every high school average category. This outcome is not sur prising in view of the rationale that has been presented justifying the need of a substantial proportion of City University students for more than four years to meet graduation requirements. Therefore, a more significant comparison is that of retention in addition to graduation after four years. On this basis, the rates for City University students surpass national rates for every high school average group with one excep tion, that exception being students with averages below 70. For students vsith high school averages below 70, no comparison is possible because no meaningful national normative group is available so far. Never theless, the high retention rates after four years at the City University are indicative of improved graduation rates, which will undoubtedly be evidenced as the students are tracked in subsequent years. Similar data were collected comparing the City University and national community colleges. Both the retention and graduation rates at the City University community col leges are higher than the national sample. Again, no valid comparison is possible for students with high school averages below 70. This exception is subject to the same limitation discussed previously for the senior colleges, namely that the small number of students in the national sample (19) can not justify generalization. In the final analy sis the City University community college graduation rates are expected to be even higher than those reported because many students transferred to the senior colleges and will require more than four years to graduate. Open admissions has been a complex experiment unparalleled in higher education. As an experiment, its long-term viability is dependent on its success in educating stu dents academically unprepared for college w'ork. This concept of success remains enig matic and subjective. Having anal3'zed the available aggregate data, it is evident that the City University must undertake studies of a more qualitativ'e, in-depth nature that take into account the content differences between the colleges. Furthermore, studies of classes entering after 1970 are especially crucial because the open admissions pro gram was first implemented on short notice and thus prevented the colleges from being fully able to provide an optimal educational environment at the outset. Many new programs and curricular changes were initiated at the various col leges as a result of the special needs of the first open admissions class. Many areas be gan to venture away from traditional ap proaches, including remediation, counseling, tutoring, and testing. The dynamic changes of recent years vv'ill likely have a significant effect on the educational process for open admissions students. Tire promise of open admissions was that, while high academic standards would be maintained and en hanced, the revolving door phenomenon occurring at other institutions attempting an open admissions experiment would be pre vented if at all possible. Whether this promise has been kept or broken is a ques tion that remains elusive. As of this writing, one thing has become clear— namely, that the open admissions of 1969 has already been altered. In the se vere New York City financial crisis, no other governmental agency or institution was abandoned or as detrimentally affected as the university. As a result, the university was compelled to introduce tuition for the first time in its long history, starting with the fall 1976 semester. TTie university also introduced new criteria for admission to both the senior and community colleges based on high school average and class rank. These new competitiv'e standards were ini tiated in order to reduce the number of freshmen entering the university. Just as in 1970 when the open admissions program was put into effect, the basis of decision making in 1976 has been sociopolitical and economic rather than educational. □ 161 THE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE James W. Hall T h e relationship betw een the artist and academ e has changed dramatically; each seems to have discovered in the other a new and vital force. Institutions are bringing the professional artist into their instructional and cultural environments through five approaches: concert performances, extended performances, master classes, part-time residencies, and full-time residencies. Hall analyzes each program’s effect on the artist and the college or university and answers these questions: W h at are the opportunities, the advantages, and the disad vantages o f each arrangement? W hat future can each procedure expect? W hat is the long term effect o f the artist-in-residence program? N o t long ago in a less self-conscious time, the one eccentric member of the campus’s art or music department was regarded with the hind of tolerance or amusement usually extended to a pet cockatoo. The secret pride some members of the community may have taken in accepting his brightly colored pres ence more likely had its source in their satisfaction in their own liberality and so phistication in accepting the artist than in any appreciation of his talent. This token artist, for his part, missed the exchange on which to sharpen his own ideas and talents and retreated further to his canvasses or composition sheets and the assorted scraps and fragments of his intellectual garret. But today is not yesterday, and that simple fact is dramatically illustrated in the changed relationship of the artist and academe. Each seems to have discovered in the other a new, disturbing, and vital force. Forty years ago the story on most cam puses was indeed unpromising. The world of academe, then secure in its pastoral set ting, focused its efforts on restudying the verbal content of manuscripts, tomes, and texts housed in great libraries. It placidly conducted its business in ordered classrooms neatly called forth by registrars and as sistant deans, and it sought the support of a number of gentlemanly students drawn to the lure of fraternities and football. The halls of ivy were an enclave as separate to itself as the perimeters of the world in habited by the professional artist. The artist’s world was predominantly cen tered in a few of the great metropolises of the western world, nurtured by a sophisti cated, aesthetically sensitive, and economi cally supportive public. The “world” was housed by a few great museums, galleries, and concert halls, and properly contained by critics, teachers, and studios. A bevy of eager students gathered to be illuminated by the bright glow of the stars. The resistance of academe to the artist stemmed in part from a tradition nurtured by the theologically oriented medieval uni versity and English university system, which viewed the fine arts as somewhat suspect and the artist as definitely suspect. Because this tradition was almost entirely concerned with verbal learning, literature and poetry were the only creative arts actively encour- 162