ustxtxb_obs_1965_01_08_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

something frightening in the extent to which we now worship commercial interests and commercial values, when these interests and values should indeed bow down to us. HENCE, although I agree that almost all the specific recommendations of the report ought to be carried into being, I distrust the spirit in which they are urged. Take two important examples. First, one looks in vain in this report for any significant discussion of the humanities. Everyone knows that at a time when the sciences and some of the social sciences are being heavily subsidized by government, industry, and the foundations, the less utilitarian studies, such as philosophy, history, literature, languages, and the arts, al -le starved for funds. Yet these are the studies which foster humane values in a free society and enlarge our minds precisely because they are not directly and totally pointed at technical and professional training but involve a measure of free, speculative, unsponsored inquiry. Their place in formal education will hardly be strengthened by more guest lectures and concerts \(one of the few suggestions in this directo the melancholy conclusion that the governor’s committee lacks even a primitive awareness of the meaning and programs of a liberal education. A second symptom of myopic thinking is the report’s approach to improvement of faculty. Its basic strategy is to lure better men and women into the state system by higher salaries. This certainly would help. So would the recommendation that all college teachers have at least a master’s degree \(there should, however, be a loophole here: when a talented man without advanced degrees comes along, it should be want, among other things, a climate of intellectual excitement and intellectual freedom; higher salaries, merit raises, prizes for “excellence” in teaching, and all the other makeshift goodies so dear to the hearts of administrators will not provide this. In spite of the report’s gesture towards academic freedom and tenure, I am dubious when a member of the committee happens to be president of an institution now under censure by the American Association of University Professors for a gross violation in these areas. Furthermore, any faculty with any sense seeks more and more authority in the making of academic policy, yet the whole thrust of this report is to present an increasing amount of authority to a statewide board which would almost certainly listen only to the voices of administrations and boards of trustees. The recent debacle at Berkeley is ample demonstration of how mistaken those voices can be. Basically this report is a failure because it could have done so much more. Even its style betrays the very mediocrity it pretends to counteract. What are we to conclude about the intellectual reach of a committee that would declare: “New dimen 4 The Texas Observer sions of the educational needs of the state are being developed by the rapid industrialization and urbanization of Texas. The increasing demands for more properly educated manpower challenge all Texans to exert every effort to utilize fully the vast human resources of this state.” This is a blob of jargon floating upon the surface of a watery soup of thin generality. No Denton The committee appointed by the governor was a Big Business, Big Money Committee, representing the biggest industrial, commercial, and financial interests of Texas. It consisted of twenty-five Big Names, variously identified in the report as “Retired Chairman of the Board, Humble Oil and Refining Company,” “President of Brown & Root,” “Chairman of the Board of Shamrock Oil and Gas Corporation.” Its chairman was Mr. H. B. Zachry of San Antonio, identified as “President and Chairman of the Board of H. B. Zachry Company.” He was once on the board of directors of Texas A.&M. Prominent educational administrators included the presidents \(or Texas A.&M., Baylor, and S.M.U. There was representative geographical distribution. There was a woman, a Catholic, a Jew, a Latin-American, a spokesman for No professor was appointed to the committee. Among the many experts whose advice it sought, the committee heard no elected spokesman for professors. I shall try to make my own criticism of the report specific, asserting first that I am speaking for no institution or organization, but for myself alone, a majority of one. First, it is obvious to us all that university professors cannot be hired for $7,740. Our administrators are hiring high school teachers and calling them university professors. Throughout the state, institutions are losing from the top, replacing at the bottom. I can cite exceptions, but the generalization is painfully true: the quality of Texas professors is deteriorating. The report makes no mention of teaching load in relation to quality of instruction. All of us know that a twelve-hour load is regarded as maximum, a nine-hour load as Martin Shockley is immediate past president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, for which this report was written. doubt its flavor was deliberately concocted to impress the legislature with practical, down-to-earth, no-nonsense proposalsof businessmen, by businessmen, for businessmenplus just the right dash of pious exhortation. Perhaps this is the way to do it, but if so, then our need for something more than a Coordinating Board and several million dollars is urgent indeed. university standard, a six hour load as an indication of quality. The report makes no mention of the 18:1 student-faculty ratio which presently serves as the basis of appropriations. When I studied ratios I was told that 15:1 is considered maximum, 12:1 moderate, 10:1 good. Our 18:1 ratio is a built-in guarantee of inferiority. The report makes no mention of the educational stretch-out. Throughout Texas, professors who are carrying \(I do not say meagre pay by summer schoolwork, extension division classes, correspondence courses, tutoring failing students. Such work is usually done at from below to far below standard pay rates. I was offered the opportunity of tutoring failing students for $1.50 per hour. I refused. For too long Texas professors have worked too hard for too little. We have continued to pump out without pausing to replenish. I know professors who are jittery from overwork, professors who continue to grind through summer session after summer session when they need time off to complete Ph.D.s, to continue research, to catch up on rapidly expanding knowledge in the subjects they teach, to read books, to travel, or just recuperate. The report makes no mention of faculty participation in academic affairs. I infer that the committee’s general orientation to faculty-administration relations is comparable to its understanding of the more familiar field of labor-management relations, with the significant difference that professors are unrepresented ‘by a union. The concept of a university as a community of scholars whose common purpose is to find the truth and teach it does not shine forth from the pages of this report. The report makes no mention of accreditation, other than to recommend adoption of Southern Association minimum standards. There is, for example, one school of forestry in Texas \(at Stephen F. Austin Obvious steps toward excellence should specify reduced teaching load, reduced stu The Report–II: Big Businessmen Ignored Real Problems Martin Shockley