ustxtxb_obs_1965_01_08_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

dent-faculty ratio, reduced summer school work, abolition of the educational stretchout in its many and various manifestations, immediate action to achieve accreditation of all. programs, immediate action to see that American Association of University Professors standards of academic freedom and tenure are restored and maintained. The report endorses American Association of University Professors standards of academic freedom and tenure, but ignores conditions which have caused that association to place institutions at Lubbock and Huntsville on its censured list. Texas Technological College has been on that list since 1958, and Sam Houston State Teachers College since 1963. Reports on conditions leading to censure are published in the spring issues of the association’s bulletins for 1958 and 1963. I doubt that many members of the committee have read them. The report specifies that the Coordinating Board would define the nature and scope of all public institutions, which are presently classified as junior colleges, teachers colleges, colleges, and universities. On page 27 the report identifies five universities: the University of Texas, the University of Houston, North Texas State University, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, and Texas Technological College. The opportunity to extend through coordination what has developed by chance is clear. Texas should have five public universities: four located north, south, east dation of a university system which should be expanded and developed. This university system should be supplemented by many public colleges and by many, many junior colleges. The committee’s recommendation that junior colleges be placed within the state system is sound. Too often junior colleges controlled by local school boards offer little more than two more years of high school. The proposed Coordinating Board would, I hope, stop legislative logrolling which is creating “colleges” out of junior colleges and “universities” out of teachers colleges. If changes are to be made, more than a name should be changed. I cite as examples of academic inflation the “University” at Canyon and the Ph.D. program at Commerce. THE REPORT makes no use of the statistics of Committee Z of the American Association of University Professors. Committee Z grades institutions from AA to F on the scale of faculty faculty salaries \(the best indication of two \(the University of Texas and the Uniwere grade D, eleven were grade E, and four were grade F.* One institution \(North *The report showed, among other things, the “index grades” for the average salary scale, and the average salary for a full-time faculty member, for these Texas colleges: Grades AA and A-None. Grade B-Rice University, $10,757. tors on the B scale, asistant and associate professors on the C scale, and professors on the D scale. Academic excellence does not lie in the direction of lower salary scale for higher academic rank. Even more revealing are statistics for faculty compensation per student; that is, what the institution pays its faculty for each student they are supposed to educate. Some sample Texas institutions are: North Texas State University, $311; Texas Southern University, $313; the University of Houston, $327; Lamar Institute of Technology, $330; the University of Texas, $456; Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, $620; Rice University, $974. For those who may be interested in real excellence, I cite two excellent liberal arts colleges: Swarthmore, $1,270; and Haverford, $1,672; an excellent university, Chicago, $1,454; two excellent technical institutes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $1,457; and California Institute of Technology, $2,311. The report is obviously the work of Management Administration; hence it emphasizes its own field. Its ‘twelve pages on the organization and powers of the Coordinating Board include almost half a page on “Illustrations of Programs That Could Provide Increased Incentive and Recognition of Excellence for the Instructor.” No professor served on the committee; yet if excellence is indeed to be achieved, we are the very ones who must achieve it. The legislature, the boards, the commissions, the administrations, all together have not yet created conditions under which we can achieve excellence. The ‘report is obviously aimed at the legislative mind; its appeal is in terms of job training. It ign6res the fundamental problem of the nature of society. Universities should shape as well as serve. One Texas university, North Texas State, has completed a multi-million-dollar building program which excludes the entire Division of Humanities. Texas needs more libraries, art galleries, theatres, and concert halls; and this need is greater and more urgent than the need -for trained technicians. Our society’s greatest need is for artists and scholars, poets and philosophers, all of whom are presently in short supply. The report accepts designation as definition in too many categories. I question the qualifications of the 112,790 teachers and the 6,772 clergymen. I know too many graduates of teachers colleges to whom “excellence” is a pejorative term. Does one qualify as clergy because he can shout loud, or because he is a graduate of Perkins School of Theology? Texas needs fewer, not more, backwoods fundamentalists. THE COMMITTEE’S recommendation for doubling tuition I deplore. I endorse its statement that the means of financing higher education is the prerogative of the governor and the legislature. The committee states, “Certainly, if a great many young Texans citizens and their parents are able to pay the necessarily higher tuition of from $800 to $1,000 per scholastic year for the privilege of attending private colleges and universities, those attending public senior colleges and universities should be able to pay $200 per year.” I reject the logic of the statement that because some of us are rich, none of us can be poor. Such is not the economic condition of Texas or of any other state. We know that there is no positive correlation between education aptitude and parental wealth. I am convinced that every bright or talented child who is not educated to the fullest extent of his capacity is a personal tragedy and a national loss. Our resources of brains and talents are not so large that we can afford to squander them. It is not my responsibility \(nor the am convinced that Texas has better sources of revenue than its students. I propose the opposite. I propose tuition exemptions and financial rewards as incentives to academic excellence. I propose drastic curtailment of student labor. Going to college should be a full-time job. Too many financially poor students are dissipating themselves in menial chores when they should be concentrating on getting an education. Texas is not a poor little state. It can afford to educate its children. It cannot afford to continue to handicap them with inferior education. Limitation of enrollment may be necessary; or it may be desirable. A significant step toward excellence could be taken now by announcing that the lowest 10% \(or semester. The way to limit enrollment is to eliminate the academically poor, not the financially poor. IFEAR that the recommendation of the committee has used loosely the word “excellence.” The committee has thoroughly documented our present position of inferiority. It might be pragmatic to announce mediocrity as a goal, and then strive mightily to achieve it. We would be a whole lot better if we were just average. Excellence means to excel. For me, the January 8, 1965 5 Grade C-University of Houston, $9,361; University of Texas, 9.449 \(University of Texas: Preclin., Medical School, 11,049; U. of T., DenGrade D -Arlington State College, $7,765; East Texas State College, 8,157; Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, 6,770; Lamar State College of Technology, 7,744; North Texas State University, 7,941; Sam Houston State Teachers College, 7,476; Southern Methodist University, 8,113; Southwest Texas State College, 7,464; Stephen F. Austin State College, 7,351; Tarleton State College, 7,109; Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, 8,052; Texas Christian University, 6,970; Texas College of Arts & Industries, 7,621; Texas Technological College, 8,398; Texas Western College, 7,403; West Texas State University, 7,199. Grade E -Abilene Christian College, $5,958; Baylor University, 6,850; Midwestern University, 7,371; Pan American College, 6,902; Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College, 7,110; Southwestern University, 7,051; Sul ‘Ross State College, 6,873; Texas Lutheran College, 6,289; Texas Southern University, 7,103; Texas land Baptist College, 6,353. Grade F-Hardin-Simmons University, $5,642; Howard Payne College, 5,440; McMurray College, 6,333; Mary Hardin-Baylor College, 5,578. Trinity University-No information. -Ed.