Detomlm l, 1972 _

OF VIEW

By EDWARD D. EDDY

new we art‘s aspen, “Will the private col-

leges survive the ‘70‘s.,' we must of neoes-

sity reply: “which onesr Do we mean the

comparatively large, more traditional, and
mostly Eastern universities? Do we mean the even larger,
multi-purpose, highly oommuterized institutions located in
major cities? Or are we speaking of the smaller, regionally
oriented colleges and a few universities in villages and
towns throughout the land? Finally, there remain the
medium~ to small»sized colleges which are national in char-
acter, liberal arts in program, and fairly well-endowed.
(You will understand, 1 hope, that these are broad strokes
and exceptions can always be cited.)

Generally speaking, the large, traditional, mostly East-
ern universities are over-built, overstalfed, and over-
prograinmed. The agony you will hear will'be the moans
of the fat lady eating her yogurt with memories of the
permeation of pure butter in a parsleyed, baked potato. But
she is not about to die. ‘

One wishes that he could be as jovial about the large,
multipurpose urban university If the faculty market were
not so glutted with highly competent and sometimes des-
perate people, the prognosis might be even worse. The
shifts already taken by universities in nunalo, Youngstown.
Pittsburgh. and many more cities, with the move to state
status, may occur with increasing frequency.

An institution in the third group—the small, regionally
oriented college or universityiis, I suspect. less vulnerable
than all the others. In essence, its students come from a
radius of 100 miles from alumni families. The college is
the leading local industry, with the largest payroll in the
area. It is the seat of all culture and entertainment, the alma
mater of most or the bankers, lawyers, and businessmen,
and the begrudging pride of the people. The faculty mem-
bers, many of whom are alumni, are committed to large
mortgages without any thought of mobility. In sum, the
eollege and its people are used to living on bread and jam.
The major threat, if any, is the branch of the state it
versity or the eager-beaver community college in the adloll‘k
ing county.

I worry most about the liberal arts colleges with a more
national orientation. Their libraries are good to excellent;
the faculty is comparatively well-paid: the labs well-stocked,
the buildings well-kept; and the enrollment and income
slowly diminishing. In terms of their own resources, they
have spent too much on scholarships without recognizing
the cumulative eﬁect—and yet they don‘t want to draw only
from the atnuent suburbs. When change comes to these
colleges, it will be strikingly obvious,

it rota-r in all of this is that posting a death

notice for all of private higher education is

like shooting all the horses because some have

the wheeze. The great maiority oi the insti-

tutions will survive. Despite the many predictions of their

demise, surprisingly few have closed their doors, Institutions

of higher learning do have a persistence and a tcnncity~

but not necessarily a guaranteed quality. And there is the

rub. The private colleges of this nation, by and largeI will

survive, but the emerging question is clearly one of spirit,
not \just life.

The private Colleges and universities, swinging into the
troublesome '70‘5 from the unusually afﬂuent '60’5, resemble
a middle-aged and slightly portly man who discovers that
he is panting heavily after climbing a quick ﬂight of stairs.
He doesn't have yesterday's bounce. Suddenly he remembers
all of those articles about heart attacks. For the ﬁrst time
in his life, the possibility of death looms frighteningly large.

He has a choice. He can become a ﬁrst-class hypochon—
driac and, in all probability,, bring on the attack by discour-
agement and tension. Or he can diet, cut out smoking, and
start some consistent, sensible exercise. He must convince
himself that life is worth livingﬁnd living to the hilt~
despite an occasional long tlight of stairs. Survival per re is
not half as important as the cultivation of healthy habits
and attitudes.

OLLEGES are nothing more than collections or
people with attitudes. If we agree that it is indeed
not enough merely to survive, that the spirit and
attitude within are of even greater importance

than the ﬂutter of life. then we need to provide some
measurement more telling than the heart beat, Let me sug-
gest lht’ee ncid tests of Vitality in the private college.

> To be vilal today, a college or university murt be
adaptable without losing its integrity,

in academia. there is a basic sense or what is sound in
true scholarship. it is almost impossible to deﬁne, but the
historian, the economist, the chemist, the philosopher, and
all the others representing their respective disciplines know
when educational erosion is occurring. They spot it quickly
In the jazzed-up course descriptions, in the instant institutes
and specialties which are no more than a collection of mi-
cient otterings grouped in a brochure under a fancy new
name. ‘

The private college at integrity which wants to be alive
must plan carefully. The right approach is a happy com.
bination of solid integrity without compromise in standards
with ﬂexibility which meets the needs of students. And let

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Will
Private
Colleges
SurViV€

the ’70’5?

me attest to the {act that this is a student generation which
is doggedly determined to be ﬂexible.

The private college at the moment is in a unique position.
it is free of mass pressure and politics; its program need not
be twisted by “what the public expects." It can, if it will,
take some jisks—not impulsive ones, but deoent risks based
on carelully planned nnd monitored change, it can move
forward as an exciting educational community.

This is no small challenge for private higher educa»
tion: to adapt, to meet the needs or an ever»t:banging stu-
dent milieu, but to Continue to teach soundly and well. Often
we think that educational change takes dollars. We forget
that many new educational approaches and teaching meth-
ods have been born without payment of any delivery fee.

Creativity and adaptability are not necessarily expensive
Each time a college seeks preservation on the basis that it
has no resources to change, it dies a little. Imagination it
tree,

> To be vim! today, a college or university must take an
hotter! look at it: own Valuer—and then place its dulldr:
when: in value: lie.

One fault of education is that we place too much faith in
entrenched budgets. With no increase in income, a realloca-
tion obviously means a cut someplace. And cutting is
pninlnl. Colleges cannot continue to pretend to be all things
to all people at a time when they should concentrate on
doing an excellent job with some people. This is when:
strength and quality lie. Take. tor example, the matter of
undergraduate teaching. Some students will educate them~
selves, but many other: will thrive only in a pattern of
close relationship to the teacher as a scholar and a person.
Private colleges and universities are the very ones which
ought to be making the most of that relationship Private
institutions should be challenged, therefore, on such matters
as faculty»stndent ratio in comparison to their public broth~
era, on the size of classes, the amount at genuinely good
advising, and the extent to which studenu can be and are
treated as individuals, and even as junior scholars.

Many of us are guilty of a major fraud in collegiate
finance: the funding of graduate schools by undergraduate
tuition. While we write soaring prose about the academic
community, we should also be describing what happens on
weekends. after the exodus is over. When we speak glow
ingly of scholarly depth. let us not be so quick to ignore
the few faculty members, spread thinly over so much cur-
riculum. Instead of bragging about being the beat of all
worlds. whether rural or urban, we should be content to
make the best use of that particular portion of the world
we happen to inhabit, Financial desperation can be the mid-
wife of institutional honesty. '

In the present admissions situation. colleges and univer-
sities may make high school guidance counselors an en-
dangered species, by smothering them in a downpour of
drivel about “sensational new programs." I await an honest
autopsy after the early death of a guidance c unrelur; it
wiu say that he was cnnhed by second—class in in.

Some private institutions are making an honest attempt
to clarify their roles and then to strengthen their decisions
with the right allocation of resources. These are the colleges
and universities which will serve best their students; these
are the 'colleges which will still be thriving in the ‘80‘s
and '90s.

> To be vital today, a college at university mu." can
dzeply about the person of the student if the student is- ex-
pecled to care deeply about his‘ or her education.

The student wanu desperately to be engaged in his edu-
cation; he is tired of "going through college" without know-
ing what he went through. I predict, therefore, that we will
return before long to the idea of the "whole student" whose
life style and philosophical basis may be just as important
to us as the completion of curriculum requirements used
to be, The dilferenee, this time, is that we will not be In
paternal about it all.

The "nltve college is meeting the strident where he or
she is, then proceeding on an adventure not to n vaguely
promised land but to a genuinely possible land. The trip
is not very important if it never takes one beyond the col-
lege gale. (We ought to resist ﬁercely the emergence of
alumni who think that the best days of their lives were
spent within the college wnlls. This is I terrible lndicnnﬂn
of liberal education.)

The student's sole link to society loo often today is in
the “promised land" espoused by the activist. Colleges must
be more honesL

o RETAIN rt-tn mot-rt to continued existence, private
(if not. public) colleges must ask some Enrolling
and annoying questions of themselves: What do
we mean by our claims to be ﬂexible and ndnpte
able? How do we interpret our sense of academic integrity?
How do we allocate our resources to support what we really
think we can do well? How do we engnge the student so
that he or she is not tempted to drift without meaning?

High school students today have the great privilege of
choice which was denied their counterparts in the Inn
decade. It would be unfortunate it they gained the impru-
sion that they were going to participate in the last rites
when they enroll in a private college. Most of these insti
tutipns will survive. We can expect some segments of the
press to overplay the occasional passing. or course it makes
good copy because nobody ever dreamed that colleges were
that human and vulnerable. Indeed, a few journals have al-
ready begun the same statistical game which is acted out
each major holiday over trafﬁc fatalities.

The real question, however, is not one of survival but
whether there remains in the less portly body the desire to
live. When one ﬁnds n private institution with n gleam in
its eye, despite its sometimes beleaguered budget, one will
discover not ills! survival but an important and distinctive
contribution to American education.

The author it president of Chnrhnm College.

Reprinted by permission of tile Chronicle at Higher Education

 

