Education

How to Go to School!

      I do not like the direction the State has taken since it converted from the State College system to the State University system. This did little but inflate the salaries of the faculty (which was sorely needed and owed!) and increase expenses. There was an unneeded inflation of expenses since a "University" should do research instead of teach.
      Another example, we are moving to a faculty of part-timers. While there are excellent part-timers that are on a pseudo-full-time status, it is not the same as having the fulltime faculty in the lower class classrooms. It is a deflation of instruction.
      We have a situation where certain required courses are not staffed with enough faculty, and students are forced to stay an extra quarter or even a year because they cannot get the required class and cannot graduate when they should.

      But what bothers me the most is, we are creating a situation where the rich folk get educated and the poor folk are left behind.
      I was an orphan at 14 in the middle of the depression, 1936. I graduated from high school and started college in 1940 at the North Dakota Agricultural College. There was no tuition and the fee as I remember was $25 per quarter for the Health Center.
      My first year cost $588 for everything, food lodging etc. It didn't cover books and that gave me a problem. In my sophomore year, although I got A's in the exams, I got B's in Calculus because I could not hand in complete homeworks. I had to borrow the book from someone and then give it back. I turned in what I had been able to do. In the second quarter, the teacher found out and threatened to flunk me if I didn't buy the book. To buy the book I would have had to figure which meals I was going to skip.
      I hate to say that I was lucky to be in WWII but it gave me my education. I got the full 48 months of the GI Bill. Later when I was forty I got a 100% GI Loan which enabled me to buy the house I still live in 38 years later!

I lucked out because of WWII (Isn't that a terrible thing to have to say?) but what are the children of today to do if they don't have financial backing? I know there are lots of programs, but with the state college hiking fees out of sight, it will be very discouraging for the underfinanced!

I believe the State College (University) system should be financed entirely by the state. And the standards should be high and students cut out after the freshman year IF THEY DO NOT PRODUCE AT A SATISFACTORY LEVEL! They should realize that it is a gift and all we owe them is a chance!

One of the changes I would make would cause a great upheaval for the first five or so years. I would admit all applicants to the freshman year. I would make a big cut at the end of this year and allow a certain fixed number to proceed and become sophomores.

But I would not register any freshman directly out of high school. They would not be eligible to apply until they could supply proof of a year's satisfactory work for someone other than a relative.

      Faculty could only be evaluated by other faculty. Administrators would not be allowed to judge them. They would have to stick to their proper work, ordering supplies and maintaining records and other duties that would contribute to teaching. Administrators at all levels would be hired only if they capable of teaching a course in some field and would teach in that field at least one course per quarter.
      Departments would have heads that serve for a single three year term. Any department with less than eight faculty would be combined with a closely related department. The department heads would teach three quarter time. The routine functions of the department would be carried out by a permanent executive secretary. They would have to be paid enough to encourage to make it a career.
      Rules would be made by an Academic Senate that would have real authority, unlike the sham organizaton on present campuses.

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