THE UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGO g RECORDApril 21, 1973 An Official Publication Volume VII, Number 5CONTENTS95 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PRIVATE UNIVERSITIESAND PRIVATE GIVING1 1 1 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON INCENTIVES ANDCOLLECTIVE STRENGTHS138 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON UNIVERSITY EXTENSION1 56 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE ROLE ANDOPPORTUNITIES IN BROADCASTING1 86 REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON TRADITION ANDINNOVATIONTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOFOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER© 1973 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO RECORDREPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PRIVATEUNIVERSITIES AND PRIVATE GIVINGTo President Edward H. LeviJune 12, 1972Fewer than a dozen of the great universities inthe world receive as much as half of their income from private sources. This fact is important, understood, and discussed in Europe, butlittle understood in this country. The Britishscholar, Eric Ashby, said in a discussion ofBritish higher education; "The universities inHolland, Western Germany, France, and theBritish Commonwealth, and all but a few privateuniversities in America now depend on thestate for finance. If the state withdrew itssupport, most of them could not survive sixmonths" (Ashby, 1962, p. 21).The private universities in the United Statesall currently have serious financial problems.Failure to solve these problems may not jeopardize the existence of these institutions but itwould lessen and may destroy their ability toplay the great role they have traditionally playedin the intellectual life of this country and theworld.Universities mainly dependent on the state arethe rule everywhere except in the United States,and our own state universities are numerous,large, and some are of great distinction. Wouldit matter much to the United States and theworld if the great American private universitiescould not continue to maintain their high standard of scientific and scholarly achievement? Arethe financial problems of the private universitiesmore severe, general, and intractable than thosewhich have arisen previously? Does the source offunds for these universities make an importantdifference? Does their distinctive "privateness"depend on private giving or solely on privategovernance? Is the latter possible without theformer? Are Private Universities Important?Private universities have been of great importancein the development of higher education and research in this country, and in this century havebeen of great importance for the world at large.The oldest and most distinguished institutionsin the United States have been private. The firstinstitutions to give primary emphasis to graduateeducation and research— Johns Hopkins, Chicago,and Clark— were private. Periodic evaluations ofthe quality of institutions by the AmericanCouncil on Education and others have showneach time that the private universities have had amajority of the strongest departments in almostevery field.1Yet, it is not enough to point to past gloriesor current eminence to justify the conclusionthat our society and the world would suffer aserious loss if the private universities ceased toexist or continued only with diminished vigor.Some might argue that the few great privateuniversities are anomalies in an era of burgeoningpublic institutions with the demonstrated abilityof some of them to achieve excellence and theirclaim upon the public purse.One could make a good case for the support1 Methods of ranking departments and institutions aresomewhat different in the five studies. All, however,are based on judgments of recognized authorities ineach field. Such authorities include department chairmen, senior faculty, and, in some instances, juniorfaculty.Raymond M. Hughes, A Study of Graduate Schoolof America, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 1925;American Council on Education, Report of the Committee on Graduate Instruction, Washington, D.C.,1934; Hay ward Keniston, Graduate Study in theHumanities, The Educational Survey of the Universityof Pennsylvania, December 1957; Allan M. Cartter,An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education,American Council on Education, Washington, D.C.,1966; Kenneth D. Roose and Charles J. Anderson,A Rating of Graduate Programs, American Council onEducation, Washington, D.C. 1970.95of our private universities on a magnificent scaleby resort to principles of conservatism— that is byarguing that important institutions which havedemonstrated their merit should not be allowedto go to ruin. If private universities have greatquality and have made great contributions tosociety, it is prudent to preserve them. Universities are complicated and great ones almost always come into being only after manyyears of effort. Of our major universities, onlyone-Chicago— was started less than 100 yearsago. Such institutions are almost never createdquickly even with abundant resources and wisdom; they depend on traditions and socialstructures which almost always evolve slowly.The greater the scholarly and scientific accomplishments of our private universities, the morepowerful the persuasiveness of this kind of argument.But, it is not only the argument from past andrecent accomplishments that is compelling. Noless weighty are those considerations which takeinto account the total system of higher educationin the United States and the world at presentand in the coming years. In the light of theseconsiderations, the argument for the financialsupport of the leading private universities is noless persuasive.Some Historical and International Comparisonsof Private and Public Institutions-Are there characteristics of private institutionswhich give them advantages over public ones inproviding education and research of the highestquality? Being private does not automaticallyconfer eminence and being public does notprevent it. The German universities, when theywere most eminent, in the latter part of thenineteenth century and at the beginning of thepresent century, were financed and directed bythe state. The same is true of Leiden, Utrecht,Lund, and Uppsala which are also "state" universities. One can easily list private universitiesin the United States which are undistinguished.Yet, the outstanding private universities in theUnited States differ from outstanding publicones and the differences seem to affect their relative intellectual quality and efficiency.Before examining what there is about the pri-vateness of a great private university which maycontribute to its greatness, it will be well topresent some of the evidence of the outstandingposition of the leading private universities. Onegets some basis for assessing the special ad vantages of private universities by general comparisons of quality of their faculties and alumniwith those of public universities.There are two main ways to consider therelative quality of public and private universitiesin the United States. The first is to consider thequality of their current faculties and their programs of education and research; the second isto consider the apparent relative efficiency ofthese two types in producing men and womenof the highest standard of accomplishment.The lesson of the first kind of comparison isclear. Since 1925, five general inquiries by highereducation in the United States have permittedthe ranking of individual departments and ofindividual institutions taken as a whole. In eachsuch inquiry since the first in 1925, privateinstitutions have always been a majority of theinstitutions of highest quality, and departmentsin private institutions have with only few exceptions constituted a majority of the strongestdepartments. The basis for these rankings is subject to discussion, but no more plausible orrealistic ranking has ever been produced and noinformed opinion has challenged the reasonableness of the results of these studies.There is another way of looking at theseinstitutions. It is one thing to have been able toattract teachers and research workers of outstanding ability; it is another to produce the outstanding teachers, scholars and scientists whoseaccomplishments bring renown to the institutionsthey staff. Various kinds of evidence on thispoint are considered below. First, the professorsin the five leading departments in each of theacademic fields for which rankings were producedby the American Council on Education in its1970 study were classified according to the institutions which granted each professor's mostadvanced degree. The importance of privateinstitutions is overwhelming. Private institutionsprovided the most advanced graduate educationfor a majority of the professors in five out of sixof the departments covered. If departments aregiven equal weight, private institutions trained anaverage of 7 1 percent of the professors in the fivestrongest departments in each field.If this analysis had been made in 1900 or even1910, the large proportion of outstanding facultymembers who received their doctorates fromprivate universities would merely have reflectedthe fact that virtually all doctorates in thiscountry at those times were conferred by privateuniversities. In 1900, 93 percent of doctoratesconferred by American universities were con-96ferred by private institutions. By 1920, however,the proportion was under 70 percent and by1960 under 50 percent. (Source: U.S. Office ofEducation.) Yet, despite the increased proportionof doctorates conferred by state universities, theleading departments continue to be staffed bythose who have been trained in the great privateuniversities. This is one piece of evidence of theundiminished intellectual superiority of the leading private universities.An analysis of American Nobel laureates results in the same general conclusion. In the 25years between 1946 and 1971, 66 Americansreceived the Nobel prize. Of these, 44 or two-thirds received their most advanced degree atAmerican private universities, 9, or 13 percent,at American public universities, and 13, or 20percent, at foreign universities. (Most of the lastgroup were naturalized Americans.) Of those whoreceived their degrees from American institutions, almost five times as many received themfrom private universities as from public universities. Public universities have had somewhatgreater success in attracting men who have beenhonored by Nobel prizes than in educating them.The American Philosophical Society is one ofthe most honorific societies of American scholarsand scientists. Of the 479 members in its 1970Year Book whose education is identified, 347,or 71 percent, received their most advanced degree at a private institution; 58, or 12 percent,at an American public university; 81, or 17percent, at a foreign university. If one excludesforeign universities, 86 percent received theirdegrees at private universities.Among members of the National Academy ofScience, the story is much the same. In 1970there were 859 members. Of those educated inthis country (84 percent of the total), 73 percentreceived their most advanced degree from a private university.Private universities excel by these variouscriteria of excellence. The fact that they educateand employ such a large proportion of ourleading scholars and scientists is especially impressive when one considers the relative sizes ofAmerican private and public universities. In theacademic year 1969-70, the full-time academicstaffs of public universities were almost twice aslarge as those at private universities; enrollmentat public universities was more than three timesas large.International comparisons are harder to make,particularly in quantitative terms. The analysismust be indirect and conjectural. It is possible to make some relative judgments of American andother universities, but differences in qualitybetween them have many causes including differences in financial resources and differing degreesof freedom from political repression and thedisruptions of war. There are no great privateuniversities worth speaking of in Europe. Onlythe United States has a dual system of publicand private universities and it is very likely thatthis uniqueness has affected the quality of itsentire system of higher education.The outstanding centers of scientific researchand scholarship are at present much more predominantly in the United States than was formerly true. In the last 40 years, there has been a"reversal in the traditional debtor/ creditor relationship between American and European scholars with the results that the United States hasbecome the chief center of learning in theworld" (Curti, pp. 5 ff.). Ben-David, one of thebest informed students of higher education,reached the same conclusion: "Since WorldWar II, there have been signs that not only didthe United States's performance surpass that ofWestern Europe in an extensive type of highereducation and research but also in research ofhigher quality" (Ben-David, 1968, p. 19).The shift began much earlier. At the end ofthe third quarter of the nineteenth century,Europeans, especially central European universities, led the world in science and scholarship.But toward the end of the century, the Americanuniversities began to vie with their Europeanopposite numbers. By the 1920s American universities benefitting from a study of Europeanexperience, had greatly raised the level of theirscholarship and scientific research. The privateuniversities were the leaders in this development.It was their freedom to initiate, to try newfields, to make imaginative appointments, to institute new courses of study which enabled theforefront of the American university system tocome abreast of the Europeans and then tosurpass them.22One cannot argue conclusively that the growing relative superiority of American universities is attributableto the existence of private universities in this country,but there are some considerations which lead naturallyto the. conclusion that these institutions have been ofgreat importance. From The Intellectual Migration,edited by Fleming and Bailyn [1969] one gets theoverwhelming impression that the private institutionswere more imaginative, enterprising, and, flexible inattracting outstanding European scientists and scholars.The book contains biographical information on 300notable emigres from Europe. Of those emigres whofound their first professional homes in this country inuniversities, 88 percent were employed in private97The leadership of private American universitiesis illustrated by the development of theoreticaland experimental physics. "Until the late nineteenth century American scientists in all but afew fields . . . had, compared to their Europeancounterparts, neglected basic research and wereparticularly deficient in theoretical studies" (Co-ben, p. 442). In the twentieth century Americanscience developed rapidly— not because of theimmigration of European scientists but becauseAmerican scientists began to go to Europe foradvanced training. According to Coben, thepioneers in physics were Millikan at Chicago andthe California Institute of Technology, KarlCompton at Princeton, Arthur H. Compton atChicago, Harrison Randall at Michigan, andGeorge W. Pierce at Harvard. Other early leaderswere Michelson of Chicago, Ames and Wood ofJohns Hopkins, Langmuir of the General ElectricCompany, and Bridgman and Lyman of Harvard.Throughout Coben's long and careful account ofthe development of academic science in thiscountry, the preponderant role of the privateuniversities is striking. At present, the world'smost distinguished centers for graduate educationand research in high-energy physics are in thiscountry and primarily at private institutions.Another closely related indication of therelative strengths of the systems of higher education in various countries is provided by thenationality of Nobel Laureates. Between 1901and 1950, 27 of the 164 laureates were from theUnited States, approximately one-sixth of thetotal; the United States was surpassed by bothGermany and Great Britain. Between 1951 and1966, 44 out of 88 (half) of the laureates werefrom the United States. The next largest numberwas 18 from Great Britain. The relative superiority of the United States is especially pronouncedin the natural and social sciences.3According to all available objective criteria,private universities have been and are among theuniversities and only 12 percent in public universities.They went to the private universities rather than publicones partly because the former were already outstanding and hence attractive to men and women of outstanding intellectual quality but also because the privateuniversities were flexible and adaptive and had a senseof quality.3A complete argument to support the main point ofthis paragraph would require data on the proportionsof the world's scholars and scientists educated andworking in the United States at different times. Thereare no good data on these proportions. Yet, it is impossible to find any ground for believing that shifts inthese proportions account for the growing dominanceby American scholars and scientists of the Nobel awards. greatest universities in this country. Private universities have been responsible for the most advanced degrees of the majority of the seniorfaculty of the strongest departments in bothpublic and private universities. Private universitieshave produced a large majority of this country'sNobel laureates and of the members of its mostprestigious intellectual societies. American universities are now the world's leading centers ofscientific research and among the leading centersin scholarship in all areas. The system is a goodone and is believed by many to be superior toany other.A British View of the Merits of Private UniversitiesThe British university system of the present dayis certainly one of the most distinguished in theworld. It is not quite state controlled in the wayin which continental universities are, but it isnow almost wholly dependent on governmentalfinancial support through the University GrantsCommittee and the research councils all of whosefunds are provided by government. It is, therefore, interesting to note some views currentlyprominent in Great Britain. British universitiesenjoy great freedom from political intrusion inmatters of appointments, courses of study, andstandards in examinations. Nonetheless, someleading British academics believe that they arebeginning to suffer from too much dependenceon government and too much intervention bygovernment however indirect and subtle. The result has been the development of a vigorousmovement to establish an "independent" university. The planning of this university is beingcarried out by a group of distinguished academicians under the chairmanship of Sir SidneyCaine, Director of the London School of Economics from 1957 to 1967, and including members of Oxford, Cambridge, and other Britishuniversities. Over 100 of them signed an originalDeclaration of the Urgency of an IndependentUniversity. The need for an independent university is discussed at length in Ferns' Towardan Independent University (Ferns, 1969). (Thesubtitle of Ferns' work is "A View of the UrgentNeed for Establishing an Institution of HigherEducation Free from Government Control.")It is also discussed in a book edited byMacCallum Scott (MacCallum Scott, 1971). Theauthors of this work include among the manyadvantages to British education of an independent British university a freedom from strong98egalitarian pressures, permitting maintenance ofthe highest standards, the strength to resistincreasing governmental intrusions into academicaffairs, enlarged opportunities to try new things,and the general stimulation of competition withexisting universities. The main arguments on behalf of an independent university in Great Britainare those which are presented below as ananalytical justification for the importance ofAmerica's independent, private universities. Inthe words of Max Beloff, the Gladstone Professorof Government and Public Administration at Oxford: "What we most lack in Britain as comparedwith America are great private institutions, alongside state-supported ones, which by example andemulation and through mutual support can assisteach other's development and freedom" (Beloff,p. 530).The Distinctive Virtues of PrivatenessWhat is it about private universities which couldaccount for their historical importance in thiscountry and for their contribution to the emerging superiority of American higher education?Why do numerous English scholars think thatstrength of the American system of highereducation derives from the existence of itsprivate institutions?For Shils, the private university's privateness isconstituted by the locus of its sovereignty (Shils,1972). Private universities are relatively autonomous corporations legally independent of government or of churches or other associations. Theyare accountable to trustees, faculties, and students and not legislatures or governmental bureaus.4 Closely associated with the privacy oftheir governance is their budgetary autonomy.All private universities in the United States nowdepend to some extent on governmental financialsupport, and, in this respect, our private universities have begun increasingly to resemble stateuniversities. These latter institutions, in turn, havein recent decades obtained larger amounts ofprivate funds from foundations and individualdonors then they did earlier. One major difference between the two institutions is that thestate universities depend largely on state fundswhich are provided by state governments havinga direct influence on the governance of thesePrivate institutions are chartered by state governmentsand are therefore ultimately subject to government control. This control has been exercised extremely rarelyin setting budgets or salaries or in academic matterssuch as faculty appointments and promotions or inspecifying curricula. institutions, while private universities receivetheir governmental funds primarily from thefederal government which has heretofore had nodirect role in university governance.As has been said, privateness does not insuregreatness and being a public institution does notprevent it. Yet, there are things in the privatenessof private universities which account for theirrelative eminence in the past and are necessary tothe maintenance of the greatness in the future.Private universities seem to have superior ability to innovate. The major innovations in liberaland general undergraduate education in the last50 years have been at Columbia, Chicago, andHarvard. The development of liberal and generalundergraduate education was the work of privateuniversities, as was the introduction of the elec:tive system. In graduate education, examples ofsuch innovation include case study in law schoolsat Harvard, medical education based on preclinical sciences at Hopkins and Columbia, full-time salaried clinical faculty at the medicalschool at Chicago, and interdisciplinary researchin social sciences at Chicago. Privateness per sedoes not provide a guarantee of important innovation. Rather privateness is often associatedwith smalmess, relatively ample financial resources, a sense of freedom from unsympatheticsurveillance, a sense of corporate responsibilityfor the reputation of the institution, and a system of governance which, though awkward bysome standards, is efficient and flexible by comparison with most public institutions. Privateuniversities need not be small and sometimes arenot wealthy, but the leading private universitiesare small by comparison with most public universities and they have more abundant resources,as measured by expenditures per student. Privateuniversities have the freedom to remain small,whereas most public universities are under strongcompulsion to become big.Private universities contribute to the excellence of public universities by embodying andexemplifying high standards and by strengtheningacademic freedom in state institutions. The private institutions have often been a haven for faculty members whose freedom was threatened orconstrained in state institutions. Ever since thefirst World War, outstanding faculty membershave left universities in California, Iowa, andother state universities for posts in major privateuniversities after conflicts with state governmentsranging from loyalty oaths to favorable references to the nutritive value of margarine. The ex-99istence of higher standards of academic freedomat major private universities has caused governingbodies of state universities to be less ready tocurtail the freedom of their staff than they wouldotherwise have been.State universities in this country are undergreat pressure to provide education for all graduates of high schools who seek higher education.As a consequence, state systems of higher education have become extremely large. For manyyears, the so-called "flagship" system permittedstate universities to educate all those seekinghigher education and still preserve one unit ofthe system as the "flagship"— i.e., a universityof great distinction. The University of Californiaat Berkeley, the University of Michigan at AnnArbor, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison are outstanding examples. Competition within each state among various universities of thestate system and the political need to avoid theappearance of "unequal treatment" now threatenthese "flagships." Berkeley's private endowmentis being pooled with endowments of other unitsof the California system. Salaries at the numerouscampuses of the state system of Wisconsin aremoving toward equality in response to effectivepolitical pressures from the higher educationalinstitutions outside of Madison. The egalitarianforces are likely to reduce the stature of theflagships and make it less likely that the graduates of state universities can maintain the higheststandards.There are other important handicaps for astate university (Lee and Bowen, pp. 417-419).Perhaps the most serious is the complicated andconfused system of governance and finance.There is seldom a stable agreement on the relative authority of the state government, the"coordinating agency," and the administration ofthe individual university. Budgetary control bythe state often creates inefficiency and inflexibility. Political pressures are often disruptive. Leeand Bowen found evidence of such pressures inevery state (Lee and Bowen, p. 419). The pressures tend to increase with the size of university budgets and with the increased feelingthat universities should be directly concernedwith the immediate amelioration of social problems and even with political action.The efficiency of governance of private universities is not ideal. Nor are they free from politicalintrusions into their academic affairs. Also,egalitarian pressures, which are properly characteristic of democracies, can erode standards atprivate universities. Nevertheless, at private uni versities, these threats seem mild by comparisonwith those at even the strongest state universities.Egalitarian pressures, confused and complicated systems of governance, and political interference are special handicaps of public universities. The reasons for the historic importance ofAmerica's private universities continue. Even ifthe causes of their eminence were wholly mysterious—or perhaps especially if they were mysterious—these institutions should be preservedwith freedom and enhanced vigor; excellent institutions are rare and are not easily or quicklycreated.The Financial Plight of America's Major PrivateUniversitiesIt is clear that our private universities are rareand valuable institutions. They are however insuch serious financial trouble that their uniquevirtues will be impaired unless their financialresources are greatly increased."Colleges and universities throughout thecountry today are struggling with a growingfinancial crisis" (Cheit, p. xviii). The evidence isabundant and uncontroverted that our privateuniversities are in financial trouble. In recentyears, seven of the eight Ivy League universitieshave had deficits. The eighth, Harvard, has hadlarge deficits in its faculty of arts and sciences.Chicago, Stanford, and MIT have had deficits.Some of these institutions had deficits for thefirst time in their long histories. The deficits werelarge. They were not the result of bold newventures but occurred despite efforts to retrench.Robert Goheen, President of Princeton University, expressed a common view when he saidin 1967: "Almost without exception, the independent national university is facing a deficit inits operating budget this year or next. No oneknows where the funds will be found to meetthe educational demands of the coming decade."Reinert reported to the Council for FinancialAid to Education that in 1965 most of the headsof colleges and universities who had been polledstated that they were worse off financially thanthey had been 10 years earlier. Bowen in 1968said: "Among persons eminently concerned withthe affairs of the private universities, there is apervasive feeling that current sources of financialsupport are becoming increasingly inadequate inrelation to needs" (Bowen, 1968, p. 3). The financial conditions of the major private universities deteriorated between 1965 and 1968 and thedeterioration has continued since 1968. The de-100ficits are larger and more general despite effortsto slow the increase in expenditures or to reducethem, and the prospects for increased revenueshave become less promising.The current severe financial difficulties beganto emerge in the middle 1960s. They result froman inexorable upward trend in costs per studentand reduced rates of growth in all importantsources of income. What makes these trendsespecially alarming is that the current scale ofprivate universities coupled with the variety andcomplexity of demands made upon them causethem to be less firmly in control of their financialcondition than was true earlier.Costs. For at least the last 10 years, costs perstudent at the major universities have risen morerapidly than revenues, and the forces causing thisadverse discrepancy have to some extent beenbeyond the control of the affected institutions.Instructional costs per student rose at an averageannual rate of about 8 percent (compoundedannually) between 1956 and 19665 (Bowen,1968, p. 10). The rate of increase had not slowedby 1969 when Bowen again investigated thesubject (Bowen, 1969, pp. 404-405). Althoughthere are no good data for the last three years,the trend in costs has apparently remained aboutthe same.The three basic causes for the increase incosts— aside from inflation which affects costsgenerally— are a change in the product (i.e., thekind of education and research at the major private universities), the change in the productivityof faculties relative to the productivity of othermembers of our society, and increased competition from public institutions for talented facultyand students.The major private universities have been devoting increasing proportions of their resourcesto graduate education. The ratio of their graduatestudents to all students has risen rapidly (incontrast to some decline in the ratio at publicinstitutions). The University of Chicago has estimated that the cost of teaching a graduate student is about two to five times as great as thecost of teaching an undergraduate, depending onthe field of study. Thus, the shift to graduatestudy has had a great impact on costs.Education and research have become morespecialized, with a consequent need for morespecialized academic staff and increasingly elab-5 The comparable rate for all costs in the economy was2 percent. orate libraries, laboratories, and scientific equipment. The development of experimental high-energy physics, non-Western studies, and computers are merely large and obvious examples ofthe results of the growth of knowledge and itsspecialization. Perhaps the best indicator of theresults of these changes is the costs of maintaining research libraries. Expenditures at large research libraries rose at an annual rate of 15percent during the middle 1960s, but there wasevidence that expenditures were inadequate inview of the extraordinary rate of increase in thepublication of relevant books and periodicals(Dunn, Seibert, and Scheuneman).The second cause of increased institutionalcosts is independent of the changes in the character of education and research. Universitiesthroughout the world and in all or almost allfields have failed in recent years to increasesubstantially the output per member of their faculties. The development and use of public addresssystems, visual aids, and cheap photographicprocesses to reproduce scarce journals and bookshave made possible an increase in the size ofclasses, but in many institutions these mechanicalaids had already been fully exploited before thecurrent financial difficulties began to emerge.Further, although the size of elementary andintermediate undergraduate classes has been successfully increased in many universities, graduatestudy and research cannot benefit significantlyfrom similar extensions in the ability of teachersto communicate with more students and in theability of students to obtain easy access to written materials. For the most advanced graduatestudy— and particularly that of the highest quality—no substitute has been found for intimateassociation or collaboration between student andteacher. Regardless of whether the field of studybe experimental physics, literary criticism, biochemistry, molecular biology, or social science,there is as yet no known substitute for thedirect interaction between master and apprenticeover several years.In much of the rest of the economy, excludingsome service industries, output per man hour hasincreased steadily, primarily as a result of increasingly capital-intensive production processes.During the decade 1957-1967, output per manhour worked in the manufacturing sector rose atan average annual rate of 3.5 percent (Bureau ofLabor Statistics). The relatively rapid rise in output per man hour in employments other thanteaching and research will result either in increasing costs per unit of output in teaching and re-101search or in a decline in salaries in academicemployment relative to wages and salaries inother employments. Unless universities permitsuch a decline in academic salaries, educationalcosts per unit of output will rise because of thediscrepancies in relative rates of change in productivity.A relative decline in the financial well-beingof the most talented academicians is not unthinkable or even obviously undesirable. It isworth mentioning, however, that such a changewould make academic employment in this country less attractive relative to other employment inthis country or elsewhere. The "brain drain" hasundoubtedly enriched our society, but the flowof talent could reverse its direction. A vast proportion of the so-called drain has been from othercountries to the United States. The drain hasbeen a serious concern in several countries inWestern Europe and in Canada.6Many things caused the drain. Political persecution and war were dominant forces in the1930s and 1940s, but, according to all studies,higher incomes in this country have been ofsubstantial importance in the 1950s and 1960s.An indication of a possible reversal is indicatedby recent reports from the United Kingdom thatthe proportion of applicants from the UnitedStates for any academic appointment has markedly increased in the past few years.The third cause of increased costs for privateuniversities has been increased competition frompublic ones for teachers and students. Publicuniversities have grown very much more rapidlythan private universities. In 1900, two out ofthree American college students were in privateinstitutions; in 1969, fewer than one out ofthree (Rivlin and O'Neil in Connery [ed.],p. 69). In the university sector, the decline inthe relative size of the private institutions hasbeen dramatic. In the early 1950s, enrollmentat private universities was about 70 percent asgreat as at public universities; at the end of the1960s private enrollment was less than 30 percent as great (U.S. Department of HEW, p. 53,and National Center for Education Statistics, p.85). Public universities not only have grown ab-6For references prior to 1967, see Robert C. Myers,"Brain Drains and Brain Gains," International Development Review, Vol 4, December, 1967.Also see: Walter Adams, The Brain Drain, New York:Macmillan & Co., 1970; Thomas Brinley, "The International Circulation of Human Capital," Minerva, VoL4, Summer, 1967, pp. 479-506; and Herbert G. Grubel,"The Reduction of the Brain Drain: Problems andPolicies," Minerva, Vol. VI, ^Jo. 4 Summer, 1968,pp. 541-58. solutely and relatively, but the large resourceswhich the state governments have made availablehave enabled the state institutions to entertainthe same aspirations to quality as are standard atthe leading private universities. More and more ofthe state institutions desire to have scholars andscientists of the greatest talent and prestige.Their ability to compete for these rare persons ofextraordinary ability is increased by the fact thatthe average size and budget of the public institutions are so much greater than that of the privateones. The financial burden of the large expenditure necessary to attract the greatest talent bearsrelatively lightly on the relatively large budgetsof the public institutions.In sum, total costs and cost per student haverisen rapidly at major private universities inrecent years, and the causes have been largely beyond their control. The average annual rate ofincrease and cost per student of about 8 percentis likely to continue. "If anything, there seemsto be an increasing need for universities tostrengthen their libraries, to move aggressivelyinto new (and costly) fields of teaching andresearch, provide more graduate education relative to undergraduate education, and to participate actively in the quest for solutions to national and international problems. Needless to say, allof these factors imply significantly higher expenditures per student, even if there were no increase in salaries or other costs of doing thepresent job" (Bowen, 1968, p. 27). If one assumes that enrollment will increase about 3 percent per year, as it has in recent years, total expenditures will increase at an annual rate of about1 1 percent, thus doubling about every six and ahalf years. Financial limitations may require thisrate of increase in enrollment to be less. Unlessrevenues increase at an equal rate, there will be areduced ability to maintain the quality of existing activities or to undertake new ones.Income. Rapid increases in costs obviously wouldnot produce financial distress if income keptpace. Unfortunately, it has not and is unlikely todo so in the future.In 1963-64 the percentage of income ofall private universities by sources was as shownon page 103 (Bowen, 1968, p. 35).Not all years are like 1963-64, but the fourspecified sources of income are still the most important and their importance with respect to eachportant and their importance with respect to eachother has probably not changed much. The distressing prospect is for reduced rates of growthin income from each of the four major sources.102Government Grants and ContractsStudent Fees'Endowment IncomePrivate Gifts and Grants 45.134.48.811.8Total 100.0*NOTE: Components do not add to total because ofrounding.*Excludes income for capital expenditures and income derived from operation of hospitals and auxiliaryenterprises.Government Grants and Contracts. Governmentgrants and contracts are the most importantsources of funds. The flow of these funds rosedramatically after World War II, providing ever-increasing, proportions of total income to privateuniversities. Such funds accounted for less than2 percent of total income at Chicago, Princeton,and Vanderbilt. prior to World War II; 13 percentin 1948-49; 24.4 percent in 1955-56; and 45.9percent in 1965-66 (Bowen, 1968, p. 35).The prospect is slim that federal funds will beas useful to our private universities in the futureas in the past. There are three reasons for thispessimism. First, the total amount of money provided for higher education and research by thefederal government has decreased in real termssince 1967 and there is no reason to believe thatthis recent trend will be reversed soon. Second,political pressures which are understandable,probably inexorable, and, from some points ofview, certainly unfortunate, have caused federalfunds to be more evenly distributed over thecountry rather than allocated to outstandingpersons and their institutions on the basis ofability and the prospect for future achievement.Third, the instability of government in its choiceof the fields or problems for which it provides"earmarked" support has been increasing andhas had an adverse impact on many institutions.The main sources of federal support for education and research in American universities havebeen the Department of Defense, the AtomicEnergy Commission, the Department of Health,Education and Welfare, the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration, and the NationalScience Foundation. All but the components ofthe Department of Defense came into existenceafter World War II and had rapidly growingbudgets in their early years. By the mid-1960s,these agencies had ended their period of rapid growth and the period of rapid growth in theirsupport of higher education. The National Science Foundation estimated the following percentage changes in the amount of federal fundsfor higher education since 1963 (Cheit, p. 10):% Change fromYear Preceding Year1964 +151965 +421966 +311967 +101968 + 21969* + 21970* + 21971* + 2*EstimatedSince 1967, the rate of increase has been lessthan the rate of inflation.As the amount of federal funds going to universities rose rapidly, there was a sharp rise in theinterest of politicians in the allocation of thesefunds. Since Congressmen and Senators representgeographically defined constituencies, there wasgrowing and ultimately effective political pressure from them to secure federal funds for theuniversities in their own constituencies. Prior to1966, these efforts had only a minor impact,with the result that a large fraction of federalfunds for education and research went to a smallnumber of universities. Among these universities,private institutions such as Harvard, Columbia,Chicago, California Institute of Technology, andMIT were most prominent. The pattern of allocation of federal funds prior to 1966 seems to havecorresponded roughly to the pattern of distribution of the most talented physicists, mathematicians, and biological and social scientists over thecountry's universities.In 1965 President Johnson, apparently responding to pressures from Congress, issued amemorandum which was intended to change thesystem of allocating funds. He said: "The strengthof the research and developmental programs ofthe major agencies, and hence their ability tomeet national needs, depends heavily upon thetotal strength of our university system. Researchsupported to further agency missions should beadministered not only with a view to producing103specific results, but also with a view to strengthening academic institutions and increasing thenumber of institutions capable of performingresearch of high quality" (Johnson, 1965, p. 21).President Johnson's policy and other forces havecaused declines in the proportion of federalfunds going to Harvard, Chicago, CaliforniaInstitute of Technology, and other leading private institutions and a corresponding increase inthe proportion of federal funds going to otherinstitutions all over the country, regardless oftheir distinction. Regardless of the efficiency orjustice of this policy in supporting basic scienceand our most talented scientists, it is virtuallycertain that political forces give this policy a longlife expectancy.Allocating federal funds in order to createexcellence where it had hitherto been lackinginstead of to provide needed resources for themost eminent scholars and scientists will haveinjurious effects on the major universities. In theearly stages of this process, the effect of thenew national policy will primarily be to enableinstitutions of lesser distinction to raise theirsalaries and thus to compete more effectivelywith universities of the greatest distinction forthe services of the most famous faculty and theirmost talented students. Some will applaud thiskind of movement toward equality of ouruniversities. Is it not desirable that students atthe hundreds of units of the 50 state universitysystems as well as those at the major privateuniversities should have the opportunity to learnfrom and work with the greatest scholars andscientists? The first and simple answer is affirmative; is not equality one of the values most prizedin our tradition? Yet, the matter is more complicated than it appears at first sight.Many, perhaps most, of the greatest works ofmodern scholarship and scientific inquiry havebeen carried out by men working in collaborationwith, or even more in the stimulating companyand audience of others of great ability. Anindividual working in isolation or outside thecompany of others of outstanding capacity willbe less effective usually than when he works in amore stimulating and more exacting environment. The distinction of our education andresearch seems to be furthered by concentrationsinto effective clusters of individuals of greatexcellence— both faculty and students— who canwork together. They benefit from each other'sproximity, from the ideas they get in conversation, from criticism and from awareness of thehigh level of acceptable achievement. The com pany of excellent minds is the enemy of slacknessand the spur to exertion. Spreading existingtalent more evenly, though appealing on somegrounds, will impede the future production ofgreat scholarship and science and great scholarsand scientists. According to James B. Conant,in the advance of science, ten second-rate mencannot do the work of one of the first-class. According to John T. Wilson, the same principleapplies to institutions (Wilson).The adverse impact of recent changes in federal support stems not only from a reduction in itsreal level and in its distribution but also fromchanges in the kincls of things which are supported. Prior to the late sixties, the primary formof support was a grant to a man of outstandingability to do the work which he wanted to do.Increasingly, support has been given to institutions to aid in their general development or toindividuals or institutions to work on specifiedresearch projects with immediate practical missions or goals. Further, the move toward researchin the service of "social needs" has caused thechoice of goals by the government to becomedependent on the fluctuations of political andpublic opinion and the pet projects of publicity-minded scientists and the mass media. Theobjects change more frequently. This ficklenessimposes large costs on universities. With federalsupport, universities acquire specialized facilitiesand make long-term commitments to faculty and,then, as federal support shifts to other goals, theuniversities are left with the burden of meetingtheir commitments with funds from such othersources as they can command. One exampleof this costly fickleness is the establishmentby NASA of large centers for research in "spacescience" only to abandon them unexpectedlyafter relatively brief periods. Another is theestablishment of centers for the study of esoteric languages.The government seeks immediate and dramaticresults regardless of the capacities of research toproduce them. The government and public opinion are convinced by examples such as theManhattan Project that crash programs will dothe job, and it is not surprising when hard-presseduniversities, desperate for funds, try to meet theorder. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find long-term support foroutstanding faculty and students who wish topursue fundamental knowledge of the typewhich has in the long run contributed more tohuman well-being than crash programs can everdo, except by improbable accident.104Another change in federal policy is potentiallyeven more serious. Until recently, the federalgovernment did not use its financial power in away that was significantly prejudicial to thestandards and freedom of the private universitiesin this country. Now, it is using its power harmfully. The change in policy deserves analysis.On September 24, 1965, the President of theUnited States issued Executive Order 1 1 246(Federal Register) forbidding discrimination withrespect to race, color, religion, national origin, orsex by any individual or organization contractingwith the federal government. On November 20,1969, the United States Department of Laborissued an order requiring affirmative action bysuch contractors to comply with this executiveorder.The major private universities are contractorswith the federal government because much federal support is in the form of contracts to conductresearch. The required affirmative action affectsappointments to faculties as well as other categories of employment. Though the required action is designed to eliminate discrimination, it isvirtually certain to produce it.Corrective or affirmative action is to be takenif members of specified groups (women, Negroes,Spanish surnamed Americans) are judged to be aninadequate proportion of those employed orapplying for employment in specified types ofjobs, including faculty appointments. Such actionwould introduce criteria other than competenceinto the selection of faculty, with diverse andseriously harmful effects on the major privateuniversities. Although discrimination on groundsof national origin, color, or sex is morally abhorrent and destructive, the implementation ofpresent government policy seems virtually certainto make these factors relevant criteria for academic appointment. It is ironic, though notsurprising, that the quest for policies of nondiscrimination should produce discrimination. Tothe extent that it does, the quality of facultieswill diminish.As a result of these developments, the majorprivate universities have found federal supportto be less and less helpful since* the mid-sixties.The level of total support has declined in realterms; federal funds have been allocated increasingly in response to political pressures; support has shifted from grants to outstanding mento support of "mission-oriented" research whichcan be made to appear to have prospects of immediate practical results. This has resulted infrequent shifts of goals and has imposed addition al burdens on institutions by leaving them tocarry the staff which has been left on the beachwhen the tide of some particular program recedes.Each new flooding of the tide makes additionalburdens for the universities.The conditions under which federal supportis provided are changing in many ways— nonepromising for the quality of the universities. Theuniversities most likely to have the power toadapt successfully to these changes and to resistthe potentially destructive intrusions of thefederal government and of state governments arethe major private universities. Their current major reliance on federal funds must not be significantly increased. If it is not and if these universities are to continue their successful pursuit ofexcellence, private resources available to themmust be greatly increased. If they are not, theseuniversities will decline and American society andall mankind will be poorer.Income from Tuition Fees. The second mostimportant source of income to major universitieshas been tuition fees. Gross income from suchfees at these institutions has increased at anaverage annual rate of 5 to 6 percent sinceWorld War II (Bowen, 1968, p. 37). In recentyears, net income from tuition fees has increasedmuch less rapidly than gross income, as theseuniversities have increasingly sought to attractand help able students with only meagre financialresources. Between 1962 and 1966, gross incomefrom tuition fees per student increased over 35percent, while net income increased only about10 percent (Bowen, 1968, pp. 38 and 41).The ability of the private universities to provide increased financial aid to students by raisingtuition fees is severely limited by the competitionof public universities for talented students. Between 1928 and 1956 the ratio of tuition fees atprivate universities to rates at public universitieswas quite stable, about 1.6 to 1.0. Since 1956,the ratio has increased to about 2.0 to 1.0(Bowen, 1968, pp. 38 and 41).As a result of the increasing gap in gross andnet income from tuition fees and the increasedratio of tuition rates at private universities, nettuition fee income in the future is likely to growat an average annual rate of less than 4.5 percent.Endowment Income. Income from the endowment rose about 7 percent annually between1948 and 1966 (Bowen, 1968, p. 38). Thegrowth in income from endowment was the netresult of contributions to endowments, rising in-105terest rates which increased the yields on bondsand mortgages, and extraordinarily high rates ofreturn on common stock. All three sources of theincrease in endowment income are likely to beless productive in the future.Net contributions to endowment funds arelikely to diminish for reasons to be discussed below. Also, there has been in recent years, and islikely to be in future years, some attrition in endowment funds because of the need to drawupon them to finance operating deficits and tomeet urgent needs for capital facilities.After World War II, interest rates rose almostcontinuously to historical peaks in 1970. Since1970, most rates have declined. Future rates depend more on the rate of price inflation than onanything else. Although many economists expectthe rate of price inflation in the next 25 years tobe somewhat greater than in the past 25, fewexpect the annual rate of inflation to exceed therate which existed in 1970, when it was about6 percent. Even fewer expect rates of inflation toincrease as rapidly as they did between 1965 and1970. Almost none expects interest rates to riseas rapidly between 1970 and the year 2000 asthey did between 1940 and 1970. As a- consequence, rates of return on investment in fixeddollar assets will not increase as rapidly in thefuture as they did in the past.The most important ground for pessimismabout future rates of return on endowment income is the small likelihood that the level ofstock prices will rise as rapidly as it has sinceWorld War II. Rates of return on investment instocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange,assuming no taxes and reinvestment of dividends,have been as follows (Fisher, Lorie, 1968,p. 297):Rates of ReturnYear (% per year, compounded annually)1945-50 7.81950-55 18.51955-60 11.21960-65 15.91965-70 2.0** EstimatedOver longer periods of time, rates of returnon common stocks have been about 9 percentper year. These rates are the consequence ofannual rates of growth in real profits of about3.5 percent per year, in real dividends of about4.0 percent per year, and price inflation of about 1.5 percent. The extraordinarily high rates priorto 1965 are attributable to the normal causes ofgrowth plus a dramatic increase in price-earningsratios— an increase which almost certainly willnot occur again. There is a strong likelihood thatrates of return on common stocks in the futurewill be nearer to 9 percent than to the higherrates which characterized most of the periodbetween 1945 and 1965.Private Gifts and Private Grants. Private gifts andgrants to universities have been increasing at anaverage annual rate of about 6.5 percent between1965 and 1968 (Bowen, 1969, p. 432). In 1971,according to the Internal Revenue Service, private gifts to 102 colleges increased less than 1percent over 1970 (Wall Street Journal). Thesources of these gifts and grants were studied forthe year 1962-63 (see Table 1).Bowen feels that the rate of increase in privategiving is likely to be less than 6.5 percent annually in the future and he gives five reasons.First, foundations are the major course ofprivate gifts, accounting for over one-fifth of thetotal in 1962-63 when no other single source accounted for as much as one-sixth. The largest ofthe foundations is the Ford Foundation whichhas indicated in various ways its intention toshift its emphasis from higher education andresearch to other fields. Reduced giving by thislargest foundation will probably foster a reducedrate of growth in giving by all foundations forhigher education.The shift in emphasis at the major foundationsseems to have been caused in part by a desire toplay a part in meeting increasingly impatient andstrident demands for solutions to social problemssuch as racism, poverty, inequality of educationalopportunity, drug abuse, and crime. Much academic scholarship and basic scientific research isirrelevant to such immediate problems. The factthat the knowledge which has enabled us to dealwith social problems has often been producedby academic scholarship and scientific inquiry isunpersuasive to those who wish to achieveimmediate improvements in social conditions.Second, the ratio of independent giving topersonal income rose from 1.5 percent in the1920s to 2.5 percent in 1960 and declined rathersteadily thereafter. If the ratio stays constant,private giving will go up in step with personalincome— say, 5 percent a year.There is a threat to even this level of privategiving from a recent, serious attack on one. of theincentives for private philanthropy. Surrey (Sur-106u W± o3 c«CD o CD<yarp g"< P Pp P CDh O U*< o'P po c« CD13 P.pPfTQ O oPCD PuCDP VOOne; to>— »CD onu>p noa opo 13Oo fUp *+i>wppp*2!>p*33PP- g p 2op2op"pOOP w o r* w Jtf TjCD < p CD ohP p1 c« pP CD p pCD ere pCD •^ CTQ oPoaaCDPO p*c/a PP* OOPol-t nopS po"pC/3pg.CD* >3 ppp 35pOS p p* oooopo"p ph- H-» OOVOonO4^on to OOVO oo On ooOs -4 to 0000 On on ONto vo toON OO o ov© OS VO on 45* On45* H-*O 00On H-* p O£ §oo h- ¦ H- tO45*ooOn h-» h-On4*OO 45*OH- h-» 00toVOn oo 45*oo 45* OOn VO00 On toOn »— » to p aph- h- ^j -a,i K>o OO 45* on On On 45* o tooo On 45* on t— * On h-* to -oOn OO On On U> ooo On On o -J OO OO f— * onooOn -J 45* o OO o 00 00 toNO to 45* oo On OO 00 ooto VO On en -J 00 00-o. o On OO en O -J oo oooo© L_* »_ U_* U-i L^ ^ P O& §^ owHCJ*dOGOwgo>H>r^dcj.^dOwGOH¦OH>roHGO nCDa*o Wp r2 w0 ^c o3 O^^K w^ Hr-t- NH^d S3c WS H0 o¦ ' 2VOONtoOnLOCDrey, 1970) indicates the reasoning underlying thisattack. According to him, private gifts to universities (museums, foundations, etc.) are not entirely private. The gifts allegedly reduce federalincome tax payments by the donor, and, to thisextent, are disguised federal support. The donorof $100 can reduce his tax payments by, say,$50. Thus, the donor "really" allocates $50 offederal funds to purposes of his own choice.Some argue that this constitutes an undesirabledelegation of the power to expend public funds,and the argument can be made more compellingby citing examples of private gifts which aredispleasing or which seem of questionable propriety. According to Surrey, the tax laws concerning gifts of appreciated property are especiallysuspect, since, according to him, it is possiblefor the donor to be better off financially bygiving away appreciated property rather thanselling it and paying the prescribed tax.Surrey's line of argument can be attacked onthree grounds. First, his assertion that gifts ofappreciated property provide an absolute material benefit to the donor is wrong. Retention ofthe property would always leave the donor betteroff. Second, Surrey surely misstates things whenhe describes the current effect of tax laws on federal revenues. Frequently, and perhaps typically,gifts of property by wealthy persons are not inlieu of a sale of the property and a tax payment;rather in the absence of a tax deduction for gifts,many gifts would not be made, the property thatwould have been donated would be retained, andthe capital gains tax would not be paid.The strongest argument against Surrey's position is the conventional argument for a pluralisticsociety. A society is freer and richer if itsscience, scholarship, literature, drama and finearts receive support from many sources ratherthan primarily from the government, whose influence in this and other societies has often beenrestrictive and homogenizing. If Surrey's viewswere to prevail, undoubtedly there would be asignificant diminuation in private support forhigher education, and a consequent increase inbureaucratic and political control over scholarlyand scientific activities.The weakness of Surrey's case may not weakenthe drive which the government and certainapologists for its claim to omnipotence andomniscience are conducting against philanthropy.The result may be an elimination of importantincentives for such philanthropy and reducedprivate support for private universities.Another reason for pessimism regarding future philanthropic support for private universities iswhat seems to be a growing belief even amongwealthy persons that the federal government isthe appropriate agency for rectifying society'sills. This belief leads some persons of wealth tofeel little responsibility for helping private universities and to accept the extension of the purseand powers of the state into spheres where suchan extension has the potential for much harm.Third, an increasing proportion of privatephilanthropy is being directed to public universities. A survey by John-Price-Jones for 1965-66indicated that total gifts to the 42 private institutions in the sample was lower than in the previous year and that gifts to the eight publicuniversities in the sample increased (Bowen,1969, p. 434).Fourth, after World War .II, universities increased greatly the skill and professionalism oftheir fund-raising efforts. This change apparentlyproduced large increases in gifts from all sources.Although some improvement in the intensity andskill of fund-raising efforts is to be expected inthe future, it is unlikely that the improvementsin the future will match those which occurred inthe course of the change from casual, intermittent, amateurism to systematic, large-scale specialized fund-raising.Fifth, the composition of the student body ofthe major private universities has been and ischanging, especially in the Ivy League schools,which include some major private universities,there has been an increased proportion of students from less wealthy families. As a consequence there is a likelihood that future alumniwill have less wealth and less capacity to be generous to the universities from which they graduated.Bowen intuitively but plausibly conjecturesthat future rates of growth in private giving willbe 4 to 5.5 percent per year as contrasted withrecent rates of 6.5 percent. Although one wouldfind it difficult to justify any particular estimateof future rates of growth, it is easy to agree thatimportant forces are likely to produce reducedrates.Summary. In a "typical" major private universityfor the decade ending 1975-76, costs are likelyto increase at an average annual rate of 1 1 percent per year; income at a rate between 5.8percent and 7.6 percent (Bowen, 1969, p. 437).The result will be a cumulative deficit of between$20 million and $28 million (Bowen, 1969, p.438). If these projections are reasonably accurate,108the "typical" private university will have to adjust be consuming its capital, reducing the qualityof its teaching and research, or restricting therange of its activities. The alternative is a largeincrease in private giving.The Importance of Private Giving to Private Universities.It is incontrovertible that American private universities have been of great importance, that theycan continue to make unique contributions, andthat they are in jeopardy as a consequence of thedifficult financial situation into which they havebeen forced. But, will it make any difference ifthe great universities are displaced from theireminence? Could their place not be taken bystate universities or could they not becomestate universities and function as well in theirnew guise?Let us deal first with the second question. Ofcourse, the private universities need governmentfinancial support. Of course, government fundshave been enormously helpful. They could bemore- helpful if they were more abundant andwidely allocated. If the major private universitieswere to become much more dependent on suchfunds, however, their distinctive value to American society and the world would almost certainlybe damaged.The great advantage of the autonomy of universities is their freedom to pursue the truthwherever it seems to be, to define the problemswhich seem worthy and fruitful for investigation,and to think and speak freely about them. Thishas nothing to do with freedom for politicalactivism; it is entirely a matter of the freedomfor the scholar and scientist to work on problemsof their choice and to teach their students howto study such problems. Fundamental knowledgegrows best in the atmosphere of such freedom.As long as the government made general grantsto universities for research or specific grants tosupport work chosen by members of their faculties, and as long as grants were made on the basisof institutional or individual excellence, freedomof inquiry was not seriously impaired. When governments began to choose the projects or subjects of inquiry and to allocate funds amonginstitutions partly in response to political pressures, the atmosphere became less favorable forscience and scholarship.Academic freedom has other meanings— forexample, the freedom to appoint in accordancewith criteria of academic distinction or promise, the freedom to teach in accordance with scientific or scholarly convictions, the freedom toset standards of academic performance by students. This country's private universities haveenjoyed such freedoms to an extraordinary degree and others have envied these institutions.Beloff, commenting on British universities, provides an example: " 'Academic freedom' in thesense in which ancient universities once possessedit, or even in the sense which the great Americanprivate universities now possess it, has alreadybeen whittled away and indeed is repudiated asan objective by so much of the academic community itself that one is surprised to find that somany of its accredited spokesmen believe theyhave it. It is not possible to depend on the public [purse] —least of all in a democracy— andexpect autonomy. . . .What is more surprising andworse is that many people who talk about academic freedom seem singularly innocent aboutits connection with financial power" (Beloff,1967, pp. 522 and 524).In almost all countries, governmental supportof and control over universities have had disastrous consequences for the freedom of scholarsand scientists and for the quality of their work.The "Chronicle of Politics in the World of Science and Learning" contains lengthy and depressing confirmation of this fact (Minerva, Vols.II-VII). Many universities in Asia, Africa, Centraland South America, the United States, andEurope have been affected.Ideal conditions of governmental support foruniversities might have existed in Germany fromabout 1870 to 1910 and in Great Britain from1925 to 1965, but they have since ceased to exist in Germany and are becoming less ideal inGreat Britain. In the United States, the terms offederal support have become much less favorablethan in the 1950s and early 1960s. The presentpolicies of the federal government in providingfunds for the leading private universities in theUnited States endanger them, and by endangering them, endanger the entire university system.For, the leading private universities have contributed much to other universities by theircreativity and maintenance of standards.Some Concluding RemarksOnly in the United States are there great privateuniversities. Their eminence is unquestioned andof long duration. Their direct contributions toscholarship and scientific research have beenenormous. Indirectly, they have made vital con-109tributions to our state universities by setting intellectual standards, by setting and defendingstandards of academic freedom, by innovating,and by educating a large majority of the outstanding scholars and scientists in the strongestdepartments at state universities.The private universities currently face unprece-dentedly severe financial problems. Costs rise almost inexorably at a rate greater than the rate ofincrease in income. Income from all major sources has been rising more slowly in recent years.Federal support has been less abundant in total,less focused on outstanding men and institutions,and increasingly devoted to current problemsrather than to fundamental research of thehighest quality. Further, the forms and conditions of federal support have changed so as toimpair academic freedom in its various senses.In sum, those rare and valuable institutions-our leading private universities— are in great jeopardy. The only solution is a dramatic increase inlevels of private support. The independence ofprivate universities cannot be preserved in anyother way, and independence is necessary ifthese universities are to retain their eminence andtheir unique ability to contribute to our entiresystem of higher education and to the intellectual life of this country and the world.ReferencesEric Ashby, "Universities Under Siege," Minerva,Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn, 1962), pp. 18-29.Max Beloff, "British Universities and the Public Purse," Minerva, Vol. V, No. 4 (Summer,1967), pp. 520-32.Joseph Ben-David, Fundamental Research andthe Universities (Some Comments on International Differences) Paris: OECD, 1968.William G. Bowen, "Economic Pressures onthe Major Private Universities," in The Economics and Financing of Higher Education in theUnited States (a Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C.: U.S.Government Printing Office, 1969, pp. 399-439.William G. Bowen, The Economics of theMajor Private Universities, Berkeley, California:Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1968.Earl F. Cheit, The New Depression in HigherEducation (A General Report for the CarnegieCommission on Higher Education and the FordFoundation). New York: McGraw-Hill BookCompany, 1971.Stanley Coben, "The Scientific Establishment and the^ Transmission of Quantum Mechanics tothe United States, 1901-32," American HistoricalReview, Vol. 76, No. 2 (April, 1971), pp. 442-466.Merle Curti (ed.), American Scholarship inthe Twentieth Century, New York: Russell andRussell, 1953.O. C. Dunn, W. F. Seibert, and J. A. Schenne-man, The Past and Likely Future of 58 ResearchLibraries, Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University,1967.Federal Register, Vol. 33, No. 104, Part II,Executive Order 11246, May 28, 1968.H. S. Ferns, Towards an Independent University , Occasional Paper 25, London: Institute ofEconomic Affairs, 1969.Lawrence Fisher and James H. Lorie, "Ratesof Return on Investments in Common Stocks:The Year-By-Year Record, 1926-65," Journal ofBusiness, Vol. XXXIX, No. 1, Part II (January,1966), pp. 291-316.Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (eds.),The Intellectual Migration (Europe and America,1930-1960), Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: 1969.Robert F. Goheen, "The Role of the Independent National University," paper presented at ameeting of the Council for Financial Aid to Education, 1967.Indexes of Output Per Man-Hour, Selected Industries 1939 and 1947-68, Bulletin #1652, December, 1969, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.Lyndon B. Johnson, Memorandum to Heads ofDepartments and Agencies in Strengthening Academic Capability for Science Throughout theCountry, Washington, D.C.: The White House,September 13, 1965.Eugene C. Lee and Frank M. Bowen, The Multi-campus University (A Study of Academic Governance), a report prepared for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1971.Julian H. Levi and Fred S. Vorsanger, Patternsof Giving to Higher Education (an analysis ofcontributions and their relation to tax policy),Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1968.J. H. MacCallum Scott (ed.), University Independence (The Main Questions), London: RexCollings, 1971.National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Educational Statistics, Washington, D.C.,1970.Griland G. Parker, "Statistics of Attendance in110American Colleges and Universities 1969-70,"School and Society, Vol. 98, No. 2322 (January,1970), pp. 43-44.Alice M. Rivlin and June O'Neill, "Growth andChange in Higher Education," in The Corporation and the Campus (ed. Robert H. Connery),New York: Praeger, 1970, pp. 66-74.Edward A. Shils, "The American Private University," Minerva, Vol. X, No. 4 (October 1972).Stanley Surrey (excerpt from) "Federal Income Tax Reform: The Varied Approaches Necessary to Replace Tax Expenditures with DirectGovernmental Assistance," Harvard Law Review,Vol. 84, No. 2 (December, 1970), pp. 381-394.U.S. Department of Health, Education andTo President Edward H. LeviAugust 19721. Introduction"A most important issue which keeps comingup— and which really has never been thoughtout— is the way the University should be managed (if one can talk about managing a university) so that there are incentives for faculty andfor departments, divisions, and schools, an awareness of costs and benefits, and yet the centralstrength of the collectivity maintained so thatthe University can act quickly to place resourcesin areas which should be and are capable of development and strength. The matter is enormously complicated, and it looks different from different areas of the University."1"I am writing to urge you to accept appointment to a committee whose charge it will be toThis essay, in part a product of Committee members' discussion, was written by Arnold Zellner andreviewed by the Committee members.Excerpt from President Levi's letter to Arnold Zellner. Welfare, Statistical Summary of Education, 1953-1954, Washington, D.C., 1954.Wall Street Journal, January 27, 1972, p. 1John T. Wilson, "A. Dilemma of American Science and Higher Educational Policy: The Support of Individuals and Fields versus the Supportof Universities," Minerva, Vol. IX, No. 2 (April,1971), pp. 171-196.James H. Lorie (Chairman) George J. StiglerAlbert V. CreweAlbert DorfmanJulian H. LeviArthur MannEdward Shilsdevelop an essay on the problems and alternativeways to preserve, indeed develop, the unity andinterrelationships among parts of the University;to maximize its economic strength for its academic purposes, and yet to provide incentives forfaculty and departments, divisions and schoolsconsistent with these purposes."2In the above words, President Levi defined thesubject matter for the present essay, an essay thathe described as a "think piece," not a "researchpiece," and requested to be written within a period of several months. The essay that followsrepresents a response to President Levi's request.That the topic deserves attention is attested toby T. W. Schultz's observations:Another major unsettled issue pertains tothe adequacies that characterize incentivesand information that motivate and guidethe allocative decisions throughout highereducation. I have argued elsewhere . . . thatwhen it comes to making optimum allocative decisions with regard to higher educa-2 Excerpt from President Levi's letter to Committeemembers.REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ONINCENTIVES AND COLLECTIVE STRENGTHS111tion, the system of incentives is weak andat many points seems virtually nonexistentand the state of information is in badrepair. This situation accounts for manyinefficiencies in the way investment resources are allocated in this area.3Before proceeding further, it appears appropriate to make a few remarks about the term"university management." To some, this termconjures up images of heavy-handed, dull, insensitive efficiency experts while others becomeincensed at the very mention of "managing" research and other university activities. Also, thereis a tendency to equate "university management" with "business management" and/or "bureaucratic administrative control." In an attemptto escape the tyranny of preconceptions, it mightbe worthwhile to eschew use of the term "university management"; however, another termwould be needed that would probably haveits own peculiar connotations. Given this stateof affairs, the term "university management"will be employed below with the understandingthat it refers in a neutral way to University policies, and means of implementing them with respect to University research and teaching activities, personnel, budgeting, accounting, and otherfinancial matters, etc. It is thought that goodUniversity management, that is a well-conceivedset of University policies and suitable methodsfor implementing them, can enhance researchand teaching performance, result in cost saving,and help produce a smoothly functioning, innovative University community, one that is capable of realizing the highest goals of faculty members, students, and society.With this said about the concept of university management, it is next important to establish a view of the University, its activities, andthe environment within which it operates. Without such a view, it is difficult to assess alternativepolicies for enhancing the survival strength andeffectiveness of the University. Since the University does not exist independent of society, theinterrelationships of the University and societymust be appreciated. Finally, since there aremany institutions of higher education, the relationship of our University to others must becharacterized in order to formulate good management policies. It is to these matters that we turnin the next section.3T. W. Schultz, "Resource Allocation Implications,"Memorandum No. 4, January 21, 1971, p. 9. II. Universities and Society: Setting for theManagement ProblemOur University and many others embrace worthy objectives, for example excellence in research, teaching, and social service. It is believedthat these objectives have society's general approval since it is recognized that basic researchleading to deeper understanding of moral, philosophical, esthetic, physical, biological, and social aspects of human existence fills a significantneed of society. That such enhanced understanding of the world has led to fruitful applied resultsimproving individuals' well-being is also appreciated by many. Further, the importance of havingyouth well-educated is another worthy objectivethat our society appears to cherish. We are indeed fortunate to be present in a society thatrecognizes and values the objectives of universities. However, it must be emphasized that societyhas many other noble objectives, for example theelimination of poverty, improvement of our environment, national defense, and so on. Giventhat society has many worthy objectives, one ofwhich is to promote excellence in higher education, it is clear that universities are competing forthe use of society's scarce resources. That is, toachieve excellence in higher education, universities require valuable human and non-human resources including highly talented researchers,teachers, students, supporting staff, capital, andland. Society recognizes that these valuable resources can be utilized in higher education or inother pursuits. To the extent that higher education performs its functions well, the investmentof resources in higher education can be said to bejustified. On the other hand, if universities useresources carelessly and fail to perform theirfunctions well, the investment of human andnon-human resources in higher education is harder to justify since these valuable resources can beput to good use to achieve other noble social objectives. Thus the quality of performance of higher education, while difficult to measure, isthought to be one important determinant of tfeeextent to which valuable resources will be channelled into higher education. Since this is thecase, good management of universities that contributes to better university performance is a positive factor that will help to insure society's willingness to channel resources into higher education.As mentioned above, the performance of universities is difficult to measure. In the case ofbusiness firms, one has a fairly well-defined profit measure with which to gauge performance. For112example, firms that have high costs or are producing shoddy products will often have low ornegative profits. If the profit picture is bleakenough, a firm will go out of operation. That is,its resources are freed for other more valuableuses. With universities, the situation is more complex in that much of the output of universitiesin teaching and research is not sold in the market. That much of the output of universities isnot sold on the market does not mean that it isnot evaluated by individuals, foundations, governments, and other groups in society. This evaluation is done in a complex, judgmental fashionand appears to affect the extent to which giftsand other financial support are forthcoming tomeet the costs of operating universities. Whethersociety's judgmental evaluation of universities'activities is accurate, in some sense, will not beargued here. It is enough to point out that theprocess takes place and conditions the operationof universities.When our University is viewed in relation toother universities, public and private, a fundamental feature of this relation is competition.Our University competes with other universitiesin recruiting talented researchers and teachers toits staff. Other universities frequently attempt tobid away our faculty members. Universities compete with one another to attract outstanding students. There is competition for financial support.In research and teaching activities, there are significant degrees of competition among universities. In view of the intensity and various forms ofcompetitive pressures that are exerted on theUniversity, it is essential that the resources thatwe can command be utilized well and that anenvironment be maintained in which researchers,teachers, and students can perform their functions in the best possible ways. Failures in thesedimensions can lead to disastrous consequences.To be specific, if resources, human and non-human, devoted to research in our University failto produce a substantial volume of high qualityresearch output relative to that being producedby our competitors, society will divert resourcesfor research from our University to other universities necessitating a contraction and possibledeterioration of our research activities. If thequality of our tea'ching falls relative to that ofour competitors, we shall find it difficult to attract good students at current tuition levels andtuition income will probably be adversely affected. To avoid such dire developments, it isnecessary that we work continuously to improveperformance in research and teaching. Maintain ing past standards is not enough because competitors' performance is probably improving.While our commitment to improved performanceis in large part a function of individual effort andsense of duty, it is recognized that it can bestrengthened by appropriate University policies.Since such policies must be formulated with agood understanding of the nature of research,teaching, and supporting activities, we turn to adescription of these activities.III. Research, Teaching, and Service ActivitiesThe activities taking place in our University fallinto three broad categories, namely research,teaching, and service activities. The last categoryincludes administration, computation services,services of supporting staff, provision of medicaland other services to the community, etc. A general description of each of these three areas ofactivity follows.1. Research activities. One of the most significant distinctions with respect to research activities is that between "innovative" research and"normal" research.4 Innovative research, be ittheoretical or empirical, is research that leads tonew and significant restructuring of areas ofknowledge. For example, innovative research produces new theoretical systems that are capable ofexplaining a broader range of known phenomenaand are more powerful in predicting futurephenomena than are existing theories. On theempirical side, innovative empirical research produces findings that challenge our current theoretical preconceptions and beliefs in a basic way. Onthe other hand, "normal" theoretical and empirical research is activity that takes place within acurrently accepted or traditional framework.Normal research produces results that fill out atraditional conceptual framework but do notchallenge it and do not result in major overhaulsof traditional frameworks.With the above distinction made between innovative and normal research, our University hasa choice with respect to which kind of research itwishes to emphasize. It seems clear that ourUniversity has a tradition of emphasizing innovative research rather than normal research. Thusit is relevant to appraise various aspects of4 See, for example, Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1962.113innovative research activities in order to attemptto understand conditions under which theyprobably take place and to provide relevant background information that may be useful in makingdecisions affecting the University. However, itmust be recognized that there are vast lacunae inour knowledge regarding the process by whichinnovative research is performed.As D. Gale Johnson has emphasized in conversation with the author, one of the majorprerequisites for the production of innovativeresearch at our University is the presence ofhighly talented researchers on our staff. In anygiven field, at a given time, the number of suchoutstanding researchers is quite limited. According to "Stigler's law," the number is at most14 and more commonly about 6.5 Whether theprecise number in a particular field is 6, 14,or 20 is, of course, open to question. However,it is thought that many would agree that Stigler's estimate is of the correct order of magnitude. As background for University policies andprocedures, there should be some perception ofhow these talented researchers perform. Whilethere are a great variety of styles exhibited byleading researchers, and thus University policiesmust be flexible, it appears that some tentativegeneralizations are possible.There are at least two conceptions of theprocess of innovative research, namely (a) a goalbeing given and how to reach it and (b) discovering a fact, theoretical or empirical, and thenimagining how it could be useful. With respect tothese two conceptions of the process, the mathematician Hadamard states: "Now paradoxical asit seems, that second kind of invention is themore general one and becomes more and more soas science advances. Practical application is foundby not looking for it, and one can say that thewhole progress of civilization rests on that principle."6If Hadamard's view, based on the results of aninvestigation of how his fellow mathematicianswork, is generally valid, then it seems to implythat crash programs in research to achieve givenresults are not characteristic of the activities ofmost innovative researchers. Rather, these activities, while restricted to general areas of endeavor, depend to a large extent on uncoveringunusual, surprising facts and regularities and then5 George J. Stigler, The Intellectual and the MarketPlace. New York: Free Press, 1963, p. 37.6 Jacques Hadamard, The Psychology of Invention in theMathematical Field. New York: Dover, 1945, p. 124. devising explanations of them. Examples illustrating this process from a number of fields are nothard to supply. In economics, for example,Milton Friedman's concern about an apparentdiscrepancy in empirical time series and crosssection data with respect to consumer behaviorwas an important element in his formulation ofhis now famous theory of the consumptionfunction. Given that unusual and surprising factsand regularities are discovered irregularly in mostfields and that the production of theoretical explanations has a time dimension that is difficultto predict accurately, it is to be anticipated thatinnovative research will not proceed smoothly ina predictable and well-defined manner and direction. It is thus important to have an environment within which talented researchers have thefreedom and opportunity to pursue lines ofinvestigation that are not narrowly prescribedand linked to specific goals, however worthythese goals may appear to be. It is necessary forthe University and society to bear a good dealof uncertainty relative to the activities of innovative researchers. Further, there must be confidence that the results of innovative research willprobably be useful even without specific presentknowledge of what that use will be.On probing further into the modus operandiof innovative researchers, Hadamard writes: "Indeed it is obvious that invention or discovery, beit in mathematics or anywhere else, takes placeby combining ideas."7 He views the problem ofdiscovery or invention to be one of choice amongmany possible combinations of ideas, ideas thatare present and formed in both the conscious andunconscious minds, with choice imperatively governed by a sense of scientific beauty. In thisprocess, the conscious mind is thought to playan important role in initiating work and definingto a greater or lesser extent the general directionin which the unconscious mind has to work.Hadamard emphasizes that it is undesirable forthe conscious mind to be limited to narrow linesof thought or to be held too closely to previouslines of thought. Being in touch with developments in associated fields leads researchers toricher combinations of ideas. In addition, inworking toward new combinations of ideas, agood deal of hard preparatory work seems to berequired— "sudden inspirations . . . never happenexcept after some days of voluntary effort whichhas appeared absolutely fruitless and whence nothing good seems to have come, where the way7 Hadamard, op. cit.,p. 29.114taken seems totally astray." The preparatorywork period is often accompanied and followedby an incubation period and finally by illumination. After illumination, the conscious mindproceeds to the tasks of precising the illumination, developing it further, and verifying it invarious dimensions.If Hadamard's characterization of the processof innovative research is an adequate first approximation, the following implications emerge:1. The process of innovative research is anindividualistic one involving highly talented individuals.2. Innovative researchers require freedom -topursue what they consider to be fruitful linesof inquiry.3. Given that innovative researchers' activitiesinvolve their unconscious minds in a fundamentalway, it would seem advisable to create anenvironment in which researchers are relativelyuntroubled by disturbing factors such as departmental strife, inadequate supporting services,campus disorders, local crime, etc.4. Since combining ideas plays an importantrole in innovative research, it seems reasonableto expect that enhanced opportunities for researchers to be exposed to a wide range of ideaswill facilitate innovative research. In this connection, leading centers of innovative research,including our University, generally supply innovative researchers with stimulating and ablecolleagues both in their own fields and in relatedfields. Since libraries are repositories of past andrecent ideas, leading research centers usually putstrong emphasis on having first-rate library facilities. Also, research seminars and workshopsoperate at leading research centers, often as focalpoints for the presentation and criticism of newideas. Leading research centers work to attractable students and young staff members whobring with them new points of view, fresh questions, and new ideas.5. In the process of precising an illumination,developing it further, and verifying it in variousdimensions, an innovative researcher will oftenrequire the cooperation and assistance of others,usually including colleagues, doctoral students,and assistants.6. Innovative research often is characterizedby an interaction of theoretical and empiricalresearch activities.It should also be recognized that various fieldsof innovative research exhibit differing states of8 Hadamard, op. cit. , p. 45. development and rates of change. For example,mathematics, physics, classics, and history, areall well-established but appear to exhibit differing rates of innovative research. Now one canargue that mathematics and physics have hadremarkable rates of innovative activity in the pastcentury because society has invested heavily inthese areas. While it would be presumptuous tosay that money doesn't matter, the pictureappears to be somewhat more complicated. Notethat years ago Comte placed mathematics at thetop of his pyramid of the sciences as being themost highly developed science followed by physics and other fields. There does not seemto be any question but that sciences below mathematics in Comte's pyramid fed on developmentsin mathematics, with mathematical physics beinga prime example. And certainly chemistry hasfed on mathematics and physics, and biology hasfed on mathematics, physics, and chemistry andso on. In recent decades, this process has permeated through to the social sciences witheconomics, psychology, sociology, history, political science, business, etc. feeding at the mathematical and statistical dinner tables.The process of mathematization, accompaniedby innovative empirical research, appears to havebeen first concentrated on physics, probablybecause measurement problems were generallysimpler in this area than in say psychology oranthropology. Also, controlled experiments inphysics could be performed readily to checkmany mathematized laws of nature. With respectto chemistry, most chemical phenomena areinteractions at a molecular level. Since molecules'properties are relatively complex, mathematizingchemistry posed many fundamental problems.The same can be said of biology given the complexity of the systems considered and the factthat much of biology deals with living organisms.In addition, much biological data show a gooddeal of random as well as systematic variation.Thus some developments in biology awaitedtwentieth-century developments in modern statistics that served as vital food for biologicalresearchers. What has been said regarding biologyapplies with more force to the social sciences.Whether mathematization will affect areas suchas the humanities, classics, etc., with an influencesimilar to that exerted in other fields, is a mootquestion.9However, it would be narrow and inaccurate9Of course mathematics has already affected parts ofphilosophy and has had some effect, probably minor asyet, on linguistics, music, art, etc.115to view the course of innovative research to bemerely a sequential mathematizing of variousfields of knowledge. There are other critical dimensions in which innovative research proceedsusing languages other than mathematics, forexample in the arts, humanities, religion, law,history, government, and so on. Developmentsin these areas enrich the esthetic, philosophical,moral, and legal bases of our society. Withoutsuch an enriched societal base, it is difficult toapprehend the meaning and purpose of our livesand work. It is probably accurate to state thatinnovative researchers in all areas draw strengthand stimulation from being situated in a relatively civilized, moral, esthetic, and legal society.Yet such a society does not come into existenceand develop automatically. Rather, it is in largepart the result of continuing thought and innovative work in non-mathematical fields. The problems faced in such fields are difficult andprogress may not be as rapid as in the mathematizing process. However, the importance ofthis work as a whole is so great that it can notbe shunted aside. In fact, it very well may bethat the interrelations among the arts, humanities, religion, law, history, government and themathematized areas of knowledge is one of thegreat frontiers of innovative research.2. Teaching activities. The main teaching activities at our University include (1) undergraduateteaching, (2) graduate teaching, and (3) researchtraining. These activities will now be describedbriefly.With respect to undergraduate teaching, it isuseful to distinguish introductory courses frommore advanced undergraduate courses. In anintroductory course, students are exposed to thebasic elements of a field and acquire fundamentalknowledge that serves as a foundation for moreadvanced study. In advanced undergraduate courses, students obtain a more complete mastery and understanding of basic principles, explore specialized topics, and obtain an appreciation of a field's history, philosophy, methods,and major findings. Whatever the undergraduate'smajor field of concentration may be, it is usuallyconsidered important that a student not emergefrom his undergraduate studies as just a narrowlytrained specialist. Rather, undergraduate teachingshould be of high enough quality to permit students to absorb essential elements from themajor areas of learning and to probe deeplyenough into his chosen field of concentration topermit him not only to obtain technical masterybut also to appreciate and understand the parts in relation to the whole. Further, in the processstudents should apprehend the values of acivilized, free society and be able to relatefruitfully to it.As regards graduate teaching, it is recognizedthat graduate programs in various fields have distinctive features. However, it appears in mostfields that there is a set of basic graduate coursesthe subject matter of which graduate studentsare expected to master and in fact serves as amajor component in many qualifying examinations for advanced degrees. In addition to thebasic graduate courses, there are advanced graduate courses in specialized areas that utilize invarying degrees the subject matter of the basicgraduate courses. Students generally take qualifying examinations in one or more specializedareas as a requirement for obtaining advanceddegrees. Last, graduate students often- are required to provide evidence of language, mathematical, statistical, and other special skills. Theserequirements are often met by taking particulargraduate courses within or outside the student'sdepartment or school.With respect to graduate students' researchtraining, the background for research is providedin basic and advanced graduate courses. In addition, these courses often involve laboratorywork and/or research projects and papers thatserve to introduce graduate students to research.Then too, research seminars and workshopsenlighten students with respect to the nature andmethodology of research. Finally, execution of astudent's doctoral research, under the directionof faculty members, constitutes perhaps the mostvaluable training in research that a student gets.Faculty members active in this area providestudents with highly individualized instructionand guidance.Graduate research training can have as its goal(a) production of innovative researchers, (b) production of normal researchers, or (c) combinedproduction of innovative and normal researchers.Ideally, most would agree that production of innovative researchers is the most preferred goal.However, since innovative researchers are rarebirds and may be difficult to identify, it is thecase that the best graduate programs end upproducing a combination of innovative andnormal researchers while mediocre graduate programs tend to produce mainly normal researcherswith possibly a few exceptions.It must be recognized that training researchersis just one objective of graduate instruction.Many graduate programs, particularly at the Mas-116ters' level and in the professional schools, preparestudents for careers in teaching, law, business,government, medicine, and other areas. In theseprograms students take basic courses, meet certain distributional requirements and, in someprograms, write a thesis. When both a Masters'and a Ph. D. program are present in a departmentor school, it is the case that students in theseprograms often take some joint courses, particularly the basic graduate courses. Further, whilemany programs are designed to prepare studentsfor particular careers, this does not imply thatthese programs are narrow in scope. Rather itappears to be the case that these programs at ourUniversity attempt to provide students with agrasp of broad, basic theoretical principles thatare applicable to a wide range of problems andexperience in applying these principles to practical problems. Teaching in these areas usuallyrequires a knowledge of both theory and applications.In addition to the three broad areas ofteaching described above, there are several .specialinstructional programs. These include coursesand programs of the University Extension forthose who are not regular degree students of theUniversity. For example, special evening non-credit courses for adults are offered by the University Extension. The Graduate School of Business offers an evening M.B.A. program forbusinessmen and others and a two-year ExecutiveProgram for experienced businessmen leading tothe M.B.A. degree. The Graduate School of Education has a special relationship with the SoniaShankman Orthogenic School which has as oneobjective the training of graduate students andprofessionals for the study and treatment ofemotionally disturbed children of potentiallynormal or superior intelligence. Also the Graduate School of Education has a link with theUniversity Laboratory Schools which encompassnursery, elementary, and high school education.Teaching in the Laboratory Schools is performedin the main by a special staff while other special programs involve regular University facultyand/or special instructional staff.3. Service activities. Activities other than teaching and research activities will be termed serviceactivities. These constitute a very broad range ofactivities performed by a variety of individuals.Generally speaking, most service activities contribute in varying degrees to the University'sprograms in research and teaching. Some of themost significant service activities will be described briefly below with emphasis on what are considered to be their special contributions tothe research and teaching programs of the University.The President and his administrative staffprovide a range of vital services to the University.Herbert Simon10 lists and discusses the followingfunctions of a college president:1 . To raise money.2. To balance the budget.3. To participate in setting institutional goals,in partnership with trustees, faculty, and thecommunity.4. To work with the faculty to create anenvironment that encourages learning, for bothfaculty and students.5. To recruit and maintain a high quality offaculty.While these five functions hardly exhaust allthe services provided by the President and hisstaff, it is thought that they do constitute acentral core of activities to which attention mustbe paid.With respect to money raising, Simon emphasizes that it ". . . is neither a trivial nor an indecent activity."11 He goes on to explain: "To saythat a president is a fund-raiser is to say that he isan interpreter to society of the goals of the college."12 Also he observes that "College facultiestoday are perhaps more understanding than inthe past of the president's money -raising job,because some of their members, particularlythose active in research, now share it withhim."13With respect to "balancing the budget," it isalmost obvious that the President requires information on expenditures, revenues, and costs ofthe University in order to perform this task.Further, budget-making entails a good understanding of how different units of the Universityfunction, their interrelationships, and forecastsof future expenditures, revenues, and costs. Thisis not to say that all elements of budgeting needbe centralized in the President's Office. Clearly,there is much room for decentralized budget-making throughout the University. However,since the President bears responsibility for theoverall budget, it is the case that he and his staffmust be in a position to understand and coordi-10Herbert A. Simon, "The Job of a College President,"The Educational Record, Winter, 1967, pp. 68-78,pp. 69-70.11 Ibid., p. 70.12 Ibid., p. 10.13 Ibid., p. 70.117nate decentralized budget-making activities. Andin this process, costs and revenues must of coursebe properly reckoned. Failure to include certaincosts in budgets, for example, a charge for theuse of building space, can result in distortedbudgets and incorrect decisions.A most important function of the Presidentis his participation in setting and explaining institutional goals in partnership with trustees,faculty, and the community. As mentionedabove, this activity is related to money-raising.It is also a key factor in establishing a goodUniversity environment that encourages learningand attracts good faculty. To put the matterexplicitly, the President should provide the University with an overall sense of direction andpurpose that commands the enthusiastic supportof a large segment of the faculty, the trustees,and the community. With such a sense of direction and purpose established, obtaining solutionsto many problems such as money-raising, University planning, faculty incentives, student incentives, etc., will be facilitated.As regards the President's responsibility forworking with the faculty to create an environment that encourages learning for both facultyand students, success in this dimension involvesan understanding of the learning process. Unfortunately, this process is not completely understood at present and thus the President's taskis a difficult one. However, there are certainobvious deterrents to learning, for example, unsatisfactory community conditions, poorly structured and managed teaching programs, poorlyoperated and inadequate library facilities in someareas, etc., that the President and his staff canhelp correct. Further, in new appointments andpromotions it is possible to emphasize teachingability as well as other abilities. Last, it may bepossible to provide more in the way of professional counseling with respect to improving conditions for learning. Student survey questionnaires represent just one, and possibly not thebest, activity in this area.In recruiting and maintaining a high qualityfaculty, the president plays a key role. His fund-raising activities are important in helping tomaintain and improve the level of faculty salaries. His review of tenure and other major facultyappointments is an essential element in attemptsto maintain and improve faculty quality. Then,too, given that the President has a perception ofthe goals and directions of the University, he is ina good position to appraise the relative benefitsand costs associated with particular appoint ments.The above activities of the President are ofsuch breadth and scope that it is practicallyimpossible for him to perform them well withoutthe assistance of a competent and able staff. Andin fact, the President does have a staff to assisthim in the areas of fund-raising, budgeting andaccounting, community relations, student relations, etc. Since these supporting service activities are of key importance in assisting thePresident to perform his functions, it is criticalthat they be of high quality and that provisionbe made for continuity upon succession to thepresidency.As implied in the discussion of the President'sfunctions, there is a substantial amount ofdecentralization involved in accomplishing them.That is, many individuals other than the President and his staff, play an important role inraising money, formulating budgets, participatingin setting institutional goals, creating an environment conducive to learning, and in recruiting andmaintaining a faculty of high quality. In particular, deans of the divisions and of professionalschools, directors of research facilities, chairmenof departments and their staffs are involved inactivities directly related to the five major functions of the President. Indeed, it is probablyaccurate to state that while the functions of thePresident are performed under his leadership,there is major reliance not only on his supportingstaff, but also on individual faculty members,deans, chairmen, directors of research facilities,and others. Overall budgets reflect budgets drawnup by deans and research directors. Recruitingand maintaining a high quality faculty involvesmuch effort on the part of the deans, chairmen,and faculty committees. Creating an environmentthat encourages learning is a major responsibilityof deans, chairmen, directors of research facilities, and individual faculty members. Last, manycontribute to the task of formulating and settinginstitutional goals.Deans and chairmen are closely involved in theorganization and performance of research andteaching activities. Their decisions with respectto policies affecting research and teaching activities are often critical. Thus, it is imperative thatthese decisions be made in the best possiblemanner taking into account relevant informationand University goals. It is no small task for adean or chairman to maintain an environmentsuch that innovative researchers and teachers areable to perform in the best possible manner.Since innovative researchers and teachers are118often quite temperamental, deans and chairmenmust display considerable diplomatic skill andability to solve unique personnel problems. Inaddition to these qualities, deans and chairmenmust be alert to opportunities for improvementincluding new faculty appointments, new programs in research and teaching, and cost saving.To perform these functions and others wellrequires that deans and chairmen have a clearperception of University goals, ability to analyzeand solve complex personnel problems, costawareness, and a good measure of sophisticatedand informed leadership ability. Clearly a deanor a chairman is aided immeasurably by thecontributions of individual faculty members whoperform committee work well and who assist inmany other activities for which deans and chairmen are responsible. Also deans and chairmenhave supporting staff, for example associatedeans, assistant deans, administrative assistants,etc., who contribute to performing the deans'and chairmen's functions. That these staffs canmake a substantial contribution in terms of costsaving, better organization of research and teaching activities, and of freeing up faculty time forresearch and teaching should be appreciated.Another area of service activities is that ofresearch associated service activities. For example, laboratory research requires the services oftechnicians and workers such as machinists, glassblowers, animal keepers, research assistants, andso on. For these and other areas of researchcomputational and secretarial services are required. Then too, special facilities and equipmentare required for certain kinds of research. Maintenance services are required for research facilities and equipment. Inventories of equipmentand supplies must be provided and managed. Thiscomplex of activities is a broad and varied onethat requires careful supervision to see that it isof high quality and performed with an eyetoward keeping productivity high and costs low.Another area of service activity is the provision of a variety of non-teaching, non-researchservices to students, faculty, and the community.These include such items as police protection,housing services, eating facilities, medical services, counseling services, publishing services,parking facilities, recreational facilities, and soon. These services are provided by the Universityfor a variety of reasons, some more persuasivethan others. Whatever the reasons underlying theprovision of such services, it must be recognized that supplying these services involves utilization of the University's resources. Taking ac count of the returns to the University's resourcesdevoted to these service activities is required forgood management.Summary. In Section II, a view of the Universityin relation to society and to other universitieswas put forward. This view emphasized competition by higher education and within highereducation to obtain the use of society's scarceresources. Within higher education, it was pointed out that competition among universitiesin many activities exists and is a powerful factorconditioning universities' behavior. This appearsparticularly true for private universities. Failingto maintain and improve the volume and qualityof research, the quality of teaching, and themanagement of resources at the disposal of auniversity in the face of competitors' successfulperformance in these dimensions, can result in auniversity's losing its leadership role and beingfaced with financial problems that may be serious enough to threaten its ability to survive.To formulate and evaluate University policiesdesigned to help produce outstanding performance in research, teaching, and service activities,an understanding of the nature of these activities is necessary. Thus a brief description of whatare considered to be the essential features ofresearch, teaching, and service activities at ourUniversity was provided above. With this asbackground, the problems of internal Universitymanagement and decision-making will be considered in the next section.IV. Internal University Management and Decision-makingIn considering internal University managementand decision-making, there is a great temptationto attempt to define Utopian management anddecision-making procedures that will somehowproduce (1) an optimal level and mix of research,teaching, and service activities, all carried forward at lowest possible cost, (2) a progressiveinnovative University environment, (3) a formulafor distributing University revenues to sub-unitsand individuals that both rewards worthwhileeffort and is, in some sense, equitable, and(4) reasonable stability, continuity, and sense ofunity in the University's activities. While suchUtopian University management and decisionmaking procedures may be forthcoming in thefuture, they do not appear to exist today. Giventhis fact, in what follows attention will be directed not at defining Utopian conditions but at119suggesting a practical strategy that seems likelyto effect improvements in current Universityperformance. It is to be emphasized that effecting improvements in University performanceis considered to be a shared responsibility offaculty members and administrators.The strategy to be described below has twoparts. The first part involves seeking out areas ofrelatively poor performance within the University, assessing possible reasons for such performance and then suggesting appropriate actions.Below, this part of the strategy as it relates toresearch, teaching, and service activities, willbe spelled out in detail. The seqond part ofthe strategy involves recognition of a problemadversely affecting overall University performance and providing suggestions for dealing withit.A strategy of focusing attention on poorlyperforming units is suggested for the followingreasons. First, efforts to improve the quality ofperformance usually require expensive inputs ofUniversity resources. It is thought that the returnsto such resources will be highest by using themto correct conditions producing first order problems of poor performance. Second, in the processof analyzing and attempting to correct conditions producing poor performance, experimentation with new methods and procedures can becarried forward on a pilot basis in areas of poorperformance. If these new methods and procedures work well to correct basic problems, theycan be considered for possible application inother areas. Third, by concentrating attention onareas exhibiting poor performance, the danger ofdisrupting programs that are performing well isminimized. That is, there is a danger that ill-conceived, untested, overall policies that are putforward to encourage good performance can, infact, produce undesirable effects on performancein a number of areas. A good deal of decentralization, particularly with respect to researchprograms, appears desirable in order to deal withand solve specialized personnel and other problems successfully. When units are handling theseproblems well and exhibit good performance, itmay very well be a good policy to let wellenough alone and not try to "optimize" sincean attempt to optimize, if successful, may produce just marginal gains in performance and, ifunsuccessful, may produce disastrous results.Last, there are certain general factors affectingperformance of individual units of the Universitythat they can not control. To the extent thatoverall University policies can affect these gen eral factors and when these factors exert anadverse influence on performance, it is worthwhile to consider measures designed to alterthem.With respect to the first part of the overallstrategy, namely seeking out and analyzing areasof relatively poor performance within the University, this will be considered separately for(1) research and graduate research training programs, (2) basic graduate teaching, (3) undergraduate teaching, and (4) service activities.1. Research and graduate research training programs. With respect to this area of activity, it isnecessary to consider whether it is possible toidentify areas in which performance is poor. It isasserted that the answer to this question is yes.Evidence of poor performance usually shows upin a variety of ways, for example, a deteriorationin the volume and quality of research output,failure to recruit young staff members fromleading research centers, inability to hold talented research staff, failure to place doctoral students at leading institutions, decline in professional honors accorded staff members, etc. Inaddition, national ratings, reports of evaluationcommittees, views of leading scholars, and so oncan supplement other information to enablepoor performance to be identified.Given that poor performance in a particularresearch and graduate research training programhas been identified, it is relevant to assess whyperformance is poor. Clearly, it is impossible tocover all possible specific causes. However, thefollowing points appear worth considering in anygiven specific instance.1. The first obvious possible reason for relatively poor performance in research and graduate research training is a lack of first-rateresearch talent. As mentioned in Section II,talented, innovative researchers in a particularfield are relatively few in number and if a research unit does not have at least one or more ofthem on its staff, its chances of performingexceptionally well are dim. That is, not havingat least one or a few leading researchers on thestaff of a research unit means typically that thisunit's performance may be good but probablynot outstanding.On the other hand, it must be recognized thathaving an outstanding researcher on a unit's staffdoes not always necessarily insure overall goodperformance. A good deal depends on the extentand nature of interactions within the researchunit. At one extreme, the outstanding researcher120may interact with no one and concentrate hisattention solely on his own research specialties.In this case, he is not an operative member ofthe research unit and his performance and thegroup's performance would be better judgedseparately. Further, a leading researcher may bepresent in a research unit, interacting withothers, and yet overall performance may leavemuch to be desired. Here the problem may liein the nature of the relationship between theleading researcher and his colleagues. For example, it is possible for a leading researcher to begenerous or selfish in his scholarly interactionswith colleagues. He may be careful or carelesswith respect to property rights relating to newideas. If a leading researcher in a research unit isselfish with respect to sharing his time, knowledge, experience, etc., with colleagues and students and if he is careless with respect tohonoring and recognizing property rights ofcolleagues and students in new ideas, he mayvery well create an environment that producesoverall poor performance for obvious reasons.In addition, in some cases a leading researcher'sreputation may be more a function of pastachievements than of his present performance.If this is the case, his presence in a research groupprobably adds prestige to the group but maycontribute little to the present and future qualityof the group's performance in research andgraduate training.2. A second possible reason for poor performance of a research and graduate training program is that it may be too small or too large incertain dimensions. That is, to have a viable andsuccessful research program in a particular areamay require that a set of interrelated activitiesbe carried forward together. For example, in laying plans for the development of the GraduateSchool of Business at The University of Chicago, faculty members including James H. Lorie,George J. Stigler, W. Allen Wallis, and others aresaid to have considered the problem as one ofdetermining the size and composition of facultyneeded to produce viable and effective researchand teaching groups in the central disciplines andapplied areas of business. The concept of an appropriate scale for the School seemed central inthe thinking of this faculty group and in subsequent considerations bearing on the School'sdevelopment.In areas in which performance is poor, it isrelevant to query whether the scale of operationsis satisfactory. There may be a variety of reasonsfor the scale of a research and graduate research training unit to be inappropriate. In the experimental sciences, effective performance in research may involve acquiring expensive laboratory equipment and supporting staff. If thisequipment and staff are not available, performance may be of poor quality. In what follows,this situation will be called an "equipmentbottleneck."A second situation involving inappropriatescale that often affects the quality of performance in research and graduate research trainingprograms is an imbalance in the representationof traditional and newer approaches to researchproblems. In particular, activities in traditionalareas may be relatively over-expanded whileactivities in newer areas utilizing new approachesmay be carried forward at too low a scale. Thisproblem arises often in fields that are in a periodof rapid change. For example, in some of thesocial sciences, the transition to more mathematical and statistical modes of analysis has been veryrapid in the last few decades. The activities of aresearch and graduate research training programcould fail to reflect such a trend for a variety ofreasons. It may be that members of the groupswhile possibly extremely able in their researchspecialties, have inadequate backgrounds in mathematics and statistics. Further, in making newappointments, it may be that the newer approaches have been inadvertently under-represented. When such conditions are present, current and future performance can be adverselyaffected. This problem will be referred to as the"tradition-bound problem" in what follows.Another vital consideration regarding scale ofoperations that bears on the quality of performance in a research and graduate training programis the size of a graduate research training programrelative to the size of the faculty involved in theprogram. In many instances, there is a decidedtendency to over-expand enrollment in graduate research training programs. Admission committees may admit large numbers of studentsseeking advanced degrees, many of them just ofaverage quality. If those admitted who are ofpoor quality are not weeded out by courseexams, qualifying exams, and other devices, aproblem is created at the thesis stage. Guidinggood students through thesis research is a difficult, time-consuming, and expensive process.When, in addition, many mediocre students haveto be guided through thesis work, a burden isplaced on faculty members that will usuallyinvolve their taking valuable time from researchand teaching activities. Further, in thesis work121with mediocre students, thesis research is, notsurprisingly, usually of mediocre quality. Thisproblem will be referred to as the "over-expanded graduate research program" in what follows.In some cases, a research and graduate training program in a particular area may appear to beof appropriate size and yet performance may bepoor. Among possible reasons for such poorperformance is a "diffusion problem." That is,while formally associated with a research andtraining program in a particular area, somefaculty members and graduate students may bein actuality concentrating attention and efforton problems and activities of other areas. Whilein some cases such a diffusion of effort mayresult in break-throughs, it is more often the casethat such diffusion can lead to all round poorperformance.3. A third area that must be considered whenpoor performance is encountered, is the qualityof administration. Generally, administration ofresearch and graduate training programs is mainlyin the hands of selected faculty members, faculty committees, and sometimes, departmentalsecretaries. Most of these individuals are amateur,part-time administrators and this fact can beresponsible for observed poor performance. Itmust be emphasized that just average performance in administration can result in overall poorperformance within the competitive frameworkdescribed in Section II. For example, averageperformance in recruiting new staff and studentswill not be good enough in face of stiff competition from other universities. Average performance on the part of faculty committees inevaluating research and teaching performance ofstaff members is hardly adequate to insure overall outstanding performance. A lack of awarenessof the volume and quality of a research unit'soutput and of which individuals are productivein research and teaching can lead administratorsto make foolish decisions that adversely affectthe morale of research staff members and graduate students. Failure to check that resources arebeing used efficiently by appropriate budgetingand accounting procedures can result in resourcesbeing wasted and contribute to overall poor performance. Further, in this partial list of the sinsof administration, delicate personnel problemsoften arise that would tax the ability of eventhe most able and experienced administrator.When part-time, inexperienced, over-burdenedadministrators face such problems, results areoften disastrous. Last, crisis situations of variouskinds come up from time to time. Handling them successfully requires leadership ability, toughness, an understanding of the philosophical basesof the University, and wisdom in devising andeffecting solutions. Handling crisis situations wellis particularly important. A single failure in thisarea can result in an exodus of able staff members with a crippling effect on a program.The above discussion indicates clearly thatpoor administration of a research and graduateresearch training program can be responsible forits poor performance. This will be termed the"administration problem" in what follows.To summarize, some possible reasons accounting for poor performance of a research andgraduate training program include: (1) lack offirst-rate research talent; (2) inappropriate scaleand/or mix of operations; (a) under-developedrelated activities, (b) equipment bottle-neck,(c) tradition-bound problem, and (d) over-expanded graduate research program; (3) diffusionproblem; (4) administration problem.Given that poorly performing research andgraduate research programs have been identifiedand that possible reasons for such performancehave been at least tentatively appraised, theproblem of deciding what to do about suchprograms must be faced. In this connection, thefollowing points should be kept in mind. First,the University does not and cannot supportresearch and graduate research training programsin all areas. Second, a policy of adding programsin new areas without terminating or consolidating existing programs implies an unending proliferation of programs. Third, unpleasant as it maybe, termination of a program must always beconsidered as a serious policy alternative. Itshould be recognized that termination of a poorly performing unit's activities frees Universityresources for more productive uses.With the above said as background, specificconsiderations relating to problems giving rise topoor performance will now be considered.Where poor performance in a particular program is thought to be linked to lack of first-rateresearch talent and when attempts to attractfirst-rate researchers have failed, several coursesof action are possible. First, a wait-and-see,laissez-faire policy can be instituted with thehope that the future will somehow be brighterthan the past. The costs of this do-nothing policy are obvious. Second, a policy of de-emphasiscan be instituted. Budgetary cuts for the programcan be instituted; that is, funds for new appointments, for supporting graduate students, forresearch funding, salary increases, etc., can be cut122or eliminated. Such a policy will lead to acontraction in the program's activities and, withtime, to a reduction in the number of facultyconnected with the program. This contraction ofoperations and staff is a favorable developmentin that resources are freed for more productiveuses in other areas. Also, in the longer run, theafore-mentioned contraction may make it easierto structure an acceptable offer to a first-rateresearcher and a few associates of his ownchoosing who would have the opportunity toparticipate in restructuring and rebuilding theresearch and graduate research training program,a challenge that is appealing to many.The two alternatives discussed above are basedon the presumption that it is desirable to continue and improve a program that is exhibiting poorperformance. In some circumstances, however, asituation may be deemed hopeless. Perhaps theoriginal decision to institute the program was amistake and failure to be able to attract first-ratetalent is a mere reflection of the original error.When this is the case, the only solution appearsto be termination of the program's activities, effected most expeditiously, it is thought, throughreorganization. It is generally possible to expandgood programs to absorb pieces of a programthat is performing poorly. Usually a reorganization of this sort is a shock to those in the poorlyperforming program and may motivate some toseek more satisfactory positions elsewhere, aprocess that helps to correct the basic problem.Also, through reorganization programs those thatare performing well get expanded which may beconstrued as a reward for good performance.The second set of problems that can give riseto poor performance involves an inappropriatescale and/or mix of operations. With respect tothe problem of under-developed related activities, a program's successful operation oftendepends on having activities carried forward ina set of what are considered to be basic areas.When activities are not being carried forward inone or more of these basic areas, this can resultin overall poor performance. When this problemis recognized and given that it is decided tocontinue a program exhibiting poor performance,the obvious solution is to concentrate attentionand resources on recruiting able faculty memberswith research interests in the under-developedbasic areas. If outstanding senior researchers cannot be attracted to fill these positions, it maybe necessary to appoint outstanding junior staffmembers who have the potential to develop intooutstanding researchers and who complement well the activities of other faculty members involved in the program. Clearly, this policy involves an expansion of staff in the program thatis performing poorly, a move that appearsjustified if in fact it is established that poor performance is caused by a failure to have certainbasic areas represented in a program's activities.In connection with the undeveloped relatedactivity problem, it is sometimes argued thatpoor performance in a particular program iscaused by a failure to have good complementary programs in other areas. For example,Allan M. Cartter writes,. . . most academicians feel that to maintainstrength in one field of study requires thepresence of strong departments in other closely allied disciplines. For instance, it is difficultto have a distinguished physics departmentwithout also having a strong mathematicsdepartment, or to have a strong biochemistrydepartment without good chemistry and biology departments.The evidence of the 1964 study lendsmoderate support to the view that good departments in closely allied fields cluster together.14With respect to this range of considerations, itis pertinent to emphasize that Cartter himselfinterprets his evidence as providing just "moderate support" for the clustering effect. Further,if a cluster of departments is already present onthe scene and if the poor performance of oneis correctly explained in terms of the poor performance of others in the cluster, it is apparentthat a policy problem of major proportionsexists. While such situations may arise occasionally, it is deemed unlikely that the ineffectiveoperation of a clustering effect is the majorsource of difficulty accounting for poor performance in most cases. More likely, the factorslisted above account for poor performance ofindividual departments and one aspect of thispoor performance is a failure to exploit advantages that may accrue through a possible clustering effect.The next problem that can make for poorperformance is an "equipment bottleneck." Incertain areas, particularly in some of the naturalsciences, research activities involve the use ofexpensive equipment and supporting staff. Without such equipment and staff, it is argued that14 Allan M. Cartter, An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education. Washington, D.C.: American Council onEducation, 1966, p. 106.123first-rate, innovative research cannot be carriedforward. Of course, this argument can be maderelative to a number of research areas and thus aproblem of selection arises. That is, it is beyondthe University's capabilities to fund major equipment expenses in all areas of research and thusa policy of selectivity must be pursued. While itis difficult to lay down specific rules to guideselection, the following general observations maybe helpful. First, it is desirable to have largeoutlays for research equipment and facilities besuch that they yield benefits to a broad rangeof activities. For example, such facilities as theRegenstein Library and the Computation Centerare utilized by researchers in a number of fields.Second, in cases in which equipment is specialized, it is relevant to query whether such equipment is being used at other private or publicresearch centers. If so, the possibility of contracting for the use of such equipment shouldbe explored. Also, the very fact that the equipment has already been built and is in useelsewhere may mean that others are in the forefront in this area of research. Third, when newequipment outlays are proposed by leading researchers and such equipment does not existelsewhere, every effort should be made to seekexternal financing for the new equipment. Iffinancing from government and foundation sources is not available, it may be possible to obtaingrants from private firms, particularly thosewhose activities, including research and development activities, are in closely related areas. Forexample, in biological research, some of theequipment manufacturers may find it in theirself-interest to finance construction of new laboratory equipment. Of course, in the computerarea, some firms have in various ways providedsupport for computer expenses. Fourth, in innovative research good researchers take pride inobtaining results with inexpensive ingeniouslydesigned equipment. The fact that "Rube Goldberg" equipment can be used to obtain fundamental results should not be overlooked. Fifth,in considering major outlays on equipment, itis naturally important to form estimates of thetime that the equipment will be in use and allassociated expenses connected with operation,servicing, and housing of it. Since these expensescan be far from trivial, overlooking them maypose serious budgetary problems in future years.The next problem that may contribute tooverall poor performance is what has been called"the tradition bound problem" above. For onereason or another, it may be that members of a research and graduate research training programare concentrating too much attention on traditional topics and approaches and neglectingnewer topics and approaches. Such a distortedemphasis can result in poor performance thatshows up in failures to attract the best youngerstaff members, to place doctoral students inleading research centers, to have research papersappear in leading journals, and so on. Also, atradition bound problem will probably be reflected in national ratings of the afflicted program.Dealing with a tradition bound problem is a verydelicate matter with the most sensitive matterbeing establishing that the problem exists. It isusually not enough to have local faculty members in associated fields assert that a traditionbound problem exists in a particular program.Such local faculty members will often be viewedas meddling outsiders by those involved in theprogram that is performing poorly. What is needed in such a case is a report of a "blue-ribbon"panel of outside leading researchers that pointsto the tradition bound problem as being themain cause of poor performance. Given thatsuch a report has been made, an appropriatefaculty committee, cooperating with the administration, can call for a major restructuring of thepoorly performing program's activities and appointment of new staff members to carry forward research and graduate instruction in neglected newer areas. Presumably, the restructuringoperation and the process of making new appointments will be effected with the cooperation of members of the program. If cooperationis not forthcoming, it may be necessary to havethe necessary actions taken by a special representative faculty committee. Needless to say, thisoperation calls for resolution and tact in whatwill usually be regarded as a crisis situation bymembers of the research and graduate trainingprogram that is affected. However, given thatmost members of the affected program desiregood performance, they will probably find it intheir self-interest to cooperate with efforts thataim to correct a tradition bound problem, particularly since it may be impossible to generatesuch efforts within the existing program.At times poor performance in research andgraduate research training programs can resultfrom an over-expanded graduate research program. With too many graduate students in agraduate research training program, it is difficultfor staff members to provide adequate guidanceand training in research to all students. Staffmembers who take on a large number of students124for thesis work find that they must take timefrom their own research and other teaching activities. In cases in which staff members refuse totake on additional thesis advisees, graduate students have serious problems in finding facultymembers to supervise thesis work. What resultsis an unsatisfactory situation in which somefaculty members are over-burdened and somestudents are neglected. In addition, the averagetime for completing a thesis may be increased,the average quality of thesis research may fall,and the percent failing to complete thesis research may increase. All these developments areexpensive in terms of resources devoted to agraduate research training program and in termsof a program's reputation. Normally, the effectsof these adverse conditions are recognized andsome adjustments are made with respect to admission and other policies. However, in chroniccases such adjustments may not be forthcomingor take place imperfectly with long lags. In thesecases, a review of the graduate research trainingprogram's policies is required.In checking the operation of a graduate research training program, the following appear tobe some important items. First, is the personresponsible for the administration of the programperforming his duties well? It is possible that theadministrator of a program is a part-time administrator with little or no staff. In this situation,it may be impossible for him to assemble dataand information regarding the program's operation. For example, he may have just fuzzynotions about the actual number of students inresidence in a particular quarter, the status ofindividual graduate students' research, the average time taken to complete a thesis, the numberof students failing to complete theses and reasonsfor these failures, etc. Where there is a need fora well-designed information base for graduate research training programs, it may be that a centralized unit could effectively service the needsof programs in many areas. Second, admissioncommittees may be poorly informed about actualoperations of a program and do not understandthe implications of admission decisions for thefuture operation of the program. Third; theprogram administrator and the admission committee may anticipate that a large fraction ofthose admitted will fail to pass qualifying andother examinations. The faculty administeringand grading qualifying examinations may pursuea policy in conflict with that of the admissioncommittee and program administrator.For all of the reasons listed above, and some others, it may be that a graduate research training program is over-expanded. If it is decidedto contract such a program, at least two policies,with differing implications, are available. First,it is possible to cut admissions to the program.This, of course, will result in a reduction in theoverall size of the program. However, it usuallyimplies a cut in enrollment in basic and advancedgraduate courses that students take before commencing thesis research. By lowering enrollmentin these graduate courses, costs and revenues areadversely affected. An alternative policy is topursue a relatively easy admissions policy andthen to use qualifying examinations, coursegrades, seminar papers, etc., to select those whowill be permitted to enter thesis work. Those notselected would be given Masters or equivalentdegrees and be free to pursue advanced thesiswork elsewhere. With this policy, enrollment ingraduate courses would be maintained withfavorable effects on revenues and costs. In addition, more information would be available inthe selection of students to be permitted topursue advanced thesis work than under the firstalternative of producing a reduction in the sizeof a program through just a cut in admissions.With respect to the "diffusion problem" whicharises when those associated with a particularresearch program diffuse their energies of research centered in related but tangential areas,several courses of action are possible. First, ifthe work in tangential areas is of high .quality,it may be that the individuals involved will agreeto a reassignment to other programs that reflecttheir research interests more accurately. In considering such reassignment, a decision must bemade with respect to the program from whichindividuals are removed. If it is not consideredto be an important program, it can be terminatedor reduced in scale. If it is considered important,it may be necessary to entertain the possibilityof new appointments to continue its operation.On the other hand, when individual researchers' performance in areas tangential to that of agiven program is mediocre or worse, measuresdesigned to induce better performance within thearea of the given program can include appointment of a faculty review committee. If thesituation is as described above, the committeecan recommend various reform measures to beinstituted within a reasonable period of time. Ifconformance with the committee's recommendations is not forthcoming, budgetary and othermeasures can be instituted to contract the program. Once the program's size has been reduced,125new appointments can be made to bring it up towhat is considered to be a reasonable scale andmix of activities. It should be emphasized thatsuch measures. are to be considered and instituted only when it has been established that poorperformance exists.The last problem to be considered in thissection that can give rise to poor performancein research and graduate research training programs is that of poor administration. Thatprograms involving talented faculty members andstudents can founder because of poor, slip-shodadministration is a point that deserves considerable emphasis and yet in many academic settingsthis emphasis is weak or non-existent. To be specific, in academia many administrators, includingdepartmental chairmen and deans, are part-timeadministrators often operating with inadequatestaff. In addition, there is usually little extraremuneration for assuming the chores of administration. In fact, it is probably the case thatacademic administrators receive salaries that aremuch below the salaries paid to administrators inindustry who perform roughly similar duties.Since one usually gets what he pays for, thequality of academic administrators, on average,is probably below that of administrators in industry. The qualifying phrase, on average, mustbe emphasized. Of course there are some devoted, able administrators in academia whoappear to perform well almost irrespective ofsalary considerations. However, there are manymore whose performance is consistent with themediocre salaries paid to them. Note that themanagement of programs involving substantialbudgets, large stocks of valuable human and non-human capital, and intricate research and trainingactivities requires a high order of administrativeskills. Such skills command high prices in themarket place. Failure to pay these prices usuallyimplies a failure to obtain and/or hold first-rateadministrators and often results in programsbeing mis-managed with resulting poor performance.When it is established that poor performanceof a research and graduate training program isprobably caused by poor administration, oneobvious solution is a change of administrators.However, a routine change without an analysisof the underlying reasons for poor administrationmay not represent a solution to the basic problem, particularly if the new administrator's quality is about the same as that of the previousadministrator. There may be elements in thesituation that require correction in order to have performance of the program improved. Needlessto say, there are almost an infinite number ofreasons for poor administration that can producepoor overall performance. What will be describedbelow are some points that deserve checking inparticular cases and some suggestions for dealingwith selected problems of administration.One frequently encountered reason for anadministration problem is an administrator's failure to recognize and assume an appropriate rolein relation to the research and graduate trainingprogram with which he is associated. At oneextreme, an administrator may assume a dictatorial role in which he makes decisions withoutadequate faculty participation and representation. At the other extreme, an administrator mayassume a completely passive role which results ina leadership vacuum. Since these extreme administrative roles generally contribute to poor performance and are unsatisfactory in other respects, it is important to correct them wheneverthey are encountered. It is of the utmost importance that an administrator take full accountof the faculty's central role in decision-makingwith respect to policies relating to research andgraduate training programs. In fact, one of thekey functions of an administrator is to improveand strengthen the faculty decision-making process. He can do this by being aware of emergingproblems, bringing them to the attention of thefaculty, providing faculty members with relevantbackground information bearing on such problems, and helping to structure and formulatesolutions. In this way, an administrator providesan input to the faculty that can improve thequality of faculty decision-making. Further, tooperate in this fashion, an administrator mustbe in close communication with faculty members. He should be aware of their views so thathe can structure solutions to problems that areworkable. Given an able and talented faculty,an administrator's role is in large part one ofassisting the faculty to do what it wants to domost effectively. Success in this role on the partof an administrator represents an importantcontribution to good performance.However, even if an administrator has an appropriate view of his role in relation to a researchand graduate training program, it is possible thathis administrative efforts can founder if he hasan adequate information base. Failure to beproperly informed can, of course, result in pooradministration. In this regard, an administratorshould be well-informed about the faculty involved in a program that he is administering. He126should have information regarding the currentquality of faculty members' performance andestimates of probable future performance. Thisinformation, essential in connection with decisions relating to salary, promotion, and staffingdecisions, can be utilized along with other relevant information to develop an overall view ofprobable personnel developments in the future.Year by year, it is useful to have informedestimates of the probable course of each staffmember's progress with respect to rank andsalary. These estimates provide a useful profile ofa program's staff that should include its distribution by age, rank, salary, and fields of activity.With such information developed and kept up todate, an administrator can alert faculty membersto staffing problems before they become critical.Also such information is essential for budgetingpurposes.To develop a useful profile of a program'sstaff, its activities and costs, an administrator requires information regarding current and plannedfuture uses of staff members' time. For eachstaff member, it is desirable to have a percentagebreak-down of time spent on research, supervision of thesis research, teaching, administrationand other service activities, and leave. With thisinformation in hand, an administrator will beinformed of changes in the faculty's time allocations and can make plans to cope with suchchanges before they occur. Failure to performthis function can result in disruption of research and/or graduate training programs.An administrator will probably find information regarding faculty time allocation useful inmonitoring costs of research and graduate training programs. It should be appreciated that thefaculty salary component is a major one in costs.With time allocation information available, anadministrator can assign costs for faculty timeto research, graduate research training and otheractivities. By having a breakdown developed forthis major item in costs, an administrator willusually be in a better position to appraise thefunctioning of the program that he is administering. For example, he may discover that facultycosts associated with a graduate training programhave soared because of an unexpected fall inenrollment. Or he may find that performance inresearch is poor relative to the cost of facultytime and other costs associated with it. Finally,with cost estimates developed for research, graduate research training, and other activities, anadministrator can more easily plan budgets. Whenbudget deficits arise, an administrator can assess their origins more accurately if his cost andrevenue accounts are developed for major areasof activity rather than lumped together.For large programs, cost and budget analysiscan be performed by an administrator's staff.For smaller programs, it may not be feasible toset up special groups to handle cost and budgeting analyses. However, it would be possible toservice the needs of smaller programs throughoperation of a centralized cost and budgetingunit. It may be that the expense associated witha central cost and budgeting analysis unit wouldbe more than offset by its cost savings. Certainly,it appears worthwhile to experiment with suchactivities in connection with programs that areexhibiting poor performance.In addition to the kinds of information mentioned above, an administrator of a research andgraduate training program should have goodsources of information regarding outside researchand graduate student funding opportunities. Heshould make such opportunities known to faculty members and graduate students. Also heand/or his staff should offer to cooperate andassist in preparing applications for outside funding. By these efforts an administrator can augment internal University resources. However, itis imperative that research funded in this way be"respectable" and allowance be made in budgeting for the well-known large variability associatedwith certain sources of outside financing.The extent to which an administrator can helpto augment his own internal resources by exploiting external sources is in no small measurea function of the quality of the program that heis administering. Even in good programs the jobof raising money is no easy task. Fund-raisingefforts of administrators and individual facultymembers will be dulled somewhat if funds thatthey raise are diverted by one budgetary meansor another to finance programs in other areas. Inthis connection, it is important for administratorsto establish an appropriate rationale for divertingfunds from a particular program to others.Skimming the cream off a program that is performing well to support programs that areperforming poorly is hardly a convincing rationale. On the other hand, in crisis situations thatpose a threat to the survival of the University itis to be expected that some degree of fund-sharing will be recognized as needed. In anygiven year, a good administrator will have toassume the role of an informed bargainer for itis through a bargaining process for resources thatthe final budget allocations are usually deter-127mined. To be effective in this process requiresthat an administrator understand the strengthsand weaknesses of his own program and thoseof others in the University. By revealing areas ofweakness in the bargaining process, administrators can help prevent resources from beingwasted and institute corrective measures. Poorlyinformed administrators who do not understandthe functions and purposes of the bargainingprocess or who can not perform effectively inthe process will not only serve the programs thatthey administer poorly but will fail to contributeto the informed, tough-minded thinking that isneeded to shape an overall budget incorporatinga good allocation of the University's resources.Last, in this partial list of administrators' qualities that are essential for good performance, anadministrator of a research and graduate trainingprogram should possess an aptitude and aninformation base for effective negotiating withpresent and potential faculty members. Salarynegotiations with staff members must be carriedthrough, cases of faculty members with offersfrom competing institutions must be dealt with,and recruitment of new staff is an activity ofgreat importance. An administrator must obtaingood advice from faculty members and committees relating to these matters. He must also havea broad range of information about current andprospective faculty members and about conditions elsewhere. In addition, he must be effectivein face to face negotiations. That an administrator should have these qualities in addition tothose mentioned above appears to lend supportto the propositions that good administrationrequires a range of very special skills and thatmuch more attention should be paid to thequality of administrators in academia than hasbeen the case in the past.2. Basic graduate teaching programs. Basic graduate teaching programs have been defined aboveto include basic graduate courses that graduatestudents are either informally or formally required to take in order to obtain advanceddegrees. Since these courses involve study ofbasic topics, it is critical that basic graduateteaching programs exhibit high quality performance. Poor performance in these programs canlead to inability to attract first-rate students,poorly prepared thesis candidates, inflated costs,etc. Usually, poor performance in basic graduateteaching programs is identified and corrected bythe efforts of individual faculty members and byfaculty committees. However, in some cases, for a variety of reasons, poor performance can persist for rather long periods of time. When suchproblems are encountered, it is relevant to identify factors that may be responsible for poorperformance and to institute corrective measures.By correcting poor performance of basic graduateteaching programs, obvious benefits accrue tostudents. In addition, successful corrective measures enhance the University's general reputationand may result in cost saving. With respect to thelatter point, poor basic graduate courses can leadto students' failing qualifying exams with associated delay in completion of work and/or delayand even failure in thesis research. These are justsome of the consequences of poor basic graduateteaching programs that make for higher costs.Some major points worth checking in effortsto improve performance in basic graduate teaching programs include quality of teaching, program variability, program composition and size,and program administration.With respect to the quality of teaching in basicgraduate courses, the very fact that these coursesare considered by faculty members to be basic andare often required courses implies a heavy responsibility on faculty members teaching them toprovide high quality instruction. This involves athoughtful selection and organization of topicsto be treated in a course, careful preparation andeffective presentation of lectures, selectivity inmaking reading assignments, skill and care inpreparing and grading examinations, and a constructive responsiveness to students' questionsand problems. As regards the selection of topicsto be covered in a basic graduate course, if thecourse is one in a sequence leading up to a qualifying examination, there is usually a formal orinformal consensus on the part of the facultyregarding topics that are thought to be appropriate. This is particularly the case when facultymembers have voted to require a basic course.An instructor teaching a basic graduate courseshould take account of this faculty consensusin planning his course with, of course, freedomto treat the basic topics in the way that he considers most appropriate. However, it is inappropriate for an instructor in a basic course topresent lectures on specialized, narrow subjectsthat may reflect just his current research interests. Such lectures are appropriate for advancedgraduate courses, not basic graduate courses.When they are offered in a basic graduate course,there is a failure to provide students with instruction in what the faculty considers to be basicareas. Students who recognize this failure will128have to take additional time to cover work in theneglected basic areas. Students who do notrecognize the above failure will probably farepoorly on qualifying examinations.Appropriate choice of topics and careful preparation of lectures, reading assignments, andexaminations appear to be necessary conditionsfor high-quality instruction in basic graduatecourses. However, in a number of cases, theseconditions do not produce excellent performancein teaching, perhaps because of ineffective lecturing and inadequate responsiveness to students'questions and problems. It should be noted thatfew instructors- in basic courses have had anyuseful training in teaching techniques. Indeed, itis difficult for most instructors to understand thefactors making for mediocre performance in thelecture hall. In this connection, it may be worthwhile to provide instructors the opportunity tohave their lectures recorded on audio-visual tapes.In this way an instructor can see and hear himself in action and possibly discover factorsmaking for poor performance. Also, some professional counseling may help to improve the quality of lecturing in a number of cases.Program variability can vitally affect the quality of basic graduate teaching programs. Unplanned variability in the timing of courseofferings and qualifying exams, perhaps due tounexpected faculty leaves, can disrupt studentprograms. Undue variability in the coverage andcontent of basic courses coupled with randomvariation in the timing, content, coverage andgrading of qualifying examinations can result inhigh failure rates on qualifying examinations,expensive delays in students' work to completeprograms and poor student morale. Wheneversuch conditions exist, it is the duty and responsibility of relevant faculty members, faculty committees and administrators to formulate and institute corrective measures.inappropriate size and composition of a basicgraduate teaching program can make for highcosts relative to tuition revenues and for pooroverall performance. As regards size, it is sometimes the case that enrollment in basic graduatecourses is low because faculty admission committees admit a small number of students each yearin efforts to be selective. Whether these committees are successful in their attempts to beselective is a moot point. As is well known,predicting students' future performance in graduate work from undergraduate grade point averages, test scores, letters of recommendation,interviews, etc., is rather difficult. Given this fact, when a small number of applicants isadmitted to a program, the relative cost of asingle incorrect decision can be high. Furtherwith respect to those refused admission, it isprobably the case that this group includes somewho could perform well. In view of these unavoidable problems, it is worthwhile to consideradmitting a larger number of students and usingcourse exams, qualifying examinations and othermeans to select those to be permitted to dothesis research. Those not permitted to proceedwith thesis research would, in most cases, begiven a terminal Masters degree. With such apolicy instituted,15 there would be an increasein enrollment in the basic graduate courses andincreased tuition revenue with little increase incosts. Some increases in costs would be experienced in connection with extra time spent correcting examinations and counseling students.However, this increment in costs would probablybe much smaller than the increment in tuitionrevenue associated with an expansion of a basicgraduate teaching program with a few students.When expansion of enrollment in a basicgraduate teaching program is considered, the issue of quality of course instruction arises. Doesit make much difference with respect to qualityof instruction in a basic graduate course whetherthere are 3, 10, 20, 30, or 60 students enrolled in a course? Unfortunately, definitiveresearch results providing an answer to this question do not appear to be available. However, onemay speculate that instructors would not bemotivated highly if they lectured to just threestudents. With about 10 to 20 students in acourse, classroom discussions can be carriedforward. With more than about 30 enrolled, it isdifficult to make effective use of classroom discussion and an instructor usually provides formallectures and meets with students for discussionduring office hours. The relation between size ofclass and quality of instruction given the qualityof students and of instructor, would then seemto be critically dependent on the importance ofclassroom discussion. In this regard, conditionsmay vary from field to field; however, in manyfields basic graduate courses are typically presented as lecture courses because there are manyimportant topics to cover and the discussion ofnovices in a field is often a waste of time. Student questions and discussions are more expedi-15 It appears that the Department of Economics haspursued a policy similar to that described in the textfor many years.129tiously handled during office hours and inadvanced graduate- courses and seminars. If thispoint of view is accepted, then policies designedto increase enrollment in basic graduate courses,particularly in courses in which enrollment isvery low, should receive serious consideration byrelevant faculty committees and administrators.Also, it is worthwhile emphasizing again that apolicy of increasing enrollment in basic graduatecourses must be accompanied by measures designed to allow only the most highly qualifiedstudents to commence doctoral thesis research.With respect to the composition of a basicgraduate teaching program, the student, faculty,and course components must be considered. Withrespect to students, it is of course desirable thatthey be of high quality. A factor of great importance in attracting good students is obviously thequality of the basic graduate teaching and research training programs. Good programs willtend to attract good students, other things beingconstant. However, other things are rarely constant in a competitive setting. Other universitieswith good programs compete with our Universityfor the most able students. This implies thatresources and ingenuity must be applied in orderto hold and improve our competitive position.Fellowship support levels and recruiting effortsshould be reviewed each year to determinewhether they are adequate to attract students ofhigh quality. Some centralization in the recruiting efforts of various departments seems worthexploring. Further use of alumni groups to assistin recruiting good graduate students seems possible. Additional effort devoted to discovering,developing, and exploiting new sources of fellowship support may provide high returns.The faculty component of basic graduateteaching programs is a critical one in determiningquality of performance. It is essential that basicgraduate courses be offered by faculty memberswho have a mature and deep understanding ofcourse subject matter and who have much morethan a passing acquaintance with current researchin areas covered by a course. It is risky to allowyoung staff members to assume responsibility forbasic graduate courses. While good performancemay be observed in some cases in which youngstaff members assume responsibility for basicgraduate courses, many times the result is aninadequate course in terms of breadth and depth.On the other hand, older staff members, whohave concentrated attention on narrow researchspecialties may also present unsatisfactory basicgraduate courses that are deficient in breadth and depth of coverage. It is thus obviously importantthat faculty assignments to teaching in basiccourses be made with great care and thought byrelevant administrators in consultation with faculty members. When problems arise with respectto a particular basic graduate course, variouscorrective measures are available. Since these willin most cases have to be tailored to meet the specific conditions surrounding the problem course,not very much can be said in general. However,it does appear relevant to consider whether it isuseful and fruitful to have a specific formal requirement that a particular course be taken bystudents. By avoiding the use of specific, formalrequirements, a greater degree of flexibility isintroduced in dealing with basic courses that arebeing presented poorly. Further, it appears desirable to have the quality of a course be themain determinant of students' enrollment ratherthan an administrative ruling.As regards the course component of basicgraduate teaching programs, it is of course necessary that the basic courses be adequate in termsof breadth of coverage. Further, it may be possible to avoid duplication of courses by takingadvantage of other departments' course offerings.For example, perhaps some duplication of effortand improvement in quality can be obtainedthrough a greater degree of centralization in theoffering of basic graduate mathematics, statistics,and computer courses that are required in anumber of basic graduate teaching programs.Such "inter-departmental" curriculum mattersdeserve continuing study.The frequency and timing of basic graduatecourse offerings require careful planning. If basiccourses are given infrequently and irregularly,students' progress in programs will probably beadversely affected. Further, if there is carelessness in planning the times at which basic coursesare offered, two or more basic courses may beoffered at the same time or at overlapping times,a situation that poses obvious problems forstudents. By having more than just a few students enrolled in a basic graduate teaching program, it becomes feasible to schedule morefrequent offerings of basic graduate courses. Inthis connection, summer quarter offerings ofbasic courses may be feasible, particularly ifspecial groups of students who desire advancededucation can be attracted to attend them. Offering more basic graduate courses in the summerquarter will probably make for a better utilization of the University's facilities and providemore flexibility with respect to student programs130and staffing. If local staff members can not befound to staff basic graduate courses in summerquarters, it may be feasible to have qualifiedvisiting faculty members present basic graduatecourses in certain instances provided that enrollment is substantial enough to justify dping so.On the other hand, if the summer quarter courseofferings are not carried forward on a largeenough scale so as to utilize fully the University's facilities and staff, it would be worthwhileto consider expanding the number of specialsummer programs that are currently in operation.As indicated above, the administration of basicgraduate teaching programs involves checks onquality of teaching, structure and timing ofcourse offerings, monitoring enrollment levelsand student performance, and providing an examination and reward structure that contributes toenhancing students' performance. Combined efforts of faculty members and an administrator,say a director of graduate studies, can providefor improved performance in many instances.In each program, it is desirable to have facultyadvisors check the progress of students frequently, at least once a quarter. By keeping in closecontact with students, it is possible to appraisetheir performance more meaningfully and to usethis information in making fellowship and otherawards. Also, by having frequent communicationwith students, various problems can be identifiedand dealt with as they arise and not left tofester and grow into major problems. Above all,it is of key importance for those assuming responsibility for a basic graduate teaching programto have a faculty consensus with respect to thesize of the program, admissions policies, and therole of qualifying examinations. As stated above,if it is agreed to pursue a policy of substantialenrollment in basic graduate courses, suitableadmissions policies must be followed and policies with respect to qualifying examinations mustbe such as to avoid admitting excessive numbersof students to commence thesis research. Bythoughtful coordination of considerations regarding size of program, admissions policies, andpolicies with respect to the functions of qualifying examinations, it is thought that the performance of some basic graduate teaching programscan be substantially improved with respect torevenues and costs without sacrifice of quality.3. Undergraduate teaching programs. Much thathas been said above about basic graduate teaching programs has relevance for undergraduateteaching programs. For example, in basic intro ductory undergraduate courses that are oftenrequired, it is essential that teaching quality behigh and that course content reflect a facultyconsensus of appropriate coverage and depth. Byhaving the coverage and depth of introductorycourses fairly well-defined, unnecessary duplication of coverage can be avoided in advancedundergraduate courses. Also by having instructorsin advanced undergraduate courses very familiarwith the content of basic introductory courses,it is possible for them to plan and presenteffective courses that build on the basic foundations provided in introductory courses. Coordination of the content of introductory and advancedcourses, usually provided by faculty curriculumcommittees, is a basic factor in determining thequality of undergraduate teaching programs. Ifthe coverage and depth of basic introductorycourses in a particular undergraduate teachingprogram are highly variable and inappropriaterelative to the consensus of the faculty involvedin a program, it is obvious that it will be verydifficult to have a well-coordinated and effectiveoverall program. Further, the timing and frequency of basic course offerings must be well-integrated with those of advanced courses so thatstudents can proceed through programs withoutundue delays and interruptions.With respect to frequency and timing ofcourse offerings and in other respects as well,the scale of undergraduate teaching programsshould be considered carefully. If there are fewstudents enrolled in undergraduate programs, thisimplies small numbers enrolled in basic undergraduate courses and even smaller numbers enrolled in advanced undergraduate courses withcosts per student per course high. Here, as inconnection with graduate teaching programs, theissue of class size and quality of instruction is acentral consideration. By increasing class size, itis probably possible in most instances to gainmore in the way of extra tuition revenue thanis lost in terms of added costs, under the assumption that quality of instruction is unaffected. Incases in which basic undergraduate courses arepresented as lecture courses with little or nostudent discussion, increases in enrollment willprobably not affect quality of instruction verymuch, if at all, provided that there is additionalfaculty time allocated for office hours and othermeans of dealing with individual student problems. Since conditions vary from one undergraduate program to another, it would be desirablefor faculty and administrators in each program toassess the probable consequences of increased131enrollment in basic undergraduate courses. Forexample, given an assumed 25 or 50 percentincrease in enrollment in basic undergraduatecourses, it would be useful to have estimates ofthe additional tuition revenue, the extra costsand an assessment of the probable effects onquality of instruction prepared. This information, developed for individual basic introductorycourses, is one important input for appraising theappropriateness of the scale of undergraduateprograms.If it appears worthwhile to entertain the possibility Of expanding enrollment in a number ofbasic introductory undergraduate courses, otherconsequences of such a policy should be considered. One consequence of expanded enrollment in introductory undergraduate courses willbe expanded enrollment in advanced undergraduate courses. This may be a favorable developmentin programs in which enrollment in advanced undergraduate courses is considered to be unsatisfactorily low. In other programs, an increase in enrollment in advanced undergraduate courses maypose problems with respect to quality of instruction and perhaps with respect to other costs. Inmany advanced undergraduate courses, there is agood deal of student interaction with instructors,laboratory work in some courses and coursepapers. The quality of these activities may beadversely affected by a substantial increase inenrollment given no accompanying increase infaculty input to these activities. Here too, itwould be useful to prepare estimates of theprobable effects of say 25 or 50 percent increasesin enrollment in advanced undergraduate courses.These estimates would involve computation ofthe additional tuition revenue and additionalcosts associated with various assumed enrollmentincreases and would have to reflect adjustmentsrequired to maintain quality standards that faculty members consider to be appropriate. Further, these analyses should take account ofpossible better utilization of staff and facilitiesduring summer quarters and perhaps some use ofbasic graduate courses in the programs of veryable undergraduate students and/or combinedundergraduate and Masters programs. If the estimates reveal that increases in enrollment wouldgenerate additional revenues in excess of additional costs with quality maintained, then itwould appear worthwhile to institute measuresto increase enrollment.With respect to possible increases in enrollment, a key consideration in maintaining qualityis the quality of students admitted to undergrad uate programs. In competition for good students,it is necessary to have effective recruiting programs. Also, availability of scholarships andappropriate tuition policies are obviously keyfactors in efforts to attract top students. Thentoo, in making plans to attract more good students, it is important to take account of demographic and "market" factors. With regard todemographic factors, the drop in the birthrate inthe late 1950s and early 1960s has importantimplications for student recruitment in the midand late 1970s. The tuition and admission policies of state universities and other institutionsshould be analyzed carefully in planning effortsto recruit good students. Finally, an importantelement in recruiting good students to Chicagois the quality of living conditions in the University community. Since this factor is probably offirst order importance, a good deal of thoughtand effort should be devoted to formulating andinstituting measures that will improve the qualityof student living conditions. Some thoughts onthis important problem will be presented in thenext section of this essay.4. Service activities. Some service activities havebeen described in the preceding section. As withother activities of the University, it is essentialthat service activities be performed well and thatthe scope of service activities carried forward besuch that the University can best realize its mainobjectives in research and teaching.With respect to the President and his staff,deans, chairmen and their staffs, it can not beemphasized too strongly that they are carryingforward extremely important and delicate workthat demands considerable administrative talent,thorough understanding of faculty prerogatives,research and teaching activities, and an appreciation of students' needs and aspirations. In addition, there is a whole range of relationships withtrustees and the public that must be structured,maintained and improved. In the competitivesetting within which the University finds itselfand with respect to the University's high aspirations, it is not enough that University administrators be of average quality. The University'sadministrative staff must be of exceptional quality. It is generally recognized in academia that theUniversity of Chicago has traditionally been inthe fore in the area of administration. The University's administration has a fine record of maintaining excellent relations with faculty membersand of preserving academic values that are required in order to have an environment in which132research and learning flourish. To maintain thistradition in the face of stiff er competition, of lessfavorable conditions, of improved managerialtechniques, and of new and difficult staff andstudent problems will require considerable effort.In particular, it appears advisable to review thestructure of administrative salaries and rewardswith an eye toward determining whether it isadequate to attract and hold administrators withability adequate to realize the high aspirations ofthe faculty, students, and other members of theUniversity community. It no longer seems sufficient to rely substantially on part-time, volunteer administrators to perform the importanttasks required to guide the University in itsleadership role in the future. Salary scales foradministrators must be high enough to attractfirst-rate, full-time administrators with the abilityto help achieve the highest goals of the University community. Such administrators should ofcourse appreciate their appropriate role in theUniversity and be well-acquainted with personnel, budgeting, planning, and other functions ofmodern management. By a judicious increase inresources devoted to improved administration, itis thought that the University will reap a handsome return. As with other suggested measures,it seems a good strategy to concentrate increasedresources for administration in areas in whichcurrent administrators are exhibiting poor oraverage performance. Where appropriate, somecentralization of administrative functions mayresult in better overall performance. Above all,it should be the aim of administrators to servethe faculty in all possible ways to realize theUniversity's goals in research and teaching without preempting or interfering with the faculty'sprimary responsibility in these areas.With respect to research associated services, itis of course the case that the University employsmany laboratory technicians, research assistants,secretaries, and other personnel to provide supporting services to researchers. As with any set ofemployees, there are a range of personnel problems relating to salary scales, conditions of work,etc., that must be handled with great care inorder that performance be of good quality, costsbe kept in line with quality of performance, andso on. These results will not generally be a-chieved without appropriate personnel administration. Further, there may be delicate unionnegotiations that require expertise and detailedinformation on the part of University administrators. It is clearly critical that such negotiationsbe carried through successfully so that costly strikes can be avoided. With respect to allsupporting University employees, it would seemwise at this point to make provisions for dealingwith emerging and continuing unionization.In addition to the service activities discussedabove, there are a number of other servicesprovided by the University that are just indirectlyrelated to research and teaching activities. Forexample, the University provides eating facilities,publishes journals, operates a press, suppliesparking and athletic facilities to staff members,etc. In each instance, there may be specifichistorical reasons for the University's involvement in these activities. Be that as it may, it isimportant that the costs and revenues associatedwith these activities be properly calculated sothat it is known what burden, if any, is placedon the University's resources by these activities.With respect to costs and revenues, it is appropriate to compute these just as a private businesswould. For example, in connection with parkingfacilities, it is of course important to include anappropriate charge for the use of land as well asmaintenance and other costs. If revenues arefound inadequate to cover costs, this may be dueto too low a charge for the use of parking facilities, a subsidy to users of the parking facilities.Needless to say, a low price to users of parkingfacilities will result in a deficit that will have tobe met from University resources. With respectto athletic facilities, a charge to users that is toolow to cover charges for building space, maintenance, etc., is of course a subsidy to ourathletically inclined colleagues and generates toolittle revenue to maintain facilities adequately.16In every instance, whether it be parking facilities, athletic facilities, the University press, eatingservices, etc., it is critical that an accurate picturebe obtained of costs and revenues so that it becomes possible to ascertain the extent to whichUniversity resources are being utilized to subsidize an activity. Also, when services are beingpriced below the market, it may often be foundthat they are of poor quality and over-utilized.Given an analysis of costs, revenues, subsidies,pricing and quality, an informed judgment can bemade with respect to subsidies, if any, pricingand quality. In some cases, it may be concludedthat the University has no advantage in providinga service that can be supplied by a private business. Contracting for services from private businesses under competitive bidding should always16 1 am indebted to John Wilson for this example.133be considered as an alternative to having theUniversity provide a service. After all, the University's primary mission is not to use its resources to produce and sell a broad range of services that can be produced and supplied as wellby private businesses. The University's resources,limited as they are, can certainly be put to muchbetter use in research and teaching activities.V. An Important Problem Affecting UniversityPerformance, Incentives, and MoraleThis essay would be incomplete if no mentionwere made of a first order problem facing theUniversity that affects performance, incentivesand morale in a number of ways. The problem isthat of general living conditions in the Universitycommunity. The problems of crime, air pollution, and unsightly slums are of course notunique to Chicago. There are many other urbanuniversities that are experiencing similar difficulties. It should be appreciated that the effectsof these urban ills on University performance,incentives, and morale are substantial. In competition for faculty, salary differentials are usually paid to induce individuals to put up withunpleasant aspects of city life. To the extent thatfaculty members choose to live in the suburbs,they incur travel costs and may be somewhatdetached from the University community. Withrespect to students, in order to attract the mostable, it is necessary to have scholarship andfellowship stipends include a differential to compensate them for enduring the rigors of urbanliving conditions. The same can be said of salariesand wages paid to many supporting staff. On topof these added expenses, there are the substantialdirect costs of maintaining a police force, providing other security measures, and of meetinghigh insurance rates. Last, the direct impact ofcrimes committed against friends and associateshas a nauseating effect on colleagues and studentsthat affects the quality of performance andweakens commitments to the University.The problem of general community livingconditions poses a challenge to the University.Again, it must be emphasized that the problemis not unique to The University of Chicago.However, it is one that deserves continuing University attention. Structuring and successfullyexecuting a solution to the problem that doesnot detract the University from its main purposesand does not deplete University resources wouldbe a major accomplishment. Members of theUniversity community would draw strength and enjoy a well-deserved sense of achievement froma well-conceived and successfully executed solution to present community problems. Belowsome suggestions are put forward with this endin mind. It should be emphasized that many ofthe suggestions represent a continuation of thesuccessful work on these problems carried forwardby George and Muriel Beadle, Edward and JulianLevi, and many others. This past work has produced substantial improvements in the quality ofcommunity life in the 1970s as compared withthe situation that was present in the 1950s.successful work on these problems carried forward by George and Muriel Beadle, Edward andJulian Levi, and many others. This past work hasproduced substantial improvements in the qualityof community life in the 1970s as compared withthe situation that was present in the 1950s.Currently, a high proportion of Universitystaff members live in close proximity to the University in a community that has long been uniquely attractive to intellectuals and others. In thelast few years, measures of air pollution indicatea remarkable improvement in the quality of theair in the University community. Much new construction has been completed and more is underway. Statistics relating to crime rates give someindication that other communities such as Cambridge, Berkeley, Pasadena, New Haven and AnnArbor have experienced much higher rates of increase in the number of FBI Index Crimes in thefew years than has our University community.17While these measures of crime are somewhatcrude and more detailed investigations would bedesirable, the fact that the available data showThe following statistics for 1965 and 1970, comefrom Chicago's 21st Police District's Index Crime Releases, Chicago Police Department, and from ihe Uniform Crime Reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.District orCity Population,1970 Census Number of FBIIndex Crimes21st Police District,ChicagoCambridge, Mass.Berkeley, Calif.Pasadena, Calif.New Haven, Conn.Ann Arbor, Mich. 100,000100,000116,716113,327137,70750,000 5949 54957563 35416442 28557111 34258473 27355763 1490134relative improvement in the University community can not be ignored. This progress on manyfronts is continuing and appears to be gainingmomentum, in large part due to the devotedefforts of many active, energetic, public-mindedcitizens of the Hyde Park-Kenwood community.The first point to be made in connection withefforts to obtain improved community conditionsis that it is in the University's self-interest to doso. As has been pointed out above, adverse community conditions impose many costs on theUniversity. Second, it would be highly desirableto institute a strategy for dealing with community problems that does not divert the Universityfrom its main objectives, does not overtax University resources, and can possibly have beneficial effects on the University over and abovethose associated with improved community livingconditions.The strategy proposed herein for dealing withthe community problems described above can bebriefly described as follows. Relevant Universityofficials and trustees working in close associationwith community groups and with city government should embark on a program to attractprivate and public research groups, companies,corporations, etc., to locate units in The University of Chicago community. It must be emphasized that this program can probably be bestpursued in close conjunction with communitygroups and with city government. Some of thebenefits associated with a successful program toattract a substantial number of private and publicresearch units and firms to the community are:1. Expanded employment opportunities formembers of the community in relatively goodpositions.2. Expanded activities for local businesses.3. Broadened tax base in the community.4. Expanded research base in the community.5. Possible beneficial interactive effects onUniversity research programs.6. Pool of professionals in community available to fill part-time teaching and other staffingneeds.7. Easier recruitment and maintenance of University faculty, supporting staff, and studentbody.While the benefits associated with a successfulprogram to attract research units to the localcommunity are easy to catalogue, it is more difficult to explain what will induce public andprivate research groups to locate in The University of Chicago community. Some positive fac tors, already present or potentially present, are:1. Proximity to the University faculty and itsresearch, teaching, and other programs.2. Availability of other resources includinglibrary computation center, etc.3. An abundant supply of many kinds of labor.4. Central geographic location of Chicago.5. Chicago's concentration of commerce andindustry.6. Chicago's cultural, entertainment, and otherresources.7. Tax inducements.8. A receptive and cooperative communityspirit.Some of these positive factors are alreadyoperative but do not at present appear to bestrong enough to overcome the adverse community conditions detailed above. In essence, we arefaced, in part, with a "chicken-egg" problem.Unsatisfactory local conditions appear to beimpeding the influx of many research units andthe failure of many research units to locate in thecommunity is a contributory factor producingunsatisfactory local conditions.To crack the "chicly n-egg" problem, it issuggested that we build on adversity. That is, it isrecommended that a good deal of effort be concentrated on attracting research groups and firmsthat are involved in work on the serious problemsthat are currently present on the local scene.Attracting such groups to the local communitywill constitute a step in the direction of implementing the overall strategy. Further, the announced effort to research and solve local problems and any success in this undertaking will actto raise the probability that the overall strategywill succeed.Some tentative suggestions with respect toareas of adversity that might serve as focal pointsfor activities of private and public researchgroups and firms follow:1 . Local elementary and secondary education.Currently, there appears to be much interest inresearch aimed at providing improved elementaryand secondary school education. Federal, state,and local governments are active in this area. Perhaps private and/or public research units can beinduced to locate their efforts in The Universityof Chicago community. It may be that TheUniversity of Chicago Graduate School of Education could provide some guidance and consultation to these research units. Positive effects ofsuch research on the quality of local education135would be valuable to many local citizens, wouldfacilitate efforts to attract other research units,and would be of assistance with respect to University staffing problems.2. Local crime problems. A good deal of researchhas recently been directed at explaining thedeterminants of criminal activities and discovering measures to reduce their level. It appearspossible to induce public and/or private researchgroups, with special interests in researchingcrime, to locate in the local community. TheUniversity has several prominent authorities onthe legal, sociological, and economic aspects ofcrime who might act in an advisory capacity andwho might be instrumental in attracting a groupto locate in the local community. In addition,the Law School faculty has special expertise thatmight be of great assistance in this matter.3. Local medical service problems. Local medicaland hospital problems are extremely complex.One major part of this set of problems appearsto be provision of medical services to large numbers of individuals who can not afford to payfor them. At present, some local hospital facilities incur great expense in providing medical services to the poor. As a step in the direction oftrying to alleviate some of these communityhealth problems, it may be possible to attract aresearch group to the community that concentrates attention on developing improved meansand methods of delivering medical care forcommon ailments to large numbers of patientsand on associated problems. The field activitiesof such research groups, coupled with the effortsof already existing community clinics, etc., cansupply more and improved health services to thecommunity. The University's Medical School,already operative in this area, and Center forHealth Administration Studies might provideconsultation and advice with respect to opportunities in this area.4. Local housing and minority business problems.These are two areas in which considerable research is going forward and in which researchunits might be induced to locate in proximity tothe University. Members of various Universityunits, for example the Graduate School of Business, the Departments of Economics and Geography, the Center for Urban Studies, etc., mightbe willing to provide advice and consultationwith respect to how to attract research units tolocate near the University and on other matters.The above are just a few of the areas in which possibilities exist for attracting private and/orpublic research units and firms to locate in thelocal community. With a little thought andingenuity, it is undoubtedly the case that otherpossibilities can be brought to light. When arange of possibilities has been settled on, itwould be worthwhile to incorporate them into adetailed plan for attracting research units to thelocal community. Perhaps financing for this effort can be obtained from a federal agency.Then with faculty and administration approvalof the plan, it would seem advisable to havePresident Levi present the plan to the Board ofTrustees for its approval and support. If theBoard supports the plan, exploratory conversations with representatives of local communitygroups and city government can be undertakento get a broad base of support.It is not to be expected that successful execution of a program to attract research units andfirms to the local community will solve allproblems. However, it is. quite likely that asuccessful program of this sort will result in amajor improvement in conditions in the University community. Also, success in this programwould represent a remarkable achievement on thepart of the University and the community, anexample for other universities and communitiesto follow.VI. ConclusionA number of general and specific considerationshave been presented in the preceding sections.Taken together,- these considerations representan overall approach to University problems thatshould help "to preserve, indeed develop, theunity and interrelationships among parts of theUniversity; to maximize its economic strengthfor its academic purposes, and yet to provideincentives for faculty and departments, divisionsand schools consistent with these purposes."18To illustrate that the preceding considerations help achieve President Levi's objectives, wefirst pointed to the competitive nature of theenvironment within which the University operates. Recognition that the future of the University depends in large part on its success incompeting with other universities should serve asstrong incentive for individual faculty membersand others in the University to perform well.Second, we proposed a general policy of iden-18 Excerpt from President Levi's letter to Committeemembers.136tifying areas in which performance is poor and oftaking measures, including even the extrememeasure of terminating programs, to obtainimproved performance. The knowledge that suchcorrective policies are being pursued, whereverneeded, should strengthen the resolve of thosewho are performing well and who are striving toachieve improved performance. Further, by having the strength and fortitude to insist on high-level performance and to take measures to insureit, the faculty and administration put poorly performing individuals, departments, schools, etc.,on notice to effect improvements or else takethe consequences.Third, by taking a hard line with respect toany persistently poorly performing units of theUniversity and by concentrating resources in alimited number of areas, the faculty, trustees, andstudents are given assurance that the University'slimited resources are not being dissipated bybeing spread too thinly over many fields, programs and activities.Fourth, by suggested efforts to upgrade thequality of administration where needed, it shouldbe possible to provide better management of theUniversity that will have beneficial effects onincentives and the economic strength of the University. Improved administration can also resultin improved utilization of University resourcesand enhance the quality of faculty decisionmaking and performance in many other dimensions.Fifth, a tentative proposal for dealing withlocal community problems was set forth. Successful implementation of the proposal canproduce much improved community conditions,an achievement that is worthy in and of itselfand that would contribute considerably to theimprovement of the University's competitiveposition in many respects. The impact of improved community conditions on the degree ofcommitment of individuals and their families tothe University may be substantial.Sixth, emphasis was placed on the desirabilityof maintaining good accounts for all serviceactivities within the University. Such accountsshould provide clear statements of costs andrevenues. By having these figures available, it ispossible to estimate the extent to which University resources are being used to subsidize specificservice activities and to consider the extent towhich such subsidies can be justified. In casesin which subsidies cannot be justified, theirtermination would obviously free University resources for more productive uses. Seventh, it was pointed out that an informedbargaining process shapes University budget-making and intra-University allocations of resources. Successful operation of this bargainingprocess depends on the participants' being ableand well-informed about the operations and goalsof the University. In the bargaining process, it isimperative that areas of poor performance bepinpointed. When such areas have been identified, appropriate faculty committees, operatingin close cooperation with administrators, cananalyze these problem areas and have correctivemeasures instituted. In addition, when units ofthe University are fruitfully innovative in research, teaching, and administration, this shouldbe reflected in the bargaining process. For example, if the costs of a graduate program are reduced without sacrifice of quality through betteradministration, the budget-making process shouldreflect and reward such successful efforts, withthe extent and duration of the reward dependingon the judged significance of a particular innovation. By further publicizing the policy that fruitful innovative activity consistent with the goalsof the University will be rewarded in the budget-making process, it is believed that much can bedone to strengthen incentives to produce improved performance.Last, it was recognized that the President ofthe University performs a valuable service in interpreting the goals of the University to society.Since the goals of the University are intimatelyrelated to faculty members' and students' incentives and figure largely in the bargaining processfor allocating University resources to varioususes, it is essential that the goals of the University be appreciated and understood by membersof the University community. By haying members of the University community participatemore fully in the formation and interpretation ofUniversity goals, their incentives to help realizethese goals will be strengthened and therebyUniversity unity and strength may be enhanced.In the case of the University, as with anycomplex organization, it is difficult to state withcertainty that any given set of policies will workwell. The policies set forth in the present Reportare in the main policies that seem to have beenemployed in the past and that have produced thehigh degree of success that the University enjoystoday. In order to have continued and improvedsuccess in the future, a future that may befraught with difficulties and unforeseen problemsit is imperative that the University continue topursue policies making for wise and prudent137management of its resources, policies that areflexible enough to permit adjustments to unforeseen problems and that incorporate fruitful, tried,and tested tools of modern management. Application of such policies in the present and futurewill do much to insure that the University notonly survives but retains its leadership role inhigher education.To President Edward H. LeviJune 12, 1972When you invited us to serve on this Committee,you said "what we need is an essay which pointsout possible lines of development, the difficultiesinvolved, the appropriateness or inappropriate-ness of certain opportunities for this University—in general, a 'think piece' which does not attemptto resolve all the issues, but indicates what oughtto be taken into account in resolving them. Onthe other hand, to the extent that the Committeedoes have definite views or believes there are certain benchmarks for decisions, I hope it will statethem." We have taken these words as the statement of our mission, and trust that this reportfulfills your expectation.Before considering the future, however, webelieve that clarity of understanding requires usto deal briefly with both the past and the present. As your letter points out, "this Universityhas been a pioneer in University Extension." TheCommittee found itself only generally aware ofthis tradition, particularly of the fact that Chicago could be said to be not a pioneer but thepioneer in this function, at least in the UnitedStates. Furthermore no member of the Committee understood the nature and scope of the University's present extension program. We have notmade a detailed or evaluative analysis of past orpresent activities (a task for which we did nothave the time, the resources, nor the inclination),but we have tried to gain a general understandingof the history and the present nature of thephenomena with which we deal. We begin thismemorandum with accounts of both. Arnold Zellner (Chairman) Ralph F. NauntonBrian J. L. Berry Arthur E. WiseArthur FriedmanJulian R. GoldsmithRobert GravesElwood V. JensenDonald F. LachNorval R. MorrisThe University of Chicago as the Pioneer ofExtensionUniversity extension has had a long record of intermittent effort in the United States but a sustained program of service did not begin until thefounding of The University of Chicago in 1892.As early as 1808, Professor Benjamin Silliman ofYale was offering series of lectures to the generalpublic and in 1830 Columbia College undertookan evening course program. But while many suchventures were initiated and some achieved popularity, most were short-lived and soon forgotten.The modern "movement," if so it may becalled, began at Cambridge University in 1867,when James Stuart, a young Fellow of TrinityCollege, offered courses in science to adults innearby towns. The work proved so successfulthat, after a faculty committee made a two-yearinvestigation of extension, it was adopted as auniversity-sponsored program in 1873. Oxforddeveloped its own program two years later. Inthe 1880s, the idea was transplanted to theUnited States, where it became a fad, with highlyenthusiastic supporters and, in reaction, sharpcritics. One of the latter was Professor Harry P.Judson of the University of Minnesota, later tobecome the second president of The Universityof Chicago. In 1891, at a national meeting, heobserved: "The English experience really countsfor little, so far as we are concerned. The conditions in the two countries are radically different. A vast deal that passes in England under thehead of 'university extension' is nothing but thework of Chautauqua circles here." He went onto say that much extension was at a sub-collegiate level: "It must be remembered that thefree high school does not exist in England . . .REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ONUNIVERSITY EXTENSION138there is no intention of depreciating what ourEnglish friends have done, but there is danger inindiscriminating imitation."1William Rainey Harper, on the other hand,was an enthusiastic admirer of the British idea,though he was opposed to "indiscriminating imitation." As with everything else he undertook,he wanted to develop extension in his ownfashion. At Yale and, more particularly, at Chautauqua Institution, he had become deeply convinced of the importance of the spread of scholarly knowledge to the men and women of thecommunity who could profit from it. This ideabecame central to his plans for The Universityof Chicago. In January 1891, its first OfficialBulletin announced that "The Work of the University shall be arranged under three generaldivisions, viz., The University Proper, The University-Extension Work, The University Publication Work." Extension was to have five majorparts: off-campus lectures, off-campus courses,correspondence courses, special studies of theBible, and library extension. In Official BulletinNo. 6, issued seventeen months later, the plansfor extension were elaborated, the entire description of the new program running to 25 closely-packed pages.Many of Harper's general observations are stillrelevant and our Committee might well have discharged its mission by reminding you of a paragraph he wrote eighty years ago:To provide instruction for those who, forsocial or economic reasons, cannot attend inits class-rooms is a legitimate and necessarypart of the work of every university. To makeno effort in this direction is to neglect a promising opportunity for building up the university itself, and at the same time to fallshort of performing a duty which, from thevery necessities of the case, is incumbent uponthe university. It is conceded by all that certain intellectual work among the people atlarge is desirable; those who believe in thewide diffusion of knowledge regard it as necessary. All are pleased to see that it is demanded. This work, while it must be in a goodsense popular, must also be systematic in formand scientific in spirit, and to be such it mustbe done under the direction of a university,by men who have had scientific training. Forthe sake of the work, it should in every instance come directly from the university, thatthus (1) there may be a proper guarantee of1 American Society for the Extension of UniversityTeaching, Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting,Philadelphia, Pa,, 1891, pp. 203-204. its quality; (2) character may be given it;(3) continuity may be assured; (4) suitablecredit may be accorded. The doing of thework by the university will (1) do much tobreak down the prejudice which so widely prevails against an educated aristocracy; (2) giveto a great constituency that which is their justright and due; (3) establish influences fromwhich much may be expected directly for thesake of the university; (4) bring inspiration toboth professor and pupil in college and university; (5) bring the university into direct contact with human life and activity.This optimistic view was not widely shared inthe country. In fact, The University of Chicago'sprogram came into being just as Judson's warnings seemed to prevail. Herbert Baxter Adams ofThe Johns Hopkins University was asked by theUnited States Commissioner of Education tomake an assessment of the movement. The studywas a long and thorough one and, though Adamshad been an enthusiast for extension, his reportwas an elegy. Extension had failed, he concluded,for at least five major reasons: (1) lack of suitablelecturers, (2) lack of financial support, (3) inability of university men to carry the extra burden of travel and teaching, (4) the greater claimsof academic service on college campuses whereenrollments were just beginning their rapid increase, and (5) the development of less expensiveways of popular education.But the Chicago pattern of extension did prevail, sustained by Harper's determined enthusiasm and by the work of a group of brilliantadministrators and professors, some of whomlater occupied major teaching and administrativepositions at other American universities. Themost influential was Charles R. Van Hise whohad been an extension lecturer in geology atChicago. When he became president of the University of Wisconsin in 1903, he declared that theboundaries of that institution were the boundaries of the state, and showed creativeness andadministrative skill in devising ways to put hisslogan into practice. Thus, from the influence ofa new group of university professors and presidents, many of them educated at Chicago orschooled in teaching or administration there,general extension began to grow again, this timenot as a borrowed "movement" but as an indigenous American phenomenon.In the following three quarters of a century,university extension has become a major American academic enterprise. The statistics availableon the extent and nature of service are unreliable,139since extension tends to be volatile, flexible, andamorphous, but a few figures can be assembledto suggest the size and scope of the presentnational enterprise. Comprehensive data are available from 243 universities and colleges whichbelong to the two major national extension associations. In 1969-70, these institutions offered120,149 courses in which 1,390,682 students enrolled for a total of 2,580,778 registrations.About 80 percent of these courses were degree-credit, about 8 percent carried non-degree credit,and about 12 percent were credit-free. In addition, these same institutions offered 21,458 conferences, institutes, and workshops which had atotal registration of 1,698,218; virtually all ofthese activities (95.6 percent) were credit -free.The number of courses offered by correspondence is not available, but 176,309 students wereregistered by this means, about 90 percent ofwhom were seeking credit. Thus the total number of registrations in these 243 institutions(out of a national total of about 2,625) was4,455,305.These figures represent only three of manyforms of service, others of which also serve massive numbers of people. Not included, for example, are the Cooperative Extension Service,which is operated by the land-grant universities,costs about a quarter-of-a-billion dollars a year,and employs about 16,000 full-time professional staff members. Also excluded are programsbroadcast by radio and television, special contract programs carried out in collaboration withgovernment2 and industry, or the sponsorship byuniversities of the educational programs of professional and other learned societies.Thus it seems clear that measured quantitatively the university extension movement pioneeredby The University of Chicago has had a massivesuccess. The function is firmly built into thefabric of American academic life and is so largeand pervasive that in an increasing number ofinstitutions, the senior administrative officer concerned with extension is either a vice-presidentor an officer on the staff of the president. Aswith any other university function, the level ofquality of service is highly variable. However, thethe general record of student performance isbetter than is commonly thought. Many studieshave been made of the comparative ability andIn 1972, there are 143 federal programs with university-related extension, continuing education, and community services features. These programs are fundedto spend $4,091,597,000. performance of extension and resident studentsas measured by standardized or course examinations. The extension students usually have highermean and median scores than do the resident students, but the spread of scores is greater for theformer than for the latter group. Thus, the extension class typically has abler as well as poorer students than the resident class.Over-all summary judgments of university extension have ranged from bitter attack to euphoric praise .^The best-known criticism was thatof Abraham Flexner in 1930. A few sentenceswill indicate the nature of his lengthy and bitingcriticism :The absurdities into which the ambition to beof "service" has led certain universities willbe regarded as incredible outside, at times inside, the United States-yes, at times I suspect,within the universities which are themselvesguilty. . . . When strong, independent institutions, such as Chicago and Columbia, pridingthemselves on the assumption— unwarranted,to my thinking— that they set the pace forthe unfortunates who derive their income fromlegislatures, are thus guilty, one cannot besurprised by anything that emanates fromstate universities. . . . The hopelessness ofAmerica lies in the inability and unwillingnessof those occupying seats of intelligence todistinguish between genuine culture and superficial veneer, in the lowering of institutionswhich should exemplify intellectual distinctions to the level of the venders of patentmedicines. . . . To be sure, universities mightbe too remote, too cloistral, too academic.But American universities have yet to learnthat participation is wholesome only whensubordinated to educational function, onlywhen it takes place at a high, disinterestedintellectual level.3Against this view of the iniquity of extensionhave been ranged the points of view of otherscholars, some of them often counted among theranks of the most ardent defenders of ancientuniversity traditions. Jacques Maritain referredto extension as "one of the finest achievementsAbraham Flexner, Universities: American, English, German. New York: Oxford University Press, 1930, pp.128-52. Most of Flexner 's attack was directed at Columbia University whose authorities may perhaps bepardoned their sense of satisfaction when, in the lateryears of his life after he left the Directorship of theInstitute of Advanced Studies at Princeton, he becamean avid student of the Extension Division of Columbiaand centered much of his life around the friends he metthere.140of American education."4 Jacques Barzun saidthat "the principle of extension work is nowfirmly fixed" and went on to observe that "Thework, academic or practical, which is offered inextension courses is fully justified by its aim andits results."5 And the idea of responsible generalextension service underlies much of the thoughtof Jose Ortega y Gasset in his Mission of theUniversity (Princeton University Press, 1944).The Present Program at ChicagoAt The University of Chicago, the tradition ofextension has continued unbroken from the beginning, though the line of its history is reminiscent of the peaks, valleys, and loops of a roller-coaster. This Committee suspects that the greatapparent variations from time to time reflect notmerely changes in the size and scope of the offering but also shifts in the policies concerning thecentralization or dispersion of extension withinthe University's structure. In making the presentstudy, we focussed most of our attention on thatunit of the University which is called UniversityExtension, is headed by a dean, is the directlineal descendant of Harper's first efforts, and isesteemed by informed current observers as1 oneof the major "pace-setter" programs in the country.6 Yet the Committee also found six otherformally-organized extension units in the University and heard many anecdotes of other programsof service sponsored by faculty members actingeither individually or collectively.In making its inventory of extension the Committee has been concerned with educational activities sponsored by the University primarily forpersons (usually adults) who are not full-timestudents seeking degree or advanced formal credentials. This broad definition serves more toidentify a general focus than to circumscribe adefensible boundary, for reasons which willshortly be noted, and the Committee is consciousthat in making its analysis it may have committederrors of both omission and commission.Let it be said at once that we have not considered many activities that might well have beenincluded in a comprehensive survey of the educative impact of the University upon those who4 Education at the Crossroads. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943, p. 83.5 Teacher in America. New York: Doubleday and Co.,1954, pp. 230-231.6 A. A. Liveright and David Mosconi, Continuing Education in the United States: A New Survey. Prepared bythe Academy for Educational Development, 1971. are not its regular full-time students. Among suchactivities are: the individual services provided byfaculty members to outside employers or professional associations; the countless lectures, col-loquia, and seminars that fill the calendar; meetings held on university premises but withoutuniversity sponsorship; and activities sponsoredby institutions located on the campus (such asthe associations at 1313 E. 60th St. or the AdlaiStevenson Institute) but which are not integrallypart of the University. In all such cases, the institution itself is not formally involved, thoughit may have some degree of legal responsibilityor ascribed influence and its name is almost always associated with the activity concerned.The Committee has also not studied the community action programs and relationships of theUniversity. Educative though they undoubtedlyare for many people, the learning conveyed is aby-product, not the central purpose of the activity itself. Also, the publishing ventures of theUniversity (such as the Press and the editorialrelationship with Encyclopaedia Britannica) havethe same broad purpose of public enlightenmentas does extension but traditionally have beenkept apart from it, both here and elsewhere. Wehave concerned ourselves only to a limited extentwith part-time degree candidates, though thegeneral line between them and extension creditstudents is hard (perhaps impossible) to draw.And, finally, the Committee dealt in only alimited way with the potential use of new mediafor instruction, since a separate committee hasbeen appointed to consider their implications forthis University.What remains, then, for the Committee toconsider?1. University Extension itself. This complexadministrative unit apparently has no bureaucratic designation since, in the University's usage,such terms as division, department, office, orcenter all connote other structural forms and noother name has been found. University Extensionis administered by a dean and an administrativestaff, some members of which also teach. Itsinstruction is chiefly carried out on a part-timebasis either by regularly appointed faculty members or by persons whom they help to choose. Inseveral programs, a cadre of experienced teachershas grown up but they hold no professorial appointments by virtue of their work with Extension. Much of the teaching of this sort is donefor brief periods, particularly that in the Centerfor Continuing Education. University Extensionis not a ruling body; its staff, headed by its Dean,141C. Ranlet Lincoln, is guided by a faculty Boardof Adult Education. While University Extensionhas a flexible program of operation, its work iscentered on four bases of operation.a. The Downtown Center occupies severalfloors of an office building at 65 East SouthWater Street in which it has class-rooms, lounges,a book-store, and administrative and counselingfacilities. The credit-free service of the Center islargely built around several programs, each ofwhich offers a variety of courses; included arethe Basic Program of Liberal Education forAdults, the Fine Arts Program, and several separate series dealing with urban life (such as KnowYour Chicago, The Bright New City, and TheMetropolitan Institute). Other courses and seminars are also offered each quarter, either independently or in collaboration with other communityinstitutions, such as the Chicago Council onForeign Relations or the Chicago Book Clinic.A special credit-granting program is also maintained in which students working for degrees atsuch professional schools as the Art Institute, theGoodman Theatre, the American Conservatoryof Music, and the Chicago Academy of Fine Artscan take courses in academic subjects and in education, thus helping such schools to meet requirements that their students be instructed in thesesubjects.b. The campus program offers credit courseson the Quadrangles for non-degree students and,to quote the catalog, for "University of Chicagodegree students who provide evidence that theyare employed in an elementary or secondaryschool system, public or private, and who registerfor extension courses only." The tuition feecharged to Extension students is about half thatcharged to "degree students"; the former do notreceive Student Health Service and usually,through pressure of time if for no other reason,can take less advantage than the latter of otherUniversity amenities. In the Winter Quarter,1972, 93 courses open to extension studentswere offered in 35 departments or sub-departments of instruction; 23 of -these courses wereoffered in Education.c. In Harper's plan, the summer quarter was tobe very like the other three, a logical extensionof the University's facilities so that they could beused to the maximum. The idea of a year-longperiod of service was considered outrageous bymany people and The Nation's editor, for one,spoke with grave alarm of "The long courses inshort terms, the attempt to keep the universityunder full steam through the moist heat of a Chicago summer . . . the whole scheme breathesthat nervous restless haste which is one of themost deplorable features of American life."7 Butwhatever may have been the original purpose ofthe summer session in serving resident students—either to accelerate the progress of brilliant students or to give more time to the dullards— itsmajor purpose soon became the education ofteachers already in service. The courses in Education flourished as did those which provided thesubject-matter to be taught. The entire systemwas reinforced by the fact that salary schedulesfor teachers rewarded continuing education andthe renewal of teachers' certificates required continuing enrollment in courses. Attendance skyrocketed and there are folk tales of train-loads ofteachers converging on the Quadrangles and ofthe need to put up tents on the Midway to provide teaching and library facilities.Teachers still need in-service education but theflow which once poured onto the campus hasdiminished to a trickle. Basic degree needs havebeen met. Courses in education at the undergraduate and graduate level are now widely available throughout the country and teachers can gofor study to places near their homes, usually atlow tuition rates. And the large-scale curriculum-revision programs of the 1960s, such as thatwhich advocated "the new math," paid their students to attend, thus setting up the expectationamong many people that free tuition and a stipend are essential ingredients of summer study.Despite the handicaps, significant efforts arebeing made at Chicago to use the summer quarterfor extension study. The Department and Graduate School of Education offer special coursesand workshops, as does the School of SocialService Administration, while the Graduate Library School maintains an annual summer institute.Some universities- Harvard, Columbia, andBerkeley among them— still stress summer-timestudy, the usual practice being to engage professors from the home faculty or elsewhere-some of them outstanding, some of them not—to provide courses that would not otherwise beavailable to students. Such a program requiresa heavy outlay of initial expense, strong promotion, continuity of administrative purpose, and awillingness to offer courses based on practicalfield problems as well as upon the broad contentareas of education. Our Committee doubts the7 "Innovations at the University of Chicago," Nation,LV (October 6, 1892), p. 256.142wisdom of following this pattern in any wholesale fashion, feeling that it is not likely to beeither feasible educationally nor immediatelyprofitable financially. Yet the Committee strongly regrets the decline of the summer quarter as atime of study for full-time, part-time, and extension students, not only because of the lost opportunity for learning which such a declinesuggests but also because of the heavy cost to theUniversity of its unused facilities. As much aspossible should be done to strengthen the summer quarter offering and some of our latersuggestions are designed to be conducive to thatend.d. The Center for Continuing Education is themajor and most highly visible center of extension at the University and the one which hasdeveloped the broadest base of service for thefaculty. Most of the capital cost was provided bya grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Thebuilding is busy throughout the year and, in addition to the usual staff required to operate a complex housing-food-and-meeting-room facility, itmaintains a small staff of program assistants whofacilitate the educational endeavors of the Center. In order to keep the building occupied, manymeetings and conferences are held for which theprogram staff has no responsibility. They aredeclining in frequency; the average number of"program coordinated" courses each year in1963-1967 was only 110; by 1970-71, it hadrisen to 265. Some comparative figures for 1970-71 may be of interest:Other thanProgram ProgramNumber of conferences Department Departmentand courses 265 266Attendance 16,415 10,367Length of conference(in days) 2.85 .82Faculty usage of the Center is diverse. In1970-71, for example, 32 academic and administrative units of the University sponsored residential conferences at the Center and 35 unitssponsored non-residential one-day conferences.Whenever space limitations allow, the Center'sfacilities are made available to other groups whooften use faculty members as liaison. Amongsuch groups in recent months have been theAmerican Council on Education, the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Urban Research Corporation, TIAA-CREF, the U.S. Public Health Service, the American Jewish Committee, the Councilon Social Work Education, and the AmericanEducational Research Association. The University contributes to some extent to the furtherlearning of the people who attend such conferences and to faculty members and students whomay participate; though nobody would contendthat such conferences are as significant in thelife of the University as the ones which thefaculty itself sponsors.During the first years of its operation, theCenter for Continuing Education (aided by aspecial grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation)served as an important site for research in adulteducation. Doctoral theses and other investigations were based on its program. Also it providedadvanced study for leaders of adult education.Educational experiences of varying length wereprovided for 545 persons, including many deansor directors of extension at other universities.When the Kellogg grant expired, most of thisspecial research and training could no longer befinanced.2. The Center for Policy Study was establishedin 1966 as a way of bringing together authoritiesfrom The University of Chicago and distinguishedexperts from government, business, the massmedia, and other universities and institutions.Its purpose, as stated in a recent brochure, is toprovide "a forum for the review and public discussion of major issues confronting the nation."It does so in many ways but chiefly by sponsoring conferences, seminars, lecture-sequences,individual lectures, and publications. The natureof its program can best be indicated by namingsome of the themes with .which it has dealt orproposes to deal: The Nature of Modern China;Short-term and Emergency Measures to AvertUrban Violence; Race and Unemployment; ArmsControl and Foreign Policy; and The Regulationof the Introduction of New Pharmaceuticals. Inaddition, the Center sponsors a program whichbrings to the Quadrangles for six months ofstudy a group of about 12 working journalists(from all the news media) who specialize or wishto specialize in the coverage of urban problems inwriting, editing, broadcasting, or some othercapacity. The Director of the Center is the Vice-President for Public Affairs of the University.About 50 faculty fellows are associated with theCenter, and its program is guided by an Executive Committee chosen from among their number.1433. The dominant function of the Office ofRadio and Television appears to be extension.The Office regularly produces two radio programs syndicated nationally (one to 98 radiostations, the other to 78 radio stations) and twotelevision programs for local stations. In addition,special projects are undertaken in response todemand or to the staff's sense of what shouldappear on the air. Most programs present University faculty members or guests lecturing about ordiscussing topics on which they have special expertise or concern, but more venturesome approaches are sometimes undertaken, as when anNBC remote unit was helped to visualize thenature and function of the modern emergencyroom at Billings Hospital. The work of the Officeinevitably shades off into public relations activity, since the Office must retain a close liaisonwith local radio and television stations. Over-allresponsibility for the Center is exercised by theVice-President for Public Affairs and the program is guided by a faculty Board of Radio andTelevision.4. The Industrial Relations Center is so complex that no effort can be made here to describeits program in depth. It is clear, however, that,despite its substantial research endeavors, thisvery large enterprise (with a professional staff ofabout 50 people and an administrative and supporting staff of an additional 75) is chiefly devoted to extension services. A broad range ofcontent is included in its work, though industrialrelations (in the usual sense of that term) doesnot appear to be prominently included. Themajor emphasis seems to be on managementdevelopment and on the teaching of economicsto the general public, but particularly to teachersof elementary and secondary school children.The Center provides services to business andindustry, schools, hospitals, local government,social welfare agencies, community organizations,and churches. It has a large group of industrialsponsors and its programs are also disseminatedthrough a national network of 17 other colleges,universities, and university systems. It is directedby Professor Robert K. Burns and has an executive committee made up chiefly of deans and ofthe staff members of the Center itself.5. The School of Business maintains a broadprogram of extension, including conferences,short courses, and one-session meetings, but itsefforts tend to be concentrated on two M.B.A.programs which it offers at its center at 190 EastDelaware Place, across the street from the JohnHancock Building. These two ventures are wholly "external" in the sense that the student doesall his degree work away from the campus itself, though the programs are operated by theSchool's administrators (and specifically by Professor Walter Fackler) and are taught by itsfaculty.The 190/MBA Program (apparently taking itsname from the building's address) is said to beidentical with that provided for full-time studentson campus. Classes are offered during all fourquarters, usually in the evenings or on Saturdays.Students are expected to work sufficiently seriously so that no more than a five-year periodwill lapse between matriculation and graduationwith an M.B.A. About 1,000 students are enrolled.The Executive Program is designed for business men and women who have already achieveda substantial level of accomplishment. A specialcurriculum to meet the needs of managers of thiscaliber has been devised and is taught by thefaculty of the School of Business. The Programis offered to groups of 75 students who movethrough the program together for two academicyears, meeting one full day a week. Those whohave the suitable requisites and perform adequately are given the M.B.A. The others whocomplete the program receive a special certificate.6. The Committee on Continuing Medical Education is composed of a group of faculty members from the Division of the Biological Sciencesand The Pritzker School of Medicine and is underthe chairmanship of Louis Cohen, M.D. TheCommittee offers nine courses each year which,in the words of the program description, "havebeen designed to provide physicians with a comprehensive review of recent developments, withparticular emphasis upon clinical application."One course lasts all day, the others for an afternoon each. Registrants are also permitted toattend the regular conferences, lecture series,and "grand rounds" of the hospital. In 1970-71,this program reached 1 1 6 practicing physicians,of whom 70 took all courses.7. The Department of Education and Trainingof the Hospitals and Clinics is a part of the personnel program of the University's hospital system, serving chiefly the managerial, nursing,laboratory, and clerical staffs and also offeringelementary and secondary school subjects forthose who need them. Staff members are helpedto learn how to occupy positions of greater skilland responsibility. This program, directed byMrs. Sally Hollo way, had an enrollment of 330144students in February 1 97 1 .These seven units have been identified by theCommittee as separate administrative entities forthe provision of extension, though we have noconfidence that, in naming them, we have completely exhausted the list of such offices. Certainly many special or ad hoc committees (suchas those in the Graduate Library School or theSchool' of Social Service Administration) sponsoractivities carried out in conjunction with one ofthe above units, chiefly University Extension. Inaddition, the Committee has heard anecdoteswhich lead it to believe that throughout the University are many individual ventures in which professors or groups of professors establish smallextension operations, each of which operatesindependently though under the announced auspices of the University. Special workshops arecreated (and may be replicated year after year),professors with new theories and techniques establish ways to disseminate them, continuingprofessional education is undertaken by professional schools, technical and other non-professional staff members are given in-service education, and, in countless other ways, unconventional forms of learning are undertaken. The tightlystructured, co-ordinated, and separatist programput into effect by Harper has been replaced byone in which the extension function is diffusedthroughout the University's whole system ofservice.Perhaps it should also be noted (though thetopic falls outside a strict definition of the scopeof the Committee's inquiry) that when in 1935The University of Chicago appointed Floyd W.Reeves as Professor of Adult Education, it became one of the nation's first institutions toaccept that subject as a field of graduate study.8Many other universities have now done so, including Columbia, Michigan, Toronto, Wisconsin,California (Berkeley), and U.C.L.A. By the endof 1971, a total of 1,107 doctorates had beengranted in this field in the United States andCanada, 79 of them at Chicago, whose graduatesnow occupy some of the most important professorships and administrative positions in adulteducation in the country.Extension in the Last Third of the TwentiethCenturyAs the Committee on Extension contemplatesthe complex and widely variable offerings ofHarper's original plan called for lectures on this subject university extension both here and elsewhere, thetask of establishing guidelines for the futureseemed a challenging one.To begin with, the University now performsits services in a society in which the general levelof formal education is very high. In 1890, only3 percent of the youth of college age went tocollege, a national total of only 157,000 persons.Today 43 percent attend, a total of almost 8.5million people. As a result of this long-sustainedadvance, the median American adult 21 years ofage or over has had 12.3 years of formal schooling. The growth of opportunity for education hasnot been shared equally by everyone but theupper reaches of the American educational eliteare no longer thinly attenuated as they werewhen Harper pioneered extension.The growing size of a potential clientele foruniversity extension has been accompanied by abroadening content. In the twentieth century,the old professions have anchored themselvesfirmly within the University and many new professions have been established. The growth ofknowledge in traditional fields and the creationof new specialties have had a dual effect. First,the broadening of content lays the groundworkfor diversity and variety in the college years,leaving more and more to be learned later byadults who wish to explore new areas of knowledge and, second, it provides a continuing stimulus for further study for adults who wish to maintain or deepen their specialization.Extension has been accepted as an integralfunction by a host of new institutions of higherlearning. So scarce was the provision of educational opportunities for adults in 1890 thatHarper grouped the cities of the Middle West intodistricts so that the work could be administeredefficiently. Now greater Chicago alone has atleast 15 colleges and universities with extensionprograms, in addition to those maintained byeach campus of the Chicago City College and bysuburban community colleges. Thus The University of Chicago faces in this respect consequencesfamiliar to it in other parts of its work. It hashelped to create and staff a large number ofother institutions, many of which receive publicsubsidy or other funds which permit them tooperate at low tuition charges. This competitiondoes not make life easy for the administrators ofextension, but it does challenge them (as it doesthe rest of the University's staff) to maintain ex-but there is no indication that he ever developed thispart of his program in any substantial fashion.145cellence, to create unusual programs, and toprovide distinctive forms of service. The sevenextension centers identified by the Committeegive evidence that these challenges are being confronted.Several major new formats of extension havebeen created. In the early days, the prevailingmode was set at Chicago and became firmlyestablished as part of the national lore of academic life. The traditional prototype was the re-staging of the classroom in which a facultymember (regular, or, more often, part-time)taught adults at night or on Saturday often off-the-campus, using the same subject-matter andmethods as he did with his "internal" students.Sometimes he taught by correspondence on anindividualized basis. This pattern is still valid formany of the University's activities but must nowbe seen in a larger perspective of other forms ofwork, of, for example, short-term conferences,lengthy periods of study on campus designed forespecially identified clienteles, collaborative self-education by faculty members and their educational peers, and educational use of radio, television, cassettes, computers, and other media ofinstruction.The Committee believes that the future ofextension rests on the acceptance by an ever-increasing number of people of the idea that continuing or recurrent education is a normal partof adult life. This idea has always been familiarto a few people, particularly to those who hadresources of money or character which enabledthem to maintain lives of culture or of unorthodox behavior. Now the growth of formal education in the United States and in other advancednations makes it increasingly possible to structure and operate the institutions of society sothat study can accompany the other processes oflife throughout adulthood or be used, from timeto time (as, at Chicago, the students in the Executive Program or the groups of urban journalistsuse it) to take a substantial amount of independent time for study. The faculty members of TheUniversity of Chicago already understand theconcept of continuing or periodic study verywell; they constantly embody it in their ownlives, and many of them believe in it for others.They probably resemble Benjamin Silliman farmore closely than he resembled his colleagues atYale in 1808.Finally, the Committee on University Extension recognizes a present climate of thought within the University: a deep worry concerning finances, and a shrinkage in size of the faculty, but an insistence by everyone that the quality ofthe University be maintained and strengthened.Other committees than ours are also at work andall of them influence, one way or another, thewide-ranging function which extension has become. In the light of what we know or sense, theCommittee has identified certain criteria whichwe believe should guide the future course of theUniversity so far as extension is concerned andwe have considered how they might be appliedto achieve various goals. To the exposition ofthese views we now turn.CriteriaThe criteria we suggest are not intended to beabsolutely prescriptive but to indicate where, onbalance, the major thrust of University policyshould be evident. We shall, in fact, suggest someexceptions or apparent exceptions to some of thecriteria we identify, for we recognize that awholly consistent practice is not a necessarycharacteristic of any activity as flexible andchanging as extension should properly be in adynamic university.Any extension program should be undertakenprimarily because its educational outcome willbe valuable. This comment seems a truism, yetvirtually every discussion of extension is underlaid (sometimes at no very deep level) with somethought of public relations or financial benefits.Even Harper considered extension "a promisingopportunity for building up the university itself ."The blurring of purposes is constantly reinforcedby the fact that influential people often attendextension activities and the University may betempted to try to win their favor. But the use ofextension as an instrument of public relations isself-defeating if the program is provided for thisreason alone. The kind of men and women theUniversity wants as students are shrewd enoughto realize what is happening and sensitive enoughto be repelled by it. If the extension programlacks standards of excellence, the adult studentsassume that the same fact is true of the wholeuniversity. If an extension division caters topopular demands, the rest of the institution willsoon be subject to them. The best public imageof the university is created by programs in whicheducational goals are paramount.The Committee recognizes that an over-rigidapplication of this criterion would create unnecessary administrative problems. The occasionaluse of the Center for Continuing Education byimportant groups (such as by the Board of Trus-146tees of the University or by alumni during Reunion) can be readily condoned under anycircumstances. Also a choice of allocation ofresources must sometimes be made between twoequally desirable educational activities. In suchcases, weight may be given to their relative publicrelations or financial advantages. But the desirefor educational excellence should be dominantand the allowed exceptions rare, or extensionwill no longer continue to be an essential partof the work of the University.Extension programs should arise from the interests and concerns of the faculty. That concern may be created in many ways, growing, forexample, out of personal experience or observation, or from the stimulation of colleagues,extension administrators, or other persons eitherinside or outside the university. Whatever givesrise to the initial impulse, and it is usually relatedin some fashion to a concern with a social need,the engaged and continuing interest of a facultymember— and often of a group of them— appearsto be essential if extension is to be firmly rootedwithin the university's central emphases.The Committee emphatically does not meanthat this principle shall be applied in such a wayas merely to extend some current activity of afaculty member to a new clientele or at a newplace or time. While a simple transference of thissort may occasionally be sufficient, extensionoften requires a fresh approach to the probingminds of mature students, who test everythingagainst the realities and complexities of theirown experience and may, in consequence, enlarge the horizon of the instructor. This fact isparticularly true when extension is not confinedto a formal class-room instructional pattern butis carried out by broader, more flexible forms oflearning and teaching.If this criterion is valid, the work done byfaculty members in extension programs shouldbe given the same recognition as any other service so far as the criteria of academic appointments are concerned. Here we accept the termsof reference of the Committee on the Criteriaof Academic Appointment, the so-called "ShilsCommittee."9 For the most part, service in extension is judged in terms of the criterion ofteaching, though, very occasionally, research isalso involved. As for contribution to the intel-Report of the Committee on the Criteria of AcademicAppointment appeared in the Record, Volume IV, Number 6 (December 17, 1970) and Volume VI, Number1 (January 31, 1972). lectual community and both university and external service, the same kind of judgments canbe made for extension as are appropriate in theother arenas of university service. This full scaleof judgment can be readily applied to the classroom teaching of adults (where in most cases itis probably already well established) but it shouldnot be forgotten in making judgments aboutless formal activities.One reason why the involvement of the faculty is crucial is because it maximizes the achievement of another criterion the Committee wouldlike to suggest: Extension should be a means ofimproving the quality of service of other parts ofthe University. This point was put very well at a1966 conference of the trustees and officers ofthe Carnegie Foundation for the Advancementof Teaching. The report concluded by makingthe following observation: "Perhaps the simplestand most satisfactory precept for most institutions to follow is to participate, if possible, onlyin public service activities that are a direct outgrowth of their regular teaching and researchprograms and that, in turn, feed back into andstrengthen them."The final words of this precept refer to a longstanding function of extension. Throughout thecountry extension divisions have proved to beexcellent seed-beds for innovation. Sometimesfaculty members would like to see changesbrought about in their own programs, they wouldlike to have means for applied research or fieldobservation, or they discern new needs whichthey feel the university should meet but forwhich the established order makes no suitableprovision.Extension can provide a setting, a clientele, ora format in which new ideas can be tried, evenwhile established patterns are being maintainedon campus, provided that the students understand that they are engaged in experimentalprograms. Sometimes the new ideas fail and canbe forgotten. Sometimes they prove themselvesand are incorporated within the curriculum forinternal students. At Chicago, to take but oneexample, social group work was offered throughextension before it was absorbed into the instruction of S.S.A. Sometimes wholly new programsare established and become part of the university's structure. The Executive Program at Chicago, for example, grew up within UniversityExtension before being taken over by the Schoolof Business. At Columbia, six major administrative units have developed from Extension, including the School of Business itself. Sometimes147programs are adopted at other universities thoughnot at the institution which helped develop them.The Basic Program of Liberal Education forAdults has been both a model and an inspirationfor the external Bachelor of Liberal Studiesprograms at other universities, though it has nothad a strong influence on the College at Chicago.The Committee on University Extension hopesthat such experiences as these can be kept inmind so that the University uses extension as oneway to shape and foster new programs whichwill respond to changing times.The teaching staff for extension activities maybe drawn from many sources but tenured academic appointments should not be based solelyon such teaching. In considering this double-edged criterion, the Committee has in mind thefull sweep of extension work within the University. We hope that many of our colleagues willwant to participate in extension, either regularlyor occasionally, as part of their University responsibilities. Some faculty members may wishto devote themselves full- or part-time to extension for periods of varying length. Talentedgraduate students or beginning faculty membersmay gain valuable experience by this means.Professors may be brought from other universities on part-time or term appointments. Ableand well-trained people may be drawn fromgovernment, industry, private associations, orelsewhere in the community for occasional orperiodic service. Under some circumstances (perhaps particularly when a new program is beingcreated) the "category of strictly temporaryappointment" recommended by the Shils Committee may be used to provide needed talent.All such arrangements have been used in the past,and prudent and flexible administration seems tocause them to work very well.But the Committee on University Extensiondeparts from the view of Harper that thereshould be a "separate and distinct faculty ofinstructors" for extension, a point which heitalicized because he felt that otherwise professors would neglect their duties and "occupytime which ought to be given to investigation andresearch." Such a plan for a dual faculty mayhave worked well in his day when he could giveextension his personal and continuing attention.It has also been essential to those institutionswhich wish— or are compelled— to provide widespread service to a large constituency. But aseparate extension faculty (or even a permanentcadre of extension professors to serve as a nucleus for a staff which can be expanded as needed) has disappeared from the University'smodern organizational pattern and the Committee believes that (for reasons which are evidentthroughout this report) it would be a mistake tore-establish a separate extension faculty. The regular faculty should be the heart of extension— asit is of the whole University— and its teachingcan be supplemented where necessary by themeans suggested in the previous paragraph.Extension programs should be based essentially on advanced and complex subject-matterof the sort with which the University normallyis concerned. The University is often subject topressures to respond to all the educational needsof society and these pressures do not alwayscome from outside the institution. To be sure,surface appearances as to level of complexityare sometimes deceptive. The Committee canimagine experimental programs which seem toconvey elementary knowledge but do not; forexample, when new techniques for teaching adultilliterates are being tried out or teachers are beinggiven instruction in a new curricular approach tothe content they teach. The first case is not anexception to the criterion since the central intention is research. The second case is allowablebecause the chief content taught is the newmethod of teaching, not the content it conveys.The Committee does believe, however, that anysituations which might involve the University inthe teaching of simple and rudimentary subjectsshould be examined with great care. It agreeswith an Oxford faculty committee which urgedtwo years ago that in extension "the universityshould normally concern itself only with workwhich is in subjects studied internally, and inwhich a university approach can be followed."So long as this criterion is applied, the University should constantly be alert to try out newforms of instruction, including both content andapproach. In the words of a Unesco manual onUniversities in Adult Education: "The universities should be pioneers. They should be daringin experiment, willing to accept the pilot study,the first survey, the initial course." The roster ofinnovations in reaching adults at this Universityis a long one. The Chicago pattern of extensionwas but the beginning. The radio panel-show-with-experts, the book-based discussion group,the Executive Program: these are but three examples of educational formats which have hadgreat impact nationally. As to the presentationof new content, recent intensive efforts to understand urban affairs, mainland China, or newmedical techniques are modern examples which148carry on the University's tradition.This innovativeness begins with the belief ofan individual faculty member or group, with theinitiative of an extension staff member, or withan idea which comes to the University fromsomewhere in the community. The further development of new programs usually requires adedicated commitment of thought and time onthe part of the individuals involved as well as offinancial support from some source. The Committee on University Extension therefore believesthat it should not try to map out a total futureprogram for the University, but in the later section on Program Goals, it will venture to illustrate some of the fruitful and provocative waysby which the extension offerings of the University may be strengthened.It sometimes happens that when the pioneering ventures of a university are successful, theybecome the basis for long-term and very largeprojects. Usually such a result is desirable if itencourages a continued pioneering by which theUniversity's program is constantly refreshed. Butit also sometimes happens that activities whichare originally designed only for try-out or demonstration purposes take on a life of their own andgrow so large that they distort a balanced program, particularly if the nature of the tasksperformed become solely the administration orco-ordination of a widely replicated program.Sometimes also, a temporary program turns outto be as permanent as a temporary building. TheUniversity must resist the temptation to continueadministering such projects after the opportunities for pioneering have ceased and only the routines of administration remain.The University will often be greatly aided inits extension enterprises by collaborating withother institutions. The general method of operation of university teaching and research usuallyrequires full acceptance by the University of thetotal pattern of administration, including thedetermination of specific goals and methods of instruction, the recruitment and selection of students, the assessment of fees, and the handling ofall other arrangements. Such is also often the casewith extension activities, particularly those whichinvolve credit. But in other situations extensioncan not be successfully undertaken except bycollaboration with other agencies which may beproviders of funds or other resources, sponsors oftheir own programs, or associations of potentialstudents. The Center for Continuing Education isperhaps the clearest example of the truth of thisprinciple. Any such collaboration involves the danger that the University may abdicate morethan it should of its ultimate responsibility , forthe education it provides, but such difficultiescan be avoided by skillful and sensitive administration. The rewards of success are substantial,not merely in terms of the educational and material success of the programs themselves but alsobecause, as the Unesco report pointed out: "Anintelligent co-ordination of effort will mean boththat the university can illuminate and assist thework of the other agencies and that it can avoiddoing the things it should not do."The work of extension should be guided byscholar-administrators, at least some of whomhave had substantial experience and training inprogram-building for adults. The Committee believes that most of the positions responsible formajor program-direction in extension should beheld by faculty members or other academically-trained people, at least some of whom have beenformally prepared in the field of adult education.Extension resembles certain other fields— suchas librarianship, social work, or sub-collegiate instruction—in which the University both engagesin a profession itself and educates practitionersfor service in it. A degree in adult education hasnot become a required license to practice it— andno member of the Committee hopes or expectsthat it will ever achieve such a status. The University must feel free to assign to the task ofadministering extension those individuals who arebest suited to it. Yet the potentialities for serviceof persons trained in adult education should always be sympathetically encouraged, particularlysince the university itself offers such training.As already noted, ideas for new extensionprograms tend to come from one of threesources: faculty members, outside groups, or extension administrators. In the latter case, somestimulation to creativity arises from the need toavoid financial loss or secure income for theuniversity, to balance a total program, or to useavailable resources. The program-building task ofthe executive of an extension program varieswith the situation; as the occasion demands, hemay be stimulator, suppressor, planner, or, occasionally, entrepreneur. Whatever his role, it iswise policy for him to have the planning of eachprogram he administers involve the faculty member or group most concerned with its success,though (because of the differences of viewpointalways present in academic life) he may discoverthat faculty members may be no more unanimouson the advisability of a given extension effortthan they are on any other aspects of the Uni-149versity's work.In the day-to-day operation of extension, faculty sponsorship is usually handled by processesof accommodation or negotiation. In some cases,blank walls of opposition to the offering of aprogram may be encountered either inside or outside the university. If so, the idea must often belaid aside, either permanently or until the obstacles are removed. Occasionally, particularlyin some pioneering venture which an administrator would like to pursue, a proposed program either requires an expertise not available inthe faculty or deals with a cross-disciplinary areaof work whose components are not easy to fittogether. In such a case the administrator concerned may need to devise ways to provide academic review for the proposals, such as securingindependent appraisals (in the fashion of thePress) or creating a special advisory committeefor the project. Ultimately he can secure clearance to proceed by the appropriate facultyboard. In general, such review and support procedures should be viewed not as ways of closelymonitoring the work of administrators but asmeans for giving them the support they requireto carry out programs effectively.The performance of the extension functionshould be better co-ordinated and understood asa whole than it is. The Committee is very farfrom believing in any tight central control ofextension. We hope that, wherever possible,ideas and programs will be originated by thefaculty in various parts of the University and weare as insistent as any other faculty group mightbe that departments and schools should have theright to establish and maintain the standardswhich their subject-matter or professional responsibilities dictate. Yet we also feel that theUniversity as a whole has a mission in extensionwhich is not now understood and which is beingless efficiently achieved than it might be. Theexistence of seven separate administrative units,five faculty committees, and numerous independent individual or committee enterprises suggestsa need for a greater co-ordination than nowexists so far as policy review, allocation of functions, and accounting for resources are concerned.The report of the discussion of the trusteesand officers of the Carnegie Foundation concluded that "many universities today are simplynot governed in such a way that they can determine and enunciate any policy with regard totheir public service role. . . . Such policy as thereis may be simply the accretion of a body of precedent decisions on particular cases by a succession of administrative officers at various levelsin the institution." We believe that it is time forThe University of Chicago to inquire of itselfwhether that observation might be true so far asits own program of public service is concernedand whether some continuing effort to co-ordinate extension activities might lead to a moreclearly enunciated and consistently administeredpolicy, a greater mutual facilitation of services,economies of operation, better use of physicalfacilities and staff, and, perhaps most significant,improved collaborative planning for the wholeUniversity. Some of the specifics of what mightbe gained will become clearer in the next sectionof this report which deals with program goals.We have resisted any effort to outline a framework of policy or structure of administrationourselves for we recognize that extension must bekept in balance with the other functions whichthe University must perform and which we havenot studied. Moreover our instructions called forus to write an essay, not to make a managementsurvey. We do feel, however, that some fruitfulpattern of continuing analysis, association, anddirection must be devised. Perhaps it may be nomore than an annual statistical or financial inventory of what is occurring. Perhaps it may require basic changes to bring about a coherentpattern of all-University collaboration that canbe useful in helping extension to achieve itstotal mission.Some members of the University communityhave the talents and can find the resources toinitiate new ventures and build them into large-scale enterprises. But the Committee has alsoheard of faculty members and groups which developed ideas for new extension projects butwho did not know what next steps to take toachieve them. A wider knowledge of the resources which extension could make availablemight also encourage some faculty members toshare in projects which both they and the University would find profitable. The Committeebelieves that a coherent conception and over-allcontrol of extension activities is as necessary inkeeping the University efficient in what it nowdoes as it would be in helping it to find desirableways to enlarge the scope of its present services.Program GoalsThe University's original purpose for extensionmight have been characterized simply as Harperdid it: "to provide instruction for those who, for150social or economic reasons, cannot attend itsclassrooms." But over the years and with muchexperience, certain programmatic emphases havebeen worked out. They have waxed and wanedin importance and have had more significance forsome departments of instruction than for others.In identifying them, the Committee on University Extension has tried to think at a level ofabstraction which does not focus on the specificpurposes of particular activities, but indicatesthose broad objectives which the University hassought to achieve in a number of ways. In somecases, we shall make specific recommendations.In others, we shall do no more than point outoptions which are open to the University.The Committee's general belief is that nothingvery substantial will be achieved in the absenceof a great deal of thought and care. Some facultymembers have always had too optimistic a viewof the desires of adults to learn believing, withMilton, that "the hungry sheep look up and arenot fed." But, as the Unesco report noted:Great courses of study are not enunciated bypopular demand. They are laboriously constructed after searching analysis of the conditions of popular life, of the directions thatthat life ought to take, and of the dangerssensed in the yet-unfolded future. Adultsaware of their own need for knowledge andinsight rarely can articulate exactly what itis that they want to know. If they could dothat, the libraries and the museums wouldalready have helped them to know it. Thefunction of the university is diagnostic andremedial, to discover what might be neededand then supply it.To be specific about the possibilities of somewholly new developments, the Committee believes that major new instruments of communication are now being perfected; they includecable television, video cassettes, and problem-centered computerized instruction. These newnedia may be useful in achieving present program goals. By the special new forms of communication they make possible, they may alsohave qualitative as well as quantitative implications for the goals of extension— and for thefinancing of the University. Since this generaltopic is now being studied by a committee parallel to ours, however, we have not inquired intoit.We have tended to concentrate on both oldand new roles for extension rather than on meansand programs. Although technology may impinge in important ways on the educative enterprise,we have oriented ourselves primarily to ways inwhich human interchange may occur to advanceeducation. In this framework, we believe that thecurrent and future goals of extension at TheUniversity of Chicago are :1. To provide complete degree programs fornon-campus students. There is much discussionto-day of the so-called "external degree" bywhich students can take enough courses or prepare in other ways so that they take only limitedpart— or no part at all— in campus life or instruction. Sometimes the external degree is identicalwith the internal one, but in other cases it isdevised with the needs of a special group ofadults in mind. Chicago offers both kinds byawarding the 190/MBA and the Executive Program. In the past the University has offered external master's degrees in education and perhapsin other subjects as well; it does so no longer.The Committee has no particular recommendations to make about the establishment of newgraduate external degrees, feeling that eachschool and department can best judge the appropriateness of such action.Many trends and a few crises in Americanhigher education have encouraged the creationof external baccalaureates especially designedfor an adult clientele. The idea has been givenspecial prominence by the development of theOpen University in Great Britain. Harvard haslong had such a degree, perhaps 10 other universities have had substantial experience withthem, and many other institutions are designingthem. In the 1940s, it was thought that Chicago'sBasic Program might some day grant the baccalaureate but this result has not been broughtabout. Meanwhile at least three Chicago institu-tioni have developed special undergraduate external degrees and most of the other local universities have evening school or "extended day"courses by which a degree can eventually andlaboriously be achieved. For these reasons, theCommittee doubts the wisdom of introducingsuch a degree at this University, unless strongsupport arises in the faculty for some strikinglyoriginal program which has assurance of adequatefinancing.2. To aid part-time students to completedegree or certification requirements. For manyyears, and still perhaps to-day, this goal was thechief purpose of the University in offering extension. Since credit by extension has alwaysbeen a difficult topic with which to deal, it maybe useful to begin by distinguishing among three151kinds of University students, recognizing thatdistinctions may be hard to draw in particularcases and that the same individual may movefrom one category to another. The three are:the full-time Chicago degree candidate; the part-time Chicago degree candidate undertaking eithera reduced load or intermittent study; and theextension credit student.It is often assumed that people in this lastcategory enroll in credit courses only becausethey are interested in the subject-matter involvedor because they believe that credit is the hallmark of quality. Actually, most extension creditstudents have purposes which make them remarkably like Chicago part-time degree students.Such extension credit students take courses: tosecure credit for use at another institution; toearn some University or externally-awarded certification; to establish themselves at a higher levelon a merit-based salary schedule; or in otherways to demonstrate their competence formallyto themselves or to others.In some cases, extension students taking creditcourses are set apart in classes of their own, asare, for example, the fine arts students at Loopcolleges for whom Extension offers special work.But usually the credit courses which permitor encourage extension registration— particularlythose based on the Quadrangles— also includepart-time and full-time Chicago students. Thissituation occasionally gives rise to vexing problems of fee assessment, inadequate or inconsistent counseling, inaccurate student accountingprocedures, and sometimes a conscious or unconscious application by faculty members of dualstandards of required accomplishment. The extension credit student may be an asset or aproblem, bringing to the class both the specialenrichment of immediate practical experienceand the added perspective which is the productof age; but also often bringing the disadvantagesof a too-long-delayed program of study, fatigue,and a sense of disassociation with a universitycommunity.For the moment at least, such problems,though naggingly constant, usually seem to getsolved in some fashion or other and the Committee has no recommendations to make in termsof the present scope of operation. We believethat both part-time and extension students willcontinue to be permanent major parts of campuslife, and ones whose special difficulties seemnever to have been permanently solved by rulesand regulations here and elsewhere, since theAmerican university began admitting such stu dents to credit courses; and we have no newlegislation to suggest. We should note, however,that if future financial circumstances require asubstantially larger number than at present ofpart-time students or if more vigorous efforts toprovide credit courses in the summer and oncampus are successful, some serious general problems of inequity may arise. If so, another facultycommittee should be appointed to consider themand make recommendations.3. To provide continuing or re-establishmenteducation for people engaged in the professions orthe scholarly disciplines. The Committee assumesthat everyone is aware of the rapidity of changein modern life and the impact of such change onthe professions. The Shils Report says that theUniversity has only the function to train studentsfor entry into scholarly professions; the individual so prepared presumably has the capacity andthe will to guide his own further educationthrough self-directed study or participation involuntary associations.But the professional schools, some of the departments, and the Industrial Relations Centerat The University of Chicago have developed avariety of services designed to help professionalworkers maintain competence in their presentwork, prepare themselves for different kinds ofresponsibility, or acquire the knowledge theyneed to re-enter an occupation they have notbeen practicing. This direct contact with thepractitioners of a profession often has significanteducational values for the professor of it. TheCommittee strongly endorses this thrust towardcontinuing education in both the applied fieldsand the supporting disciplines. Many other institutions (most notably the professional societies)also seek this same goal, but nobody has yetclarified the proper role of a university in doingso, either alone or in collaboration with othersources of professional enlightenment. Perhapssuch a clarification might ultimately be an important contribution of extension.4. To provide the opportunity for individualsto broaden the base of their knowledge. The University has long been successful in designingprograms to provide adult students with a soundgrounding in bodies of content which they hadnot had learned earlier. The study of the greatbooks, of world politics, of the humanities, ofliberal culture, of music (particularly chambermusic), and of the nature of the city are well-known examples of the University's success inthis respect, though it cannot be denied thatsome faculty members regard such courses more152as pleasent and edifying experiences than as truestudy. In the sciences, chiefly perhaps becauseof the difficulty presented in learning their special languages, success has been less great than inthe humanities and the social sciences, but themembers of the Committee believe that the needfor widespread social understanding of scienceremains, even though an audience has yet to befound. The Committee on Extension believesthat this fourth goal continues to be a strongand viable one, and that much more than at present could be done to achieve it in the University's central city locations, on the Quadranglesduring the year and in the summer, and by theuse of the newer media of education as they aredeveloped.5. To provide continuing in-depth informationfor a broadly-informed public or for specialpublics on current issues and new areas of knowledge. This goal somewhat overlaps several of theothers but it has a sufficiently separate identityto be worthy of mention. The great prototypein the accomplishment of this goal was TheUniversity of Chicago Round Table, which, for20 years, gave the entire American public theopportunity each week to hear about importanttopics from the best-informed experts in thecountry. But many other examples exist: one-day seminars, special luncheon and dinner meetings, radio and television series, conferences, andspecial meetings. Some are sponsored or co-sponsored by one or more of the seven extensionunits; some arise from the actions of the alumnioffice, the Citizen's Board, or the Women'sBoard; some are sponsored regularly by the various departments of instruction; and some seemto bubble up spontaneously as needed or desired.In achieving this goal, the University appearsto have its greatest success when it does notapproach the general public as a whole but addresses its efforts to the thoughtful, usually well-educated people who do not seek to find outwhat everybody else knows but what the expertthinks. Usually this knowledge is not immediately practical in informing its hearers as to a particular course of action. The content is theoretical,an effort is made to present several viewpointson issues, and opinions are supposed to be basedon informed knowledge. Such, at any rate, is thegeneral policy followed— not by rule but by atacit acceptance of what constitutes sound practice. The Committee has nothing new to suggestso far as this goal is concerned.6. To provide mid-life learning experiences ofsome depth for defined groups of adults. This goal suggests not continuing but recurrent education: the return to the University by an adultfor a course of study which is usually carried onin residence though it need not be, which maybe either occupational or non-occupational, andwhich gives the man or woman concerned a full-scale opportunity to re-stock his mind and reexamine his values.The idea is not new. Seventy-five years ago,Sir William Osier argued in his baroque way fora "quinquennial brain-dusting," and Sir RichardLivingstone, while Vice Chancellor of Cambridge just after World War II, did much to advance both the idea and its application. But thewide spread of formal knowledge and the relativeaffluence of American life suggest that recurrenteducation will become much more common inthe future than in the past. McGeorge Bundy hassuggested that in an achievable academic Utopia"the university, properly construed, is not merely a place of full-time effort by young studentsand old professors— it is also a home for hours, ordays, or weeks at a time of all highly civilizedmen." He added that "there can be no room inthis promising new development for sloppy orsecond-rate or casual work."10The University has had a modest success withsuch programs. Among them are the activitiesdesigned for journalists studying urban affairs,for humanities faculty members in private liberalarts colleges, for various specialists in businessand industry, for people who are changing careers or moving to new levels of responsibility,for board members of community institutions,and for the administrators of public health programs. But the Committee believes that muchmore could be done than at present to makerecurrent education an important part of theUniversity's life. We recognize that such programsinvolve counseling, the designing of special learning experiences as well as the provision of formalinstruction, and perhaps the creation of specialdegrees and certificates. It is possible that significant use might be made in this case of the University's Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study.Such programs usually require special subsidy aswell— but we feel that efforts made in this direction would be rewarding educationally.The Committee believes that mid-life learningexperiences may be significant for many differentsectors of our society. One major group (whichwe mention only for purposes of illustration) is10"A Report from an Academic Utopia," Harper's, January 1962.153made up of women, especially those in thethirties or forties who are re-orienting themselvesafter some period away from professional oreducational pursuits. Some of the members ofour Committee are aware of the accomplishmentsof programs of this sort at Radcliffe, SarahLawrence, Oakland, Minnesota, and elsewhere,and believe that Chicago might actively exploreways to develop its own distinctive approach tohelp women to achieve the intellectual, political,and economic advantages they might otherwisenot achieve.7. To provide the opportunity for the development of new knowledge. Many people think ofextension as the conveying of the already-knownbut it is sometimes the way by which newknowledge is developed. Such a result may bebrought about through a study of the methodology of the learning process. Margaret Mead,for example, has recently given much attentionto the structure and operation of residential conferences and has co-authored a book on herfindings.More important is the knowledge which arisesfrom the synthesis of ideas within the conferenceitself. A recent study by John Buskey of 425conferences at five university centers for continuing education (including Chicago's) enabledhim to develop a taxonomy of 12 major types ofresidential continuing education. At least six areintended directly to produce new knowledge.(The others may do so incidentally or eventuallyas a result of the dissemination of knowledge.)For example, two of his types are: "the study ofa discipline or field of study in order to organizeit and derive a set of new questions or hypothesesfor further research"; and "the creation of a planor product by synthesizing or combining a number of elements into one integrated whole: a newcurriculum, a plan for action, and so on."Contributions of this sort can be achieved byother means than conferences, and the university,as an institution, has no monopoly on theirsponsorship. The Committee does want to indicate, however, that well-developed extension activities can possess this potential.8. To improve the quality of the University'sown performance of its functions. The Universityis a large, complex, and powerful social entityand its academic and administrative leaders havedone much by way of education to improve thequality of its community life and the performance of its functions.The faculty educates itself in many ways including, most visibly, the meetings and symposia whose notices crowd the campus bulletin-boards.It would be stretching definitions too far to include this great array of activity as a part of extension. Occasionally, however, a need for formaleducation achieves widespread dimensions, ashappened in recent years when many facultymembers have learned to deal in one way oranother with the computer. It is also true thatfaculty members who participate in University-sponsored conferences or other activities oftenfind their associations challenging and rewarding.The non-academic staff has available a numberof general and special arrangements, of whichthe most fully developed (so far as the Committee is aware) is the Department of Educationand Training of the Hospitals and Clinics. TheCommittee has not gone into the whole matterof personnel training at the University, partlybecause it is only peripherally extension in thecustomary meaning of that term and partly because it operates in a decentralized fashion whoselines of influence and degree of impact would behard to assess. The Committee does feel, however, that if training upgrades performance inother kinds of social institutions, as is commonlythought to be the case, it ought to do so in auniversity. At least at the more complex andspecialized levels of non-academic employment,extension has a function to perform.A third way by which the University aids itself by extension is by providing programs for itsneighborhood. Some sociologists have definedthe whole pattern of social interaction in HydePark, Woodlawn, and Kenwood in the last quarter century as a community development processwhich was broadly educational in an accultura-tive sense. For other people, the cultural environment of the University— chiefly its offering ofart, music, and public lectures— establishes abroad though not sharply defined tone which isconstantly though subtly educational. The Committee on University Extension, however, whileagreeing with both points of view believes thatthere should also be more directly instructionalefforts than are now being provided.At least three kinds of activities come to mind.The first is made up of the courses, both creditand credit-free, which have been part of campuslife for generations; even while recognizing all ofthe difficulties said to be involved by the dangersof the neighborhood, we hope that the Universitycan preserve and even strengthen this offering.The second is the training of the staffs of community and neighborhood institutions, often in aspirit not of instruction but of collaboration and154assistance; the Graduate Schools of both SocialService Administration and Education have beenhelpful in this regard and there are doubtlessother examples as well. The third is the use ofcultural activities in an educative way; an outstanding example of such work was provided byUniversity Extension last year in the seminarsoffered in connection with the performances ofthe Fine Arts Quartet.ConclusionIn outlining these eight goals for the Universityand suggesting the criteria which should guidetheir accomplishment, the Committee is not necessarily suggesting that "more is better." In fact,we agree with our counterpart committee at Oxford which recently reported: "We have notfound it possible to lay down principles by whichto determine the extent of the University's activity in this field and the appropriate scale ofexternal in relation to internal activity."A variety of forces, needs, and desires— fromboth within and without— presses the Universityto expand its extension activities, but the limitedresources, particularly of faculty time, and thedesire for quality must subject every proposedactivity to careful scrutiny before it is undertaken. The Committee members vary in theirbeliefs on the question of selectivity, some feeling that the University may already be doing toomuch extension, others that it should perhaps be much more open to new opportunities than isnow the case.All of us agree that the function of extensionhas tended to be hidden by its variety and itsdispersion throughout the University. We believethat a clearer and more coherent picture of whatis now occuring should be widely understood bythe faculty so that it can be aware of what it isdoing. In your 1972 report on "The State of theUniversity,"11 you pointed out that in WilliamRainey Harper's over-all plan, "Each part wasto pass the test of its contribution to the whole"and that that rule was as specifically applied toextension as to other major functions. We believethat now, 80 years later, the principle is stilla sound one and that it should guide the University's planning for the future.Cyril O. Houle (Chairman)Lester AsheimR. Stephen BerryJerald C. BrauerMeyer W. IsenbergArthur MannBernece K. SimonSusan S. StodolskyBernard S. StraussEdward H. Levi, "State of the University," Record,Volume VI, Number 2 (March 7, 1972).155REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE ROLEAND OPPORTUNITIES IN BROADCASTINGTo President Edward H. LeviAugust 15, 1972I. Some History and Some ObservationsOn Sunday morning, June 12, 1955, The Universi-sity of Chicago Round Table broadcast its lastprogram over the NBC radio network. The identity of the three participants suggests, notunintentionally, the symbolic character of theevent. T. V. Smith, philosopher and ex-congressman, had appeared on the first Round Tablebroadcast, over 23 years earlier, and had beenthe program's most frequent participant in theyears prior to World War II; on the presentoccasion he had come from the University ofSyracuse where, since 1948, he had held theMaxwell Chair of Citizenship and Philosophy.Joining him was another Round Table veteran,Herman Finer, Professor of Political Science atChicago; in the preceding decade, Finer had beena central figure in Round Table discussions ofpolitical issues and events. The third guest was anewcomer to the program and to Chicago— JohnW. Taylor, former president of the University ofLouisville, who had recently been appointedexecutive director of Chicago's Educational Television Association. On that June morning hespoke with pride of the $900,000 that had beenraised to finance the association's new televisionstation, WTTW, which would begin broadcastingin the coming autumn.The broadcast, titled "When Gown talks toTown," was a suitable amalgam of nostalgia andhopeful prophecy. There were some amusingreminiscences by Smith, and he and Finer talkedof the needs the Round Table had met, theeagerness and educability of its listening public,the special uses of radio, the qualities of greatteaching, on the air and off. Toward the end ofthe discussion, talk turned to educational tele-This essay was written by Edward W. Rosenheim, Jr.,Chairman of the Committee. vision, and Taylor spoke of his hopes for thenew station, of his conviction that "peoplewant" educational broadcasting, and of his beliefthat he and his associates were "going to have tobe . . . something to all people." There was noprobing of the Round Table's decline and fall;nothing was said to suggest that its disappearancewas a melancholy or controversial event. At theoutset of the broadcast, Smith had merely remarked: "We have reached, if not the end, theturning of a road today."It had been a long road, and a colorful one. Ithad begun, Smith recalled, on February 1, 1931,with a program which involved himself, WinfredE. Garrison, and Percy Boynton in a discussion ofthe Wickersham report on prohibition. "Mr. Garrison," said Smith, "was a 'Dry'; Mr. Boyntonwas a 'Wet'; and, as usual, I was in the middle ofthe fix with what the press the next day called 'adefense of light whines and jeers.'"The genesis of that first Round Table is legendary—with much of the ambiguity of legend.Certainly a key figure in the first broadcast— asin the Round Table's entire radio history— wasMiss Judith Waller, at that time on the staff ofthe Chicago Daily News station, WMAQ, and subsequently, for many years, in charge of publicaffairs for NBC in Chicago. Miss Waller has toldme of hearing about the kind of discussion thatoccurred at lunch around one of the large roundtables at the Quadrangle Club and of someone'sremarking that it would make an excellent radioprogram. I can find no evidence that any RoundTable actually was broadcast from the Club dining room (the original program occurred arounda card table at WMAQ), but the "round table"concept— which has come generically to describea format of impromptu discussion by three ormore participants— appears to have begun at TheUniversity of Chicago.Whatever its precise origin, the Round Tableidea quickly proved a success. Here it is necessaryonly to remind ourselves very briefly of thepublic record of its achievement. Within twoyears of its first broadcast the program was156being carried by NBC's "red" network. Almostfrom the outset its ratings competed stronglyagainst commercial programs; and its popularityamong "public service" broadcasts appears tohave been unique. At its peak, it was carried by98 commercial and 20 educational stations in ttieUnited States, was heard on the network of theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation, and was re-broadcast, through recording, in the United Kingdom. At times it was included among the 10most popular programs, of all descriptions, onnetwork radio. Its published program transcripts,initiated in May 1938, attained a circulation ofwell over 20,000 copies per week. Its public impact was reflected in innumerable newspaper reports and comments of many kinds, and thereis evidence that, in many quarters, The University of Chicago was known primarily, if not exclusively, as the sponsor of the Round Table.From its second broadcast, the Round Tablefollowed the practice of inviting distinguished"outsiders," academic and otherwise, to join indiscussion with members of the Chicago faculty.Over the years, its listeners came to .expect thatthey would hear from figures of national andinternational prominence, from specialists of various sorts, and from a familiar contingent of Chicago "regulars," who formed a kind of nucleus ofarticulate broadcasters.It is good to remember some of the famousfigures who were happy to join in Round Tablediscussion with University of Chicago faculty:John Kennedy, Ralph Bunche, Adlai Stevenson,Robert Taft, Pandit Nehru, Eduard Benes; literary men like Sinclair Lewis and Kenneth Burke;such theatrical figures as Guthrie McClintic, St.John Irvin, and Peter Ustinov; columnists likeDrew Pearson and commentators like CliftonUtley. Distinguished academic figures from otheruniversities, in America and abroad, likewisejoined their Chicago colleagues in the RoundTable studio. In the later years, frequent transatlantic discussions were made possible throughthe cooperation of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Round Table programs themselves often originated from places distant fromChicago— including a famous broadcast of 1945from a bombshelter in London. But it is equallyimportant to note that, despite these glamorousachievements, the Round Table constantly retained its University of Chicago identity— in largepart because of the continued, guiding presenceof members of the University's faculty. These, ofcourse, included persons of international distinction, but they also included men whose fame largely rested upon their association with theRound Table itself, as urbane, agile public representatives of the academic world.Statistics and archives attest to the prestige andpopularity of the Round Table, and the printedtranscriptions make clear that its quality, however one assesses it in purely educational terms,was distinctly superior to that of whatever othernetwork broadcasting purported to operate in theinterest of public enlightenment. For our purposes, however, the Round Table's "internal"history, as a University of Chicago enterprise,merits some brief attention, for it is a story ofhigh success and (perhaps) ultimate failure thatmay hold some lessons for our time.The early years of the program, despite itsprominence, were marked by restraint and informality. From the beginning, the professionalexperience and personal commitment of at leastone representative of commercial broadcasting,Miss Waller, seem to have been indispensable. Atthe same time, beyond her advice and the network's provision of time and technical facilities,the Round Table was produced by the Universityand was, in policy and practice, largely the product of faculty initiative. Even before RoundTable days, University broadcasting activities—and they have purportedly existed since 1922—were governed by a faculty advisory committeeon radio; as the Round Table grew, so did theresponsibility of this group. And, during theearly years, its principal agency for negotiationwith the radio stations was the University Broadcasting Council, a collaborative body in whichChicago was joined by Northwestern and DePaul, each contributing a modest sum for theconduct of a collective enterprise which servedas a channel between the universities and theradio stations (and, in the opinion of some people, spared the networks any direct contact witheducational institutions).There is evidence that, despite its relative success,the Round Table had, by 1937, reached a kind ofplateau. To be sure, it was the oldest continuouseducational program on the air; its audience wasestimated at two and a half million listeners; itcontinued to enjoy free access to the networkand at an hour which, by our current, lamentablestandards, was an enviable one. Yet it continuedto be conducted largely without professional direction, was minimally financed, restricted by itsobligations to the University Broadcasting Council, and dependent on the continuing will of NBCfor its survival. To the eyes of most observers— in-157eluding most educators and broadcasters— theRound Table in 1938 was an unrivalled success.Only to a person deeply aware of the unfulfilledpromise of radio as an educational instrumentand deeply concerned that The University ofChicago help to realize that promise could thebroadcasting situation at Chicago have appearedunsettling and challenging.William B. Benton, appointed Vice-Presidentof the University in autumn 1937, was such a person. This is no place to rehearse the fascinatingdetails of his early months with the University-or even the particulars of his work in broadcasting. I think, however, it is profitable toremind ourselves that his astonishing achievements with the Round Table were the product ofmore than an undefined genius for public relations. For he brought to the University extensiveexperience, through his career in advertising, withcommercial radio; a profound commitment tothe educational uses of both radio and otheraudio-visual media; and a concern for the University which prompted him to view it as thenatural leader of whatever national developmentsin educational broadcasting the future wouldbring.In a recent interview, Senator Benton attributed the failure of educational broadcastingover the years (and the present generally deplorable state of broadcasting as a whole) to threesources: the networks, the foundations, andeducational institutions themselves. And it seemsclear that, during his days at The University ofChicago, Vice-President Benton conducted a running battle against indifference in these areas.In Mr. Benton's time, the University's relationswith the networks were marked— as they hadalways been and were to continue to be— bytensions and manipulations, usually disguised bygenteel professions of reciprocal esteem. The network's gift of time to the University was reluctantly proffered, in minimal lip-service to thecause of public service and the requirements ofthe FCC. ThzRound Table's very popularity was,it is reported, viewed with dismay by networkofficials; a program which regularly occupied important time and commanded a large audiencebut which yielded no income could not be removed without embarrassing public protest. Whenthe University's "Human Adventure" series (aprogram devised by Benton and dramatizingsignificant moments in the history of research)had run successfully for ten weeks on CBS, itwas dropped. Senator Benton reports that he wastold by the president of CBS: "I don't want to get stuck with it the way NBC is stuck with theRound Table.'"Senator Benton's view confirms my own that,where a university is dependent upon externalbroadcasting agencies— commercial and even attimes educational-for its broadcasting programs,neither intrinsic excellence nor popular successguarantees the satisfaction of the broadcaster.Even as the Round Table surged forward in popularity, the network rescheduled the program into "local option" time, thus making it possiblefor affiliated stations to abandon it in favor ofcommercially profitable programing. That suchmaneuvers were minimally successful in Benton'sera is a tribute to his vigilance and toughness-aswell, I suspect, as to his capacity to talk forth-rightly to the leaders of the broadcasting industry. Senator Benton has recently characterizedthe networks' attitude toward the public serviceas a "tragic irony." For he is of the opinion that,had the networks been willing to make an initialinvestment in radio as a truly public force, "itwould, after the first one or two decades, haveproved to be financially in their own interests."It appears to be an irony of which the broadcasting industry is not yet aware.Although, as Senator Benton has pointed out,the long-run record of foundations with respectto educational radio is unimpressive, his own success with the Alfred Sloan Foundation addedgreat strength to the Round Table. Immediatelyon hearing of the establishment of the Foundation to "encourage the dissemination of economic knowledge," he communicated with its officers—the result being an annual grant of$50,000 to the Round Table, a source of supportthat lasted for a period of 12 years. In my judgment, it was this gift which, together withSenator Benton's own talents, transformed theRound Table from an unusual, useful, generallysuccessful program into an impressively influential national institution. For it made possible,among other things, the publication of printedtranscripts, the mobility of the program, theavailability of "outside" authorities, and thetransfer of energy from financial worries to theimprovement of broadcasts.About Senator Benton't third bete noir, theindifference of the universities, I have little tosay. He has reported an apathetic, even hostile,attitude on the part of such universities as Yale,Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia when heapproached them about collective efforts to develop educational broadcasting. Certainly it istrue that, over the years, the major private uni-158versities, including The University of Chicago,have been far less ambitious in the use of broadcasting media than have the state institutions.Within the University itself, Benton innovationsseem to have encountered transient suspicion—both from some faculty and some students— butthe evidence suggests that he enjoyed the complete support of the administration and in particular of Mr. Hutchins, whose own interest in theeducational possibilities of broadcasting is amatter of record. And there is little doubt thatthe University at large was aware of the RoundTable 's special value.There is, however, a fourth threat to successfuleducational broadcasting which, although Senator Benton does not mention it, he did much toovercome. President Hutchins, over a number ofyears, repeatedly observed that "the trouble witheducational radio in America is that the programsare no good." Mr. Benton, writing in 1936,expressed much the same view when he remarkedthat, under existent conditions in broadcasting,most programs offered in the public interest were"not only mediocre but bad, neither of muchinterest nor of educational merit." Educationalbroadcasting needs excellence to survive; toooften it has been its own worst enemy.Benton sought to insure excellence in theUniversity's broadcasting by what I tend tothink of as its "professionalizing"— by which I donot mean its commercializing or popularizing,but something quite the contrary. For, as I see it,he sought to produce programing which, in itsquality and integrity, would reflect the standardsof the University itself, however it might departfrom the traditional conception of a university'srole.Over some protest, for example, he withdrewthe University from the controversial UniversityBroadcasting Council, thus establishing its autonomy, freeing it from restrictive association withless ambitious institutions and from servility toNBC (whose contributions to the Council servedas a kind of tithe to the cause of educationalbroadcasting). He hired a full-time professionaldirector for the Radio Office. He paid a fee to allRound Table participants (a practice abandonedin the austerity of later years) and sought to increase the number and diversity of those whoappeared on the program. He personally engagedin extensive preparation in advance of eachbroadcast and insisted that all those taking partdo likewise. In consequence, although the discussion retained its spontaneous character, eachparticipant received in advance a voluminous re search report on the day's topic, and the generaloutline of the braodcast was decided upon inmeetings of the participants which often extended for many hours. He initiated the publication of the Round Table pamphlets, whichincluded both a transcription of the program anda brief bibliography of relevant readings. And,from time to time, he moved the program'spoint of origination to various parts of thecountry, thus diversifying its participants andbroadening its audience.I have mentioned Senator Benton at somelength (even so, providing only a fraction of whatmight usefully be said about his achievements inUniversity broadcasting) because I find his example of first importance. Whenever the University—rightly or wrongly— chooses seriously to address itself to a larger, non-academic public, it islikely to have to behave, to some extent,"uncharacteristically." It must depend on techniques—and hence on expertise and experience—which are not traditionally academic but whichare to be employed in a manner compatible withand useful to the academic enterprise. Such adependency has its dangers, and there are thosewho say that they were not entirely overcomeeven in the days of William Benton. There mustbe good reasons, at any historical moment, forviewing such undertakings as valuable and appropriate for the University. Even so, there is thedanger of reliance on experts who do notunderstand the University and its people, whowill fail to communicate, fail to interest, fail toexploit the resources of the University to bestadvantage. On the other hand, there is the dangerthat we will rely on people who, though congenial to the academic community, are simplynot very good at what they do. William Bentonappeals to have arrived at the University at theright moment in the history of radio, but he,perhaps uniquely, recognized that it was themoment. He seized the moment and exploited itwith high professional competence. And I do notthink he failed to understand the University; itis possible that he understood it, as it was in1938, rather better than it understood itself.Although Benton's innovations and administrative achievements furnished the impetus, theRound Table's greatest popularity and prestigecame in the forties and very early fifties, underthe directorship of George Probst and followingBenton's departure from the University. This wasthe peak period of circulation for the pamphlets,of the number of stations carrying the program,of listener ratings, of national prizes won. If, to159some of us, the Round Table appeared a little lessrelaxed, familiar, and authentically academic, itenjoyed, at the same time, a national popularitynever equalled, before or since, by a programsponsored by a single academic institution.Concurrently with this high point in RoundTable history, the Radio Office, thanks largelyto Probst's initiative, was pursuing various otherkinds of programing. Some of these projectswere designed for distribution through the growing tape network of the National Association ofEducational Broadcasters— from which they oftenfound their way to commercial stations and tothe Voice of America. For a number of years"The Human Adventure" was produced throughstation WGN; it won a Peabody Award (as, ofcourse did the Round Table). Other radio programing was produced for the then-youthfulWFMT and acquired further circulation throughrecording. It was a time, too, when WilliamBenton's vision of collaborative development ineducational broadcasting acquired promising reality. Probst was a pioneer and leader in the educational broadcasting "movement," and, as a result,The University of Chicago joined with other institutions not only in broadcasting enterprises butin educational and political efforts to strengthennon-commercial radio.This is not the place— nor am I the person— todiscuss at length the demise of the Round Table.It was born and flourished at a time when theneed it met was acute; it was unique in fillingthat need. Its strength was, for better or worse,dependent on the strength of network radio.After 1950, the need appeared less special andcritical; people were talking to one another,seriously but informally, elsewhere on the networks, although they were not talking as well asthe Round Tablers. The program's decline, moreover, coincided with the advent of televisionand with the decline-the virtual disintegration-of network radio. The NBC Monitor format, forwhich the University was invited to produce anew program to replace the Round Table, represented a last-ditch effort to preserve networkprograming, although only over the weekends.It was a tempestuous, uncertain enterprise, neverreally successful, although even today NBC'sweekend news is ushered in by Monitor's electronic chirpings, wistful ghost-noises from thepast.On June 12, 195 5 -the date with which Ibegin this sketch— the University appeared toface a choice. Its funds, facilities, and personnel for broadcasting were limited. It could struggleto keep alive-or, more accurately, to restore-aonce glorious enterprise, despite its perceptibledecline in popularity and the profound changesin the medium on which it depended. Or NBC'sapparently respectable offer of a 25 -minute sloton Monitor could be accepted, the balance ofbroadcasting resources being devoted to the new,fascinating prospect of television through WTTWand whatever other outlets were available.The University chose the latter course. Thereis no way of knowing whether, had the RoundTable been continued, the program could, insome way, have recovered its former greatness.(At least twice in the ensuing years the RoundTable has appeared, for relatively extended periods of time, on local educational television. Theprograms, especially in the most recent series,have been highly regarded and hope persists thatthe series can again return to the air. But theirpublic impact-even at the local level-does notappear to have been remotely comparable to thatof their radio predecessor.)What does seem clear is that, in the 17 yearsthat have passed since 1955, the University hasproduced no program to approach the RoundTable in distinction and public impact. I do notblame this fact upon the venality of broadcasters,the apathy of foundations, or the indifference ofthe University itself, nor do I blame it on thevexed history of our once-splendid relations withWTTW. There have been— and continue to be— extremely able and devoted people charged withthe University's broadcasting activities, and therehas been no program idea with the originality andviability of the Round Table-nor, had there beensuch ideas, has there been a William Benton toconvert them, as he converted the Round Table,into a socially valuable, astonishingly powerfulinstrument for public relations.And it is as a magnificent adventure in publicrelations that, I am convinced, the Round Tableshould be viewed. It is true that, at least in itsorigins, it had an indigenous, homespun characterthat seemed directly to reflect the academicworld. It is likewise true that it could be viewedas a splendid specimen of "extension education,"in that it alerted a non-academic public to issuesand arguments of importance, to diversified linesof intellectual inquiry. Moreover, like so many ofthe publications and speeches of the Hutchinsera, it had its tone of urbane evangelism, summoning ordinary men and women to the profitsand pleasures of thoughtful discourse, greatbooks, basic ideas. Yet, although the Round160Table was infinitely superior to most broadcastfare of its day, I do not think we can be certain-still less, fatuous— about the degree and characterof its educational performance. What we cannotdoubt, on the other hand, is its effect upon theUniversity's reputation. What emerged from theprograms (and even from the pamphlets, as onereads them today) was, in latter day jargon, an"image"— the image of a radio institution, devoted to serious but lively talk about importantmatters, and of another, greater institution, aUniversity in which thoughtful men and womendevoted their careers to such things.With the Round Table's disappearance, the University lost a powerful public voice, but its broadcasting activities by no means diminished. I havetried to calculate the amount of "air time" devoted to University broadcasting during thethree-year period from June 1955 to June1958, and have arrived at the following figures:43 hours were devoted to NBC network radio;26 to radio on the local CBS outlet, with aprogram ("The Sacred Note") which was subsequently heard on a number of other CBS stations; 10 hours of radio recordings for WFMTand/or the NAEB tape network; 86 hours forstation WTTW, the local educational televisionchannel; 10 hours for local commercial televisionstations.The NBC network radio time is accounted forby "New World," the segment of Monitor thatthe network offered in place of the vanishedRound Table. Initially attempting— by narration,interview, discussion, and ancillary sound— todescribe significant research activities within theUniversity, it gradually settled down to a discussion format much like that of its predecessor,except for the presence, urged by NBC, of anongoing moderator. It was a well-produced program (thanks largely to John Chancellor, whohad replaced Judith Waller as NBC's liaison withthe University), and it received some favorablepress-comment— as well as being hilariously parodied by the comedy team of Bob and Ray. Butwhen, after two years, the network unapologeti-cally dropped it— in one of the innumerable upheavals within the Monitor hierarchy— there waslittle lamentation, either from the public or theUniversity community.Of greater hope and interest was the televisionprograming, especially that large part of it produced for WTTW, the infant educational channel.I continue to think that the best of these programs were those which most closely reflected the academic preoccupations and expertise ofUniversity faculty members. One of them, "TheHumanities," was the second program to betransmitted over the new channel and, appearingweekly during the first six months of the station's operation, enjoyed a favored positionamong its offerings. The participants were allmembers of the University's College Humanitiesstaff, and its contents were closely related to theHumanities I course— drawing heavily upon painting and sculpture, "live" musical performances,and brief dramatic presentations.Another program, "Everybody's America,"was conducted by the cultural historian, RichardWohl. Employing an ingenious variety of visualmaterials, Wohl presented a 13-week series ofprograms on such elements of American popularculture as the Sears Roebuck catalogue, the Algerstories, and the Model T Ford. A new series wasscheduled for national distribution over NET,with a generous budget from that organization,but had to be cancelled upon Mr. Wohl's suddenand tragic death.A third program likewise reflected the emphasis upon educational goals and was a conspicuous success. This was called "Science '58"and appeared each morning over a local commercial channel. Produced by Lee Wilcox andconducted by Julian Goldsmith (who, in thosepre-videotape days, arose each week-day morningfor four months at 4:00 A.M. for his 6:30 appearance), the program presented an introductory but sophisticated account of various aspectsof contemporary science.I cannot pretend to believe that the promise ofthose early days of television had been substantially realized. There would be no point indiscussing, even if I could, the tangled history ofthe University's relations with WTTW, but theyhave been, at the least, irregular. Quite apartfrom questions of personnel or policy, there hasbeen keen competition for time on Channel 1 1 ,and money has been scarce both at the stationand the University. And it is my impression thatcommercial television stations— far from recognizing Senator Benton's "tragic irony"— havebeen, if anything, less hospitable to educationalbroadcasting than their radio counterparts. Thisis particularly saddening for those who, like meand apparently the majority of our colleagues,are interested in broadcasting as a genuine educational enterprise. Such broadcasting has, inrecent years, had to struggle for even minimalacceptance by commercial, and even non-commercial channels; it is, therefore, precisely for161this kind of communication that many of uslook with hope toward the new technical developments in audio-visual media.If, on the other hand, one wonders why theUniversity has not become a major television"presence," with an influence comparable to thedays of the Round Table, I do not think thefault lies primarily with difficulty of access tothe media. As I have tried to argue, a major pub-He broadcasting program is inevitably, whateverelse it may achieve, an enterprise in public relations—requiring not only high originality, butsubstantial funding and the talents of a superiorpublicist. Presumably the University's interestsand efforts have not, in recent years, lain in thisdirection. If concern for public broadcasting ofthis character should be revived, it will, I think,call for commitment of a different kind fromthat now enjoyed by the Office of Radio-TV.Within the limits of present commitment, thatOffice has survived with substantial success. Ifthe University has not had a major nationalvoice, it has provided television and radio with asteady flow of programing, of essentially highquality, for many years. Thanks to the distribution of audio-tape, radio stations in many partsof the country carry materials originating hereand many of them reflect the distinction of University faculty and visitors and the work which isbeing conducted at Chicago.Particularly during the period between 1966and 1969, an impressive diversity of broadcasting was produced by the Office, at the time under the direction of Jonathan Kleinbard. Muchof this was "occasional" broadcasting or produced in series of limited duration— for example,NBC "special," five-minute "spots" on variousresearch projects, a distinguished recorded seriesby the Contemporary Chamber players. Duringthis period the Round Table was again revived,originating over WTTW and being rebroadcast inat least six major cities, and accompanied, duringmuch of its career, by printed transcriptions ofremarkable attractiveness. It was at this time,too, that there began three programs whichcontinue to form the core of University broadcasting: "From the Midway," "Conversations atChicago," and the television program, "Perspectives."Today it is unusual for a broadcasting programto survive for more than a season or so. The threechief University programs have not only survived(for between four and six years) but have flourished. Today, "From the Midway," essentially aseries of recorded lectures and talks from the University faculty and its visitors, is heard weeklyover 97 stations; "Conversations at Chicago,"employing a discussion format and addressed toa range of topics limited only by faculty concerns, is carried by 100 stations. In addition, theOffice some months ago embarked on a programcalled "University of Chicago Review of theArts," a series of brief critical comments byfaculty and graduate students on a wide varietyof cultural events, exhibits, and publications.These remarks are heard several times each weekday, and repeated on Saturday over radio-stationWBBM, Chicago's conspicuously successful CBSaffiliate.The program "Perspectives," perhaps deservesparticular attention, since it suggests to me boththe possibilities and the vexing limitations of serious broadcasting under the circumstances thatprevail in Chicago television today. In its formatand range of topics, it is not unlike the RoundTable, except for the presence of an ongoingmoderator and the fact that (because, unlikethe Round Table, it is pre-recorded) no attemptis made at up-to-the-minute topicality. It appearseach week-day morning at 6:30 over Channel 7, acommercial outlet, and lasts for 25 minutes. Theprogram is moderated with singular skill, and itdeals with questions of great importance, discussed by participants of clear ability. Yet it isproduced under perfunctory conditions— for example, the recording of all five programs for asingle week, seriatim, without interval, and at aninconvenient hpur-oj a sort which, I am told,ordinarily obtain whenever a commercial stationenlists academic resources in order to meet itsresponsibilities to "public service."For all the grace and ingenuity with which theactual broadcast is conducted and for all theauthority of its participants, one wonders whether a program produced entirely without previousplanning and discussion among participants andcarried out in inhospitable surroundings as a kindof assembly-line performance, is a worthy undertaking for a great university. I am assured that,if Chicago were to abandon "Perspectives," thetime allotted it would be avidly seized by anyone of this area's other universities. There are, Iam also told, many thousands of viewers who, despite the 6:30 hour, are hearing from The University of Chicago -and not from Northwesternor Loyola. If this is true, then perhaps, faute demieux, "Perspectives" should go on forever. Butunder present circumstances, I do not think it is aprogram with which the University should beentirely satisfied.162Administrative responsibility for the University'sbroadcasting has always been something of aproblem— and one that merits brief discussion, ifonly because it reflects more fundamental questions about the University's broadcasting policy.Even in the days of the Round Table's rise tofame there were difficulties and dissensionsinvolving the administration and faculty committees, the colorful details of which are buriedin the University archives and do not requiredisinterment here. And ever since that time,responsibility for broadcasting (always recognizing the ultimate authority of the President andthe Trustees) has been a shifting affair.There has, for many years, been a duly appointed faculty Board of Radio and Television.As a ruling body of the University it should, oneassumes, function in the manner of most otherfaculty boards, exercising a close advisory andsupervisory function, assuming responsibility forall policy decisions of any consequence, retaining regular, informed contact with the University with whose governance it is charged.This has, however, by no means been the casewith the Board of Radio-TV. In recent years ithas met, more often than not, once annually-atmost twice; I missed the most recent of thosemeetings, but in the four previous years, they hadthe general character of an amiable annual stockholders' meeting, accompanied by an excellentdinner. The Radio-TV Office faithfully communicates to Board members printed lists of its proposed and recent programs, but aside from theseone-way communications and the ritual meetings,the Board simply does not function.This has not always been the case, for in theearly fifties, at any rate, the Board met regularly—and as often as fortnightly— and was energeticand singularly helpful in making quite detailedplans for programs and participants. It also madedecisions of policy and (as I can attest) was oftenmore than willing to call into question the judgments and activities of the Director of Radio andTelevision.Even in those days, however, the Board'sstatus was complicated by the fact that responsibility for broadcasting also lay, to some extent,in other quarters. In 1954, the newly-appointedDirector of the Office of Radio and Televisionbelatedly discovered that the Office was financedunder the budget of the Dean of Extension, who,properly or not, felt that this entitled him tosome control over broadcasting policy. Aftersome controversy, matters were rearranged, andfor a time the Office of Radio-TV enjoyed its own budget and the Director felt happily obligedto report only to his Board and to the President.Some four years later, however (with the Officeunder still another Director), control of thebudget, and for all practical purposes of personnel and policy, were again transferred to theDean of Extension. And, in 1966, budget andvirtually all de facto responsibility for broadcasting were moved— in a return to the situationunder William Benton— to the Offiqe of theVice-President for Public Affairs, where theyhave since remained. Yet, through all of thesevicissitudes, a faculty Board of Radio and Television has been a Ruling Body of the University!In point of fact, no one except a few peopleclosely involved in broadcasting, has expressedeither confusion or chagrin over this state ofaffairs. This apparent satisfaction suggests thatthere is efficiency and serenity in the presentconduct of the Office of Radio and Television.It may also suggest that few members of thefaculty are concerned to learn or say muchabout what is being done, or might be done, inthe area of public broadcasting— or at least thatsuch broadcasting, unlike the Press or Libraryor Laboratory Schools, is an enterprise that canbe safely entrusted to officers of the Administration. This impression seems to be confirmed bythe results of our recent faculty canvass. Thereare questions of telecommunication and audiovisual communication that do directly interest alarge number of faculty members and to which afaculty board might address itself with greatusefulness. But the activities of the Office ofRadio and Television, as it is currently conducted, do not appear to be among them. If thatOffice proceeds upon its traditional lines— andthey have been profitable and reasonable linesfor the most part— it should probably be quitefrankly regarded as an agency of the Universityadministration, and specifically of those officerscharged with public affairs and development.From time to time, over many years, it has beensuggested-often very seriously-that the University acquire its own broadcasting facility. In theburgeoning days of educational radio, and especially with the development of FM, the University, although a leader among educational"broadcasters," was something of a curiositysince it did not own a radio station and thereforedid not literally broadcast. At the time, therewere those who felt the University— and educational broadcasting itself— would be strengthenedby the ownership of a station; the matter wasdiscussed at length by the Board, and was the163subject of a lengthy memorandum by the Director. And with the advent of television, there werelikewise those who energetically argued that theUniversity play some special, proprietary role inthe conduct of the City's educational channel.Needless to say, such possibilities have alwaysbeen quite firmly rejected— as too expensive ordemanding or impractical or inappropriate.But, of course, the University has, for a number of years, owned an FM station— and the factthat its signal is modest does not make its operation appreciably less expensive or complicatedthan would be the case if its power were muchgreater. I refer obviously to WHPK, the studentstation, whose programing has variously informed, entertained, bored, and infuriated manyof us from time to time. I shall have a bit moreto say about WHPK in a later section of thisReport. My point here is simply that such astation is being operated on the University campus, upon a regular schedule, and that theenterprise, whatever its quality, has proved neither impractical nor particularly expensive.The reason why the University (that is theadministration and/or faculty) does not— andshould not— operate a broadcasting station is thatthey would not know what to do with it. Wherecolleges or universities (and they are usually stateinstitutions) successfully conduct such operationsthey do so under conditions conspicuously absent at Chicago. (Among these are (1) a ratherclear definition of public responsibility with respect to the areas of information to be treated bybroadcasting and the sections of the publictoward whom such broadcasts are directed;(2) members of the faculty whose professionalconcerns coincide with these areas of information-agriculture, health, child care, elementaryeducation of various kinds— and who often conceive of "extension" education as intrinsic totheir academic roles; (3) curricular commitmentof some kind to broadcasting itself; (4) publicfunding.) I should not like these conditions toobtain at Chicago, and without them I find itinconceivable that the University could, drawingupon its own resources, meet the challenge ofregular broadcasting operation.The University's traditional (and I think appropriate) role in broadcasting is that of whatused to be called a "packager." In the days oflive radio and television, the term applied to acommercial agency (or by extension to anyinstitution) which provided the talent, the scriptor outline or format, and usually the necessaryproperties and "visuals" to the broadcasting stu- io, which then assumed the responsibility fortransmission of this pre-fabricated production.More recently, "packaging" has assumed a moreliteral meaning— with audiotape, and now videotape, being recorded under the direction (andoften on the premises) of the producing agency,boxed and delivered to the appropriate outletsfor transmission. Thus, the participants of theRound Table arrived at the NBC studio (or, aswas true for many years, at Mitchell Towerstudio, which was manned with NBC techniciansand had a direct line to the network) with a program which was entirely theirs and which NBCsimply put on the air. Today this happens with"Perspectives" and other University telecasts,while such programs as "From the Midway,"recorded on campus by the Office of Radio-TV,are simply mailed out to broadcasters in packages, for transmission at whatever time thebroadcaster chooses.This mode of production at Chicago has always meant that new ideas for broadcasting donot arise because of a schedule to be met, a slotto be filled, a public duty to be performed. Onthe contrary, they arise because of a sense ofinterest and urgency in some area of the University itself. These areas, of course, often include offices concerned with public relations andpublic information— who, to put it simply, conceive of new ways of telling the public about theUniversity. The urgencies, too, are often felt bymembers of the faculty who, in professional rolesor otherwise, are prompted— usually by "topical"issues and events— to communicate with a publicbeyond the University. The most active participants on the Round Table seem to have largely included those persons who clearly enjoyed publicdiscussion, whether or not in the fields of theirspecial competence, and those professors, chieflyin the Social Sciences, professionally concernedwith matters of general public importance. Inaddition, although less often than one couldwish, broadcast materials are produced as agenuine extension of academic teaching andinquiry -by which I do not mean that someonehas abandoned his professional identity and isplaying a dutiful tribute to the cause of GeneralEnlightenment or Enrichment, but that he believes that what he is learning and teaching withinthe University can be made usefully and appropriately available beyond its walls.I have reason for discussing the "packaged"character of the University's broadcasting. As Ishall say again, whatever course technical developments in communication may take, they will164almost exclusively call for pre-recorded, that is,"packaged/' materials— created on the initiativeand under the total direction of the producingagency itself, in this instance, of The Universityof Chicago.Over the years, we have packaged, on thewhole, very well— at times with great distinction,rarely, I think, in a manner unworthy of agreat university. At the same time, as publicbroadcasters, we have only scratched the surfaceof our own resources. Quite possibly this is as itshould be. It can be argued that public broadcasting—and, indeed, direct service of any kindto a broad, unspecified general public— shouldnot properly command the resources and energiesof our University. And, until now, the characterof the communications media have largely required this kind of broadcasting and this kind ofpublic service. With today's— and tomorrow's— developments in audiovisual communication, thisshould no longer be the case. The newer technologies should allow us— the members of thefaculty— to do what we should be doing, withluck to do it better than we have been doing, andto do it for the benefit of those who, thoughbeyond our walls, will genuinely profit from ourlabors. At the same time, let me confess to thehope that we will not abandon our tradition ofmore general broadcasting— under whatever auspices or rubric within the University— or even thememory of the Round Table and its glories.This is a fine University, and I find nothingwrong in the idea that the public— meaning asmany people as possible— should learn about itand hear from it.II. New TechnologiesPerhaps this Report will have some readers whoare unfamiliar with recent technical developments in audiovisual communication. If so, itmay be useful to remind ourselves, very simplyand briefly, of the chief features of the technology which promises so fundamentally to alterwhat we have always called "broadcasting."What is, indeed, basic to the new developmentsis that they no longer involve "broadcasting"— inthe literal sense that signals are transmitted"over the air" and are accessible to any televisionor radio set capable of receiving them. It is truethat cable television originated, and still operates,largely as a device for capturing these broadcastsignals from the air and transmitting them,through coaxial cable, to receivers which forvarious reasons (geographical remoteness, topo graphy, etc.) would otherwise lack access tothem. "CATV" indeed stands for "CommunityAntenna Television" (a fact not universallyremembered); thus one "ancestor" of cable television is simply that single, lofty antenna, capableof receiving television broadcasts and "redistributing" them by wire to a finite number ofindividual receiving sets.Another progenitor of cable television, however, has never involved literal "broadcasting,"although it has been associated with televisionsince its earliest days. This is "closed-circuit"television, which involves direct transmissionthrough wires, and has been widely employedin instruction and other forms of intra-institu-tional communication; it is a commonplacedevice in airports and department stores but can,of course, be extended, with suitable amplification, over a much greater distance than theseordinary uses suggest.Cable television represent s-or can represent— amating of these two well-established kinds ofundertaking. It is a "closed system" in the sensethat all receivers "on the cable" are linked, viaa trunk, to a single direct source of transmission,generally called the "head end." It is "open" inthat the head end is capable of receiving andre-transmitting programs from distant sources,obviously including the traditional over-the-airbroadcasts that community antennas were originally designed to receive and relay. Actually itis, in potential at least, far more "open" than thesimple community antenna has been. Throughthe use of micro-wave, cable relay, and satellite(now officially recognized by the federal government as an adjunct of CATV), programing fromremote origins can assume far greater diversity,selectivity, and sheer quantity than have beenprovided by traditional network broadcasting.The crucial ingredient in cable television isclearly the coaxial cable itself. Again, it is not arecent discovery. It made possible the originaldevelopment of network commercial televisionand was employed, from the beginning, incommunity antenna services. Unlike the basickind of closed-circuit transmission— whose operation might be compared to that of a single telephone line— it permits transmission of a multiplicity of signals through one cable. Originally itwas capable of carrying six channels; today it canquite practically carry 20 or so; estimates as to itsultimate capacity have invited a popular guessing-game, but 80 channels do not seem unrealistic.In principle, moreover, it can be employed fortwo-way communication. Although highly elabo-165rate and expensive provisions would be necessaryfor transmitting and receiving verbal and/orvisual "return signals" to the head-end, the cableitself is entirely able to carry them.One need not dwell on the limitations of conventional, over-the-air television in order toappreciate the opportunities implicit in cable.(In fact, I am not very sympathetic to those who,by laboring those limitations, suggest that therestricted number of television channels is intrinsically responsible for the failure of televisionto approach its promise. Radio has suffered verylittle from such limitations, but its options andopportunities have been exploited with resultsthat are not much more impressive than theachievements of TV.) What we should understandis that— even at the present moment— certainthings are, technically at least, entirely possiblewith cable television.A viewer employing the cable will have achoice, if we are conservative, among somethinglike 20 or 25 channels. The services among whichhe should be able to choose will include thefollowing: (1) ordinary network programing,commercial or otherwise, of the kind that isavailable to the owner of any conventionalreceiver; (2) programing originating in remotesources— including other cable systems, non-network over-the-air broadcasts, or specifically arranged "pick-ups"— that are conveyed to thehead-end by micro-wave, cable relay, or satellite; (3) "cable origination" services— programingwhich, either recorded or "live," has its originalsource of transmission in the particular cablesystem and is specifically produced or selectedfor subscribers to that system.The technical character of cable televisionclearly makes it possible for the subscriber toenjoy certain viewing experiences that are seldomit ever available to him now. Most of these newpossibilities are commonplace in the speculations and pleadings of those concerned with theprospects of CATV, but some basic departuresfrom the tradition to which we have becomeaccustomed are worth brief mention here. A-mong them, quite apart from the sheer increasein range of choice (tripling, to be conservative,the present, maximum number of available VHFand UHF channels), are the following:1 . "Fragmentation " of assumed audiences andprogram policy . "Fragmentation" implies that aCATV channel, or a substantial section of timethereon, can be devoted to programing of franklylimited interest, designed for an audience morerigorously defined than has usually been the case in traditional television. This audience can beidentified in terms such as age, sex, occupation,geographical habitation— or it can be seen as composed of students pursuing a certain level, persons with specific vocational or avocational interests, confronters of particular problems of almostany kind. Audiences of this character call forprograming that is "specialized"— in the sensenot only of being limited but of being conspicuously expert and authoritative. If, in the contextof conventional broadcasting, fragmentation appears unorthodox and precarious, we are reminded that it is already a reality in the field ofperiodical publication, where all save but a few"general" magazines are dead or dying, while ahost of thriving new publications successfullyaddress themselves to the special interests of adiversity of particular classes, trades, enthusiasts,and sufferers.2. Freedom from the "conventions" of broadcasting. Of these one of the most infuriating-especially to some veterans of the media-is the"time-segment" (the rigid limit of a program to14 or 29 or 58 minutes) which regularly inhibitsreflection, discussion, and artistic creativity. Presumably large areas of CATV, free from the demands of advertisers, editors of program guides,and the frozen traditions of the broadcasting industry, will simply use as much time as the programing job requires. The new "abundance" maylikewise liberate programing from some restrictive notions as to what is decorous or fashionableor egalitarian. Thus, even for those who do notanticipate radical new uses of the media, CATVmay bring to the pursuit of long-establishedgoals a welcome new freedom.3. "Intercommunication, " independent of conventional networks. Today's television viewersees little programing that is not either of localorigin, supplied by commercial network, or commercially filmed-the last category including, ofcourse, the ubiquitous aged movies. Followers ofthe better FM stations and of National Educational Television are aware, however, of a different kind of programing, for-thanks to suchinstitutions as the Broadcasting Foundation ofAmerica and NET itself -they are able to enjoysuperior concerts and dramatic performances,many of them produced abroad, and madeavailable through film and tape. There is littleroom for such programs on commercial television today; there is not enough room for it inPublic Broadcasting, so long as the latter remainsan over-the-air operation. It is not hard tounderstand why the Chicago television viewer166has had relatively little chance to see a performance from the Old Vic, a scientific symposiumat MIT, or a distant event less sensational thanthe World Series or a moon launch. Such featureshave been difficult and expensive to transmit"live" (or on "live time") except via the networks, equally difficult and expensive to film,and should they arrive, in whatever way, at oneof Chicago's VHF channels, there is no particular reason to believe that they would be selectedfor broadcast in preference to more widely popular programing.Today, however, live intercommunication, using other than network resources, is an entirelyrealistic prospect. Videotape recording, far lessexpensive and more manageable than film, is anactuality. Satellite and other forms of cable television could allow the programs thus acquired toreach every interested viewer in a city like Chicago. In effect, "intercommunication" brings tothe head-end of the cable system a far greaterrange of materials for transmission than any conventional broadcasting station currently enjoys.4. New, diversified communications uses. Wehave become accustomed to thinking of radio andtelevision as "mass media," employed to communicate with a public that remains relativelygeneral and undefined. As has been suggested,CATV clearly invites much greater fragmentation and precision in defining a public and inprograming for it. Beyond this, however, cablesystems and attendant intercommunication canbe employed for purposes not customarily associated with the idea of "broadcasting." Some ofthese are particularly suggestive for academicinstitutions. New systems, for example, will permit efficient visual transmission of data anddocuments. (In a recent conversation, Mr. RobertButton of the Communications Satellite Corporation particularly stressed the capacity of satellitesto assist in such transmission and the importanceof this fact for libraries and research enterprises.)Within communities served by cable systems, avariety of relatively ad hoc services may be supplied: individual instruction of many kinds;responses to requests for specific information;the facilities for meeting acute, novel, and highlyparticular problems affecting the community'shealth or security or economic welfare. Of evengreater interest to a university is the possibilityof employing the new systems for research ofvarious kinds— into the circumstances, needs, andattitudes of particular committees, and into thepower of the media to affect the situationsthus identified. Thus, for example, it has been suggested that a University-controlled cable system (or, more realistically, channel or time-allotment) could permit broad but intensive investigation into the character of a contiguouscommunity like Woodlawn. Cable communication to— and to a large extent by— members ofsuch a community might shed unique light onproblems and interests and opinions and could,in the light of such information, also discoverfar more than is currently known about theactual or potential character of telecommunication as a social force.Applications like the foregoing would obviously be substantially richer and more flexible ifthey were to include two-way communication.As I have indicated, the financial-cum-technicalproblems of developing audio and/or video returnsystems are formidable; while the advent of suchservice cannot be ignored as a possibility, it cannot, in my judgment, be regarded as a naturalaccompaniment to the growth, however massive,of cable systems themselves. On the other hand,so-called "digital return" (push-button transmission of an electronic signal to indicate a yes-or-noresponse) is far more practical— and is alreadywidely employed today, frequently for purposesof instruction in closed-circuit systems. The usefulness of digital responses for relatively formaltesting and training are obvious. So, too, is themanner in which, in conjunction with computerslocated at the head end, they can be used for thecollection and processing of facts and opinionssupplied by individual viewers.To my inexpert eye, at least, there is no technical reason why all of the systems and servicesI have mentioned (and which are abundantlyexpanded upon in many published discussions)cannot soon be achieved. In fact, almost all ofthem have, on some scale or other, already beenachieved. We are talking about a technology thathas already arrived; perhaps our very certaintythat it has arrived underscores our uncertainty asto how it will be put to use.Late in 1971 the Sloan Commission on CableCommunications published its report, On theCable: The Television of Abundance. Among itsother accomplishments, the report ventured aprediction as to the anticipated growth of cabletelevision. It was a qualified prediction in that itwas said to rest on two assumptions: the first(held to be "plausible") is that there will be little alteration in the technology of cable televisionduring the decade of the seventies; the second("by no means a foregone conclusion") is that167in the same period, "the recommendations of the[Sloan] commission will be heeded" and thedevelopment of CATV will be restricted neitherby acts of Congress nor by FCC regulations (Onthe Cable, pp. 36-37).Yet, having made these and several other professions of possible fallibility, the Commissionwent on to produce the following statement,prominent in its "General Conclusions":The Commission believes that by the end ofthe decade a cable television system will be inexistence which covers 40 to 60 percent of allAmerican television homes; which provides ina majority of instances a capacity of fortychannels or more; which possesses a limitedcapacity for return signals from the home receiver back to the point of transmission; andwhich will be extensively interconnected, mostprobably by satellite. . . [pp. 173-174] .Other observations about the future of CATVhave been advanced more cautiously. At roughlythe same time that the Sloan Commission madeits report, the John and Mary Markle Foundation, which for several years has been deeplycommitted to investigating the educational usesof communications technology, issued its AnnualReport for 1971-72. In a concise but intelligentessay on the advent and prospects of CATV (notin most respects at odds with the Sloan report)the President of the Foundation observed:Cable television will require enormous a-mounts of capital if it is to provide service toeven those most densely populated areas. Estimates have been made of capital requirementsup to 10 billion dollars over the next decadeto wire 50 percent of the nation. This hugeinvestment will be made neither quickly norautomatically. A decade or more is likely topass before cable television begins to supplantbroadcast, or over-the-air, television. Duringthis period of transition millions of peoplewill have to be convinced to buy cable television in order to obtain its benefits, andpolicy-makers will be hard pressed to structure the industry so that the potential benefits are assured [p. 5] .There is obviously some contrast between thetwo statements— both in the confidence withwhich they anticipate the growth of cable television and in the identification of the factors bywhich that growth is most likely to be impeded.Nevertheless, as the contexts from which the twostatements are drawn make very clear, both are prepared to assume the substantial growth ofCATV in the next decade and to concern themselves with the problems, not of achievinggrowth, but of what growth implies. This assumption and concern are implicit in the title ofthe Markle Foundation President's Essay: "CableTV: Can More Be Better?" They are made quiteclear in the concluding paragraph of the Sloanreport, which characterizes CATV as "an impressive new instrument of communication," onewhich "it remains for society to employ. . .wiselyand well."These documents-and others like them— suggest two things to those who think seriously andsubstantively about the uses of CATV. The firstis that, however circumspect, one simply has toassume very substantial growth in the use andavailability of CATV; if one does not accept suchan assumption, then discussion of its promise andpower is largely a hollow exercise. The secondsuggestion is that, since the precise speed andmagnitude of that growth can certainly not beanticipated, we had better relax somewhat aboutthem— and certainly be cautious about commitments based on a time-table of developmentabout which there is wide disagreement.While it is commonly argued that CATV canprovide programing superior to that we havehitherto enjoyed, discussion of the uses of thenew systems is largely "procedural." One infersfrom most of it that at least the first step in usingthem wisely and well is to see that they are usedsystematically and equitably. This is not surprising, for the frequent disorder and inequityof traditional broadcasting hover over the newmedium, not only as dismal examples but as actual threats to its proper development. Thisseemed clear in an address made by Ralph LeeSmith (at the time, staff assistant to the SloanCommission) before the Beardsley Ruml Colloquium^ held at The University of Chicago in February 1971. The coming of the new technology,said Smith,. . . .obviously raises all kinds of issues andaffects all kinds of established interests. Broadcasters see their oligolopy of U.S. television,and of the viewing audiences they deliver toadvertisers, seriously threatened. Suppliers ofprogram material have a lot to think aboutand a lot to do if they are not going to be leftbehind in a competition with more imaginative suppliers of material for the new medium.And the nation itself must ponder how muchof cable's potential will be lost if the mediumis permitted to develop solely in response to168the considerations of profit. Which of thecable's vast social uses might thereby beslighted? How important are these uses? Whatpublic and civic action may be needed to assure that the great potential of cable is notlost, in the way that so much of the potentialof over-the-air television was lost, throughlack of an adequate national effort at planning? How can most, or all, U.S. homes bewired? Who will own the Wired Nation, andwhat effect will this ownership have on whatis transmitted? These are some of the issuesraised by the coming of cable to America.The thrust of this statement— and of others likeit, including some at the same colloquium— is toattach top priority to questions of policy and to"a national effort at planning" of a sort that waslargely missing in the developing days of radioand conventional TV. And such "progress" as hasbeen made in the development of CATV in thepast 18 months reflects such an effort, beingapparently designed to foster the growth of themedium under conditions of fairness, regularity,and relative freedom.Two of the most significant attempts of thiskind have been the Sloan Commission report(now widely available in paper-back) and thelengthy set of rules governing cable television,released by the Federal Communications Commission in February 1972 (a summary of thelatter is attached at Appendix II to this Reportand is available from the Office of the President). The documents obviously differ; theSloan report is not only prescriptive but, to adegree, prophetic and hortatory. The FCC (apparently accepting the Sloan recommendationsas to the role to be assumed by the federal government) provides regulations which seek, insome detail, to govern minimum service requirements, "exclusivity," technical standards, and theprocedures in the securement and operation offranchises. In both there is a manifest concernfor the free development of the new systems,with a minimum of encumbrance both fromregulatory requirements and from undue monopolistic interpretations with respect to ownershipand copyright. Against relative freedom, theSloan Commission firmly balances recommendations for regulating, in the interest of broadening,ownership and/or access to cable facilities. TheFCC, while specifying some minimum standardsand procedures for franchising, characteristicallyimplies that the public will be properly served ifeach viewer is guaranteed the maximum diversity(if not the quality) of program choices from the cable facility he enjoys.Despite these elaborate statements (and innumerable other studies, discussions, arguments,and actions), the state of cable television is confusing to a degree not even suggested by RalphLee Smith's questions. In effect, we know almostnothing more than we did several years ago aboutwho is going to own CATV (as it reaches somesort of "maturity") or what is going to be carriedon it. Beyond rules and guide-lines of a verygeneral sort, the FCC has made one ruling-inNovember 1971 -calculated to have an immediate effect on existent CATV systems: cablesystems are now authorized to offer "big city"viewers two broadcasts originating from out-of-town, as The New York Times remarked, in the50 largest cities, "copyright restrictions willgreatly narrow" the choice of such imports.Cable systems apparently continue to come intoexistence (the Sloan report's estimate of 2,500serving about 5 million subscribers appearedconservative even in 1971), but they are a wildlymixed bag; Akron, Ohio, reportedly has a 64channel system in operation or quasi-operation,while there are others offering only the conventional four or five channels, obviously not including channels for public access or even for"cable origination" of any sort.A principal difficulty arises out of the questionof franchises and the authority for their grantingand regulation. The Sloan report recognizes thepresent difficulties— and past disasters— in thisarea, recommends the establishment of federalstandards (along lines subsequently pursued inthe FCC regulations of 1972), but indicates thatauthority for defining and granting particularfranchises be vested in the state, which may"delegate major portions of their powers tomajor cities within the state, in conformity withordinary 'home rule' procedures." And in theFCC regulations, as our attached summary says:"Generally, the whole matter of franchising hasbeen left to the localities with some guide-linesset down by the Commission."I cannot say whether such recommendationsrepresent the best— or perhaps the only feasible-way of dealing with franchising. It would appear,however, that in the case of Chicago, this policyhas contributed to a frustrating and confusingstate of affairs. As I understand it, there is acolorful abundance of prospective seekers offranchises. At the same time, however, beyondthe fact that franchise applications actually received by the city council have been turnedover to Alderman Paul Wigoda of the Subcom-169mittee on Miscellaneous Affairs, we are in a stateof bewilderment. We do not know the identity orconstitution of the franchising authority; we donot know its jurisdiction, geographical or otherwise; we do not know the number of cable systems to be authorized— they will be distributed.And, of course, beyond the general guide-lineslaid down by the FCC, we remain in total ignorance as to the criteria by which such franchisesare to be awarded and controlled. It may be thatin this very confusion there is a special opportunity, to be seized by the far-sighted and dedicated. But seizing it, I think, would involvepolitical and financial engagements quite beyondmy competence to discuss. I suspect they mightalso lie beyond the competence and concern ofthe University and its faculty.Speaking before the same Beardsley RumlColloquium to which I have already referred, thecontroversial Irving Kahn told the assembly: "Asa leading educational institution, and as educators and thinkers in this field, I hope you willinvolve yourself not so much in consideringwhether you should own the business, but howyou can improve education— which is your business—by learning how to utilize these tools."Mr. Kahn's message, strongly reminiscent ofthe sentiments of commercial broadcasting executives over the decades, has, I think, somebearing on this essay. For it implies three choicesthat are open to us. We can, in the first place,reject Mr. Kahn and indeed do battle with him,seeking to own or control the "business," or asignificant portion of it. The idea is attractive;many— perhaps most— educators might be bettercustodians of the media than Mr. Kahn or a goodmany of his colleagues. Nor is the idea wildlyvisionary; public and private agencies devoted toeducational and other benevolent uses of broadcasting (not only the Corporation for PublicBroadcasting, but such groups as the Associationof Educational Communications and Technology,the joint Council on Educational Telecommunications, and the NAEB) enjoy influence andfinancial power, and it is quite possible that aunified movement could turn even a major portion of the new media to pub he, non-commercialuses. It can be argued that The University of Chicago might well participate in the service of suchan important cause, but, as frequently in thisessay, I am compelled to wonder just what theUniversity would do if it had a share in "owningthe business."A second possibility is to play the game as Mr.Kahn clearly wants it played— as, in fact, we have generally played it when we have "utilized thetools" provided by the broadcasting industry onits own terms. Mr. Kahn (who confesses that hehad only three or four teachers who permenentlyimpressed him) would like to "take the giftedprofessor and expose him to thousands and thousands of students . . . ." This kind of mass"exposure" of the rare bird in our midst has, for30 years, most commonly represented the relationship between education and broadcasting—the way in which these enterprises reciprocally"utilize" one another. In my judgment, it is arelationship that has had few effects on education or on broadcasting. Nor am I persuaded thatthe effects will be much more impressive if thenew technology encourages us only to providethe same medicine in greatly increased doses.But Mr. Kahn's words suggest— although notdeliberately, I suspect— a third possibility. Weought, indeed, to ask ourselves how we can "improve education"— and research— by using newtools of communication, for communication iscentral to our calling. But these need not be thetools cherished by Mr. Kahn or even by theSloan Commission. There are new techniques inaudio-visual communication which, even now,are being widely used in our educational "business." They merit attention, not only becausethey seem far closer to our educational concernsthan does the "gifted professor's" appearance onCATV but because it is through them, ratherthan through political struggle and policy-making, that, in my opinion, we shall gain whateveraccess we genuinely want to the public media ofcommunication.To those of us who worked with television inits early days, videotape remains something of amiracle. In fact, veterans of radio broadcastingstill have much the same impression about thecoming of audio-tape recording. In both instances, broadcasting was initially an entirely"live" undertaking. If recording was required (forarchives or written transcripts, or, very infrequently, for rebroadcast), it was cumbersome,expensive, and of uncertain quality: in the caseof radio, it meant disc recording; television, untilabout 1957, had only kinescope film. In radio,the advent of tape-recording was revolutionary,and for obvious reasons. It meant that virtuallyany kind of sound could be recorded, withgreat fidelity, in virtually any location. It meantthat any program could be "re-done," in wholeor part, edited, mated with a limitless diversityof other recorded materials. It meant that the170finished product was a compact roll of tapewhich could be shipped anywhere and playedback repeatedly, for transmission or otherwiseon simple, portable equipment. And, of course,audiotape today has countless non-broadcastuses— conspicuous among them being teaching ofmany kinds.Videotape is a very recent development, evenwithin the short history of television, for it hasactually been with us for a shorter time thancoaxial cable. Until three years ago, videotaperequired complex, expensive, stationary equipment, and even in commercial television, mobileand "remote" broadcast materials were recordedon conventional film.But today videotape can be recorded on equipment that is entirely portable, simple in operation, and as flexible as sound-recording— andcosting only a small fraction of what was required for the larger stationary units. It enjoysmost of the advantages of audio-tape recording,in addition to the capacity for "instant replay"and slow or arrested motion. Like sound-tape, itis not only a commonplace in broadcasting but isbeing put to use in extensive ways that havenothing to do with broadcasting at all.Videotape continues to undergo technical development, and, at this stage, there are those whoprefer to work with conventional film. Amongtheir reasons for this choice are the comparativedifficulty of editing magnetic tape in the one-quarter and one-half inch forms employed byportable equipment; the problem of convertingmaterials recorded on such equipment into theone- or two-inch tape required for broadcast;and the rapid and somewhat unpredictable development of videotape technology itself whichtends to discourage investment in equipment thatmay soon become obsolete.But videotape is far more than a "promising"technology. It is both a technical and a practicalactuality, already being put to massive use inbroadcasting, industry, and various forms ofeducation. It is substantially less expensive thanfilm. It can be produced as easily as film; it canbe displayed and viewed under more flexible,comfortable circumstances than film; unlike film,it incorporates sound as an inseparable part ofthe recording; its adherents claim for it a more"volumetric" image than that of film.If academic people think seriously about theprospects of cable television, it is, I believe, offirst importance that they recognize not only its"abundance" and the possibility of "fragmentation," but the fact that most of the materials it carries will probably be pre-recorded and thatvideotape is the most obvious device for suchrecording. For video-tape will allow the recording of audio-visual materials with all of— perhapsmore than— the ease and flexibility with whichaudiotape is now produced. Its employment bythose who are not professional broadcasters-who, for instance, are academic people— will notrequire appearance at a studio or other speciallocation or a departure from ordinary roles andactivities. It will mean, in principle at least, thatvirtually nothing we do or say-or find interesting in what other people do or say— cannot berecorded and made available for viewing andlistening.Videotape, therefore, seems an inherent, majordimensions in the development of cable television.But, as I have already indicated, it has alreadyachieved a robust, independent actuality whichhas no necessary connection with public broadcasting, whether by cable or over the air. Thisbecomes apparent when we consider the way itis already being employed by many (perhapsmost) academic institutions. Discussions, interviews, experiments, an incalculable diversity ofphysical and social phenomena are recorded ontape— as, of course, are many kinds of printed,written, or filmed materials. Some of theserecordings are finding their way to various "extramural" publics— through over-the-air or cabletransmission. More of them, however, are beingprimarily applied to what I call "intramural" or"intraprofessional" uses. They are being directlyplayed-back to students and others who haveparticipated in or witnessed the events they record. They are being transmitted on closed circuit for viewing by interested persons within theinstitution or outside it. They are being shippedfor use by other institutions and audiences. Andthey are being accumulated and catalogued, likebooks or films, in depositories from which theycan be drawn freely in the future.Apart from questions of "compatibility"(which are being overcome and which it is in thepower of manufacturers to eliminate completely), videotape can be enjoyed by any one whohas an ordinary television receiver with the relatively minor auxiliary equipment required for theuse of the videotape cassette. Neither the cassettenor the equipment required for its use is anymore complicated than the sound-cassettes, nowso widely in use for entertainment and variouskinds of instruction. The production and employment of such materials bears very littledirect relation to broadcasting. A closer analogy171is obviously with film -although the relativeeconomy and simplicity, both of production and"reception," of tape should be kept in mind.Perhaps the most stimulating comparison, in fact,is with the publication and distribution of printed books. Tape allows the production of audiovisual materials, in durable form, designed for arather specific, educable audience. (Of course itlikewise holds out-through the possibility ofbroadcasting, cable transmission, or the extensivedistribution of cassettes— that hope of reaching alarger public which, I suspect, the authors of evenvery "specialized" works occasionally cherish.)Unlike the transient "appearances" involved inbroadcasting, it invites the deliberate creation ofwork, permanently capable of communicating tothose who choose to consult it for, while a singletape cannot be re-played indefinitely, it can always be re-recorded. In these respects, tape obviously resembles film— over which, however, ithas the advantages of economy and of the simplicity and flexibility with which it can be recorded and, in particular, exhibited.Where taped materials are produced underacademic auspices, they could, I think, be issuedand distributed along the lines traditionally followed by publishers. They can be "published"serially or as parts of larger editorial enterprises;they can be accompanied by appropriate printedmaterials; they can be subscribed to, stored,catalogued, circulated on loan. Beyond this, thetechnical character of tape may allow new modesof distribution. It is reported, for instance, that itis possible for retail outlets (for example, bookstores) to provide a purchaser with a blank tapecassette; he can then select the particular production he wants from a large list, insert theblank in a recording machine and press the appropriate button; the desired material will thenbe instantly recorded on the tape from a"master," either within the machine or operating,via cable, from a remote central location. (Itshould also be admitted that the ease with whichvideotape can be recorded by anyone with theproper equipment offers opportunities for "piracy"— and hence raises legal and economic questions—which I am incapable of discussing butwhich may certainly shape or inhibit the commercial development of this medium.)Like cable or television or the printing press,videotape is simply a device— excitingly versatilebut intrinsically neutral, permitting its users todetermine whether it will serve them "wisely andwell." But unlike television, tape is a devicewhich, I think, we academics can think about with considerable comfort and confidence. It canbe employed modestly and briefly for limitedpurposes in the conduct of classroom teaching orresearch. It invites us to "create" and do so underproper and congenial academic circumstances. Itcan lend rigor to the word "communication," forit permits us to be quite specific about whomwe are communicating with and for what purpose. Like the devices with which we duplicate the written word, it can be an integral partof our "business." And if, as is sometimes true ofour written words, our audiovisual productionsseem to merit wider and more lasting attention,today's technology makes this entirely possible.It is likely that the great majority of Americancolleges and universities today include projectsin audiovisual communication— permanent programs, centers, departments— as integral parts ofthe academic enterprise. This is not surprising—for it is not new. For years many of these institutions have been committed to broadcasting ofsome kind; more of them, recognizing the usefulness of audiovisual materials for instruction,have, at the least, maintained repositories forfilm, slide, sound-recorded materials, equipmentfor their operation, and literature associated withtheir employment. (As I indicate in my first section, there is probably good reason why TheUniversity of Chicago has made no genuinelyacademic commitment to broadcasting; its failureto provide simple, central facilities for the intramural use of audiovisual materials is another matter and, as the canvass reported in my next section reveals, a source of some chagrin to many ofour colleagues.)To the opportunities of the new technology,these institutions are responding with some energy—although in widely diversified ways and withextremely uneven results. Actual operation of acable system— or substantial, regular access toone— is clearly a possibility, the implications ofwhich have been interestingly explored by J. S.Miles of Purdue University ("Report on a Surveyof CATV-MATV-TV Distribution Systems at Colleges and Universities," Purdue University, 1972).Such a system can be limited to the exploitation, as subscribers and producers, of an existingcable system. A characteristic use of this kind,for example, is reported from Oregon State University, where the local cable system provides,in addition to the full range of "over-the-air"commercial programing, three channels for educational use, together with associated FM programing carried by cable. In consequence, the172University is able to communicate extensivelyto audiences beyond its walls and also to expedite its own teaching program with the equivalent of an elaborate closed-circuit system ofteaching. Where (as in such cases as Wisconsin,Michigan, Kansas, or Oklahoma) state universitieshave long employed their own facilities to provide major broadcasting services to large geographical areas, cable can be employed to augment, extend, and "fragment" the communication traditionally provided. And it is obviouslypossible that a college or university can exclusively own and operate its own cable system— as ispresumably the case at Harvard, where a cablesystem originally installed some five years ago hasrecently been "activated." Neither the news-stories initially reporting this decision nor any infor-tion I have been able to obtain from Cambridgemakes clear how this facility is to be used: itspart-time transmission of a few local events and acatalogue of rather unimaginative "possibilities"fall somewhat short of the rich possibilities described by CATV enthusiasts. It seems rather clearthat as "consumers" of cable TV, members of anacademic community can profit a good deal— tosome extent through the "closed-circuit" possibilities of such an installation but primarily, aswould be true of cable subscribers to CATV ofany sort, through access to "imported" materialsnot otherwise available. As producers, as creators,of audiovisual materials, however, colleges anduniversities face an entirely different set of problems. The question remains: if a university likeChicago were to own a cable system, what wouldit do with it?The answer to this question will come, in myopinion, not from those who hasten to installcable on the basis of conviction as to its "potential" but from those who, in relative indifference to ultimate audiences and modes of transmission, are actively engaged in producing audiovisual materials for immediate, well-specifieduses. This is the case, for example, with ourneighbors at Illinois Circle Campus. Here anadmirably equipped and staffed "Resources Center" is engaged in the production, custody, anddistribution of a wide diversity of audiovisualmaterials— conspicuously including film and tape.The university is engaged in a small amount ofbroadcasting, but the Center is frankly and almost entirely devoted to meeting audiovisualneeds as they are expressed by faculty membersin the conduct of their professional jobs. Andeven in institutions where there is greater emphasis on broadcasting or the production of recorded material for audiences in various ways"public," the function of audiovisual centers ismost often seen as "curricular."From conferences, interviews, and the inspection of published materials concerned with theacademic use of audiovisual materials, I havedrawn two general conclusions— with which, Ithink, the Committee who assisted me wouldgenerally concur. They are as follows:1. Where film and tape are most interestinglyand profitably employed for education, they areno longer mere "audiovisual aids." Traditionallythese materials have largely been relied on forauxiliary purposes— "enrichment" or clarification—or as actual substitutes for the process of"live" teaching when, presumably, they couldsupply talent and resources not otherwise available in the classroom.Today's most innovative audiovisual materialsare, on the other hand, authentic "documents,"objects in themselves of primary scrutiny and investigation as data, as evidence, as models, as thematerials toward which learning itself is directed.Our Committee, for example, was particularlyimpressed by Mr. Temaner's description of a filmseries produced for a course that had to do withpeople's conduct at conventions of various kinds.The films "were" the course. Here it was theprinted materials, providing such particulars orabstractions as were not susceptible to audiovisual recording, that were "aids"; it was fromthe filmed activities of the conventioneers thatall relevant inferences were to be drawn.It is my impression that those academic peoplewho take audiovisual communications with thegreatest seriousness do so precisely because suchmaterials form the "primary" objects of theirinquiry and teaching. This is clear in the case ofthose humanists for whom film represents a complex, mature, and authentic form of art. It islikewise clear in the case of those behavioralscientists for whom film and tape provide auniquely flexible yet faithful record of humanbehavior. And it is true wherever anything ofrelevance is to be learned from the direct scrutinyof processes. And even for those of us whoseteaching and investigation do not centrally callfor audiovisual materials, it is true— and moreoften than most of us are accustomed to realize-wherever we encounter phenomena that are bestseen and/or heard, rather than merely describedor read about.2. In talk about audiovisual communication, itis fashionable to distinguish between "hardware"and "software." The former term applies to the173equipment necessary for the recording, transmission, and reception of AV materials; thelatter refers to the programing, the substance, ofthe communication. There is substantial evidencethat, in a great number of schools where AV iscommanding much attention, hardware is considerably ahead of software. From three majorinstitutions which have invested a great deal inaudiovisual equipment (including some cable)and technical expertise, I have had unofficialreports of grave disatisfaction with both thequality and quantity of available programing. Theproblem suggests Robert Hutchin's comment oflong ago: "The trouble with educational broadcasting is that the programs are no good." Although I have just spoken of basic innovations inthe way audiovisual materials are used, these usesstill appear exceptional. Perhaps we should notbe surprised at this. There are many excellentlyfunctioning university presses— if presses were asinexpensive as audiovisual centers, there wouldbe more— but they do not necessarily publishgood books. Possibly programs are not very goodbecause the educational institutions that producethem are not very good.I am not entirely certain why the Sloan Commission report is very perfunctory in discussingthe educational uses of cable, but I suspect thatit is, in part at least, because the commissionrecognized that such cases are truly the educator's "business"— if they are any one's. In thehistory of radio and television, many universities—including, at times, our own— were reluctantto make broadcasting their business. There isnothing magical about cable or tape that automatically weds them to the educational processor— barring some kind of McCluhanite inevitability—relieves us from deciding what, if anything,we should do about them.Our question is whether audiovisual communications, in some aspect or another, are really TheUniversity of Chicago's business— whether, moreparticularly, they are the business of the University's faculty and a genuine dimension of itsacademic undertakings. For I have already written of the possibility of service to a more massivepublic as a possibility for Chicago, but I have expressed belief that this task should be viewed as afacet of the University's administrative conduct-peripheral or accidental with respect to the proper concerns of the faculty.But, as I have tried to suggest in the foregoingparagraphs, it is possible that, in some forms,audiovisual communication is central to oursustained professional concerns, that many of us are indeed producing "software," whether or notwe call it that, and that such activities in ourmidst call for attention and support— not onlybecause they may promise to extend the impactof our work, but because they are integral to thework itself. These are possibilities we have triedto examine, with some results I shall discuss inmy next section.III. Audiovisual Communication at the UniversityI hope the preceding two sections make clear thereasons for placing central emphasis on the interests, activities, and plans of the University'sfaculty members with respect to audiovisualcommunications. The present situation of thenew technologies may call for direct exploitationby the University— through, for instance, ownership or major participation in cable, cassette"publication," or a much revised, expanded program of public broadcasting; such a decision,however, calls for wisdom and prophetic powerfar beyond the competence of the present writer,his advisory committee, or any of the authoritieswe have had occasion to consult.What was concluded, however, quite early inour deliberations, was that it was important tobe informed about the "preparedness" of theUniversity's faculty, should administrative policydictate greatly increased access to the new (orold) communications technologies. We have,that is, been repeatedly advised that our immediate concern should be with "software"— with thetalent and ideas and productive skills which(along with certain basic technical equipment andability) can produce audiovisual materials, flexibly available in film or tape for whatever kind ofdistribution becomes practical, profitable, andrelevant to our educational mission.Our basic question asked whether there was—or could be or should be— such preparednessamong our colleagues on the faculty. It seemedentirely possible that we would discover pervasive, and possibly well-founded, indifference toaudiovisual communication as having little bearing on the appropriate activities of this particularUniversity. It also seemed possible that we wouldencounter a far greater interest in broadcastingeither in its traditional form or in the formspromised by the new technologies, than has, inrecent years at least, been readily discernible.And, finally, it seemed possible (and since this isactually what we seem to have discovered, I cannot pretend that it was a total surprise) thatmany of our colleagues, though quite indifferent174to "public" communication as conventionallyconceived, would reveal a genuine, informedconcern for various, essentially academic, uses ofaudiovisual materials.The Committee therefore concluded that acanvass of faculty opinion with respect toaudiovisual possibilities in academic pursuits wasan important— indeed a basic— step in the compilation of the present Report. I shall presentlyhave something to say about that canvass and itsresults. But it has also seemed to me that, sinceI had been asked to write on what the Universityas a whole might do in the light of actual or possible new technologies in audiovisual communications, I should consider the possibilities inherentin certain parts of the University which are notessentially faculty enterprises but which have agreat deal to do with "communication" withinthe University and/or beyond it. These elementsin the University are the Office of Radio-TV, thestudent FM station, the Library, and the University Press— and having (either by myself or in thecompany of my Committee) conducted someinvestigation into each of them, I want to brieflymention them in the light of anticipated developments and present needs in audiovisual technology.I have already had something to say about thehistory of the Office of Radio-Television and itspresent conduct under the Office of the Vice-President for Public Affairs. The prospect of expanded activity in the production of audiovisualmaterials finds the Office in a relatively "prepared" position in at least three respects: (1) astaff which, presently at least, includes peoplewho are technically expert and innovative andwho possess some sensitivity to potential resources for programing within the Universitycommunity; (2) technical equipment which isgood as to sound-recording and, as to video-tape,minimally acceptable (although little known toand hence little used by most faculty) and can bebuilt on in appropriate increments as circumstances warrant; (3) awareness of developmentsand opportunities in the general field of telecommunications. Against these advantages, it must besaid, the Office is handicapped by (1) a limitedbudget which— assuming its present activities areregarded as worth retaining— invites no expansionwhatever; and (2) some remoteness from thecharacteristic interests and enterprises of most ofthe faculty -and certainly of the faculty who donot, although they well might, actively participate in recording and broadcasting for the pub-He. The Office, in effect, is an adequate instru ment for the public-relations exploitation ofbroadcasting media as those uses are currentlyconceived; should those uses be redefined andexpanded, it is entirely possible that, by retainingits present character and augmenting its staffand facilities, the Office could continue to represent all or most of the University's official participation in telecommunications. If, however,with new technologies there is also new interestin audiovisual media as elements in the academicactivities of the faculty— if, in effect, the facultyis genuinely to be served by these media— then Ithink some thought should be given to the roleof the Office of Radio-TV. If it were to continuelargely to perform functions of publicity andpublic service, then it would appear that someseparate University agency would be requiredto meet faculty needs. If the Office were reorganized and expanded to take such needs intoaccount, then, I should think, a substantial degree of faculty control would be in order.I have also spoken of the student FM radiostation, WHPK. It is (with some minimal andbenevolent faculty supervision) entirely a studententerprise— and hence, like other student undertakings, subject to the vicissitudes of a "transient" staff and the ebb and flow of availabletalent and interest. Its programing has not, overthe years, endeared it to the adult community,and we have discovered few faculty memberswho take it very seriously or regard it as morethan an outlet, innocuous or otherwise, for student energies.Perhaps it should be taken more seriously. Ithas, from time to time, employed and encouraged students of real ability in various broadcasting techniques— and the Office of Radio-TVhas on occasion drawn upon the talents of suchpeople. It is well known that the University,which of course offers no formal curriculartraining in journalism or the theater, has produced an astonishing number of successful journalists and theatrical people— perhaps becausecampus journalism and theater, while entirelyextra-curricular, proceed in a general atmosphereof hospitality and enthusiasm. Of course WHPK—like the Maroon for that matter-has given manyof us some infuriating moments; I do not,however, think that these experiences warrantcontinuing faculty indifference or disdain towardan activity which can be highly creative andwhich, moreover, may have some bearing on thequestions considered in the present essay.For WHPK provides a model of sorts, as a University-controlled broadcasting medium with an175entirely local audience (one which, in geographical distribution and composition may bear someanalogy to the audience on a cable system orchannel). Professor Gunnar Hallinberg— an authority on audiovisual media and a director of theSwedish national broadcasting system— has spoken to me with special enthusiasm of the localtopicality of broadcasts carried over WHPK. If theUniversity were to become involved in cabletransmission, it would be wrong, in my view, toignore the talents and experience represented byWHPK, even though it were to remain entirelya student undertaking. And with suitable interest and support, it might— as has recently beentrue of University Theater— become somethingmore than a student activity, ultimately emergingas a University-sponsored enterprise, serving boththe campus and a much larger community.A third area of the University to be kept inmind with respect to new audiovisual technologies is the Library. I am told that libraries andlibrary scientists are in strong disagreementover the responsibility of libraries for audiovisualmaterials— their production, custody, and distribution. As our Committee's discussion withProfessor Lester Asheim revealed, there are somelibrary scientists for whom film— viewed as art ordocument— has long seemed an important objectof the librarian's concern. There are some libraries—including academic ones— in which records,films, and taped materials are as legitimate a partof the library's holdings as are printed materials.This does not seem to have been true of TheUniversity of Chicago libraries. In some instances, audiovisual materials are in the custodyof departmental libraries (records and soundtapes in Music; slides in Art) but the responsibilities of the University library system do notappear to include a central, generally accessiblerepository of audiovisual material. Even the excellent recorded collection of modern poetry,formerly housed in Harper as an adjunct of theModern Poetry Reading Room, seems mysteriously to have gone underground in the move toRegenstein.Despite various theoretical arguments for theextension of library custody to audiovisual materials (based on broad definitions of "information retrieval" functions, on analogies betweenprinted and recorded materials, and on variouslively speculations as to the electronic future),I see no reason for urging a priori that The University of Chicago libraries assume responsibilitiesfor audiovisual materials. What does seem clear-and is confirmed by our faculty canvass- is that custody of such materials is at present annoying-ly diffuse and unsystematic. Disregarding developing uses of videotape and considering only suchtraditional devices as film, phonograph records,slides, and sound-tape, ownership or control ofthese materials and equipment for their use isfound in individuals, departments, departmentallibraries, administrative agencies. Users of suchmaterials for quite conventional purposes-playing records, projecting movies, showing slides—repeatedly informed our Committee of the difficulties attendant on such simple procedures. Thefact is that commonplace but important uses ofaudiovisual media (and certainly production ofmaterials for these media) have been impeded atThe University of Chicago by the failure to provide central, readily, and uniformly accessiblesources for their storage and distribution. As onefaculty member remarked, The University ofChicago teacher continues to lack ready access toaudiovisual facilities which, for the past 30 years,have been assumed to be among the resources ofeven the most mediocre academic institutions.A library acquires, catalogues, circulates, andfacilitates the use of materials which are basic toteaching and research— and it is supposed to doso authoritatively and. for the benefit of all relevant parts of the academic community. If, asmany of our colleagues believe, audiovisualmaterials are basic to teaching and research, theydeserve precisely this sort of provision. Thelibrary may not, at The University of Chicago, bethe agency to achieve this, but it is, at the least, asuggestive model.The fourth agency of the University whichcalls for special, if brief, attention is the University Press. I think it is of great importance thatthe Press be closely involved in any future explorations into the University's use of the newtechnologies. In principle, any academic pressmight logically have something to say about theproduction of audiovisual materials that, as Ihave suggested, bear useful analogies with printedbooks. Whether such materials are destined forbroadcasting of various kinds or for more limiteduses in cassette form, they are, in a sense, "published" and their production and distributionmay well be shaped by the experience of publishers.There are, moreover, several reasons why thecharacter of The University of Chicago Press mayprove of particular value in the exploitation ofnew audiovisual possibilities. It has, in the firstplace, been closely related to— and so to a considerable extent governed by— the faculty of the176University; its publications are either the work offaculty members or reflect the judgments of afaculty board. It has, in the second place, beenremarkably successful in making such work available to appropriate "publics"— ranging from veryspecial and highly professional readers (whom,most recently, it is beginning to serve throughthe means of micro-fiche publication) to thenation-wide audience which certain generallyinteresting yet highly authoritative books are ableto command. And finally, executives of thePress have already displayed an informed, livelyinterest in extending the activities of their organization into the field of audiovisual communication.In considering the use at the University ofaudiovisual materials, we have suggested that acentral repository of some kind make such materials and equipment generally available. Withrespect to the production of these materials,some similar central agency seems equally desirable. Professors interested in creating audiovisualworks, can obviously profit by the presence ofsome sort of center devoted to expertness inproduction and editing and effectiveness in distribution; and the University, in turn, will profitwhere such works, published as institutionalproducts, do credit to the imagination and wisdom of the school. And, on the other hand,since audiovisual production is likely to becomeas simple a process as mimeographing, some sortof institutional control seems highly desirable.An audiovisual center— connected with 01 anala-gous to the University Press— seems an appropriate agency for assuring that, however individualfaculty members decide to produce and distribute tapes, the University's imprimatur willaccompany only those productions that reflectthe standards of the University's faculty.Executives of the Press— and in particular,Mr. Phil Jones— have in fact explored the promiseof tape-cassette more thoroughly than has anyone connected with the present essay. It seemsto me entirely possible that initiative for theUniversity's production of this kind of materialwill be taken by the Press— and it also seems entirely appropriate that this should be the case. Atpresent such an undertaking is confronted bytechnical difficulties and some imponderablelegal and financial questions. But even at thisstage, there is a robust possibility for the production of cassettes— perhaps in conjunction withbooks— that will reflect and implement the educational concerns of the University quite asdirectly as do the books published by the Uni versity Press. If, as I hope, the University initiates some kind of center for the use and production of audiovisual materials, it seems to methat, with respect at least to production, thePress should be encouraged to play a very majorpart.Early in the deliberations of the Committeewhich helped to produce this Report, it appearedthat, although prophecies as to the developingshape of new communications technologies wereprecarious, we could at least offer some generalizations about the faculty of the University withrespect to broadcasting and related communications activities. Following the advice of ProfessorBradburn, the Committee decided against preparing a standardized, highly explicit questionnaire;we could not, that is, anticipate and formulatethe categories into which faculty interest in thetotal field of audiovisual communications wouldfall. Instead, all members of the faculty were senta letter, explaining the general concerns of theCommittee, and including a blank sheet on whichthe recipients were asked to indicate. . . any broadcasting, recording or film-making you are doing (or have recently done orplan to do) within or outside the University;any current (or recent or prospective) use offilm, recorded, or broadcast materials in yourinstructional or research activities; the location and nature of any equipment (e.g., cameras, recording apparatus, projectors, soundequipment) to which you have access; the location and nature of any repositories offilmed or recorded materials on which youhave drawn; the names of any persons, withinor without the University, whom you feelthe Committee might profitably consult indischarging its responsibilities.The same letter also invited members of thefaculty to communicate with the Committee bytelephone and, if it seemed useful, to arrange toconfer personally with the Committee as a wholeor its representatives.The responses to this canvass are indicated inAppendix III to this essay (available from theOffice of the President), which includes (1) anessentially quantitative summary of communications to the Committee, and (2) a more detailedaccount of individual responses, identifying respondents where possible, and excerpting fromor summarizing their communications. Withinmy text, I shall attempt to indicate the broadergeneralizations which the canvass invited the177Committee to make.The number of responses to our letter, to begin with, far exceeded our Committee's expectations. We received almost 100 written responses,and the writer of this essay or members of theCommittee heard by telephone from an additional 20 members of the faculty— with most (butnot all) of whom the Committee or its chairmansubsequently met for further consultation. Following our reception of these responses, we concluded that we could break down our information into six general (but not mutually exclusive)categories: broadcasting; production or innovative use of audiovisual materials in curricularinstruction and research; availability of conventional film and tape materials; available audiovisual equipment; suggested resource personnel;additional suggestions and sentiments regardingaudiovisual media at the University. These arethe rubrics under which my summary observations proceed.Broadcasting. Probably the most striking factabout responses in this area of communication istheir paucity. Those who did mention activityin commercial or public broadcasting reported,for the most part, on sporadic appearances onlocal programs or as guests on University broadcasts such as "Perspectives" or "From the Midway," although a few faculty members— for example, Professors Philip Hauser and Milton Friedman—have been conspicuously active on thenational television scene. Dean Ranlet Lincoln ofthe Extension Division, who is the ongoingmoderator for "Perspectives," indicated his belief in the fundamental usefulness of this sort ofprogram, although recognizing that it is producedunder circumstances that are less than ideal. Butthe Committee received only two proposals fornew broadcasting activities— both from personswho were not faculty members but involved inthe University's public relations— and we concluded that while a number of our colleagues areagreeable to participation in pre-planned broadcasts, few, if any, are disposed to take the initiative in exploiting broadcasting for professionaluses.This is not to say that members of the facultyare totally unaware of or indifferent to theeducational and public service possibilities oftraditional broadcasting. Perhaps the rather peripheral role of the University's radio and television performance in recent years accounts for afaculty that is simply not alert to what may bedone with the media. If-as will be presently suggested—broadcasting were to appear to them as one of several possible outlets for materialsarising from their immediate professional activities, their interest might be substantially increased. At present, however, and with a fewexceptions, faculty members do not seem toview participation in broadcasting— however congenial or institutionally useful to the University—as intrinsic to their professional roles.Production and /or innovative use of audiovisual materials in teaching and research. Responses in this catagory provided my greatestsurprise and, I think the greatest surprise for allmembers of the Committee that assisted me. Thecanvass revealed that audiovisual materials arebeing developed and used in much greater abundance and diversity at Chicago than any of ushad suspected. There is, in fact, so much varietyand so much rapid development in this area thatit is difficult to discuss it in any very systematicway. It does seem possible, however, to considerthese activities under the headings of direct teaching, research, and "extension" or distribution foieducational purposes beyond the University.In teaching, we learned that our colleagues atthe University— like our colleagues elsewhere— areemploying audiovisual materials at a level ofsophistication far beyond the "teaching aids"concept of a few years ago. As I have earliersuggested, the serious use of these materialsplainly transcends the notion that they can augment the classroom lesson or serve as superiorsubstitutes for the classroom teacher. Even where—as in the familiar instance of audiotapes beingemployed in language laboratories— the allegedbenefit is one of greater "efficiency," the difference between new and traditional methods islikely to be one of kind rather than degree;teaching and learning processes, that is, are notmerely improved or hastened, but quite basicallytransformed.Beyond this, however, the observation I havemade as to the use of audiovisual materials asprimary objects of investigation seems to be confirmed by practices in many areas of The University of Chicago. In the Humanities, the film— themotion picture— is being examined as an artisticproduct which yields, mutatis mutandis, to thosemodes of analysis traditionally applied to suchforms as the novel or the play. In language andlinguistics, there are data which can be examinedmost profitably (and often exclusively) throughsound reproduction. Primary data for medicalstudents are often satisfactorily available onlythrough film, videotape, or closed-circuit television. The provision of models and the recording178of processes are being achieved by videotape andsound recorders in such disciplines as education,social work, psychology, psychiatry, and sociology—in teaching the techniques and principles ofinterviewing, therapy, and instruction. The emphasis in these instances is not on "trainingfilms" but on review and analysis— records whichare, that is, subject to the same scrutiny andjudgment that thoughtful investigators extend todocuments of any kind. The scrutiny and analysisof audiovisual data acquire novel dimensions,moreover; what is examined has its special immediacy and authenticity, and such features as"instant play-back" offer new possibilities for investigation and teaching.We have encountered, as well, direct employment of audiovisual media for purposes ofresearch. In both the biological and physical sciences, investigators have used film and videotape(along with such permutations as time-lapse recording and photography) to gather data whichare not available through more traditional procedures. In linguistics, the use of sound recordingto gather primary data has long been basic. In thesocial sciences we begin to see comparable usesof audiovisual recording for largely investigativeends; as has been pointed out to us, if specifichuman acts and tangible human products are theconcern of the behavioral scientist, the basic useof audiovisual recording in his discipline seemsinevitable.What has been powerfully impressive aboutthe use of audiovisual media at Chicago is precisely the fact that our professors have developedprocedures not out of a concern to exploit themedia per se but because of a traditional concernfor solving problems inherent in their academicdisciplines. As they have employed audiovisualtools to provide data and attack problems, someprofessors have developed zeal and expertise indealing with the media themselves, but, withfew exceptions, they have regarded "communications" as the servant rather than the ultimateobject of their inquiries.Where, at Chicago, "communications" themselves become a central object of inquiry and instruction, they do not appear as mere "techniques of diffuse, undefined applicability, but asmeans— worthy of study and development— tothe achievement of significant ends. This seemsnotably true of the work of Professor DonaldBogue, Director of the Communication Laboratory of the Community and Family Study Center. In his work on the problems of familyplanning. Bogue discovered that communication —especially in those "underdeveloped" regionswhich most concerned him— was a vastly complicated question, profoundly and inextricablyconnected to the work which was his professionalconcern. His Communication Laboratory seeks,in his own words, to "offer insights and experience in the process of the development of mediamaterial." This is a goal which may seem somewhat alien to the established curricular offeringsof The University of Chicago. It is a goal, however, which has emerged in the assault upon arigorously defined, substantive academic problem. If various areas of the University are, indeed,to "go in for" audiovisual communication, itseems desirable that such commitments areengineered, as appears to be the case with Professor Bogue, by authentically academic concernsto which the "media" have massive and directrelevance.Among our colleagues who find audiovisualmedia important in research, certain very plainand pressing problems have been noted. One ofthese is the need for archives and repositorieswhich collect— and make available for ready retrieval—the material which University facultyproduce or acquire. Another is the need forequipment— often of a quite uncomplicated character—that is required to produce or employ suchmaterials. To take the simplest possible example:a professor who wishes to have a slide made (ofan artifact, a document, a graph) or who suspectsthat such a slide is already made and availablefor use has absolutely no institutional resource towhich to turn for help. The Committee whichassisted in the present Report received a numberof direct pleas which asked for help in this kindof situation.Beyond the direct uses of audiovisual materialsin "intramural" instruction and research, we discovered interest in what can be called "intra-professional" distribution of such products. Someof our faculty members are already engaged inthe creation of film, tape-cassette, or slides, andtheir incorporation in sound-slide packages forpublic distribution. These creations range fromthe production of a sound-cassette to accompanya textbook to the serial production of sound-cassettes, discussing contemporary economic matters and distributed, by subscription, through acommercial publisher. Some of our colleagueshave spoken of more or less specific proposalsto create audiovisual courses developed fromtheir own teaching at the University. Othershave expressed interest in preserving certainunique events that have occurred at Chicago—179guest lectures, colloquia, dramatic or musicalperformances which ought to be retained, andmade generally available, through the kind ofUniversity archive which we presently do notenjoy.The thrust of these responses does not appearto emphasize "public service," although a skilledpublicist or adult-educator might find much ofinterest in what is reported. There does seem,however, to be a belief that some audience-one's own students and colleagues, or studentsand colleagues resembling one's own— can profitby audiovisual recording of one's own data andmethods in research and teaching.We have discovered an impressive quantity anddiversity of interest, experiment, and exploitation of audiovisual media within the University.We have also discovered a striking lack of communication between people and departments soengaged. Many of the faculty members withwhom we have spoken expressed astonishmenton learning of audiovisual activities proceedingelsewhere on campus; in one instance, indeed,enterprises of this kind were proceeding on twofloors of the same building, in reciprocal ignorance of one another's existence.Availability of conventional film and tapematerials. Apart from actual production of audiovisual materials, members of the University faculty appear to possess— in what might be describedas unrecorded nooks and crannies— a wide varietyof films, records, tapes, slides, etc. which are presumably no part of the University's common institutional assets. In consequence, those of ourcolleagues who rely on such things as slides encounter wasted time and frequent frustration.And many of us who could profitably use slides(and it is surprising how even a teacher of literature, once aware of audiovisual possibilities, recognizes their relevance for his job) peremptorilyignore this possibility as too complicated anddemanding.Availability of audiovisual equipment. Equipment for the production and display of AV materials is widely and unsystematically dispersedthroughout the University. Following our canvass, we received from Mr. Kevin Ryan a list ofmaterials from the Teacher Education Center ofthe Graduate School of Education, and from theVice-President for Public Affairs, a survey ofequipment compiled by the Office of Radio-TV.Neither report claimed to be exhaustive, and fromthe kindness of the reporters we learned chieflythat a good deal of money has been invested in dissociated areas of the University for audiovisualequipment that has not been made commonlyavailable, has been used to effects that have notbeen widely recognized or identified, is quitepossibly obsolete or obsolescent, and has, inshort, been of little demonstrable value to theUniversity. in any way. Our Committee has beenunable to list all of this equipment with accuracy(descriptions such as "half-inch videotape recorders and a variety of other equipment" are encouraging but not precise), and we have not beenable to distinguish in all cases between equipmentowned individually or by the University. Thereare at least three separate, variously equippedvideotape studios on campus, aside from thatwhich is presumably under construction as aresult of a generous grant to the School of SocialService Administration. Perhaps the most notablething about this proliferation of equipment isthe fact that so few people are aware of it— andat a time when a number of professors have complained of their inability to obtain such basicobjects as slide or film projectors.Resource personnel About 27 people, fromwithin and without the University, have beenrecommended as experts who might be helpfulif the University were to make greater institutional use of audiovisual media. Most of those sorecommended outside the University were people with whom faculty members had worked incommercial publishing or film-making. Thosemembers of the University faculty who werementioned were interviewed by the chairman ofthe Committee or its members. It is clear thatamong our colleagues are scholars concerned withfilm and other audiovisual media as humanisticproducts, as scientific data, as models, as uniquely effective devices for teaching (classroom aswell as extension) and— particularly with the advent of the new technology— as phenomena withvast social implication which, themselves, meritsustained study. It is also clear that, should theUniversity attempt a centralized, institutionaldevelopment in the audiovisual media, these persons represent an invaluable reservoir of expertise and experience.Suggestions and sentiments. This final, catchall category of our canvass does not yield toready generalizations, and the diversified individual remarks we have grouped under this headingshould probably be allowed to speak for themselves. We can, however, observe that (1) almostall of our colleagues who responded to the canvass expressed a belief in the relevance of audiovisual media (traditional, new, or projected) to180their professional concerns, but that (2) manyof these respondents expressed dismay at theUniversity's failure to assist and support the useof these media. A number of these statements ofdissatisfaction were accompanied by suggestions,in varying degrees of particularity, as to wayswhich would more closely incorporate presentand anticipated technologies into the academicactivities of the University. Among the membersof the faculty who chose to respond to the canvass, only one did so in a negative way, expressing fear that preoccupation with audiovisualmedia hastens the decline of literacy and exacerbates an already-grave failure in intellectual communication in the University community. I thinkthis response merits serious attention. It comesfrom a colleague with experience in the mediaand a deep professional concern for "communication" in a most basic sense; it voices suspicionsthat are by no means uncommon among academic people and that may well be shared by manyof our colleagues who did not respond to thecanvass. It represents an intellectual, and educational, position which, while not that of thepresent wirter or his advisory Committee, should,at the least, be recognized if the Universityundertakes new and major commitments in anyfield of audiovisual activity.One must, of course, be cautious in urging majorinstitutional innovations on the basis of suchfaculty opinions as those our canvass has elicited.Although we were surprised at the volume of responses, we received returns from only about 10percent of the faculty to whom our letter wassent. And although some of our respondents enthusiastically urged the development of newmaterials and expressed an informed concernwith developing technologies, others merely reported, with apparent satisfaction, that they weremaking various uses of conventional audiovisualresources.I am, nevertheless, venturing the followingconclusions upon the basis of the canvass.1 . Audiovisual materials of many kinds are being put to increasing, diversified use by a substantial number of faculty members. In general,these uses are not peripheral but are regarded asbasic and indispensable in the conduct of professional investigation and teaching.2. As a rule, audiovisual materials are beingemployed on the Chicago campus with littleexchange of information, equipment, or services.The majority of faculty members who reportedon their use of these materials expressed (in some cases passionately) a desire for greater institutional assistance in the use and/or production ofaudiovisual materials that presently should be regarded as proper resources for research andteaching in any responsible academic institution.Among the needs brought to our attention werethose for improved, centrally available equipment, much of it as simple as ordinary projectors or tape-players; centralized repositoriesof audiovisual materials; central services, including film rental or acquisition, intramural transportation of materials and equipment, and technicians for the display of these materials; improved communication and distribution of information—that is, "bibliographies"— among faculty employing audiovisual materials; increasedand improved locations of facilities for flexibleclassroom use of audiovisual materials.3. Should massive access to cable television— orrealistic possibilities for substantial cassette production and distribution— be available to theUniversity in the immediate future, the University would be prepared, in varying degrees, withequipment and expertise to provide materialsfor transmission to audiences of many kinds;and the University's faculty would include anumber of people interested in this kind of activity. At present, however, these resources are uncoordinated and— more important— there is noagency presently calculated to achieve coordination. In effect, the University community includes a number of people and of dissociatedenterprises which hold out promise for exploitingthe new technologies, but, in the absence of institutional commitment and support, it is impossible to predict much about the University's institutional response to the challenge of the developing media.IV. Conclusions and SuggestionsIn the first section of this paper I attempted adiscussion of the University's participation inbroadcasting. While at times in the past thisinstitution has contributed to the production ofpurely instructional audiovisual materials (its association with ERPI films in the 1930s was aninstance of this), its essential tradition has beenone of "public broadcasting." My second sectionbriefly considered current and anticipated developments in the technology of audiovisual communication. My third section dealt with currentand prospective activities in audiovisual media atthe University, largely as revealed by the canvassinterviews conducted by the Committee that has181assisted me in my inquiries.A central question emerges from, as it were, a"confrontation" among these three topics. Oneasks, that is, whether the traditional policies andpractices of the University with respect to themedia should be redirected in the light of changing technologies and of what we have learnedabout faculty interests and activities.Our tradition with respect to public broadcasting suggests that there are three categories ofcommunication which, though imprecise andoften overlapping, have served to justify ourcommitments in the past. We have contributed to"topical" broadcasting, in which the expertise ofour faculty has been brought to bear on questions of immediate concern. We have provided"extension education," distinguished from myfirst category by the fact that it is broadcastingwhich, if not always systematic instruction is,at least, shaped by concrete educational goals.And we have also engaged in broadcasting whoseprincipal value can only be defined as that of"public relations"-whatever "public service" itmay also be said to perform.Even if we disregard for the moment the advent of the new technologies and the activities inaudiovisual media currently being undertaken byour colleagues, certain facts may be important aswe assess the tradition we have thus far pursued.First, of all radio and television series producedby the University over the past three decades,to my knowledge only two (or perhaps three)were initiated by members of the faculty andconceived of as a direct extension of activities in academic teaching and research. Second,of all communications our Committee receivedfrom faculty members, four or five reportedcurrent or recent participation in public broadcasting but not one offered a suggestion aboutpublic broadcasting programs or policies, presentor future. Third, the most distinguished University of Chicago programs were initiated to meetneeds in public broadcasting which were acute inthe 1930s and 1940s or (with respect to television) the 1950s; these needs have, in the intervening years been met, if not as thoroughly or intelligently as one could wish, yet in a way thatsubstantially affects the University's opportunities and responsibilities. If the University feelscommitted to broadcasting as a service to a general public, then the needs of that public oughtto be reconsidered— or, if old needs persist, thenwe ought to think about novel and superior waysin which to meet them. Fourth, novelty and/orsuperiority have not, for the most part, marked the University's public broadcasting in the lasttwo decades. As I have said elsewhere, I do notthink the chief deterrent to distinguished broadcasting has been lack of access to the media(and hence I do not think that the ease of accesspromised by the new technologies insures improvement in University audiovisual productions). Significant and ambitious ideas for broadcasting simply do not seem to have emerged fromthe University for a number of years. If they had,funding and access might have posed problems,but, to the best of my knowledge, no interestingprojects have reached the stage at which suchproblems have had to be tackled.What we have learned (and I have tried tosummarize) about interests in audiovisual communication, both at Chicago and elsewhere,points to a departure, in some degree at least,from our traditional conception of the media. Wehave discovered a basic emphasis on what I havecalled "intramural" and "intraprofessional" employment of audiovisual materials. In many institutions this emphasis is reflected in elaborate,centralized audiovisual centers, conceived of asagencies for curricular instruction which mayalso be extended to extramural applications. AtChicago it is reflected in a number of dissociatedareas— some making modest and tentative use ofaudiovisual resources, others engaged in intensive,expanding, and well-financed projects in whichthe media occupy a central position. Here andelsewhere, as I have said, what is most impressively innovative about these activities is nottheir exploitation of new technologies but theiruse of audiovisual materials as primary objectsof inquiry— as documents, as models, as intellectual products.The present or anticipated character of thenew technologies does not necessarily dictate ashift from "public" to "intramural" communications. On the contrary, cable television, throughsuch linkages as satellite systems can provide,may offer an even larger public than televisionnetworks currently enjoy, and cassette "publication" may likewise be designed for the mostgeneral kind of consumption. On the other hand,videotape—which is likely to be basic in much ofthis public communication— can likewise be produced and employed (through cassette, closed-circuit, and direct replay) entirely for the benefitof a single class or classroom. What, above all, thenew technologies involve is the capacity simplyto record audiovisual materials with enormousversatility in distribution and the circumstancesof reception. There is, in short, nothing about182the new technical developments that will a prioridefine the nature of our efforts or the audiencefor which they are calculated. If we engage in recording enterprises that seem appropriate, useful,and congenial and if what we record is of technically high quality, then the new developments,whatever their form, should find us prepared.The very range of options which the newmedia make possible sharpens the question of theUniversity's policy toward audiovisual communications. We can, that is, continue to direct our institutional efforts to broadcasting for a publicbeyond the University, continuing the presentlaissez-faire policy toward the academic applications of these media within our faculty. Or wecan divert at least some of our efforts to centralized, institutional support of work, being undertaken by a number of our colleagues, thatcrucially depends upon, and is helping to develop, audiovisual technology.I think, in the final analysis, that the way onefeels about the University's institutional supportof the audiovisual media is determined by one'sconception of the University's essential mission.There are two highly influential views of thatmission, and I think they are in conflict, althoughmore agile minds than my own may discoverharmony between them. One is the conceptionapparently held by President Harper, who (in anessay recently re-published) spoke of the University as "priest and prophet to the new democracy." The other, frequently invoked in recenttimes of stress and repeated in the report of the"Shils Committee," assigns to the University themission of investigation and of communicatingthe results of investigation. I am committed tothe latter view. Priests minister, and if the University ministers to society, it is indirectly, perhaps metaphorically, and without clerical garb orlabel. Prophets are given to divination and exhortation, neither of which I regard as a properlyacademic enterprise.If one believes that the University's characteristic functions are investigation and the communication of its results, what are the implications for the University's role with respect toaudiovisual media? I suggest three of them.1. The University needs favorable circumstances in which to conduct its function, andamong these are congenial relations with the public—and particularly cordial, potentially remunerative relations with particular sections of the public. To provide these relations is the province ofspecialists in publicity and in the various skillsand technologies by which publicity is achieved. Professors can, in various ways, assist in suchundertakings; some of them can even, if theycare to, initiate them. Publicity can, one assumes, instruct as it publicizes. Broadcastingdesigned primarily to win sympathy or understanding for the University can, and doubtlessshould, be handsome, enlightening, and memorable. Money, time, and talent devoted tobroadcasting for purposes of publicity are, ifsuccessfully used, as justifiable as are similar resources devoted to any other effort for "development." I should rejoice in the appearance of University programs as popular and winning as theRound Table— in a unique documentary, in interesting "interpretations" of University affairs,even (as a successful commercial broadcaster suggested to me) in a serial TV fiction which probedand glorified academic life after the fashion of innumerable television treatments of doctors andlawyers. But these are tasks for experts; they arethe province of vice-presidents and the expertsthey hire. If faculty assist, it will rarely be in theirproper professorial roles. For a professor is not exofficio a publicist, any more than he is an entertainer. And if he is, in fact, an instructor of thepublic at large, he is so only under circumstanceswhich I next consider.2. When we communicate the results of ourinvestigations— or our progress, problems, or frustrations in investigating— we do so usefully onlyif our audience, our public, is capable of understanding and concern. For most of us, this is notoften true of a "general" public, of a publicwhose interests and capacities resist any precisedefinition. We do appear before such publics— butwe do so, I think, in the Harperesque (and somewhat questionable) roles of priest and prophet.Yet there are times when what we have learnedor are learning promises to illuminate questions ofbroad common concern, exploit what is educablein a general audience, supply intellectual expert-ness, not elsewhere available, for the benefit ofthe public-at-large. These probably remain authentic public needs whigh The University ofChicago is highly qualified to meet. PresidentLevi has spoken of the continuing need for analysis and debate of various public issues, conductedby people of superior academic wisdom, unrestricted by conventional limits of time and format, available to a national television public. Iagree that there is a species of informed, penetrating, and uninhibited public debate which themedia have not brought us and which it seemsnatural to supply from academic ranks. I likewisebelieve that there are various forms of e ducat ion-183al broadcasting which, arising naturally and directly from the research and teaching at Chicago,could contribute much to programing designedfor a very broad public. I do not think the characteristic work of The University of Chicagolends itself appropriately to the schedules of"free" or "open" universities or to the kinds ofinstruction now broadcast by junior colleges (although there is some temptation to show that wecan do that kind of thing better than it is nowbeing done). But there is certainly the possibilitythat novel, intelligible, and useful broadcastscould be produced as authentic extensions (notadaptations or abridgements or popularizations)of University work that is unique in kind andquality.Until now, opportunities for this kind of "extension" broadcasting have (with some exception) been exploited at the initiative, not offaculty members, but of professional broadcasters (within and outside of the University). If, asseems likely, the opportunities multiply with thenew technology, their successful exploitation willrequire something more than excitement over thepossibilities of the new media or pious commitment to the ideal of public enlightenment. It maybe achieved through the imagination and inspiredprodding of some Bentonesque figure, capable ofmustering faculty energies in a novel venturewhich truly (and doubtless controversially) extends the University's mission beyond its traditional limits and into the public realm. Or itmay come about because certain kinds of authentic professional faculty activity seem worth communicating (unaltered and unwatered down) tothe general public.3. Those "intramural" uses of audiovisualcommunications with which this report has beenso much concerned contribute directly to thecharacteristic work of the University. They areproviding methods and data for investigation, andthey are means for communicating its results—not indiscriminately or in some form of translation—but literally and intact for audiences, students, and others, for whom it is specifically intended. And if it happens that such communications have value and interest for many othersbeyond those for whom they were originally designed, the new modes of technology and distribution should make these materials readilyavailable to them.Arguments could certainly be raised against major changes in the University's policy toward audiovisual communications. At least some ofthe self-contained, self-financed audiovisual ventures on campus are flourishing (although eventhe most successful workers in the field urgesome form of collaboration). It can be arguedthat audiovisual equipment and products requireno more centralization than, say, mimeographmachines and their use. Academic creativeness isa laissez faire matter— and this should apply tothe machines and media by which such creativeness is aided. The University's central resources which support telecommunications shouldaccordingly be directed to clear institutionalgoals— in publicity and in influencing public affairs.Against this kind of argument, I shall only saythat important academic work— with great promise for education and research and with bothpromises and problems for the University itself—is going on at Chicago under hampering circumstances and largely without institutional recognition and support. In the absence of such support, this work is encountering certain clear difficulties and needs, among which are the following:(1) Continuing development of elaborate butpresently uncoordinated audiovisual projects islikely to be— if it is not already— a wasteful diffusion of effort and money. (2) Reciprocal information, assistance, lending of materials, equipment, and personnel is clearly superior to thepresent isolationism. (3) Precisely because variousareas of the University are increasingly prolificin producing audiovisual materials, some centralized agency (perhaps analogous to the UniversityPress, if not actually an adjunct of it) seems desirable in the maintenance of standards and theproduction of materials associated with the University. (4) Some central repository (in this case,analogous to the Library) is indicated if recordedmaterials and the equipment to use them are tobe uniformly and readily available to the increasing number of faculty people who use them.(5) Some single agency should have institutionalresponsibility for the University's extramural relations concerning audiovisual materials— whetherthis involves collaborative arrangements withother institutions, distribution of materials forbroadcast or other non-local use, or participationin the presently unpredictable developments surrounding cable television.To these requirements, I should like to add afinal, more general circumstance. As our Committee's inquiries have shown, there is a persuasive, deeply serious concern with audiovisual184communication in many areas of the University.Hundreds of our students have a dedicated, creative interest in film and film-making and in theuses of cable and cassette technology; at leastone film is shown on campus every night of theacademic year, entirely at student initiative. Asour canvass shows, scores of our colleagues regard audiovisual communication as an intrinsicelement in their professional activities. Similarscores of our students and colleagues are alert toactivity in the various audiovisual fields throughout the country, including developments in cableand cassette, and they are puzzled by the University's official indifference to the entire area.Audiovisual communication, especially in thoseforms which invite direct, creative participation,offers the University the opportunity to fostera valuable source of institutional strength andidentity. I believe such sources are much neededat Chicago. When they appear— as in the case ofthe Regenstein Library and now of the burgeoning University Theater— they are highly welcome.Accordingly, the recommendations that followare proposed not only to support importantdeveloping modes of education and research andto prepare for novel methods of extramural communications but to lend unity, strength, and official encouragement to serious creative activitiesthat have captured the enthusiasm of studentsand faculty alike.The following recommendations are substantively concurred in by the members of the advisory Committee ("The Committee on Opportunities in Broadcasting") which has assisted mein compiling this Report. They are seen as immediate steps that can be undertaken realisticallyand without financial commitment.1. The establishment of a permanent facultycommittee or board on audiovisual communication. I suggest that this supersede the presentBoard of Radio-TV and that public broadcastingas presently conducted be made the responsibility entirely of officers of the administration, thefaculty board assuming responsibility for demonstrably educational uses of audiovisual media.The new committee (while it can certainly include members of the present Board of Radio-TV) should be composed of persons with markedinterest in the uses of audiovisual media.2. The establishment of a permanent, thoughinitially modest, central headquarters for thecommittee on audiovisual communication. Thislocation should serve as a repository for basicliterature and current publication in the audiovisual field and should be equipped to permit the display of audiovisual materials. The modelfor such a location is the small temporary headquarters in Harper which our Committee foundof great convenience and in which we were ableto begin a modest "library" of printed materials.3. Serious, though tentative, consideration ofan audiovisual center in the plans for the University's future physical development. A separatebuilding seems desirable, although conceivablysuch a center could be an adjunct of the Library,the Press, or the hoped-for new Theater. Itshould contain, at a minimum, rooms for thedisplay of film and tape; space for repositoriesof audiovisual materials; space for a library ofprinted literature on audiovisual communications; space for centrally-owned or controlledaudiovisual equipment; space for such administrative activities as film-rental; and adequatethough not elaborate areas and facilities for filmand videotape production. Some flexible provision should also be made fors such developments as the origination of closed-circuit orcable transmission. Investigation of these possibilities should be undertaken by the committeeon audiovisual communication, together with appropriate consultants from relevant areas of theUniversity (for example, the Press and, from theoutset, with expert technical advice— hence myfinal recommendation.4. Retention of a suitable expert for (a) planning and possible direction of an audiovisualcenter and (b) for "co-ordination and development of audiovisual activity on a centralized,University -wide basis. In the latter connection,and quite apart from the prospect of a physicalcenter, there is a real present need for such a person, as a source of advice and coordination inthe development of current audiovisual enterprises. The expert thus acquired (perhaps withthe help of such an agency as the National Association of Educational Broadcasters) shouldhave strong technical qualifications but withsufficient academic "orientation" to work effectively and congenially in the service of educationand research.Throughout this paper— and implicitly in theforegoing recommendations— I have recurred to adistinction between the "public relations" and"academic" uses of the media, suggesting thatthey are basically different kinds of enterpriseand should be conducted under separate auspices. Perhaps this distinction is too facile and,as we move toward coordinated support ofaudiovisual projects, we shall require some sort185of merging of facilities and personnel— or evensome subsuming control. But my terms are designed to indicate two kinds of mission, one ofwhich has regularly commanded our institutionalefforts and the other of which has, up to now,failed to do so. Whatever administrative structureemerges should signalize our commitment to thishitherto-neglected mission— our recognition ofaudiovisual communication as an appropriate,To President Edward H. LeviMarch 30, 1972One morning not so long ago there came a knockat my office door. I was working on a committeereport at the time and my visitor had no appointment, but the report was going badly and I wasglad of a break. I let him in and we began to talk.I never did get his name; he was a tall, strong-featured man with a slight foreign accent. He toldme he represented some sort of research institute."We are engaged in a study of law and politics,but not, perhaps, as you would understand thoseterms. As our director has said: 'The true statesman wishes ... to make the citizens good'; wehave therefore restricted ourselves to the study ofinstitutions which take this responsibility seriously. We have currently under study, in your quarter of the world, the Esalen Institute, AtticaState Penitentiary, and Cuba.""Is this a long-term project?" I asked."Long term, yes. . . . My own first studywas of the Mouseion and Alexandria, and sincethen. . . . We have not yet begun to interpretour results. But then, we have all the time in theworld.""You do?""Don't your senior faculty also have tenure?""Only until they're sixty-five.""Ah. Ours is truly indefinite. Now let me askyou a few questions." He took out a clip-boardand held his pencil ready. "Our director has said:'Every constitutional organization is some sort ofsharing, and first of all it must share a place.' valuable, and developing element in the conductof our professional work.Edward W. Rosenheim (Chairman)Charles E. Bid wellNorman M. BradburnJohn G. CaweltiPhilip B. KurlandKenneth J. NorthcottLet us begin with that. Why is The University ofChicago in Chicago?""Just a moment. Let me ask a question or two.Are you studying all American universities?""Heavens no. Yours is the only institution ofthis general character now under study. We have,of course, visited others for purposes of comparison.""And why us?. ."We find you particularly puzzling. You talka great deal about yourselves, about your'uniqueness,' your 'mission.' One of your colleagues told me: T was at Oxford for twenty-five years' (I haven't visited the place myself forcenturies, but I hear it's much the same) 'and Inever heard anyone refer to Oxford as a "greatuniversity." ' Here the phrase seems to come uponce a paragraph. Yet there is much vaguenessand circularity in this talk; greatness is definedas 'excellence' or 'commitment to the life of themind' (whatever that may be). We presume thatall this talk is about something; we are trying tofind out what. Now let us return to my question.Why is The University of Chicago in Chicago?"There was something about this man thatstirred me. He seemed to have come from veryfar away and yet was strangely congenial. I spokewith somewhat less reserve or irony than I wouldusually employ with a visitor."The University is in Chicago almost by accident. Harper wanted it here, and in a sense Harper brought us all here; we stay not because ofthe location but in spite of it. Our loyalty is notto a place but an idea.""I perceive that you cultivate what we used toREPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ONTRADITION AND INNOVATION186call the cult of the oikistes or heroic founder.Your colleagues often have recourse to PresidentHarper. But surely the location was part of hisidea.""Yes, that must be true. Partly, perhaps, hesought the purity of the frontier. 'Alone, singingin the wilderness, I strike up for a new world.'Hutchins thought that would be a good mottofor us. There is a vitality in the provinces; Chi-cagoans tend to think of their city as a placewhere ideas start, ideas that move to New Yorkonce they have become middle-aged and dull.There is the potency of marginality. But mostimportant is the concentration produced bybeing out of things. Our University is clearly thebest between the Alleghenies and the Sierras.It floats on the Great Plains of the United States,and receives its weather in wholesale lots fromthe equator and pole. 'Please God,' as the poetsaid, 'don't let me die here.' Yet many of us expect to. This place thrives on adversity. We areisolated without being secluded. We are at oddswith our environment, both natural and civil. Toa degree we relish the intemperate climate, thedirt, the disorder and injustice which surround us.They prove to us the power of the idea. Ourarchitecture speaks to that also. Harvard with itscolonial buildings suggests the establishment ofEuropean culture on the fringes of the new continent; Columbia with its classicism, the Founding Fathers' rediscovery of classical order: fnovusordo saeclorum.' Stanford with its relaxed Cal-ifornian comfort suggests a pride in the achievements of American plenty. But here we have agray Gothic enclave, like a giant monasteryringed with battlements. We stand not so muchfor the creation of a new world as for the hopeof saving something from the wreckage."He had stopped writing. "You have thoughtabout this a good deal," he said."Well, it so happens that I was asked by thePresident to chair a Committee on Tradition andInnovation at The University of Chicago. I wasjust working on the report when you came in.So I have some of these questions fresh in mymind.""That "is very interesting. What did your Committee say?""A good question. They said a great deal, butI'm not sure what. The one thing which becameclear was that there is in fact- a tradition at TheUniversity of Chicago. It constantly happenedthat one member would describe some local habitor procedure and another member would say:'Oh, do you do it that way too? I thought that was only in my area.' But they found it hard toput these things in general terms. So I have encountered this vagueness of which you speak.It's not as though the concepts are not understood, but rather as though the words functionedas a bridge to get us from one stage of the discussion to the next. If in my department we arediscussing a new appointment, there -will be somediscussion of a candidate's talents and qualifications, and then someone will ask: 'What are welooking for?' 'Excellence,' comes the response,everyone nods, and we then go on to discusswhether or not the candidate has it. It was thesame way in my Committee. Probably it is functional to leave some terms undefined, but itmakes it difficult to write a report.""I should have thought you too new to havea tradition.""New, yes, in a sense, but it is also true thatours was one of the first universities of its kind,and in that sense is one of the oldest. We talkabout tradition because tradition is one of thethings we think we have to offer. If tradition isaccumulated knowledge of how to cope, thenwe have been coping with a certain kind of situation about as long as anyone. You speak of thecontinuities at Oxford; I see the changes there-trie growth of graduate work, the decline of theclassical tradition, the development of the socialsciences. Perhaps Oxford has something to learnfrom our longer experience.""I see," he said. "That paradox about the newand the old is probably central." He put hisclip-board away. "You may be the person whocan help me; I've long felt the need for some interpretive guidance from inside the institution.Would it be possible for us to go over togethersome of the material from my earlier interviews?There are many points which puzzle me.""I'd be honored," I said; "perhaps I could getmy own ideas clearer too.""First let me explain something of the generaltheoretical framework of our study. Our directorinitially described only two kinds of social institutions: the family and the state. If he thoughtof anything intermediate between these two, itwas only that families could be grouped by residence or kinship into neighborhoods and tribes.Because his thought had only gone so far, heassumed that the state, if it were to be free, mustbe small enough to come within the sound of oneman's voice, compact enough that each individual family could make itself heard in the publicspace. Anything larger, like the Persian Empire,could be only a tax-gathering authoritarian des-187potism. He now admits that he underestimatedthe inventiveness of man, and he looks on thecrucial invention as being the autonomous corporation—such things as universities, manufacturing and trading companies, even these odd newcreatures, the labor unions. All these have twothings in common: membership in them fallsshort of total involvement— he likes to use, withmetaphorical extension, your term 'limited liability'— and they are to some degree self-governingand self-regulatory while at the same time forming parts of an inclusive state. He has sent us tostudy these institutions, particularly (as I said)those that make some claim to defining and producing the human virtues. For it has becomeclear to him that the problem of politics haschanged; the state has become much more amediator between conflicting groups, while thevalues of the culture (you see I have talked toyour social scientists) are transmitted on someother level of social organization.""That is very clear, and relevant to my questions as well. We often have to struggle againsta tendency to equate the University with eitherthe state or the family. But why are you studyingCuba?""We're interested in the places where the stateis still thought of as an educational institution-just as we're interested in those institutions thatthink their task is to go back to the beginningand undo the work of the family— just as we'reinterested in your curious notion that virtue canbe inflicted on people, so that punishment andrehabilitation are used as if they were two namesfor the same thing. But we look on all theseothers as limiting cases which help to define theproblem. Our director's view is that the institutions of higher learning are the key institutionsof your society and will increasingly determineits general character.""We have a saying: 'With a friend like that youdon't need an enemy.' Your director is not theonly one with great expectations of us, and I'mquite sure that we're neither wise nor strongenough to meet those expectations."He smiled. "Perhaps the expectations are nottoo great but merely unclear. Let me show you adocument." He handed me a sheet headed: Summary of Interview no. 17. "This man is one ofyour Assistant Professors. You understand thatthis is not verbatim, but my condensation of hisresponses into a single continuous text." I readhis document."The University of Chicago is held together byits joint defense of special privilege. It has worked up a lot of fancy rhetoric in order tomask its elitist ideology. The faculty are an elite:self-defined, self-perpetuating, self -praising, andself-serving. They are self-defined because theyand other groups like them are themselves thesource of the standard which they profess toserve. They are self-perpetuating because guildsolidarity within the professoriate sees to it thatonly those who adhere to the prevailing ideologyare admitted to the group. The University is self-praising because, not producing enough marketable services to maintain itself in the style towhich it has become accustomed, it must spenda lot of its time badgering the rich and the government for funds. Badgering-and also wheedling and fawning; the University lies to itselfabout a lot of things, but about nothing morethan its independence. Finally, it is ruthlesslyself-serving; under conditions of scarcity it hasbecome a kind of ruined aristocrat who mustpinch every penny and exploit every loophole inorder to maintain his lavish household. By talking about its 'mission' it justifies every exploitation of its members and neighbors."The University is run by a cozy little club ofprofessors and administrators whose chief motiveis fear. They are afraid that if the reason fortheir existence were ever questioned everybodywould see that they have no right to exist. Therefore their main policy is to see to it that nothingever changes. The place is totally inert. Peoplescurry around doing their own little thing-whichthey usually don't even believe in themselves-and the group as a whole has no ideas at all.Everything that relates to change, that respondsto the future, is driven underground. The students have it, until the University squeezes it outof them in exchange for its tawdry degrees.There's some life in the student culture; if wecould only get the faculty, to listen to them,there'd be some hope. But they won't listen because they're afraid to listen. I used to think wemight be able to save the place if we gave it agood kick in the ass. But we tried that and itdidn't work."I handed the document back. "What do youmake of that?" I asked."I find it incomprehensible. Why does a manlike that stay at your University? The greatthing about your corporation is that -unlike thefamily and the state-they are voluntary. If thisgroup doesn't suit him, why doesn't he join somegroup that does? Also I am baffled by the word'elitist'-not by the word, but by his tone ofvoice when he uses it. Obviously any group put188together for a special purpose— a communitytheater, an athletic team— is a kind of elite in thatyou try to put together the people who are competent to the activity of the group. The moreof an elite it is, with relation to the activity, thebetter the group. I don't understand the socialtheory which is latent here. Self-definition is nota vice in such groups, but their essence; thegroup comes into existence around a commondefinition of the activity— what you call loyaltyto an idea. And all the other points follow fromself-definition. Furthermore your dependence onsociety— the badgering and wheedling of whichhe speaks— is an important kind of social control.I would think he'd welcome it; groups which liveon charity can only survive as long as their activity meets with some diffused kind of social approval.""I suppose he doesn't think we're seeking theapproval of the right elements in society. I can'tsay I agree with no. 17 (I probably don't likehim either), but I don't think his position is incomprehensible or negligible. Nor do I thinkyou're quite fair about 'voluntary.' A Universityis not a club but a social instrument ; it controls,directly and indirectly, a good quantity of publicresources, and is entrusted by the public withcertain tasks. There is nothing prima facie irrational about a declaration that it is not carryingout those tasks. If you say that anyone whodoesn't like the way the place is run ought to goaway, you're saying that whatever is so ought tobe so, which cannot be true. Furthermore thetasks of the University may require, from time totime, that it oppose currents of opinion in thewider society; that's why the society encouragesdiverse groups. There is nothing prima facie irrational about a declaration that the University isfailing in its tasks because it is afraid of thosecurrents of opinion. That doesn't mean that thejudgment is correct, either, but it ought to belooked at."I think you should see that this statement,while in one sense an attack on the University, isin another sense on behalf of the University. Iget into a puzzle here. I'm a great friend of tradition myself, among other things as a focus ofloyalty. I think the group can only function as anintellectual center because there is diffusedthrough it some joint adherence to some commonideas— among which I would include things likeobjectivity, detachment, the distinction betweentheory and practice, and between speech andaction. Those ideas are not a local tradition; theyare as old as you are. Today they are all under attack-and I often find myself resisting that attack. At the same time I believe that our tradition—this ancient tradition, if you like— is asecular tradition. This means two things: first,the ideas have continually to justify themselves;we are never in a position where we can say: thisis so because it has always been so, or becauseGod told us. We have to explain why, howevertiring that may be. Second, secular values includea value set on diversity. And this diversity caninclude diverse models for the institution, andvarious attacks on the values themselves. So thatin a sense the man who attacks the tradition— aslong as he does it with some cogency— at thesame time adheres to the tradition. The 'as longas' defines a limit. There's no cogency in forceor in sheer pressure, whether it comes from outside the University or within it. Yet even pressurecan be well-meaning. We have to look for themerit in all positions, even those presented in aspirit of hostility or self-justifying enthusiasm.That's one of the things we're here for."I imagine your informant is more ambivalentabout the institution than he makes out. That'sone reason he's still here. That ambivalence is inall of us. I suppose I'm a member of his 'cozylittle club' and I'm ambivalent about that. Academics are privileged people; one can think thatthose privileges are functional and still worryabout them. We desperately need a little freespace in which to talk out our worries. We've become defensive partly because we spend a lot oftime defending ourselves. You must rememberthat many of us discovered our institutions during the years of student disorder. If we talk toomuch about being great and unique, it is becausewe made this discovery while under attack. Wediscovered that our institutions are fragile, thatthey depend on our constant inventive support,that they are not just part of the landscape. Ofcourse, the landscape is fragile too. . . ."I paused to collect my thoughts. "And 'responsive to the future'?" he asked. "What doesthat mean?""How do you mean?""Well," he said, "I have often found talkingto your people that they speak of the future asthough it were some alien power, a kind of othercountry already in existence, about which onecan get information through public and secretchannels, with which one can have relationsfriendly and unfriendly, which perhaps oughtto be appeased. I find all this most peculiar.The future is something one decides about, notknows about."189"You're not out in the field all the time, areyou?""Oh no, the last study I did was of Rugbyunder Dr. Arnold.""Yes. Well, a lot has happened since then.People of that time— especially Americans of thattime— had a sense of the future too, but a different sense. America was built on a frontier andhad a sense of its mission; the guiding myth wasone of progress. The future was, as you say,another country and a kind of promised land; itwas what we were working toward. This mythdies hard, but the frontier closed a long time ago.The future is still the promised land, but we'rebeginning to suspect that you can't get therefrom here. So our talk about innovation is lesslinear than it used to be. We still talk-even universities talk-about the latest improved model,but this language is fading. We are starting instead to talk about alternatives. We're afraid thatwe're mired where we are or proceeding in thewrong direction, that our previous successes arenow the problem, and we're afraid that wehaven't much time left. We waver from futureshock to consciousness three; we have createdthe new myth of the underground (which mustbe the most visible underground in history). Thisis the idea of the counter-culture: that the newworld must begin from negation, from a denialof what we've got.""But, my friend, this is not new. I rememberDiogenes of Sinope, and the Desert Fathers.""Yes, of course there are similarities with previous ages. But it remains true that industrialismis a brand-new human adventure. Schools andanti-schools have flourished before, but againsta background which remained. Most people were—and expected to remain— peasants. The peasantry was a kind of reservoir of continuity. Todayit is the background which is in flux. We arehaving to live with brand-new population densities, levels of energy deployment, the global reconstruction of social classes, threats to thesurvival of the human species. The result isunexampled disorientation. We can't begin onthe answers because we have no way of shapingappropriate questions.""All this is only to say you are living in aGolden Age. I have visited a number, and onething they all have in common is that people dislike inhabiting them. They are always ages of disorder. Later men recognize the creative outburstof accomplishment; at the time men feel mostlytheir own inadequacy to the present need."His smile was beginning to annoy me. It was a little too Olympian."An age of fool's gold, perhaps. I sometimesthink it is the fate of our age to consume allprevious ages and then consume itself. Everystatement ever made will be made over again;every document will be annotated, republished,filed, and forgotten. Science has abandoned thetask of interpreting the world; discovery goes onas if by itself, without the possibility of synthesizing new discoveries in the fabric of commonunderstanding. So the result is not new meaningbut new meaninglessness. Innovation in the artscomes to be the idle exploration of possibilities,like a pornographer's encyclopedia— the humansoul in every possible position. Society exhaustsitself in pluralism; everything is permitted andpossible, except common deliberation about better and worse. We live in an age of mere potentiality, and the leading emotion, therefore, is nothope or fear but boredom. Even our terrors— ofwar, of famine, of poisoning ourselves— are presented as an amusement as this year's doomsday.We are overwhelmed by social concern, but ourattention span is so short that we produce nothing except a buzz of outrage about disgracesforgotten before they are understood. We storeeverything and accumulate nothing; everythingremains to be done again. We are supposed to begreat seekers for truth and righteousness, butthe fact remains that we are less wise and lessrighteous than we used to be.""My dear fellow, I have seen a great deal ofhuman civilization. . . .""And do you know that it's going to go on,that there will always be more places and peoplefor you to study?"I reached him with that one. He sat up andheld my glance for a moment. "No I do not,"he said. "But I cannot see what difference thatmakes. We should still be guided by our ideas ofvirtue and happiness, to the last moment ofpossibility. It is true that in times of what youcall disorientation most people behave badly.That merely proves the inherent vulgarity ofmost people.""There are advantages to being an aristocrat,"I said."You should ask yourself whether your complaints about your age aren't themselves part ofthe thing you're complaining about. You didn'tchoose your historical situation; neither are youresponsible for it. Get in tune with the finite.There is never anything to work on but the present."" 'Extrapolation is a cop-out.' I'll have some190bumper-stickers printed.""You have too many slogans already. Really,you are exasperating; I come to study you andfind myself preaching instead.""Whose fault is that?""Yours, for talking about the future as a promised land. You'll be telling me about the chosenpeople next.""Well, why not? If you want to look at usyou ought to know that all those ideas are stillvery current, although they take various forms.Your no. 17 inherits a revivalist tradition, a tradition of the anti-traditional, and that is a real partof our world. One of the strong parts, in someways. But I was trying to make a more generalpoint, a point about clarity of expectations. Isaid we are not wise enough or strong enough tomeet the demands on us. The problem I wasspeaking to is exactly the problem of lack ofclarity, and one way of seeing the problem is interms of the rhetoric of innovation. Everyone isclear that something must be done, and if theinstitutions of higher learning are central to oursociety, it is up to us to do it. But what? Thereis no agreement, and one consequence is that weare expected to do anything and everything andthat any innovation is held to be good, on thegeneral assumption that anything would be better than what we're doing now. You don't haveto go to the radicals for that assumption, it's abasic dogma of the funding policy of the foundations that it is never worthwhile to put money ina going concern. Everything has to be new! innovative! a radical departure! You get the samethings in an academic area when it is assumedthat the field is defined by the papers publishedin the last ten years. I'm constantly being toldthat, for instance, such-and-such a book onHomer, published in 1936, is 'out-of-date.' WhichI find very puzzling; after all, nothing has happened to Homer in that time. I think what isreally meant is 'out-of-fashion.' "He smiled again. "You said yourself that theUniversity might have to 'oppose currents ofopinion in the wider society.' This sounds likejust such a current. If your world is really as bedeviled by innovation as you say, then surelysome groups— and why not yours?— should firmlyturn their backs on the present. You can give upon current problems, social or otherwise— therecan be other agencies for those— and make a rulethat no book can be read or empirical fact considered until it is at least fifty years old."I really did not know whether or not he wasteasing. "Once you put it that way," I said, "of course I don't agree. When it comes right downto it I'm a believer in progress after all. I meanthis on the large scale and not as something necessary, but as something possible— and actual inthe past. I think civilization was quite an achievement—not that civilized society is happier thanpre-civilized, or more just, but that it is morevarious, more stimulating, and in some sensewhich I would not care to discuss, better. Civilization took a long time, and it hasn't beenaround very long; Imhotep was— what?— less than6,000 years ago, and 6,000 years aren't much inthe history of the world. It's possible to suspect,as I do, that industrialism is a dead end; it is impossible to rule out the hope that somethingcould come out of it better, in the same undefined sense, than anything we've seen."In the short range I have to believe in progress too. So do you, in fact; you wouldn't be involved in your research if you didn't thinksomething could be learned that hadn't beenlearned before. Every scientist, artist, or scholarwho's worth anything has the hope, howeverunfounded, that he could do something whichwould make a permanent difference to the workthat comes after him. I guess I have to withdrawmy previous example, in fact; I think MilmanParry's work has made a lot of difference— agood difference— in the way we think aboutHomer, and in 1936 the implications of Parryhad hardly been absorbed. So something hashappened to Homer since then."It remains true that what was once goodwork is always good work, and that an importantpart of good current work is the rediscovery ofwhat was good about past work. I guess I'mtrying to make a distinction between progressand fashion. Progress is the idea that when wesee some way to make something better we makeit new; fashion is the idea that whatever is new isalso better. Progress includes the past in thesense that the new step is founded on a syntheticunderstanding of what already exists. Fashionignores the past, and therefore is founded onignorance. So it turns out that fashion is a kindof innovation which sees to it that nothing everhappens— in fact it often creates a cycle, bywhich what is fifteen years old is absurd whilewhat is thirty years old is charming and wortha revival. The power of the idea of progress is inthe notion that continuity is the condition ofchange. So I guess we should welcome the progressive—when we can find it— and reject thefashionable.""Now that we have at last agreed on a distinc-191tion, I think that we also are making some progress." He was showing unexpected signs ofmild wit. "I would only add that this usefulchange of which you speak is founded, not simply on the past, but on principles which are notpart of history at all, which are (if you will allowthe expression) eternal.""Yes, I suppose that must be true. But I wouldfurther add that these principles are known tous only as they have become actual in history.Also we only have these principles insofar as weuse them, and to use them is always to makesome change— a discovery, a new work of art, abetter policy."He was digging in his briefcase. "Now that wehave agreed on our place in the historical process,we can perhaps turn to questions somewhat lessgrand. Let me show you another document." Hehanded me Summary of Interview no. 4."People talk a lot about the University's rolein society. By this they always seem to mean thesame thing: that the University has an obligationto meet the declared needs of society. Of coursethe University does a great deal in that linealready. We store things— particularly in the libraries—and make them available when peopleask for them. We run a hospital, a legal-aid service, a conference center. We are a custodial institution where people— especially students— cansleep and eat and have fun (although we'realways being asked to do this better). We are acertifying agency, both of students and faculty;the University can be looked upon as a pool ofqualified personnel, and of other persons becoming qualified, for various social tasks. One canalso assert that the University has the necessarysocial task of preaching the true social gospeland telling the society how it ought to behave.I have trouble with this one in practice, but Ican't rule it out in principle."However, I think all this is really peripheral.The true function of the University is to fill thesocial gap left by the elimination of kings andprinces. From this point of view the relationsbetween the faculty and the institution is notthat of employee to employer, but of artist topatron. The society charters and supports theuniversities because it thinks it important to havepeople like our faculty around, just the way thePope thought it was important, somehow, thatMichelangelo should paint all that stuff on hisceiling. Look at it this way and you'll see whythe University doesn't tell the faculty what to do.If you've got a Michelangelo you pay him, givehim the paint and the space, and let him go to it. Our University makes its contribution to thesociety when it makes appointments. Appointment policy is really the only important policywhich we have. As long as we have good people,everything else will pretty well take care of itself.Bad appointments, however, hurt, and in twoways: not only are they a waste of our, andsociety's, resources, but they tend to producemore bad appointments after them. This placehas always been a good place because Harperwas determined that he was going to get the bestpeople, and because those people have been ablemost of the time to replace themselves."The condition of liberty is freedom fromimmediate need. A University is a luxury, butI'm inclined to think that a good society existsfor the sake of its luxuries. There can be an assumption that all these things are going to beuseful eventually and also another assumptionthat it's not up to us to figure which are moreuseful than which, or how. I'm not clear that theAssyrian Dictionary does less for society than,say, the Mental Health Clinic. It seems to beperfectly possible that a work of careful scholarship does more for the rationality and moraleof society— even for its mental health— than anyother use of equivalent resources."If you look at the important innovationswhich have been made here— and there have beenmany— you'll see some common factors. First,they came out of the interests of the faculty.Second, they were local, and temporary. Groupshave come together and done something, whether in High Energy Physics of South Asian Civilization, or Primary Education. Every now andthen this place produces a Chicago School ofsomething— Sociology, or Economics, or LiteraryCriticism. It lasts for a while and then dissolvesto give place to something else."Besides the quality of its faculty— which iscrucial— this University has three traditions whichdistinguish it from some other universities, andwhich help. First, all appointments (with someuncomfortable exceptions which really prove mypoint) are made to full faculty status. A manmay be junior or senior but there is an assumption that everyone is, or is going to be, a fully-developed independent intellect. As a corollary,we cannot hire people to do a specific job— toteach a specific course or to run a laboratory—unless we can say that even if they end up doingsomething quite different we'll be glad to havethem around anyway. We try to discourage thesenior faculty from recommending young men tobecome their own subordinates. It's a peer-group192culture. In "the short run this hurts us— or at leastmakes it difficult to run that particular laboratory or course— but in the long run it helps a lot."Second, the University faculty is very freeflow. Something like a third of all faculty haveappointments in more than one academic area,and if you count the College as a separate academic area the figure rises to over one half. Thefaculty feel free to take their own intellectualdevelopment into unexpected areas, and there'sa general assumption that if you and a few otherpeople really want to do something you can findsome administrative slot to do it in. All this helpswith local and temporary innovations."Third, we have government by faculty committee. This costs something— in the tightest currency of all, faculty time— but it helps us. Thefaculty have to think about the whole place, itspriorities, where it's going— and most important,they meet each other. For a university of oursize we're very small— by which I mean compactand select. This is a place where in principle andto a large extent in practice the faculty are alleach other's colleagues."All this is somewhat wasteful and difficultto understand. We can't expect the wider societyto be awfully sympathetic. In the short run weneed careful management and intelligent publicrelations; in the long run we justify ourselves bywhat is achieved here, by what we leave on thatceiling."I handed it back. "Certainly he's much closerto my views than the other one; that's what Imeant about privileges being functional. Thatman should have been on my Committee.""He probably was; he's another member of theclub. You'll notice that when he says 'the University' he means the faculty.""Yes, I noticed that. What did you think ofhis position?""I'm troubled by the analogy, in two ways. Inthe first place, there is an ambiguity in it. Hespeaks of the institution as the patron and theprofessor as the artist. That makes you a community of a thousand little Michelangelos, eachintent on his private vision. But if you lookclosely at the analogy you'll see that in fact thesociety is the patron and the institution is theartist. As a whole. Which makes quite a difference."In the second place the analogy puts greatstress on the product. It is characteristic of artthat the work is more interesting than the manwho produced it; that is one reason people become artists. That is also why Socrates said the poets are mad; they make wonderful things, butthe merest bystander can explain their work better than they can. The critic, the scholar, thescientist are not like that; their work is accompanied by an explanation. Most of it is explanations."The artist can have friends, and he can evenhave collaborators who join him in making acommon work. But because the springs of artare private this is a pooling of talents withoutbeing a meeting of minds. An explanation, onthe other hand, when it functions, belongs equally to its originator and its audience. Persons whoare explaining things to one another become colleagues; they share the special kind of community which occurs when various minds are sharingsome ideas in the process of development. WhatI miss in the statement I showed you is a senseof that community."In several of my interviews I've noticed thestress on 'the individual faculty member.' It'sa favorite phrase of your President, and hisphrases tend to be used widely. The statement Ishowed you makes another point; these individuals are organized procedurally in such a waythat they can and do make contact with oneanother in unexpected ways. The pattern is 'freeflow'; the groups formed are 'local' and 'temporary.' The institution functions only to facilitate contact; the result is a kind of market-placemodel, in which atomized individuals carry onsuch transactions as appeal to them."At your University, as in others I have visited,the departments are the groups of primary affiliation. But in your University, in contrast withthose others, departments are comparatively unimportant. Joint appointments are one sign ofthe difference; another is the duplication ofagencies. You seem to have at least three psychology departments, and three— or is it five?—philosophy departments. There is a proliferationof committees which can only be explainedhistorically; some of them seem almost derelict.Then there is the College which, in some way noone can explain, recapitulates the entire University and yet remains separate from it."I was having difficulty getting the point of allthis. "We're proud of that inter-disciplinaryflexibility; the duplications provide for diversityand individual liberty.""Excellent, but let me point out that 'liberty,''diversity,' and 'flexibility'— and for that matter 'inter-disciplinary'— are negative terms. Theypoint to a lack of structure. All the weight fallson individual initiative. This is a fine system193when it works— a tautologically safe remark— butit puts a premium on stamina, self-assurance, andrhetorical appeal. A free market requires entrepreneurs. I'm not clear that's the best way ofallocating resources. What about the areas wherenothing ever happens, which transmit their somnolence from generation unto generation? Theentrepreneurs tend to go where the action is (Ithink that's the idiom) with the result that thelively areas stay lively and the rest decay.""The market is hardly a fair analogy either.Where's the profit motive?""The rewards are not profit but prestige. It'sa 'peer-group culture' and a peer-group is a competitive organization. Since the competition isfor recognition, the losers are by definition invisible. They become a kind of ghost faculty,which is not only bad for them and for you,but wasteful of resources.""That's a bit strong, isn't it? There may besome cases. . . .""Competition brings out the best in people,but also the worst, particularly when it putsthem on the defensive. Your faculty defendthemselves in various ways. They can take refugein self-approval, whether expressed in lethargy,or vanity, or carelessness of others. The facultyhere, in the whole, define their activities forthemselves; as a consequence they come to believe that whatever they are doing is what theyare supposed to be doing. Which, as you toldme a while ago, cannot be true. Then the departments can function as defensive organizations.I've noticed that the weakest departments— or atleast those judged weakest by the rest of theUniversity— are generally the ones who talk mostabout professional competence and their uniquecontrol of a particular discipline. By this theymean that what goes on there is nobody's business. Then they further specialize internally,with one man doing the seventeenth century ofwhatever it is, another the eighteenth, anotherthe nineteenth. Each faculty member becomesa self-made island with the speciality for a moat.I hear of these departments vetoing appointments on the ground that 'we already have someone in that area.' You'd think the man would beglad to have someone to talk to !"Then this search for recognition leads to agreat diffusion of energy and a search for moreappreciative audiences. People are drawn intoconferences, consulting, the public scene, notbecause their own work needs that, but becausethere they can be certified as competent and interesting. Some of your teachers play to the stu dents in exactly the same way.""That's quite an indictment.""Is that all you have to say?""That's all I have to say right now."He frowned at me. "I'm reminded of an anecdote told me by one of your colleagues. Heattended— a good many years ago— a rather glittering conference on the subject of The Future ofth6 Humanities. Distinguished professors werethere, also deans and presidents, also foundationexecutives and trustees. For a couple of days thespeeches ran along predictable lines; everyone restated what was then the current set of complaints: publish or perish, the decline of teaching,over-professionalization, the decline of liberalvalues. At a certain moment a quiet little manat the back— he was actually a trustee of TheUniversity of Chicago— put up his hand. T havea question,' he said. 'You all seem to be agreedabout what is wrong. Now, since you are thepeople who make policy for these institutions,my question is this: how is it that these thingscontinue?' There was a long dead silence. Finallysomeone spoke on another topic, and in theremaining three days of the conference no oneever returned to that trustee's question."He paused and we looked at each other."Yes," I said. "Well, when you've lived withthese things a while you come to think of themas your fate. What do you think is the answer tohis question?""I don't know, but I'm sure the answer can'tbe silence. Sometimes it seems to me that youdon't take your institutions very seriously— as ifan institution were nothing but a budget andsome procedures for allocating it. I'm interestedin these institutions because I look on them asvehicles of continuity; through them commonpurposes are transmitted from generation to generation. These purposes must be actualized inhabits, since the habits are the ground of thevirtues. Our director wrote of the virtues: 'Theactivity precedes the capacity.' Men become better—become human in the first place— only bythe imitation of their betters and under the discipline of praise and blame. That is what it meansto inherit a culture, and only in culture can menthink and act for themselves. Therefore 'the student must trust the teacher.' An intellectual community is a fabric of such trusting, and it can bemaintained only by co-operative activity. I'mnot complaining about specialization— which isonly the organization of knowledge to some purpose—but about atomization. Am I making anysense?"194"Yes, you are, up to a point. But I don'texactly see what you're driving at. We don't liketo speak of ourselves as creatures of habit, because it suggests that we're inert or self-satisfied,that we just want to go on doing what we'redoing.""Which is like a man saying that his movements are inhibited because his blood alwayscirculates in the same direction! A habit is adeveloped capacity, and the capacities make activity possible. I'm trying to say something about'excellence'-that term you said 'functioned likea bridge.' It seems to me that what you usuallymean by it is the question: is this man alreadyadmired and famous, or is he likely to be? Butthis is to allow others, in effect, to make yourdecisions for you. I'm suggesting that you mightbetter ask: how is this man likely to function inthe life of the group? Is he the sort of personin whose company everybody else becomes moreinteresting?""I'm not sure I like that; it sounds awfullyclubby. We need our abrasive personalities andour lone wolves.""That, if you will allow me to say so, is exactly like interpreting a call for better teaching as ademand for charismatic personalities and peoplethe students like. When I say 'function' I meanit in some serious sense. Look, you made an important point about progress; you called it 'asynthetic understanding of what already exists.'I was trying to make that point in another waywhen I talked about the contrast between a workof art and an explanation. A work of art, however great, does not include its predecessors; itstands next to them, something else for us toknow about. Therefore art is properly competitive. Or one could make the contrast betweendiscovery and invention. A new invention makesan old one obsolete; this is the 'new-model' ideaof progress you were complaining about. But anew discovery does not replace the old ones; theworld remains the same, and what was once trueabout it remains, within a given frame of reference, still true. Each explanation attaches toothers, both past and future. Various statementsare discarded as they are discovered to be false,but as long as people are interested, not in havingtheir own statements preserved at all costs, butin arriving at the truth, the process of explainingjoins men together. They are joined through conversation. From this point of view there is nodistinction between teaching and research; bothexist for the sake of developing some sharedclarities between minds. The university exists to continue this conversation. In a sense you couldsay that the university is the conversation, and itconsists, not of its faculty, or even of its facultyand students, but of all those who are takingserious part in the conversation at any giventime."There was another pause. "Now you've got mepreaching again," he said."No, I feel a good deal of sympathy both forthe text and the interpretation. I think the modelyou work from is what we call 'hard science' -and it may well be true that the sort of community you are talking about exists primarilyin the hard sciences. But I think the model couldbe extended, and I think this sort of communityalso exists elsewhere. And I think it's important.I can tell you, however, why I am so silent. Fromthe time of Lycurgus and Pythagoras, peoplehave been trying to legislate community; I wouldlike to point out that the institutionalization ofthe virtues has an outstandingly bad record. Youcan accuse us, if you like, of a laissez faire policyand a lack of institutional focus. My question is:how will this focus be imposed, and by whom?Dr. Arnold of Rugby? We don't have those moralcertainties, and we don't even want them. Asyour director said, in a similar context: 'It is fairto mention not only the bad things eliminatedby community, but the good things as well.'""Touche. Probably the kind of community Iam talking about cannot be created; it can onlybe permitted and encouraged. Certainly I'm noturging you to join the total-encounter people— orthe kick-in-the-ass school either. My objectionthere is not so much to the crudity of the meansas to the correlative banality of the result. In away I think that's been the trouble. You've beenon the defensive for so long— you've spent somuch energy refusing to be what you are not—that you've forgotten how to think about whatyou are. In a way you miss the barricades; theygave you a perimeter and some self-definition.Now that the pressure is off you could do somehard thinking about your own purposes. Whichis, of course, more difficult than self-defense.""That," I said, "is what my Committee reportwas supposed to be about.""In that case I can do nothing better than toleave you to it." He stood up."What shall I say?" I asked."About Tradition and Innovation? What canyou say? Everything and nothing. That's not aquestion, it's a rhetorical topic, useful in thediscussion of any question. Tell them there's noreason to think there have to be changes— except195in the sense that there always have to bechanges.'"A state without the means of some changeis without the means of it's conservation.' Ithought of using that as an epigraph.""Who said that?""Edmund Burke.""Oh yes. A clever fellow. A bit unsteady,though. ..." He turned to go, then turned back."There is one point, however. Don't call for newinter-disciphnary approaches. You people are always talking about 'inter-disciphnary' as thoughyou already had a thriving set of disciplines. Youdon't need new connections as much as you neednew things to be connected.""As Erich Heller said of C. P. Snow: 'A happyfellow! He can see two cultures where I cannoteven see one."'"I see you take my point. If you really wantto do something for your University, why notstart at the center? That's where the problem is,Why don't you have an all-University Committee on the question: what is Sociology? That's something everyone ought to be concerned about.""That's the most frightening suggestion you'vemade yet.""You understand I said 'Sociology' only ex-pli gratia. Thank you for your time.""Wait, that's a fascinating suggestion. Howwould we get a discussion like that going? Can'tyou stay for lunch? There are some people I'dlike you to meet."But he was gone.James M. Redfield (Chairman)James C. BruceMorrel H. CohenDr. Daniel X. FreedmanPhilip W. JacksonHelen J. Kant orDr. Charles E. OxnardHerman L. SinaikoMilton B. 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