Colby Alumnus Vol. 67, No. 1: Fall 1977

Colby College Digital Commons @ Colby Colby Alumnus Colby College Archives 1978 Colby Alumnus Vol. 67, No. 1: Fall 1977 Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/alumnus Part of the Higher Education Commons Recommended Citation Colby College, "Colby Alumnus Vol. 67, No. 1: Fall 1977" (1978). Colby Alumnus. 99. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/alumnus/99 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the Colby College Archives at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Alumnus by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. b umnu I. 977 The Colby Alumnus Volume 67, Number 1 Fall 1977 Published quarterly fall, winter, spring, summer by Colby College College editor Mark Shankland Editorial associate Richard Nye Dyer Design and production Martha Freese Mark Shankland Photography Mark Shankland Letters and inquiries should be sent to the editor, change of address notification to the alumni office Second-class postage paid at Waterville, Maine Postmaster send form 3579 to The Colby Alumnus Colby College Waterville, Maine 04901 Cover photo This 1850 farmhouse has been named The Hill Family House in honor of a distinguished Water ville family. Built by one of the original owners of Mayflower Hill, it now houses the alumni relations and annual giving offices. See the story on page 18. Back cover photo The Performing Arts Center, Runnals Union The President's Page 75.JJ Reexamining the Curriculum AST SPRING THERE WAS A CERTAIN AGITATION high of 124. This figure should be examined and crit L among some of the students when the faculty voted icized. The old question as to whether the students' to eliminate the possibility that one might choose to achievement should be measured in courses or credit take a college requirement on the "pass/fail" basis. The hours, debated with regularity in the past, should be faculty took this action, it seemed to me, because of its again reviewed. conviction that a requirement was meant to be a The rationale of distribution requirements should be requirement, and the opportunity to take such a course explored. We have assumed for some time that it is on a "pass/fail" basis appeared to a sufficient number desirable for a student to gain not only an acquaintance of the faculty to represent a kind of loophole to enable in some depth with a major (single or double or com a student to circumvent in spirit if not in law an aca bined or interdisciplinary) but at the same time to demic regulation. achieve some understanding of other areas of human A delegation of students came to the faculty meeting experience that are not subsumed in the major. The shortly thereafter and urged that a subcommittee of the scientist should know something of the humanities and Educational Policy Committee be established with the social sciences, and all the non-scientists should have charge to examine the course load and, by extension, some first-hand acquaintance with at least one of the the curriculum. The faculty accepted this notion. Jean sciences, part of their course of study involving a labo Bundy, Professor of French in the Department of ratory. Should we take these assumptions for granted? Modem Languages, was prevailed upon to accept the The concept of the major itself should be scrutinized. chairmanship, and five students were appointed by the This autumn a visiting committee from the New Student Association, five faculty members by the Presi England Association of Schools and Colleges came dent. The Dean of the Faculty, the Administrative to Colby to make recommendations regarding Colby's Assistant to the President, and the President, it was continued accreditation. A document that we had pre agreed, would serve ex officio. pared for the committee to study in advance is devoted The establishment of committees to examine the cur in good part to the major, its educational implications, riculum is nothing new to Colby. Professor Robert and the way in which it is designed at Colby. McArthur of the Philosophy Department, an American The January Program of Independent Study, estab Council on Education Fellow at Colby two years ago, lished in 1962, is admittedly one of Colby's most attrac has found that since 1930 there have been something tive academic features. When it works, that is. But does like eight changes in the total number of credits or it always work? We are not so sure . So we hope to courses required for the Colby degree, and there have examine it afresh, even though we have been examining been any number of other modifications in require it through other mechanisms and committees for the ments, both within the two semesters and outside them, past few years. Or, to allude to another unusual ap such as in the institution of the January Program of proach, we devoted some of our first year's budget from Independent Study. the Ford Venture Fund to a study of the classical cur What do we expect from the Bundy subcommittee? riculum typified by the program at St. John's College in Will it merely tread some of the sod already well-trod? Annapolis and Santa Fe, with the thought that a modifi I think not, and I will suggest some of the reasons why. cation of this kind of rigorous and totally required cur A curriculum is a fragile kind of entity, and unless it is riculum might be an intellectually exciting opportunity examined and reviewed with some frequency it can be for perhaps a two-year sequence for a limited number of found to be out of date, or it can become solidified, or Colby students. To bring it about would require funds its fibre can disintegrate, or it can become stultified that we have as yet been unsuccessful in finding. Even through automatic acceptance and response. New aside from that practical consideration the concept has things keep happening in the world (like ecology or the not made noticeable headway with most of the faculty emergence of Japan) that somehow must be taken into and administration. Yet it is a fruitful idea that ought account in an educational program. New approaches to in the context of the rest of the program to be examined. political science emerge in every decade, new literary And so it goes. The Bundy subcommittee will not lack forms move from experimentation to print, and history for subjects to explore . Far from its representing just is always being assessed and rewritten anew. another replay of a record we have heard before, the Furthermore, the interests and academic needs of existence of the subcommittee is one more healthy evi students change. It may well be that given the demands dence that Colby is willing to take another look at itself. of a mod rn curriculum, in the context of a society that It is to the great credit of the students that this venture is has its own special demands, the 120 required credit something they thought of themselves and persuaded hours are no longer an appropriate total for the degree. the faculty to institute. There is nothing sacred about that figure, which since 1930 at Colby has fluctuated between a low of 105 and a ROBERT E.L. STRIDER 1 Money Matters· Where Do We Go from Here? Education of the Department of Largely for this reason, re by Robert Pullen, Health, Education and Welfare) searchers have found that the "cost Administrative Vice found that in the fiscal years 1968 of living" of colleges and universi through 1976 the expense of oper ties over the last 25 years has grown President ating colleges and universities had at an average annual rate of about risen at an annual rate of 6.6 per 2.5 percentage points more than the OLBY HAS CONSISTENTLY MAIN cent. In comparison, from 1971 cost of living figure for the nation. C tained a sound financial posi through 1977, covering the higher Colby has been subjected to the tion. In recent years this can be inflation years, Colby's cost in same extraordinary cost increases credited, to a great extent, to the crease averaged 6.9 percent. experienced by other institutions. acumen of A. Galen Eustis and Halstead also concluded that the After the oil embargo, the college Ralph S. Williams, the work of the cost of operating colleges and uni initiated procedures which reduced budget and finance and the invest versities would have risen much oil consumption by more than 20 ment committees of the board of faster, probably at an annual rate percent, but this has been insuf trustees, and the success of fund of about 7.7 percent instead of 6.6, ficient to offset price increases in campaigns by the development if faculty salary increases had kept excess of 350 percent . Further econ office. The present administration pace with inflation. From 1970 to omies in this area will require feels this healthy economic state can 1977, faculty salary increases at capital expenditures. and will continue, but there are con Colby have slightly exceeded the Other utility rates have also cerns, immediate and long-term, general rate of inflation. soared. With the opening of a dis about which alumni and other trict sanitation plant, sewerage costs friends should be informed. this past year went from an annual Higher education has been in level of about $1,000 to $44,000. volved in as much change during The impact of salaries, wages The price for library books and the last decade as in any compa and fringe benefits can be more periodicals has grown at a double rable period in history, and the readily appreciated when it is digit pace.

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