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Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Alumni News Archives Spring 1976 Connecticut College Alumni Magazine, Spring 1976 Connecticut College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews Recommended Citation Connecticut College, "Connecticut College Alumni Magazine, Spring 1976" (1976). Alumni News. 198. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews/198 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Alumni News by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. -<fC<d?3>- «O~ (JJii.. .4!11 c::tI ... 4 YOUNCi ) ALUMNI SPEAK I - EDITORIAL BOARD: Allen T. Carroll '73 Editor (R.F.D. 3, EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Colchester, Ct. 06415), Marion Vilbert Clark '24 Cassandra Goes Simonds '55. President / Mariana Parcells Class Notes Editor, Elizabeth Damerel Gongaware '26 Wagoner '44, First Vice-President / Mary Lee Minter Assistant Editor, Cassandra Go88 Simonds '55, Louise Goode '46, Second Vice-President / Britta Jo Schein Stevenson Andersen '41 ex officio McNemar '67, Secretary / Ann Roche Dickson '53, Treasurer CREDITS: Illustration at top of page 6 from photograph by Directors-at-Large. Ann Crocker Wheeler '34, Sara Rowe Larry Albee '74. Heckscher '69, Michael J. Farrar '73 / Alumni Trustees, Elizabeth J. Dutton" 47, Virginia Golden Kent '35, Jane Smith Official publication of the Connecticut College Association. Moody '49 / Chairman of the Alumni Annual Giving Program, All publication rights reserved. Contents reprinted only by Lois Keating Learned '54 / Chairman of the Nominating permission of the editor. Published by the Connecticut Committee, Joann Walton Leavenworth '56 / Chairman of College Alumni Association at Sykes Alumni Center, the Finance Committee, Peter M. Paris '74 / Chairman of Connecticut College, New London, Conn., four times a year the Scholarship Committee, Virginia Golden Kent '35 / in Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. Second-class postage paid Personnel Consultant, Sarah S. Buchstane '33/ Co-Chairmen at New London, Conn. 06320. Application to mail at of Young Alumni Committee, Victoria Leonhart '75, Richard additional entry Post Office pending. Send fonr 3579 to F. Cohn '75 / Executive Director, Louise Stevenson Sykes Alumni Center, Connecticut College, New London, Andersen '41, ex officio Conn. 06320. AAC IDemher Communications to any of the above may be addressed in care of the Alumni Office, Connecticut College, New London, Conn. 06320 j Connecticut College Alumni Magazine VOLUME 53, NUMBER 3, SPRING 1976 The College 2 Responding to a new era in higher education Wayne Swanson Young alumni speak 6 Boob tube Adele Wolff '71 8 Rape Kathleen Brueckner '72 9 Alaska Heather Grindle '75 10 Law school Amy Cohen '74 12 Deli man 14 Peace Corps Sharon Platner '73 15 Out of work Margo Reynolds '72 19 Graduate study Jewel Plummer Cobb Alumni officers' ballot (Centerfold) 21 Notes on two sculpture series David Smalley 25 Book sale 26 Round & About 29 Class Notes 1 Responding to a new era • 1n higher education 'III By Wayne R. Swanson Dean of the Faculty he titles of two books which are probably believing that "affluence" and "growth" had to be found in the offices of many academic become permanent features of the academic T administrators today sum up what many community. educators believe will be the major challenges It does not take a college administrator long facing colleges in the years ahead: Faculty De- today to realize that the period of expansion, velopment in a Time of Retrenchment and Assur- comparative affluence, and high confidence in ing Academic Progress Without Growth. Demo- American colleges, especially private colleges, graphic and economic studies indicate that most has virtually come to a standstill. Enrollment colleges, Connecticut College among them, will growth has tapered off, and in the 1980's the have to plan carefully for a period of no growth, college-age population will decrease. A few col- what in academic circles has come to be known as leges still manage to add students, but most, like the "steady state." Connecticut College, are happy with steady en- The air of pessimism pervading higher educa- rollments. Mounting costs and budget deficits tion, expressed in terms like "retrenchment" and require hefty tuition increases and yearly searches "no growth," is extremely difficult for many of us for savings, which often include cutbacks in in the academic world to accept. Higher education faculty and in academic programs. College teach- emerged in the 1960's in an exalted position. ing jobs are scarce, and faculty mobility has de- There was a general consensus in public opinion clined sharply. The proportion of tenured faculty that college or university training was among the is rising. Most colleges can expect their faculties essential qualifications of those seeking to cure either to remain at their present size orto decrease, society's technological and social ills. Armed with opportunities for new appointments pro- with a new sense of public confidence in and vided principally by a trickle of retirements. support for their mission, institutions of higher Strict budget management and the steady state education readily accepted society's challenge. also threaten to constrain educational innovation One of the difficulties colleges face today, how- and to limit the capacity of colleges to meet new ever, is that the manner in which they responded student needs and interests. Faculty members to the task was predicated largely on the assump- tend to react to retrenchment by defending tra- tion that progress involved growth and that the ditional disciplinary territory, and although they best way to serve society's needs was to expand acknowledge the need for change, they are sty- -more students, more faculty, more programs, mied by tight budgets and the limits of their own more courses and more facilities. Expansion not training. Colleges can no longer easily appoint a only allowed colleges to serve a much larger clien- new instructor when an important new course or tele; it also did much to free the curriculum from program seems warranted. budgetary constraints. New courses and programs. If it is true, as one observer has stated, that the "came easy" in an expansionist economy. The theme of the next decade in higher education will intellectual vitality of colleges, the quality of in- be "qualitative progress" rather than "quan- struction, and the breadth and depth of curricular titative growth," this poses two very important offerings were easy to sustain in a period when challenges for Connecticut College. In light ofthe resources were expanding. We were lulled into uncertainties which lie before us, a realistic plan 2 for the College's future must be articulated. The College take in order to survive the current crisis plan must be financially sound, and it must pro- in higher education? Although the financial vide a sense of direction which will allow us to pressures which are upon us affect all areas of function in the steady state in a manner that will the College's budget, my concern here is primarily not significantly undermine the quality of a Con- with the factors which will have the strongest necticut College education. A balanced budget impact upon the quality of our instructional pro- that is responsive to the academic mission of the gram. The College has already moved to deal College is a matter of high priority. with some of the problems generated by a period In addition, however, we cannot allow pes- of no growth and is involved in identifying other simism, uncertainty, and "economizing" to un- areas of concern which may impinge upon faculty dermine the intellectual growth and excitement and curricular development. Perhaps four ex- which sustain an academic community. No matter amples of the kind of response to financial belt- how difficult it may be to assure "academic prog- tightening that we have considered or are con- ress without growth," the College must find sidering will suggest the type of long-range plan- new ways to encourage innovation in curricular ning problems confronting us. and faculty development, to generate self-crit- icism, and to keep new approaches to learning Faculty Tenure high on its agenda. The reduction in the number offaculty positions ne of the first requirements in planning for in higher education and the lack of inter-institu- the future is that all constituencies of the tional mobility have resulted in a considerable O College develop a healthy respect for the increase in the number of faculty members who inevitability that changing conditions in higher remain at a college long enough to be considered education will affect Connecticut College and all for tenure. Connecticut College faculty are eligi- of its academic departments. To promote this ble for tenure after a six-year probationary period. awareness and to mobilize the College community Approximately two-thirds of our faculty will be is easier said than done. Academicians, even tenured by the end of the current academic year. those in the best position to comprehend the Six years ago only 48%of the faculty were tenured. future, are eternal optimists. The major conclu- The effect of a highly tenured faculty on a col- sion from a recent survey of two hundred presi- lege's instructional program is to limit its flex- dents of private colleges was that they were "un- ibility to provide a curriculum which reflects warrantedly optimistic about the future of their changing subject matter, new approaches to institutions." To take the attitude that we are learning, and student interest through a steady different from other colleges and will somehow influx of new appointments.

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