ia4 ergait REPORT RESUMES ED 010 647 24 STUDIES OF COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTS. BY- STERN, GEORGE G. SYRACUSE UNIV., N.Y. REPORT NUMBER CRP-378 PUB DATE 66 REPORT NUMBER BR-4-0830 CONTRACT DEC- !SAE -6D2; EDRS PRICE MF--$0.36 HC-$10.44 26!P. DESCRIPTORS-. EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT, EDUCATIONALRESEARCH, *INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT, *ENVIRONMENTALINFLUENCES, *COLLEGE ROLE, EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES, *STUDENTATTITUDES, STUDENT NEEDS, *EVALUATION TECHNIQUES, SYRACUSE, NEWYORK, ACTIVITIES INDEX, COLLEGE CHARACTERISTICS INDEX IN AN ATTEMPT TO INCREASE FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGEABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTS, 4, THOSE CHARACTERISTICS WERE RELATED TO STUDENTATTRIBUTES AND TO CRITERIA OF INSTITUTIONAL EXCELLENCE. THEMEASURING INSTRUMENTS USED FOR THIS PURPOSE WERE THE ACTIVITIESINDEX CA PERSONALITY MEASURE) AND THE COLLEGE CHARACTERISTICSINDEX CA MEASURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS).SAMPLES OF STUDENTS ATTENDING COLLEGES OF ALL SIZES AND TYPES WERE ADMINISTERED THESE QUESTIONNAIRES. RESULTS WERE ANALYZEDIN ORDER TO CLARIFY THE MAIN PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIESOF THE TWO INSTRUMENTS AS APPLIED TO COLLEGE POPULATIONS, THEEFFICACY OF FACTOR SCORES, AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF MEASURESOF INSTITUTIONAL PRESS AND STUDENT NEEDS TO EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT. THE DATA INDICATEDTHAT INCOMING FRESHMEN GENERALLY SHARE STEREOTYPED EXPECTATIONSOF COLLEGE LIFE THAT COMBINE SOME OF THE MOST DISTINCTIVE ACADEMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ELITE LIBERAL ARTSCOLLEGES WITH THE COMMUNITY SPIRIT, EFFICIENCY, AND SOCIALORDERLINESS OF THE CHURCH-RELATED SCHOOLS, CAUSING A SUBSEQUENT FRUSTRATION AND DISILLUSIONMENT ON THE PART OF STUDENTS.IT WAS.PROPOSED THAT, IN ADDITION TO SUCH CONVENTIONAL CRITERIA USED FOR EVALUATING COLLEGES AS PLANT AND PERSONNEL, OTHER MEASURES OF QUANTIFYING INSTITUTIONAL NUANCES BE USED INCLUDING THOSE USED IN THIS STUDY. (GD) Sa TVIMMTFFICAPFsm- 4'17TMI:r7CRT. , ),Ir.r.rn.1,,,,707netslmrzotnre , , ....'":',"1".""rET"MgMOIVIMS* U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION ANDWELFARE Office of Education This document has been reproduced exactly asreceived from the person or organization originatingit. Points of view or opinions stated do not necessarily represent official Office ofEducator; position or policy. Studies of College Environments Cooperative Research Project No. 378 George G. Stern Syracuse Uni%,;:rsity Syracuse, New York 1966 The basic research reported hereinwas supported by the Cooperative Research Program of the Office of Education, U.S. Department ofHealth, Education, and Welfare, Contract No. SAE-8023. Additional Syracuse University Computing Center assistance was made available by the National Science Foundation under Grant GP60137. Table of Contents I. Introduction II. The College Study III. Student Ecology and the College Environment 14 IV. Three College Vignettes 43 V. Differences Within the Large University 66 VI. Interrelations Between Need and Press 84 VII. Benchmarks for Higher Education: 153 Summary and Extrapolations References 177 Appendix -11111-... Chapter I Introduction Conventional criteria for evaluating colleges and universities emphasize the morphological characteristics of these organizations, in much the same sense that the taxonomic schemes of the naturalist are based on the classification of readily observable parts and pieces of organisms. The Association of American Universities, the six regional accrediting associations, the various professional groups, and the National Commission onAccrediting are among the more significant sources of normative procedures for the comparisonof educational institutions. The bases for classification developed by these agencies have relied heavily on statistical appraisals of easily enumeratedcharacteristics of plant and personnel including, among other things: faculty degrees, teaching load, salary schedules, tenure, library acquisitions, buildings and grounds, scholarship and loan funds, endowment assets, amount and sources of current income, etc. The value of such measures, and of the role played by the accrediting association, has been dramatized forcefully in medical education.The American Medical Association established a Council on Medical Education in1904, began classifying schools by 1907 and,following the Flexner report on medical educa- tion in 1910, subsequently adopted standards resulting in the complete elimination of inadequate schools. But the standards to be applied in medical school are not relevant to a seminary, anymore than those for the latter are relevant to the liberal arts college, or the large state multiversity. The common questions, appropriate to all educational institutions, are not Wiijtja-eititgattic.......velassets? but What is it trying to accompli ?, not....!MO.mulat...511.lAmt? but Now well does it achieve JALStaitialle These are the questions which have more typically concerned the educational philosopher or essayist, unconstrained by the need toquiintify. They are, it will be seen, directed to process and purpose rather than appearances. The techniques for quantifying functional properties of institutional systems are only just beginning to emerge, however. Educational administration is still based firmly on homiletics and proscription, as are its sister arts in business and government. Formal investigation of relationships between administrative processes, organizational structure, and other aspects of the institutional environment are very little beyond the rudimentary stage to which they were raised by the Western Electric studies well over a quarter century ago. The problem with respect to colleges is essentially one of finding better ways of characterizing their differences, those differences in particular that relate to what the college does to students. Although the ultimate end towards which the Syracuse studies of college environments are directed involves more than the description of colleges or the development of new criteria for evaluating them, these have been their immediate outcome. This report is limited to these specific aspects of the Syracuse studies, and to their potential contribution to higher education. It is hoped, however, that their relevance to the study of other levels of education, other types of social organizations, and to the prediction of behavior and performance of any institutional incumbentstudevot, worker, or community resident - -will also be apparent. Describing the College Learning Environment Statements of the objectives of higher education properly stress the acquisition of knowledge and the development of intellectual skills and abilities. In addition to these goals a concern is sometimes expressed for achiev5ng growth in attitudes and values, personal and social development, citizenship, civic responsibility, esthetic appreciation, and similar supracognitive attributes. In relation to such complex objectives, a college community must be viewed as more than classrooms, professors, libraries or laboratories. It is also a wiesisssW4mwosssiwiaWIS4440W60SiiiW4444tiiiti network of interpersonal relationships, of social and publicevents, of student government and publications, of religious activities, of housing and eating, of counseling, and of curricular choices. ..u.swima06siakirmbao differ1s mu one as usaLeuUtoVCIIpersonalities, and the same thing has been said of the collectivity of studentsrepresented in a student body as well as of the institution to which they belong. The college community may be regarded as a system of pressures, practices and policies intended to influence the development of students toward theattainment of insti- tutional objectives. The distinctive atmosphere of a college, and the differences between colleges, may be attributable in part to the differentways in which such systems can be organized--to subtle differences in rules and regulations, rewards a. and restrictions, classroom climate, patterns of personal and socialactivity, and in other media through which the behavior of the individual studentis shaped. Descriptive Analyses Such institutional nuances have been brought out most clearly in vignettes of schools prepared by trained observers. Some outstanding examples are to be found in the series by Boroff (1962) published originally inHarper'smagazine, or those by Riesman, Jencks, Becker and others prepared for The American College (Sanford, 1962). There is a very substantial body of literature of this type, accessible in part through the summaries of Barton (1961), Pace and McFee (1960), and Stern (1963b,pp. 429 ff). Regardless of their origin, whether in sociology, anthropologyor journalism, these often make few stimulating reading. The best of them may perhaps be not unfairly com -ared with the works of such writers as Mary McCarthy, Bernard Malemud, or C.P. Snow who, having known the academic life themselves, sometimes choose the college as a setting for their novels and thereby transmit something of theessence of a particular type of institution. Somewhat further afield, but so priceless -fi- end yet so little known in this country that I cannot resist citing them here, are the delightful essays of Cornford(1953) on the politics of British academia, first written in 190C .ut still fresh despite the distance in time and space. Altho%.gh these materials are a rich source of insights into college life, their lack of formal structure and essential non - reproducibility make them valueless for normative purposes. Correlational Analyses A more systematic way of looking at schools can be accomplished by specifying some enumerabte