"Where, Oh Where—?"
A Discussion of the Senior Fellowships, With an Account of the Work of the '39 Incumbents, By One of Them
THE EIGHT MEN who will this year be given their degrees in course without benefit of grades or examinations constitute the tenth group of Dartmouth students to pursue their studies extra curriculum in senior year. It goes without saying that they are thankful, one and all, for the freedom they have been entrusted with and for the subsidization which the College has incidentally bestowed on them. As members of the class of '39, too, they are not unmindful of the added distinction of being the largest contingent to receive the award in any year since the founding of the Fellowships.
In April, 1929, at President Hopkins' suggestion, the trustees of the College established the Senior Fellowships, and the first recipients, five in number, were members of the class of 1930. The objectives of this unusual experiment were promulgated as follows:
"In order that added stimulus may be given to the spirit of scholarly attainment in undergraduate life and that the cultural motives of the liberal arts college may be emphasized; and in order that the tendencies of the honors courses toward freedom from routine requirements may be carried to further development in the cases of men outstandingly competent to utilize such freedom; and further that illustration may be given in the undergraduate body that the acquisition of learning is made possible largely by individual search and in but minor degree by institutional coercion: Voted," etc.
Since that time 61 men have been adjudged outstandingly competent and have been placed beyond the pale of the curriculum to demonstrate the efficacy of an educational technique radically different from that on which the College program as a whole is based.
In the records of Senior Fellow careers there are evident three general patterns of adaptation, three types of use to which the privilege has been put. The one which conforms most nearly to the President's original conception is that exemplified this year by the work of Rodger Harrison, whose intention from the date of his application was nothing more nor less than to explore some of the more significant books of Western civilization in the fields of religion, philosophy, social science and literature in order to furnish himself with a sound background for understanding the contemporary world. Giving up his zoology major, this student, who intends to go into business, deliberately cast himself adrift on the waters of printed knowledge without plan or prescription other than that of familiarizing himself with a personal selection of the best that has been thought and said in our world. Seeking to adjust the experience of these books to his own here and now, he has written occasional papers which he has submitted to his faculty advisor (Professor West, Comparative Literature), and to certain other professors.
Three of the present incumbents typically represent the second use-pattern, which is one that has developed under the encouragement of Dean Bill (member of the recommending committeef and patron saint of Senior Fellows). Frederic Upton, William Remington and Louis Highmark each planned at the time of application a project which belonged within the scope of no one departmental program for undergraduates and which was to occupy his entire working time. Upton's consisted of research on the anatomy of revolution, and called for an attempt to evaluate the various theoretic patterns which have been propounded, especially by the champions of history as a proper science. This has involved analysis of an enormous mass of historiographic material, and a careful debunking of the unsound methods of historical interpretation which have influenced popular and even scholarly thought for hundreds of years. A history major who intends to go on to graduate work, Upton is dedicated to the proposition that history can and must be scientific. Professor Stevens (History) has been his constant advisor.
Remington, a sociology major, set himself the task of a comprehensive study of economic and social problems in the Connecticut River valley area from the public administrator's standpoint. With his year of work as an office assistant in the TVA behind him, he has looked at things in terms of long-range regional planning, and has naturally been interested to discover that there are no responsible local agencies, public or private, endeavoring to cope with the existing serious problems.
Accordingly, he has made his own statistical survey of industries, resources and folk, and is now working on plans for practical solution of the problems, considering opportunities for industrial revival and development, barriers to investment, business-government relationships and the possible role of the Federal administration in creating investment outlets for savings. He has been submitting frequent papers to his chief advisor, Professor Larmon (Administration), and to teachers in the social sciences. He will go on to graduate school, having won the Henry Elijah Parker graduate fellowship, and prepare for a teaching and administrative career.
Highmark, an economics major, who is going to law school and hopes for some sort of administrative career in business, chose for his project an examination of the capitalist price structure in America, and of course became incidentally involved in a study of the whole economic system,—the history, functions, structure and problems of corporate business. The phenomenon of price rigidity has interested him especially, and he has gone thoroughly into the factors which make for rigidity, as well as into the conflicting opinions of economists as to whether we do have rigidity or not. In the second semester he has also been sitting in on the new accounting course given by the Department of Economics and an introductory course in law. His principal advisor through thick and thin has been Professor Carter (Economics).
The third type of utilization of the Fellowship, and the one which is farthest from its first experimental objective, is that apparent in the program of John Parke, an English major. Basing his application on a desire to give undivided attention to Honors work, he has described a somewhat elliptical orbit through the exemption of the Fellowship back into the curriculum again, or into that part of it which is of central importance to him. He has been very glad to slough off the three non-English courses he would otherwise have had to take, and is convinced that his use of the final and comprehensive exam, periods must prove ultimately of greater advantage to him than if he had had to employ them as most other students do. However, he is enrolled for certificate credit in Education 44 (Practice ofTeaching), since he is seeking a secondary school position for next year. His chief faculty advisor has been his tutor in English Honors, Professor Childs.
Then there is a tendency each year for some of the Fellows to straddle, defying classification as footloose, project-making or curriculum-returning students. Thus, the program of Charles Davis, also an English major, represents a cross between the second and third patterns. Proposing in his application to undertake both the Senior Honors course and a special project in Negro literature and culture, he has maintained an even balance between these two endeavors, capturing en route the Fred DeMerritte Barker graduate fellowship. Davis has long intended to dedicate his life to the cultural advancement of his race, but without in the least narrowing his preparation in the larger heritage to which the Negro people must be allowed free access if they are to achieve an organic integration into American society. His project, specifically, is a study of the twentieth-century renaissance in Negro literature, not merely as a literary phenomenon but as a sociological and even an economic one. He hopes to be able to adapt his program in graduate school to a further intensification of this project, and to prepare himself more fully for teaching and for leadership in Negro intellectual life. His Honors work has been carried on under the tutelage of Professor Childs, and his project with the help of Professor Allan Macdonald (English).
John Kelleher, another English major, originally proposed for himself a combination of the same patterns successfully integrated by Davis, namely, the regular Senior Honors program in his major field and an independent project in Irish history and literature. However, he abandoned his Honors course early in the fall and later modified his project in such a way as to warrant our classifying his year's work as a cross between the first pattern and the second. Commencing in his project with a critical study of Irish writing in the twentieth century, he soon found it was indissociable from the production of the previous century. This led to a conviction that Irish literature is important chiefly as a by-product of the development of Irish nationalism, and Kelleher turned his attention to the history of Ireland as she emerges into self-conscious integration from 1786 on. Recently his focus has shifted to the Irish Revolution as a military phenomenon and to military tactics in general, and he has found the American Civil War a fascinating case study. He inclines toward teaching, but his future is as yet undecided. He has had no faculty advisor since he discontinued his English Honors work.
Finally, Robert Kaiser, who originally projected a survey of the objectives of the entire College program and the degree to which those objectives are realized in practice, discarded the enterprise before he began it. This survey was to include an investigation into student opinion about the curriculum and an examination of possible ways and means of bringing that opinion to bear on the control of educational policy. Kaiser was advised that such an undertaking would require more time and energy than he could hope to command in one year, and agreed with his advisors. The form ultimately taken by his work most nearly resembles a combination of the first and third patterns, or, independent non-project work plus regular courses. Originally an economic major, ever intending to go into the distribution end of business, he has devoted himself to self-directed study at Tuck School in market analysis, advertising and salesmanship, and to taking the senior accounting course. Except in this latter unit he is not in continuous touch with any one faculty advisor.
The development of the second two patterns since the inauguration of the Fellowship has raised some interesting discussion. What is one really supposed to do with a Senior Fellowship? A mistaken popular supposition has grown up that one must propose a vast and advanced scholarly project in order to be elected. Another notion, less current now than formerly, is that the Senior Fellow is really supposed to do nothing at all except allow himself to be continually imposed upon by enthusiasts in campus organizations who are not able or inclined to do organizational dirty work themselves.
Here are the facts. No attempt is being made to restrict the use of the Fellowship to the planless, or completely subjective, use-pattern as first conceived by the President. Opportunity to use the freedom from curricular requirements in this way will probably never be curtailed, and there will often be men who will want and need to use it as, for instance, Harrison is using it this year. The experience of several men in the past, according to the President, Dean Bill and others, amply justifies the continuance of this carte blanche invitation. There is evidence enough, too, that there are always a few men who are able to profit by and do credit to the extracurricular scholarly project; indeed, this type of effort has become in the last few years the most notable phase of the Fellowship, contributing greatly to its increased favor with the faculty, the large majority of whom were at first frankly mistrustful. As can be seen above, project makers usually seek and obtain close guidance and cooperation from an individual teacher in their field, thus fulfilling the original objective of developing an advanced type of Honors program.
The third type of adaptation, characterized by a disposition on the part of the Fellow to concentrate on some regular phase of departmental work without the distraction of two or three additional courses outside his major field, presents a special problem. It is not considered that this sort of program represents a proper utilization of the Fellowship privilege. Parke, for instance, approximates the status of the so-called Senior Scholar, a status enjoyed in 1938-39 by seven students. These Scholars are permitted to drop one to two courses outside their major field and do special tutorial work, with supervision and grading similar to that in regular major Honors. This constitutes, in some cases, a sort of combined major; or, again, it may tend to remain within the single-department major and provide for a project, the equivalent of two courses, supplementary to Honors. It is possible that this experimental provision for outstanding seniors who do not wish to work entirely outside the departmental curricula will be extended and become a permanent fixture: in this way the paradox of Senior Fellows who do not work as Senior Fellows can be eliminated and the function of the Fellowship further clarified and justified.
These, and other aspects of the Fellowship (such as the automatic nature of the financial subsidization of Fellows) are due for discussion at the last of the annual series of dinners this semester. These meetings usually center on an informal report by one of the Fellows on some phase of his work, Dean Bill and the speaker's advisors being present; but at the final one some time in May the entire recommending committee will meet with the Fellows and attempt to clarify some of the issues suggested above with a view to possible modifications.
SENIOR FELLOWS' HEADQUARTERS Special offices for senior fellows were madeavailable this year in Baker Librarythrough the gift of Mrs. Helen L. Paul inmemory of Carroll Paul '03, and othersin the family identified with the College.
STUDENT CONTRIBUTORS of FEATURE ARTICLES IN THIS UNDERGRADUATE ISSUE Left to right: John Parke, Arnold Childs, William ft . Goodman, J. Morean Brown, all of the senior class.
†Quoted from the College Catalog: Selection {ofSenior Fellows) is made on nomination of the President,after conference by him with members of the faculty andparticularly with a committee consisting of the Dean ofthe Faculty, the Bean of the College, the Chairman of theCommittee on Educational Policy, the Director of Personnel Research, the Dean of Freshmen, and the JuniorClass Officer."
