PLANS FOR SERVICEMEN
Special Committee Will Ease Return to College Studies
ON APRIL 20, 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor and three fateful years ago, the Board of Trustees established the Committee on Defense Instruction, under the chairmanship -of the President, "to study the problem of relating the curricula of the College and of the Associated Schools to the emergency of national defense " Within three months, this committee had put the curricula in trim, as best it could, for the inevitable storm, and had published the first of six widely copied Defense or War Bulletins for the guidance of young men leaving the paths of peace to prepare themselves for war.
Today the College is engaged in a similar undertaking in reverse—that of reorienting youth to normal civilian life. Again the task is so extraordinary that it falls within the scope of none of the standing committees. Again the Trustees have authorized an extraordinary committee, the Special Committee on Academic Adjustments, to meet the novel and complex situation. By the terms of the vote of the Trustees, the Committee, composed of three faculty members, two deans, and two amphibious dean-professors, was given plenary power in the field of academic adjustments relative to returning servicemen.
This group will supervise and determine the regulations under which servicemen will resume their interrupted educational careers. It will establish the conditions under which the demobilized students may be admitted or readmitted to Dartmouth and continue their education here. It will give individual attention and independent appraisal to each application for admission to the freshman class or for admission with advanced standing. It will advise servicemen about courses of study, while in service or on their return, and will give general educational counsel. The phrase to underscore is individual attention, in their statement to the Committee the Trustees expressed the desire that it be understood that academic standards should not be impaired; but that routine or group decisions should be zealously avoided, arid that each case be handled independently. A resolute attempt is being made to carry out the spirit of this directive.
ADMISSION PRIORITIES ESTABLISHED
The following account is in the nature of an interim report, devoid of theorizing or prophecy, of what has been accomplished up to the present. It was necessary, first of all, to take an account of stock. The records reveal that 3,000 students have left the Campus to enter the services. There are 3,500 sailors and marines who have been members of the local Navy V-12 Unit, many of whom will want to return here to complete their education. In addition, the brothers, nephews, and sons of the members of the various contingents of the Navy Indoctrination School will wish to experience the rigors of 40 below zero on Hanover Plain, of which their elders boast.
By what criteria shall we accept or reject amid all these claimants? The College has set 2,500 as the maximum number which its educational facilities can adequately instruct, to say nothing of the physical limitations of a static rural community, unable to expand and contract with the flow and ebb of residents. Within these arithmetical confines a tentative list of priorities had to be established, which would serve as a working hypothesis, and yet remain flexible enough to admit of modification. Our former students, now in the armed forces and really on leave of absence from Dartmouth, will naturally have first call on our available educational facilities. When they return they will find a place reserved for them, as will the men who were accepted for entrance but prevented by war from matriculating. All colleges will grant their former students the same precedence.
Next in line for special consideration are the men who were assigned by the Navy to the Dartmouth V-12 Unit and had not previously attended any other college. This preferred position saves them from becoming academic orphans, with nowhere to go, should a stampede to the colleges occur on demobilization. To secure this priority, however, they must have shown their ability to meet our standards. who became members of our V-12 Unit after attending another college will not benefit by the same preference, since they will enjoy priority at their own alma mater; they will, never- theless, have precedence over other applicants for transfer. Likewise on the priority list will be a civilian freshman group large enough to assure the unbroken flow of classes. Circumstances will determine what proportions of the entering classes will be drawn from servicemen and from those coming normally from the secondary schools. The Committee is optimistic on the score of enrollment. All colleges will experience lean years while the war continues; but when demobilization begins in earnest the Committee expects a large number to apply for admission.
As a policy of good public relations this subject of priorities is frankly explained in the pamphlet sent to students seeking entrance for some indefinite date in the future. If well qualified applicants must be denied admission when our facilities are exhausted, their rejection may cause them disappointment, but certainly no feeling of unfair discrimination when they know the cause. On the other hand, the Committee boasts no power of clair- voyance; its optimism may prove unjustified and certainly there will be a dearth of students if the rate of demobilization is slow. None the less, Dartmouth seems, from the letters received, still to maintain its hold on the imagination of American youth of college age.
COLLEGE CREDIT FOR MILITARY STUDY
Another knotty problem is the amount of college credit which can rightfully be assigned for military experience. At the end of the first world war, you will remember, colleges literally competed with one another in the amount of blanket credit which they were willing to grant on the basis of military time-serving alone. The result was chaos. So much real harm was done to those who were supposed to be benefitted that there is unanimous agreement among American educators that a similar mistake shall not be repeated after this war. Consequently, the colleges under the leadership of the American Council on Education and with the whole-hearted cooperation of the armed forces have set up the machinery for determining sound educational credit for military experience. Rationality has entered an irrational sphere.
With this movement Dartmouth is in full accord. Every effort will be made to evaluate in terms of academic credit all the wartime activities which have educational content. This policy will make it feasible for the serviceman to reach his goal in the briefest possible time, without being retarded by formalities, and yet without detriment to his intellectual interests or the significance of his degree.
Credit will be granted for courses successfully passed in the specialized training programs which deal with subject matter on the college level. Courses taken under the auspices of the Armed Forces Institute and validated by its tests will be assessed in judging the applicant's record. (The Institute is nothing less than a great university, run by the armed forces for inservice study, with thousands of enrolled students, many of them Dartmouth men, continuing their education while with the colors.) If a man has found time for reading and study in history, science, or English; if he has learned a language by residence abroad in the way of duty; or if he has gained intellectual maturity through the varied activities which make up life in the services, he can validate these attainments by tests administered by the Institute, and they will form part of the total picture of his educational background.
In addition, the College has an excellent bureau of educational research, which stands ready to supplement to the full this testing procedure for placement and credit purposes. Since public pressure to have the A. B. conferred as a reward for national service is almost overwhelming, the fact to keep in mind is that the College is eager to grant, not to withhold, credit. To be too stirct in the assignment of credits is unfair to the serviceman: but to be over-generous is likewise unfair in that it substitutes die form for the substance of education and nullifies the value of that which it gives. The Committee has emphasized for each case an individual appraisal and an unconventional approach in carrying out this policy; it hopes that the inherent complexities will not lead to too many errors.
DEGREES IN ABSENTIA
While on the topic of college credit for military experience—a study has been made of the status of students who would have graduated if they had been able to finish the senior year. To them has been extended the privilege of securing their A.B. in absentia. Many of these men will wish to return,—as one of them writes: "Even if I had received a degree (that is, without enough credits), I would have planned to return to Hanover and finish the job right." Others will wish to hasten into professional study or to get started in business careers, and to force such a return would be manifestly unfair.
The Committee has ruled that, when- ever a man in this group has completed a year in any accredited professional school (medicine, law, engineering, graduate faculty of philosophy, etc.), he will be recommended to the Board of Trustees for his Dartmouth A. B. degree. For the others the Committee is prepared to recommend the degree as soon as they have secured valid academic credits in absentia equivalent to their deficiency in semester hours. It has waived for them the traditional major subject requirement and the comprehensive examination, since these could be administered neither equitably nor significantly under war conditions, and has stipulated only the normal quantitative requirement of courses at the average set for graduation. These credits can be secured in extension courses, correspondence courses, or in the ways mentioned above. A letter describing these proposals has been sent by Dean Neidlinger to the men in good standing. The replies will be interesting and informative.
THE CURRICULUM
Up to the present the College has seen no advantage in offering a cut-rate substitute for the A.B. degree. With an accelerated schedule, such as that of the Navy V-12 Program, the entire work of the normal four years required for graduation can be encompassed within two and two- thirds years, and fractions thereof can be correspondingly expedited. To those servicemen who desire no further formal education some testimonial of positive sort will be made available, certifying the extent of their academic credits and ac- knowledging their status as respected members of the alumni body. The College believes in the normal academic year of two semesters as educationally sound. It hopes for a speedy return to this calendar for the sake of the student and for the quality of instruction thereby assured; but the serviceman whose needs or desires de- mand a more rapid pace will find the option of acceleration open to him. The College will offer an alternative: the normal curriculum of the civilian college or the special curricula worked out by the Committee exclusively for veterans. It will be their privilege under advice to choose between them.
THE RETURNING SERVICEMAN
What will the returning serviceman be like? The composite picture of him pieced together from the published guesses of educational spokesmen is probably a far cry from the reality. Some will return embittered and disillusioned,—war always produces its crop of cynics. Some will hail their return to college as a prolonged old grad reunion. Some will look upon life with a seriousness beyond their years and even beyond their experiences. But, on the whole, the majority will take up their interrupted academic lives in categories proportionate to the patterns of the past. They will be older and more mature, and will have some of that distrust which the man of action has for the man of words. However, there has always been at Dartmouth a strong feeling of camaraderie between student and teacher, which time and distance enhance as the perspective changes, This we can rely upon to leaven the mass of servicemen who return to us. They will without doubt cooperate in friendly understanding with those who offer them genuine counsel. A detailed and sympathetic study of the needs of the individual, a flexible curriculum, great latitude in the choice of studies (especially for those a long time out), and an expanded advisory system are the means contemplated for bringing this about.
FRIENDS OF THE SERVICEMAN, the Special Committee on Academic Adjustments is shown at one of its frequent sessions in Parkhurst Hall, tackling the problem of ways in which men in the armed forces shall resume studies after the war. Left to right: Dean Bill, Dean Strong, Prof. A. G. Truxal, Prof. W. S. Messer (chairman), Prof. F. J. Neef,. Dean Neidlinger, and Prof. B. H. Brown. Missing from the committee picture is Prof. C. W. Horton.
CHAIRMAN, SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENTS
Mr. Messer is Daniel Webster Professor of the Latin Language and Literature. A member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1919, he has been a campus leader in both the pre-war defense and present wartime activities of the College. He was chairman of the American Defense Dartmouth Group and vicechairman of the Committee on Defense Instruction, and now holds the extremely important assignment of head of the Special Committee on Academic Adjustments, to which the Trustees have delegated authority for handling all cases of servicemen entering or returning to Dartmouth.
