Three-Term Year
THE detrimental effects of a fragmented year will be vastly reduced by the three-term, three-course program adopted last month by the faculty and recommended to the Trustees for final action (see Page 20 of this issue). Under this new plan, effective in 1958-59, the long Christmas and spring vacations will come as breaks between terms, and work within each term will have a continuity and a concentration not possible under the present semester system.
In the widespread publicity given to the College's new educational program, the three-term arrangement received top attention, but this arrangement is only a contribution, in mechanics, to the fundamental goal of more concentrated and independent work on the part of every Dartmouth student. "Less dependence on two time-honored crutches: the professor and the textbook" is the way Dean of the Faculty Arthur E. Jensen sums it up. And President Dickey, in announcing the new program, used the incisive statement that "by shifting the emphasis from the student's dependence upon teaching to his independence in learning we hope to bring his intellectual self-reliance and capacity for self-education to higher levels." Details as to how the faculty plans to bring all this about will be found in this issue's lead article.
Amazingly enough, the educational program adopted by the faculty last month is only the fourth major revision of the curriculum in nearly 190 years of Dartmouth history. There has been a good deal of tinkering over the years, but educational changes as significant as those just devised have happened only three times before - in 1880, 1902 and 1925. It could truthfully be said that the adventuresome spirit so characteristic of Dartmouth in other phases of her history was singularly lacking when it came to making changes in educational policy.
During the College's entire first century there was no change in the classical, totally prescribed curriculum fashioned by Eleazar Wheelock and his son John. The ferment caused by President Eliot's free-elective system at Harvard in the 1860's induced the Trustees in 1869 to suggest "a limited and cautious use of the elective principle" (turned down by an even more cautious faculty) and finally had its effect in 1880 when a thorough re-examination of the curriculum was undertaken for the first time since the founding of the College. The outcome was the introduction of electives, in a limited way, to be sure, but enough to start the gradual development of an educational system permitting considerable freedom of choice.
Under President Tucker, the second major curriculum study was undertaken in 1902. In the resulting program, the courses of freshman year were largely prescribed, while those of the last three years were entirely elective; but with the requirement that the student have a major of six courses in one department and a minor of four courses in a department of each of the other two divisions.
Changes in 1919 did not constitute a major revision, but they are of interest because they marked a reversion to prescribed courses, two of which were innovations: the compulsory freshman courses in Citizenship and Evolution, taken by thousands of Dartmouth men until the courses were discontinued in 1936.
In 1923 and 1924 the educational policy of the College again underwent a critical examination, more thorough than any that had taken place before. To the report, AStudy of ike Liberal College, .written by the late Prof. L. B. Richardson '00, chief architect of the resulting curriculum, was added a remarkable report by an undergraduate committee headed by W. H. Cowley '24. The new curriculum, put into effect for the Class of 1929 in the fall of 1925, gave increased emphasis to the major as the heart of the curriculum, introduced the comprehensive examination, and made the work of the first two years mainly that of orientation, with the requirement that courses be distributed in all three divisions. The A.B. was made the sole degree conferred on all College graduates, and Honors work was introduced at that time, to be followed four years later by the Senior Fellowships.
The 1925 curriculum is still basically in effect at Dartmouth today. Efforts in 1945 and 1946 to introduce "general education" courses of the broad survey type were defeated at the divisional level. Since then, although a few courses cutting across departmental and divisional lines have been tried, the Great Issues course, required of all seniors, has been the only educational innovation of real significance.
The new program, adding 1957 to the three other historic curriculum years of 1880, 1902 and 1925, has behind it 26 months of painstaking study and sometimes frustrating debate - and more committee and faculty meetings probably than any other curriculum revision ever attempted or accomplished here.
Work toward the new program began in December 1954 with the first meeting of the Subcommittee on Educational Program Planning, named by Harvey P. Hood '18, chairman of the Trustees Planning Committee. This sub-group was headed by Trustee Dudley W. Orr '29 and included Prof. James F. Cusick, vice chairman; Albert I. Dickerson '30, Prof. Arthur E. Jensen, Provost Donald H. Morrison, Prof. Hugh S. Morrison '26, Trustee Beardsley Ruml '15, and Prof. John H. Wolfenden. Later, when he became chairman of the Faculty Committee on Educational Policy, Prof. William A. Carter '20 joined the TPC subcommittee as an ex-officio member.
The SCEPP held a series of joint meetings with the Committee on Educational Policy in the spring of 1955 and then in December 1955 met again with CEP to prepare a draft report. From that date forward the two committees worked as a unit under the chairmanship of Professor Carter. In addition to its chairman, CEP included Profs. Fred Berthold '45, Douglas W. Bowen, Harold R. Bruce, Clark W. Horton, Arthur E. Jensen, John G. Kemeny, Donald H. Morrison and Herbert R. Sensenig '28.
The first report of the joint committees was presented in March 1956, but six general meetings of the faculty failed to produce any definitive action. The adding of a fourth historic date to 1880, 1902 and 1925 looked doubtful, but the joint committees began work on a revised report early in September, finished it in February, and had the satisfaction of seeing their labors crowned with faculty approval at the March 5 general meeting.
