Why Can't They Write?

IN recognition of the disturbing paradox that intelligent and otherwise highly proficient students often come to college woefully inadequate in English composition, the Carnegie Foundation has granted the College $60,000 to finance a study investigating student writing problems. Directing the research will be Dr. Albert Kitzhaber of the University of Indiana, who will arrive in Hanover in 1960. His assistant on the project will be Dr. Vincent Gillespie, also from the University of Indiana, who will take over the College's present Writing Clinic next fall. Since they will be at Dartmouth for a period of two years each, with one overlapping year when they will be here together, the overall research will last for three years until 1962.

The purpose of the Foundation's grant is to survey the inadequacy of student English composition throughout the Ivy League and higher institutions generally rather than to explore the problem as peculiar to Dartmouth. In operating the Writing Clinic the two men will investigate the causes of these difficulties and in this way they hope to discover new ways of helping students overcome poor preparation in English that could disastrously hinder studies in any field throughout the remainder of their academic careers.