Evening star., 1942-07-19
Wartime 'Acceleration'
Benefiting i. S. Colleges
Compressina of Traditional -Four. Year Course Is
Sweeping Away Many Outmoded
Practices on Campuses
By Felix Morley.

appears The normal college semester.
exclusive of the Christmas and Easter
vacation periods is four full months, A
summer term running the maximum
length. from mid-June to mid-Septem-
Der, is only three months. 1t follows that
two summer terms cannot be made the
equivalent of a normal year without at
least strong risk OF debasing educational
standards.
It is to the lasting honor and credit
of the American colleges that, with some
few exceptions. every effort has teen
made to prevent acceleration from BE-
coming synonymous with debasement.
And it is the effort to this end which
underlies the great variety now appar-
ent in the accelerated programs of va
rious colleges
Some institutions have cut down the
winter and spring vacations, or curtailed
long examination periods. In this man.
ner the normal semester can be con-
tracted and the summer term made close
to its equivalent.
Other institutions have made the sum-
to let the individual student take more
than two courses and cutting out all OF
those extra -curricuar activities which
normally occupy good half of the aver
age undergraduate S working time. Still
others have put pressure on their teach
ers to review their lecture techniques.
eliminating superfluous reiteration, con-
densing and sharpening their presenta-
tion placing more emphasis on broad
collateral reading.
Blow to Complacency.
At the average American college. more
so than in organizations subjected to OBJ
vious competitive pressures, there has
been much wasted time, much dull and
| prolix teaching, much adherence to
established patterns primarily because
they cannot be altered without disturb
ance to individual prerogatives and sem
sibilities
There is muciI truth in the assertion
that teaching is an art which suffers if
the artist is subjected to the pressures OF
efficiency engineering. But, human
nature being what 1t is, there is also
much naturalization of this argument
by teachers who never were and never
could be, artists in their own or any
other line.
In consequence, one important result
of acceleration promises to be the elini-
nation of much of that complacency with
which many teachers, holding sheltered
positions and further protected by pro-
visions of tenure, have been won't to re-
gard their techniques of work. The
urgency of speedup has unquestionAbly
shaken the equanimity of the profession.
Speaking in generalities, that is advan-
tageous for education.
Even more pronounced is the effect
of acceleration on the student body. For
the great majority of middle-class UNDER
graduates college education has sud-
denly become an ambition difficult to
realize rather than an automatic pre-
rogative of his caste. The accelerating
student is conscious of personal as we'll
as parental sacrifice and his draft
board keeps him we'll aware that he is at
college on borrowed time. The net re-
suit is degree of application and con-
centration of mental effort which in
turn is more of a stimulus to many
teachers than their abandoned vacations
ever were.
Earn Community Respect.
The college administrat tons also are
benefiting from acceleration. Obviously
this has brought new financial problems,
demanding greater degree of resource
fulness for their solution. But beyond
that the changes effected, together with
the departure of many teachers for Gov
ernment service, have swept away the
ruts of habitual procedure. In hundred
ways the academic executive now has
opportunity to exercise ingenuity and to
reform practices which could scarcely
have been disturbed amid the stereotyped
tranquility of the past. This new at
mosphere may mean some individual
mistakes. 1t will certainly mean better
administration of the colleges as a whole.
But perhaps the greatest gain brought
the colleges by acceleration is, paradoxi-
(See MORLEY, Page B-3)