The American Scene; The August Graduate

Good morning. The Angus graduate, particularly here in Chicago, has now become an accepted fact in the American scene. The traditional emphasis on school and winter and vacation in summer seems to be changing throughout the country, and it is this modern view of summer school that we would like to talk about this morning. To offer some of their ideas about this subject, we are pleased to welcome this morning to exceptionally well -qualified guests. Dr. Joseph C. Boyce, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School of Illinois Institute of Technology, and Mr. R. Sargent Shriver, Jr. Assistant General Manager of the Merchandise Mart and President of the Chicago Board of Education. Gentlemen, I think to begin our discussion before we get into the pros and cons of an additional emphasis on summer school, perhaps we can establish somewhat the history of summer school. Am I correct, Dr. Boyce, that a summer session has been a traditional part of the universities for quite some time?

Yes, I have looked this up recently, and they're a very quick look through the standard reference book on this matter. Harvard University organized a formal summer school as early as 1871. A number of other universities, the University of Michigan, Columbia, University of Minnesota, came into the picture in the early 90s, about yet these statistics for some universities where the summer school is a separate organization administratively. In the University of Chicago, although they have a very vigorous summer program, they have for a long time operated on a basis of four, more or less equivalent quarters around the year, and so the administration goes along in a fairly uniform way. So, of course, the summer is a special group of students very often. Even though it is administered

by the same group. Yes, there tends to be off campus students, school teachers from many parts of the country, and sometimes specialists, sometimes students in other universities will come for a special course, not only in Chicago, the same pattern goes in many institutions around the country. It is the same thing true with the secondary level school, Mr. Schreiber. I cannot, like Dr. Boyce, say that I have recently looked up all the material on this subject, but I do know from personal information that there has been summer school here in Chicago at any rate for many years. There was a summer school at least during the 1920s, whether there was one before then or not, I don't know. Then during the 30s, because of the costs, a summer school was no longer a free summer school, but a paid summer school, and students attended classes for which they paid tuition. The teachers organized this, and the school boards, other people, the buildings at their disposal, and they ran an independent, you might say, a school arrangement within the

school buildings of the Chicago Public School System. That went on up until 1954, when we reestablished free summer school in the city of Chicago. What was the need at that time for summer schools that they had to set it up like this so that students would pay for their education? Well, the need on the one hand was the desire of the students to progress more rapidly. The need on the part of the teachers was that they enjoyed additional income, I'm sure. Dr. Boyce, that they could earn during the summer, and the point from the view of the tax pair was that there wasn't public money available, or tax money available to provide the service. Has there ever been a summer session on a primary level? Well, we run one now, or not on the primary level, no. We go down as low as the seventh and eighth grade, and we do have a system whereby we can pick up some children who are in the sixth grade, but are greatly over -aged for their class, but we don't go down to the first or second or third. Dr. Boyce,

what was the general use of the summer sessions and universities? Well, it's been divided really into two categories. At the undergraduate level, it has been very often an opportunity to make up deficiencies. In some cases, an opportunity to advance the date of graduation, and in a few cases, an opportunity to use the summertime as part of the alternate periods of work and study used in the cooperative plan of education. Is that about the same on the high school? Well, that's true. Today, summer school in Chicago fulfills three or four functions, similar to that. For example, there are many children who are going, particularly Boyce, going to be called in the middle military service. They want to expedite their formal education so that they can get as much of it completed before they go in military service as possible. There's another group that wants to accelerate and get into college quicker. They

want, in other words, to skip a whole year if they could. There are others who entered school in the midterm when we start in February, some children at enter school in February, and their graduation would not occur until the following February, and therefore they wouldn't be ready to go to, say, IIT in the fall. So they want to go to summer school to advance the date of their graduation from high school so that we'll coincide with the college entrance dates. There are other children who merely want what we call enrichment programs. They like physics, let's say. They like it sufficiently to work for eight weeks in physics alone, or chemistry, or mathematics, or foreign language, and they do that during the summer rather than just low for round. So it does serve a variety of needs. The majority of the students are not there because they had academic difficulties the year before and are making up whatever they lost. I'm not certain that the word majority is correct, but because I do know that a large number of the children are doing makeup work or remedial work, but substantial proportion put it that way rather than a majority. Marb people

who are there to do advanced work or to fulfill some of the other requirements I just mentioned. Now in this area of speeding up one schooling, what would a university think about students who say spend only three years in high school and then came to the university? Is this, it is very hard to give an answer that is true in all cases on these things, and I think the advice of the high school counselors ought to be sought in individual cases. I've had a little more experience of, at the next level, of seeing at the graduate school level, young men and young women who have expedited their undergraduate course, and it is good in many cases, but I have seen some very sad cases where because of expediting their grades at the undergraduate level were such that they could not get financial assistance in the graduate work. Isn't that something we're finding out that Dr.

Boyce more and more that each one of these educational problems become more and more an individual problem? Very general educational problem. Very much so, and I am personally skeptical if any battery of tests exist that can give the whole story, it must be a real acquaintance by the school counselor with the boy or girl and with his family situation, his opportunities to study at home and so on. I think that's one of the reasons why President Conan and his recent study on the American high school emphasized very strongly the need for more counseling in high school. There are lots of kids I'm certain who could graduate from high school at 17 and go and do acceptable work at Chicago or IIT. There is another group that would make a big mistake perhaps if they did that and would have an equally successful career if they got in there when they're 18, that's a yes, but you can't find that out as Dr. Boyce says simply by giving a test or an IQ examination it requires better counseling. Isn't there

some truth to the statement that student need to mature and letting them rush through school let's say three years in high school and three years in college will get them through with their formal education too early? Well I think again it's a question to student. I don't think that there's any magic in this business of a boy or girl having to be a certain chronological age in order to be ready to go to college. It's just a happenstance that occurs at 18 rather than 17. I'm sure that there are children who are 16 and we mustn't forget it sometimes it occurs at 20. Sure. That's correct. The length of summer school is shorter than the ordinary semester or ordinary school year term, isn't it? It's usually shorter than the semester. It is often about the same as the quarter. The university is very in their organization. It is a matter. No high school is on a quarter system yet isn't it? No ours is eight weeks and I think ours isn't as long as any. As a matter of fact it's longer than most. Again I have to beg ignorance or plead ignorance excuse

me I haven't reviewed all the literature on it but I'm quite certain that there isn't any high school or grammar school summer school in America that's longer than eight weeks and I do know one thing that ours in Chicago is the largest in America including even New York City where of course they have many more people who could go to summer school. How long is the fall semester? Well I'd have to count it out in weeks but it starts obviously in September and runs through the last week of January. I'm not certain it's exact. I guess it's 18 weeks or something like that. Whatever it is. One thing that's interesting though is that if you take a boy or a girl and concentrate on one or two subjects let's say in the summer school with them they would take physics for eight weeks and Dr. Boyce I think will not be surprised that they learn as much physics sometimes or maybe more than they do on a calendar year taking it one or two or three days a week. This intensive work first place there are volunteers they've got good teachers who are also so to speak volunteers or they've been selected there are smaller classes and there's the continual attention to the

subject so that you do get wonderful results in summer school work. Also there is a definite change of pace from the winter. That's correct. That's correct. I'm not sure that there's pattern if you use the year round. That's the same result. There is not as much out of class study time for the students in the summer is there. He has fewer weekends to spend studying probably the temptation to go outside and take part in other activities is stronger in the summer time. That's possibly so I don't quite get what you mean about its effect on summer school though. Well the fact would be that they would not get as much time to study themselves and possibly not get as much learning in the summer time as they wouldn't learn. But you've got it as a rule you first you have to remember that they're volunteer students and to a certain extent volunteer teachers and smaller classes and concentration on the subject so although there may not be as many hours you may get as much in the way of learning. Do universities give

degrees at the end of the summer session? That varies from university to university and college to college. I think those places that are organized on the quarter system often have a commencement after every quarter and would give a degree whenever a person was ready for it. Those on the semester system usually many have just one commencement we had Illinois Tech happen to have one in January as well as the June commencement. Is there any indication that universities are considering making more use of the summer session? All sorts of discussion going on prompted by the real shortage of teachers primarily. Dr. Blair Stewart, formerly Dean of Oberlin, proposed a rather interesting scheme of four quarters to the year and students would be divided into two pletunes. One group of them would spend the fall and spring quarter at college would study at home in the winter thing in the winter quarter and would have a summer

vacation. Another group would this pattern shifted and so the college plant would be uniformly used over the year. There was a little question of how the faculty would stand up or would like this treatment that would certainly require some increase in the faculty. This is being tried out in the modified form by Bard College, a small college in New York State, but it's too early yet to see how it goes. Under that system the faculty members would get the same amount of time off for their own research and study. Would they? Well, that was not clearly stated in Dean Stewart's plan, at least as I heard it second hand. I believe the University of Chicago custom is that faculty members are in residence for three quarters of the year and some of them definitely choose the summer quarter and take time off at another quarter. You know there's the old adage about college

professors or college teachers in any rate that you publish or perish and you have to publish research or you don't get ahead and if a college teacher had to spend four quarters a year teaching they would perish I take it. Well, it would be more difficult. I am afraid that many of them use the summer for gainful employment. University salary is not being what they should be and I think particularly in engineering there is a strong tendency to go into engineering consulting or practical work in the summer which is a real benefit professionally. The resistance on the part of high school teachers is not the same to summer school, is it? No, I wouldn't be able to say make a statement involving all, recovering all high school teachers or grammar school teachers. But we have found a large number of teachers who want the summer work and are happy to participate in it. I think we, I could safely say that each year we have more applicants from teachers to work in our summer schools than we have jobs for the teachers to fill. Of

course one of the major jobs on the campus of some universities is their summer school operation in behalf of teachers. Yes, that's important too. Secondary and primary schools. Very important. That Columbia was very noted for that as a way back in the 20s and the time when the Columbia summer enrollment was bigger than their winter enrollment. The National Science Foundation has been very active in supporting what they call summer institutes which are usually just segments of summer schools for secondary teachers of science and mathematics. This summer 300 such institutes are running around the country and there is room in them. They're taking care of, I believe, one out of every eight teachers of science and mathematics in the country. That couldn't be more important because there's such a thing that you probably know called modern

mathematics which I'm not a mathematician but I gather that it requires a completely different approach to the teaching of mathematics at the high school and almost at the elementary school level. Unless our teachers who have graduated and our teaching and have a teaching certificate have some way of going back and learning about modern mathematics at IIT or at other places, our students will never be exposed to this new or so -called modern mathematics. What about that? I frankly don't know enough of the details to know the difference but one of our professors, Professor Manger, has been very active in this and ran a special program for high school teachers last year with some help from the Carnegie Corporation and I believe he is also involved in some of his ideas that are being carried forward in the National Science and Foundation program. One is inclined to think superficially that mathematics has always been mathematics but certainly there are

constant changes in the way it is taught and in the actually in the illustrative material some of the new developments in physics has brought into prominence whole areas of mathematics. I know for example in our public school system we brought out some new teaching guides to the teaching of science and they have adopted three or four basic concepts which the advanced physicists or scientists tell us that are common to all science and then unless a child knows and understands those four basic concepts that the child will never be successful in science. So our teaching program now involves teaching these four basic sciences or scientific concepts excuse me in kindergarten and first grade and second grade and third grade without waiting for the child to get to high school let's say to begin to give that child some basic concepts which will be helpful to the child in physics for example when he does actually reach a high school. And it is certainly worthwhile to get them used to the ideas before they can

inherit prejudice as against it. Well I think that's exactly it. Particularly the prejudice that girls can't do science or mathematics. You don't you believe girls can do it just as well or better eyes on of course. The important thing in here then is to at least keep part of the university schedule so that high school teachers or all teachers can go on in the summer and learn new techniques, new theories that are coming out. Well that's essential. It's essential also because we want our teachers to progress academically so that the elementary school and high school teaching improves continuously. We even reward them in our pay schedules so that a person who has a master's degree or a master's degree plus 36 hours of additional graduate work or APHD degree receives more pay than a person who has a bachelor's degree. And most people can't afford to just stay in college or graduate school continuously to the point they get a PhD. They have to leave maybe after they've gotten a bachelor's degree and go back in the summer and amass the credits for the masters or

for the PhD. Are there enough teachers around so that you can afford to have some teachers going to school and still have teachers there for summer school. When you say can we afford it the answer would have to be no because we have a great shortage of teachers but this is sort of a dilemma we're in. You want to give good instruction now but you also want to be improving the basis for the instruction in the future and that means better teachers. So you have to strike a balance. Well in the extreme case it would certainly be wrong to employ your teachers 12 months. Oh no. There would be no opportunities in summer. That's right. No you couldn't do that. The other extreme is also unrealistic. Teaching is a great personal relationship. I believe that not a very much so. It's a personal relationship and the teacher continually has to be restocked you say. The pump has to be primed or the well has to be filled up. There has to be a time off for that teacher to get new insights on his own side of the thing to give these additional appreciations to the students. I know it is very difficult

for a school system to let a teacher go on leave for a whole year of study. The National Science Foundation tried out some all year institutes but while I have a few of them there's rather little demand. There are some so -called in -service institutes where a teacher can go on Saturday mornings and this I think can help. We run them ourselves such programs that and we have extension courses from the Chicago Teachers College. The Chicago Teachers College comes under the authority and jurisdiction of the Board of Education and one of its prime purposes is this matter we're discussing now. Teacher training institutes or in -service we call them in -service teacher training program so that the teacher is actually at work can improve while teaching and advance on the salary schedule and advance academic. Can you give any financial aid to teachers taking such summer programs? So can we assume that we can? We would have authority

too I think but I don't have the money there's another matter that's right. I have times talked to teachers who were interested in summer study and then eventually they found well they have to take a job this summer they couldn't yes couldn't afford it and there is a tendency in some of the programs that are being supported by foundations to put in a small cost of living allowance for the summer something of that sort partially to compensate for the loss in the job. We don't have any such pay programs now that I know. The Chicago high schools do graduate students at the end of the summer they do give diplomas in. Yes we do. Last fall that is in let's say August of 1958 I think we graduated approximately seven to eight hundred high school students so that those students who would not have been able to graduate to February graduate in August and therefore we're able to go to college in the fall. We also graduated elementary school students over I would

I'm certain over a thousand at the end of the summer session at the end of the summer session. The result of that there are many interesting results first it's good for the child to be able to get into this let's say into college but also let's say if we graduate seven or eight hundred high school students in August the seats that those students would have sat in in the high school beginning in September are empty and therefore available to seven or eight hundred other children so this has is a help to our building or our seating or our population problem you know all the schools are overcrowded so that the more children we can get through them are rapidly that means that we save space and we improve instruction too because as you reduce the size the class the teacher has to teach while you you do have a an effect on the quality of the instruction here she is able to give so we get a lot of benefits out of the summer school besides just the benefit to the child participating in it. I assume that some of these students do not go on to college and complete their education with high school. That's possible I wouldn't

be able to tell you though how many or even a proportion. I was just wondering if there would be a reaction from industry from having graduating students in August. You mean a favorable reaction? Or a negative. I shouldn't think industry would be upset. I should think it would help them. I would think it improves the educational level of the community's good for a company that's living in that community and I think generally they would rather take them on several times during the year than all at once unless the company has a very formal training program. Yes. Would you say that the chances of summer school becoming an permanent part of our school year throughout the country is good or other areas in the country where summer school just wouldn't fit in for instance in rural areas or is that situation changing all where students are not needed to work in the farms in the summer time. Well it's difficult to generalize for the entire United States and

for the rural areas and the city areas. I certainly wouldn't say that there was no place in the United States that summer school was not applicable. I just wouldn't make such a broad statement. I do believe however at least these facts. First I think summer school is becoming an integral part of the national education program. I think that in our own state that summer school will become more and more accepted. I think that the state of Illinois and for example the state of Illinois and other states, Pennsylvania and so on should begin to pay for the cost of summer school. They now contribute to the cost of winter school if you will but there's no difference substantially between the summer school and the winter school. So if it's proper for the state to support education in the winter time in my judgment it's equally proper for the state to support education in the summertime and I think we will begin to see states take up part of that burden. For example in Chicago today all the cost of summer school

is borne by the local Chicago taxpayer. I don't think that's proper and I think the state will come more and more to realize that it's not proper. I think also that the point you mentioned that fewer and fewer children are needed on the farm and the rural areas in the summertime is probably true. That just follows from the fact that the fewer and fewer people are needed on the farm. And more and more people are living in urban cultures or environments so that I would say that the future for summer school is bright. What do you think? I would certainly agree. I think it is very definitely arrived and is going to be a more integral part rather than a separate show as it is now in so many places. On the university level I think the latest estimate is that by 1963 the large student population will be really affecting the universities and would you say that at this time more and more universities will be accepting summer school as a necessary part of their school year. I think it will be done as one of the devices to spread this staggering

load. Actually a few years ago there were 800 ,000 people enrolled at college and university levels in summer schools in the United States. This was 1954 I think was the last year that I have seen figures for in contrast with about 100 ,000 in 1920. So there has been a very great contribution getting popular. It's getting popular. There's one point there that for example in 54 which was the last year of our tuition paying summer school in Chicago there were about 9 ,000 children in summer school and this summer there are 49 ,000. Thank you very much gentlemen. Dr. Joseph C. Boyce, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School of Illinois Tech and Mr. R. Sarge and Shriver Jr. President of the Chicago Board of Education. Summer School does seem to be a good thing.