Oregon daily emerald., January 05, 1972, Page 9, Image 9

f Editorials
Redefining the University
The University’s two methods of
budgetary review—the Hearing Panel on
University Priorities (HPUP) and the
“Minnesota Plan” for internal review—will
undoubtedly be the subjects of much
discussion, praise, animosity and con
troversy during the next two academic
terms.
During that time, the University’s
review will come to a close and ad
ministrators will make recommendations
concerning the budgets—thus deciding the
ultimate futures of each department on
campus.
Members of the departments selected to
continue and grow will be pleased; they will
praise the University’s review as an accurate
one based upon the school’s needs. Members
of the departments which are either
designated for discontinuance or marked to
remain at their current levels of funding,
with no future growth, will grumble at the
decision. They will say that from the outset
HPUP and the Minnesota Plan were inac
curate systems for reviewing the needs of the
individual departments on campus.
There will undoubtedly be controversy—
and no small amount of protest—from those
who are displeased with the results of the
review as they try to change the recom
mendations made by the University’s
reviewers.
dui oeiore persons are given me op
portunity to protest or praise the decision
from so narrow a perspective, indeed before
the reviews take one step nearer completion,
it is necessary that members of the
University community—and the statewide
academic community of higher education—
realize the ultimate value the reviews could
have.
The reviews must be looked at as
deciding the priorities of the University ; as
redefining the contents oi education as it is
offered here. And it must be that total
definition, not just one or two small parts of it
that is looked at either praised or put down.
These reviews and the similar studies
going on at the state’s other campuses will
probably either make or break the future of
higher education in the state of Oregon.
Before the personal, interdepartmental in
fighting for funding begins, it is necessary
that each person recognize the ultimate
worth of the reviews in redefining the
priorities of this school and of the entire state
system.
Instead of cutting this or that program
because its administrators can’t convince
HPUP members of their need or merit, the
entire spectrum of academics at the
University must be examined. Priorities
must be set and adhered to during the final
budgetary recommendations. Each college
and university in the state should review its
own priorities in light of its needs and the
needs of the entire system of higher
education.
In setting these priorities, the University
needs to look at where it is now— what
courses and departments are valuable and
educational and which have become dead
wood. From this base, the reviewers then
need to look at the future of this school
being certain to examine it in the perspective
of the future of the state system of higher
education— and examine which courses and
departments are not needed, which are
valuable and which might be better offered
elsewhere within the system.
The most valuable aspect of the current
budgetary reviews is the opportunity it offers
the University and the state—to take each
college and university from its position of
competing with the others and place it in a
unique nich in the state’s higher education
system.
Based upon this type of review, higher
education has the opportunity to insure its
validity and prosperity in the future. To do
otherwise will cheat the institutions—and the
students—within the state system.
In HPUP and the “Minnesota Plan’’ the
University has its opportunities to insure the
validity of this institution. The opportunity is
here for reassessing priorities and redefining
the University. All persons on this campus
must insure that the reviews attempt to do
so.
Only if the redefinition does not take
place will there be grounds for animosity and
protest.
For if the University’s priorities are not
examined and the school is not redefined,
then the reviews will have failed.
Can pass/fall work?
Pass-fail is part of a trend in higher
education to ostensibly take pressure off
students and allow them to learn rather than
merely perform for the instructors. A recent
article in Newsweek magazine shows that the
system doesn’t really help that much.
The article shows that fewer students are
taking fewer courses pass-fail, mainly
because graduate schools, most notable law
and medicine, still demand letter grades.
The most interesting statistic came from
Brown University, which started an ex
tensive pass-fail system three years ago.
When the system was first introduced, 52 per
cent of students took a majority of their
classes pass-fail. That figure has dropped to
29.4 per cent. A university official was quoted
as saying this trend is due to graduate school
requirements.
Until graduate schools accept this
system it will be of little benefit to un
dergraduates, most of whom do not make a
decision to apply to graduate school until
their junior or senior year.
Graduate schools are opposed to pass
fail because they say it leaves them no
criteria for admission. If schools are truly
dedicated to educational innovation though,
they should be able to come up with new
criteria which will enable pass-fail to become
effective.
One of the most talked about systems
used to make pass-fail acceptable to
graduate schools and even universities that
refuse to accept pass-fail classes when a
vs frerWfi/.jpe
student transfers, is the teacher evaluation
system. Students receive pass-fail for the
class but the teacher writes an evaluation of
the student’s work for his or her record.
While this is best suited for small classes, the
larger universities with their huge lecture
classes could have the graduate assistants
who lead discussion groups do the
evaluations. They are usually closer to the
students anyway.
Another viable system is the com
prehensive examination plan. Students could
pursue a course of studies receiving only
pass-fail grades, and then take com
prehensive exams in their major at certain
points in their academic career or even at
their own request.
The problem with making these changes
is the nation-wide cooperation needed to
institute them. The major, highly respected
schools, would have to lead the movement for
such changes and considering their elitist
nature, this is not likely.
The place for such changes to begin is at
the state level. Schools within a state system
could agree to a common system, acceptable
for transfer and entrance into each other’s
graduate schools. From there states with a
high transfer rate back and forth could
cooperate. The next step and the most dif
ficult would be cooperation among private
colleges.
If pass-fail, the basis for real change in
higher education, is to be the vanguard it
must be made to work.
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