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ABSTRACT
A CASE STUDY IN PROGRAM EVALUATION
BY

James L. Snook

This investigation is concerned with the lack of
impact of evaluation and institutional research on aca-
demic programs in American higher education. From the
perspective and literature of institutional research on the
one hand, and sociology, on the other, the case study
method is used in an effort to identify interpersonal,
institutional, and research factors and dynamics which
enhanced or inhibited impact of evaluation research efforts
at Kalamazoo College during the three year period, 1966-69.
The findings are largely supportive and illustrative of
numerous conclusions in the literature which are noted.

Four summary conclusions regarding strategy for
achieving evaluation impact are offered, with special rele-
vance for small, private colleges. In revealing tOp level
resistance to evaluation research findings and evidence of
it being overcome, this case study contributes more broad-
ly to filling a gap in the literature noted by Reginald
Carter:

There are few reports on how to overcome resistance

at the tOp management level to the findings of social
science research evaluations. A collection of case
histories where management resistance was successfully
overcome would be of great benefit to future researchers,

and a study of organizational and interpersonal condi-
tions would be an important initial step toward changing

James L. Snook

the dominant latent function of evaluation research
from more ritualism to a rationale for change.1

 

1Reginald E. Carter, "Clients' Resistance to
Negative Findings and the Latent Conservative Function of
Evaluation Studies," The American Sociologist, Vol. 6
(May, 1971), p,.123.

‘1
'3

Department

A CASE STUDY IN PROGRAM EVALUATION

BY

James L . Shook

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Administration and Higher Education

197 2

I wish
in recognition
endeavor:

To Paul

To Kal!
the opportunit:
iigher educath

To my 1

patience and e1

6\ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my appreciation to the following

in recognition of their significant contribution to this

endeavor:

To Paul L. Dressel for his counsel and guidance.
To Kalamazoo College, her faculty and staff, for
the opportunity to share in the agony and ecstacy of

higher education.
To my wife, Martha, and children for their loving

patience and endurance.

ii

Clapter
I. THE F

Rev
Kal
The
Com

’1 we: *
& O “883 4'

Anal
80111
The
Con:

III. HISTOE

Chapter
I.

II.

III.

IV.
V.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE PROBLEM AND INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .

Review of the Literature .
Kalamazoo College . . . .
The Case Study . . . . . .
Comments . . . . . . . . .

METHODO I’OGY O O O I O O O O O O O O O 0

Analyses . . .

Sources of Supporting Evidence
The Interviews . . . . . . . .
Comments . . . . . . . . . . .

HISTORY’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
GOVERNANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EVALUATION RESEARCH AND ITS IMPACT . . . .

History of the Office of Institutional Re-

search and Program Evaluation . . . .
Danforth.Study . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Impacteee eeeeeeeeee
Senior Independent Project Program

Evaluation........... e
InpaC‘b e e e e e e e
Studies Requested by the President .
Attrition Study . . . .
Other Studies Having Identifiable Impact
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iii

73
86

91
101
102
102
10 5
103

fn .14

Woe-D ' r:
"" O oh".¢ a.

Chapter Page

VI. PROBLEMS IN PRODUCING AND USING EVALUATION RE-
SEARCH: IMPLICATIONS AND.RECOMMENDATIONS . . 110

Summary of Major Weaknesses, Contributing

Factors, and.Resistance, Existing and

Overcome, Regarding the Two Major Evalua-

tion Research Efforts: Danforth.Study and

SIP Evaluation 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O 110
Institutional Research: Organizational and

Interpersonal Conditions . . . . . . . 119
Further Illustration of the Literature . . . 128
Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . 13h

BIBLIOGRAPHY O O O O O O O o O O O O O O O O 1- 0 O O O 0 114.0

iv

Agra

1. How the

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. How the Kalamazoo Plan Operates . . . . . . . . 53

 

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.1

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND INTRODUCTION

Review of the Literature

The surge of growth and popularity of institutional
research in American higher education in recent years is
rather impressive (Rourke and Brooks, 1966; Cross, 1967;
Boyer, 1967; Stecklein, 1970), with college and university
offices of institutional research becoming a locus of
evaluation efforts in higher education. Boyer states:

One of the most prominent features on the American
higher education landscape is the looming mass known
as "Institutional Research." Besieged on all sides
by demands for "excellence," hard pressed to justify
the soaring costs of their activities, and tempted
by the flowing cornucopia of foundation money, college
administrators from.Boston to Santa Barbara have given
their blessing to a welter of research programs designed
to evaluate past and present developments in their
institutions and, hopefully, to cast some light on
future trends.1

This surge in institutional research offices and
evaluation research also is seen as emphasizing the manager-

ial revolution of the last decade and a half,2 institutional

 

lErnest L. Boyer, The Impact of Institutional
Research on the Academic ProgrmeAlbany: OTTIce of the
Vice Chancellor for University-Wide Activities, State
University of New Ybrk, 1967), p. 1.

2Francis E. Rourke and Glenn E. Brooks, "The Growth
of Institutional Research," The Managerial Revolution in
Higher Education (Baltimore: Jehn Hopkins Press, 1966).

l

geeds for 53
35513 for de
Whil
;-;:pose, OPS
affices of 1
game and B.
1955), Cross
Typic

been cone
problems
Notiz
research and
mdinprove e
significant c

to better, :11:
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There
addresses

extent be
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2
needs for self-knowledge,3 and a felt need for more rational
basis for decision making and action.h

While the response has produced great variety in
purpose, organization, personnel, role, and activity of
offices of institutional research (Birch, 1970; Lins, 1963;
Rourke and Brooks, 1966; Stecklein, 1962, 1970; Stickler,
1968), Cross nevertheless observes:

Typically, offices of institutional research have
been concerned with the operational nuts-and-bogts
problemm involving the allocation of resources.

Noting that "a strong link between finstitutionag
research and efforts of colleges to strengthen management
and improve efficiency"6 has been followed by evidence of a
significant contribution by institutional research offices
to better, more efficient non-academic management of their
parent institutions, Boyer finds the academic side to be
pale by comparison. He states:

There is, however, no body of literature that

addresses itself to the central question: "To what
extent has institutional research actually helped

 

3Pau1 L. Dressel and Sally B. Pratt, The World of
Higher Education (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, I971), p. 9.

 

Aw. Hugh Stickler, "The Managerial Revolution in
Higher Education: An Overview," Introductory Papers on
Institutional Research, ed. E. F. Sdhietinger (Atlanta:
§3uthern Regional Education Board, 1968).

#Reginald E. Carter, "Clients' Resistance to
Negative Findings and the Latent Conservative Function of
Evaluation Studies," The American Sociologist, Vol. 6
(May, 1971), pp. llB-lZH.

 

SPatricia K. Cross, When Will Research Improve
Education? (Berkeley: Center for Research andeevelopment
in Higher Education, 1967), p. 2.

 

6Boyer, op. cit., p. h.

 

improve C 0]
program in

safer further 4

While

13 and inf
such as on
developmen
the heart

This concl
vent liter
and the de
neth ds re
ago.

It is
ispect of eva]
ncgren in hi;
vestigation i:

A num‘
tiel demand 1‘
evaluation of
:iel crisis,
criticismfi 1
societmlo ir
(“8-, Jencks

JOARSOD, and

educational e

\
71m
83m

figmm Reg:

1171), pp 1

3

improve collegiate life generally and the academic
program in particular?"7

Boyer further concludes:

While institutional research--organized both formal-
ly and informally--also has studied educational matters
such as curriculum, teaching methods, and student
development, this effort has had only minor impact on
the heart of collegiate life--the academic program.

This conclusion is supported by the paucity of rele-
vant literature, the comments of informed observers,
and the degree to which many academic tenets and

methgds remain essentially what they were generations
ago.

It is this problem of lack of, or at best limited,
impact of evaluation research, especially on the academic
program in higher education, to which this case study in-
vestigation is directed.

A number of factors seem.destined to create substan-
tial demand for more, better, and effective (having impact)
evaluation of the academic program: the continuing finan-
cial crisis, student unrest and disenchantment, and public
criticism;9 increasing awareness of our rapidly changing
society;10 increasingly effective authoritative criticimm
(e.g., Jencks and Riesman, 1968; Chickering, 1969; Dressel,
Johnson, and Marcus, 1970); and increasing possibilities for

educational alternatives to compete with conventional

 

7Ibid., Synopsis
BIbid.

 

9Frederick w. Bolman, "University Reform and Insti-
tutional Research," The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. Al

(1971): PP0 86-970

10A1v1n Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Bantam
Book by Random.House, Inc., .

giger educa
In 3

(.11 researc
gut filth E.
istrators "(3
time that c
hat one of
keep remindi
conjunction
:ion and dev
easily becon
Dre:

Faii
reachim
means t]
rationai

In terms of

3:033 concl

higher education.11

In addressing herself to the core question, "When
will research improve education?" Cross concludes in agree-
ment with H. s. Dyer-12 that most of what faculty and admin-
istrators "do as educators is in fact based on blind assump-
tions that could turn out to be wrong."13 Dyer contends
that one of the functions of institutional research is to
keep reminding them of this fact. Cross also cautions in
conjunction with T. R. McConne1114 that educational innova-
tion and development in the absence of evaluation "may
easily become quackery."

Dressel has long cautioned that:

Failure to engage systematically in evaluation in
reaching the many decisions necessary in education
means that decision by prejudice, by tradition, or by
rationalization is paramount.

In terms of higher education, existing or contemplated,
Cross concludes:
The weight of the evidence to date is that a care-

ful program of research and development and evaluation
is our most promising approach to improvements in

11Ernest L. Boyer and.George 0. Keller, "The Big
Move to Non-Campus Colleges," Saturday Review, (July 17,

1971). PP- hé-SB-

12H. S. Dyer, "Can Institutional Research Lead to
A Science of Institutions?," The Educational Record, (Fall,

1966). PP- h52-u66-
lBCross, op. cit., p. h.

 

 

lhT. R. McConnell, "Research or Development: A
Reconciliation," Phi Delta Kappa Monograph (Bloomington,
Indiana: 1967).

15Paul L. Dressel and Associates (eds.), Evaluation
in Higher Education (Boston: Houghton.Mifflin, 1961), p.6.

 

lg views
ninerily
rich the
of the ad:
nae:

“ice of

F theoret

higher education.16
Furthermore, according to Boyer:

While most institutional research has focused on
management matters . . . a few investigations have
probed aspects of college life more directly related
to the academic program. In some instances these
inquiries have emerged from within the milieu of
institutional research itself, but more often they
have been carried on by behavioral scientists--psycholo-
gists and sociologists--not directly identified with
the fraternity.17

Dyer notes similarly the prevalence of two differ-
ing views of institutional research: one is concerned
primarily with the Operational problems of institutions in
which the institutional researcher is "strictly a servant
of the administrator"18 and is generally attached to the
office of the president; the other view is characterized
by theoretically oriented, long term.studies of students and
the inner workings of institutions and is beholden to the
social sciences.

Dyer acknowledges that "research of an operational
variety is unquestionably important," but counters that
90perationa1 research, almost by definition pays little or
no attention to the fundamental purposes of an institution
or to the value systems that control it."19

Asking further, "What kind of research will help

college-sponsored offices of institutional research contri-

bute to the maximum.development of their colleges?," Cross

 

l6Cross, op. cit., p. u.
17Boyer, 0p. cit., p. 7.
18Dyer, cp. cit., p. ASh.
19M.

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6

invokes Dyer's caution that:

Offices of institutional research would neglect
Operational problems at their peril, but he warns that
"research that does not go beyond the instrumentalities
of education is unlikely to make any fundamental
difference in the impact of the institution on its
constituents or on the community it hepes to serve.
Operational research, uninformed by theory, goes no-
where . . . it may be concerned with ways of ensuring
the solvency of the institution, but it does not ask
what purposes are being served by keeping the institu-

tion solvent."20
Thus, Cross' question may beg a broader social science

perspective than that typically encompassed by institutional

research.
Dyer surmizes:

If institutional research is to have a positive
and enduring impact on institutional quality, if it
is to become a science in any acceptable sense, it must
somehow integrate both of these points of view @pera-
tional and theorgiIEEIJ in a common attack on institu-
tional problems.

Discussing "social research and educational policy,"
martin Trow has identified the following three broadly
different kinds of research--each having somewhat different

purposes, methods, strategies, and problems:22

predictive - aims to tell us what will result from some
specific educational practice or pattern and often
involves establishing a close statistical connection
between one or more characteristics of students and
a predicted educational outcome.

 

directive - arms to assimilate policy making to research,
intervening directly into educational practice with
statements of what ought to be done on the basis of

its findings.

 

 

ZOCI‘OCI, OE. Cite, p. 20 21Dyer' OE. OitO’ p. 14-514.

22Martian. TrOw, fSocial Research and Educational
Policy," Research.in Higher Education: Guide to Institutioge
a1 Decisions (New York: #5311ege Entrance Examination Board,

9P0 '

--' : z.
0.: 1 vs

problems

7

illuminative - aims to explore and illuminate the
nature of educational institutions and processes--
to show the connections among student characteristics,
organizational patterns and policies, and education-
al consequences. It is concerned especially with
the ways in which.these and other components of
educational systems interact with one another.

 

Sociologist Trow argues for illuminative research as
the best kind of institutional research. He contends that

this kind of research sidesteps the distinction between
"pure" and "applied" research on the grounds that what
may be most valuable to policyhmakers is a fuller under-
standing of their own institutions and what goes on
within them. . . . Thus, this mode of research assumes
that nothing is necessarily outside its terms of refer-
ence and aims for clarification and understanding on

the basis of which wiser and.more effective policy
decisions can be made.23

Dressel and Pratt note that institutional research
with its focus generally being on studies specific to the
problems of a particular institution or larger system of
higher education has been typically predictive or directive
in.nature.

In contrast to institutional research, research.on
higher education starts with the identification of
issues and problems and undertakes to make a contribu-
tion to the understanding or the resolution of themm2u

Hence, research on higher education, a broader concept than
institutional research, is typically more illuminative in
nature.

‘Yet, the question of impact of research on.higher
education is no less disquieting than the question of the

impact of institutional research. Dressel and Pratt observe:

Despite the volume of research, its impact on

23Ibid.

 

2LLDressel and Pratt, op. cit., p. l.

 

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8

institutions and on higher education generally may be
rather limited. The problems of interpreting research
and putting it into action are many. However, much of
the research is illuminative and is not oriented to
bring about action. The results of research in the
same field are often contradictory because of the
differences in assumptions or in the values of the re-
searchers. A great deal of the research is simply in-
conclusive, and, to a considerable extent, final deci-
sions, whether on a single campus or at a state or
national level, are based on political maneuvering and
on publicly stated values or secretly held prejudices,
with research findings having limited impact. And, in
many cases, it is difficult to trace the co ection
between the research.and the actions taken.2

As is evident in the recent annotated guide to the
:major literature in higher education by Dressel and Pratt,
numerous authors offer suggestions or principles for imp
proving institutional and evaluation research which would
seem to contribute to increased impact of evaluation. For
example, Dressel and Pratt suggest that the institutional
researchers' investigations take on new depth and signifi-
cance, warrant greater confidence, and are more effective
when their investigations evidence awareness of the large
body of research.on higher education. McConnell?6 in
noting what has paid off in other fields such.as the natural
sciences, sounds a prominent theme in the literature:
agreeing with Dyer, he suggests that significant improvement
in impact on education by institutional and other evaluation
research requires that they focus on questions which have
reference to theoretical-explanatory principles (such as

learning and motivation27) on the one hand and relevance to

251bid., p. 8. 26Mcconne11, op. cit.

27L. J. Cronbach, "The Role of the University in Im-
proving Education," Phi Delta Kappan, (June, 1966), pp. 539-

SAS .

 

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9

practical problems in education on the other.
Dyer suggests necessary conditions for institutional
research to achieve positive and enduring impact:

First, institutional research must be so organized that
it deals with the real problems of particular institu-
tions while at the same time endeavoring to fit these
problems into some sort of evolving generalizations.
Second, it must develop more dependable and believable
measures to get at the many institutional variables
that appear important as our observations become more
refined. And third, it must acquire much.more saphisti-
cation about how to conduct genuine experiments which
recognize the restrictions while exploiting the possi-
bilities in the data peculiar to its own domain and
which lgad to a body of interpretable, cumulative re-
sults.2

Practically any question one can raise about the
educational enterprise can be formulated as a testable
hypothesis so as to get a reasonable indication of
whether the opportunities we provide students make a
measurable difference in the kinds of thinking they
habitually do and the kinds of people they become. 9

These three conditions are difficult but probably
not impossible to fulfill. In view of the central
importance of institutions of higher learning to our
kind of society in our kind of world, it goes without
saying that the effort to meet them should be commen-
surate with.the magnitude of the problem..30

Agreeing only in part with Lewis Mayhew that one of

the principal reasons "that institutional research has not
had more impact on the conduct of institutions . . . is the
inadequacy of available instrumentation,"3l Dyer neverthe-
less acknowledges the centrality of measurement to such im-
pact. Asserting that it is the measurable things, no

:matter how subjectively or inaccurately measured, that tend

 

28Dyer, op. cit., p. h66.
29Ih1d., p. A65. 3OIbid., p. nee.
311bid., p. h58.

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32Tyel

34cm

10
to affect educational practice, Dyer notes

three major classes of institutional problems in which
measurement, if rightly conceived, is indispensable to
any genuine solutions. They are the definition of
institutional goals, the determination of how well the
goals are being met, and the identification of the
factors that facilitate or impede reaching the goals.32

Noting that most measurement in higher education
has been devoted to measurement of inputs, Dyer believes
the idea of judging quality education by relating output to
input is beginning to take hold. Furthermore, he cautions

that

it is important also that the ultimate consumers of the
research-~that is, the administration, the faculty, and
the governing body--have a.hand in defining the variables
before the computer starts grinding out the numbers.
Otherwise, the numbers may be regarded as irrelevant,

and if they are regarded as irrelevant by any of the
interested parties, they are irrelevant for all intents
and purposes. "“

 

Cross' conclusion seems apt:

In other words, improvement in education will take
place when we study the right kinds of questions and
when we Iearn how to apply research knowledge to the
practice of education.

It is evident that there are at least two major
aspects to the problem.of limited impact of institutional
and evaluation research. The first, making such research
more usable as a basis for improving education including the
academic pregram, will apparently require more than the
typical institutional or educational research approaches as

noted above. Certainly, the organization, perceived role,

resources, personnel, etc. of an institutional research

‘—

32Dyer, op. cit., p. #59. 33Ibid., pp. ABC-A59.
3uCross, op. cit., p. 1.

 

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“Suwani

11
office will have much to do with whether this is likely or
even possible.

The second, getting such research into the thinking
of those who make educational policy and program decisions,
may be no less critical. Presumably, institutions which
would bring such resources together so as to produce more
useful institutional and evaluation research would in some-
way be desirous of it.

Mayhew offers examples of institutional research
and research on higher education that

did have an impact on the practice of higher education.
On the other hand, there have been both notable failures
and an enormous number of situations in which research
results were not utilized even though findings were
reasonably clear.35

Examing the results of efforts to evaluate the de-
gree of success or failure of social action, industrial,
and educational innovations, Carter notes

a number of case studies that indicate specific condi-
tions where evaluation research.findings have been
selectively ignored. Thus, even if evaluation research
is competently conducted, the fate of the regglts is
often determined by another set of criteria.
He reveals, for example, that clients:may desire an image of
actively supporting scientific evaluations and/or may never
seriously consider the possibility that the results might be

negative-~i.e., not agreeing with the client's (and

 

35Lewis B..Mayhew, "Educational Research, Its
Capabilities and Limitations," Research.in.Higher Education:
Guide to Institutional Decisions (New York: College En-
trance Examination Board, I965), p. 6.

 

36Carter, 02. cit., p. 118.

 

 

memes th
Latter point
as the main -
little impac

Cart
my clients :
tion researc.
incomtered .
Positively I"
system of th.

1) the p:
reSeaJ
2) the 0.1
3) the f,
‘4) past 1
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395:1me 111 re

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call}, a dc
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pWential
' a apprc
Interest
on the is

12
sometimes the researcher's) anticipated results. This
latter point is suggested by sociologist Peter Rossi37
as the main reason why negative results generally have so
little impact.

Carter notes that there are a number of reasons
why clients may choose not to accept the results of evalua-
tion research in addition to the "resistance frequently
encountered by social scientists when their findings do not
positively reinforce the expectations and ideological value
system of their client." These includez38

1) the psychological characteristics of clients and/or
researchers

) the quality of the research

3) the feasibility of implementing the recommendations

A) past negative experiences with social science re-
search

5) inapproPriateness of data and/or researcher to
generate policy recommendations

Hence, in addition to producing higher quality, more
meaningful research, Boyer points out that

institutional research will never achieve its maximum
potential impact until its results are transmdtted1more
forcibly to the peOple who hold decisionémaking power.
. . . Amid.the welter of interested individuals and
groups he he researchexj must first and most emphati-
cally address himself to the peeple who hold the power
to make a firm.decision on a given matter. To be
effective, the institutional researcher must define his
potential audience carefully and sensitively and plan
his approach in terms of capturing the attention and
interest of the persons who are prepared to take action
on the issue at hand. In short, he must have a

37Peter Rossi, Boobytraps and Pitfalls in the Evalu-
ation of Social Action Programs,Froceedings offtheISocial
StatisticsfSEcti on of:the Annual Meetings of the American
Statistical Association (Washington, D. 0.: American
Statistical Association, 1966), pp. 127-137.

 

 

380arter, Op. cit., p. 118.

 

 

strategy
car“

Ther‘
at the '5‘
science I
historie:
overcome
and a at
tions we
the domi:
from men

In 3

that this at
A survey
tete of

e corresj
rephies 1
very lit“

complete!
carefull'

Kalamazoo Co”
M
In 1'
the "Kalamaz.
fihfitentiall-
“mg 31118111 ]
Duriz
=4»
.wempted a J

self-evaluat;

l3
strategy for getting results.39
Carter concludes that:

There are few reports on how to overcome resistance
at the top management level to the findings of social
science research evaluations. A collection of case
histories where management resistance was successfully
overcome would be of great benefit to future researchers,
and a study of organizational and interpersonal condi-
tions would be an important initial step toward changing
the dominant latent function of evaluation research
from mere ritualism to a rationale for change. 0

In sum.then, it is to the situation noted by Boyer
that this study is directed:
A survey of the literature makes clear that the recent
state of research activity has not been accompanied by
a corresponding surge of influence. Research bibliog-
raphies multiply like fruit flies, yet we still know
very little about what happens when a project has been

completed, conclusions drawn, and statistical tables
carefully filed awayJLl

Kalamazoo College

In 1961, Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan
adapted an academic programewhich has come to be known as
the "Kalamazoo Plan." This innovative plan has contributed
substantially to an increased prominence of that institution
among small private liberal arts colleges in America.

During the 1966-67 academic year, Kalamazoo College
attempted a formal self-evaluation. An outgrowth of that
self-evaluation effort was the establishment of a full-time
Office of Institutional Research the following year. That

office was terminated two years later.

39Boyer, op. cit., p. 28. MOCarter, op. cit., p.123
hlBoyer, OE. cit., p. 2.

This
£1891! or i
:c-o (301.188e
aeCffice c
extent that
:hsotudy 1
getting evaI
faculty and
Sollege ope:

It c
tmotioning
Iejor claim:
md its acac'
mid (also a
toutees or
lane, a Btl
153101151 anc-
Chterh? is
within its E
Mt °f Kala
of the E°Ver
evaluation 1'
But respec

In t;
inattempt 1:

\\

thar

la
The Case Stag

 

This case study is an attempt to assess the impact
or lack of impact of evaluation studies conducted at Kalama-
zoo College under the auspices of the formal self-study and
the Office of Institutional Research from 1966-69. To the
extent that lack of impact is identified, a major focus of
this study is consideration of difficulties, if any, in
getting evaluation research findings into the thinking of
faculty and administration so as to be evidenced in the
College operation and progrmm.

It does not require excessive visibility into the
functioning of higher education in America to recognize
nmjor claims of proprietorship and management of the college
and its academic program by the administration on the one
hand (also as representative of the governing board of
trustees or regents) and by the faculty on the other.
Hence, a study of management resistance and related organi-
zational and interpersonal conditions as called for by
Carterh2 is important to this case study and is included
within its scope. Accordingly, an analysis of the develop-
ment of Kalamazoo College and the Kalamazoo College Plan,
of the governance of the College, and of the impact of the
evaluation research noted above comprise Chapters III, IV,
and V respectively.

In the concluding Chapter (VI) of this case study,

an attempt is made to identify both (a) major weaknesses in

hgcarter, op. cit., p. 123.

seleCted 6V8]
nmibut ing
3353381133,

search, and t
:tercomeuif
aria conclud
tich enhanc
'epact at Ka
sture and to

planning and

In a
investigatic
evaluation :
this case st

(1)
author of ti
College, fix
mistant tc
imitufiom
the Office <
emitence (;
hand faflilig
Q‘aent °bjec 1

(2)
efferta uncle

15
selected evaluation research under investigation and factors
contributing to such weaknesses, and (b) major sources of
resistance, if any, to the findings of that evaluation re-
search, and circumstances by which such resistance was
overcome--if indeed it existed and was overcome. In sum,
this concluding chapter is an attempt to identify factors
which enhanced or inhibited evaluation research and its
impact at Kalamazoo College in light of the selected liter-
ature and to derive implications and recommendations for

planning and carrying out such evaluation.

Comments

In addition to the salience of the problem.under
investigation and efforts at Kalamazoo College to attempt
evaluation research, additional factors are favorable to
this case study on Kalamazoo College at this time:

(1) A time lapse of two years has passed since the
author of this case study was affiliated with Kalamazoo
College, first as full-time consultant and technical
assistant to the faculty director of the 1966-67 formal
institutional self-study, and then as full-time Director of
the Office of Institutional Research during its two year
existence (1967-69), hOpefully yielding a blend of first
hand familiarity with the subject at hand with the subse-
quent objectivity of an "outside" point of view.

(2) It is now two to five years after the evaluation
efforts under investigation, allowing time for impact to

occur 0

 

Jar-nu .‘lhifi

<3) T‘r
£1 personnel
he Kalamazoo
ed the evalu
15200 3011889
retiring soon
{a} President
Erofessor Ray

figire in the

by the facult

l6

(3) The Kalamazoo Plan is ten years old, yet nearly
all personnel who have been involved in the development of
the Kalamazoo Plan, subsequent governance of the College,
and the evaluation studies under investigation are at Kala-
:mazoo College at this time. However, two key people are
retiring soon after this investigation is conducted:
(a) President Weimer K. Hicks, in December, 1971, and (b)
Professor Raymond Hightower, in September, 1971; a key
figure in the deve10pment and passage of the Kalamazoo Plan

by the faculty, and.Dean under the new Kalamazoo Plan.

 

After
:Mcademic A1”
early in March
son which at t
proposed study
resources fron
mnyreceived

1971 letter f:

The ix
basic to the ‘
them out. The

(1) de

mazoo

(2) gc

tional

(3) in

Sation

(’4) pr

into 1;,

CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY

After discussing this tentative study with the Dean
of Academic Affairs at Kalamazoo College, Douglas Peterson,
early in March, 1971 the author sent a letter to Dean Peter-
son which at his request noted the purpose and tenor of the
preposed study and what would be needed in terms of time and
resources from.Kalamazoo College and its personnel. The
study received approval as formally noted in an April 7,

1971 letter from.Dean Peterson.

Analyses
The intended analyses introduced in Chapter I are

basic to the types and sources of evidence needed to carry
them out. These analyses lie in five areas:
(1) development of Kalamazoo College and the Kala-
mazoo Plan: Chapter III
(2) governance of the College (including organiza-
tional and interpersonal conditions): Chapter IV
(3) impact of the evaluation research under investi-
gation: Chapter V
(k) problems of getting evaluation research findings
into the thinking of the faculty and administration,

17

 

 

and c
impac

Chapt

aortas of SL‘
Analy
tense from tr.
and records,
(1) 2
history of K5
pertaining tc
2h01min: of
cation and 01
Study where 1
3. III, and \
(2) ;
interviewees I
Videli'd‘rom
a1 Policy Con
he Office of
Number of r

mm“ are m

(3) _I_

noted as a De;

18
including resistance factors which inhibited or pre-
cluded impact and were or were not overcome: Chap-
ter VI
(5) implications and recommendations for planning
and carrying out evaluation research so as to have
impact, particularly in a small private college:
Chapter VI

Sources of SupportingEvidence

Analyses in these five areas rest primarily on evi-
dence from three sources: (1) the literature, (2) documents
and records, and (3) interviews conducted by the author.

(1) The literature is that directly related to the
history of Kalamazoo College and that noted in Chapter I
pertaining to institutional and evaluation research from
the point of view of institutional research in.higher edu-
cation and of sociology. It is noted throughout this case
study where relevant, appearing most frequently in Chapters
I, III, and v1.

(2) Documents and records noted or donated by the
interviewees, or known to, or found by the author vary
widely--from.news releases and position papers to Education-
al Policy Committee minutes and evaluation research reports.
The Office of Academic Affairs was very helpful in locating
a number of relevant materials and records. Documents and
records are most evident in Chapters III and V.

(3) Interviews with Kalamazoo Collegg:personnel were

noted as a part of this case study in the March 16 letter to

lean Peterson:
flaws and a t‘
are included
at he was 8'
Listed indica
ccnld exp“t
Inter
f-llege facul
(a) have play
of the Kalama
influential"
the inception
administrativ
the Kalamazoo
toltenent in
The 0
EL‘COI‘ding t0
Primarily fI‘O
researCh, and
ducted with i

lifit of int er

:ritel‘ia "an
schedule item
Mom in th
at “aired in
ital list 01‘

View” being at

19

Dean Peterson. The prhmary topics of the preposed inter-
views and a tentative list of 22 persons to be interviewed
were included. Dean Peterson's response of approval noted
that he was sending a supporting note to those persons
listed indicating the nature of the project and that they
could expect to hear from.the author in the near future.

Interviews were sought with.members of Kalamazoo
College faculty, administration, and board of trustees who
(a) have played crucial roles in the conception and/or birth
of the Kalamazoo Plan (see Chapter III), (b) have been "most
influential" in the College during the ten years following
the inception of the Kalamazoo Plan, (c) have held an
administrative position with.major responsibility related to
the Kalamazoo Plan or program, (d) or have had direct in-
volvement in the evaluation research under investigation.

The original list of 22 interviewees was drawn
according to the above criteria as perceived by the author
primarily from his prior Kalamazoo College experience,
research, and knowledge. The first interviews were con-
ducted with interviewees meeting criteria "c" and "d"; the
list of interviewees was subsequently amended in terms of
criteria "a" and "b" as trends in response to interview
schedule item.C (asking "who have been the most influential
persons in the College?") emerged. In sum, the amended list
of desired interviewees was comprised of 18 from the orig-
inal list of 22 plus six additions. Of these 2h, 22 were
interviewed between June 3 and August 13, 1971, all inter-

views being arranged and conducted by the author. The

 

wining t'w'O
:is hish rank
ieParted iron
301139? ”0 i
Of 131'
three of the
criteria; the
faculty membé
tiewees, 13 l
or board of t
birth of the
teen on leave
six more bece
next three ye
Clear
the President
R the life
crrent high
nized as havi
there: of in
me POSition
cf t3.1116. Of .
zoo College fa
Present ill-flue
latter are Hid

Ellen“ 0128 and

\

53 {.0116 OJ

20
:remaining two were not interviewed: one having resigned
Ihis high ranking, influential administrative position and
ideparted from.Kalamazoo College in 1967; the other failing
to keep two interview appointments without notice.

Of the 22 persons interviewed, eight met at least
three of the four criteria; nine satisfied two of the
criteria; the remaining five (four administrators and one
faculty member) met only one criterion. Of these 22 inter-
‘viewees, 13 have been members of the faculty and/or staff
or board of trustees at Kalamazoo College since before the
birth of the Kalamazoo Plan in 1960 (though several have
been on leave for one to three years during this period) and
six more became affiliated with Kalamazoo College within the
next three years .

Clearly, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and
the President have been among the "most influential" through-
out the lifo of the Kalamazoo Plan. In addition, of four
current high ranking awmtnistrators who are widely recog-
nized as having substantial though somewhat different
spheres of influence within the College, two* have held the
same position and been influential for an extended period
of time. Of these four, three have previously been Kalwma-
zoo College faculty members, and three* owe meat of their
present influence to the position they hold. Two* of the
latter are widely thought to be influential primarily as

extensions and representatives of the President's power and

 

*One of these is one of the persons not interviewed
as previously noted.

gluenc'

gong til
me, on
0:13: in
adviser
:ehaz'io:
Preside:
have met

Q
payed :

rently I

531133 1
(a) beh
3? memb.
“Pk f0:
of the 4
“ah th
$101131 j
P3988111-

(more 1*

2l
influence.

Five of these six, and six other administrators are
among those interviewed. 0f the remaining six administra-
tors, only one is recognized as being very influential, and
only in recent years, primarily in the informal role of
adviser to the President in the area of student life and
behavior which is increasingly beyond the realm of the
President's traditional influence. Nevertheless, all six
have met criterion "c" on a continuing basis, and.thus have
played some part in the governance of the College. Of these
ten administrators (excluding Board Chairman, Light) four
were previously full-time faculty members at Kalamazoo
College, and one of these four plus three others also cur-
rently handle some part-time teaching responsibilities.

Interviewee comments noting the various spheres of
faculty member influence can be summarized as follows:

(a) being an Opinion leader and listened to by other facul-
ty'members, (b) being willing and having the dedication to
work for the betterment of the College or for a constituency
of the whole or part of the faculty, (c) being influential
with the President by virtue of one's personal and func-
tional relationship to the President or one's persuasion,
pressure, or expertise which is recognized by the President
(more fully elaborated in Chapter IV).

Typically, in becoming influential with their
colleagues, faculty members also hold important leadership
positions in A.A.U.P., the Faculty Senate or formal commit-

tee structure, or as dean of academic affairs. It is from

sch Pontions
muontial dw
3<mmtiniIߤ t:
generally achi
gree spheres
influential" f
of leadership
for an extende
ally‘varied so
tion held, the
position-duel
their own pers
Three
been Kalamazoo
at least 70;; o
influential pe
Three more fac
1““ 40% of ti
We named by
“1'8 also dire.
imamSation :
result-,3 member
a1 research at
some of the eve
Eleven 01‘ these

The int.
“"111, Iv.

22

such positions that a few faculty members have been most
influential during much of the life of the Kalamazoo Plan
by combining the influence of the person and position and
generally achieving some measure of effectiveness in all
three spheres of influence noted above. These few "most
influential" faculty members have typically held a variety
of leadership positions rather than staying in one position
for an extended period of time; their influence has gener-
ally varied somewhat in type and/or amount with the posi-
tion held, the course of events during their tenure in each
position-~including their own apparent effectiveness, and
their own personal priorities and interests.

Three current faculty members, two of whom have also
been Kalmmazoo's academic dean, were widely recognized by
at least 70% of the interviewees as being among the most
influential people in the College during the past decade.
Three more faculty members were named as influentials by at
least h0% of the interviewees. A number of faculty members
were named by at least 15% of the imhrviewees: four of them
were also directly involved in the evaluation research under
investigation in this case study (see Chapter V). Another
faculty member previously had responsibility for institution-
al research at Kalamazoo College and was also involved in
some of the evaluation research under investigation. All
eleven of these faculty members were among the interviewees.

The interviews provided.much of the basis for Chap-

ters III, IV, and V.

 

prece<
and materials
search studie
;eriod under
:erviewee. S
cf the PrBSid
all other int
or by telephc
interviews, i
two hours we:
each intervie
three major t
governance 01
in interview
iterviews, t
Where persons
exParishes to
The average 1
Iinutes in 13
EPPNXimately
temanated be;
been hilly 001
men levees .
7m sans whic

we“ Pieced to

23

The Interviews

Preceding each interview, an introductory letter
and materials including an index of the institutional re-
search studies conducted at Kalamazoo College during the
period under investigation were sent to the prospective in-
terviewee. Special arrangements were made in the cases
of the President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
All other interviews were arranged by the author in person
or by telephone. After the experience of the first several
interviews, interview lengths of one, one and a half, or
two hours were requested depending on the extent to which
each interviewee was Judged to be knowledgable about the
three major topics: inception of the Kalamazoo Plan,
governance of the College, and fate of evaluation efforts.
An interview schedule was used as a general guide in the
interviews, but deviation from it was permitted and occurred
where persons were willing and able to speak from special
experience to points relevant to the three major tepics.
The average interview was approximately one hour and forty
minutes in length, the range being from.fifty minutes to
approximately three hours. Only three interviews were
terminated before the author (as interviewer) felt they had
been fully completed-~all due to prior commitment by the
interviewees. And five interviewees were revisited to help
fill gaps which emerged when all interviews and.materials

were pieced together.

5s."

21;

Comments

 

In the judgement of the interviewer, those inter-
viewed were very cooperative, helpful, and seemingly quite
candid. This may have been due to several factors. All
interviewees were assured of the confidentiality of comments
they wished to be so treated: that particular comments
'would not be identified with the person making them was of
some concern to virtually all interviewees except the Presi-
dent. In addition, with the impending retirement of the
President, the interviewees seemed to sense that some re-
flection on or even rethinking of Kalamazoo College may be
in order; this occasion was somewhat of an invitation and
opportunity to do so.

In conclusion, the author bears responsibility for
the final conclusions of this case study. This case study
is subject to the weaknesses of the exploratory case study
method even though objectivity and validity have been
assiduously sought.

A final preliminary note: more specific informa-
tion and the unpublished documents and materials pertaining
to the conduct of this study and providing its supporting
evidence are in the possession of the author. Inquiries

may be directed to him.

 

In th
Goodsell and
of the person
and shaped it
the "Michigar
wstTerritor
the legal beg
Nlinstituti
for four year
Of statehood
became a phys

The c
Permanent set
mazoo, Michig
Persons, excl
lestare Hichi
“at Michigan

and Possessed
\

”elite llChar:
V an 81 His
W

CHAPTER III

HISTORY

In the Centennial History of Kalamazoo College,
Goodsell and Dunbar provide a detailed historical account
of the persons and events which created Kalamazoo College
and shaped its first 100 years. Receiving a charter for
the "Michigan and Huron Institute" in 1833 from.the North,
west Territorial Council, Rev. Thomas w. Merrill had won
the legal beginning of the Baptist "literary and theologi-
cal institution" he had inexhaustibly attempted to found
for four years. It was to be three more years--in the year
of statehood for Michigan-~before his Baptist institution
became a physical, living reality.

The charter was secured four years after the first
permanent settler settled in what was later to become Kala-
mazoo, Michigan and at a time when "not more than 100
persons, exclusive of Indians, were living in the village."1
Western Michigan was still virtually virgin wilderness.
Most Michigan settlers were from.New Yerk and New England

and possessed a common heritage in which the value of

—— —

1Charles True Goodsell and Willis Frederick Dunbar,
Centennial Higtory of Kalamazoo College (Kalamazoo: Kalama-
zoo College, 1933), p. 117

25

 

 

education was
reached thrOuE
ncnigan 8P?”
nigh opened 1
The G:
century infuse
cosponent whit
tion of the fr
flourished in
largest denomi
his purpose, 1”,
after referenc
only then afte
lated by chart
loved-were pr
Men from th
The Mi
1.7 referring t
tich was late
”116893 estab
1335- These 1.
and Purpose" 3
“en establism
”n f” Ministe
combined theolc

Mtitution nOt
\

2.1m.

26
education was firmly established. The westward movement
reached throughout the Middle West, the emigration to
Michigan apparently having been aided by the Erie Canal
which opened in 1825.

The Great Revival which blossomed earlier in the
century infused the westward movement with a missionary
component which took aim at the "moral and spiritual salva-
tion of the frontier."2 The Methodist and Baptist sects
flourished in the frontier, the Baptists being the second
largest denomination in Michigan in 1833. Unswerving in
his purpose, Merrill's charter was nevertheless granted only
after reference to denominational control was deleted and
only then after considerable struggle. Although not stipu-
lated by charter, the first trustees-wand most that fol-
lowed-«were predominantly prominent Baptist ministers and
laymen from throughout Michigan.

The Michigan and Huron Institute, the name apparent-
ly referring to the area between Lakes Michigan and Huron,
which was later to become Kalamazoo College was one of seven
colleges established in the West and South between 1826 and
1836. These institutions were created "with the same spirit
and purpose" as the six eastern Baptist colleges which had
been established in the preceding decade: preparing young
men for ministerial and missionary service. In offering
combined theological and academic instruction, this fledgling

institution not only prepared ministers but soon broadened

———

21bid., p. 8.

 

1:5 Wu” in r
:gistian educ

Since
”educational
one point a '0‘
cf the Univer
Semen, and
toy enrollme
rank students

Throu
”oldest insti
college grade
vfihthe cris
students. Ti:
EECollege t
“ME. Overs
successive ad
Mur G. Stc
31”.Herbert L
935): and t0
i'ehner K. Bic

The 0
its “ntemia

”Minna“; t0
\

3Arnoi
lama zc

2AIGOOdg

z°°= Ka

27
its focus in recognition of the profound importance of
Christian education deemed necessary for good citizenship.

Since its inception, Kalamazoo College has been a
coeducational liberal arts college although it was also at
one point a branch of the University of Michigan and later
of the University of Chicago. It also had a Female Division,
Seminary, and a Preparatory Division. In 1892 the prepara-
tory enrollment was three times the enrollment of college
rank students.

Throughout its history, this institution, the
"oldest institution in Michigan offering instruction of a
college grade,"3 has endured periods of uncertainty laced
with the crises of attracting both financial support and
students. The vitality, growth, and financial health of
the College have varied with the times and its administra-
tions. Overall, outstanding leadership is credited to three
successive administrations stretching from 1892 to l935--Dr.
Arthur G. Stokum at the turn of the century (1892-1912),

Dr. Herbert L. Stetson (1912-1922), Dr. Allen Hoben (1922-
1935). and to the Just completed administration of Dr.
Weimer K. Hicks (19514-1971).

The College 's guiding principles as enunciated by

its centennial president, Hobon,“ reflect an unswerving

comitment to the liberal arts and to the constellation of

 

3Arnold Mulder, The Kalamazoo College Story (Kalama-
zoo: Kalamazoo College, 19587, p. 10.

L‘Goodsell and Dunbar, op. cit., pp. 161-165.

 

fillies mcorpor
11:: Christian
'iellotship in
of the (30116838
no: in D?- We
curing the per
cessoro.
Arnold
1933 to 1958 l
of evaluation
711952, Good:
E1?! was pub]
education in .5
the advanced c‘
educated betwe
second in the
fied several 1
5t Kalamazoo (
achimmen’c. 11
“than“ by
°f the teachi;
lower-middle -c

Iolenoe atuden

ooribner I 3,80:

6ROber

 

28

values incorporated in the Protestant EthicS in aSpiring to
high Christian and academic standards worthy of an elite
”fellowship in learning." They are evident in the leaders
of the College from Thomas Merrill to the present time: as
much.in Dr. weimer Hicks, the President of Kalamazoo College
during the period in focus in this study as in his prede-
cessors.

Arnold.Mu1der's history of Kalamazoo College from
1933 to 1958 leads up to the scene into which the episodes
of evaluation research under investigation were injected.

In 1952, Goodrich and Knapp's The Origins of American Scien-

 

BEBE! was published.6 This comparative study of sciance
education in mmerican universities and colleges in terms of
the advanced degree and accomplishments of science graduates
educated between l92h and 193h ranked Kalamazoo College
second in the production of scientists. This study identi-
fied several factors in the teaching and learning of science
at Kalamazoo College which.resulted in the exceptional
achievement in science. These factors were: support and
involvement by Kalamazoo industry, the personal qualities

of the teaching staff, and the high intellectual ability and
lowerdmiddle-class, Protestant background of Kalamazoo's

science students. This and similar studies published in

 

SMax Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism, trans. TaIcott Parsons'TNew‘YorE? ‘Charles
Scribner's Son, 1930).

6Robert H. Knapp and H. B. Goodrich, Ori ins of
Anerican Scientists (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, .

29
several other sources ranked Kalamazoo among the most out-
standing colleges in the nation and marked the beginning
of a national reputation for the College.

Dr. John Scott Everton's four year administration
ended in 1952 after two highly successful annual cultural
and fund raising convocations under the general chairman-
ship of Dr. Richard Upjohn Light, a local neuro-surgeon and
member of the Upjohn family, founders of the Kalamazoo based
pharmaceutical firm.of the same name. A three million
dollar development program‘had been launched, but the over-
all financial position of the College continued to deterior-
ate in contrast to general recovery of the nation's economy,
and.Dr. Everton found the enrollment picture to be wor-
sening. Student disruption and upheaval during the fall of
1952 discouraged the President and he sought a leave of
absence which was followed by his resignation.

Dr. Light had been appointed to the Board of Trus-
tees in.l951 and shortly thereafter retired from his medical
practice. He and Harold Smith, the business manager, were
asked by the trustees to assume temporary administrative
leadership of the College with.the titles "Executive Trus-
tee" and "Administrative Head," respectively.

The situation was desperate, and collapse of the
College was not inconceivable. The enrollment was less than
360 students and the College had just completed almnst 18
consecutive years of deficit operation. The nearly two

million dollar endowment had shrunk to less than $900,000.

fie faculty bec
Lahouéh begin]
:geinning 331E
received only ?
in the faculty
Light
facet of the C
haddregged th
Board of Trust
to be at least
which in fact
year lease to
they did not c
1701‘1133' of the
the trustees i.
of lack of a q
W the 3130?. ter
life 01' a true
In an .
Light fiuggeste.
nominate sever;
We of “hon woo
the Nunitt e e.

‘l
‘1“ Convention

loot

8d for the

    

30
The faculty became demoralized and split by the turmoil.
Although beginning teachers were attracted by the College's
beginning salary of $3900, the highest paid faculty member
received only $5500. This resulted in almost 50% turnover
in the faculty annually.

Light and Smith immediately began to study each
facet of the College in an attempt "to try to find out what
‘had dragged this College down so far."7 Starting with the
Board of Trustees, about one third of its members were found
to be at least 78 years old. In 1885 the Baptist Church,
which in fact operated the College, turned it over on a 999
year lease to a self-perpetuating board of trustees which
they did.not control except that the president and a ma-
jority of the trustees had to be Baptists. One meeting of
the trustees in 1953,apparently unable to convene because
of lack of a quorum of Baptists,averted the dilemma by an
on the spot temporary appointment to the board of a Baptist
wife of a trustee.

In an effort to restructure the board of trustees,
Light suggested to the Michigan Baptist Convention that they
nominate several really productive persons to the board,
two of whom would be selected with one serving on the execu-
tive committee. He also suggested that the American Bap-
tist Convention in New Yerk do the same with one to be se-
lected for the board. Light urged revision of the require-
ment that the majority of the board of trustees and the

 

7Interview with Dr. Richard'Upjohn Light, Summer, 1971.

resident 0f '
clearly had 11
pop/058d that
Esptiata incl
tivee noted a
when Bapt
new charter 1
ageing that
being Baptist
had to be and
presidency.
mdatory rat
by the truste
cmitteee wi
Light
the College.
teacher-chap}
pal‘tmpatior
comnittee at:
”Glidentca E
'POnaible on]
llleadership
h ”Genoa, 1

and the 1‘ 8qu

Eben

Gut do“
°°m° out

1001:1113 r.
thing“ 8t;

31
president of the College be Baptists, an arrangement which
clearly had not produced a healthy College. Instead he
proposed that only one-third of the board be required to be
Baptists including the three Baptist Convention Representa-
tives noted above. With the consent of the Michigan and
American Baptist Conventions, Light and.Smith asked for a
new charter legalizing these new membership requirements,
arguing that with less than 5% of the peeple in the area
being Baptists, too many able persons who were not Baptists
had to be omitted from consideration for the board and the
presidency. The new charter was granted and in addition a
:mandatory retirement age of 72 for the trustees was accepted
by the trustees. The board was reorganized into working
committees with substantial work cut out for than.

Light and Smith also studied the administration of
the College. Everton's background was that of a scholar-
teacher-chaplain. He had allowed considerable faculty
participation in College matters. According to the faculty
committee structure, faculty approval was required for the
president's appointees to faculty committees that were re-
sponsible only to him. Light, who saw this as evidence of
a leadership vacuum, abolished that committee structure.

In essence, he directed the administration to administer
and the faculty to teach. According to Light, he and.Smith
then "
out down operating expenses enough for the College to
come out in the black the next year. We postponed

looking for a new president until we got some of these
things straightened out. We also decided that we would

have t0 P
Cone]
dependent on
teaching in 1
operation r63
spring and 81
willing to g:
six outstand:
the next five
asked their 1
salaries SEOt'
rank. He ex}
ties was to l
”“1118 Years.
Want him to 1
Would return
and Six ”h1g3
a” Proposed.
‘11 faculty a
tie“ to the
nth the C011
deceased), ha
Vitalizeti on
An im;
all faculty 81.

kg
daley Rum]

8

Enter

32
have to place our bet on getting good faculty‘members.8
Concluding that attraction of students would be
dependent on the College's reputation in general and its
teaching in particular, Light surmised that a boot strap
Operation regarding the faculty was necessary. During the
spring and summer of 1953 he found six people who were
'willing to give $10,000 each to supplement the salaries of
six outstanding new faculty members by $2000 for each of
the next five years. Light then went to the faculty and
asked their permission to hire six such faculty members at
salaries $2000 higher than the current faculty of the same
rank. He explained that his plan in creating such inequi-
ties was to bring other salaries up to par with them.in the
coming years. He further stated that if the faculty did not
want him.to use that money for its intended purpose, he
would return it to the donors. He received faculty approval
and six "high quality" professors were added to the faculty
as proposed. In retrospect, it is now evident that these
six faculty additions and the three Baptist Convention addi-
tions to the board of trustees, all of whom.have remained
with.the College to date (with the exception of one who is
deceased), have played important roles in the life and re-
vitalization of Kalamazoo College.
An important ingredient in Light's plan to increase

all faculty salaries was suggested by an article in 1953 by
Beardsley Ruml. Light visited Rumfl to "find out just what

 

t— *—

8Interview with Dr. Richard Upjohn Light, Summer, 1971.

hemeanto" In
mm on four bu
'35 endo'ment 9

fees, (3) scho
instruction fi

A Rum]
with all tuiti
budget. Hence
formula: tuit
t3 members) .
Light felt suc
sponsihility a
they would rec
proliferation
avoided under-
Edotted more e
aethods that p-
m? or facultj
higher salarie
mm”? Peti:
College was rm
trdfitees,

Light 8
mm)? to be 3|
°f the College
311th admin 3 tr

A Vegan:

“9&in resolve

33

he meant." In essence, Ruml was suggesting that colleges be
run on four budgets: (1) An administrative budget financed
by endowment, (2) auxiliary enterprises financed by special
fees, (3) scholarships financed by gifts and grants, and (h)
instruction financed by tuition.

A Ruml type budgeting plan was ad0pted by the board
with all tuition income earmarked for the instructional
budget. Hence, faculty salaries would be determined by the
formula: tuition rate (number of student 4- number of facul-
ty members). With a student-faculty ratio of 16 to one,
Light felt such an arrangement would encourage faculty re-
sponsibility and efficiency. Under this budgetary plan,
they would receive higher salaries when they held down course
proliferation and the number of faculty members, when they
avoided under-enrollment in courses offered, and when they
adopted more efficient and effective teaching and learning
methods that produce more learning for more students per
hour of faculty teaching time. Light further expected the
higher salaries to attract better teachers. A policy of
mandatory retirement at age 65 for the active staff of the
College was recommended to and adopted by the board of
trustees.

Light also secured an $85,000 grant from the Upjohn
Company to be spent however needed. Clearly, the rebuilding
of the College began during this one' year interim Light-
Smith administration.

A vacancy in the chairmanship of the board was

readily resolved with Richard Light's appointment. Though

BLL

he was not an alumnus of the College, its emerging revital-
ization was in no small measure due to the energy, resources,
and study he applied to the College's plight.

The selection of a president led to the appointment
in September, 1953 of Dr. Weimer K, Hicks as the College's
twelfth president. A description of how he decided to come
to Kalamazoo College is revealing:

He was asked to come to the College. He looked at
it and it wasn't very inviting. He went to Grand
Rapids, got a hotel room and stayed over night. The
next morning he heard the minister of the Fountain
Street Baptist Church preach a sermon.emphasizing that
sometimes you have to do the job you would rather not
because of its importance to the will of God. He came
out of there knowing what he had to do. That's the
kind of religious commitment he brought to this Baptist
College even though he was a Presbyterian.

Born in TOpeka, Kansas in l909,'Hicks' youth in-
cluded considerable travel with his evangelist father. He
attended and graduated from Peddie Preparatory School in
New Jersey and Princeton University. He returned to Peddie
in 1932 as an English teacher and admissions and public
relations administrator. He received an M.S. degree from
Cornell in school administration and in l9h3 he became
President of Wayland Academy, a Baptist sponsored prepara-
tory school. He served Wayland as headmaster for ten years
and was highly successful in attracting students and finan-
cial support to that institution: ingredients which would
be essential to continued revitalization of Kalamazoo College.

Hicks was a proven salesman and fund raiser which

he considered his primary profession. 0n the day he assumed

 

9Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

mos, Janna?
two hundred f i
along-til“ 3”
to interest or
families such
or the value c
greatly aided
amber of big”:
to contribute
‘coard of trust
has generally
providing the
The ot
President was
Sh”Mon to Kal
Wayland to be
"it trusted a
0f the College
13 went to 1,0,.
loved that (£14
“We the ”Pie:
'he “883 admu
mm! were 1;

long.

     

But it

35
office, January 1, lest, the College received a one million

two hundred fifty thousand dollar bequest upon the death of
a long-time supporter of the College. Hicks began working
to interest or to revive interest of a number of wealthy
families such as the Uptons, Olds, Dows. The skyrocketing
of the value of stocks in a number of American corporations
greatly aided Hicks' fund raising efforts. He attracted a
number of highly successful corporate and other leaders

to contribute their talents to the College as members of the
board of trustees. With.a.limit of Sh.members, the board
has generally had a membership of hO-hS in recent years
providing the College considerable trustee talent.

The other area of immediate concern to the new
President was recruitment of students. He brought Stuart
Simpson to Kalamazoo College from.his admissions staff at
Wayland to be admissions director. (Later, as one of Hicks'
most trusted aides, Simpson was appointed business manager
of the College, a position he still holds.) They immediate-
ly went to work on the recruitment of good students: "We
waved that Origins of American Scientists around until we
were the capies out."lo Hicks took charge of admissions and
"he began admitting students left and right."11 Not all
faculty were in accord with the apparent softening of
standards which seemed to accompany the increase in enroll-

ment. But it was not until 1958 that the College finally

 

101nterview with Weimer K. Hicks, Summer, 1971.
11Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

meme truly 3‘
Hicks 1
to gain facult
forward in rat
at the College
:eaching which
the faculty) .
was not an edc
and on occasic
of intellectue
ud we all hac
brought our 35
and built buil
3991‘! from 36(
570 in 1956-5;
atill decided 1
On such factor
tNatio.
With 1
Rm budget Is
In 195
someone ea
feagoP Bho
9 was Ora
$8,000 bef
3981‘ he

$11500, I
3900 that .

\

121111261
”hits

36

became truly selective.

Hicks was aware that President Everton had failed
to gain faculty support which concerned Hicks as he pushed
forward in rather authoritarian fashion in administration
of the College (with the exception of the curriculum.and
teaching which he acknowledged to be the proper province of
the faculty). Hicks had.immediately acknowledged that he
was not an educator. He did not talk the faculty's language
and on occasion his pragmatism rubbed against their values
of intellectual integrity. "Dr. Hicks was not a scholar,
and we all had our doubts. But, he brought in students;
brought our salaries up, increased library appr0priations,
and built buildings."12 The enrollment grew in successive
years from 360 in 1953-Sh to the in 195h-55, 510 in 1955-56,
570 in 1956-57, and 630 in 1957-58. The college's leader-
ship decided that 630 was to be the maximum.enrollment based
on such factors as physical plant and desired student-facul-
ty ratio.

With this increase in number of students, under the

Ruml budget faculty salaries increased dramatically.

In 1955 when we fiaculty] talked about salaries,
someone said we ought to be bold and say a full pro-
fessor should be paid $8,000 a year. Most of us said
he was crazy. Yet, by 1958 some were being paid over
$8,000 before even becoming full professors. In one
year he increased salaries twice--some as much as

$1,500. I had been very happy with my first raise of
$900 that year .13

 

12Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
lBInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

Colleg

- :
tithe‘t'

vision

vent c

“Etch:

37

A 1957 Chicago Tribune survey ranked Kalamazoo

 

College ninth among the nation's coeducational colleges.
It gave the College a further boost in image and.morale.
Further pursuing a national image, Hicks appointed a New
‘York based publicity director who in the following years
was instrumental in the appearance of articles about the

College in various publications such as Time, Saturday

 

Review, and Wall Street Journal, and in nationwide tele-

 

vision appearances by Hicks.

The events of 1955-65 amounted to the "glorious
years" for private higher education in America according to
‘Hicks. It was a decade of economic boom, of new interest
in higher education precipitated by Sputnik, of private
foundation support of higher education. Hicks noted:
"Everytime you turned on your radio or T.V., someone was
saying, 'Give to the college of your choice.'"18 Whereas
Everton had been faced with recruiting students at a time
when the slump of the birth rate from.the depression hit
the college age pepulation, the college age population had
begun increasing with even more young peeple wanting to go
to college. "The students were out there to take if you
went out and got theme"15

By 1968, the Ford Foundation was making substantial
matching grants to private colleges. Kalamazoo College's

first application for a Ford Foundation grant was turned

 

1u-Interview with Weimer K. Hicks, Summer, 1971.
15Interview with.Weimer K. Hicks, Summer, 1971.

38
down for various reasons: lack of sustained institutional
stability and fund raising and insufficient planning for
the future. Light then went out and raised four and one-
half million dollars in less than a year, much of it being
Upjohn family money including a sizable trust which Light
wanted dedicated to the academic program, In this under-
taking, Light provided still another impetus toward change:

I and.my fmmily had gone abroad to study at the

University of Grenoble in 1956 for six weeks, and just
watching what happened to our boys at that time con-
vinced me how much you could do with it. One boy just
graduated from high school and.entered'Yale in the

fall where they tested him.and placed him in third
year college French taught entirely in French. He

had gotten two years of college French abroad in six to
eight weeks. Concentrated study does quite a lot for
those who are prepared for it.

In 1957. Light asked the dean of the curriculum,
Lawrence Barrett for suggestions about how a large fund for
which he and his brother were trustees might be given to
the College for academic purposes rather than for a swimming
pool or other building which he suspected President Hicks
might support. After receiving Hicks' approval for dedica-
tion of the fund to academic purposes, Barrett told Light
of his concern about the provincialimm of Kalamazoo students.
Based on this observation and his family's experience abroad,
Light was favorably inclined toward and suggested some form
of foreign study for select students, an idea which Barrett
strongly supported. The fund of one and a quarter million
dollars was offered to the College-~at first conditionally--

to underwrite such a program. As a result, the College sent

 

161nterview with Richard Light, Summer, 1971.

39
twenty-five students to France, Germany, and Spain in the
summer of 1958. By 1961 the size of the group of Kalamazoo
students going abroad to study in the summer was double that
of the original group.

In addition, the 1957-58 Anniversary (125th) Fund
drive which had a goal of over $1.5 million raised over $2
million” Demonstrating that the College could raise money,
and.feeling that its constituency had manifested trust and
confidence in the College, Light and Hicks agreed that the
College had a moral obligation to address itself to the
growing educational needs of the nation and its growing
population. During 1959-60, agreement was reached on a pro-
jection of gradual growth over the next decade to 1320 stu-
dents and 72 full-time faculty members with top faculty
total compensation of nearly $25,000. This plan was included
in the second application for a Ford Foundation grant which
resulted in a $2.2 million matching grant contingent upon
the-College's raising two and one-half times that amount.
(The Ford grants matching formula was generally two to one.)

According to Light:

In the late 1950's, we realized that just from
population growth alone and the shift into higher
education for high school graduates that the country
was going to be faced with doubling its college and
university facilities by 1970. I decided right there
that probably the country would not double those facil-
ities and still let all of the campuses be idle for
four months of the year. The cost would be at least
$10 billion and the country wouldn't pay the lost.

And so in 1959 or '60, we decided to double our en-
rollment, to build according to a master plan up to
1300 students. At about the same time we looked around

to see what was the best way to operate on a year-
round basis.~ Larry Barrett was the academic dean at

 

the time
decided t

Hicks
we could 331"
53.13 was 0111'

gray:
written an a!
round educatz'
sufficient fc
caught Light‘
trustees and
words, he was

The 1
tricks and mc
am. As of
exPended, de‘c
tillion dolls
d011m of 1‘6
“91' 13 milli
Lightr. and H
”011111116111; to

In Hi

the Job 0
\
l7Int

18111124

19G

Eolnte

no

the time and he was the moving force in this once we
decided to Operate year-round.l

Hicks notes: "We were searching for a way by which
we could serve a large number of students because we felt
this was our moral obligation."18

Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University, had
written an article noting the growing imperative for year-
round education and suggesting that three years might be
sufficient for the baccalarueate degree.19 This article
caught Light's attention; he ordered cOpies for all the
trustees and also distributed it to the faculty. "In other
words, he was pushing for more efficient education."20

The 1960's were to Kalamazoo College a decade of
bricks and mortar and of a new departure in academic pro-
gram" As of this writing, the College has a beautifully
expanded, debt free physical plant valued at 18 to 20
million dollars which two to two and one half million
dollars of federal funds helped build, and endowment of
over 13 million dollars. In this respect, the results of
Light's and Hicks' efforts to rebuild Kalamazoo College are
a monument to their undeniable success.

In Hicks' view,

the job of the president is to recognize what the

 

17Interview with Richard Light, Summer, 1971.
18Interview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

19'Grayson Kirk, "College Shouldn't Take Four Years,"
Saturday Evening Post, (March 26, 1960), pp. 21-2h.

20Interview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

mgredie
have a 1
to have
be made
tion.21
The
gran. It 11
terest as e'
vestigation
ayear-rounl
tions value
Lawrence Ba:
tion merged
Law
'roodrow Nil
the Six new
Hicks creat
named Barre
Barrett
tional
Offices
m‘ious
quality
as that
Pertmen
their c
The
tion in 193
‘41
these V8;

\
21h
2%

hl
ingredients are that make a college. You have to

have a faculty. You have to have students. You have
to have a program, and then the overall world has to
be made conscious of that program.end of that institu-
tion.21

The only facet not yet rebuilt was the academic pro-
gram, It is this remaining facet which is of special in-
terest as evaluation of it is the primary focus of this in-
vestigation. It is at this point that Light's commitment to
a year-round program, Hicks' interest in the public rela-
tions value of a more attractive academic program, and
Lawrence Barrett's imaginative views of contemporary educa-
tion.merged and a new program.emerged.

Lawrence Barrett had been one of the nation's first
Woodrow Wilson.Fellowship recipients and was the first of
the six new faculty members appointed under the Light
faculty salary supplement plan in 1953. In 1955, President
Hicks created a new office, dean of the curriculum, and
named Barrett to that position. In 1957,

Barrett was named Dean of the Faculty and given addi-
tional duties in academic administration. The new
offices were created for the purpose of studying the
various disciplines to improve and strengthen the
quality of teaching. The new Dean's job was described
as that of coordinating the works of the various de-
partments as they study the possible reorganization of
their curricula. 2

The most recent sweeping change in the curriculum.
had established four divisions and requirements for gradua-
tion in 1938 necessitating (1) taking a number of courses

in these various divisions to assure general education

21Interview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

22Mulder, Op. cit., p. 155.

(breadth): ant
Dean 1
patterns of 8
911959, seve
Jmforth Foun
which focused
attention to
instead of se
courses stude
nodified appl
thoughts on p
tion and facu
interest in y
double the Co
W911: enroll
quarters with
being Off-ear:
dent Hicks wh

He anw

h2
(breadth), and (2) concentration in a major (depth).

Dean Barrett began working on various possible
patterns of academic program.change in 1958. In the summer
of 1959, several Kalamazoo faculty members attended a
Danforth Foundation sponsored conference at Colorado Springs
which focused on curriculum.change. Barrett gave increasing
attention to the Dartmouth Plan which called for quarters
instead of semesters and.a reduction in the number of
courses students took per term, He worked out possible
modified applications of it to Kalamazoo College, put his
thoughts on paper, and distributed them to the administra-
tion and faculty. Barrett was aware of Light's increasing
interest in year-round education and in finding a way to
double the College's enrollment without doubling the on-
campus enrollment. Barrett developed the idea of four
quarters with a class (freshman, sOphomore, junior, or senior)
being off-campus each quarter. He presented this to Presi-
dent Hicks who "bought it.”23

Meanwhile, Light told Hickm and Barrett that he
wanted to ask the board of trustees to adopt year-round oper-
ation and institute a three year degree. They, in turn,
presented Barrett's tentative curriculum.pattern to Light.
It included the possibility of foreign study for all stu-
dents, Barrett's argument being that due to the provincial-
ism of most Kalamazoo students, they all needed the exper-

ience of study abroad. Barrett insisted that while they

 

231nterview with Lawrence Barrett, Summer, 1971.

143

could think in terms of a year-round college, they could
not think in terms of each faculty member teaching all four
quarters. Each faculty member would have to have one
quarter off for professional and personal renewal. With
general agreement reached among Light, Hicks, and Barrett,
they asked the board of trustees for a commitment to a gen-
eral plan comprised of these points. It was adapted by the
board at their meeting in June, 1960. In addition, the
board asked that a committee of the faculty be appointed to
study the plan during the sumer and deve10p a program of
study by September which the committee could recommend to
the College to go into effect a year later.

At commencement, President Hicks made a statement
that part-tMe operation of the College, which was a heri-
tage from rural days, could no longer be condoned. It was
then clear to all that change was in the offing. Previous
events-~Light's distribution of Kirk's article advocating
year-round operation, the Danforth Conference attended by
leaders among the faculty, Barrett's distribution of sugges-
tions for changes in the calendar and program--had led to
some expectation and consideration of change. The Presi-
dentis statement signaled that the time was close at hand.

President Hicks consulted Barrett and Raymond High-
tower, Chairman of the Educational Policies Committee,
regarding how to proceed. They agreed that the Educational
Policies Committee with the addition of several key faculty
members and chaired by Hightower should be given the job of

developing Barrett's general plan into a program of study

LLb,
which it could recommend to the faculty in September. It

was Hightower's job to attempt to engineer consensus within
the short period of one summer.

At Barrett's suggestion, Dr. Light sent Dr. Hicks
and his family abroad for the sumer and Dr. Light also
stayed away from the campus to avoid any charges that the
outcome was the result of the administration forcing the
program on the faculty. Barrett also persuaded the Presi-
dent to pay each of the committee members $250 for their
efforts during the summer.

Before Hicks departed for Europe, Barrett told him
that he had to have his backing on three points if a new
program was to be workable. Although he harbored reserva-
tions, Hicks gave Barrett assurance of his backing and
support on these points:

(1) each full-time faculty member was to have one

quarter off from teaching and other College respon-

sibilities although which quarter would depend on
the scheduling needs of the College

(2) under a year-round program, number one above

meant there could be no more one-man departments

(3) no teacher was to teach more than two courses

per quarter.

As Barrett viewed it, rather than teaching 85 stu-
dents in. five courses three times a week, a faculty member
would be teaching 15 students in two courses five time a
week. This meant slightly fewer student class hour contacts

per week per faculty member and slightly larger classes.

LLS

This would allow more opportunity to get to know those fewer
students better plus fewer course preparations and presuma-
bly better teaching. This is the way Light and others ex-
pected it to work. The reduction of faculty teaching load
from five to two courses per term would be very attractive
to present and prospective faculty members. It would also
provide better teaching at a "cost" of an only slightly
reduced faculty work week in terms of faculty-student con-
tact hours. Furthermore, the year-round schedule would get
the faculty committed to the College year-round while only
having to pay them for three quarters.

Barrett asked the President to add older influen-
tial faculty members to the Educational Policies Committee
(EPC) for the sumer; it had been comprised mostly of young-
er members of the faculty the previous year. Barrett and
Hicks knew Hightower's position among the faculty. He had
been EPC chairman a number of times and had established
good rapport with even the most cantankerous of the older
influential faculty members. As EPC chairman he had long
demonstrated an ability to engineer agreement among them.
Furthermore, the older faculty members had established what
Barrett termed "Queensbury rules" regarding their own
internal decision making. They were fair in their dealings,
giving each person a chance to be heard rather than resort-
ing to secret deals or working one against another. This
would be important in gaining full faculty support for the
new program.

In general, the older faculty members felt some

coc

M6
measure of confidence in President Hicks. They were espe-
cially appreciative for what he had already done for their
salaries and were generally sympathetic to what he was
doing for the College. Barrett indicated to the EPC that
Light was putting on the pressure for a year-round program
and if they did not devise one, the President would be held
responsible.

President Hicks met with the EPC several times,
assured Hightower that he would support EPC recomendations
and then departed for Europe. After introducing his ideas
to EPC, Barrett met with the Committee less frequently as
, advised by Hightower so as not to impede its working toward
consensus.

The task before the Comittee was one of "how to do
it":21t to figure out some arrangement whereby it was possi-
ble to have more students enrolled with the same facilities
which were now to be used year-round. Desired ingredients
were getting some students off-campus each term, foreign
study which had already begun, and an Optional three year
degree program.

EPC met frequently that summer, generally in the
cool basement of Mandell Library.

Some didn't see merits of quarters or switching [stu-
dents] off and on campus. If we got hung up on some-
thing we put a group to work studying it to come up
with something. We met twice weekly at first and later

once a week after we had broken down into subcommittees.
We finally put it together.25

 

2LtInterview with Wen Chao Chen, Sumner, 1971.

ZSInterview with Raymond Lee Hightower, Summer, 1971.

11.7

Several members of the Committee made trips to ex-
amine examples of the quarter and trimester program at other
institutions. In.addition to a visit to Dartmouth, several
Dartmouth alumni were interviewed to see how well they liked
that program, The Dean at Dartmouth and the President of
Associated Colleges of the Midwest were brought to campus
to speak to the Committee. Several members of the Committee
also felt that the Antioch College program should not be
overlooked, that it might have something that could be
borrowed and.modified for Kalamazoo's purposes. A member
of the Committee visited Antioch and several Committee meme
hers discussed Antioch's program with Antioch staff and
faculty they knew personally.

As the Committee moved toward accepting the idea of
a quarter system.with some kind of on-off campus calendar,
the question of how to accommodate foreign study loomed
large. It was a prime consideration urged by Light, Hicks,
and Barrett as well as already being in existence and well-
funded. Committee members felt that study abroad should be
more than a grand tour of Europe and Barrett was persuasive
in urging its appropriateness for all Kalamazoo students.
Some Comittee members wanted study abroad in the summer,
others in the sophomore year, still others in the junior
year along the line of the already well known "junior year
abroad" program, Alternatives were narrowed as difficulty
getting foreign universities to take Kalamazoo students for
the summer was indicated, and as contacts abroad advised

that getting sophomores into foreign universities might also

h8
be difficult. The question of adequate language prepara-
tion before the junior year further deflated alternatives
other than the junior year. Finally, two quarters in the
junior year emerged as most acceptable.
An aSpect of the Antioch program.eeemed desirable
and adaptable to Kalamazoo College: its work-study program.

Most of our students had never had real work other
than study. This was discussed as the experiential
part of the program, an opportunity for the student to
get some experience at work or service during their
educational experience-~preferab1y early, before they
chose their major.26

There was also a general feeling that freshmen
should spend their first year on-campus getting acclimated
to college life and rigors.

We were concerned about being able to set up work
arrangements for one quarter especially other than
summer quarter. We decided it would sound.more respect-
able to call it "career and service" quarter agd we
thought we could get some help setting it up.2

.The Committee agreed to a two course teaching load
for the faculty and to a three course load for students.
They concluded that this would improve the faculty's teach~
ing and the students' use of the library.

We expected the students to have more free time for
study that they would use. We had some reports to the
effect that at Dartmouth, for example, there had been
greater use of the library under their three course
per quarter plan. We had also told Ford [Foundatiofl
that we were going to get just 1320 students-~good
students who could do independent work-~something under
their own initiative for one quarter while they're
here. I'm.not sure where this whole idea of an inde-
pendent study quarter started, but someone was aware
that when Dr. Hicks went to Princeton, students there
sometimes wrote theses in the senior year. Other

 

26Interview with Raymond Hightower, Summer, 1971.
27Interview with Raymond Hightower, Summer, 1971.

u9
schools had done it too. We expected to get not only
good sgudents but also to promote high level performs
ance.2
As the Committee began formulating an independent
study quarter for the senior year, expectations for the pro-
gram.were not clear as suggested by the following percep-
tions of two Committee members:
We used the term.thesis at first-~a good senior thesis.
Every student is capable of writing something that
makes sense and if he does it he will be proud of it.
It is the one thing that is his. It's for the stu-
dent's goals, something he is going to be proud of.
The whole direction of the program.was toward increased
independence. Anything that the student did as long as
he did as well as he could was to be acceptable. It
was the student 's job, not for us [the faculty) to "nit
pick” and it was up to him.to complete it whenever he
could.2
The independent study project was originally de-
signed by the Committee
as a junior Ph.D. thesis to show other prestigious
institutions that our students were capable of doing
outstanding work--their passport into good graduate
schools.30
Largely because Light was insisting on it, the
Committee attempted to work out a three year track. Ideas
of accelerated education and advanced placement were popu-
lar nationally at that time and were incorporated in the
Committee's ideas for a three year bachelor's degree program.
Barrett and the Committee labored to put the pieces
together in an integrated program.including a somewhat equal

number of students off-campus each quarter to keep the

 

28Interview with Raymond Hightower, Summer, 1971.
29Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
3°Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

50
on-campus housing facilities as full as possible each
quarter.
We and Larry [Barrett] spent quite a bit of time bal-
ancing numbers to see how we could make it go. Having
half of the seniors off-campus kioing independent study]
in the fall and the other half in the winter was a fur-
ther effort to balance things--determine who would fill
the beds.3l

Hightower had consulted as many faculty members as
he could who were in Kalamazoo that summer regarding the
work and progress of the Committee, especially those whose
existing programs seemed threatened or hampered by the new
program such as the biology department's summer work program
and varsity athletics. Barrett negotiated with the chemis-
try department which extracted a concession regarding their
own program.for the senior independent project quarter
which would allow their students to remain on-campus where
they had laboratory facilities.

The Committee was able to put together a new program
in outline form}2 in response to the tasks it had been given
at the beginning of the summer. As for the numerous details
which remained unsolved, Barrett assured the Committee that
they could be worked out later.

When Hicks returned, he found the prOposed program

to be essentially what he and Barrett had discussed. He

supported the Committee's product but privately concluded

311nterview with Raymond Hightower, Summer, 1971.

32Prefatory Note on the Report and.Report to the
Faculty by the Educational Policies Committee, Kalamazoo
College, September 8, 1960. (Mimeographed.)

51
that he had made a mistake on agreeing to a two course
teaching load and tried to pursuade Barrett to change it.
Barrett concluded he neither should, could, or would change
it at that point.

Then in the fall [1960] we went to Pretty Lake for a
two day faculty orientation. Hightower presented the
program.end advocated it. That was really Ray's finest
hour in the 21 years I have known him, He was master-
ful. He didn't disguise the fact that there were a
number of loose ends yet to be worked out. Because of
his seniority, the old die-herds couldn't laugh.him
off, and the young "Turks" couldn't buck him, And he
satisfied most of us enough that it would.help move the
College forward that we went along with him. We in-
sisted on a secret ballot so no one would be afraid of
voting against it. The result was that only four voted
against it.33

Three of the four votes were from persons who had not been
in Kalamazoo that summer and thus had not been consulted.
According to Hightower,

it was at the faculty retreat that the thing really
came into being-~out of the idea stage. ‘When the
faculty voted for this, they were committing themselves
to it in principle; we were sure we were going to have
it. We would begin there and.make alterations as
needed. We agreed to keep it continuously under study.
Many other schools had made studies but made no changes.
We made changes on the first round. I think, because
we had enough.in-feeling. I think that by that time
the President felt secure enough that he didn't feel
threatened by some innovations coming out of the facul-

ty.3h
Once the faculty approved the program in principle,
Barrett proceeded to work out the details of the Kalamazoo
Plan to the chagrin of some Committee members who thought
they were to be involved in the formulation of these details.

The new program began in 1961-62, a transition year, on a

 

33Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
3hInterview with Raymond Hightower, Summer, 1971.

52

three quarter basis.
When the program was first introduced, there was a lot
of excitement. The students were excited; the faculty
was excited. We were in a growth industry and in good
shape.3
We came up with a year-round, modern, relevant, exis-
tential type of education that ggople could buy, and
people became excited about it.

In general, the Kalamazoo Plan, see Figure l, pros-
pered in the decade of the 1960's except for the three year
track. It simply did not materialize as very few students
wanted an accelerated program. It was later phased out with
only several graduates.

Career Service began in 1962-63 with the addition
to the staff of two people who had experience in the two
aspects of that program. The career or job experience part
was set up by a former Antioch cooperative education pro-
gram staff member who had contacts with the business world
and who stayed at Kalamazoo for one year. The response to
this program by business was beyond all expectations. The
remuneration students received varied, but there were never-
theless more opportunities than the College could utilize.

The service aspect was set up by a former staff
member of the American Baptist Convention who had provided
leadership in their social concern and services area. The
Career Service Program.has had several directors and more

recently an occupational emphasis.

The Foreign Study Program has been directed by

 

351nterview with Wen Chao Chen, Summer, 1971.
36Interview with Weimer K. Hicks, Summer, 1971.

53

How The Kalamazoo Plan Operates -

.IOUI VIA! SYUDENT will enter in the fall. spend a total
ers on campus and 4 or 5 off—campus and graduate in june

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
  
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘ our years. '
FALL WINTER SPRING SUMMER
career
FRESHM EN campus campus campus service or
vacation
career
SOPHOMORES‘ campus campus service or campus
vacation
study
A ‘ study abroad or campus campus
JUNIORS abroad career
service or
vacation
~ campus off-campus
SENIORS oE-campus study campus XX
study campus
nu mm Yul "09!!" will enter college in ]une,-immediately after
high school graduation and will graduate from college three years later.
FALL WINTER SPRING SUMMER
RESHMEN a xxxxmxx‘ amml Axum. campus
SOPHOMORES
campus campus career campus
service ‘
UNIORS campus study
_ abroad
’carripus__ oK-campus
RS oil-campus study ‘
' study campus

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure'l.

54
Richard Stavig, formally a full-time faculty member, since

its inception in 1958 and has expanded to 19 centers all
over the world. Ninety percent of Kalamazoo's juniors
spend one or two quarters studying abroad: generally fall
and winter quarters according to the regular off-on-campus
schedule. This off-campus program has been most enthusias-
tically endorsed by the students, but it has nevertheless
been questioned by some faculty members because of the ‘
seeming lack of rigor of the study component abroad. The
Light Trust which originally financed the sunsner study
abroad program from 1958-1961 was doubled to approximately
2.5 million dollars which currently yields about $110
thousand of an annual budget for the foreign study program
of over $ll00 thousand. Regular student fees are sufficient
to finance the rest of the cost of the program.

For the first several years, the "Senior Independent
Project” or SIP program as it was called, was whatever each
department saw fit to make it. There was no overall co-
ordinator of the program, and each independent project was
generally undertaken off-campus and away from the student's
SIP "adviser." Hightower noted: "One thing showed up early.
By the time the student decided on an SIP project and had
found a place to work on it, a good deal of the quarter was
gone.37 Seniors increasingly failed to get it done by
graduation time although it was generally to have been done
either fall or winter quarter. This was increasingly

_— _‘ ~-- -—

*—

37Interview with Raymond Hightower, Sumner, 1971.

55

embarrassing to the College and thus of concern to the Pres-
ident.

Having never really been defined, the SIP was gener-
ally assumed to be a part of the student's major. Further-
more, many faculty members saw and judged it more as a re-
flection on their own scholarship than on the student's.
Hence, they often judged student SIP's in accordance with
their own professional standards and requirements. In 196k,
successful completion of the SIP was interpreted as a
College graduation requirement. As originally heped, there
was a substantial increase in the use of the library during
the first two years of the new Kalamazoo Plan in terms of
the average number of books checked out per student.

The SIP Program has had several faculty or adminis-
trator "coordinators" since l96h, but they have had little.
authority over the program. It has generally been in the
hands of the departments. Their impact has been restricted
primarily to suggesting or establishing procedural guide-
lines. Some adjustments were made in the program.in 1969
which shifted the emphasis (and the name) to "Senior Indi-
vidualized Project“ and made it a.more flexible progrmm
providing more project Options for a number of students.

The only readily available alternative to the SIP has been
student teaching experience for students seeking teacher
certification.

Arriving at the same number of students on-campus

each quarter has been a continual administrative financial

concern in keeping the dorms filled to capacity. This has

56
been difficult due to variable factors such as class size
(freshman, sophomore, etc.), sex ratio, deviation from.the
regular on-off-campus schedule by some students, and attri-
tion. The SIP pregram has been used to provide the ”adjust-
able” part of the otherwise tightly meshed on-off-campus
programs Seniors hate been assigned to a fall or winter
quarter SIP by department, yearly adjustments being made by
shifting departments which appear to fit the "best guess"
onecampus enrollment needs. This has also been a perpetual
administrative he adache .

Light and Hicks continued to build the College
during the first decade of the Kalamazoo Plan, but changes
in the position of academic dean were frequent. Barrett
had attempted to persuade Hicks to support him in changing
the faculty's behavior to provide more extensive assistance
to students on the SIP, which was not included in their two
course teaching load, and.to deve10p more meaningful teach-
ing and learning contacts with students both inside and out-
side the classromm. Hicks contended that they should do
that anyway and would not support Barrett further in what
he felt was necessary to evoke and sustain such behavior
from the faculty.

Barrett was succeeded by Hightower who then had the
job of putting the Kalamazoo Plan into Operation. After he
also became mayor of the City of Kalamazoo in 1963, Hicks
and Hightower concluded that his work as mayor was of greater
importance for the College. Hightower also concurred with

Hicks'that Sherrill Cleland, professor of economics at

57

Kalamazoo College, would be a good successor. Cleland was
dean from fall, l96h until summer, 1967, when he took a
leave of absence for a two year appointment as Ford Founda-
tion Consultant to the American University of Beirut.
Douglas Peterson, Chairman of the Education Department,
succeeded him.first as acting dean and then permanently
with the President's blessing and the faculty's backing.
Peterson took a one year leave of absence in 1968-69 during
which Barrett filled in as acting dean. Peterson is cur-

rently Academic Dean.

Summary

After 120 years of existence, Kalamazoo College
faced a very uncertain future. In 1953, as Executive Trus-
tee, Richard U. Light was instrumental in a thorough reor-
ganization of the College. In the subsequent 18 years under
President Weimer Hicks with.Richard Light as Chairman of
the Board of Trustees, Kalamazoo College has been rebuilt.
From.a College which could not attract a sufficient number
of students (enrollment of 360), keep its faculty (approxi-
mately 50% annual turnover), or achieve fiscal stability
(17 out of the previous 19 years had resulted in deficits),
the College's student body grew to a select lhOO with sur-
plus applications and average SAT entrance scores of over
600, a relatively distinguished, well paid faculty with
annual turnover of approximately 1.5%, and a greatly ex-

panded modern physical plant with a nine-fold increased

total value which is debt free, and an endowment which has

58
been increased nearly fourteen-fold.

With the additional contribution of Dean Lawrence
Barrett as the "architect" and Raymond Hightower as the
engineer of consent, in 1960 Kalamazoo College formulated
and embarked upon an innovative year-round academic program.
As has been revealed to be generally the case with major
program.innovations38 this one was given its impetus from
the tap: in this case, Chairman of the Board of Trustees,
Richard Light. Both before adapting the Kalamazoo Plan and
then because of it, the College has attracted national
attention and stature. An estimated 250 to 300 colleges
have sent representatives to Kalamazoo College during the
last decade to study the Kalamazoo Plan.

As a College which considers itself and is con-
sidered by some others to be among the elite of the nations
private liberal arts colleges, its faculty has been strongly
oriented toward teaching and sound scholarship. The faculty
has generally measured its success and prided itself most in
terms of the number of graduates going on to graduate school,
especially reputable ones, and the number of Woodrow Wilson
Fellowships and other scholastic honors accruing to its
graduates. Hence, as a teaching institution, the College's
major operational objective has been pre-professional train-
ing, prizing its students in terms of their scholarship and

academic performance. Several faculty members and

 

38JB Lon Hefferlin, Qynamics of Academic Reform
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 196977

5’9
administrators characterized this tendency as "faculty mem-
bers perpetuating themselves."

Also notable among a minority of the faculty mem-
bers--including some reputed to be among the best teachers
at Kalamazoo--has been an objective Of facilitating the
personal and intellectual development and growth of the
student. These faculty members have derived satisfaction
from helping and watching students' potential blossom.

Some Of these faculty members define student potential
broadly enough tO include existential objectives and devel-
opment such as flexibility, Openness to change and challenge,
etc. Many faculty members have evidenced from little or no
comitment to Opposition to such objectives, some having
assumed any such objectives to be the responsibility of the
College's off-campus programs, primarily foreign study.

A final major objective which had been generally
although not exclusively attributed to President Hicks and
the Board of Trustees is to instill religious values and
time-honored standards of behavior and decorum. According
to President Hicks,

what we are trying to be right now is the best of two
worlds. We're trying to be the best of the traditional
college. I mean the college Of Origins of American
Scientists, the college of sound schofarship, pre-grad-
uate study-wall of these things ; rules and regulations,
everyone living on-campus. On the other hand, we are
an activist, existential, on and Off-campus which is

progressively out in front. This is one Of our prob-
lems .

 

 

The College with its academic emphasis and its

 

39Interview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

60
existential-experiential Off-campus programs has attracted
highly independent students.’+O The Kalamazoo Plan was
initially calculated, at least in part, to further increase
student independence and lessen their provincialism. Some
faculty members admit to increased appreciation of the Off-
campus programs on the basis Of increased maturity which is
apparent in some students after those experiences, especially
career service and foreign study. Some faculty members have
also heard about Kalamazoo students being highly rated as
Woodrow Wilson awardees and graduate students increasingly
for their apparent self-reliance, resourcefulness, adapta-
bility, flexibility, and ability to assess and cOpe with new
situations even though they have been less prepared academ-
ically than other students. (Because of the foreign study
and SIP program in the junior and senior year, Kalamazoo
students generally have only four quarters to devote to
classroom study instead of the usual last two years.) Most
faculty members and administrators view such outcomes, which
are probably closer to Barrett's hOpes than the faculty's
or the President's, as a by-product of the Kalamazoo Plan.
In comparison to the Off-campus program, students are in-
creasingly finding the on-campus life both in and out of the
classroom to be dull, pedestrian, and confining. Corres-
ponding major changes have not been made in teaching methods
or course structure. Students must still live on campus or

at base during all on-campus quarters. After living "on

 

14.0"Danforth Study Final Reportfi' (Kalamazoo College,
1966), p. III-37.

61
their own" during several off-campus programs, they view the
slow acceptance Of student self-determination in on-campus
life by top level administrators with further disdain.
Estrangement between the student subculture's and the Presi-
dent's views of on-campus student life has become incresing-
ly apparent and bothersome, and in the minds of some, in-
creasingly severe in the latter half of the 1960's.

It was onto this background and into this milieu in
the last half of the 1960's that the evaluation efforts
brought into focus in this case study were launched. The
Kalamazoo Plan had been approved by the faculty with a
commitment that continual evaluation of the new program
would be undertaken. What evaluation was attempted? What
impact did it have, if any? Why?

Before turning to these questions, another prior
question is suggested by the near unanimity with which the
interviewees believed President Hicks to be Of critical im-
portance to nearly any change within the institution as re-
flected in this comment: "President Hicks' position on al-
most any.issue has been a critical factor. If he was
Opposed to something, he could usually find a way to scuttle
it, and so people haven't tried things he was Opposed to."1+l
This prior question is basically one of institutional govern-

ance e

 

hlInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

CHAPTER IV

GOVERNANCE

When Richard Light, as Executive Trustee, began to
reorganize Kalamazoo College in l95h, he almost immediately
returned all administrative decision-making to the adminis-
tration. Now, as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Light
asserts:

Basically, faculty should teach, the administration
ought to do all the administering, and the Trustees
ought to keep out Of their hair. The job of the
Board is to establish broad policy and then tell the
President to carry it out.1

Viewing the relationship similarly, Weimer Hicks
has maintained this separation of responsibility between
faculty and administration. He views the faculty's role as
that of teaching and making the smaller academic policies.
In recognizing and readily admitting that he is not an edu-
cator, he has considered the curriculum and teaching to be
the responsibilities of the faculty. If they encroach upon
his domain he reminds them that faculty committees dealing
with the rest Of the College exist because he permits them.

The Board of Trustees owns the College and should make

the larger policies, but the President needs to "spear-
head and spark" the trustees and the faculty, and in

 

1Interview with Richard Light, Summer, 1971.

62

63

general lead, troubleshoot, provide a public image and
coordinate the entire institutional effort.2

In coming to Kalamazoo College, Hicks viewed his own
expertise to be in fund raising, student life, and public
relations. His overriding concern has been public relations
and "image" which attract both funds and students. Recog-
nized as a very strong-willed and aggressive person and
generally characterized as an authoritarian personality and
”benevolent dictator” by the interviewees, Hicks' power is
widely recognized and seldom challenged by those who know
how internal decisions are made and power wielded.

Like most small colleges, our President is held respon-
sible by the Trustees for everything that goes on in the
College. The question is how much of this responsibil-
ity is he going to delegate to his aides. He doesn't
let anyone get sufficiently aggressive in any area to
get away from.his own support and point of viewa-which
is what Everton had failed to accomplish; he hadn't had
the campus under control. . . . The fact that this
campus has had no major disruptions or destruction under
Hicks demonstrates to the Trustees and others that he
has a grip on things. He deserves and gets credit for
that. He is an authoritarian personality. He has
served the College well in many respects because of it,
but it does create difficult problems today.3

In the final analysis, on every issue, even the question
of salary increments for secretaries, there is one

power and that is the President. Every action that is
considered will not be accepted if it is not discussed
in advance with him and some understanding reached as

to what will be approved before it goes to whatever
group or committee will consider the issue. Our method
of Operation is not to evaluate or consider, but to see
what is desired by the President and then set about
bringing it to pass.h

 

2Interview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.
3Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
hInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

6a

In this respect, two persons who have long been non-
competing, loyal, trusted allies to the President and have
played important roles as useful extensions of the Presi-
dent's power are Stuart Simpson, Business Manager, and Hen
Chao Chen, political science professor and more recently
Librarian, Dean of Academic Services, and.Vice President.
Both men have frequently represented the President's view on
various committees and in so doing, avoided a confrontation
between the President and others whose views might differ
with his. In President Hicks' own view,

a president has to know how to make things happen.

You become a professional in how to get others to reach
a decision: a motivator, a manipulator. It may be
with faculty. It may be with students. I would do it
by talk, by persuasion, by "love," by encouragement, by
"big stick," by toughness, by reward.

He is thoroughtly true to his conception of human
nature: that man's impulses need to be constrained or con-
trolled. He embodies

deeply held values and commitments to hard work, re-
strained social behavior--proper and decent, religious
dedication and participation, courtesy and respect for
elders, appreciation for one's opportunities.6
To him.these are implicit in a good church related liberal
arts college which thus must be paternalistic. He credits
his own success to "more guts" and "hard work" and believes
he sets that example for others to follow. His style of
leadership is as demanding of others as it is of himself

and is carried out as though he believes the strong--those

 

SInterview with.Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

6Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

65

who can take it, who have the inner strength-~should reign
supreme: archtypical of David.Riesman's "inner directed"
man.7

Hicks' style of governance is to generally give
hints to those who move toward the center of power in the
decision making machinery to consult him before any deci-
sions are made; he expects his prior approval to be sought.
He expects this to be done by second level administrators
and committee chairmen who are to seek out his views and
engineer consent according to them, Several interviewees
characterized his major technique for accomplishing this as
pitting one against another and keeping each unsure of his
own position, thereby solidifying their dependence upon his
support and power. In this way, too, only he knows about
everything that is going on in the institution. This situ-
ation is terribly frustrating to many, effectively stifles
initiative (except his own) and produces a cautious staff
and faculty. It nevertheless is very effective in allowing
Hicks to guide the institution with seemingly little use of
power. For this reason, Hicks' style of leadership is best
known to those who work close to the center of power; his
authority may appear to be benign, mysterious or enigmatic
to those on the fringe of power and beyond.

Interviewees closest to the President's power

suggested that Hicks typically wants to dominate others and

; .—
— ——

7David.Riesman, Nathan.Glazer, and Renal Denney,
The Lonely Crowd, A Study in the Changing American Charac-
ter (abr. ed. witfi’new foreword; New Haven: Yale Univer-
EIty Press, 1961).

 

66
will do so completely if allowed. His method of testing
people for weaknesses is often to see if they can withstand
his temper tirade which is apt to follow if they only dis-
agree with or challenge him. Most recipients are intimi-
dated and quickly conclude that he is inflexible, and he is
on some things. The prime and seemingly only method to
successfully influence Hicks is to weather the tirade, drOp
the subject temporarily, but bring it up again.

Few peoPle discover and enjoy this type of relation-
ship with him, and only four persons in the College in the
last ten years seem to have been able to meet him.head on
and thereby gain real power and the respect of the President.
Three of these are Lawrence Barrett, Academic Dean from
1956 to 1962, Lloyd Averill, Dean of the Chapel and Vice
President (left Kalamazoo College in 1967), and Sherrill
Cleland, Academic Dean from 196k to 1967. These men were
all "very aggressive, hard working and bright."8 As a "man
of God," while projecting an attractive, eloquent, intellec-
tual image for the College, Averill complemented Hicks' pur-
poses well. Barrett and Cleland were adroitly political
and clearly toiled long and hard to improve Kalamazoo Col-
lege and its image. As an economics professor, Cleland's
grasp of finances was of considerable use (and some suggest
sometimes a threat) to Hicks. These men's relationship to
the President is generally recognized as being productive

for the College. But also, as may frequently happen between

-—. ___

8Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

67
aggressive people, their relationship was often stormy and
difficult, even abrasive.

The fourth person who has gained the President's
confidence is Richard Stavig, Director of the Foreign Study
Program. This is the lone area with which the President is
little concerned. It has been ably administered by Stavig
and has enjoyed the reputation of an attractive program
which has received exceptional student acclaim.

With the lone exception of the Foreign Study Program,
the President feels he knows what is going on throughout the
College. As the only person able and willing to assume
institution-wide perspective and responsibility (as he sees
it), his esthmation of his own views and Judgement seemingly
borders on the infallible. He is unwilling and unable to
trust others with delegated responsibility. He prides hhm-
self on his ability to use peeple for his purposes and his
authoritarianism.has clearly served the College well in some
respects. His own self-image is thought by some to require
that he be recognized as the father figure, the seat of
power, the successful patriarch of his flock and of the
College which he rebuilt in his image.

The majority of second and third level administra-
tors are quick to accept their subserviant role, are very
loyal to the President, and find his authoritarianism fully
apprOpriate and reassuring while enjoying the "borrowed"
prestige of working for him.

Hicks is open in his relationships with others when

he is confident and can afford to be open. He is closed

68

when he perceives a challenge to his views or less than
ready acquiescence--where the disagreement mounts against
.him and the moves to head it off count. It is at this point
that governance by tension and intimidation surfaces. Per-
sons with divergent views who attempt to discharge their
responsibilities in accordance with their own views or who
seek change and innovation through the regular channels are
enveloped in a wearying experience that most learn is not
worth the resulting "hassle" with the President's power and
the extensions of it. Several very influential interviewees
suggested that he needs strong second level people if his
influence is not to become smothering, but noted that he
has not always had them. Even Hicks sometimes recognizes
that changes must be made, but at the same time resists
many of them because he sees many proposed changes as ero-
sion of the values he holds and of what he believes tradi-
tional liberal arts education should be. The practical,
pragmatic facet of the President is seen by some as being
increasingly in conflict with his own deeply held values:
by being the public relations man who is concerned about
what will sell, he has helped build an institution that pro-
jects a public image of vitality which attracts students
with and further exposes them to values that are an anath-
ema to those he and some important board members and local
patrons hold dear.

It is under such circumstances that he feels the
need to have even more control to manipulate these increas-

ingly contradictory images for the College's various publics

69
while findhmgit increasingly difficult to do so. Students
increasingly represent a culture foreign to the President,
which troubles him.deeply. Some of the people caught be-
tween the President and the students lead harried lives at
Kalamazoo College. Yet, in recognizing this increasing
gulf, he has recently sought out several loyal faculty-
staff mmmbers who are in non-threatening and non-cmmpeting
positions but are also more effective with the students to
help him understand the emerging student subculture. He
even uses the language of such "aides" on occasion as he
tries to provide leadership for the College in his public
utterances.

It is this pragmatic ability to learn and assume
new ideas and views that the other faculty and administra-
tors uniformly count as one of the President's greatest
strengths. The process is generally slow and painful for
all concerned following the patterns noted above. When all
his efforts to batter down Opposition to his views fail--
an exhausting process-~he often takes on the new reality
outwardly as his own. But increasingly, the rate and direc-
tion of change disturbs him.and as his internal authority
has yielded, he appears to feel less knowing and confident
and even more authoritarian.

While the President's behavior sometimes appears to
be unreasonable, irrational and inflexible, his resistance
to change is acknowledged by some as helping to avoid commit-
ment of the College to fads in education and to unreasonable

student demands, helping to maintain the uniqueness of the

4m

7O
institution, and forcing peeple to examine and sell their
views on compelling bases.

The dominant faculty view of the President is one
of ambivalence: grateful for what the President has done to
rebuild the institution and their salaries, acknowledging
his political astuteness, but disappointed (some, bitterly)
in the one man rule which belies the College's motto--a
fellowship in learning.

While the faculty has increased its influence in its
committee selections and gained further influence through
the College chapter of A.A.U.P., a succession of faculty
leaders and prOposals have brought little progress toward
democracy. Presidential disapproval or lack of his endorse-
ment alone may kill a proposal. But in addition, lack of
"political savvy,"9 of failure to consult informally with
other influential faculty members, has led to frequent de-
feat of Educational Policies Committee proposals and others
brought before the faculty.

President Hicks, as the on-campus locus of power,
has seldom welcomed competing bases for decision-making.
Institutionalresearch is often viewed as providing a sounder
basis for decision-making. What was its fate within this
milieu? The astute observer would correctly anticipate
difficulties.

Results regarding governance from.the Institutional

Functioning Inventory administered to administration, faculty

—__

9Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971

71
members, and students by the Kalamazoo College Office of
Institutional Research in 196810 are generally supportive
of the centralized governance pattern revealed by the inter-

views and this chapter.

 

10"Institutional Functioning Inventory, EXperimental,"
Prepared by the Educational Testing Service, DevelOped in
collaboration with the Institute for Higher Education,
Teachers College, Columbia University, under a grant from.the
Kettering Foundation, 1967.

CHAPTER V
EVALUATION RESEARCH AND ITS IMPACT

The stated focus of this case study is an assessment
of the impact of efforts to evaluate the degree of success
or failure of the educational program at Kalamazoo College
during the three year period, 1966-69. From the "Prelimin-
ary Index of Institutional Research Studies" for 1966-69',1
only one study, the 1967-68 evaluation of the SIP Program,2
was widely recognized by the interviewees as having had
significant impact. Another study which was a formal insti-
tutional commitment to evaluation, the "Danforth-Kalamazoo
Institutional Self Study, " (called Danforth Study),3 was
widely thought to have had from very little to no impact.
These two studies comprise the attempts at comprehensive
evaluation of the Kalamazoo College program or a major ele-

ment of it during the three years under investigation. In

lPreliminary Index of Institutional Research Stu-
dies: Kalamazoo College, 1963-69 Prepared by the office of
Institutional Research, Kalamazoo College, April, 1969.

2"SIP: Trick or Treat," An In-Depth Evaluation of
the Kalamazoo College Senior Independent Project Program Pre-
pared by the Coordinator of the SIP Program and Director of
Institutional Research, Kalamazoo College, January, 1968.

3"Danforth Study: Final Report" (Kalamazoo College,
1966-67) . (Mimeographed.)

72

73
addition, several studies had identifiable impact on a very
lhmited scale and the several studies done at the request
of the President reflect his interest in institutional re-
search and evaluation. These studies and their impact and
a brief history of institutional research and its problems
at Kalamazoo College are the focal points of this chapter.

History of the Office of Institutional Research and Program
ERaluation

The College had borrowed and adapted the career
aspect of its Career-Service Quarter from.Antioch College,
and'Walter Sikes of the Antioch program was selected to im-
plement it. He brought with him Stanley Newman who was
given the title Assistant Director of the Research Bureau.
(The exact circumstances of his coming to Kalamazoo and of
his title as Assistant Director of the Research Bureau were
not clear in the minds of the interviewees as there was no
Research Bureau per se other than Newman.) Sikes remained
at Kalamazoo for one year before returning to Antioch. New-
man remained for two years, l962-6h. According to Hightower
who was Academic Dean at the time:

He was under my jurisdiction. There never was a very
clear idea of what he ought to be doing. The President
felt he should be doing any little study job he wanted
done or that I wanted done. Stan had a different idea
and as Dean, I was in the middle and didn't agree with
either one of them. The President would call me to ask
Stan to do something but Stan was busy on other things
and said he didn't have time to get to it for six weeks
without some help; he did get some student help. A
quick study to answer a question the President had in
mind was almost impossible to get. The President always
felt Newman should be ready to take anything of that

sort. He did want to know various statistics such as
how this years entering class compared to last years

7A
and other things that had especially public relations

value. Stan's view was clear: unless given the lati-
tude to study what he saw the need for, he was of no
use to the College. The President would call me in and
say, "What is Stan doing?" If I didn't knew, he'd say,
"It doesn't appear to me he's doing anything."' My view
was that we ought to be planning ahead, but Stan wanted
to do his own thing. Some things he wasn't interested
in and others he couldn't do. He was here two years
primarily as a researcher; we let him.teach too beca se
he had his M.A. in anthropology and wanted to teach.

Newman produced evaluations of three aSpects of the
College's program which are on record at the College but
seemingly unread.5 He was most remembered for having had
several personality conflicts, most notably with the Presi-
dent. He was asked to make more definite plans for his fu-
ture and left Kalamazoo after two years.

Sherrill Cleland becmme.Academic Dean in 196A. An
economist, Cleland had considerable background and.axperience
in economic forecasting and utilization of data; he was data,
future, and research oriented. The following year he asked
psychology professor, Berne Jacobs to assume a one quarter
time position as Director of Institutional Research. Jacobs
conducted studies almost exclusively at the request of the
Dean.6

Cleland arranged a College-wide self-evaluation with
Danforth Foundation support for the following year, 1966-67

(see "Danforth Study" in this chapter), and sought a

m

“Interview with Raymond Hightower, Summer, 1971.

5Preliminary Index of Institutional Research.Studies,
Kalamazoo College: l963-6h.

6Preliminary Index of Institutional Research Studies,
Kalamazoo College: 1965-66.

75

full-time institutional research consultant. There had now
been a graduated class under the Kalamazoo Plan and Cleland
felt this was the earliest a thorough evaluation of the pro-
gram.could be attempted. He was also interested in address-
ing the College to some possible flaws or weaknesses he
perceived, establishing ongoing institutional research to
aid in evaluation and decision-making, and sharpening the
objectives of the College.

Jacobs wanted to remain in teaching and James Snook
was brought to Kalamazoo College from.Michigan State Univer-
sity on a one year appointment as a person with institution-
al research training. Snook was directly responsible to the
Academic Dean, but was advised of the President's dissatis-
faction with institutional research.under Newman.

Snook spent the first fall quarter learning about
Kalamazoo College from.the Danforth deliberations, advising
and informing the Danforth participants in terms of research
possibilities and requirements, and doing a study on class
size for the President.7 Winter, spring, and.aummer quar-
ters were largely consumed for Snook by considerable time
and effort devoted to the Danforth.Study. During that year,
Cleland asked Snook to attempt to write a self-job descrip-

tion8 and on several occasions discussed possible projects

 

7"Size of the Three Smallest Classes in Which Enter-
ing K College Freshmen are Enrolled for Fall Term.l966,"
Prepared by the Office of Institutional Research, Kalamazoo
College, December h, 1966.

8Responsibilities of the Office of Institutional
Research, Kalamazoo College, November 10, 1966.

.y! .I, ... ‘O ”i. OKJ,

76
with Snook. Otherwise, he left Snook generally free to
work directly with the Danforth Study director. In the fall
of 1967, Cleland began a two-year leave of absence.

Before leaving, he expressed some regret to Snook
that he had notgprovided him with more helpful direction
during the preceding year. Cleland also indicated to Snook
that he would be retained to follow up the Danforth Study
and appointed him to the full-time position of Director of
Institutional Research for the coming year, a position still
responsible to the Academic Dean. Snook was also assigned
to the Educational Policies Committee as an "ex officio"
member to aid and assist that faculty committee in its work.
Cleland further noted the President's doubt that the College
needed a full-time institutional researcher and added that
it might be wise for Snook to take on some administrative
responsibility. At Cleland's request, Snook assumed respon-
sibility for coordinating the Senior Independent Project
(SIP) Program the following year.

In accordance with these primary responsibilities
and his own job description,9 Director of Institutional Re-
search, Snook, endeavored to give on-going attention to re-
search concerns of the Dean, the faculty, and the President
as reflected in the studies completed during 1967-69.10
Results from the Institutional Functioning Inventory

 

9Responsibilities of the Director of Institutional
Research, Kalamazoo College, November, 1967.

10Preliminary Index of Institutional Research Stu-
dies, Kalamazoo College: 1967-68 and 1968-69.

77
administered in 196811 suggest that the campus community
had become widely aware of the Office of Institutional Re-
search by that time.

Snook initiated his new combined role as the Col-
lege coordinator of the SIP program.and.Director of Insti-
tutional.Research.by immediately launching a major evalua-
tion effort in the fall of 1967: an evaluation of the SIP
program.(see "SIP Evaluation" in this chapter).

During the fall of 1967, the President requested an
attrition study, but data collection.from the various admin-
istrative offices soon bogged down under unanticipated diffi-
culties (see "Attrition Study” in this chapter). Snook felt
that he should not drop everything else which expediting the
attrition study seemed to portend and concluded that if he
did so, the basic data recording and retrieval problemm en-
countered would essentially remain. He further concluded
that something needed to be done to systematize and computer-
ize data collection and retrieval if adequate, economical
institutional research were to be possible at Kalamazoo Col-
legs in the future. Furthermore, such.a computerized data
system could provide timely routine reporting of needed data
for various administrative offices. In deciding not to dr0p
everything in order to expedite the attrition study, Snook
hoped the data definition, collection, and retrieval pro-
blems plaguing it would be more dramatically demonstrable to

11"Institutiona1 Functioning Inventory, Experimental,"
Prepared by the Educational Testing Service, DeveloPed in
collaboration with the Institute for Higher Education,
Teachers College, Columbia University, under a grant from
the Kettering Foundation, 1967.

78
and realized by the President and the Dean as a result.

Dean Peterson was frequently called upon during that
year by the President to explain what Snook was doing and
Snook was asked to keep the Dean informed of the activities
of his office.

Four months after the President had requested the
attrition study, Snook formally recommended that top prior-
ity be given the following year to systematizing the com-
puterizing data collection, retrieval, and reporting. In
Snook's reappointment letter several months later, with the
attrition study still incomplete, Hicks' noted his dissatis-
faction with the research effort of the Office of Institu-
tional Research. Snook and William Jensen, Director of the
College's Computer Center, were able to secure approval and
support from.the Dean and the President for their desire to
give high priority in 1968-69 to systematizing and.computer-
izing data collection, retrieval, and reporting.

During 1968 and 1969, EPC devoted serious considera-
tion and deliberation to Snook's SIP evaluation and to form»
ulation of a preposal for appropriate revision of the SIP
program, but approval of the proposed changes appeared to
meet major resistance from.the President (see "SIP Evalua-
tion" in this chapter). Snook increasingly felt that EPC's
deliberations demonstrated sincere faculty dedication to
improving the College's educational program in light of
available evidence. He felt he was establishing an increas-
ingly productive relationship with the faculty, but was also

aware that in pushing for computer data systems he was at

79
least partially working himself out of a job.

In a conference with the President near the begin-
ning of the 1968-69 academic year, Snook was told quite
simply by the President that it was he (the President)
that Snook had to convince with his research, not the facul-
ty, for "they don't count."

Near the end of 1969, with Barrett having returned
as interim dean for one year during Peterson's one year
leave of absence, Snook was informed by the President that
he would not be reappointed for the next year, 1969-70. An
assistant dean with administration and institutional re-
search training had been added to the administrative staff
in 1968,and program evaluation was not a high priority in
view of increasing pressures for economic belt tightening
at Kalamazoo College at the end of the 1960's.

Thinking he had done his part in development of the
data system, as the end of that year approached, it tragie
cally came to no avail with the sudden and unexpected death
of Jensen. Snook left Kalamazoo College shortly thereafter.

Although.most Office of Institutional Research activ-
ities and recommendations have not been continued or imple-
mented and the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs has been
givailittle priority for program evaluation, he has repeated
two Office of Institutional Research efforts which.have been
found to be useful: the attrition study12 and the College

 

12Attrition Study - 1969-70 Prepared by the Academic
Affairs Office, Kalamazoo College, March 9, 1971.

80

Student Questionnaire testing for freshmen.13 Interviewee
comments and other evidence also suggest that though program
evaluation has lapsed in the ensuing years, events of those
years are now sweeping questions of program.evaluation to
the fore at Kalamazoo College. Interviewee comments tended
to suggest that the problems, personnel, and priorities of
the College are becoming more favorable to sustained pro-

gram.evaluation and planning.

Danforth Study

From a conversation with representatives of the
Danforth.Foundation in the fall of 1965, President Hicks
felt it was possible to obtain a grant from.Danforth if the
College would propose an institutional self-study and im-
provement plan. He askeder. Chen to draft a proposal; it
was for a quarter of a million dollars. The Danforth reply
indicated that they were not thinking in terms of nearly
that muoh.money and suggested that the project needed to
reflect the advice and direction of someone like Paul
Dressel, the Director of Institutional Research at Michigan
State University.

Dean Cleland took over the project in December. He
was seeking foundation funds through a variety of channels
as had been encouraged by the President. Cleland's proposal
included a full-time study director of national stature.

13Kialamazoo College Freshmen: A Comparison of the
Class of '70 and the Class of '73 Prepared by the Office of
Academic Affairs, March 23, 1970.

81

Even though the proposal was for considerably less money,
President Hicks was still interested in it:

He will always go after a buck and that is why he
allowed this. Public relations were his overriding con-
cern. First, we could say we got the grant from Dan-
forth; second, we could say we were studying the Kala-
mazoo Plan; third, we were going to get someone nation-
ally prominent to direct it--all pifilic relations. If
we got something internally, fine.

Refinement of the proposa115 which made it accept-
able to Danforth resulted in May in a grant of $25,000 to
be matched by the College for the self-study. This was,
however, a development which was much less attractive to
Hicks:

Originally, Danforth did not say anything about a
matching grant. If they had, Hicks would have been
much cooler to it. When they said, "We'll give you
$25,000 if you find $25,000 more," he was saddled with
it and couldn't get out of it. Then we didn't get the
people we wanted such as Dressel. As it turned out,
the Danforth study would be spending money to generate
ideas that would cost more no ey. This bore no resemp
blance to the original idea.1

Being committed to utilizing outside advice and
direction, but unable to obtain a study director or con-
sultant of Dressel's stature, Cleland settled for a part-
time internal director (from.Kalamazoo College), a part-
time external director-consultant, and an institutional
researcher.

The faculty had not been informed of the self-study

lhlnterview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.

15A Request for Funds to Study the Operation of the
Kalamazoo Year-Around.Education.Program, Kalamazoo College.

16Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

 

 

 

82
until the grant was approved, there having been nothing con-
crete to report until that time. A number of faculty mem-
bers were unhappy that they had not been informed and sever-
al advised Cleland that adequate preparation could not be
made by summer when the year-long study was scheduled to
begin. Danforth.Foundation representatives had suggested in
December that attendance at a Danforth sponsored conference
at the end of June might be helpful in the College's ap-
proach to evaluation. A Kalamazoo faculty and administra-
tion "teamfl was sent to that conference to develop a frame-
work for the year-long self-evaluation.17 They decided to
give primary attention to an attempt to assess the extent
to which the College's objectives were being fulfilled in
terms of student outcomes, and then to consider possible
changes in the program.which would.enhance achievement of
these objectives.

Cleland hoped the Danforth.Study would re-examine
and sharpen the goals and objectives of the College, attend
to some of the problems he perceived with the Kalamazoo Plan
and bring about warranted changes, set up a continuing pro-
gram of evaluation of performance of major tasks within the
College, and establish institutional research within the
decision-making processes of the College.

It is generally conceded that Cleland "hoped the
Danforth Study would be a springboard for some changes,"18

v

17Report to the Faculty on the Danforth Study of
the Kalamazoo College Plan, Kalamazoo College.

18Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

83
but several interviewees also alleged Cleland's pursuit of
the Danforth.Study as a personal achievement. Given the
opportunity to choose "his man" as internal director, Cle-
land asked Dr. Jean Galloway, Chairman of the Kalamazoo
Mathematics Department to assume that role. Dr. John Hellen-
bach of Hepe College was appointed as external director-con-
sultant, and James Snook was obtained from Michigan State
University as full-thme technical consultant for the self-
study.

The on-campus "insiders"-~Hicks. Cleland, Chen, and
Galloway had somewhat different hopes and expectations, pur-
poses, and priorities regarding this self-study which af-
fected its outcome: Hicks wanted public relations benefits
from.the self-study in the form.of a positive endorsement of
the Kalamazoo Plan and program, not changes that would cost
money: without realizing "the depth of [Hicks'] feeling of
parenthood perhaps to the Kalamazoo model,"19 Cleland hoped
to achieve some educational impact that might involve
significant changes; Galloway wanted to.see several specific
changes made which.he already felt were warranted. The
latter had been a hard worker and frequent spokesman.for the
faculty and was clearly a p0pu1ar and respected leader of
the faculty. He was skeptical of the possibility of accomp-
lishing much with such a study initially, but once he ac-
cepted the responsibility as Director, he put exceptional
drive and effort into the self-study.

 

19Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

8L:

Four faculty members were selected and given re-
leased time to head faculty "task forces" to study four
major areas of the College: curriculum, off-campus programs,
organized non-curricular activities, and student life. A
fifth task force on management was added as a concession to
the President. It had been expected that Chen, who had
initiated the original proposal would be centrally involved
in“ the self-study, but at that point was not. He was ap-
pointed chairman of this additional task force and understood
his unannounced task as viewed by the President to be to
perform a "watchdog" function, representing the President's
concern about costs entailed in any recommendations emana-
ting from the Danforth Study. Although Cleland's preposal
had noted "use of the Kalamazoo Plan as a model for examing
the efficiency of year-round education”20 as one of the two
specific purposes of the self-study, the only thing the
"management” task force did consistently and accomplished
overall under Chen's leadership was analyze the cost of
Danforth proposals.

Early self-study deliberations by the various facul-
ty, staff, and student participants in the fall generated
less consensus than had been hoped for by some. A number
of participants seemed to feel diverted from what they con-
sidered to be the more interesting and important endeavor--
considering changes in the program--by first being asked to

20A Request for Funds To Study the Operation of the
Kalamazoo Year-Around Education Program, Kalamazoo College,
p. 2.

85
to focus on the objectives of the College which had been
suggested by the June Danforth Conference team: depth,
breadth, personal develOpment, and basic skills. Efforts
to sharpen and agree on these objectives proved to be
frustrating. and a serious challenge to the whole idea of
evaluating the program in terms of student outcomes emerged.
Snook wondered if it might not be necessary to shift to
finding out what impact the College was having on its stu-
dents followed by consideration of whether or not that was
what it should be, sharpening objectives in that process
rather than in the abstract.

In’December, a "work weekend" attended by most
people directly involved in the Danforth Study, and by the
President, resulted in some workable bases of agreement and
in additional momentum. It was perhaps the high point of
the self-study in terms of participant enthusiasm. But,
the Presidentis cements signaled further caution. He noted
that "whenever you dissect anything, you get an odor," and
he cautioned that the study should not accentuate only the
negative. There still remained concern, uncertainty, and
confusion about what type and scope of proposed changes
would be acceptable to the President.

The entire study had been behind the schedule sug-
gested originally by Cleland and while momentum was high in
December, very little concrete evidence of impact or lack of
impact of the program had been collected, and it was sub-
sequently given high priority. The necessity of waiting

for at least some such evidence eroded some of the momentum,

86
but rather than let it all be lost, continued deliberations
included somewhat premature consideration of possible
changes. That the closely meshed nature of the Kalamazoo
Plan would probably not allow major structural changes in
one aspect of it without having ramifications in others
became all too clear to some participants. Some possibly
unwanted ramifications or lack of Presidential or faculty
support could be suspected of virtually all specific pro-
posed structural changes. Thus, proposed changes generally
failed to gain widespread support. Most participant's pet
concerns and solutions not with frustration.

As is evident in the "Danforth Study Final Report,"21
the impact measurement and data collection aspect of the
study relied primarily on questionnaires Which somewhat
systematically documented student and faculty characteristics
and reactions to the program, Some pre- and post-testing
was also utilized which provided evidence of the impact of
some portions of the program, Much of the final analysis
was completed by Snook during the summer after obtaining the
assistance of a student computer programmer, and the final
report was completed in August under the direction of study

director, Galloway.

Impact
Test data suggested that the College's Foreign Study

Program produced statistically significant increases in

 

21"Danforth Study Final Report," loc. cit.

 

8?
knowledge in the humanities as well as the expected increase
in foreign language competence.22 The Foreign Study Pro-
gram.had received considerable faculty criticism because its
academic component was reported to be weak or at least
undemanding by most students and observers. Several inter-
viewees attributed possible impact to the Danforth Study in
that for some of the critics, evidence of significant gains
in knowledge in the hummnities had seemingly helped legiti-
mize the largely experiential education of the Foreign Study
experience.

At the invitation of Foreign Study Director, Richard
Stavig, Snook had substantially revised and expanded the
existing questionnaire which was administered to Foreign
Study returnees. This revised instrument further aided
Stavig's continuing efforts to identify and confirm.strengths
and weaknesses of that programs Stavig has used the re-
sulting information in making changes and adjustments in
both the program and its personnel.

The only widely recognized change clearly attribu-
table to the Danforth Study was the recommendation for and
subsequent inclusion of students on faculty committees by
formal faculty action. This action was not a result of stu-
dent pressure but rather a result of faculty participants'
perception of and appreciation for the student participants'
contribution as members of four of the five Danforth task

forces.

221b1de, pew-’1“. and IV‘23e

88
Two of the five Danforth recommendations referred

to EPC for its attention23 resulted in eventual changes:
a) the problems of the last five quarters, particularly SIP
and comprehensive exams (see "SIP Evaluation" in this chap-
ter), and b) a fairly dull and unintegrated freshman-sepho-
more on-campus general education program structured around
distribution requirements (see "Other Studies Having Identi-
fiable Impact" in the chapter). The impact of the Danforth
Study in these areas is at best supportive in nature, for
it served more to focus, magnify and broaden awareness of
them as problems deserving or even requiring attention than
to uncover them as previously totally unrecognized problems.

I think the major value was to focus on the College's

problems for a whole year. The framework was not a

bad one. I think we did focus on the problems and saw

quite clearly what the strengths and weaknesses of the

program.were and are.

A lot of people put a lot of time in on it and I think

the assessment part went well. We really did measure

where we were and what we were about, and our people

who weren't very.fmmiliar with some aspects of the pro-

gram tended to become more familiar with them.25

Both long standing concerns and subsequent events

have served further to keep alive all five of these problem
areas (also includes teaching load, campus atmosphere and

integration of on- and off-campus programs) referred to EPC

by the Danforth Study.
Major formal changes regarding the SIP and

23Educational Policies Committee Minutes for Meet-
ing of October 10, 1967, Kalamazoo College.

Zulnterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
251nterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

89
comprehensives and the freshman academic program occurred
two and three years, respectively, after the Danforth Study.
These changes, following consideration of other alterna-
tives during the intervening several years, were not con-
scious enactment of Danforth recommendations at that point
and it is hazardous to conclude that such changes could
not or would not have taken place without the Danforth Study.
Hence, the relative impact attributable to the Danforth
Study is extremely difficult to assess.

The numerous recommendations in the Danforth Study
Final Report have seemingly had virtually no impact except
as noted above. The individual recommendations and sub-
sequent actions were reviewed by persons with primary re-
sponsibility in each of the four study areas (curriculum,
off-campus programs, non-curricular activities, student life,
and management) as a part of this investigation. With the
above notable exceptions, only a few recommendations have
been translated into even minor changes and those either
appear very likely to have occurred without the Danforth
Study or seem to have failed to accomplish whatever was
hoped they would achieve.

One other type of impact of the Danforth Study-ma
personal one--is identifiable. As Director of the Danforth
Study, Galloway encountered two early sources of difficulty
that helped diminish his subsequent faculty leadership role.
He failed to keep the President informed of the progress of
the study, especially at the beginning since there was

nothing concrete to report. TOp level meetings among Hicks.

9O
Cleland, and Chen soon excluded Galloway, and the Presi-
dent's relationship with him cooled. Galloway's rather
uncompromising drive for specific changes regarding distri-
bution requirements, the major change he hoped for in
taking the responsibility for leadership of the self-study,
alienated some of the other faculty members. While he was
able to enlist considerable c00peration from faculty members
throughout the study, the lack of results from the study
in return for their fairly widespread cosperation and parti-
cipation was painfully evident to almost everyone. Whereas
Galloway would have almost certainly been selected as aca-
demic dean by acclaim of the faculty if Cleland had stepped
down before the Danforth Study, he was clearly not wanted
as dean by the faculty when Cleland left Kalamazoo after
the Danforth.Study; the interviewees were virtually unani-
mous on this point. Furthermore, in Galloway's subsequent
relationship with the President, Hicks' coolness toward
him has remained.

The Danforth Study is still occasionally referred to
and quoted by both students and staff in various College
deliberations. (One interviewee noted several instances in
which the Danforth findings have been subsequently inter-
preted'and invoked in quite "surprising" ways.) It seoms
evident that it is in the definition of issues which C.
Wright Mills26 contends to be essential in bringing many

problems areas to the point of decision that such self-study

260. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New
York, Oxford Press, 1969).

91
deliberations and data may make an intangible contribution.
Overall, the impact of the Danforth Study was ex-

pected to be and is apparently justifiably believed to have
been very little. In view of the great amount of time,
energy, and money it conswmed, the perceived "pay off" has
been dismal. Interestingly, the lack of impact is not
atypical as the assessments of other college and university

self-studies revea1.27

Senior Independent Project Program.Evaluation

Snook was enthusiastic about the prospects of his
newly acquired amorphous position of College Coordinator of
the SIP Program. Problems of the senior year including the
SIP had been brought into focus by the Danforth delibera-
tions. Snook assumed the point of view that "if I'm.going
to coordinate the pregrmm, I'd better find out what needs to
be coordinated." Feeling that the Foreign Study evaluation
had been appreciated and productive, Snook suspected that
the SIP prOgrmm was another major off-campus program.which
could benefit from.evaluation.

Snook began an evaluation of that program in the fall
of 1967 on his own initiative. His evaluation dealt with
objectives of the SIP Program, extent to which these goals

were being achieved, and factors which were contributing to

or impeding their achievement. His conclusions, which

 

27Dwight R. Ladd, Change in Educational Policy, comp
mentary by Katharine McBriaE‘INew York: Mchaw-Hill Book
00.. 1970).

 

92
identified weaknesses in the SIP PrOgram and suggested
remedies, were based on
(a) a syntheses of observation which consistently
emerged in serious faculty and student discussions of
the SIP pregram.during the 1966-67 Danforth Study, (b)
the results of a questionnaire administered to 57%
of the Class of 1967 in May, 1967, and (c5 knowledge
which research on learning has produced.2

Snook decided he could and should attempt to pre-
sent his evaluative findings in an incisive, unequivocal
manner. He gave copies of his report entitled "SIP: Trick
or Treat"29 to several deans for their reactions in January.
They were quite supportive ("this is the kind of thing we
need") but predicted that the President would explode when
he saw the report. Snook was rather surprised by their
prediction which was later confirmed. It was from.some of
the faculty that he expected resistance since his findings,
which recommended.SIP flexibility, seemed Opposed to the
penchant a number of the faculty members apparently had for
a "thesis"-type SIP. He had actually expected an apprecia-
tive response from.the President,for in the process of eval-
uating the SIP program, Snook had uncovered a number of
sources which were seemdngly supportive of both such an
effort and his findings:

a) At the Opening faculty meeting in September, 1965
the President announced review of the thesis quarter as one
of the objectives for the year.

ZBSummary of 1966-67 Evaluation of the Kalamazoo

College Senior Independent Project Program, Kalamazoo College.

29"SIP: Trick or Treat," loo. cit., p. l.

 

93

b) In November of 1965, Chen, then Coordinator of
the SIP, completed a critical review of the SIP Program
which revealed weaknesses in the program similar to the ones
Snook found later. With perhaps less evidence and greater
familiarity with the President's expectations, Chen arrived
at fairly innocuous tentative concludions but suggested that
"basic changes in SIP may have to be made in the near fu-
ture."30

c) Attention given to the thesis quarter by EPC that
year was suggestive of a possible need for more flexibility,
for it appeared that the existing SIP Program.might be too
inflexible to serve all students effectively. This tenta-
tive conclusion by EPC suggested the need for a more con-
scious plan by each department for bringing about increased
independence and self-motivation during the last five
quarters (after foreign study) including SIP. But a request
by EPC for such plans by each department moved little beyond
the discussion stage.

d) Another seemingly supportive factor was a trustee
subcommittee report which was brought to Snookis attention
after his SIP evaluation was submitted. A special trustee
subcommittee had reviewed the College's program in 1965 in
an effort to identify any serious defects in the progrwm
from interviews with College personnel and students. One of
its immediate recommendations had been to ”give the thesis

quarter more flexibility and develop procedures to assure

30A Report on the Operations of The Senior Inde-
pendent Project Program, Kalamazoo College, Nov., 1965.

94
adequate supervision in the student's planning stage."31

e) The year l966-67 was largely consumed by the
Danforth Study which again urged SIP flexibility.

In the fall of 1967, EPC devoted its attention to
the major problems which had been referred to it in the Dan-
forth Report. One of the major problem areas was once
again the last five quarters, especially the SIP and senior
departmental exams (SDE). Danforth Study evidence had
suggested that a number of students had viewed these two
aspects of the senior year more as unintegrated roadblocks
or hurdles than as meaningful learning experiences. It was
again decided that an effort should be made to get depart-
.ments to view and reconsider their academic program for the
last five quarters as a consciously integrated program.

This time, departments were asked to state the educational
purposes and value of the SIP and.SDE programs for their
majors.

As an "ex officio” member of EPC, Snook offered his
SIP evaluation report to the subcommittee focusing on SIP
and SDE and it became a major focal point of the subcommit-
tee's attention during winter quarter. Subcommittee Chair-
man, Professor John Peterson (History Departmentx.seemed
especially interested in Snook's report and invited Snook to
participate in the subcommittee's deliberations. In April,
after considerable subcommittee discussion, Peterson distri-

buted Snook's SIP evaluation report to all members of EPC

 

31Report of Special Trustee Study Committee, Kala-
mazoo College, Jan. 5, 1966, p. l.

9S

requesting that they read and digest it for discussion at
the next EPC meeting. The April 29 and May 114, EPC meetings
were devoted to Snook's report. Snook's findings, which
illuminated why "independence" was failing and suggested
the need for individualized projects were apparently taken
seriously by the Committee as evidenced in the minutes of
their deliberations.32

The subcommittee was then asked by EPC Chairman,
Donald Flesche, to present a proposal for needed changes.
Subcommittee Chairman Peterson was spurred on by organized
protests by some seniors in several majors against the
senior comprehensive exam (SDE) which if failed, could keep
them from graduating at the last minute. He submitted a
subcommittee proposal to EPC at the end of May while prob-
lems with SDE were very much on the minds of the faculty.
That preposal credits the Snook report (SIP: Trick or
Treat?) as one of the sources of its recommendation and calls
for greater SIP flexibility, consideration of student inter-
ests and motivation, and active involvement by faculty SIP
advisers. Since SIPs were being done "independently" for
the most part, no tuition had been charged for the SIP
quarter--a fact considered by the President to be a selling
point to prospective students and parents. But Peterson's
proposal recommended that both credit in terms ‘of faculty
teaching load and some tuition charge were warranted by the

recomended increase in faculty supervision of SIPs.

 

32Minutes for the Meeting of the Educational Policies
Committee for April 29 and May 11;, 1968, Kalamazoo College.

96

During the summer of 1968 EPC asked Snook to provide
a brief written summary of his SIP evaluation report for the
faculty;33 debated if and when an informal faculty discus-
sion could and should be scheduled; questioned the possi-
bilities for changes in the SIP for the following fall; con-
cluded that it needed more information about what could
actually be done to provide the desired flexibility within
the already existing formal structure of the College's aca-
demic program; and decided that an integrated post-Foreign
Study Program required that they attempt to formulate a
statement of purpose for the SIP which spelled out its place
and function in the context of the whole educational process.
All of the above were accomplished with general consensus.

In the fall of 1968, EPC Chairman Flesche attempted
a synthesizing working paper3a including a consensus state-
ment of purpose and modification of subcommittee Chairman
Peterson's SIP proposal from.the preceding spring. After
further slight modification by EPC, it became an active pro-
posal in January, 1969. Several elements of the proposal
seemed appropriately"administrative matters: a preposed
single fee for the SIP and increased faculty responsibility
(load) for the SIP. Hence, Chairman Flesche suggested that
EPC indicate only informal approval until after the Admin-

istrative Committee, comprised of the President and other

 

33Summary of 1966-67 Evaluation of the Kalamazoo
College Senior Independent Project Program, Kalamazoo College.

3hDraft of working Paper Prepared by EPC Chairman,
Donald.F1esche, Kalamazoo College, Nov. 30, 1968.

97
administrators acting as advisers to and implementors for
the President, had an opportunity to consider it and re-
spend.
As the Administrative Committee began discussing

EPC's SIP proposal, the President reacted very negatively,
listing a number of faults he found in it, some of which
were negative judgements of its academic worth. Chairman
Flesche felt obliged to try to respond to the President's
criticismreven though.the President had freely admitted on
numerous previous occasions that the formmlation of the
academic program lay outside his area of jurisdiction and
expertise, and he generally stayed out of it. Flesche used
the institutional research report, "SIP: Trick or Treat?"
as "back up material” in support of the proposed changes but
feund.that the President tended to dismiss that report as
"overly negative . . . not objective."35 As a potential
impasse emerged, another member of the administration pri-
vately advised Flesche that

the President doesn't take kindly to research that

shows that a particular part of the program.isnit

working right and that maybe his mentioning some of

Sneek's gtudies was like waving a red flag in front

of him,3

Flesche, who upon.eccasion had seen the President

change his position, then attempted to show the President
that not only was the SIP evaluation report probably accu-

rate, but that it could be useful and positive in

 

3SInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
36Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

98
strengthening the College in terms which the President could
appreciate. For example, he pointed out that the large
number of students not graduating on time (which was known
to be embarrassing to the President) was due mostly to their
failure to complete the SIP, some of the major causes of
which were revealed in the SIP evaluation report. He at-
tempted te help the President see that Snoek's report did
not condom the whole program: not only could the SIP be
kept as a general requirement, but the liberal arts tradi-
tion and image of the College could be enhanced by a more
flexible, individualized SIP program. Flesche's efforts,
aided by some other members of the Administrative Comittee,
were successful in establishing that the SIP evaluation
report could be dismissed only at some peril.

President Hicks visited Snook's office on February
2h, 1969 asking for data showing that the SIP was so weak,
noting that from his conversations with students over the
years, the SIP seemed to rank almost as high as the very
popular Foreign Study. Snook suggested that that evidence
had been documented in his SIP evaluation report to which
Hicks replied that the report was mostly ideas. Snook pro-
vided a sumary of the data from that report as requested.

The Administrative Cemittee did approve the EPC
SIP proposal with little revision37 except for the matters
of apprepriate administrative concern noted above which re-

mained unsettled.

 

37Minutes of Educational Policies Committee Heating
for March 12, 1969, Kalamazoo College.

99
Readied for the faculty in April, following an in-

formal faculty discussion of the prepesal, Flesche submitted
the proposal in sumary form indicating specific motions for
faculty action. This proposal received formal faculty ap-
proval without difficulty on May 5, 1969 except for the ad-
ministrative portions noted above which were held in abey-
ence pending settlement by the Administrative Committee and
the President.

Late that spring, black students presented demands
to the College as had happened on other college campuses
and the President's attention was diverted almost exclusive-
ly to that tense and potentially disruptive situation.

When he was then faced with implementing the new SIP pro-
gram which had been appreved by the Administrative Committee
and faculty, except for the administrative means for its
implementation, he announced that there would be a "sliding"
fee for the SIP: $100 for students doing their SIP in Kal-
amazoo and probably using the College's library and faculty
time and probably living off-campus, and less for students
as they lived farther away from Kalamazoo. He had not
sought Administrative Committee support for this policy
prior to his announcement, but did when students reacted
very negatively to it. Receiving virtually no support from
the Administrative Committee for his sliding fee and hearing
of EPC's steadfastness to its proposed single fee, Hicks
erupted in an Administrative Committee meeting with accusa-
tions of betrayal and of trapping him into approving the en-

tire proposal. Flesche responded by reading memes which he

100
had that documented that EPC had withheld passage of its
proposal until after it had been brought before the Presi-
dent and the Administrative Committee. Hicks then re-
treated; his sliding fee seemed unworkable to the Adminis-
trative Committee, for it is sometimes impossible to asceru
tain and define where a student is doing the SIP. Nothing
was offered as a solution except the President rescinding
his announced policy which he did. A uniform.$25 SIP fee
replaced it.

Hicks' idea for the sliding fee was generally attri-
buted to his steadfast Opposition to allowing Kalamazoo
students to live off-campus where the College has less con-
trol over them as he feels it sheuld.in terms of their moral-
ity; His primary concern, however, was generally thought to
be the public relations damage illicit student behavior can
create with his public. The EPC proposal had included the
provision of students doing SIPs in Kalamazoo, but living
off-campus, and he feared that that was being advocated.
Flesche apparently facilitated the President's final accep-
tance of the original EPC proposal by indicating his own
Opposition to students staying in Kalamazoo to do their SIP
(for reasons different than Hicks') and that this was not
being advocated as a general pattern.

Other concerns attributed to Hicks by some (but sub-
ject to some disagreement among the interviewees) were his
concerns about the stability of the Kalamazoo Plan being
jeepardized if students were allowed to live off-campus,

anticipated faculty demands for more remuneration

lOl
commensurate with their increased responsibilities for in-
dividualized SIPs, his view that fees should be kept rela-
tively low, and his concern that the SIP was being "watered
down,” becoming less demanding and less reputable for stu-

dents and faculty.

Impact
It is evident that the SIP evaluation contributed

significantly to both the formulation and enactment of
changes in the SIP program as noted above. The SIP evalua-
tion also illicited the President's resistance as well as
helped overcome it. It contributed to overcoming that
resistance by warranting the confidence of persons who were
able to interpret it acceptably to the President as the
primary decision-maker. Significant official changes in the
SIP program were realized only as the result of a long,
drawn out process. One interviewee characterized that pro-
cess typically as

a very tiring and frustrating one, especially if re-

sistance is encountered from the top. And then, it is

usually not worth trying unless you are convinced that

it must be done and are,willing to do the work and

take the risks necessary to try to see it through.33

Interestingly, the effect of the change to an indi-

vidualized SIP has been somewhat uneven. While more flexi-
bility is recognizable new, departments vary considerably in
the extent, manner, and speed with which they have imple-

mented the approved SIP changes both in spirit and in fact.

38Interview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.

102

Studies Requested by the President

 

During 1966-67, President Hicks requested two stu-
dies from.the Office of Institutional Research: one of the
size of the freshmen's c1asses;39 the other, an alumni
study.h0 Both were completed in time to be useful to the
President. However, a major study requested by the Presi-
dent the following year preoipitated situations and deci-
sions important to the fate of institutional research at

Kalamazoo College:

Attrition Study

 

In October, 1967, the President requested that the
Office of Institutional Research undertake a study to find
out why students were dr0pping out of Kalamazoo College at
a higher rate than anticipated. This study became a frus-
trating experience for both the President and Office of
Institutional Research. The President was quite concerned
and in search of an answer. For Snook, the task of_ob-
taining attrition data became unexpectedly difficult. An
initial request for such.infermation at the Records Office
met with a retort that that office already gave the Presi-
dent an attrition report. A quarterly summary prepared by
that office did give the President attrition information,

but in terms of gross numbers.“

 

39"Size of the Three Smallest Classes, etc.}‘1oc. cit.

 

“DSummary of Occupations of Kalamazoo College Grad-
uates-~Classes of 1957 and 1958 Prepared by Office of Insti-
tutional Research, Kalamazoo College, May, 1967.

103

Withdrawal dates calculated on different bases were
found to be entered on College records by several adminis-
trative offices. In collecting data on who had withdrawn
when, and working out definitions and categories of with-
drawal, it was learned, for example, that the numerous stu-
dents who did not complete the SIP by graduation time had
been considered drop-outs in the Records Office reports even
though they did not have to re-enrell to graduate.

It became necessary to identify these who were
"actual" voluntary permanent drOp-outs in preparing a ques-
tionnaire to be mailed to them.in an attempt to identify
some of the major reasons for their attrition. Such a ques-
tionnaire was obviously inapprOpriate for students who had
withdrawn for such reasons as academic dismissal, disciplin-
ary or health dismissal by the College, failure to complete
the SIP, or who had subsequently re-enrolled. Identifica-
tion of such ex-students required exhaustive records checks.
Student transcripts often became essential aides in identi-
fying these students with any certainty. But, for example,
transcripts could be inspected only in the Records Office
which at times was impossible due to space and time limita-
tions of that office. Furthermore, it became evident that
the several administrative offices involved did.not under-
stand or appear particularly sympathic to the types of data
requested, and did not know, and in several instances did
not volunteer, where the data could be most efficiently and
reliably obtained.

This being highly frustrating to Office of

10k
institutional Research Director, Snook, he found his part-
time secretary to be invaluable. She had previously worked
in several administrative offices, including occasional
confidential work for the President, before leaving the U.S.
for four years. Recently returned, she still knew the
offices and personnel quite well, and was very effective in
obtaining needed information from them, She spent much of
her time during the following months hunting, collecting
and confirming data for the attrition study.
Snook debated the wisdom of including an obvious
and statistically significant finding which was likely to
be disapproved by the President. He interpreted his own
responsibilities to require that it be included:
Among the male and I'non-marriage" female questionnaire
respondents, those who withdrew with overall GPA's of
above 3.0 were significantly overrepresented (X2:
statistically significant at .01 level) in reporting
their desire or need forflmore personal freedom or a
more permissive, diversified environment" to be one
of the two most important reasons for their withdrawal.”l
Detailed analysis of relevant data from.the Danforth
Study, of the results from a questionnaire constructed for
and sent to the defined drop-out population and other rele-
van data in terms of reasons for student attrition were
forwarded to the President in October, 1968, nearly one year
after he had requested it.
Any impact of the study is seemingly limited to the

President, for he apparently discussed it with no one; few

 

M1"A Look At Attrition," A Report by the Office of
Institutional Research, Kalamazoo College, October, 1968.

105
interviewees, not even the Dean of Students, have even seen
the report. No mention of it has ever been made to Snook
by the President.

Interestingly, a subsequent study in 1971 by the
Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, using a slightly revised
version of Snook's questionnaire, produced similar results.
It noted that "the single factor most often stated as con-
tributing to the student's decision to leave was 'I want more
personal freedom.and/or a more permissive environmentfl'd-L2
Several interviewees commented similarly to one who said:

It successfully concealed the real conclusions so as
not to offend the President. You had to read between
the lines. The President's attitudes about coed dorms,
sex, dorm.regu1ations, etc. were responsible for a good
bit of attrition, but it couldn't say that because

that isn't what the President wanted to hear.l+3

Respondent comments reported in both attrition stu-
dies evidence some of the conflict of cultures represented
by the President and the student subculture: between the
"best of the two worlds"44 which the President noted the

College to be trying to attain.

Other Studies Having Identifiable Impact

Two other studies on teaching conducted during 1966-
67 had very limited impact.

At the request of an English professor, Snook evalu-

ated the relative success of his freshman English course in

 

h2"Attritien Study - 1969-70," loc. cit., p. 2.
h3Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
thnterview with‘Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

106
terms of both selected personal and traditional objectives,
and as a result, identified its particular assests and
limitations.“5 Comparative findings also revealed freshmen's
reaction to other department‘s freshman courses with new
confidence accruing, for example, to an instructor of the
highest rated course.

Another study was essentially a student SIP: devel-
opment and testing of a questionnaire for student evaluation
of course effectiveness.“-6 It was used on a voluntary basis
by a number of professors and yielded some changes in their
courses and teaching as a direct result of the questionnaire
findings. The results have also been used in tenure and
promotion decisions.

Two other evaluation studies beyond the defined
scepe of this study are nevertheless relevant to it, having
impact in two areas referred to EPC for attention by the
Danforth Study: general education and campus atmosphere.

After several years of considering various ways to
strengthen a seemingly insipid freshman general education
program, the faculty had still found no acceptable alterna-
tive. The English Department proposed and received faculty
approval for freshman topical seminars to replace the tradi-

tional Freshman English Composition requirement. Faculty

 

RSSummary of Evaluation of Dr. Hilberry's English 1
Course, Fall, 1967, Prepared by the Office of Institutional
Research, Kalamazoo College.

héLynne Croxford, "Student Evaluation of Courses at
Kalamazoo College" (unpublished Student Independent Project,
Kalamazoo College, 1969).

107
approval, which was obtained only with difficulty, is re-
ported to have been substantially influenced by English
Department Chairman Waring's report of a recent evaluation
of English composition in which he took part.’+7 He was con-
vinced and convincing in terms of that evaluation's evidence
of the limited impact of Freshman English Composition
courses on graduates' writing ability. While the Freshman
Composition courses improved students' immediate writing
ability, there was no difference in the writing ability at
graduation of pro-matched pairs of students who had and had
not taken Freshman English Composition.

Campus atmosphere had increasingly come under stu-
dent scrutiny. In the face of increasing student pressure
for coed dormitories on campus, the President agreed to a
limited summer experimental coed dorm in 1970 with the stip-
ulation that it be formally evaluated. The evaluation,
conducted by an outside evaluator, suggested that "overt
sexual behavior and drug use were less in the coed dorm,
that the sexes related more naturally, and that there was
no effect on student academic performancefldl8 But reported-
ly, in revealing a general amount of sexual behavior and drug
use on campus abhorrent to the President and some board

members, they concluded that an unacceptable condition of

 

“7U.S., Department of Health, Education, and Wel-

fare, The Effectiveness of Cells e-Level Instruction in
Freshman Composition, Office of gaucation, Bureau of R -

search, Dec . , I966.

 

llamterview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.

108
illicit student behavior prevailed on campus. To them, this
severely compromised student requests for self-governance,
self-determination, and of course, coed dorms, and increased
their resistance to such requests or pressure.

Several interviewees suspected that the President
had learned that the time involvement and mixed findings or
inconclusiveness typical of evaluation efforts serve well in
the interest of "gradualism" which is "the preferred re-
sponse of the power group to ideas which run counter to

their philosophy. "1&9

Summary
In sum, little impact is directly attributable to

the College's announced effort at self-evaluation: the
Danforth Study. Within a milieu of low motivation and sup-
port for evaluation and leaders working at cross purposes,
it produced little in terms of actual changes in the program.
With the absence of clearly indicated, easily implementable,
widely supported recommendations for major change, and with
the identification of some strengths of the program, the
Danforth Study resulted somewhat in a confirmation of the
status cue. Yet, it provided data which, for example,
supported the value of the Foreign Study and was useful in
making subsequent adjustments in that program. And, it may
have brought some major concerns and problems, e.g., those
referred to EPC, into clearer focus and broader recognition

and awareness, for they have been the subject of repeated

 

LL9Interview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.

109
attention, preposals for change, and some subsequent changes.
The Danforth Study also appears to have marked the beginning
of direct student input into the problem defining and deci-
sion-making processes of the College.

Only the SIP evaluation had demonstrated impact in
contributing directly and substantially to program change.
Its impact seems attributable on the one hand to what one
interviewee suggested was its compelling nature as the only
truly comprehensive evaluation ever produced at Kalamazoo
College. On the other hand, the proposed changes were
realized only with the aid of persons who were willing and
able to interpret its findings in terms acceptable to the
President.

These two major attempts at evaluation and the
attrition study revealed pertinent problems of conducting
institutional research at Kalamazoo. Several evaluation ef-
forts, e.g., SIP and coed dorm evaluation, seem to have
identified and presented unwanted results which raised re-
sistance to change when change otherwise appeared to be
warranted by the evaluation findings.

Professor Waring's experience with outside evalua-
tion demonstrated ”spin-off" impact in the direction of sub-
stantial program change. And, the evaluation of the fresh-
man English (Hilberry) and other courses and the utilization
of Crexford's student course evaluation questionnaire indi-
cate limited individual impact from evaluation of teaching
'activities.

CHAPTER VI

PROBLEMS IN PRODUCING AND USING EVALUATION RESEARCH:
IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The previously stated purpose of this chapter is to

attempt to identify both (a) major weaknesses in se-
lected evaluation research under investigation and
factors contributing to such weaknesses, and (b) major
sources of resistance-~if any-~to the findings of that
evaluation research, and circumstances by which such
resistance was overcome, if indeed_it existed and was
overcome. In sum, this concluding chapter is an at-
tempt to identify factors which enhanced or inhibited
evaluation research and its impact at Kalamazoo College
in light of selected literature . . . to derive impli-
cations and recommendations for planning and carrying
out such evaluation1

in similar institutional settings.

Summary of Major Weaknesses, Contribut P Factors, and

Resistance, Existing and Overcome, Regarcing the Two Major
Evaluation.ResearEh.EffortsjjiDa or u y an P va u-

8. E {011:5

 

 

 

 

Danforth Study Major Weaknesses:

(1) It produced limited evidence of impact or lack
of impact of various aspects of the College program on which
to base consideration of change. Most of the evidence re-
garding impact became available after the momentum of the

evaluation effort waned. From such limited "illuminative"

 

lee ante e ppe lu’lSe

*Underlining in text indicates reference to Chapter 1,
Review of the Literature.

110

111

bases, it was only mildy directive: mostly in terms of
suggestions and the need for continued study and evaluation.

(2) As with most social science research, it util-
ized imperfect and incomplete measurement methods and tech-
niques which lacked credibility and invited skepticism,

(3) The final report was too technical and too long
to be readily understandable by and useful to most decision-

makers and most other members of the College community.

Danforth Study Major Factors Contributing to Such Weakness

(1) Lack of commitment, even hostility, to epen
objective evaluation within the dominant ideological, govern-
ance, and reward system of the College is evident. And,
the dominant stance on Kalamazoo College education by the
faculty and administration is that it is personalized,
elitist, quality education which is more esoteric than
tangible and hence, cannot be measured or evaluated quanti-
tatively.

(2) The financial success, feeling of forward thrust,
esteem, and self-satisfaction which the College has enjoyed
in recent years also mitigated against evaluation and change.
Enjoying low work load, high salaries, good students, and
high prestige, the faculty saw little need and was under no
pressure to examine what they were doing. A number of them
comfortably believed the tensions and weaknesses of the insti-
tution were attributable to the President's policies which
were not epen to serious evaluation. Still having the insti-

tution overtly under control, the administration also

112
enjoyed the general aura of success. Predominant among both
administration and faculty were vested interests in the
status quo, with seemingly more to loose than gain from
major changes in the tightly meshed Kalamazoo Plan. As one
interviewee observed,
at that point there was not strong faculty support for
change. Actually, the change would have had more imp
pact on the faculty than on others. And, there was
enough of a sense of community and forward thrust as
we continued to grow quantitatively to make the faculty
feel that we had a goal that we were moving towards.
And so the idea of changing the program was going to
be more trouble than it was worth. . . . No one was
committed to it, and the results of the study were not
that dramatically demanding of change. As a matter of
fact, it was pretty much the idea that--well, the status
quo has some problems, but we're better off to hang in
there and learn to adjust to the problems and try a
little fine tuning. The report was somewhat confirma-
tory in showing some strengths of the program.2

(3) General suspicion that the Danforth Study was
being pursued for the wrong reasons--for funds and public
relations--supported by lack of adequate preparation, fur-
ther launched it in a widespread atmosphere of low motiva-
tion and expectation.

(h) It is evident from the preceding chapter that
the Danforth.Study was frustrated by t0p decisionqmakers and
evaluation leaders working at cross purposes. One inter-
viewee noted:

Hicks' attitude was that this was a faculty thing: "Your
opportunity to study yourself. If nothing happens it

will be your fault." His standoffishness didn't help
from.the outset.3

And from.another:

 

2Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

3Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

113

As time went on during the study it became evident

that the President's continuing attitude at best was

disinterest and at worst was Opposition.

These factors were also resistance factors whereby

neither the Danforth evaluation effort nor its findings
were generally taken seriously. Its impact was predictably
small. Furthermore, at the conclusion of the 1966-67
school year, four second level administrative positions
changed hands for individual reasons: Vice President and
Dean of the Chapel, Vice President for Development, Dean of
Academic Affairs, and.Dean of Students. This loss in admin-
istrative continuity resulted in even less administration
priority and commitment to Danforth Study recommendations.
With Cleland's departure, only one high level influential
proponent of evaluation remained: Foreign Study Director,
Richard Stavig. Stavig enjoyed the unique security of a
seemingly highly successful program which he directed inde-
pendently of the President's surveillance and governance but
with his confidence. Left to his own standards and with the
security to indulge in self-criticism, he sought and used
evaluation research. Otherwise, it was the continuing
troublesome and nagging dislocations in the Operation of

the overall program which eventuated in change.

The SIP evaluation
The SIP evaluation capitalized on one of those nag-
ging dislocations, and provided the one instance in which

resistance, the President's, to evaluation findings was

 

uInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

llh
overcome. It is unclear whether the polemic-directive style
of the SIP evaluation report was more a weakness or strength.
It was very likely both. Its weakness seems to be in the
resistance it evoked from the President, failing to present
the findings in a manner palatable to him. Its strength
was suggested by the interviewees to be in its unusual inte-
gration of educational philosophy and theory with credible
evidence and data in focusing on a problem of considerable
interest and concern. In revealing a problem in terms which
a number of faculty members had experienced and arriving at
a coherent evaluative and directive judgement from these
collective bases, it hit a reSponsive cord.in a fairly broad
audience and warranted their confidence. Being both "illu-
minative" and "directive," it seemingly provided a support-
ive and provocative basis for rethinking the SIP as part of
a coherent educational program. This is illustrated by the
following interviewee comments:
The institutional research evaluation and reports were
helpful back up material to the change that was being
advocated. They were used as back up material to de-
fend what we were trying to get. That was most help-
ful in getting final faculty passage, but with the Ad-
ministrative Committee, use Of the OIR information per-
haps in some cases was as counter productive as it was
productive because the fact that it was something come
ing out Of institutional research automatically colored
it as being either overly negative or at any rate, not
objective was what was said. This was mostly the Presi-
dent. I think this illustrates the immediate reluctance
tO accegt evaluation from the institutional research
Office.

I was surprised at the bold conclusions Snook came to
in a way, because that isn't the way things are done

 

SInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

115
here, but I wasn't surprised that he found them.6

Snook's report enumerated the shortcomings of the SIP
and Hicks probably thought he was saying it was all
wrong, period. Therefore, there was a problem of de-
fense mechanisms. I think the way it was worded as a
professional judgement was with.detachment, but people
were reading it with attachment and it sounded more
critical.7

I think there was a lot of personality involved here.
Somehow the President must have viewed Snook's SIP studg
and.EPC's proposal as a criticism of the whole program,

The IR evaluation of the SIP was the first time-~the

only time--we have ever had a coherent criticism of

part of our program.backed up by evidence and with
thought of educational ideas--which I thought Snook had
developed somewhat in conversation with some of us facul-
ty members. It has helped. It was a real contribution
in getting the revised SIP.9

I think one of the interesting things of the SIP study
by Snook was that it had a point of view-~it was polemr
ical and forced some kind of decision compared to the
Danforth thing which was too big. Evaluations are
finding out what goes on, whether Objectives or claims
being made are being realized one way or another. I
liked the fact that the researcher also had an educa-
tional philosOphy and after he got into the evaluation,
could judge whether he liked what he saw or not, could
marshall his evidence and make a judicious decision and
presentation on the basis of that. It pushed a thesis
with evidence that could not be easily dimmissed. There
was considerable faculty feeling--dissatisfaction before
the evaluation was started, and.maybe that is a good
sign Of a fruitful area to work in. It's not shooting
into the blue whereas with the Danforth.thing, I don't
know what kind of problem.we thought we had-~what kind
of dissatisfaction there was at that time. The faculty
work load study-éin comparison--was kind of unmetivated.
We were just going through.the motions. The SIP study
was effective because it articulated the feelings of a
lot of peeple and gave us ammunition, not in a deroga-
tory sense, and it did show in a fairly objective way

6Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
7Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
8Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

9Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

116
that we weren't talking through our hats.lo

The IR SIP study had impact, I think, because it pointed
out a problem, and pointed it out with sufficient data
and sufficient background and research so that one
simply couldn't ignore it, or wOuld ignore it at some
peril. And, I think that in the proposal when it was
made by EPC, it could cite that study as a support for
the proposal. I think it was thus rather effective in
dealing with Opposition to it. And, even though the SIP
program revision dragged out for quite a while, it went
through providing substantial changes. As I remember it,
I think:Snook's SIP study was a critical factor.11

The wideSpread confidence the SIP evaluation received
(although the report had to be given further interpretive
relevance for the President) seems illustrative of the litera-
ture. As suggested in the literature, impact of evaluation

research will be increased when it evidences awareness Of

 

the large body Of research on higher education12 and has

reference to theoretical—explanatory principles,13 for it

 

will then warrant greater confidence. And, as Dyer suggests,
measurement in terms Of three major classes of institutional

problems may be indispensible to any genuine solutions.

 

They are the definition Of institutional_gga1s, the deter-
mination of how well the goals are being met, and the identi-
fication of the factors that facilitate or impede reaching
the goals.lu

 

But, as Carter notes, even if evaluation research

 

 

lOInterview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.
11Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
lch. 2222, p. 8.
l3cf. 2233! p. 8.
1Ucf. 25133, p. 10.

117

is competently conducted, the fate of the results is Often
determined by_another set of criteria.15 In this instance,
the second problem of getting such research into the think-
ing of those who make educational policy and program deci-
sions16 was no less critical in terms of the President.
While the faculty's deliberations were reflected in and
integrated into the SIP evaluation report, the Presidents
concerns were not, highlighting the importance of Dyer's
comment:

It is important that the ultimate consumers of the

research--that is, the administration, the faculty,

and the governing body--have a hand in defining the

variables before the computer starts grinding out the

numbers. Otherwise, the numbers may be regarded as

irrelevant, and if they are regarded as irrelevant

by any Of the interested parties, they are irrelevant
for all intents and purposes.1

 

It was the efforts of EPC Chairman, Flesche and the Admin-
istrative Committee members who, backed by confidence in

the evaluation, translated the findings carefully and

 

sensitivelyls'inpositive terms for the President.

 

From previous experience with the President, Flesche
and others knew how to couch the findings so as to be syms
pathetic and supportive of the President's priorities. This
was something the evaluation author was ignorant Of and
failed to perceive, but without which the President's accept-

ance of the research findings was unlikely. Several

l5cf. 5332, p. 11.
16cf, 3222, p. 11.
17Dyer',‘ w '02-. cit. , . p. 169.
18cf, 2233, p. 12

118
interviewees suggested that the general credibility of the
SIP evaluation report, the faculty backed EPC recommenda-
tions for change, and the subsequent sympathetic interpre-
tation of both to the President were all contributing fac-
tors in eliciting final approval of the preposed changes by
the President. The sympathetic interpretation to the
President was an important ingredient of the operational
component which needed to be combined with the theoreticalf
explanatory (illuminative) component of the SIP evaluation,
for as surmized by Dyer, institutional research must some-
how integrate both of these points of view in a common
attack_gn_institutional problems19 if it is to have positive
impact.

Snook had prepared the SIP evaluation in such a way
that it captured the attention and interest Of the persons
who were prepared to take action on the issue at hand20
(the faculty), but failed to adequately perceive who held the
decisionamaking power (the President). And, as a result,
Boyer's prediction was born out: Institutional research
gill never achieve its maximum.potential impact until its
results are transmittgd more_forcibly to the peoplg who hold

decision-makingppwer.21

190f. ante, p. 6.

 

20cf. ante, p. 12.

 

2lcf. ante, p. 12.

 

119

Institutional Research: Organizational and Interpersonal
Qanditi on:Fs

In addition to calling for "case histories where mane
agement resistance was successfully overcome," Carter urged
study of related "organizational and interpersonal condi-
tions."22 Clearly, the governance of the institution and its
supporting ideology and resulting priorities define the
brand and scepe of evaluation research it will seek, support,
utilize, and tolerate. In this case, as with a number Of
small private colleges, the dominant governance, ideologi-
cal, and institutional priorities were closely tied to the
President and his highly centralized power and control.

Having no previous experience in small colleges, the
institutional researcher Obtained to aid the Danforth evalu-
ation expected that both university and college presidents
exerted much.of their leadership through persuasion in an
environment of more diffused power. He also assumed that the
institution's commitment to institutional research and evalu4
ation via the Danforth Study signaled a basic desire for and
appreciation of program.evaluation and institutional research,
As one interviewee noted, he expected the data he provided
"would be received as objective information and obviously
this was not the case."23

His ignorance of the history and.nature of the Col-
lege, its inner workings, established priorities, and

 

*Underlining indicates reference to Oh. I, Review of
the Literature.

22Carter, Op. cit., p. 123.
23Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

120

requirements predisposed him.toward behavior which did.not
win the trust and confidence of the President; nor was he
particularly aware that he needed to do so. His allegiance
and self-evaluation were much more strongly tied to what he
perceived to be professional standards for his work, and as
a consequence, he tended to produce more polished and
thorough studies than were necessary or wanted. He wanted
to establish confidence and objectivity in his products, but
in so doing, long technical reports diminished their use-
fulness to some potential users and decisienemakers. For
example, the SIP evaluation report and especially the Dan-
forth Study Final Report were so formidable that some users
were unable to even decipher the findings that were Of in-
terest to them, And the length Of time needed to conclude
a study generally precluded the immediate usefulness of his
institutional research for the exigencies which are the lot
of most administrators. As one of the interviewees commented:

Frankly, you [Snookfl were invisible in your undertaking

and what the President asked for and thought was imp

portant like the attrition study he never got, and

everythin he saw you produce was critical. The image

was that.§4

From.the President's point of view his performance,

especially in terms of the attrition study, was as unpro-

ductive as Newman's had been earlier. The outcome further

supports Dyer's caution that Offices Of institutional re-

 

search would neglect Operational ppoblems at theirperil."25

 

 

ZhInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971-

250f. ante, p. 6.

121
Furthermore, Snook judged himself in terms of self-
perceived effectiveness rather than apparent efficiency.
As one interviewee commented:

I think there is a difference between efficiency and
effectiveness: that efficiency tends to measure be-
havior and habits like keeping a clean desk and answer-
ing2mames right away, and effectiveness means that you
achieve some objectives that have been set up. A per-
son who may achieve Objectives may appear to be rela-
tively inefficient in the short run inahis Operational
habits. And that's why if you don't have evaluation,
you may end up rewarding the status quo seeker, the
person who doesn't rock the boat, the person who is
highly organized and structured but perhaps not Open
to the kinds of things students need when they came to
a college and want to expand and grow.2

As another interviewee noted:
Especially younger peeple sometimes fail to see the
kind Of subtle hints that come from.powers that be,
and then don't act in accordance with them, Hicks
always wants people to consult with him ahead of time
so he can tell them what he thinks and won't have to
veto things. He indicates this by hinte.27
Snook failed to understand such.a hint from the Pre-
sident in the fall of 1967 when he suggested that Snook con-
tinue to meet with him regarding progress in institutional
research. Snook asked if he wanted periodically scheduled
meetings, to which the President indicated that would not be
necessary. Not knowing what to make of the President's
comment, Snook continued to report directly to the Academic
Dean.

Furthermore,

There is a gap of an administrative nature that he
[Hicks] has never learned to handle. Third echelon

 

26Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
27Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

 

122

people such as yourself [Snook], when you talked to him,
you showed deference not only to him but to other
people who were over your head. So when you talked to
him, you talked to him in a tentative, careful manner.
To him that sometimes symbolized hesitation and weak-
ness and he judged you accordingly.2

Increasingly Snook began to perceive a general condi-
tion within the College described by two interviewees:

I haven't done much evaluating. It's actually not appre-
ciated particularly. There has not been any particular
encouragement to evaluate. Our method Of operation is
to come up with what has been predetermined to be the
better way. We are oriented not toward self-evaluation
of the College, but toward effecting preconceived ne-

tiens as to how we should operate--those of a relatively
small group here who make the decisions.29

There is a prevalent attitude toward evaluation around

here. It is that people collect data when they want to

convince you of something: not one of let's collect

the data and see how we're doing and let the chips fall

where they may.30

Especially after the President reacted negatively

to the well intended SIP evaluation, Snook increasingly felt
it unlikely that efforts at objective evaluation would be
satisfactory to the President. He increasingly suspected
not only that, as one interviewee put it, "the President
doesn't understand research,"3l but that his own ideological
and philosophical view of education, which valued self-
knewledge through evaluation research, was basically at odds

with the President's. Snook concluded that the President

 

281nterview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.
29Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
3OInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
31Interview: Name withheld, Sumner, 1971.

 

123

actually resisted most of his research findings and did not
welcome any other bases for decision-making that might come
pete effectively with his own preconceived notions and
Opinions. As one interviewee stated, "the President has
preconceived notions about the solutions to problems, what
the problems are, and why they exist."32

According to the President:

I'm.very much a pragmatist. I'm.more so than most peeple,
and most presidents have to be more than.mest people.
Consequently, I am not the type Of individual that sits
down and really delves deeply into any particular pat-
tern. I play more by ear, by horse sense and by super-
ficial knowledge and others do the work for me. I am
not a good President in these points. These are my
weaknesses. Consequently, basically we failed as much
as you [Snook] or maybe more than you. In other words,
we closed out a research office under your leadership
really for two reasons: my pragmatism.didn't show we
were making money on it. The other reason, you have to
realize we brought in an Assistant Dean who was needed
and who picked up the research. ‘You have to add to that
the fact that I'm just not the type of President that
Operates on research.material. I'm.telling you that
over my 28 years as President, I have Operated without
enough factual knowledge. This is one Of my weaknesses.
I've gotten away with it.33

And, in short, Snook failed to first perceive and
later to appreciate and to speak effectively to the Presi-
dent's priorities which.he increasingly emotionally and
ideologically rejected. Snook's false expectations and
naivete gave way to increased alienation from the President.
Snook failed to perceive and respond to whatever Opportunity
existed to contribute toiie President's use, understanding,

and appreciation of institutional research: a necessity for

 

321nterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

331nterview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.

12L:
any institutional commitment to it during Hicks' adminis-
tration.

Dyer's caution about the peril of institutional
research which ignoroaoperatienal problems is again perti-
nent: "When foundation money runs out, the research pro-
gram is likely to be liquidated by . . . impatient people--
administrators . . . ."3h especially if the powers that be
value it only operationally and judge it in terms of oper-
ational criteria with the "primary goal of finding out how
'to save money that can be used to better advantage.'"35

In the view Of an interviewee:

I think you have to work with the givens. I've found
that the President can on occasion be educated. He has
blind spots in which he is irrational and won't listen
to reason, and he admits that in meetings with us. His
immediate response is often times very explosive and has
the effect of scaring people Off so they don't come back.
But if you have sound information, he can sometimes be
educated and he can be convinced Of a particular posi-
tion. . . . There are some areas in which he is Openly
seeking to be educated. You don't know which those are.
Yeu have to feel those out d it takes awhile. You
learn these by experience.

This may be an all but impossible task for persons who do

not have sufficient rank, visibility, and experience in the

institution to know that.

Hicks suggested:

Well, you need a dean who is research minded. I don't
think as an institution we've had administrators who

were research oriented. They may claim they were. But
you see, in your [Snook's] year with Sherrill Cleland,

 

3uDyer, op. cit., p. h55.
351bid., p. ASA-
36Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

 

125
he never made you indispensable in your research work.
He never used your facts or made you come up with facts
that showed why we should follow one road or another
road.37
From Cleland's point of view, having hoped to estab-
lish institutional research as a part of the College's de-
cision-making process,
looking back, I'm not sure I understood at that point
how to effectively utilize it [institutional research].
In terms of other pressures 8n me, I think I probably
gave it less of a priority.3
Clearly, Snook did not comprehend the situation
adequately to provide direction here either, and each of the
following two years brought a different Academic Dean with
different priorities of his own, different amounts and types
of influence with the President, and different understanding
of and commitments to evaluation and institutional research.
Understandably, the President kept financial and
other confidential areas under the wings of trusted aides,
notably Hr. Simpson and Dr. Chen who were responsible for
whatever institutional research was done in those areas.
One interviewee commented:
Evaluation really needs to be done on two levels: over-
all and instructional. Your [Snook'é] concept of insti-
tutional research is the second one. I would say in
terms of the effectiveness of our instructional program,
we're sadly lacking. We really have not done very much.
But in terms of the overall evaluation which I am
assuming can be evaluated only in terms of tangible
signs such as endowment, resources, enrollment, sustain-
ing power, and reputation, then I think obviously the

program has been successful. In these terms the program
is evaluated by accountants. Visible tangible things.

 

37Interview with Weimer Hicks, Summer, 1971.
381nterview with Sherrill Cleland, Summer, 1971.

 

 

126

Interms of teaching program, we don't know. Is lecture
better than audio visual? We don't know.39

This comment from a high ranking administrator reveals cog-
nizance of the basic reaflties of operational inputs and out-
puts for institutional viability and survival (sustaining
power). And, survival is the major task (goal) facing the
College according to Board Chairman, Light and President
Hicks. But what of educational inputs and outputs? Some
are easily measured. Some of these, such as SAT measured
ability level of incoming freshmen and awards won by gradu-
ates, are also readily translatable into operational inputs
and outputs such as institutional status. Such status, an
operational output resulting from.conscious institutional
effort in turn provides an operation input in attracting
good students and financial support. Hence, such inputs

and outputs are prominently displayed. The uniqueness and
status undergirding Kalamazoo College's sustaining power and
such "operational" measurement of it will remain paramount
as long as survival is a pressing problem and these same
Operationally oriented inputs and outputs adequately main-
tain and reflect its sustaining power.

But numerous interviewee comments suggested that
some events of the past several years have eroded confidence
in the sustaining power of the College's traditional aca-
demic elitism: increased student criticism of the academic
program; difficulty graduates have had getting Jobs, fewer

students interested in attending graduate school, increased

 

39Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

 

 

 

127
uncertainty about how to educate students for the future in
a rapidly changing society, all of which have weakened the
institution's academic elitism as an answer to the increasing
questions about what a student gets for the relatively high
tuition he pays at such a private liberal arts college.
Other realities have had similar effect: the increased pro-
spects for applications for admission and subsequent enroll-
ment to decline; evidence and conclusions such as Chicker-
ing'sbrO that select, exceptional students may be learning
in spite of selective colleges' inputs rather than because
of them.

Part of the answer to Cross': question, "When will
research improve educationTUmay thus be found.in conditions
which favor status and sustaining power (survival) and defin-
ition of them in terms of student outcomes based on evalua-
tion of an institution's contribution to such output. Be-
yond the scape of this case study, however, some such forces
appear to be taking shape in contemporary American society.
Dyer notes:

The typical approach to institutional evaluation is to
focus on faculty and facilities, not to attempt to see
what happens to students as a consequence of having been
exposed to them. The regional accrediting associations,
for instance, continue to put the main emphasis on the
number of Ph.D.‘s on the faculty, the range of course
offerings, library and laboratory facilities, and the
like, and have backed off from suggestions that measures
of input and output involving tests might enter into

the appraisal. Some of the reluctance to use such

measures may spring from the realization that they assess
only a part of what may be important in student learning,

 

HOArthur W. Chickering, Education and Identity (San
Francisco: Josey-Bass, 1969).

128

and even that part with a good deal less than absolute
precision. Some of the reluctance may be rooted in the
legitimate fear that such measures tend to be mis-

used and overinterpreted, as so often they are. . . .
On the other hand, some institutions may be unwilling to
submit to measurement by testing because they have too
much confidence in test results, and that leads to the
fear that any assessment based on such results may be
too true to be good. All these doubts, however, seem
to be dissipating a little, and the logic of trying to
estimate the educational quality of an institution by
conceiving of it as a function of measured input and
output appears to be taking holdJ-Ll

Another possible impact of the institutional research
under study here may be in that it afforded Kalamazoo
College some experience with relating educational outcomes
to inputs.

Another part of the answer to Cross'* question is found
at another level. From the one successful example of re-
sistance to evaluation research findings being overcome in
this case study, not only is research which warrants con-

fidence clearly indicated, but so is strategyAfor getting

 

results.“2 This is not to suggest that getting results is
the lone responsibility of institutional researchers and
evaluators, but that such a strategy will necessarily be a
primary concern for anyone with responsibility for or in-
terest in increasing the impact of evaluation research in

improving education.

Eurther Illustration of the Literature*
This case study is even further illustrative of the

literature reviewed in Chapter I. Several of the reported

___—

ulDyer, OE. CitOO p' “63‘
h2cf. ante, p. 13.

129
factors behind the national surge in institutional research
offices are in evidence: the President's desire to tap the

tempting cornucOpia of foundation funds available for evalu-

 

ationu3 via the Danforth Foundation and the dean's desire to

utilize institutional research as a more rational basis for

 

decision-making and action.uh On the other hand, not only

 

was the latter at variance with the President's style by
his own admission, institutional research which revealed
shortcomings of the College was viewed by him as detracting

from.rather than enhancing an image of excellence and the

 

lgstifiability of higher costs.h5 He was, nevertheless,

 

desirous of an image of actively sgpporting scientific

 

gyaluationfl6 when so doing afforded positive public relations

 

value.
Several interviewees in addition to Deans Cleland
and Stavig also hOped for an institutional research contri-

bution to a felt need for institutional self-knowledge.u7

 

Although the payoff from the Danforth Study was small, insti-
tutional self-knowledge was furthered by that effort with
some notable results (e.g., foreign study impact, perceived
problems referred to EPC with broader faculty knowledge of
them, and greater recognition of a need for ongoing collec-
tion of evaluation data).

Cross and.Dyer concluded that educational innovation

 

 

u3cf. ante, p. l. uhcf. ante, p. 2.
”50f. ante, p. l. Hécf. ante, p. 11

u7cf. ante, p. 2.

130
in the absence of evaluation could be based on assumptions
that could turn out to be wrongJ-t8 This might be especially
true since, as several interviewees noted, the Kalamazoo
Plan was primarily a managerial and Operational innovation
rather than an educational one.

The SIP evaluation contributed directly to institu-
tional self-knowledge in revealing that some of the assump-
tions about it were indeed not being born out.'

Self-knowledge, based on institutional research and
evaluation data, when made available can seemingly have hm-
pact by being known by peOple who can make changes. Exam-
ples of such impact are found in the Danforth Study (foreign
study), SIP evaluation, the evaluation of the coed dorm
experiment, the student course evaluation survey, and Waring's
experience with the outside English composition study. The
above cases contributed to awareness of what happens to
students under given circumstances (outcomes), and as such
invited judgements as to how and how well people and pro-
grams were contributing to such outcomes. Evidence is
offered in Chapter V of change resulting in each case as a
result; in the case of the SIP and coed dorm studies, the
change included at least temporary additional resistance
to change on the basis of institutional self-knowledge.

Utilization of these studies reflect differential
impact of familiarity with evaluation findings on various

persons. The impact seemingly varied according to the

 

hacf. ante, p. h.

 

131
extent that the findings confirmed or challenged one's self-
expectations and aspirations, one's expectations for the
performance of the institution, and in terms of the rewards
or withholding of rewards one expected from the "signifi-
cant others" related to personal and institutional tasks.
To the extent that one felt more threatened than challenged
by revealed shortcomings and to the extent that the right
or important processes, outcomes, or variables were felt to
be ignored by the research or simply could not be measured,
the findings seem to have been resisted. For example, a
number of faculty members reportedly ignored or opposed the
student course evaluation for such reasons, and several
studies (Danforth, SIP, and coed dorms) which threatened the
image of the institution as the President understood it were
resisted by him.

That many decisions at Kalamazoo College being based
on preconceived notions might be in conflict in engaging
systematically in evaluation for reaching decisions is
hinted by Dressel:

To a considerable extent, final decisions, whether on
a single campus or at a state or national‘ISVEIT'EFE'
based‘on politiCal maneuvering and on publicly stated

values or secretly held prejudices, with research
findings having limited impact.47

 

 

 

 

 

Why Snook's SIP evaluation was seen as negative and
was resisted by the President is suggested by Rossi and
Carter. Rossi notes that the client not expectigg negative

 

results preconditions him to resist them.if thgyoccur.5o

 

49cf. ante, p. 8. 50cf. ante, p. 11-12.

 

132
Hicks, delegating little authority to others, generally
required and rewarded a modus Operandi whereby he was not
to be presented with or confronted by what he considered to
be negative reflections of the institution. This resistance
was certainly of the variety encountered by social scien-

tists when their findings do not positively reenforce the

 

expectations and ideological value system of their client.51

 

All five of the factors Carter suggest for resist-
ance to evaluation findings seem.to be involved.52 The

authoritarian psychological characteristics of the Presi-

 

dent and his criteria for efficiency were counter to Snook's
criterion of openness to evaluation findings in terms of

educational effectiveness. The_qgality of the research was

 

judged by the President according to public relations cri-
teria which he could understand and use rather than by re-
search criteria which he did not understand. Hence, it

was generally overly negative, destructive, and troublesome

frmm the President's point of view. He had had pgst nega-

 

tive experiences with social science research done by

 

Stanley Newman who also failed to give what the President
viewed as due priority to his concerns. And, in delegating
little authority to others he clearly did not intend to

delegate authority to data and/or research to generate poligy

 

rgcommendations. Since his ideological value system.was not

 

 

generally preserved or even served by the findings as he

perceived them, for him the recommendations of the SIP

51cf. ante, p. 12. 52cf. ante, p. 12.

133
evaluation, for example, lacked not only credibility but

operational feasibility. Allowing many seniors to live off-

 

campus while doing the SIP in Kalamazoo may have been viewed
by the President as undermining the stability of the Kala-
mazoo Plan--a problem of feasibility-- as suggested by
several interviewees. For, if other students paying full
fees were also allowed to live off-campus, the financial
structure of the Kalamazoo Plan might be threatened in that
Kalamazoo students are undercharged for tuition and over-
charged for on-campus room and board (an undefensible but
all too common practice). That the President's concerns
were basically ideologically founded and public relations
oriented is underscored by his own effort to institute an
SIP fee policy which was later drOpped at the insistance of
others because it was not administratively feasible. ‘Yet
"feasibility" in terms of what the President would accept
and in terms of suspected unwanted ramifications resulting
from.any major changes in the tightly knit Kalamazoo Pro-
gram.were probably both real and imagined deterants to major
changes via the Danforth Study.

Faculty resistance to evaluation of teaching in-
vokes more of the same factors, e.g., the ideological system
of viewing teaching and learning as a process imbued with
esoteric qualities which research cannot measure and which
would be an invasion of academic freedom.anyway. Again as
with the President, feasibility may also be a question of

uncomfortable or unfamiliar changes for the implementor and

 

 

13h
thus something he may not understand or want and hence,

will resist.

Summary_and Conclusions*

The fate of institutional research and its lack of
impact at Kalamazoo College within the preview of this
study reflects Hefferlin's conclusions regarding the broader
topic of dmnmmics of academic reform:

In short, the first key to academic reform is that of
resources: an existing program will continue as long
as it can find support. A new program will be toler-
ated if it costs no money or brings its own support.
It will be resisted if the new funds it requires could
be used for the expansion of existing programs. And
it will be actively opposed and accepted only under
duress if existing resources must be divided to in-
clude it.53

The evidence to date from historians, observers of
academic life, and the reformers themmelves point to
three dominant sources of change in higher education:
(1) the resources available for it, (2) the advocates
interested in it, and (3) the Openness of the systmm
to them, In every case of academic change, these
factors together appear to determine its outcome.5u
The evaluation efforts brought into focus in this
case study were largely attempts to be "illuminative." As
such they had some identifiable impact which indiViduals
translated into changes of magnitude ranging from individual
teaching behavior to major program.revision. Both the Dan-
forth Study and the SIP evaluation were attempts to also be

"directive," but only the SIP evaluation was compellingly

 

*Underlining indicates major conclusions regarding
"strategy for getting results." of. ante, p. 13.

53Hefferlin, op. cit., p. 39.
SuHefferlin, op. cit., p. h9.

 

 

135
so, largely for reasons suggested in the literature.

This case study has yielded evidence, much of it
supportive of the reviewed literature, regarding impact of
evaluation and institutional research, including both the
importance of and dynamics among factors contributing to
research which attracts interest, gains confidence, and
gets results from or via institutional decision-makers.

In addition, several conclusions regarding "strategy
for getting results" seem.warranted from.and suggested by
this case study:

(1) Evaluation and institutional research are more
likely to attract interest if they speak to or identify

areas of recognizable concern. Hence, both timing and

 

topics should be carefully selected as part of a strategy
for getting results. As one interviewee noted, "if insti-
tutional research could only come in on problems and antici-
pate them when the data is needed."55 In order to apply the
"wisdom, foresight, power, and resources to know what will
be needed¥56 as suggested by an interviewee, persons with
visibility into and influence or power in the institution
will need to be involved and be sensitized to the potential
and problems of utilizing institutional and evaluation re-
search.

Dissemination of readable data and evidence to

decision-makers which suggest or identify problem.areas and

 

SSInterview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.
56Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

 

136
related factors may have impact simply as a result of being
read by them and entering their thinking.

(2) Egtablishing confidence in research and program

 

evaluation finding§_and recommendations contributes to get-

 

ting results. Several factors seem important: reasonable

 

objectivity, not being identified as an effort by some

groups to advance its own narrow self-interests; relevance

to felt needs or revealing needs that are felt; relating
findings to and supporting them with integrated theory and
other relevant research; being "illuminative" and "directive"
in terms of implications, possible alternatives, and likely
outcomes which speak effectively to the various needs and
priorities of the institution's decision-makers. Presenta-
tion of findings and recommendations in lucid non-technical
summations is likely to be helpful.

Use of supporting theory and research can be im-
portant to establishing credibility of the evaluation
criteria, whether the criteria are new or fmmilian as well
as strengthening the credibility of the findings, whether
illuminative or directive. Use of informal methods of eval-
uation which invite people to involve their concerns and
perceptions in evaluation can also reduce the threat of
negative results and the stark sterility of only statistical
results and help peeple be interested in and understand the
results; the possibility of also taking into account and
dealing positively with conceptions and perceptions which

run counter to and in support of major findings is enhanced.

 

137
(3) Getting results is enhanced by relevant, confi-

 

dence-inspiring research, but to be utilized by_influentials

and implemented by decision-makers may require that the

 

findings be translated meaningfully_in terms of their priori-

 

ties and concerns. Three components of this dimensio --
realizing impact--deserve attention:
a) Evaluation and institutional researchers and
supporters need to be cognizant of the way decisions
are made and results obtained and of the decision-makers,
their expectations, priorities, and requirements and
ways in which they can be educated.
b) Assessment of institutional factors and condi-
tions which will inhibit getting results should be
taken into account.
c) An evaluation and institutional researcher needs
to be an influential person or be aided and supported
by influentials and/or decision-makers who have a commit-
ment to the three points above and an understanding of
the two foregoing components. This deserves the atten-
tion of all parties to evaluation and institutional re-
search for the commitment to be genuine, and probably
for the research to be productive. Perhaps only then is
a solid strategy for effectively producing and present-
ing evaluation and institutional research results likely.
In this case, the primary researcher could have con-
ducted an early informal institutional survey regarding
these components which may have equipped him with at least

 

138
more realistic expectations, a better understanding of the
tasks and obstacles before him, and perhaps the possibili-
ties for and necessity of strategy for getting results.
Institutional research and program evaluation can

be utilized in applying pressure for change (threat) or by
challenge and reward (enhanced self and institutional con-
cept). When and how these are most effectively applied in
relationship to research and institutional variables may be
a fruitful area for further investigation.

(h) Typical small college governance, ethos, finan-

 

cial structure, and possibly, future suggest factors import-

 

ant to evgluation and_institutional research and its impact

 

at such institutions. Several identifiable factors are gen-

 

erally less favorable to evaluation and institutional re-
search than at larger institutions: governance is typical-
ly more authoritarian or patriarchal; the objectives may be
more esoteric and traditional: the college community, more
homogeneous. The typically heralded uniqueness in informal,
caring relationships throughout the college community is
antithetical to impersonal, objective, formal decision-
making or evaluation of one another. And, few such institu-
tions are affluent. The institutional commitment to and
priority for institutional research.may be low. These
factors add special requirements for effective evaluation
and institutional research and the interpersonal relation-
ships through which they can be carried out. Typically

lacking the commitment and funds for a full-time evaluation

 

139
and institutional research office, such institutions may
nevertheless be facing changing circumstances which will
invite or require such research.

The interviewees evidenced general consensus that
effective evaluation and institutional research requires a
competent, at least semi-independent agent who has under-
standing of that type of college and education. While this
will generally be a part-time responsibility of an admin-
istrator or faculty member as has been the case for most
GLCA Colleges57 several interviewees pondered the possibil-
ity of university, foundation, or consortia sponsored insti-
tutional research agencies emerging in the future which
would.serve small colleges.

From an interview:

Maybe the problem.of institutional research.implementa-
tion is political. The institutional researcher is the
employee of people he evaluates. erhaps someone should
go to Ford or Danforth Efoundation and point out that
institutional research 3 bought by institutions sub-
ject to being swept under the table or the researcher
being fired if he doesn't please the employer. Maybe
what we need is an effective center of institutional
research and evaluation divorced from any institution,
but Open to institutions for a small fee. Maybe the

fee should be invegsely related to how much of the eval—
uation is heeded.5

 

57Summary ofgthe ‘.‘Responses to the 1968 G.L.C.A. In-
stitutional Research Questionnaire Prepared by the Office
of Institutional Research, Kalamazoo College, 1969, p. 5.

58Interview: Name withheld, Summer, 1971.

 

B IBLIOGRA PHY

 

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