IN FO R M A TIO N TO USERS

This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While
the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document
have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original
submitted.
The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand
markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction.
1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document
photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing
page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages.
This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent
pages to insure you complete continuity.
2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it
is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have
moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a
good image of the page in the adjacent frame.
3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being
photographed thB photographer followed a definite method in
"sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper
left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to
right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is
continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until
complete.
4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value,
however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from
"photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver
prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing
the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and
specific pages you wish reproduced.
5. PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as
received.

Xerox University Microfilms
3JO North Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

75-14,817

ROBINS, Marylou Ordway, 1941A STUDY OF PROGRAM RELEVANCE IN SELECTED
MICHIGAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
Michigan State University, Ph.D., 1974
Education, administration

Xerox University Microfilms # Ann Arbor, M ichigan 48106

A STUDY OF PROGRAM RELEVANCE IN
SELECTED MICHIGAN COLLEGES
AND UNIVERSITIES
By
Marylou Robins

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Administration and Higher Education

ABSTRACT
A STUDY OF PROGRAM RELEVANCE IN
SELECTED MICHIGAN COLLEGES
AND UNIVERSITIES
By
Marylou Robins

The pressures and demands for curriculum change and
development under the theme of "relevance" have plagued
some college administrators and curriculum committees with
increasing frequency in the past decade.

These administra­

tors are eager to meet these demands in ways that do not
violate institutional goals and objectives.
relevance,

responses toward relevance,

toward relevance,
when indicated)

Perceptions of

resistances to changes

and curriculum changes

(and their success,

toward relevance in selected colleges and

universities were determined in this study.
The presidents of some 29 of the colleges and uni­
versities in the state of Michigan were asked to respond to
a questionnaire dealing with relevance as related to their
institutions and were assured anonymity in answering the
questio nna ire .
The findings of this study indicated the following:
(1) The idea of relevancy received overwhelming attention
from almost everyone queried.

(2) There was wide disagreement

Marylou Robins
about the meaning of relevancy in higher education and the
effective ways of achieving it in a college or university
setting.

(3) The majority of the respondents considered

those programs responding toward relevancy as successful.
(4) The quality of the response toward relevancy made a
greater impact on the students participating than did pro­
grams renovated by attempting to change quantity factors.
For example,

attendance dramatically increased when a course

title was changed from "Home and Family Living"
riage and Human Sexuality."

to "Mar­

On the other hand, one insti­

tution of higher learning set up a school of community
services within the existing structure of the college and
found, much to its chagrin,

that student interest and par­

ticipation were sadly lacking.

(5) Although the study was

begun in the area of social science, both the literature on
relevance and the questionnaire respondents indicated a
more general approach toward relevancy in all spheres of
academic studies within the college or university.
It is hoped that this study will contribute to the
knowledge concerning relevancy and aid administrators of
institutions of higher learning.

The information may have

specific implications in these areas:

(1) in improving the

insight of the administrator about what other administrators
are doing when faced with the same "cry for relevance,"
by operating within similar or different structures;

(2) in

providing insight into the administrative decision of whether

Marylou Robins
to adhere to present plans for curriculum change toward
relevancy or whether to alter their plans within the exist­
ing framework of the college or university;

(3) in review­

ing plans for responding toward relevancy in traditional
ways, by modification of traditional ways, or by departures
from traditional ways; and

(4) in improving administrative

responses regarding relevancy by aiding in building a more
effective curriculum.

To someone special
Thank you for being

ii

. . .

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
I.

Page
INTRODUCTION .....................................
Statement of the Problem ....................
Statement of Purpose .........................
Delimitations and Limitations of the Study .
........................
Definition of Terms
Overview .......................................

II.

RELATED LITERATURE

..............................

Introduction ..................................
Definition of Relevance
....................
10
H i s t o r y .................................
The Demand for Relevancy in the 196 0's . . .
Responses to the Demand for Relevancy
. . .
Pressure Groups for Educational Change . . .
Analyses and Evaluations of Curriculum
Plans in O p e r a t i o n ..........................
III.

PLANNING AND CONDUCTING THE S T U D Y ............
Population of the S t u d y .....................
Judgment by Presidents .......................
Questionnaire Method .........................
The I n s t r u m e n t ..........................
40
Trial Q u e s t i o n n a i r e s ...................
41
Collection of D a t a .....................
41
Presentation of D a t a ...................
42

IV.

PRESENTATION OF THE D A T A .......................
Definition of Relevance
.....................
Identification of the Pressure Group or
Groups Responding Toward Relevancy . . . .
Identification of the Pressure Group or
Groups Resisting Responses Toward
R e l e v a n c y .....................................
Methods Used by the Initiator in Securing
Change Toward Relevance in the Social
S c i e n c e s ...............................
47

iii

1
1
2
3
4
6
7
7
8
13
17
21
22
36
36
37
38

44
45
46
4

6

Chapter

Page
The R e s p o n d e n t s ' Appraisal of the
Change Toward Relevance
..................
Respondents' Appraisal of Reactions of
Administrators, Faculty, Students, and
Others to the Demand for Relevance . . . .

V.

49
51

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
..............................

55

S u m m a r y .......................................
C o n c l u s i o n s ..................................
Implications
.............
Recommendations
..............................

55
64
66
67

A P P E N D I C E S ................................................

69

A.
B.

SELECTED RESPONSES OF EDUCATORS TOWARD
R E L E V A N C Y .....................................

70

QUESTIONNAIRE LETTER
FOLLOW-UP LETTER ................................

79

BIBLIOGRAPHY

..............................................

iv

82

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The appeal for relevancy in education is not new.
Authors from Plato to Emerson to contemporary writers such
as Arrowsmith and Agee all have considered the concept of
relevancy.

The term is new but the idea is ancient.

What

is also new is the intensity with which students have seized
upon the idea of relevancy and have demanded that the curric­
ulum be remodeled in accord with the idea.
ances,

To outward appear­

in many instances it seems that student demand has

elevated the matter of relevancy to the status of a major
problem.
Statement of the Problem
As will be shown in Chapter II, the pressures and
demands for curriculum change and development under the theme
of "relevance" have plagued some college administrators and
curriculum committees with increasing frequency in the past
decade.

Some administrators are eager to meet these demands

in ways that do not violate institutional goals and objec­
tives.

To do this,

they need to know something of the origin

and significance of the demand for relevance,

and be informed

about the variety of current responses to this demand.

2
In studying the problem,

it will be necessary to find

information to aid in answering such questions as:
has been the perception of relevance?

(1) What

(2) How have colleges

and universities responded to the demand for relevance?
(3) Which pressure group or groups have constituted the major
driving force?

(4) What have apparently been the principal

sources of resistance to changes proposed in the name of
relevance?

(5) How were the changes,

if any,

implemented

as colleges and universities sought to meet this demand?
Where significant changes have been introduced,
the writer will seek to determine:
relevancy in operation successful,
respondents?

(1) Are the programs of
in the opinion of the

(2) Which plan, program, or operation in p r o ­

gress is considered the most effective?

The least effective?

(3) How does the administration react to the various responses
toward relevancy?

The faculty?

The students?

(4) How have

the changes in curriculum been received by the several "pub­
lics" of the institutions?

Questions such as these can be

answered only through a systematic study.
Statement of Purpose
The purpose of the study is to contribute to the
improvement of administration of institutions of higher edu ­
cation.

Through the investigation,

it is hoped that infor­

mation gained will have specific implications for:
(1) improvement in administrative sophistication regarding

3
the issue of relevancy;

(2) improvement in the insight of

the administrator into what other administrators are doing
in response to the "cry for relevance"; (3) insight into the
process of reaching an administrative decision about whether
to pursue curriculum change toward relevancy or to continue
within the traditional framework;

(4) clarification of

options for responding to the demand for relevancy— tradi­
tion, modification of tradition, or departures from tradi­
tion; and

{5} through all of these to aid in building a more

effective curriculum and administration.
Delimitations and Limitations of the Study
Because of the particular cross-section and the
types of institutions investigated,

there are certain de lim ­

itations on the degree to which findings can be generalized:
1.

Procedures that worked well in one setting may

not necessarily be transferable to another setting— to other
colleges or universities,
lege or university,

to other divisions within the col­

or to colleges or universities in other

geographic areas.
2.

Each institution has certain uniquenesses—

traditions, chronological age,
the setting,

levels of learning, nature of

academic disciplines,

faculty and student body,

types of administration,

and economic resources.

Therefore,

the findings of the research must be broadly interpreted in
terms of their application to a specific institution.

4
3.

A definite limitation of any study of higher

education arises from the rapidity of change in student
perceptions and demands.

The period of time required to

complete such a study means that its findings must be
reassessed in light of student perceptions and demands at
the time any policy implications of the study are used in
administrative decision making.
4.

The findings of research that occurred in the

1 9 6 0 ’s may not be applicable to the 197 0's.
5.

A research study drawing data from the social

sciences may not be "relevant" to disciplines other than
social science.
6.
nesses:

Questionnaire responses reflect the usual w e a k ­

(1) possible biases,

(2) the respondents'

u nfamil­

iarity with what actually occurred at the institution or with
the topic involved, and

(3) possible misinterpretation of

some of the wording of the questionnaire or of the respon­
dents'

answers.

(See Chapter III for a more detailed d i s ­

cussion of the use of questionnaires.)
7.

Although the respondents'

indicated or inferred,

evaluations may be

no true evaluation of alternative

programs is possible within the confines of this study.
Definition of Terms
For the potential user of these research findings,
as is the case in any research study,
problem of word usage.

there is always the

Definitions of certain key words

used in this study,

therefore, become essential.

Particu­

larly does this seem necessary since many of the words are
in common use, but have a variety of shadings and meanings.
Administration— the persons collectively who manage
or supervise an institution of higher education.
Curriculum— the courses of study offered at a col­
lege or university.
Higher education— education beyond the first twelve
years of formal schooling.
Relevancy— There are about as many definitions of
relevancy as there are people writing about it.
for the purposes of this study,

Nevertheless

the term is used to refer to

a particular attitudinal posture or a perception of desired
outcomes in matters of curriculum content.

More specifically

this stance contains the essential ingredient of personal
fulfillment and meaning plus direct application to the per ­
ceived needs of students.

Thus,

this study is directed

toward an appraisal of the various ways and means by which
the faculty and administration at selected kinds of institu­
tions of higher education have responded to the demand that
the curriculum content be so devised and structured that it
fulfills a sense of personal meaning and direct application
to the needs of students, as they perceive them.

(See

Chapter II for a more detailed discussion of meanings of
re lev anc y.)

6
Social science— an organization and integration of
various disciplines concerned with understanding the differ­
ent aspects of the social behavior of human beings in con ­
temporary society;
composite)
science,

ideally, an integration

of sociology, psychology,

anthropology,

(not merely a

economics,

political

and history.

Methodology and Analysis of the Data
The questionnaire was selected as the tool to be used
for gathering the necessary data in this study.

The analy­

sis of the data was undertaken by dividing the data c o l ­
lected into units of consistency of like response and differ­
ent response to each question in the questionnaire.
Overview
In Chapter II the pertinent aspects of the study are
discussed in relation to the literature in the field.
Included are the perception of relevancy now and in the
past; college and university responses to the demand for
relevancy;

and, when indicated,

evaluations of the effec­

tiveness of plans or programs now in operation.
of the questionnaire,

the instrument used,

The design

the population,

and the treatment of the data are discussed in Chapter III.
Data derived from responses to the questionnaire are
presented in Chapter IV.
the study,

Chapter V contains a summary of

interpretations,

for further study.

implications,

and recommendations

CHAPTER II
RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
A study of the response to the demand for relevancy
in higher education would be incomplete without a brief
discussion of the definition of relevancy;
history of the idea of relevancy;

a look at the

an indication of the diver­

sity of administrative views regarding relevancy; and an
investigation of curriculum plans in operation, with an
assessment, when indicated, of the effect of such efforts
upon higher education.

The following accounts are not pr e­

sented as complete descriptions of the studies and programs,
but seek in capsule form to provide the reader with a g e n ­
eral background that will give a better picture of the
investigation undertaken in the present study.

Chapter II

also contains a review of the most prominent studies related
to the aspects of relevancy,
authors'

including history, definitions,

opinions, curriculum plans, and evaluations.

this discussion,

In

the terms relevance and relevancy are con­

sidered to be synonymous and interchangeable.

7

8
Definition of Relevance
As Brickman

(1970)

said of relevance:

This is a strangely popular word which is difficult to
define.
On some campuses, the word "meaning" is sub­
stituted as easily.
Both relevance and meaning are
aimed at the kind of educational experience in both
its academic and social aspects which fits the needs
of these students in their time, not ours (p. 23).
Whether because the term is too difficult to define,
or because most scholars consider it too obvious to demand
definition,
Indeed,

formal definitions are difficult to locate.

in an entire volume entitled Search for Relevance

(Axelrod et al.,

1969),

the present writer was unable to

find any definition of the term.

And in another volume

devoted to an analysis of the problem of relevance
1970),

(Schutz,

the writer located no concise formal definition,

although discussion of the various categories of relevance
(topical,
order)

interpretative, motivational,

filled many pages.

imposed,

second

One can infer only from the usage

of the term what the definitions in the minds of the scholars were.
The various usages of the term relevance all seem to
focus on the student's rejection as "irrelevant" whatever he
perceives as not meaningfully contributing to the growths
and goals he desires.

Statements such as that of a Stanford

student— "Undoubtedly I will not use nine-tenths of the
course information gotten here at the university.

. . .

In

the past few years I feel that I've been taking courses
that have little impact on what I do and that are not fruit­
ful intellectually"

(Katz et a l ., 1968:242)--are typical,

9
in that a vague feeling of meaninglessness is expressed.
Donaldson

(1969)

As

said,

Their questioning of the relevance of a college educa­
tion corresponds to the skeptical opinion held by a
large segment of the student body that many traditional
college courses are meaningless to their development as
individuals and concerned members of society (p. 3 6).
However,
time context.

the preceding statement must be placed in a

For many of the students,

the time context

they appear to have in mind is the present or the i mme dia te.
Therefore,

the definition of relevance cited above in g e n ­

eral terms becomes more specifically "whatever the student
perceives as relevant to his immediate or present situation."
Thus the task of educators charged with maintaining a viable
curriculum is to balance the pressures of the time context
of immediacy with the long-range goals and purposes that
students may ultimately come to define for themselves
thus change their definition of relevance)

(and

after leaving the

educational institution.
Finally,

not only is the time perspective signifi­

cant in student perceptions of relevancy, but to students
the focus is also important.
Jencks

(1968) referred to:

This unique focus is what
"These students believe that what

matters is untutored and wholly spontaneous feeling and
McLuhanite media mixtures rather than books"
essence,

this is a somewhat personalized,

(p. 37).

self-centered per­

spective that suggests a "self-actualizing" experience
dimension to definitions of relevancy.

In

10
If pressed for a formal definition,

these various

ideas could be incorporated in some such statement as
"Relevance in education is the quality of being perceived as
functionally related to the attainment of some goal that is
valued by the perceiver."
Since the term relevance has no agreed-upon formal
definition among scholars, and seems to be used to indicate
the feeling of relatedness to one's own goals and purposes,
it would appear that the only useful definition is an o per ­
ational one:
as r e l e v a n c e .

Relevance is whatever the observer perceives
Anything the observer perceives as bearing a

functional relationship to the attainment of his goals and
purposes is relevant.
for relevance"

is,

All else is irrelevant.

therefore,

The "search

the quest of students and some

educators to find materials and modes of study that will be
more widely perceived by students as contributing to their
goals and purposes,

and not as serving some other purposes

that are not their own

(e.g. fulfillment of tradition,

grading, collection of credentials, maintenance of the edu­
cational establishment,

status system m a i n t ena nce ).

As with all important concepts,

the concept of

relevance has a long history, which is discussed in the
following section.
History
The appeal for relevancy is not new.

The words of

Gaius Petronius in S aty ric on, written in the first century

11
A.D.,

sound very timely today:

I tell you we don't educate our children in school;
we stultify them and send them out into the world halfbaked.
And why?
Because we keep them utterly ignorant
of real life.
The common experience is something they
never see or hear.
Writers since the time of Plato have expressed the idea of
relevance,
Jaeger

although perhaps they did not use that term.

(1939) noted that Plato,

in speaking of education,

"used the physical metaphor of molding character."
smith

(1966) recalled,

"The teacher

Arrow-

. . . will have no func­

tion or honor worthy of the name until we are prepared to
make the purpose of education what it always w a s — the m o l d ­
ing of men rather than the production of knowledge"
Jones

(pp. 1-3).

(1966) noted that, to Emerson,

The great object of Education should be commensurate
with the object of life.
It should be a moral one;
to teach self-trust; to inspire the youthful man with
an interest in himself; with a curiosity touching his
own nature; to acquaint him with the resources of his
mind (p. 211).
In the course of a penetrating human study of a
southern rural family, Agee

(1957) used telling words to

describe the irrelevance of the school as he knew it in his
ch ild hoo d:
Or again on the curriculum:
it was unnecessary to make
even such search into this as I made to know that there
is no setting before the students of "economic" or
"social" or "political facts" and of their situation
within these "facts," no attempt made to clarify or
even slightly to relieve the situation between the
white and negro races [sic], far less to explain the
courses, no attempt to clarify psychological situation
in the individual, in his family, or in his world, no
attempt to get beneath and to revise those "ethical"

12
and "social" pressures and beliefs in which even a
young child is trapped, no attempt, beyond the most
nominal, to interest a child in using or in discover­
ing his senses and judgment, no attempt to counteract
the paralytic quality inherent in "authority", no
attempt beyond the most nominal and stifling to awaken,
to protect, or to "guide" the sense of investigation,
the sense of joy, the sense of beauty, no attempt to
clarify spoken and written words whose power or deceit
even at the simplest is vertiginous, . . . nor to "teach"
a child in terms of his environment, no attempt, beyond
the most suffocated, to awaken a student either to
"religion" or to "irreligion", no attempt to develop in
him either "skepticism" or "faith", nor "wonder', nor
mental "honesty", nor mental "courage", nor any under­
standing of or delicateness in "the emotions" and in
any of the uses and pleasure of the body save the ath­
letic; no attempt either to relieve him of fear and of
poison in sex or to r e l e a s e 'in him a free beginning of
pleasure in it, nor to open within him the illimitable
potentials of grief, of danger, and of goodness in sex
and in sexual love, nor to give him the beginnings at
very least of a knowledge, and of an attitude, whereby
he may hope to guard and increase himself and those whom
he touches, no indication of the damages which society,
money, law, fear, and quick belief have set upon these
matters and upon all things in human life, nor of their
causes, nor of the alternate ignorances and possibili­
ties of ruin or of joy, no fear of doubtlessness, no
fear of the illusions of knowledge, no fear of compro­
m i s e : — and here again I have scarcely begun (pp. 292293) .
Although the idea of relevancy is not completely new,
the determination to incorporate the search for relevancy
into the curriculum is new.

Many of the methods employed

in pressing the demand for change in higher education are
shocking to many of today's administrators,

especially those

who have been in the arena for the past fifteen years or
more.

The occasionally violent and noisy student demonstra­

tions in the 1960's brought an awareness that change was
needed, and "now."

Schwebel

(1968)

stated:

13
Student involvement in curriculum change evolved largely
at institutions where students were highly socially
conscious.
It also seemed to appear at schools where
conditions were so poor, education so backwards, that
only a faint degree of awareness was necessary for
student discovery of problems (p. 32).
This brief statement of history is far from complete,
but serves to show that the idea of relevancy has been with
educators and students for a long time.

Thus the current

chorus of demand for change toward relevancy is a continua­
tion of an ancient awareness.
The Demand for Relevancy in the 1960*3
A number of influences have been at work in recent
years,

forcing institutions of higher education to reexamine

many of their long-held views about the nature and form of
undergraduate education.

New kinds of students now seek

college degrees? many of them are older and more experienced
than the typical student,

and many come from minority groups

and low-income families.

They bring special aspirations and

handicaps that require more flexible and individualized pro­
grams .
New views are emerging of what is important in the
physical and natural sciences,
sciences.

the humanities,

and the social

Faculties and students alike are only too aware

that much of what has been taught is often unusable or
obsolete,

and that much of what needs to be learned cannot

be comprehended within the confines of the usual college
curriculum.

New careers have arisen,

requiring special

14
competencies that few institutions can provide, no matter
how comprehensive their course offerings.
Rapid advances in technology have added greatly to
the explosion of knowledge, and pose both problems and c h a l ­
lenges as to how man can make the most of technology, without
being mastered by it.
The financial plight of colleges and universities
has become increasingly serious, requiring that they find
ways to operate under far more stringent conditions,
without sacrificing educational quality.

yet

And pressing social

problems raise many questions about what a college ought to
be, whom it should serve, what should be taught, and how it
might best be taught.
Times have changed very rapidly indeed!

Many authors

and administrators have noted that the past ten years have
brought sweeping changes in higher education,

some of which

have been unfamiliar to the practicing administrator.
Axelrod e t a l . {1969) pointed out that:
. . . While the dissatisfactions have been myriad,
attempts at innovation and reform of a highly creative
order have taken place on many campuses during the past
ten years. . . . Since 1965 there has been a great deal
more confrontation between administrators and students.
. . . General and strong discontent among higher
educational personnel has been, during the past decade,
with the standard structures designed to carry out
curricular-instructional functions in American higher
education.
This discontent has expressed itself in two
wa ys— in expressions of dissatisfaction about the stan­
dard pattern, and in efforts on almost every college
and university campus to change some features of that
pattern.

15
Let us present some of the evidence supporting the
conclusion that 1958-59 marked the end of the old era
and ushered in a new one.
It marked the end symbolic­
ally, for 19 59 was the year of the John Dewey centennial.
And it marked a beginning also, for the National Defense
Act of 1958 opened the road to a new role— a role that
has turned out to be overwhelmingly important— of the
Federal Government in American education.
Another event
in 19 58 also proved prophetic in the realm of student
affairs; . . . the year 1958 can be taken to mark the
emergence of the current student activist movement.
This is the year when SLATE was organized on the Berkeley
campus and when the first student "demands" were issued.
As the old era drew to its close, and as American
educators became more aware that the most important
objectives of undergraduate education were not being
attained, a nationwide movement to reform the undergrad­
uate curriculum came into existence.
Almost every campus
in the United States, in one way or another, seems to
have been influenced by these efforts.
The past decade
has seen great ferment in curriculum planning and cur­
riculum revision.
Education at Berkeley (Muscatine,
1966), the report of the Select Committee on Education
of the Academic Senate on the Berkeley campus, thus
prefaces its recommendations for change:
"We are far
from alone in our self-examination.
Nearly every major
college in the country has, or has had, or is planning
similar studies by similar committees.
We sense that
we are part of a great national— and international—
Development, the response to an historical crisis in
higher education (:3)" (pp. 47-52).
Behind this gigantic reform movement has lain a uni­
versally accepted assumption:
a difference.

An undergraduate college exists for the sake

of its educational programs.
College,

The right curriculum can make

Thus,

the president of Parkinson

addressing a curriculum committee on his campus,

pointed out that the curriculum is not simply one segment of
a college's life, but its very center:
As
it
is
It

I have pondered the perplexities of this college,
has seemed to be that the undergraduate curriculum
the key to solving the entire range of problems.
is the curriculum which costs the most.
It is the

16
curriculum which sets the intellectual tone of the cam­
pus.
It is the curriculum which demands the most from
faculty.
And it is the curriculum through which the
college best can achieve its purposes (Mayhew, 1965:
103) .
As the preceding quotations show, the current changes
have emerged from a widespread conviction that on almost
every college and university campus many traditional
approaches have failed to change some feature of the stan­
dard curriculum structural pattern in American higher e d u ­
cation.

Several educators have suggested that not much has

been done to rectify administrative responses to the demand
for relevancy.

Axelrod et al.

(1969)

wrote:

In spite of the jolt that institutions have received
in the last few years, not enough effort has been made
to illuminate the underlying causes of student protest.
Even less attempt has been made to modify substantially
the relevant educational arrangements.
Until this hap­
pens, one may safely predict continued clashes— or as
an unlikely alternative, a return to apathy (p. 26).
As educators we must aim at helping each student
to develop, to the highest degree possible, a rich and
varied impulse life as well as a repertory of intellec­
tual skills and abilities.
Certain qualities of intel­
lect, character, and feeling distinguish the educated
person.
His conscience is refined and enlightened.
The process by which he judges events and manages actions
is strong and flexible.
He is adaptively responsive to
the myriad of stimuli without and in close touch with
the deeper urges and emotions within.
He has freedom of
imagination and an enduring capacity to be fully alive.
When these kinds of developments occur in students, e d u ­
cation is taking place; and faculty members may enjoy a
sense of contentment with their work (p. 124).
Above all, higher education needs to know how to
make educational use of student dissent.
At present,
emphasis is placed on ways of achieving political accom­
modation; in the long run it will be more important to
learn how to tune dissent into a genuine educational
experience (p. 200).

17
Dunham

(1971)

also indicated that change has been

long overdue.
Thus it is that about the only element of choice open
to today's student at most colleges and universities
is essentially the same as that which today's profes­
sors found as an undergraduate five, ten, twenty or
thirty years ago. . . {p. 5).
As someone once remarked, the military is always
preparing for the last war, so - too the curriculum
seems to be always preparing for
the "then generation",
rather than the "now generation"
(p.6).
Many more citations could be mentioned,

but this

would only be a meaningless reiteration of the obvious fact
that the current demand for relevancy has historical roots,
but has recently been pressed with a directness that makes
temporization or evasion unsuccessful.

What has been the

response to the demand for relevancy?
Responses to the Demand for Relevancy
On any issue there will be those who support a p r o ­
posed response to the issue, those who oppose this response,
and those taking still other positions.
issue of relevancy.

Such is true of the

There are those educators who feel we

haven't responded enough to the demand for relevancy, others
who feel that the demand for relevancy is itself so "irrele­
vant" it should not even be considered,
ious intermediate positions.

Apple

and those with v a r ­

(1971) noted that "It

would be a mistake to consider those who have sounded the
call for a relevant education as one body.

They are sep­

arated by their espousal of different positions and differ­
ent senses of ought"

(p. 504).

It is the present writer's

18
belief,

after reviewing many statements on the topic, that

educators who have expressed themselves on the topic can be
divided into three general categories:
1.

Educators who question the search for r el e v a n c y .

Some educators doubt that any major change is necessary,
and suspect that the "search for relevancy" may lead to a
dilution of learning.

For example, Nisbet

(1971)

stated:

American universities should stop trying to be so rele­
vant and get back to the old ivory tower business of
teaching and research in the learned disciplines if
they want to survive , . . the academic community "to
our shame" broke the traditional social contract between
the university and society which gave professors the
pleasure of seeking knowledge for its own sake and teach­
ing this to students (p. 3).
In a trenchant statement,

Shirk

(1972)

attacked the

entire concept of relevancy:
A third reason for the revolt against excellence
arises out of a confusion as silly as it is tragic.
There is a much-admired, yet little-analyzed, prescrip­
tion that education should be relevant.
Now who would
not agree that education should be relevant?
The q u e s ­
tion is, relevant to what?
Relevance is a term needing
a reference to be meaningful.
So to say that today's
education does not meet this standard and is "irrelevant"
must refer to some goal students have covertly in mind
which either certain subject matter or certain teaching
methods do not serve.
The writer casts about to make
some sense of this complaint.
A liberal arts curricu­
lum gives much opportunity for choice of materials and
courses which will serve a student's particular profes­
sional interests.
A music major need not study sta­
tistics, nor need an economist study Greek unless he
has an interest in the economic structure of Greece.
Surely, this criticism must mean something more; but it
would be strange if it meant that some particular branch
of learning is irrelevant in itself, since each and any
branch of learning always is relevant to certain kinds
of inquiry.
Each discipline attempts to pursue just
certain questions, and each subject matter is relevant
to those who ask those questions. . . (pp. 22-23).

19
These two quotations are a sample of the thinking of
a considerable number of scholars who believe that the c o n ­
cept of relevancy itself is vague and lacking in meaning,
that for the most part the curriculum is already adequately
relevant,

and that the pursuit of the "Holy Grail" of rele7

vancy will divert higher education from its proper task.
2.

Educators who are sympathetic but u n c e r t a i n .

second group of scholars is concerned over the issue of r e l e ­
vancy, but uncertain about the direction in which to proceed.
Smith

(1970) noted the difficulties in determining just what

is relevant:
Knowing whether or not education is relevant to society
is difficult to determine unless you are very specific
in answering the question, "Relevant to what?"
For
example, not so many years ago we heard jokes about
university research projects that were delving into the
sex lives of certain insects.
Irrelevant?
That kn o wl ­
edge had no value then, but today tremendous agricul­
tural problems are solved by inhibiting or controlling
the reproductive cycles of marauding insects.
Those who cry "Irrelevant!" would have us design
superficially relevant curricula that should be o u t ­
moded in a very short time. . . . Until we develop the
ability to read the future accurately and to understand
perfectly the interests, talents, and aptitudes of every
student, there never will be a totally relevant educa­
tion.
But elusive as this objective may be, we must
still pursue it {p. 3).
Mayhew

(1970) reported that students are equally

unclear in their desires:
To avoid the monotonous stringing together of q u o ­
tations, only one or two representative quotations will be
reproduced here, and additional quotations representative of
the same central position are given in Appendix A.
On the
point above, see statements of Henry (1969) and Barzum (1968)
in Appendix A.

20
Twenty-two congressmen, in search of various reasons
for troubled campuses, discovered that students were
bothered but not about academic matters. . . . Students
mentioned relevance but not what they thought was irrel­
evance (p. 31).
Colleges and universities, however, would be mistaken
to assume from this evidence that all is right with the
curriculum (p. 32).
Thus these and many other scholars are very much
interested in the idea of relevancy,

but are not inclined to

rush into wholesale curriculum revisions.
3.

Educators who support the search for r e l e v a n c y .

A third group of educators makes an unequivocal call for an
uncompromising response to the demand for relevancy.
(1966)

Pace

sounded the call to action:

Knowledge . . . must be related to social and personal
problems and the curriculum must include secular as
well as clerical organizations of knowledge.
O t he r ­
wise, education becomes totally irrelevant to life and
often leads to anti-intellectualism (pp. 41-42).
From this and many similar statements,

2

it is clear

that there is no consensus among educators about relevancy,
but that there is a very powerful drive,

apparently enlisting

a majority of the articulate educators, who feel educational
change in the direction of relevancy is overdue.

The pres ­

sure for such change comes not only from educators but from
other sources as well.

2

See quotations of McGrath (1972), Hartnet (1972),
Henry (1969), Bell (1966), Apple (1971), and West (1969)
in Appendix A.

21
Pressure Groups for Educational Change
The administrators of any college or university would
like to operate without any pressure groups on the campus
except those that are supportive of administrative goals and
programs.

In many addressed by college presidents, one hears

the president state:
sions.

"Here we are free to make our own d ec i ­

Here we as an administration,

faculty, and student

body act in the best interest of all concerned."
reality,

this is not the case.

3

But in

To deny the existence of

pressure groups is to be unaware of the total college p i c ­
ture; but to identify those pressure groups that are truly
effective and not simply noisy is not an easy task.

Also,

within a given society the factors that exert any influence
on curriculum change or on curriculum stability are so n u m­
erous that one could not hope to identify them all.
As pressure groups plan a large part in initiating
and resisting change,

they also play a part in determining

what changes will take place, how quickly,
changes will endure.

For these reasons,

to consider the role of pressure groups.
ness,

the surrounding community,

alumni,

and how long the

it is important
Government, bu si­
parents,

and many

other groups and agencies can operate as pressure groups at
a given moment.

Data on pressure groups operating in the

drive for relevancy are presented in Chapters IV and V.
3

A paraphrase of some dozens of presidential addresses
the writer has been privileged to hear.

22
Based on the assumption that a response toward r e l ­
evancy is beneficial,

curriculum plans and their evaluations

are investigated next.
Analyses and Evaluations of Curriculum
Plans in Operation
In attempting to analyze the existing curriculum
plans, one may search the literature for relevant changes
initiated by students themselves, by professors, by college
administrators,

and by external pressure groups.

However,

the literature does not usually identify the initiator of
the change for relevancy per s e .

Instead,

the writings show

the change toward relevance existing under the following
four categories:

(1) student-,

faculty-, or administration-

initiated changes toward relevancy within the existing
structure;

(2) modification of the existing sturcture through

interdisciplinary programs;

(3) abolition of the traditional

structure and its replacement by an experimental structural
model; and

(4) miscellaneous efforts to attain greater r el e ­

vance.
Within the university or college structure one may
find a number of plans in operation in response to the demand
for relevancy.

These will be listed below and examples of

each one will be given, beginning with the simplest, which
is a case history of an individual student changing his own
goals in a search for relevancy, and progressing to the most

23
complex changes,

involving the entire college or university

structure.
1.

Student-,

faculty-, administration-initiated

change within the present st r uc t ur e .

In the school year

1963-64, a graduate student decided to become a teacher at
the college level.

Inquiries made to the Director of C ur r ic ­

ulum at the university the student attended disclosed no
existing programs were designed to prepare the student for
teaching at the college level.

The student requested and

obtained permission to seek out a college that would allow
one of its professors to guide him in his preparation for
college-level teaching.

As a result of the student's inno­

vation in changing his program, his alma mater has designed
a complete program to prepare teachers to teach at the c o l ­
lege level.

The degree to which the student's action stim­

ulated a curricular change would be difficult to determine,
since other factors were also operating at the same time.
For example,

at the same time community colleges were

increasing in number and many new programs were being
inaugurated.
A second example, consisting of a more complex type
of student-initiated change involving a group of students,
was described by Schwebel

(1968):

Seeking to enrich their educational experiences,
students often have attempted--occasionally with the
support of faculty and administration— to operate
within the present framework of an institution to bring
about changes they deem desirable.
Their efforts have

24
assumed various forms, including seminars and confer­
ences on higher education, curriculum and course studies
and reviews, curriculum committees, programs to supple­
ment the curriculum, and student-initiated courses
(p. 32).
Students sometimes perceive the faculty and admin­
istration as being antagonistic toward or uninterested
in student participation in curriculum planning and
reform.
At several schools such perceptions were so
compelling that students set up committees independent
of the academic structure, to review and criticize the
curriculum.
Comprehensive curriculum and course reviews
of this nature were carried out at the University of
Pennsylvania and Maryville College of the Sacred
Heart. . . . Students in recent years have been learning
how to exploit better the prevailing college structure
and available resources to enrich their curriculum.
The
importation to campus, by student groups and govern­
ments, of interesting lecturers and visiting fellows is
a notable method (p. 36).
In many schools channels have been opened and u t i l ­
ized by students to initiate courses not offered by
their institution.
It is generally agreed by members
of the academic community that some of these courses
fill genuine gaps in the curriculum.
However, some
faculty administrative people argue that other studentinitiated courses, especially those dealing with drugs
and sex, are nothing more than "dormitory discussion
topics."
But students disagree, claiming these topics
to be relevant to their lives.
Students attempt to get
courses that speak to their interests included in the
school's curriculum.
However, if this is impossible,
the courses are offered independently, with the hope that
through exposure their merits will be weighed and that
they eventually will be integrated into the regular
program.
Undergraduates at Cornell University, which has no
religion department, arranged to offer seminars on "The
Death of God Theology" . . . (p. 37).
Last year I was involved in the newest, most r a di ­
cal, and perhaps most unusual form of student pa rtici­
pation in the academic community.
Along with five others
--two from Antioch, one from Goddard, one from San Fran­
cisco State College, one from the University of California
at Berkeley, and a Stony-Brook drop-out— I served as a
"student-consultant" on the planning committee of the
State University of New York's new experimental college
in Nassau.
This concept of student involvement developed
from an address delivered in February, 1967, by Samuel

25
Gould, Chancellor of the State University, in which he
said henceforth "the State University of New York will,
as a matter of policy, seek to involve students in the
planning and development of each new college."
He added
that he had been "convinced that students are able not
only to identify faults in the educational system but
also to spell out practical steps to reform" (p. 42).
Yatvin

(1971)

provided a representative example of

the extensive literature describing faculty-initiated changes
toward relevance.

He mentioned a faculty-initiated change

in which he became aware of the necessity to consult with
his students to get their opinion of whether or not their
mutual learning goal was the same.

Without this feedback

loop, Yatvin found he was not achieving his goal, nor was he
achieving their goal.

In describing his experiences,

he

wrote:
. . , I wrote new units, selected new materials, and
built an element of choice into my reading lists.
I
also planned a more informal classroom atmosphere, with
student-led small group discussions and no formal tests.
Whatever I had to know to grade students I would find
out from their writing and from listening to them.
Now,
nine months later I sit among the ashes of my course and
my ideals, wondering what went wrong.
How did hard work
and careful planning lead to disaster?
We have resisted
and ignored change too long; our feeble efforts to catch
up now are worthy of the scorn they receive.
. . . We
continue to teach things because we've always taught
them without looking into the questions of why they may
be valuable or what we hope our students will gain from
exposure to them.
We still talk about getting into a
good college as if it were important and about handing
down our culture as if our students were proud to
receive it.
As far as possible within this curricular framework,
I will try to choose materials that have ready appeal
for my students (although I have been notoriously uns uc­
cessful at predicting appeal in the p a s t ) . For help in
this area I will consider suggestions made by students
this year, and I will work with an elected advisory
group of students.
Such a group has existed this year,

26
but its efforts were devoted too often to evaluation
after work had been covered, . . .
I will continue the practice of offering required,
alternate, and optional readings.
If I were an inex­
perienced teacher, however, I would avoid committing
myself to such an overwhelming task.
In regard to classroom practices, I would make some
changes while continuing many of the procedures I've
been using.
I will continue to have no tests, because
they put too much emphasis on my version of the "right"
answer, even though I try to avoid it.
Their existence
makes students concentrate on the wrong aspects of
materials and work for the wrong reasons.
However, I
will increase the number of short factual quizzes given
on the day a reading is to be completed.
Human nature
being what it is, a little extrinsic motivation is
needed to persuade students to do their reading carefully
and on time.
. . . It is important that students know why they
are being asked to learn something and ideally if they
agree that it is a good thing to learn.
Perhaps in the
practice of presenting a rationale, I will sometimes
discover that my assignments aren't as important as they
seemed, and I can omit them.
Finally, I shall continue student evaluation of the
course, but I will change the emphasis and the methods
used this year . . . build evaluation into each unit,
then to ask students to assess the materials and methods
on the basis of whether or not they functioned effec­
tively to help them attain the stated objectives.
. . . In the end, when the teacher faces students
instead of a typewriter, he realizes that their most
powerfully felt objectives must be met not instead of
his, but along with them (pp. 1 0 8 4 - 8 5 ).4
2.
vance .

Interdisciplinary programs searching for re le­

One possible approach to the search for relevance

involves an interdisciplinary effort to bring several fields
of study to bear upon a common topic or problem.
Morgan described a successful interdisciplinary p ro ­
gram already under way at Hiram College:

^See Newsweek article (1972) quoted in Appendix A for
another example of faculty-initiated change.

27
In the fall of 1969, after two years of intensive di s cu s ­
sion and planning, Hiram College launched a new integrated
curriculum that emphasizes interdisciplinary studies and
increased student freedom and responsibility.
Our experience at Hiram is valuable in two ways.
First, I believe that the Hiram curriculum provides a
specific example of a successful implementation of several
goals that are now coming into acceptance in higher ed u­
cation.
Therefore, a description and critical evaluation
of the curriculum should be of interest.
Second, our
experience should provide encouragement to educators who
hope to make significant academic changes at their col­
leges.
The Hiram program provides evidence that sub­
stantial innovations, more than just tinkering or g i m ­
micks, can take place at typical (that is, moderately
selective, nonexperimental) colleges that have fairly
traditional faculties and student bodies.
Furthermore,
our experience indicates that such changes can have a
generally positive impact on student achievement, atti­
tudes and satisfaction, and can be operated with little
additional staff or cost.
Despite the fact that we face
the enrollment and financial problems of most small p r i ­
vate colleges, we have this year a balanced budget and
the largest freshman class in our history.
The Hiram program has several major objectives.
First, we encourage students, starting in the freshman
year, to take on more responsibility for planning and
conducting their own education.
To implement this goal,
we have greatly reduced the number of graduation re quire­
ments and provided the opportunity for individualized
major areas of concentration.
Although students have
more freedom of choice than is typical at most colleges,
freshmen are supported by close relationships with fac­
ulty and a strong advisory system that is built into the
course structure.
Second, we try to make education inte­
grated and holistic by developing many topical and inter­
disciplinary courses and by encouraging cross-disciplinary
majors.
The college graduation requirements are all
interdisciplinary in nature.
Third, the entire college
emphasizes effective written communication and open,
articulate discussion.
Fourth, we place the rational
discussion of contemporary society (its heritage, p r o b ­
lems, and future) at the thematic center of the curric­
ulum.
Fifth, the curriculum encourages faculty to use
new content and new approaches to teaching, to respond
to students more individually, and to try cooperative
teaching efforts.
Finally, the focus of the Hiram c u r ­
riculum is on the freshman year because of its impor­
tance in the development of student attitudes toward
education and because it was previously the weakest part
of our (and most) college programs.

28
We are thoroughly evaluating the curriculum and its
effectiveness.
As part of this evaluation, we have
studied the impact of the new curriculum on the general
satisfaction, achievement, and attitudes of students.
We are still collecting data, but the preliminary results
are encouraging.
Although I personally feel that the positive fi nd­
ings were largely due to the new curriculum other fac­
tors may have influenced the results.
For example, it
is well established that most innovations work at first.
We hoped that the relevance of the topics and the
rich mixture of visiting speakers, films, and the like
would make up for the large size and relative passivity
inherent in the Twentieth Century course.
We have found that it takes a tremendous amount of
energy to get a major change started and to sustain it.
There is always the possibility of slipping back into
traditional ways, but we are working hard toward effec­
tive, comprehensive innovation (Smith, 1971:70-77).
Interdisciplinary programs are one of the many pos­
sible approaches to relevancy, within the framework of m o d i ­
fication of the existing structure.

Other approaches

include

efforts to educate students in more effective use of the
thinking process,

and efforts to expand the student's awarc-

ness of how his actions are meaningful to his society.
3.

Mew structural m o d e l s .

5

Among the various p ro ­

posed new models for higher education, Axelrod et al.

(.1969)

suggested the cluster college concept.
. . . A plan for a cluster college to be established
on the campus of an urban college or university, Co l­
lege M is a three-year, year-round, degree program
emphasizing a certain type of faculty-student relation­
ship but operating at about the student-faculty ratio
now found in, say, the California state colleges. . . .
The curriculum at College M is based on the motto:
5

For further comments on the interdisciplinary
approach, see statements of Dunham (1971) and McGrath (1972)
in Appendix A.

29
"Freedom to Teach and Freedom to Learn."
College M
. . . appealing to those high school graduates who would
like to (a) get their undergraduate degree after three
full years of study (twelve q u ar t er s ), (b) take more
responsibility for their own education than is possible
in standard programs, (c) work in an urban-oriented and
intercultural curriculum, and (d) delay professional
training or intensive specialization (such as is now
normally available during the undergraduate years)
until they have completed their B.A. degree. . . .
. . . The services of faculty members are reserved
for learning situations that require human relationship
as opposed to one-human media such as the printing press,
TV . . . or the computer (pp. 125-134).
A quite different structural reorganization is the
proposed "open university," sometimes referred to as the
"free university."
cribed by Schwebel

The so-called "free university" was d e s ­
(1968):

. . . Free universities have been created at numerous
spots across the nation, including Dartmouth; University
of California at Berkeley and at Davis; Princeton;
Stanford; University of North Carolina; University of
Pennsylvania and surrounding schools; within the New
York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit areas; . . .
Another is a joint effort combining students from
Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and the University of
Massachusetts.
Though all these efforts differ from one
another in some ways, most are similar in at least a few
respects:
the types of subject matter, the atmosphere
desired within the classroom and the various functional
aspects of the classroom setting.
Most free universities subscribe to the policy
approximating that of the Free University of Pennsyl­
vania, that "any subject matter is considered valid and
will be offered if an instructor wants to teach it and
there are students who wish to take it" (p. 39).6
Exactly how the open university differs from the
experimental college is not clear,

for they seem to have much

For additional statements on the open university,
see statements of Nelso (1972) and Baskin (1969) in A pp e n­
dix A.

30
in common.

Both are sharp departures from tradition, and

both give students a major role in determining the content
and direction of their education.

Schwebel and Smith d e s ­

cribed the experimental college concept,
San Francisco State College.

Schwebel

as exemplified by

(1968)

related:

Perhaps the best known student venture in academic
reform is the Experimental College at San Francisco
State.
Initiated by students and offering the oppor­
tunity to earn regular academic credit, this institu­
tion is unique.
Students may design courses, decide
how they will be taught, choose an enrollment limit
and select their own texts at the Experimental College.
In its first year of existence (1965-1966) about
350 students attended seminars. . . . In the fall of
1966 some 650 students enrolled. . . (p. 41).
Smith

(1968)

expanded upon the experimental college

concept by stating:
In the fall of 1965, a number of administrative
officers, interested faculty members, and several
"combination" faculty-administrators at San Francisco
State College gathered in a series of meetings on late
Wednesday afternoons.
An unofficial group with no
authority whatsoever on the campus, we simply called
ourselves THE GROUP . . . when we learned that another
largely spontaneous group was developing within the
student body itself.
Five or six of these young people,
some of them graduate students, some of them undergrad­
uates, were invited to join The Group the following week.
[The students] felt much of the curriculum and other
aspects of the teaching and learning process at the c o l ­
lege were irrelevant to the student of today.
. . . The Group responded sympathetically, but we
did have a lot of questions about how comments on r e l e ­
vance, no matter how articulately presented, could be
translated into a program in a well-established institu­
tion with its own traditions of discipline and orderly
curriculum process.
[The students wondered] if they had been adequately
educated in college to do what they thought was neces­
sary to do as members of a larger community.
This is
the kind of relevance they were speaking of in the m e e t ­
ing of The Group.
This track was developed into what on

31
our campus is called the Community Involvement Pr o­
gram. . . .
The second track that was developed by the students
who met wit h us was the now widely known Experimental
College, which turned out to have both formal and infor­
mal curricular aspects. . . .
The curriculum offers courses such as these to the
student who wishes to compensate for his perceived need
for curricular and instructional relevance:
God in a
Mid-Century Milieu, . . . Exploring N e w Forms of Sexual
Relationships, . . . A Search for Methods of Survival in
the 20th Century--to name but a few.
I do not think I
need to point out that this outburst of curriculum,
cocurriculum, quasicurriculum, pseudocurriculum, and new
curriculum— born of a demand for relevance— was revolu­
tionary .
. . . The third program has just developed in the
past year, a program in Black Studies.
. . . But we soon found, in this age of relevance,
that traditional practice itself can be considered the
most irrelevant of all irrelevancies and that a r evolu­
tion of all process, from curricular development to s t u­
dent discipline, was demanded.
And we further found
that the methods of demand themselves were revolutionary.
I believe I could say that we have responded in most
instances well.
Nevertheless I must report that many of
my colleagues feel we may be opening ourselves to chaos,
true chaotic anarchism, through our kinds of response to
demands for relevance.
Such demands challenge every
aspect of the system— administrative processes, instruc­
tional practice, and curricular structure.
Such demands
are delivered with an immediacy and urgency about them
that offends our sense of history and our commitment to
thoughtful and disciplined change.
Moreover, whe n the
demands are presented through revolutionary tactics and
strategies, they produce reverberations throughout the
entire college and frequently beyond.
The tactics and
rhetoric of controntation, mass pressure, intimidation,
and occasionally violence are not only relatively new
to the American collegiate scene but offensive to much
of our traditions and beliefs.
They present contingen­
cies that most of us are ill equipped to handle.
It is
not an easy experience to live through.
We are p r e­
pared for dialo gu e — for reasoning through issues until
mutually acceptable solutions are reached--but we are
not prepared for the silent, stubborn, and accusing eyes
of confrontation.
It is a paralyzing experience.
Vet,
clearly, the mere application of administrative fiat,
the clamp-down that is so often asked for these days,
is not appropriate or particularly effective.
What is

32
needed (it is easy to say but needs to be constantly
repeated) is the sharing of responsibility in judgment
making among all the elements of the college co mmu­
nity (pp. 214-219).
4.

Miscellaneous proposals and p r o g r a m s .

A number

of other suggestions for the attainment of relevancy do not
fit into any of the foregoing categories.

The goal of

developing in the student a greater awareness of his total
role in society was mentioned by Fitzgerald and Marker
(1967) as they reported an attempt to attain a change toward
relevancy by establishing a more personal relationship
between the student and his instructor at the college level
through the mechanism of the tutorial system:
. . . Chabot is a community college in Mayward, Cali­
fornia. . . . The Chabot Tutorial Program abandons
conventional courses in its curriculum.
When it began
in the winter quarter, 1967, 125 students were enrolled
in the program for five quarters, and five faculty m e m ­
bers from five different areas of study devoted full
time to it.
Each instructor in the Tutorial Program is
responsible for "tutoring" the texts in all five areas;
and he assumes certain major responsibilities for
instruction in his own particular area.
Students are
rotated to a new tutor each quarter so that all stu­
dents will study under each of the five faculty members.
Students working under a given tutor look upon him as
their "personal guide, friend, mentor and advisor in
the world of learning."
Instructors, for their part,
"endeavor to establish a close, personal instructional
relationship with their own tutorial students and be
available for consultation to members of the entire
group (pp. 7-8).
Axelrod et al.

(1969)

suggested that the student

be brought to an awareness of his total role in society
through a greater degree of community study and participation.
. . . We recommend a plan that would make it possible
for the intellectual activities of students really to

33
contribute something to the community in which they
live. . . . (p. 160) .
Individuals could have an experience in which their
best intellectual endeavor becomes a part of a group
enterprise, its social meaning and relevance can become
apparent to them (p. 161).
[Plan X] required for space nothing more than com­
fortable meeting places on campus; . . . (p. 188).
The wall between the curriculum and the world o u t ­
side is, however, slowly being broken down.
There are
now hundreds of campuses which have community involve­
me nt programs in one form or another.
As early as 19 64,
Randolph (1964) reported that tutorial projects— follow­
ing the moto "Each one Teach one'— involved more than
4,000 college students described specific programs that
had started on a dozen urban campuses.
Pitkin and
Beecher, in their chapter in the book of essays on newer
developments edited by Baskin (1965) emphasize how the
community can be used by the college as a resource for
learning.
Hesburgh (1965), president of Notre Dame
University, declared his strong belief that college and
university faculties "must accept as part of the whole
educational system this experience of service," and there
has been evidence to indicate that an ethic of social
service has been assuming more moment in the lives of
students (Freedman, 1966) (p. 67).
In the new curriculum models, however, community
involvement is not a part of the extracurriculum; it
has been worked into the very fabric of course assign­
ments.
In urban institutions, the city itself is used
in a systematic way as an educational laboratory.
A
relationship between two major educational m ea n s— books
and direct experiences in the city--is being worked out
so that each can enrich the other (p. 68).
In an ideal undergraduate curriculum, the great
issues that concern us all, but which academic men
rarely let creep into their courses, will become the
major focus.
Such a curriculum would emphasize the
human problems that exist in the community where the
young people live, and students would not be discouraged
from going off-campus to look into such problems, or
even to engage in actions affecting them. . . .
(Bidwell, 1962:110) showed that 1960 s e n i o r ’s knowl­
edge "of foreign countries and his understanding of the
basic principles and the current problems of American
foreign policy are inadequate for the performance of
his responsibilities, either as a plain citizen or as
a community leader". . . (p. 69).

34
. . . This includes not only study abroad but also
community involvement projects in which students work
in another American subculture (p. 71).
Finally,

the problem of evaluation has received some

attention from educators seeking to assess the consequences
of the search for relevancy.

Hartnett

(1972)

spoke of the

difficulties of evaluating nontraditional programs:
i

The evaluation of traditional educational programs
and students in them has for years been giving educa­
tors headaches.
Non-traditional programs have all of
the problems of evaluation in the more typical setting,
plus a whole set of difficulties all their own.
. . . While the usual goals of evaluation in education
— improvement of the educational program, clarification
of the purposes of the cu rriculum--apply, one other pur­
pose seems to loom extremely important in the evalua­
tion of non-traditional p ro g ra ms--namely, establishing
c re d ib i li t y .
Essentially, there are two problems of evaluation
here.
The first has to do with the assessment of indi­
vidual student growth and development (the readiness of
individual students to receive the degree, to proceed
to more advanced courses or reading lists, and the l i k e ) .
The second problem of evaluation has to do with the
quality and effectiveness of the non-traditional program
(whether students' growth and competence at the time of
graduation is comparable to that of students who g r ad u ­
ate from more traditional institutions);. . . Essentially,
this greater flexibility would be an expression of aware­
ness that learning can and does take place in different
ways for different people and that to continue to provide
only one form of instruction and recognition is to be
wasteful of the country's richest resources (pp. 31-32,
37) .
Homes

(1970)

summarized the search for relevancy as

described in the literature:
Experimentation with paracurriculum will not be without
its problems.
While some of these activities will help
to break down certain barriers between town and gown,
others may sow suspicions and generate hostility, which
presents obvious public relations problems for the c o l ­
lege.
Some projects will be rewarding to students while
others may be depressing and discouraging.
But the

35
paracurriculum will have the long-run effect of making
study courses more relevant, building bridges of cor­
relation between them, providing avenues of "now
response" to the world that is, and in that way con­
ferring meaning on both the individual and the commu­
nity (p. 161) .
The present writer is compelled to add that the lit­
erature on relevancy discloses considerable confusion about
the definition of relevancy,

a notable lack of consensus

about the desirability of the search for relevance, a large
measure of support--possibly majority support— for the idea
of relevancy,

and a wide variety of proposals and programs

seeking to achieve a higher measure of relevance.

Yet, like

Stephen Leacock's famous horseman,

the search for relevancy

has galloped off in all directions.

It would appear that,

as "relevancy" became an "in" concept, virtually every e du ­
cator felt a need to say something on the subject.

The

result has been a veritable flood of commentary that is, on
the whole, discursive,

contemplative,

than systematic and synthetic.

and analytical rather

Thus, one of the purposes of

this study is to determine what educators have actually been
doing under the banner of relevancy.

CHAPTER III
PLANNING AND CONDUCTING THE STUDY

In preceding chapters the need for the study was
outlined and the literature related to relevancy was reviewed.
This chapter contains a discussion of the design of the cu r­
rent study,
gathered,

the college population from which the data were

the methodology used, and the organization of the

collected data.
Population of the Study
The college population for the study consisted of
the following types of institutions:
community colleges;

(1) public two-year

(2) private two-year community colleges;

(3) a long-established four-year public university with a
residential student body;

{4) a relatively new four-year

public university with commuters as well as residents;
(5) a four-year,
college;

long-established private liberal arts

(6) a four-year,

large, private and urban univer­

sity with a commuter student body; and

(7) a four-year,

public urban university with a commuter student body.

All

Michigan colleges and universities used in the study were
included in the above categories.

36

37
The "Division of Social S c iences” was chosen as the
area in which to search for responses toward relevancy in a
college or university setting because it appeared likely
that an awareness of a need for change toward relevancy would
more likely occur first in disciplines dealing with the
social sciences.

A second reason is that those experts in

the field of social science whom the writer consulted
believed the study would be more appropriately completed in
this area.

A third reason for limiting the study to the

field of social science is that this was the writer's major
field of study.
Judgment by Presidents
For purposes of the study,

it is assumed that the

presidents questioned were able to relate accurately the
disposition of curriculum responses toward relevancy within
their own institutions.

Their judgment was involved to this

extent.
A judgment, as defined by Shelly and Bryan
"refers to any verbal reaction

{or its equivalent)

(1964)
that is

the direct product of the individual's processing his sensory
inputs in combination with his memories of stored e xperi­
ences" (p. 7).

The respondents in this study, because of

their unique positions as the ones in charge of the total
institutional structure,

should be the most appropriately

equipped individuals, with the necessary "stored experiences,"

38
to make such a judgment.

Good,

Barr, and Scates

(1936)

com­

mented on judgment in educational research:
For those who feel that all is lost whenever a research
worker allows judgment to enter his data, it should
be pointed out that social scientists are confronted
with problems which differ fundamentally from those of
the physical scientist, and they must utilize pr oce­
dures which are appropriate to their problems (p. 410).
Since it was essential to employ the judgment of
someone at each college or university, and it seemed likely
that the president would be most fully aware of the total
program of the institution,

and furthermore that he is a c cu s ­

tomed to inquire of subordinates when he lacks detailed
information,

it was concluded that the president would be

the person best qualified to provide the desired facts and
judgments.
Questionnaire Method
After identifying the population for the study and
consulting with professors in the area of social science and
divisions therein,

the questionnaire was selected as the

most appropriate instrument to use in collecting the neces­
sary data.

The questionnaire procedure was chosen rather

than the interview approach because,
(1968),
1.

according to Moser

the questionnaire method is superior when:
. . . Questions [demand] a considered rather than
an immediate answer.
In particular, if the answer
requires— or would be more accurate as a result o f —
consultation of documents, a questionnaire filled in
by the respondent in his own time is preferable
(p. 177).

39
2.

3.

4.

. . . the population
to be covered [is] so widely
spread, and the time or funds available so limited,
that the mail questionnaire is the only feasible
approach.
. . .
the questions
to be asked were simple and the
respondents an educated group. . . . [In this case
the questionnaire was directed toward the college or
university president and his advisory staff.]
The mail questionnaire does . . . avoid the prob­
lems associated with the use of interviews. . . .
There are several sources of interview errors which
may seriously undermine the reliability and validity
of survey results. . . (p. 176).
Mawdsley

(1968)

noted:

"...

The interview tech­

nique actually forces the interviewee to concentrate on the
question at hand, rather than allowing him to glance
ahead.

. . " (p. 77).

On the other hand,

in this study the

questions were chosen to present a total picture.

It was

felt a more thorough response could be given if the subjects
were able to read all of the questions before responding.
While observing the many advantages of the question­
naire techniques,

it is quite often possible to overlook the

fact that the method also has certain hazards.
needs to be aware of these weaknesses,

especially the poten­

tial problems inherent in the word usage itself.
(1968:177),

Parten

The user

(1950:383), and Hillway

Moser

(1969:33)

recom­

mended posing the questions in such clear language that they
cannot be misunderstood,

and avoiding unusual words.

In an

effort to eliminate pitfalls of ambiguity or misu nderstand­
ing, a pilot study was conducted with three administrators,
using the questions and revised questions; word changes and
interpretations were requested.

40
An additional drawback of the questionnaire may be
as Hillway

(1969)

indicated:

"Even when questionnaires go to

a representative sample of respondents,

those actually com­

pleted and returned may come from an unrepresentative sample
of the population"

(p. 34)*

in the present study,

This did not become a problem

since a 100 percent response was

o bt a i n e d .
The Instrument
The instrument utilized in the study was constructed
by the writer, with the assistance of a consultant in the
Office of Research Consultation,

College of Education,

Michigan State University and the Department chairmen of
Social Science, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Mi c h­
igan State University.

Institutional anonymity was assured,

because it was believed the respondents would be more coop­
erative in giving their true feelings about existent co n di ­
tions at their colleges or universities if their responses
were anonymous.

The instrument is reproduced in full in

Appendix B of this study.
The questionnaire is divided into two sections.

The

initial section, which is intended to gather factual infor­
mation concerning what was actually taking place, consists
of open-ended questions,

such as:

How has your institution

responded to the demand for relevance?
The second section of the instrument was sent one
year later to assure that the new programs indicated in the

41
first response had been in operation at least one semester.
This section is an evaluation, in the administrator's opinion,
of the success of the programs he had indicated in the first
section.

Many administrators indicated programs already in

existence and evaluated the programs'

success,

the second set of questions was not sent.

in which case

The questions

included an opinion of the degree of success and the reac­
tions of the groups mos t directly involved--the administra­
tion,

the faculty,

and the students.
Trial Questionnaires

Hillway

(1969)

suggested,

"To determine whether a

questionnaire has been properly constructed,

the scholar may

give it a test run by administering it orally to several
respondents"

(p. 35).

The writer orally questioned one

college president, one professor of social science,

and one

assistant consultant in the Office of Research Consultation,
and mailed seven trial questionnaires to presidents of c o l ­
leges or universities representative of the types to be
surveyed in this study.

Each respondent was asked to

criticize the questionnaire constructively.

Subsequently,

the final questionnaire incorporated all of the positive
suggestions made by the respondents.
Collection of Data
The questionnaire was mailed in October,

so the

respondents would already have completed the multitudinous

42
duties that take first priority at the beginning of the fall
semester.

Also,

the length of time of the study was long

enough tc assure a greater percentage of respondents'
returns.

No deadline was given for the completion of the

questionnaire,

to allow the respondent time to mull over his

answers to the questionnaire and possibly to seek other
information from his advisory staff.

All of the question­

naires were returned.
Approximately one year following the first question­
naire, a second questionnaire was mailed to those r espon­
dents who in their original responses had not given an
evaluation of their previously initiated programs or had
indicated future programs responding toward relevancy.
In both sections of the mailed questionnaires a cover
sheet explained the purpose of the study and requested any
additional information the respondent felt would be bene­
ficial to the study,
approach.

thus eliminating a "one-way street"

In addition,

each respondent was assured his

identity would not be revealed;

a more-personal approach

would serve as a handicap rather than an asset.
Presentation of Data
Data from open-ended questionnaires do not readily
lend themselves to quantification or tabular presentation.
Thus in Chapter IV the responses are presented,

either in

the exact words of the respondents or in a slight paraphrase

43
t he r e of , in order of their frequency.

An attempt is made

to categorize the responses, wherever possible.

\

CHAPTER IV
PRESENTATION OF THE DATA

Through an open-ended questionnaire,

responses were

obtained from the presidents of twenty-nine Michigan colleges
and universities.
headings:

Their responses are classified under five

(1) the definition of relevance as perceived by

the respondent to the questionnaire,

(2)

identification of

the group or groups that initiated the pressure for change
toward relevance,

(3) identification of the group or groups

that offered primary sources of resistance to the change
toward relevance,

(4) identification of the tactics used by

the initiators of the change toward relevance in the social
science areas, and

(5) the respondent's appraisal of the

change toward relevance.
The responses, whether in the exact words of the
respondents or in a slight paraphrase thereof,

are listed

according to declining frequency, with the number of responses
given at the left.

The following responses are a presenta­

tion of the raw data;

as indicated

of responses is given in Chapter V.

44

previously,

an analysis

45
Definition of Relevance
"Relevance is . . ."
(6) provision of an educational experience which prepares
the individual student for life including a job, m e e t ­
ing the continual changing society, current social p r o b ­
lems and issues, and personal problems— time dimension
(3) that which is meaningful--between what the students
study and how they live
(2) a relationship to societal problems
{2) a college or university experience of a student's r e l a ­
tionship to his total experience
(2) pertinent issues of the times
(1) that which in some way relates specifically to economics,
moral and/or social issues and problems of the day
(1) seeking solutions to existing problems
(1) a sign of frustration bottled up inside our society,
but not necessarily a real demand for a change in the
basic course of the institutions
(1) a characteristic of any program which gives promise of
positively improving the quality of life for both the
individual and his society
(1) problems and concerns similar to the past but raised
again in the light of new circumstances
(1) short run focuses on current social problems and issues;
long run focuses upon the individual and their outlooks
about themselves and their society
(1) bridging the gap between ideal and real and existing
and
operative
(1) undefinable
(1) calling for direct experience rather than books or
lectures
(1) a course for majors as well as outsiders
(1) to aid in solutions to current problems as well
astrain
in disciplines
(1) related to the quality of life
(1) a fad
(1) the obviousness of the immediate application of any
project
(1) suitable for and meaningful to all groups, circumstances
and situations
(1) operationally defined as consisting of whatever the
educator using the term conceives it to be

46
Identification of the Pressure Group
or Groups Responding Toward Relevancy
"The demand toward relevancy came from . . . "
(14)
(13)
( 8)
( 8)
( 4)
( 3)
( 2)
( 1)
( 1)
( 1)
( 1)
( 1)

the students
the faculty
the administration
an unawareness of any pressure group or groups which
make a driving force on the department
the demands and needs of the vast community the insti­
tution serves
minority groups
driving forces within, since the establishment of the
institution
registration and what the students signed up for
pressures from different directions with no one pressure
being the dominant one
political demands
all segments of the institutional community
the need to justify federal government grants
Identification of the Pressure Group or Groups
Resisting Responses Toward Relevancy

"The resistance toward relevancy came from . . ."

11
8
6
5
4

nothing that we are conscious of
faculty that are traditionally oriented
fondness for tradition
a concern for the budget
none— the reason for being is to provide a relevant
education
those in charge that are ill prepared, and also the
unknowledgeable public
universities that accept for credit only those courses
labeled transfer— by university definition
alumni away from the institution
lack of staff available to offer new courses
students committed to the idea, but more committed to
the structure involved to be graduated
the inherent human fear of the unknown
misunderstanding
threats to stability
inability to define
the difficulties of making the change
lack of the time to think through the entire idea
need for making sure a certain request is legitimate
need for making certain that other courses are not
disrupted

47
( 1) the Board of Trustees
( 1) the 11education world" which forces the innovator to
develop a justification for such innovations which is
far beyond that required in industry
( 1) lack of interest by a great majority of students and
faculty
( 1) registration and what is signed up for
Methods Used by the Initiator in Securing
Change Toward Relevance in the
Social Sciences
The administrators' responses concerning their
appraisal of the change toward relevance were broken down
into the following categories:
tent or emphasis,
methods, and

(A) changes in course c o n ­

(B) changes in teaching or pedagogical

(C) institutional and/or structural changes.

Many of these categories overlap one another;

therefore,

the following categories are not mutually exclusive,
(A) Changes in course content or emphasis:
(12) introducing new courses
{ 8) revising existing courses
( 4) placing urban emphasis on co urses— societal problems,
urban sociology, inner city
( 3) having a program of specific speakers and special
programs
( 3) introducing several short courses— Tax Help, Consumer
Beware, ADC Child Care, etc.
{ 2) maintaining theory and introducing practical applica­
tion in class
( 1) constantly adapting existing courses to contemporary
problems
( 1) focusing on the life of a particular person as opposed
to man in general
( 1) using open labs
( 1) using learning packages
{ 1) conducting seminars on current issues
( 1) phasing out irrelevant courses
( 1) increasing integrated courses
( 1) maintaining an experimental dimension to as many of
our department offerings as possible

48
( 1) working with social service agencies
( 1) introducing urban studies program
{ 1) granting credit for practicum experiences if properly
analyzed
( 1) providing work study programs
( 1) changing extension of curricular experiences
{ 1) spending the summer traveling the United States studying
small towns
( 1) changing course titles; for an example, Home & Family
Living is now titled Marriage & Human Sexuality--its
relevancy is unquestioned
(
1) experimenting with a United States history course
taught by three professors; one taking the viewpoint of
the British Crown, one taking the viewpoint of the C o l ­
onies and one asking questions of the other two
(
1) using a course advertisement change; for an example in
history, "Would You Like to Examine a Bygone Era That
Has Relevance Today?"
(B) Changes in teaching or pedagogical methods:
( 2) introducing new facilities for teaching
( 1} diversifying the teaching-learning approach to gain
relevance
( 1) scheduling more informal faculty presentations using
examples of everyday life
( 1) training the teaching faculty— Psychology of Learning
for Teachers, faculty workshops of various types, and
continuous communication regarding new procedures
( 1) providing instructors who are available to students-a special assignment instead of teaching a course
( 1) maintaining a faculty with a personal commitment
(C) Institutional and/or structural changes:
(14)
( 5)
( 4)
( 3)
( 3)
( 2)

providing student parity in decision making and
evaluation
developing off-campus programs--field experiences,
community involvement, and community outreach
introducing minority group programs— involving exchange
programs
making it possible for each student to create with his
advisor a curriculum which is uniquely suited to his
needs and objectives
continuously revising objectives and restating the
mission as an institution of higher education
continuing evaluation through the process of annual
letters to all past recipients of graduate degrees, and
the evaluation of students, faculty and administration
currently in operation

49
{
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(

(
(
(

(
(
(
(
{
(
(

2)
2)
1)
1)
1)

offering interim terms (three weeks in one course)
increasing availability of independent studies
providing for greater flexibility in scheduling
introducing new degree programs
instituting the REAP program (Relevance, Experimenta­
tion in Academic Programming
1) increasing library collection and audiovisual areas
1) maintaining standards for our traditional transfers
1) increasing freedom of choice regarding student c u r­
riculum
1) training programs for preparation of youth service
associates and specialists— apprentices
1) developing three inner colleges— a field semester for
all the students, community service courses and parttime jobs
1) adopting the proposal for School of Community Services
and Resources— structured around the social sciences
and to train for careers in government, social work,
etc.— community-related careers
1) development of "interest majors" (tailor-made programs
embracing the 'entire four years)
1) development of tutorial projects
1) development of cluster college--each has a separate
emphasis with particular relevance to students who can
best grow academically under conditions of maximum
freedom
1) use of Project Make-It & General Academic Program to
provide relevance in higher education for students from
disadvantaged backgrounds
1) proposal for University Year for Action Program--under
this program, students spend a year in community ser­
vice and earn an academic year of credit
1) introducing a School of Community Services (school of
human and community development)
1) development of one-year certification programs
1) setting of new goals in terms of outcome rather than
process
1) setting aside such arbitrary traditions as need to be,
which served to impede rather than further
1) maintaining continuous contact with the community--high
school teachers, business, industry, etc.
The R e s p o n d e n t s 1 Appraisal of the
Change Toward Relevance

"Our efforts to increase the relevance of our program have
been . . ."
( 1) Highly successful
( 1) Very successful
(20) Successful

50
(
(
{
(
(
(

1)
1)
2)
1)
1)
1)

Successful and unsuccessful
Fairly successful
Least effective and satisfying
Unsuccessful
Unable to answer
No response

The explanations of success, when indicated, were as
follows

(one e a c h ) :

1.
2.

Student participation in the new programs.
Attractive program to certain donors--fund "futur­
istic" activities.
3.
Unable to say cnere was a connection between what
we did and the outcome.
4.
Programs that were added not a substitute for the
fundamentals of a broad education.
5.
The majority of our courses make application at
every possible point— they are not "ivory tower"
explorations of knowledge without concern for the
"world of affairs."
6.
There may be particulars in each program which p r e ­
vent it from being totally relevant.
7.
Other colleges soon felt the "pressure" to adopt
some of these effective techniques.
8.
All the programs have been effective to the degree
anticipated and for the purposes for which they were
i nt e n d e d .
9. Our efforts to maintain relevance.
10. We could even be more successful.
11. The continued process which becomes an everyday task
for instructors to keep their material relevant.
12. Great support but limited by the budget.
13. It is as successful as can be expected.
14. Based on enrollment support and absence of criticism.
15. Best evidence is the growth of the institution while
many institutions are holding their own or losing
enroll m en t .
The explanations for lack of success in programs toward rele­
vancy, when indicated, were as follows
1.
2.
3.

(one each):

Conservative and nonexploratory character of a great
many students.
Misunderstanding of the term relevance to mean instant
job opportunities, expecially since many of these jobs
will not exist in twenty to thirty years.
Inappropriate to discuss failure.

51
4.
5.

More time (years) to obtain an accurate analysis.
The difficulty which we experience in defining
clear "performance objectives."
Respondents' Appraisal of Reactions of
Administrators, Faculty, Students, and
Others to the Demand for Relevance

Administrators'
A.

as reported by respondents:

Supportive or cooperative:
(5)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(.1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

B.

reactions,

support but limited by the budget
firm believers
most supportive
realize the importance of relevancy responses; w i t h ­
out it the school would have lost its value to the
community and the region
responded positively and affirmatively
unanimously adopted
most receptive to change
whatever makes good educational sense is supportable
as long as it can demonstrate enrollment support
continued cooperation and communication results in
support of those participating
must react; it would be foolhardy on our part to
ignore the process

Resistant or indifferent:
(1) increasing quandry followed by several attempts to
increase interest
(1) as with any change, there is a certain amount of
resistance

C.

(12} No reaction mentioned

Faculty reaction, as reported by respondents:
A.

Supportive or cooperative:
(2) programs were put into effect through cooperation
and supported in the same manner
(1) clearly attempt to minimize the totally irrelevant
and maximize the totally relevant
(1) the majority respond positively because they are all
intimately involved
(1) endorse the administration's belief of importance and
without relevancy responses the school would have lost
its value to the community and the region.
The fac­
ulty also seek new avenues on their own and as a group.

52
(1) general procedures acceptable, although many faculty
have experiences in adjusting their thinking to this
approach
(1) firm believers
(1) responded positively and affirmatively
(1) must react
B.

Resistant or indifferent:
(1) most conservative
(1) reaction of inertia
(1) more traditional; they are concerned but act with the
most careful assessment
(1) move cau tiously— professional interest in preserving
current programs
(1) a large majority display a lack of interest
(1) there is a certain amount of resistance, but for the
most part I am amazed at how quickly such changes
are absorbed

C.

(8) no comment
(2) run the gamut
(1) some resist while others support

Student reaction, as reported by respondents:
A.

Supportive or cooperative:
(1) enthusiastic about it and its possibilities
(1) relevant
(1) respond positively because they are all intimately
involved
(1) expression of satisfaction and a feeling of a c comp­
lishment, yet only 40 out of 17,700 took the course—
may be due to the time involved with no monetary
compensation
(1) support
(1) firm believers and demand the change
(1) various elements have responded positively and
affirmatively
(1) pleased, but a small number participate

B.

Resistant or indifferent:
(1) changes are questioned by those students who plan to
transfer
(1) somewhat conservative— concerned with ability to earn
a living and contribute to society
(1) as with any change there is a certain amount of
resistance, but for the most part most changes are
absorbed and accepted

53
(1) respond favorably with some h e s i t a n c y - c o n c e r n e d with
the transferability of these offerings despite clear
assurances
(1) the programs were put into effect through coopera­
tion; as a result they are accepted, but when people
are involved many hangups occur which tend to be a
deterrent to change including job security, achieve­
ment recognition, finances, etc.
(1) less quick to lend support because of weaker peer
group influence and other interests such as full­
time jobs
(1) feel we don't respond rapidly enough to their p er ­
ception of what is relevant.
Strong feeling ideo­
logical and verbal but not in action or when it
conflicts with self-interest
(1) run the gamut; a large majority disregard interest
Reaction of additional publics,
A.

as reported by respondents:

Supportive or cooperative:
(1) trustees, alumni, donors, neighbors are all for a
forward-moving college, one that keeps up with the
times
(1) other publics pleased
(1) publics— best evidence is through the growth of the
institution; while many institutions are holding
their own or losing enrollment, the past two years
have indicated a growth of nearly 1,000 students
per year
(1) relevant
(1) respond positively because they are all intimately
involved
(1) publics are firm believers
(1) various elements have responded positively and
affirmatively
(1) whatever makes good educational sense
(1) as with any change, there is a certain amount of
resistance from various constituencies.
However,
for the most part, I am amazed at how quickly such
changes are absorbed and accepted by the university
community.

B.

Resistant or indifferent:
(1) townspeople want a practical education--training
ground for future employees
(1) parents are interested in the potential income value
of an education

C.

Ask the people directly who had been involved

54
Responses to open-ended questions are very difficult
to analyze and classify.

From the above data,

it would

appear that supportive responses outnumber indifferent or
resistant responses by about three to two.

"Relevance" is

definitely "in,” and receives, at the least,

strong verbal

approval from most of those who are engaged in the educa­
tional enterprise.
It is impossible to determine from these data how
far beyond lip service this support extends.

One response

reported "satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment"
after 40 of 17,700 students enrolled in a "relevant" course,
but this is not very convincing evidence of resounding
accomplishment.
cessful,

Yet,

if the search for relevance is suc­

its success would be measured not only, or primarily,

in the popularity of new courses, but in the changes in c o n ­
tent, emphasis, and direction of existing courses.

It would

be exceedingly difficult to measure such change in any o bj e c­
tive manner.

In the absence of such measures,

it is signifi­

cant that most of the respondents in this survey reported a
definite belief that the search for relevance has resulted
in an improvement in the quality of education.

CHAPTER V
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS,

IMPLICATIONS,

AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
This study was undertaken to inform administrators
about the variety of current responses to the demand for
relevancy and to interpret the data and their implication
with the idea of making further recommendations of how
administrators in higher education may respond to the demand
for relevancy.
In studying the problems, an attempt was made to
answer such questions as:
of "relevance?"

(1) What has been the perception

(2) How have colleges and universities

responded to the demand for "relevance"?

(3) Which pressure

group or groups have constituted the major driving force for
relevance?

(4) What have apparently been the principal

sources of resistance to the changes proposed in the name of
"relevance"?

(5) How have the changes,

if any, been imple­

mented as colleges and universities have sought to respond
to this demand?
Where significant changes have been introduced,
writer sought to determine:
in operation successful,

the

(1) is the program of "relevancy"

in the opinion of the respondents?
55

56
(2)

Which plan, program, or operation in progress is con­

sidered the most effective?

The least effective?

(3) How

does the administration react to the various responses
toward relevancy?

The faculty?

The students?

(4) How

have the changes in curriculum been received by the several
"publics" of the institutions?
The study acknowledges the delimitations and limi­
tations encountered in such an undertaking.
follows:

They are as

(1) What worked well in one setting may not neces­

sarily be transferable in its entirety to another setting.
(2)

Each institution has certain uniquenesses--this means

that the findings of the research must be broadly inter­
preted in terms of their application to a specific institu­
tion.

(3) The students' perceptions and demands toward

relevancy change rapidly,

and the findings must be reassessed

in the light of student perceptions and demands at the time
any policy implications of this study are used in adm inis­
trative decision making.

Thus the findings of research con­

ducted in the 1 9 6 0 's may not be applicable to the 1970's.
(4) This research may not be "relevant"
than social science.
usual weaknesses:

to disciplines other

(5) Questionnaire responses reflect the

(a) possible biases,

(b)

the respondents'

unfamiliarity with what actually occurred at the institution
or the topic involved, and
some of the respondents'

(c) possible misinterpretation of

answers.

(6) No evaluation of

57
alternative programs was possible within the confines of
this study.
Upon reviewing the literature,

it was found that

the subject of relevancy has been very muc h in evidence
since the age of Plato,
identified by that term.

although until recently it was not
The "cry for relevance" arose in

the 1960's, and it has subsequently produced a flurry of
articles concerning relevance in higher education.
authors felt the topic itself to be irrelevant,

Some

but the

majority of collected citations revealed that the current
demand for relevancy has recently been pressed with a
directness that makes temporization or evasion unsuccessful.
In the mo st recent literature,
relevancy fell in three categories:

the responses toward

student-,

faculty-,

or administration-initiated changes toward relevancy within
the existing structure; modification of the existing struc­
ture initiated by the aforementioned groups or by external
pressure groups; and finally the abolition of the tradi­
tional structure and its replacement by an experimental
structural model.
The college or university population from which the
data were gathered was limited to institutions of higher
learning in the state of Michigan.

Institutional anonymity

was assured to gain greater acceptance of the project by the
respondents.

The "Division of Social Sciences," a represen­

tative division within the colleges and universities, was

58
chosen as the division in which to study the responses
toward relevancy because it appeared likely that an aware­
ness of a need for change toward relevancy would be more
likely to occur in disciplines that deal with the social
sciences.
The questionnaire was selected as the most approp­
riate instrument to use in collecting the necessary data.
College or university presidents were chosen as the source
of information.

The questionnaire method is not without

certain hazards;

therefore, a pilot study was conducted by

sending a preliminary questionnaire to three presidents of
institutions of higher education for their constructive
criticism.

After refining the questionnaire,

seven trial

questionnaires were mailed to presidents of colleges and
universities representative of the types to be surveyed in
the study.

Each respondent was asked to criticize the q u e s ­

tionnaire.

Since no substantive criticisms were received,

the questionnaire was sent to twenty-nine college and un i ­
versity presidents.

All twenty-nine presidents completed

the questionnaire.
The analysis of the data from the questionnaire was
subdivided into five categories:

(1) definition of relevance

as perceived by the respondents to the questionnaire,
(2)

identification of the group or groups that initiated

pressure leading to the change toward relevance,

(3)

iden­

tification of the group or groups that offered primary

59
sources of resistance to the change toward relevancy,
(4)

identification of the strategy used by the initiator of

the change toward relevance as related to those changes in
the social science areas,

and

(5) respondents'

of the change toward relevance.

appraisal

Each question was analyzed

according to like and different answers.

A summary of the

answers to the questionnaire is as follows:
1.
respondents,

The definition of relevance,

as perceived by the

related relevance to the purpose of the college

or university— preparing the students for life.

A minority

of the respondents gave differing definitions of relevancy,
including such things as undefinable,

as a sign of frustra­

tion of our society without necessarily a real demand for
change,

the bridging of the gap between the ideal and the

real and the existing and the operative,

and operationally

defined as consisting of whatever the educator using the
term conceives it to be.
2.

The pressure group or groups responding toward

relevancy were identified as the students,
the administration.

the faculty, and

A significant minority identified "the

demands and needs of the vast community the institution
serves" as an additional significant pressure group.

One

respondent listed the federal government grants as a pressure
factor.

It was indeed a surprise to learn that fully one-

fourth of the respondents stated they were unaware of any
pressure group or groups that constitute a driving force on
the department of social science.

60
3.

In like manner, approximately one-half of

the

respondents were not able to identify any pressure group or
groups that were resisting the responses toward relevancy.
A little fewer than one-half of the respondents identified
resistance toward relevancy as coming from traditionally
oriented faculty,

students,

the board of trustees, and other

external college or university publics.

Two respondents

labelled as a form of resistance the lack of interest on the
part

of the faculty,
4.

the students, and the public.

The respondents listed the changes toward

vancy as occurring in three categories:

rele­

changes toward

relevancy within the existing structure, modification of the
existing structure, and finally the abolishment of the tradi­
tional structure and its replacement by an experimental
structural model.

The respondents gave specific examples of

how their institutions were responding toward relevancy.
Those that appeared to be representative examples of the
majority of the

thinking or unique examples not found in

literature were

chosen for further amplification.

the

Examples of changes within the existing structure
were the following:

the training of the teaching faculty

in the Psychology of Learning for Teachers,

including faculty

workshops of various types and continuous communication
regarding new procedures;

the changing of a course title from

Home and Family

Living to Marriage and Human Sexuality;

having a United

States history course taught jointly by three

61
professors;

changing the course emphasis to relate it to

today's urban city problems;

and continuously getting an

evaluation of the course from all past participants and
present students,

faculty, and administration.

Examples of modifications within the existing struc­
ture were listed by the respondents as follows:

modifying

the course to include an experimental dimension to each
course whenever possible;

adding new courses including "mini"

courses such as "Tax Help,"
etc.;

"Child Care,"

"Consumer Beware,"

rethinking the goals of the course in terms of the

outcome as opposed to the process;
with the aid of their advisors,
designed

for their needs

allowing the students,

to work out a unique program

or goals;

allowing the students to

have equality in the decision-making process concerning many
of the functions of their college;

and planning off-campus

programs to include field experience,

community projects,

and

community outreach.
Examples of the abolition of the traditional struc­
ture and

its replacement

were cited:

development

by experimental structural models
of the REAP program

{Relevance,

Experimentation in Academic Programming), experimental
courses, off-campus programs, regular curriculum revisions,
outside speakers,
students,

and specially developed programs for the

the college, and the community; development of

three inner colleges dealing exclusively with a field
semester for all students, community service courses,

and

62
part-time jobs; and development of the cluster college
concept,

in which each college has a separate emphasis with

particular relevance to students who can best grow academ­
ically under conditions of maximum freedom.
5.

The writer sought to determine the respondents'

own opinions regarding the changes toward relevancy in their
own institutions.

Twenty-one of the twenty-nine respondents

indicated their changes toward relevancy had been successful.
Two more stated that their programs had either been very
successful or highly successful.

Of the six remaining

respondents, one indicated fair success,

two indicated their

changes had been least effective and satisfying, one indi­
cated that at his institution the changes toward relevancy
had been unsuccessful,
to answer,

one respondent indicated he was unable

and one gave no response.

Explanations of success were listed by the res pon­
dents as follows;

The institution has continued to grow in

enrollment while many similar institutions are decreasing
in enrollment or just maintaining their same enrollment,
increasing student participation in the new programs,

and

the changes toward relevancy in the programs were attractive
to certain donors to the institution.
An example of an unsuccessful change cited by one
respondent was that he felt in each program there were p a r­
ticulars that prevented it from being totally relevant.
Another respondent stated he was honestly unable to say

there was a connection between what they did and the o u t ­
come.

The respondents ventured explanations for the fail­

ures of some of their programs.

Some of these explanations

were:

A great m an y students were conservative and nonexplor-

atory;

it was difficult to define clear "performance o b j e c ­

tives";

and some students tended to misunderstand the term

relevance to mean something they could use instantly in
job opportunity.

Some respondents felt not enough time had

elpased to give an accurate appraisal of the programs.
Twelve of the respondents mentioned no reaction on
the part of the administration to the various responses
toward relevancy.

Five respondents said their administra­

tions supported the changes toward relevancy but stated also
that administration support was limited by their budgets.
All but two of the remaining respondents intimated that their
administrations responded positively and affirmatively to
the changes toward relevancy.

Resistance was indicated by

two of the respondents.
In answer to the question of how the administrators
viewed their respective faculties'
toward relevancy,

responses to changes

eight of the twenty-nine made no comment,

nine stated that their faculties favorably endorsed the
changes toward relevancy,

six stated that their faculties

tended to try to preserve the traditional programs,
three said their faculties were split in opinion.

and

64
The respondents'

views of how their students reacted

to the changes toward relevancy were as follows:

Seven of

the twenty-nine stated their students enthusiastically s up ­
ported the changes toward relevancy;

nine said their stu­

dents approved the changes in principle but very few acted
upon their convictions;

and one stated that part of the stu­

dents supported the changes and the other part of the stu­
dents showed little interest in the changes toward relevancy.
The respondents'

beliefs concerning how different

publics responded to the various changes toward relevancy
are as follows:

Nine of the twenty-nine believed the various

publics were highly supportive of the changes toward rele­
vancy;

two stated that the publics were only interested in

the changes toward relevancy if the changes benefited their
own interests;

and one stated that one would have to question

each group directly to ascertain their true feelings;

thir­

teen of the twenty-nine did not respond to the question.
Quite naturally, a study such as this leads to many
varied conclusions,
implications.

and at the same time suggests innumerable

Caution must be exercised

in distinguishing

between the two categories.
Conclusions
1.

The most striking conclusion of this study is

that the idea of relevancy receives overwhelming attention
from almost everyone queried.

The term relevancy has become

an "in" word, one that receives recognition.

65
2.

There is wide disagreement about the meaning of

relevancy and the effective ways of achieving it.

Disagree­

ment among educators regarding the objective of responding
toward relevancy perhaps has no more of an impact on the
various reactions toward relevancy than it might have for
any other goal of education.

It is characteristic of the

field of education that its goals are variously defined by
different educators

(and o t h e r s ) , while the approaches and

procedures for attaining these goals continue to have almost
endless variations.
3.

The majority of the respondents consider their

programs of responding toward relevancy successful.
ever,

How­

the interpretation of the data by an unbiased person

might easily lead to a different version of the success rate.
4.

The quality of the response toward relevancy made

a greater impact on the students participating than did p r o ­
grams renovated by attempting to change quantity factors.
For example, attendance dramatically increased when a course
title was changed from "Home and Family Living"
and Human Sexuality."

to "Marriage

On the other hand, one institution

of higher learning set up a school of community services
within the existing structure and found, much to its chagrin,
that student participation was sadly lacking.
5.

Although the study was begun in the area of

social science, both the literature and the questionnaire
respondents indicated a more general approach toward relevancy.

66
Implicat ions
In addition to providing a basis from which to reach
certain conclusions,

the findings of the study suggest a

number of implications— some of a general nature regarding
responses toward relevancy,

and others that deal mor e spe­

cifically with the actual structural changes themselves.
The following implications seem apparent:
1.

Any program responding toward relevancy requires

funds for its implementation;

therefore,

the institutional

budget must reflect the need for these funds prior to
initiation of the program.
2.

The search for relevancy cannot be mandated by

the administration alone;
and the students as well.

it must be shared by the faculty
Instances were cited in which

one of the three groups involved did not endorse the
response and as a result it was not very successful.
3.

Courses initiated as a response toward r e le ­

vancy are most successful if they are universally accepted;
therefore,

credits should be given for the course and should

be transferable to other institutions of higher learning.
4.

Tradition was one of the factors that stood in

the way of progression toward relevancy.
5.

To achieve greater success,

the various publics

of the institution of higher learning should be well informed
about the responses toward relevancy.

67
6.

The newness of the responses toward relevancy

ma y be handicapped by the limited number of people capable
of implementing such responses.
Recommendations
Upon completion of the investigation and a review
of the findings, conclusions, and implications,

the follow­

ing general recommendations in relation to the topic are
offered:
1.

The first recommendation, which flows directly

from the implications stated above,

is that personnel engaged

in efforts to promote greater responses toward relevance
should ma ke these responses a cooperative endeavor,
to enlist the participation of students,

seeking

faculty, and admin­

istration .
2.

Persons engaged in planning responses toward

relevancy should make the quality of their response rather
than quantity the paramount feature.
3.

Individuals involved in responding toward rele­

vancy would do well to establish communication with other
institutions of higher learning to profit from the successes
and failures of these institutions in similar endeavors.
4.

Initiators of changes toward relevance should

seek universal appeal to assure transferability of course
credits among the institutions of higher learning.

68
5.

The responses toward relevancy may have greater

appeal if they supplement the traditional position rather
than attempt to substitute for the entire past practices.
6.
the student,

A comparative study should be conducted,

in which

faculty, and administration responses toward

relevancy within a single institution are studied.
It is hoped this study will contribute to the improve­
ment of administrators in institutions of higher education.
As* a result of the investigation,

the information gained

might have specific implications for:

(1) improving adm in­

istrative responses regarding relevancy;

(2) improving the

insight of the administrator about what other administrators
are doing when faced with the same "cry for relevance,'1 but
operating within similar or different structures;
in building a more effective curriculum;

(3) aiding

(4) providing insight

into the administrative decision of whether to adhere to c u r ­
riculum change toward relevancy or continue within the exist­
ing framework; and

(5) reviewing plans for responding toward

relevancy--tradition, modification of tradition, or depar­
tures from tradition.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A
SELECTED RESPONSES OF EDUCATORS
TOWARD RELEVANCY

70

APPENDIX A
SELECTED RESPONSES OF EDUCATORS
TOWARD RELEVANCY
1.

Educators who question the search for relevancy
William F. Henry

(1969) approvingly quoted Barzum

a.s feeling that "relevancy" is a label for triviality and
sloppy scholarship:
. . . Another important concern of the student and
faculty is relevancy.
What is meant by relevancy?
One of the major reporters of the current academic scene,
Professor Jacques Barzum, has a great deal to say about
relevancy in a recent book.
He was for many years P r o ­
vost of Columbia University, leaving that post in 1967
just prior to the Columbia confrontation.
He believes
that relevancy is "the love of the mishmash, the passion
for dissolving unities."
He says this "is only another
label for dissolution, and it is important to recognize
that teachers share the blame for aiding this subver­
sion, by their easy compliance with external demands."
Finally, he says that "the relevance question is indeed
a clue to the whole degeneration of thought and language
from which the academy now suffers"(p. 25).
Jacques Barzun

(1968)

elsewhere criticized the idea

of relevancy in the words:
The belief that a curriculum can be devised and kept
relevant to the present is an illusion:
whose present,
in the first place, and relevant for how long?
Students
differ in tastes, knowledge, and emotional orientation.
What concerns (or "excites") one four-year generation
will bore the next, as anyone can verify by reference to
popular music.
And so it is with literature, politics,
and the current view of creeds and crises.
If a university is not to become an educational
weather vane, a sort of weekly journal published orally
by aging Ph.D.'s, it must avoid all "relevance" of the
obvious sort.
The spirit of its teaching will be
71

72
relevant if its members are good scholars and really
teach.
Nearly everywhere there is enough free choice
among courses so that no student is imprisoned for
long in anything he cannot make relevant, if he will
only forget the fantasy of instant utility (pp. 71-72).
2.

Educators who support the search for relevancy
Earl J. McGrath

(1972)

stated:

Two eminent scholars, one in philosophy and the
other in psychology, have spoken out strongly against
the over-specialization which now exists in their d i s ­
ciplines and the devitalizing remoteness of learning
from life.
Abraham Kaplan, professor of philosophy at
the University of Michigan, in an article for this m a g ­
azine ("The Travesty; of the Philosophers," January,
1970), observed, "the gap is widening in our time
between professed philosophies and the philosophies men
live by. . . . The disinterested pursuit of understand­
ing for its own sake is surely the very essence of the
philosophical quest.
But, though the motivation is
admirable, the subject matters in which it finds expres­
sion often reduce philosophy to what is at best a h a r m ­
less pastime and at worst a trivial mental exercise."
The late Abraham Maslow, former president of the Ameri­
can Psychological Association, in reviewing the rela­
tionship between the corpus of learning in his field
and the activities of ordinary men, observed that "much
of the substance of teaching and research in psychology,
while not untrue, is trivial, and of little help to a n y ­
one wishing to come to grips with the major human p rob ­
lems of the day. . . . That students have sometimes
mistaken immediacy for relevance cannot be denied.
For
example, some have failed to see that a study of John
Stuart Mill's On Liberty may be more relevant and p rac ­
tically useful to a consideration of students' rights of
free expression than the impassioned complaints of c on­
temporaries whose intemperate utterances on social
issues offend the establishment.
Through the efforts
of a teacher accustomed to exposing the broad human
significance of historical events, what occurred at
Runnymede in 1215 may be shown to be acutely relevant
to current discussions of representational democracy.
Nevertheless, despite some student misconceptions about
relevance, X, unlike some critics, do not consider their
ideas irrelevant to the purposes and substance of learn­
ing. . . . "
It is undeniable, however, that they are
arguing for a hierarchy of values in the body of knowl­
edge determined by relevance to the problems of life
rather than to the rest of the body of knowledge (p. 8).

73
Rodney T. Hartnett

(1972) defended the search for

relevance against its critics:
Much of the preceding argument or defense of the
need for non-traditional study programs is based on
the inflexible nature of the higher education system—
particularly its inability to respond to the needs of
students who do not fit the mold. . . .
Some of those reluctant to endorse the concept of
non-traditional study are concerned primarily with the
problem of maintaining quality, or preventing a de ter ­
ioration in "what the degree stands for."
. . . Though
there is an appealing logic to the quality-control
argument--and it should not be lightly dismissed— there
is a major flaw. . . . Course performance resulting in
a "A" grade at one institution would result in failure
at certain other colleges.
Because of this great d i f ­
ference across institutions— a diversity we have always
cherished— it is simply foolish to argue that a tradi­
tional college degree has uniform meaning or connotes
some minimal educational standards.
Daniel Bell

(1966) dismissed a false dichotomy:

. . . is not the specious one of "breadth" versus
"depth", which implies a nonsensical choice between
superficiality and competence.
The central problem is
rather relevant breadth versus a limited and dangerously
irresponsible competence.
Such personal competence may
be equivalent to social incompetence; it may either
ignore the moral and political consequences of what the
specialist does or may permit him to make decisions on
behalf of the society for which he is in fact unequipped
(p. ix) .
Michael W. Apple

(1971) expressed a fear or overkill

in observing:
"Relevance" is by now so overused that it is in
danger of losing its meaning and usefulness. . . .
An aversion to the term "relevance" itself is
now a possibility.
This is a pity since the problem
it speaks to is significant.
One would hope that
linguistic overkill will not lessen the sense of
urgency (p. 504).
Earle H. West

(1969)

summed up what appears to be

the majority view of educators in saying:

74
Throughout the questioning of institutional forms and
the challenging of accepted modes of interpretation,
the notion of relevance has had wide currency.
It
has become a powerful term— so powerful in fact that
it can make or break an educational program (p. 1).
Plans, Changes and Evaluation Programs
in Operation
1.

Student-, faculty-, administration-initiated changes
within the present structure
Newsweek

(1972) described another example of faculty-

initiated change:
If these courses in winemaking, folk singing and
yoga give Mankato State an aura of radicalism, the
image is misleading.
For this erstwhile teachers'
college, now a strapping institution of 12,000 stu­
dents, still reflects the sober background of its rural
setting in southern Minnesota.
And the courses them­
selves, far from representing any attempt to turn
Mankato State into a counterculture "free school,"
merely reflect an inventive brand of oldfashioned
school spirit.
Mankato's mini-courses originated in reaction to
a decline of some 600 students in the college's total
enrollment.
Because state aid funds are based on the
number of credit hours taken by students and the tui­
tion fees they pay, it appeared that the reduced
enrollment would cost 36 faculty members their jobs
this year and next.
Then a solution occurred to
James Andersen, an associate professor of mathematics.
”1 knew we couldn't just go out in the street and pick
up more students," he recalls.
"So it seemed that the
only way to save those faculty jobs was to have every
student carry two or three more credits."
The problem
was handed over to a student "Crisis Campaign for E d u ­
cation Committee," which developed the mini-course
concept.
At the committee's urging, the 7 00 faculty
members dreamed up no fewer than 744 one-credit courses,
and a prospectus was circulated among the students and
the 38,000 residents of the Mankato area itself. . . .
Ultimately, more than 2,500 prospective students signed
up, including 600 from off-campus.
Although few of the mini-courses would ever see
the light of day in a traditional curriculum, most of
them have considerable practical value.

75

The
Mankato
all the
install
2.

mini-courses are proving so successful that a
State faculty committee, which will evaluate
courses at the end of the term, is expected to
man y of them in the official curriculum (p. 44) .

Interdisciplinary programs searching for relevance
Interdisciplinary change toward relevancy,

under

the term general education, has been summarized by Douglas
Dunham's

(1971) plan for the future when he said:

The students are demanding more flexibility in
curriculum, more "relevancy" in subject matter con­
tent and a wider range of choice.
And therein lies the
opportunity.
To be sure students do not call what they
are asking for "general education" but the essence of
the general education philosophy is nonetheless there.
For general education is not hamstrung by the demands
of the academic tradition which so tightly binds the
specialized disciplines (unless it perceives itself
to be or lets itself be so b o u n d ) . It is further not
restrained by the need to train individuals for voc a­
tional competency or even for entrance to a graduate
program (although it does contribute in a meaningful
way to b o t h ) . Thus the general education program is in
a particularly advantageous position to respond to stu­
dent demands for change and to respond in a respectable
— if not in a traditional way.
Student appeasement is
not envisioned here nor is it contemplated that general
education faculties engage in a popularity contest or
pandering.
It does mean that general education almost
alone can respond meaningfully— free from the constraints
that bind the traditional departmental curricula of the
college or university.
Such constraints as there may
be--and only the unrealistic would suggest that there
are none in general education— are more structural than
philosophical, more professoral than educational.
Three characteristics ought to dominate any p r o ­
posed program geared to the new opportunity for g e n ­
eral education:
one quite traditional, a second a
modification of traditional and the third and perhaps
most fundamental departures from tradition— a totally
new look in curriculum building.
First, the traditional competencies and intellec­
tual skills which we have come to expect as goals and
outcomes of a college or university education would
continue to prevail.
This is simply a "means" question
rather than an "ends" question.

76
Second, traditional modes of structuring would not
be completely abandoned.
The complementary curriculum
would still have to "add up to something."
Intellec­
tual dilettantism or fadish eclecticism would have to
be avoided.
Freedom of choice should not be equated
to the total absence of structure.
Careful advising
and tailoring a meaningful program for the student would
be essential and critical for the success of the pro­
gram.
But modifications contemplated would provide for
a "structured flexibility."
Prerequisites for admission
to courses would be kept to a minimum; credits would not
necessarily be geared to a specified number of con­
tract hours for a specified number of weeks over a span
of four years.
For some students this may be the most
feasible course of action and they could plan accord­
ingly.
Flexibility in pedagogical techniques would
also be of fundamental importance, including but not
limited to independent or directed study, seminars,
off-campus experiences, team teaching plus utilization
of various instructional media.
Open course numbers
for the occasional student-planned-and-structured course
might also be considered.
But these matters are largely
mechanical and only partially philosophical.
Since so
few of today's professors seem to read in matters of
educational philosophy or curriculum building possi­
bilities (if it is not directly germane to their d i s ­
ciplinary orientation) mechanics may constitute a pr ob­
lem.
But by and large most faculty can come to terms
if reluctantly with some of the mechanical items
But the third characteristic is the heart of the m a t ­
ter and the key to the opportunity for general education.
It might also be the storm center of faculty opposition.
The substantive content would not necessarily "fit" any
particular field.
Certainly it would not look like any ­
thing that professors have come to associate with col­
lege or university curricula.
Thus all general education
courses with the new look would scrupulously avoid the
traditional departmental tag.
They might be labeled
Comprehensive Studies— or University Studies--. . . .
The point should be that these new courses would not be
the "property" of a given department or of a given
professor.
They would belong to the "college" or the
"university."
Even the interdisciplinary courses offered
on some campuses tend to be too restrictive and for the
most part are bound by the departmental disciplines where
taught or administered.
. . . Our stand is not on specific substance so much
as it is on approach to substance.
If we take this posi­
tion, then the new look curriculum can provide a real
opportunity to achieve something both for ourselves as

77

faculty members and perhaps more importantly for our
students which we heretofore have been unable to
accomplish. . . (pp. 10-12).
Earl J. McGrath

(1972)

indicated some interdiscipli­

nary changes already in his description:
If I understand what students mean by the term
"relevance," they, too, are advocating exactly the
kinds of instruction some of us had in mind a ge nera­
tion ago.
As we did, they reject the idea that one
must pursue long sequences of esoteric specialized
instruction in each of the related disciplines in order
to come to grips with the sociological, political, ps y­
chological, and ecological problems of our times.
They
want to attack these problems by bringing knowledge to
bear on them in a unified and integrated rather than a
fragmented manner.
The method of approach to curriculum construction
that I am proposing— organizing study around the prob­
lems to be solved, rather than making up patchwork
courses from whatever bits specialists think are neces­
sary to know about their subject— is by no means novel.
It derives from John Dewey's ideas that education
should begin with real situations, . . . Some insti­
tutional units at the General College of the University
of Minnesota were based on these theories, and the
entire program developed by W. W. Charters at Stephens
College was based upon a detailed analysis of the every­
day activities of women.
Evaluated only in terms of the systematic mastery
of a formal body of knowledge represented by the sub­
ject matter of the several disciplines, this type of
educational experience may be considered superficial.
However, appraised as the application of an integrated
body of fact and theory to an understanding of genuine
human experience, such an approach is richly rewarding.
The long-run influence of pollution on the whole human
enterprise can be used as a typical or problem area.
A knowledgeable person in each related field could,
without too much effort, make a catalog of the existing
problems.
Only after this had been done should the
relevant subject matter be brought to bear on them.
Hopefully scholars could prune away all the esoteric
material only remotely related to the topics under
consideration, . . .
If one accepts this approach, the general education
program would consist of matters with which all thought­
ful citizens must be concerned. . . . These would

78
provide the essential substance of a general education
regardless of students' various other interests (pp. 8-9).
3.

N e w structural models
Fred A. Nelso

(1972) commented upon the growing

interest in the "Open Un i v e r s i t y " :
Despite these early efforts and programs (The U n i ­
versity of London has been awarding a degree by assess­
ment or examination since 193 6, and Harvard has pro­
vided degree programs for part-time students through
its Commission on Extension Courses since 1913), the
creation of Great Britain's Open University in 1969,
perhaps more than any other single event, galvanized
American interest in external degrees, continuing edu­
cation for adults, and the education potential of tech­
nology.
This remarkable American fascination with the
Open University, in my view, is based on triple hopes:
the hope of effecting economics in higher education,
the hope of serving new student clienteles, and the
hope of interjecting genuine innovation into higher
education through new curriculums, the media, and other
instructional technology (p. 11).
Samuel Baskin

(1969)

concluded a discussion of the

"Open University" with a plea for open-minded evaluation
of educational innovation:
In short, my fundamental conclusion is not for or
against, . . . but a plea to pay close attention to
developing a better methodology than we have now for
understanding the process of education innovation and
curriculum development.
By this I mean an effort to
be much clearer about what our objectives are in under­
graduate education, to work much harder to find ways
of measuring and evaluating the innovations that we
develop, and to study more closely the process of
change and the institutional architecture that is
needed to make enduring change really possible (p. 7).

APPENDIX B
QUESTIONNAIRE LETTER
FOLLOW-UP LETTER

79

APPENDIX B
QUESTIONNAIRE LETTER

October 15, 1972
Dear _______________:
In the past decade on college and university campuses there
has been a demand for "relevance."
It is with this thought
in mind that a pilot study is being conducted in the Social
Science area.
For our purpose we would appreciate your
response from your institution concerning the departments
of Anthropology, Economics, History, Psychology and Soci­
ology.
Your cooperation in obtaining answers to the fol­
lowing questions will be appreciated.
1.

The definition of relevance as perceived by the
reader.

2.

How has your institution responded to the demand
for relevance?

3.

Which pressure group or groups constituted the main
driving force?

4.

What, in your estimation, have apparently been the
primary sources of resistance to the change toward
relevance?

5.

How were the changes, if any, implemented or ways
sought to respond to relevance at your institution
in Social Sciences areas mentioned in the first
paragraph?

Your identification or your college will not in any way be
revealed, as it is the total picture in which we are
interested.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely yours,
Marylou Robins

80

81
FOLLOW-UP LETTER
October 15, 1973
Dear _________________ :
After spending a considerable amount of time mulling over
your correspondence of __________ in reply to my letter on
relevance, and my subsequent thoughts in response to it,
my first wish is to say "thank you" for your answers to
the questions asked and to say thank you especially for
your additional comments which were, in most cases, very
enlightening and informative.
The purpose of the project
is to learn as much as is possible, in the amount of time
allotted, about the topic "relevance" in higher education.
Your opinions have helped the reader a great deal.
The changes in response to "relevance" (under many names)
have been taking place for many years--they became more
identifiable under the term "relevance" in the 1960's and,
as indicated by many of you, this term is fading out but
the process is not.
Several of the administrators and faculty have indicated
an interest in learning the outcome of this project.
This
reader will share with those interested the final data and
their possible implications when the project is complete.
This letter contains two messages:
The first message thanks
you with most sincere appreciation for your help; and the
second is a request for an answer to the following question:
In your opinion . . .
How does the administration react to the various
responses toward relevancy?
How do the faculty, the
students and the several "publics" react to the v a r ­
ious responses toward "relevancy"?
The reader realizes that to be most accurate a representative
of each of these groups would have to be asked directly each
question, BUT IT IS YOUR OPINION THAT IS DESIRED AT THIS TIME.
Thank you again for your help to this reader and for cour­
tesies extended in behalf of this project.
Sincerely,
Marylou Robins

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agee, James.
A Death in the F a m i l y .
and Dunlap, 1957.

New York:

Grosset

Apple, Michael W.
"Relevance— Slogans and Meanings."
Educational F o r u m , XXXV (May, 1971), 503-507.

The

Arrowsmith, W.
Keynote address to the meeting of the
American Council on Education, Washington, D.C.,

1966.

Axelrod, Joseph; Freedman, Mervin B.; Hatch, Winslow R . ;
Katz, Joseph; and Sanford, Nevitt.
Search for Rele­
vance . San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1969.
Barzun, Jacques.
The American University:
How It Runs,
Where It Is G o i n g . New York:
Harper & Row, 1968.
Baskin,

Samuel.
University Without Walls:
A First R e p o r t .
Yellow Springs, Ohio:
Union for Experimenting C o l ­
leges and Universities, 1969.

Bell, Daniel.
York:

The Reforming of General E duc ati on.
Columbia University Press, 1966.

New

Brickman, W. W . , and Lehrer, Stanley (eds.).
Conflict and
Change on the Campus:
The Response to Student
Ilyperactivism. New York:
School and Society Books,
1970.
Donaldson, Robert C.
"A Response to Student Unrest."
Kappa Phi J o u r n a l , XLIX (Fall, 1969), 36-41.
Dunham,

Phi

Douglas.
"General Education in the 7 0 's."
Univer­
sity College Q uart e r l y , XVI (May, 1971), 3-12.

Fitzgerald and M a r k e r , E. F.
"The Chabot College Tutorial
Program."
"The College."
Hayward, C a l i f orn ia, 1967.
(Mimeographed.)
Garrity, Donald L.
"Response to Student Demands for Rele­
vance."
Stress and Campus Response, Current Issues in
Higher E d u c a t i o n . Edited by G. Kerry Smith.
San
Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1968.

83

84

Good, Carter V. ; Barr, A. S.; and Scates, D. E.
The M eth od­
ology of Educational R e s e a r c h . New York:
AppletonCentury Company, 1936.
Hartnett, Rodney T.
"Difficulties and Issues in NonTraditional Study."
Explorations in Non-Traditional
S t u d y . Edited by Samuel B. Gould and K. Patricia
Cross.
San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1972.
_________ . "Non-Traditional Study: An Overview."
Explora­
tions in Non-Traditional S t u d y . Edited by Samuel B.
Gould and K. Patricia Cross.
San Francisco:
JosseyBass, I n c . , 1972.
Henry, William F.
"The Issues in Campus Unrest."
Phi J o u r n a l , XLIX (Fall, 1969), 21-27.
Hillway, Tyrus.
Handbook of Educational R e s e a r c h .
Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1969.
Holmes,

Phi Kappa
Boston:

Robert M.
The Academic Mystery House; The Man, the
Campus, and Their New Search for M e a n i n g . Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1970.

Jaeger, W.
Paideia:
The Ideals of Greek C u l t u r e .
York:
Oxford University Press, 1939.

New

Jencks, Christopher, and Riesman, David.
The Academic
Re vol uti on. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and
Company, Inc., 1968.
Katz, J., and Associates.
No Time for Youth Growth and
Restraint in College S t u d e n t s . San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1968.
Mawdsley, Jack K.
"A Study of the Delegation of Adminis­
trative Tasks by Principals of the Large High Schools
in Michigan as Related to Selected Variables."
Unpublished Ed.D. thesis, Michigan State University,
1968 .
Mayhew, Lewis B.
Arrogance on C a m p u s .
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1970.

San Francisco:

"The New Colleges."
Higher Education:
Some
New Developments. Edited by S, Baskin.
New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1965.
McGrath, Earl J.
"Bring Back General Education."
September, 1972, pp. 8, 9, 64.

Change,

85

Morgan, George A.
"A New Interdisciplinary Curriculum."
New Teaching, N e w Learning;
Current Issues in
Higher E d u c a t i o n . Edited by G. Kerry Smith.
San
Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1971.
Moser, C. A.
Survey Methods in Social Investigation.
London:
Heinemann Educational Books, 1968.
Nelso, Fred A.
"The Open University in the U.S."
Five
Articles on Non-traditional Educational C o n c e p t s .
Reprinted from the College Board Review, LXXXV (Fall,
1972), 11.
N e w s w e e k , February 28, 1972, p. 44.
Nisbet,

Robert A.
Business."
1-7.

"The University Had Better Mind Its
Psychology Today, IV (March, 1971),

Pace, C. Robert.
"New Concepts in Institutional Goals for
Students."
The Liberal Arts College's Responsibility
for the Individual S t u d e n t . Edited by Earl J.
McGrath.
New York:
Teachers College Press, Columbia
University, 1966.
Parten, Mildred.
Surveys, Polls, and Samples:
Practical
Procedu res . New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1950.
Schutz, Alfred.
Reflections on the Problem of Rel ev a n c e .
New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1970.
Schwebel, Robert.
"Wakening Our Sleepy Universities:
Student Involvement in Curriculum Change; Free
Universities and Experimental Colleges."
Record,
LXX (October, 1968), 31-43.
Shelly, Maynard W. Ill, and Bryan, Glen L.
Human Judgments
and Optim ali ty. New York:
John Wiley and Sons,
Inc., 1964.
Shirk, Evelyn.
"The Erosion of Excellence."
(October, 1972), 22-23.

Intellect, Cl

Smith, R. L.
"Relevant to What?"
Michigan Tech A l u m n u s ,
XXXVIII (January-February, 1970), 3.
West, Earle H.
"The Concept of Relevance."
The Journal of
Negro E d u c a t i o n , XXXVIII (Winter, 1969), 1-3.
Yatvin, Joanne.
"Things Ain't the Way They Used to Be in
the English Classroom." English J o u r n a l , LX (Novem­
ber, 1971), 1080-1085.

86
General References
Allen, James E.
An Open University, External Degree Program
for M ass a c h u s e t t s . Princeton, New Jersey:
Woodrow
Wilson School, 1971.
Ansbro, John J.
"An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Liberal
Education."
Liberal E d u c a t i o n , LIV {December, 19 68),
521-527.
Berelsow, Bernard
Ne w York:

(ed.).
The Behavioral Sciences T o d a y .
Basic Books, Inc., 1963.

Bess, James C . , and Bilorsky, John A.
"Curriculum Hypoc­
risies:
Studies of Student-Initiated Courses."
University Q u a r t e r l y , XXIV (Summer, 1970), 291-309.
Best, John W.
Research in E d u c a t i o n . Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey:
Prentice -Ha ll, Inc., 1959.
Bolman, Frederick deW.
"University Reform and Institutional
Research."
The Journal of Higher E d u c a t i o n , XLI
(February, 1970), 85-97.
Booth, Wayne C. (ed.).
The Knowledge Most Worth H a v i n g .
Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1967.
Boulding, Kenneth; Ericksen, Stanford C.; and Hodgkinson,
Harold.
Effective College Teaching:
The Quest
for R ele van ce. Washington, D.C.:
American A sso cia ­
tion for Higher Education, 1970.
Bowen,

Howard R . , and Douglass, Gordon K.
Efficiency in
Liberal Education:
A Study of Comparative Instruc­
tional Costs for Different Ways of Organizing
Teaching-Learning in a Liberal Arts C o l l e g e . Report
prepared for the Macalester Foundation; issued by
the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.
New
York:
McGraw-Hill, 1971.

Boyd, William B.
"College Curriculum Design:
The Case for
More Student Power."
College Board R e v i e w , Winter,
1969, pp. 7-10.
Brick, M . , and McGrath, E. J.
Innovation in Liberal Arts
C o l l e g e s . New York:
Teachers College Press, 1969.
Brown, Robert D.
"Evaluation of Experimental Colleges:
Some Questions That Need Asking."
The Journal of
Higher E duc ati on, XLIII (February, 1972), 133-141.

87
Brune, Lester H. , and Simmons, Charles E. P.
"Reviving the
Dinosaur:
A New History Department."
The Journal
of General E d u c a t i o n , XXII (July, 1970), 93-104.
Burns,

Richard W . , and Brooks, Gary D. (eds.). Curriculum
Design in a Changing S o c i e t y . Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.:
Educational Technology Publications, 1970.

Burton, Arthur (ed.).
"The Theory and Practice of Encounter
Groups."
E n c o u n t e r . San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass,
In c., 1969.
Calabro, Hilda.
"Student Initiative for Curricular Change."
Improving College and University T e a c h i n g , XVII
(Summer, 1969), 164-165.
Carlin, Edward A., and Blackman, Edward B. (eds.).
Cur­
riculum Building in General E d u c a t i o n . Dubuque,
Iowa:
Wm. C. Brown Company, 196 0.
Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.
Less Time, M o r e ’
Options:
Education Beyond the High S c h o o l . New
York:
McGraw-Hill, 1971.
_________ . New Students and New Places:
Policies for the
Future Growth and Development of American Higher
E d u c a t i o n . Hightstown:
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1972.
Carpenter, Marjoried (ed.).
The Larger L e a r n i n g .
Iowa:
Wm. C. Brown Co., 1960.

Dubuque,

Chickering, Arthur W. Education and Id entity.San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1969.
Crary, Ryland W.
Humanizing the School Curriculum Develop­
ment and T h e o r y . New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1969.
Cron,

Alice, and Cron, Lester D. (eds.).
American E d u c a t i o n . N ew York:
1964.

Vital Issues in
Bantam Books, Inc.,

"Curriculum Power; Student Demands for New Course Offerings."
Time, September 15, 1967, pp. 50-52.
Doll, Ronald C.
Curriculum Improvement:
Decision-Making
and P r o c e s s . Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1964.
Driscoll, William J.
"A Rationale for Independent Study
Degree Programs."
School and S o c i e t y , IC (November,
1971), 411-413.

88
Dressel, Paul Leroy.
College and University C urr ic u l u m .
Berkeley, C a l i f . : McCutchaw Publishing Corpora­
tion, 1968.
_________ . Undergraduate Curriculum T r e n d s . Washington,
D . C . : American Council on Education, 1969.
Eurich, Neil, and Schwen kme yer , Berry.
Great Britain's
Open University:
First Chance, Second Chance, or
Last Chance?
Paper No. 5. New York:
Academy
for Educational Development.
Foley, James A., and Foley, Robert K.
The College S c e n e .
New York:
Cowles Book Co., 1969.
Freedman, Morris.
"Black Studies and Standard Curriculum."
The Journal of Higher E d u c at ion , XLIII (January,
1971), 34-41.
Frutkin,

Ren.
"Dazzling Alternatives."
Yale Alumni M aga ­
zi ne, December, 1970, pp. 14-19.

Furniss, W. Todd,
"Degrees for Non-Traditional Students:
An Approach to New Models."
American Council on
Education Special R e p o r t , April 9, 1971, p. 8.
Gallagher, Buell G . ; Nader, Ralph; Cleveland, Harlan; and
Hatfield, Mark O. The Troubled C a m p u s . 1970 edition of
Current Issues in Higher Education. Washington, D.C. :
American Association for Higher Education, 1970.
Gardner, J. W.
"Only Self-Renewing Institutions Can Handle
Today's Revolutions," Los Angeles T i m e s , January 1,
1969.
Garrity, Donald L.
"Response to Student Demands for Rele­
vance."
Stress and Campus Res p o n s e . Edited by
G. Kerry Smith.
San Fancisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc.,
1968.
Good, Carter V.
Essentials of Educational R e s e a r c h .
York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 19 66.

New

G o o d m a n , P a u l . Compulsory Mis-education and the Community
of Sch o l a r s . New York:
Random House, Vintage
Books, 19 64.
Hamilton, Blared (ed.).
Free Universities, Experimental
Colleges and Free S c h o o l s . Washington, D . C . :
Student Association, 1968.

89
Hodgkinson, H. L.
Education, Interaction, and Social
C h a n g e . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
P rentice-Hall,
1967.
Howe,

Irving.
"Universities and Intellectuals."
Winter, 1964, p. 11.

Dessent,

Jerome, Judson. Culture Out of Anarchy:
The Reconstruction
of American Higher L e a r n i n g . New York:
Herder &
Herder, 1970.
Kruutbosch, Carlos, and Messenger, S. L.
The State of the
University:
Authority and C h a n g e . Beverly Hills:
Sage Publications, 1970.
Llorens, David. "What Good the Word Without the Wisdom or
'English Ain't Relevant.'"
College Composition and
Co mmunication, XXII (October, 1971), 209-214.
Martin, Warren Bryan.
"The Case for Curriculum Options."
Educational R e c o r d , LI (Winter, 1970), 14-21.
Mayhew, Lewis B . , and Ford, Patrick J.
Changing the Cur­
ri c u l u m . San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1971.
Metha, Arlene.
ing."
42-44.

"The College Student:
His Search for M e a n ­
Phi Kappa Phi J o u r n a l , XLIX (Fall, 1969),

Miles, Matthew B. (ed.). Innovation in E d u c a t i o n . New
York:
Bureau of Publication, Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1964.
Olive, Betsy Ann.
"The Administration of Higher Education."
Administrative Science Q u a r t e r l y , March, 1967.
Phenix, Philip H.
Education and t h e .Structure of K now led ge.
Chicago:
Rand McNally and Co., 1964.
Praeger,

Frederick A.
Anthrop olo gy.
I n c ., 19 65.

The Relevance of Models for Social
New York:
Frederick A. Praeger,

Runkel, Philip (ed.).
The Changing College C l a s sro om.
San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1969.
Sanford, Nevitt.
Where Colleges F a i l .
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1967.

San Francisco:

Schrag, Peter.
"The End of the Great Tradition."
Saturday
Review of L i t e ra tur e, February 15, 1965, pp. 94-95.

90
Schwab, Joseph Jackson.
College Curriculum and Student
Pr ot e s t . Chicago:
University of Chicago Press,
1969.
Skolnick and Currie (eds.).
Crisis in American Institu­
ti o n s . Chicago:
Little, Brown and Co., 1970.
Smith,

G. Kerry (ed.).
New Teaching, New Learning; Current
Issues in Higher Edu cat ion . San Francisco:
JosseyBass, I n c . , 1971.

Snyder, Benson R.
The Hidden Cur ric u l u m .
Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

New York:

Stretch, Bonnie B.
"The Rise of the 'Free S c h o o l . ’"
Saturday R e v i e w , LIII (June 20, 1970), 76-79.
Taylor, Harold.
Students Without Teaching, the Crisis in
the Universi ty. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1969.
Urofsky, Melvin I.
"Ideal Curriculum Designed by Students."
Journal of Higher E duc ati on, XXXIX (December, 1968),
515-517.
Wafford,

Harris, Jr.
Whose Goals for American Edu ca t i o n .
Washington, D.C.:
American Council on Education,
1968.

Wilson, Logan.
"Alternatives to College for Everybody."
Shaping American Higher E d u c a t i o n . Washington, D.C.:
American Council on Education, 1972.
Woodring, Paul.
The Higher Learning in America:
A
Reassessment. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Wootton, Lutian.
"Curriculum:
A Changing Concept."
Educational L ead er s h i p , XXVII (April, 1970), 692-696.