Some of the nation’s leading college presidents and deans of education schools were scheduled to meet this week at Pajaro Dunes, a resort area near Monterey, Calif., to discuss what role research universities, their education schools, and their presidents should play in helping to improve the nation’s elementary and high schools.
The meeting was convened by Derek Bok, president of Harvard University, and Donald Kennedy, president of Stanford University.
“Of all the forces shaping the nation’s schools, universities have been playing a minor role. This contrasts sharply with the situation 25 years ago,” said J. Myron Atkin, dean of Stanford’s education school.
Other participants at the meeting included: Hannah H. Gray, president of the University of Chicago; Michael I. Sovern, president of Columbia University; Harold T. Shapiro, president of the University of Michigan; Robert O’Neill, president of the University of Wisconsin System; Lawrence Cremin, dean of Teachers College, Columbia University; and Bernardo R. Gifford, dean of the school of education at the University of California at Berkeley.
Also attending: Patricia Albjerg Graham, dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Robert M. Rosenzweig, president of the Association of American Universities; Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; and Fred M. Hechinger, president of the New York Times Foundation.
The Landmark School of Pride’s Crossing, Mass., a private school for students with learning disabilities, plans to turn the campus of the now-defunct Windham College in Putney, Vt., into the nation’s first college for dyslectic students.
The 11-building campus was closed in 1978 because of financial difficulties and has most recently been the property of the U.S. Education Department.
This month, ed accepted the Landmark School’s bid of $400,000 to establish a three-year junior college for dyslectic students. School officials say the college could open as early as the fall of 1984 with an enrollment of 40 to 50 students.
Putney already has an elementary school for dyslectic students--the Greenwood School--which enrolls boys ages 8 to 12.
Cost of tuition and fees will rise 12 percent at public four-year colleges and universities this fall and 11 percent at private institutions, the College Scholarship Service announced late last month.
At four-year public colleges, charges for tuition and fees in 1983-84 will average $1,105, compared with $979 last year. Tuition and fees at private institutions will average $4,627, up from $4,021 last year, according to the scholarship service, the financial-aid division of the College Board.
The estimates are based on survey responses from some 2,600 public and private institutions.
At two-year public colleges, tuition and fees will rise by 9 percent, to an average of $621. At two-year private institutions, tuition charges will average $3,094, an increase of 11 percent from 1982-83.
College students are generally satisfied with life in the college classroom, but they are less happy with institutional services such as academic advising and career counseling. And few college students believe that their college experiences have markedly improved their abilities to work independently, to communicate with others, to understand other cultures, to obtain academic self-confidence, or to become leaders.
These are the results of a national survey conducted in 1982 by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles. The survey was a follow-up of a poll of freshmen who entered college in 1978 and 1980.
Some 84.3 percent of the college students said they were satisfied with courses in their major fields, while about three-quarters of the students said they were satisfied with the overall quality of instruction, with the available opportunities to discuss classwork, and with extracurricular activities.
But only 36.6 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with the career counseling available, and about 40 percent said they were satisfied with academic advising and job-placement services.
The survey also revealed that only 40 percent of the students who entered four-year institutions said their analytical and problem-solving skills had improved, and only 30 percent said their ability to work independently is much stronger than when they entered college in 1978. Fewer than 30 percent of the 1978 freshmen reported major gains in such areas as cultural awareness, interpersonal skills, speaking and writing skills, academic self-confidence, and leadership skills.
Copies of the survey, The American College Student, 1982, are available for $8 from the Higher Education Research Institute, Graduate School of Education, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90024.
When Gov. George Deukmejian of California slashed $1.12 billion from the $3.7- billion budget approved by the state legislature, he created what one state higher-education official called “the worst [budget] for higher education in modern times.”
The Governor cut appropriations to the state’s colleges and universities by $389 million, or 34.7 percent.The state’s colleges and universities are expected to raise their fees to offset the cuts.--sr
