University of Virginia Library

'Soundings'

Dean Younger Discusses Graduate School Role

By John Casteen

This is the second and final part
of an interview with Dean Edward
Younger of the Graduate School of
Arts and Sciences. The first part
appeared in Tuesday's Cavalier
Daily.

In our second meeting with
Dean Younger we asked him to
discuss the effects on the graduate
student of the Graduate School's
quest for quality, and to tell us
something about plans for the
master's degree programs. To begin,
we asked what criteria one uses to
judge the excellence of a graduate
student body. "There are several
ways," he explained. "For one
thing, a good graduate school, in
today's world, is a growing graduate
school. Five years ago the
enrollment in Graduate Arts and
Sciences was between 450 and 500.
Right now it is 1130, and will climb
to 1200 before the year is over. The
quality of our students has
improved right with the number.
Another way to judge is by the
number of applications. Three years
ago, we received 1900 applications,
last year 2200, and this year we
have received 3400, with more to
come for the second semester. All
this means that we can be more
highly selective."

Enrollment Preparation

We asked what the University
does to prepare for these
enrollment increases. "Any increase
in enrollment has to follow
long-range projections set up by
each department. We can accept
only as many new students as our
departments are ready to teach, so
the increase is pretty rigidly
controlled by the size and
flexibility of our departments, and
by the amount of space and
number of faculty members that we
have available."

How can we be sure that these
new students really are of top
quality? "One good indication, to
take the most obvious one first, is
their ability to win prestigious
national fellowships. During the last
3 or 4 years we have attracted large
numbers of winners of Danforth
and Woodrow Wilson fellowships,
as well as many more winners of
Federal fellowships." Showing us a
listing of colleges attended by our
graduate students before coming
here, Dean Younger added that "we
are recruiting more extensively and
attracting people from all over the
country. This means that we are
putting together a more national
and cosmopolitan student body
than we once had."

Generation Gap

We asked how these recent
students differ from earlier
generations. "In several ways," the
Dean replied, "and these very
differences point to why they are
better prepared for graduate work.
They have higher test scores and
better undergraduate records. They
come to us with better foreign
language training and have to spend
less time studying for their language
examinations. They have has better
undergraduate instruction, and they
know more about their own areas
of special interest. We have a great
number who come to us already
familiar with seminar type
instruction and with independent
work. Since we have had for the
last 3 or 4 years a good base of
financial support to offer to top
students we have been able to, as it
were, pick off some of the top of
the year's applicants."

News Media

The news media have been
reporting that fellowship support is
beginning to dry up, so we asked
what the University is doing to
sustain a high level of fellowship
support. "We are looking
everywhere for money. With the
withdrawal of the Ford Foundation
from the Woodrow Wilson
fellowship program, and with some
other foundations pulling out of
fellowship support, all graduate
schools, id they survive, are going
to have new sources of money. And
the federal government does not
seem to be the answer, because that
source of money is also drying up
at present very rapidly."

What about the so-called
publish-or-perish system? Does it
hurt the quality of instruction that
the University can offer to these
better students? "I would say that
publish or perish 'sh is more often
a convenient cliche than a fact of
academic life, and I believe that
faculty research is very important
to graduate teaching. The man who
remains active in scholarly
pursuits - in research and writing -
is probably going to be a
stimulating teacher, and, by the
same reasoning, the man who gets
away from his research in his
subject matter is likely to become
stale as a teacher because he will
lose touch.

Strong Grad School

"A strong graduate school helps
to create a stimulating intellectual
environment and generates better
teaching. Moreover, in recent years
American graduate schools have
placed heavy emphasis upon
superior teaching. I am confident
that our graduate school here has
contributed to improved
undergraduate teaching at the
University."

Showing us the last two annual
reports of the Graduate School,
Dean Younger commented that
another indication of the school's
good state is high prestige of the
other graduate school to which our
entering graduate have
applied. "The list only two
of our regional neighbors, Duke and
U.N.C., and both of them are
nationally known graduate schools.
The others among the top ten are
among the nation's very best;
schools like Wisconsin, Harvard,
Yale, Michigan, and Princeton. Any
graduate school would be happy to
compete for students with these
schools."

Time was running out on us, so
we asked Dean Younger to tell us
about the future of the
Master's degree programs. "In
recent years our main emphasis has
been focused on doctoral
programs," he replied. "Still
students need and continue to need
the master's degree, and the
number conferred continues to
increase. Part of the reason for this
is that master's degrees have been in
demand in the lower teaching ranks
of senior colleges, but the picture
may be changing now for several
reasons. One reason is that we are
turning out many more Ph. D.'s
now than before all American
graduate schools are working very
hard on Ph. D. production. Soon
there may be sufficient Ph. D.'s for
the senior colleges. But the primary
reason, and the one that will make
the impression on graduate
in the future, is the rise
of the 2 year community college.
Right now there are more students
enrolled in 2 year community
colleges, usually 2 year colleges,
than in senior colleges, and this is a
brand new situation. More
important to us at the University is
Virginia's very vigorous community
college system, which has enrolled
20,000 students in 13 colleges in
just the past 2 years. The numbers
are going to keep increasing, and
teachers will be needed in greater
numbers than ever before.

"So our graduate school has a
chance, if we can develop a good
program and get it funded, to play
a major role in staffing these new
colleges and helping to raise
standards. We are thinking now in
terms of a 2 year program that will
provide for a strong subject-matter
master's degree in the first year,
with additional subject-matter
courses, apprentice teaching in a
community college, and an
advanced methods course in the
second year. If federal funds
become available - and there is
some prospect of this - the
University will be able to offer
attractive fellowships and a solid
educational program to our
students, and a reliable reservoir of
talent to the community colleges."
We asked whether the University is
prepared to teach the sort of
methodology that community
college teachers will need. "Yes, we
are. We have people on the faculty
already who are doing advanced
research in this area, and some of
them are even teaching courses
similar to what we will need to
offer. We have this and several
other points in our favor - we have
a high admission standard and high
academic standards, and we have
of faculty that can adapt to
this type of teaching without
diminishing the quality of our other
programs.

"But all of this - and
continuing improvement of the
doctoral programs as well -
depends on our maintaining the
kind of fellowship support that we
have had for the last 3 or 4 years.
Graduate education is in a crisis
stage right now. We are ready, here
and elsewhere, to meet the nation's
needs, but we must find new
sources of fellowship support. If
not, we will lose our present high
standing among American graduate
schools."