 | Board of Visitors minutes May 30, 1911 |  |
May 30th, 1911.
At a called meeting of the Board of Visitors of the
University of Virginia on above date in the Presidents'
Office.
Present: The Rector, Visitors White, Shackleford,
Harmon, Drewry, and President Alderman,
The Board having been called to order at 10:00 by
the Rector, the following was adopted:-
Resolved: That George Boardman Eager, Jr., be elected
Adjunct Professor of Law in the Department of Law of the
University of Virginia, at a salary of $1,500, his duties
to begin on the 12th of September 1911.
Resolved: That President Alderman be empowered to
make such arrangements as may be necessary for the other
appointments needful for the carrying forward of the
University work during the summer months, subject to the
ratification of the Board at their fall meeting in October.
Resolved: That the McCormick Scholarship be awarded
to Mr. Lant Rader Slaven for the session of 1911-1912.
In pursuance of a resolution of November 18th, 1910,
the committee appointed to consider a communication from
Mr. R. Hall McCormick, submitted the following report, which
was adopted, and ordered spread upon the record,—
To the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia:
Your Committee, to whom was referred the correspondence
of Leander J. McCormick, making certain suggestions as to
the proper scope of the work of the Professor of Astronomy
and Director of the Leander McCormick Observatory, beg
leave to report.
Mr. McCormick, in his letter of June 11, 1911, addressed
to the President, summarizes his conclusions as follows:
"First, that the donor of the telescope and observatory
made his gifts for the purpose of their being used along lines
of scientific astronomical research, which is the only
lines along which they can be used.
"Second, that it was the intention of the Alumni who
made the endowment to provide the observatory with a trained
astronomer, all of whose time should be devoted to the
use of the telescope."
An analysis of these conclusions leads to the result
that as the whole time of the professor should be devoted
to the use of the telescope and the telescope should be
used only along lines of scientific astronomical research,
the whole time of the professor should be devoted to research
work. This would exclude not only all teaching in Theoretical
Astronomy, but also a part of the teaching in practical astronomy.
The memorial presented to the Rector and Visitors by
the Society of Alumni on June 29, 1881, turning over the funds
collected for the endowment of the Professorship and Working
Fund of the Leander McCormick Observatory, contains the following:
accordance with the earnest desire of Mr. McCormick to
promote active astronomical work by his foundation, and
that is that the Directors of the Observatory, (Professor
of Astronomy) shall have no teaching to do except in practical
or theoretical astronomy."
The action of the Board of Visitors is shown by the
following resolution adopted by them at a meeting held March
30, 1881:
"That a new `School' shall be established at the
University to be known as `The School of Astronomy,' which
shall be opened as soon as the buildings shall be in a
suitable state. The salary of the Professor shall be the
same as those of other `Schools' and he shall teach theoretical
and practical astronomy and no other subject. He shall be
Director of the McCormick Observatory, and shall devote his
time, when not occupied with instruction of classes, to astronomical
investigations and practical use of the observatory for
systematic exploration and work."
It thus appears that the work of teaching is the primary
duty of the Professor, and he is to devote his time to astronomical
investigation only when not occupied with instruction
of classes. The University is primarily an educational
institution and this is recognized by Mr. McCormick in
his letter of June 5, 1882, acknowledging notification of
the election of his nominee, Professor Stone. We quote as follows:
"And I feel confident that with Professor Stone
in the Chair of Astronomy and in charge of the
Observatory, the educational interests of the
State will be greatly advanced."
The present scheme has been worked out as the result
of the best thought and most zealous care of those in
charge; it is believed to conform in letter and spirit to
the conditions imposed by the generous donors.
As a matter of fact, research work of great importance
has been engaged in continuously, as is illustrated by
a memorandum attached, showing work done in the last few
years.
We wish again to put on record the resolution of the
Board of Visitors at its meeting of June 26, 1884, which
expresses the sentiment which always has and always will
control the management of the University's endowments.
"Resolved: That the Rector and Visitors of the
University of Virginia take pleasure in giving assurance
to Leander J. McCormick, Esq., the munificent benefactor
of the university, that the liberal fund he has donated
to the University has been, and will continue to be regarded
as a sacred fund, never to be diverted in any manner
from the original purposes contemplated by the generous
donor."
Memorandum of Astronomical Observations made at the
Leander McCormick Observatory during the three years ending
1. Observations made with the 26 inch equatorial.
a. Long period variables which at minimum are
too faint to be observed with smaller telescopes,546 observations made during year ending March
1, 1909—742 observations made during year ending March
1, 1910—652 observations made during year ending March
1, 1911—
b) Micrometrical measurements of double stars,
342 during the year ending March 1, 1909—
42 during the year ending March 1, 1910—
c. Observations of stars in the Huyghenian region
of the Nebula of Orion—459 Micrometric measurements of position
during the year ending March 1, 1909—408 ditto during the year ending March 1, 1910—
232 photometric determinations of brightness
during the year ending March 1, 1911—
2. Numerous observations of bright-variables, meteors
and sun spots made with smaller instruments, and
with the naked eye.145
The following statement was presented by the President,
and ordered to be placed on record as follows:
University of Virginia.
I beg to submit to you the following reports from
the Faculty of the Department of Graduate Studies of the
University of Virginia and the Faculty of the College of the
University of Virginia, the two comprising the Academic
Department of the Institution. I submit these reports
with my entire approval and endorsement. They are the
result of patient study of specially appointed committees
of these faculties extending over a period of two years.
They have been carefully considered and discussed by the
Faculties themselves in utmost detail. In some cases they
have been held up for months with a view of obtaining the
best information on all subjects connected with the curriculum
have passed the Facilties of the Department of Graduate
Studies and of the College with practical unanimity. The
report of the Faculty of the Graduate Department is unanimous,
and the report from the Faculty of the College
comes to you with only one dissenting vote. The fundamental
purpose in these proposed modifications is to increase the
power, to elevate the standards, and to place on a surer
pedagogic basis all instruction given at the University of
Virginia.
The reasons for the action of the Faculty of the College
are set forth in detail, and demonstrates, I believe, that
if the modification be adopted the work of the College in
amount, in intensive value, and in proper adjustment to teaching
and private study, will be immensely advanced. In the
case of the Graduate School, the highest standards of this
School are maintained, and yet arrangement is made by which
the Graduate School of the University of Virginia can bear
that relation to the colleges of this State and nation that
graduate schools should bear in their very nature to the
educational forms just below them. The reasons influencing
the Faculty of the Department of Graduate Studies are also set
forth in detail. It is my hope that it will be within your wisdom
to ratify these actions of the two faculties.
President,
The President and Faculty of the Department of Graduate
Studies recommend to the Rector and Visitors of the
University the adoption of the following regulations:
I. No student shall take the Master's degree until
at least one year after the pre-requisite Bachelor's degree
has been conferred, except with the special consent of the
Academic Faculty.
II. No candidate for an advanced degree holding a
baccalaureate degree from an institution having the standard
prescribed by the State Board of Education of the Commonwealth
of Virginia on February 3, 1911, in its definition of
a college or university, will be required to take any undergraduate
work except such as the Committee on Rules and
Courses or the professors in charge may consider necessary
for the successful prosecution of the graduate courses elected
for the advanced degree.
The applications of students from chartered institutions
of learning not coming within the above definition
and desiring admission to candidacy for an advanced degree
will be considered individually by the Committee on Rules and
Courses, which will note especially the candidate's deficiencies,
for the purpose of prescribing such courses as will supply
them.
III. The degree of Master of Science will be conferred
upon the holder of the vocational degree of Bachelor
of Science upon conditions similar to those required of the
holder of the cultural degree; provided that the graduate
courses pursued by the candidate shall be chiefly those
in continuation of the principal subject of his work for
the Bachelor's degree, and shall be chosen with the approval
of the professor or professors concerned; and provided also
that the name of this principal subject shall be inscribed
upon his diploma.
IV. In case the Board should adopt the recommendations
of the Academic Faculty in regard to the re-organization
of the courses leading to the baccalaureate degrees, no
"C" course shall be counted for an advanced degree unless preceded
by two "B" courses from the same group; which courses
must be approved by the professor in charge of the "C" course
in question.
The President and the Academic Faculty recommend to the
Rector and Visitors of the University,
That hereafter each student in the College shall be
required to take a minimum of 15 class hours a week,—
two hours of laboratory work being counted as one hour of
lecture, or one class hour.
The President and the Academic Faculty also request
the Rector and Visitors that the President and the Academic
made necessary by the above recommendation, as stated
in general in the following statement:
A Brief Statement of the Faculty Reasons
For Making the above Recommendation.
The purposes of the above recommendation of the President
and the Academic Faculty may be summarized as follows:
1. To adjust the work and methods of the college more
accurately to the work of the secondary schools on the one
side and to the work of the graduate and professional departments
on the other.
2. To give to all candidates for the B. A. and B. S.
degrees the same amount of personal teaching in language,
literature, history, philosophy, and mathematics as is already
given such candidates in the schools of natural science
in this University, and in all subjects in other American
colleges of high standing.
Incidentally, the change above recommended will bring
to the college of the University of Virginia the recognition
due its work from the educational and professional examining
boards of other sections of the country. There will then
be associated with this change considerable administrative
advantage. The Faculty, however, while recognizing such
advantage, is of the opinion that no administrative or merely
for any essential change in our present system of instruction.
The recommendation of the faculty, which was
passed with only one dissenting vote, is based on the belief
that the change recommended would be the logical evolution
and continuance of the high ideals of scholarship, sound
learning, and intensive thoroughness of study and instruction,
which have, since its foundation, characterized
the work of the University of Virginia.
The change above recommended is not in any way revolutionary
in the history of the University. There
has never been at any period a law of the Visitors or of
the Faculty which forbade a student to take more than three
courses a session or to attend more than nine hours of lectures
a week. This was set merely as the minimum amount
of work required of each student. At all periods any student
who possessed ability has been allowed to take as many
courses, within certain limits, as he could carry, and
statistics show that a large proportion of the successful
students have regularly averaged more than three courses
passed a session. In fact, the minimum requirement
of three courses a session had its origin at the time when
the tuition fees in individual subjects were paid into
the respective academic schools, and was the result of
a proper desire that each school should receive a fair
lasted two hours. The number of two hour periods in a
week is necessarily less than the number of one hour
periods,- hence, the expediency of the regulation passed
then requiring special permission of the faculty, if a
student wished to take more than three subjects.
When the lectures were reduced in length from two hours
to one, hard necessity dictated the continuance of the
system of three lectures a week and the completion of each
course in a single session.
The Professors were few in number and were overworked
even under this plan. No higher tribute could be paid to
their devotion and genius as teachers than to point to the
zeal and love of learning which they inspired, despite the
necessarily limited number of hours of instruction.
But changed conditions bring with them the necessity
of changed methods. The faculty has increased in numbers,
the students as well. Science and learning have opened
up new fields of thought. The secondary school system,
both public and private, has developed tremendously. To
fit these new conditions, the schools of natural science in
this University some time ago more than doubled for the
individual student the amount of personal teaching and
contact with the teaching force, and with the subject of
to the three hours of lectures a week. The Academic Faculty
feels that the time has come to do the same in other
schools of the University,—feels also that the changes
recommended carry with them in every particular, distinct
educational and cultural advantages over the present plan.
Nor is the change recommended radical, in the sense that
it will affect all of the courses now offered in the academic
schools as group electives for the baccalaureate
degrees. The seven B. courses under Group III (Natural
Science) will not be changed, as all of these courses have
already three hours of lectures and 6 hours a week of laboratory
per session, thus giving a time value for each
course of 6 hours a week.
The courses affected will be the B courses (B. A. or
B. S. Courses) in languages, literature, history, philosophy,
and mathematics. As at present constituted, the work of
these courses is given in a single session in three lectures
a week, for each of which the student is supposed to spend
four hours in preparation. Under the proposed plan, in order
to provide for the increased number of class-hours required,
each of these courses will be divided into two courses of
one session each. In each of the new courses thus formed
there will be three lectures a week, for each of which
other words, there will be the same total number of hours
given to private study, and twice as many hours of teaching.
The change may be summed up, therefore, as involving
primarily a re-adjustment of hours of instruction to hours
spent by the student in preparation for lectures and recitations.
The educational and cultural advantages of this readjustment,
as seen by the academic faculty, become most
apparent when looked at from the standpoint of the individual
student.
As the regulation above recommended would work out
in practice, the student would in any one session be occupied
with 4 or 5 subjects of study instead of with three. The
work of the college student will thus serve as a better
transition stage between the work of the preparatory
school and the highly specialized and intensive work of the
graduate and professional departments. The high-school graduates
coming from a system of many topics and frequent recitations,
faces two difficulties,—not enough topics of study to keep
him mentally alert, and not enough class hours to spur him
to industry. The combined experience of American colleges
has worked out the 4 or 5 course system, as the golden mean
of the two extremes of the diversified high school curriculum
From the general educational and cultural standpoint also,
the 4 or 5 course-a-year plan is to be preferred to the
3 course system. If a college education means anything,
it should mean an opportunity for the student to find
himself in the intellectual world, and to be able, thus
to select wisely his vocation in life. The proposed plan
provides each session more opportunities for this self-finding,
more outlooks on the world of thought, more outlets
for intellectual activity, more and a wider range of choice
of subjects for graduate work, as well as a broader basis
for the choice of a profession.
The academic faculty desires to emphasize its continued
faith in intensive work, and its belief that the plan
recommended would contribute greatly to intensiveness
of work in any one subject by the individual student. In
languages, literature, history, philosophy, and mathematics
the student will receive twice as much instruction as under
our present plan. This will make possible and increase content
in these courses, a more thorough understanding of them
by the student, even though there should be no change in
the total number of hours given to preparation. In addition
to this advantage, the student will be in contact with such
subjects two years instead of one. This increased time
of contact will aid mental digestion and assimilation,necessary
the learner. Of even greater importance for intensive
work is the fact that under the proposed plan the work of
the student will advance in grade and quality as he advances
toward graduation. Under our present system, it is
always possible, and not at all unusual for a student to
have in his graduating year, work no more advanced in grade,
though differing in subject, than in the courses taken during
his first session. Under the proposed plan, this will no
longer be possible.
The last two considerations have an important bearing
on the work of the college as preliminary to work in the
graduate department, more especially to work for the
Master's degree. The candidate for a B. S. or a B. A.
degree who plans to continue work as a candidate for
the master's degree in languages, literature, history,
philosophy and mathematics, will be, under the proposed
plan, in contact with the subjects leading up to his
four master's courses at least two years before entering
the graduate department. This contact will be in courses
in which the second year's work in each will approach
more nearly the quality of work done in a graduate course.
so that there will not be then, as frequently, at present,
a gap of a year or more between the completion of a B. A.
or B. S. course, and the beginning of a Master's course
in the same subject.
In conclusion, the effect of the recommendation of
the academic faculty may be summarized as an arrangement
that provides for doubling the amount of teaching in the
undergraduate courses in languages, literature, history,
philosophy, and mathematics, but leaves unchanged the
time each student is supposed to give to private study.
In the latter respect, the only difference will be that
whereas the student is now supposed to spend four hours
in preparing for each hour in class in these subjects, then
he will spend two— but have twice as many class hours.
This increase in the amount of teaching must produce
better work, sounder knowledge, more thorough training
for the exceptional as well as for the average student.
"Education is knowledge conveyed through personality." To
increase the personal contact between teacher and taught
marks, therefore, educational advance, unless the object of
education be to keep the pupil away from the teacher. If
that system of teaching is best in which the student receives
least instruction, then the correspondence school is the
royal road to learning. The President and the Academic
taught and that the excellence of any course is to be
reckoned not by what the course has in it, but what the
student gets out of it. Believing this, the President and the
Academic Faculty are convinced that any and every student
will get more out of two hours of instruction with two
hours study for each, than out of one hour of instruction
with four hours of preparation. It is on this ground
more than any other, that the President and the Academic
Faculty make the recommendation to go from a nine hours-a-week
to a fifteen hours-a-week schedule in the college."
After full explanation and thorough discussion by
the President, Dean Page of the College, Dean Dabney of
the Graduate Department, & Prof. Faulkner of the Committee,
the following was unanimously adopted,
Resolved: That the foregoing recommendations of the
President and Academic Faculty with regard to the reorganization
of the College and of the Department of Graduate
Studies be adopted; and that the reasons given for such
recommendations be and the same are hereby directed to be
recorded as above.
Resolved: That the recommendations of the College
and Graduate Departments above adopted, with their
accompanying briefs, be published in an early number of the
Alumni Bulletin, and that they also be printed in pamphlet
friends of the University.
On motion, the Board adjourned, subject to the
call of the Rector.
Rector.
| Board of Visitors minutes May 30, 1911 | |