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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, November 3, 1967
Is it really there?
'College' not evaluated
By Beth Gaeddert Kansan Staff Reporter
By now, KU Freshmen are tired of the question, "How's college?" They appear more tired of the question "How's Colleges-within-the-College?"
To the KU Freshman, "college" is an ambiguous term.
This makes the success or failure of the "Colleges-within-the-College" program hard to evaluate. In the first place, KU Freshmen have had no previous college experience. Second, the results from questions asked last year's CC students and a selected control group have not yet been completely evaluated.
The "Colleges-within-the-College" idea originated in the 1960's from discussions by the Second Century Committee, a faculty and administration group appointed by Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe. The idea was discussed by the College Intermediary Board, a group of nine students. These students then visited Michigan and California schools with residential college experiments.
KU's program involves all freshmen in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and includes last year's pilot group of Centennial College students. It is the only one in the nation trying to achieve the benefits of a residentially based system without a selective admissions or restriction on the student's choice of residence.
KU is the only Big Eight school to have such a program.
The program called "the most exciting and characteristic educational innovation of KU's second century," is designed, according to George R. Waggoner, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, to obtain the advantages of the small academic community and, at the same time, preserve student access to the resources of the multiversity.
Highly Successful
Even though the students can't evaluate the program, the directors of the five colleges can, and they say the program has been highly successful so far this year.
The only problem was "a tremendous amount of paperwork that had to be done at the last minute," said William Balfour, Pearson College director. He said 25 per cent of the freshmen who didn't take placement exams during Previews took them Monday of Orientation Week and these all had to be graded, taken to the five college offices, and out in folders by 9 a.m. Tuesday in time for dean's meetings.
Most directors said "things went better than we expected, especially enrollment. Freshmen who disagree about the smoothness of enrolling blamed the colleges for mix-ups that they might have caused themselves had they enrolled in the Kansas Union like freshmen in previous years.
The directors attributed smooth enrollment to pre-enrollment during Previews, and simplified process of enrolling students by 20-person blocks in English and other freshmen College courses before going to the Union.
Liked Easy Enrollment
Liked Easy Enrollment The students liked the simplified enrollment process but were unhappy they couldn't choose times of the courses.
"They pulled the cards for us and it was real easy to enroll but they put me in a 7:30 Spanish class," said Joan Shallengerger, Manhattan.
"They put me in two classes at
the same time." Keith Jantz, Kansas City, said. "Since one was the English class I had to stay there and drop Calculus completely."
An enrollment process will never be perfect for everyone, but pre-enrolling does help.
"One of the advantages of summer pre-enrollment," said Mrs. J. B. Stroup, associate dean of women, "is it gives them a chance to think about what they will be taking and commit themselves to the courses."
Other directors said pre-enrollment was the reason for a very low number of students changing classes after school started, although it has not been officially determined whether this number was lower than usual for freshmen. Because the changes were distributed over five offices instead of one, the number may seem smaller.
Seventy-five per cent of the freshmen enrolled during Previews.
Unexpected Enrollment to Blame
Many directors said unexpected enrollment, not the colleges, was to blame for upperclass enrollment problems. They said upperclass problems were over emphasized and "upperclassmen had no business taking freshmen courses when they needed to fill in a few hours on their schedules."
"Many problems not connected with the colleges were laid at our doorstep because this is a new process and there were some misunderstandings." Lewis said.
"The colleges did not stymie enrollment," Balfour said, "the same classes would have been filled by Friday afternoon anyway. The only difference was, students shut out were all upper-classmen and usually some freshmen would have been in this group."
The freshmen were enrolled by
colleges instead of alphabetically, and were finished by Friday noon.
Balfour said it was arranged so students enrolling at their college headquarters didn't completely fill any of the sections except freshmen English.
"Actually more sections would have been closed but because freshmen pre-enrolled in the summer we knew which sections to expand," Balfour said.
The colleges' students will preenroll for second semester and in all future semesters. This will gradually help put KU on a total pre-enrollment program.
The directors said they can't tell if the students feel "attached to a group" but all speculate the students are pleased with what they term "increased overlap" of students they see in classes and in their living group. This is often pointed out to be the main advantage of the "Colleges-within-the-College" program.
Classroom Becomes Sterile
"Too often when a student lives with one group of people and then goes to classes with five groups of complete strangers, the classroom becomes sterile." Mrs. Stroup said. "Also, by increasing the overlap we are hoping something will go on outside of class," she said.
Some students said it was really helpful to have someone "on your floor in the same English class so you can discuss assignments."
The 20 persons who compose a block are in the same English class and have the same adviser, who is usually one of their instructors. In this year's program these 20 students come from at least five different living areas. Last year in Centennial College, all the women lived on the same floor of Oliver Hall and all the
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