Finishing 25th year
Course undergoes change
by MARY JO THUM
Kansan Staff Writer
The western civilization program is in its 25th year at the University of Kansas. During the past 24 years, the program has been modified several times to fit the needs of the KU student.
Students first enrolled in western civilization the fall of 1945. The course had been approved by the administration Dec. 14, 1944, and the reading outline was submitted the following spring. The University agreed, at that time, to supply funds for instructional work and library supplies. A committee of six professors was appointed to supervise the course.
Every student who entered KU after the fall term of 1945 was required to pass the western civilization comprehensive examination before he could become a junior. The examination was given once each semester.
IN THE EARLY years of the program, students were assigned a proctor to whom they reported at intervals throughout the semester. In 1955, students were given the option of continuing with proctors or of attending seminar classes like those scheduled by the western civilization department today. Donald Marquis, assistant professor of western civilization, said he believed the seminar system was eventually adopted because the meetings with proctors were so irregular that students often did not come and they tended to neglect the reading for the course.
Dec. 11 1969 KANSAN 13
SERIES OF PANEL discussions on the topics studied were given by faculty members and students during the first years of the program. Later these discussions were discontinued and lectures were given instead. In 1953, however, the discussions were revived.
Preliminary examinations were given in western civilization during the late 1940's and early 1850's. The grades on these tests did not affect a student's final grade in the course but they did indicate the progress he was making. The preliminary examinations were optional.
IN APRIL 1950, the western civilization program received a vote of confidence from the faculty and became a graduation requirement in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This marked the end of the five-year probation period outlined when the program began.
Marquis said there were two purposes for the western civilization program. The methodological purpose is to learn to read some of the great books of our culture intelligently, he said, and the substantive purpose is to acquire information of a certain kind—the major ideas of western thinkers.
THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION department's disapproval of the printed notes circulated among students is because such materials frustrate the methodological purpose of the course, Marquis said. It is impossible to learn to read great books with understanding, he said, using a digest version of those books.
Many schools in the University do not require western civilization for graduation. Charles Kahn, dean of the School of Architecture and Urban Design, said his school did not require the course or examination because "the elective courses in the professional school tend to go $ \mathrm{g}_{0} $ in the direction of the social sciences—sociology, psychology rather than toward courses like western civilization."
WILLIAM P. SMITH, dean of the school of engineering, said the departments of chemical engineering and petroleum engineering were the only departments in his school that required western civilization for graduation.
"With all the demands upon engineering students," Smith said, "there is just not time for western civilization."
He said the School of Engineering required a total of 30 hours of electives in the humanities and social sciences. This total includes the freshman-sophomore English requirement.
Henrietta Waters, director of the undergraduate program in the School of Social Welfare, said students had to pass the two-semester western civilization course but not the examination to qualify for a B.A. in social welfare. Western civilization is not required in the B.S. program, she said.
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