Friday, Oct. 23, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 7
Sailing Class Tours World
By Glen Phillips
Attend a university on a ship sailing around the world?
Strange as it might seem, there is an established university that has a two-semester program and each semester is conducted on an around-the-world cruise.
The University of the Seven Seas, founded in Whittier, Calif., is based on a converted passenger liner and it supplements its students' course with world travel to many exotic ports.
According to Dr. E, Ray Nichols Jr., president of the university, most colleges accept credits earned aboard the ship by students who later transfer to land-locked colleges.
The ship has been remodeled so it has classroom facilities, laboratories, study space, a library, hospital, room for physical education and recreation, and all the other things necessary to the working university.
The spring semester cruise this year will begin in San Diego, Calif., and travel west. It will make port calls in Hawaii, Asia, Africa, South America, and the cruise will end in New York. The spring semester lasts from February to June.
The floating university has about 60 faculty members from prominent universities. There is a 59-course curriculum which includes cultural lectures on ship and shore. The students in the university also have the opportunity to meet foreign students and dignitaries face-to-face.
University officials estimate that the minimum cost for one semester in the university would cost $2,270. Prices vary up to $2,970 with different sleeping accommodations. Each student shares all the same study and recreational facilities.
Tuition for the one-semester course runs $500 and university officials say that there is an additional charge "of not more than $175" for mandatory field trips at the ports of call. Officials also said that "$300 would be a reasonable amount" for additional personal expenses on the trip.
This year the university will also offer a seminar for adults. They will study the arts, history, sociology and current events of every country visited. College credits will not be issued for the adult course.
The idea for the university began with a Rotarian group in Whittier, Calif.
50-State, World Support of KU
"The University of Kansas is greater than you know, and it can be greater than you imagine," Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe wrote in the annual report of the Greater University Fund now being mailed.
The report tells of 13,161 contributions by alumni and friends totaling $401,000, both new highs. Gifts came also from all 50 states, all U.S. territories and 34 foreign nations
dr. Wescoe noted that "without the friends who take such a dedicated interest in KU, it would be a run-of-the-mill university, undistinguished and unpromising."
But he warned that the level of private support "is not enough in the face of the responsibilities and opportunities which confront KU and which will loom even larger tomorrow."
Last year $2,003,000 in loans, grants and scholarships were made possible by gifts from alumni and friends of KU. Loans totaling $1,503,000 were made to 3,750 students. However, at fee payment periods, approximately one-fourth of the qualified applicants for loans had to be refused.
About 1,200 scholarships valued at $500.00 were given. There were however, 2,248 applications considered to have merit which were turned down because of lack of funds available, the report said.
Alumni support of KU ranks high among state-assisted universities and colleges. Compilations by the American Alumni Council for 1962-63 showed KU seventh in annual alumni gifts and in number of alumni donors. In total alumni giving, which would include capital gifts, KU was eighth among public institutions, and in regard to total number of alumni donors, fifth.