Graduate Programs in the Undergraduate College

Abstract

T NHE last ten years have seen a rapid increase in the number of graduate degrees offered at undergraduate colleges. For the most part, the degrees are introduced triumphantly and without any attempt to justify them. On questioning, responsible officials at some of these institutions show themselves committed to the view that the initiation of such programs is a mark of progress and, as such, highly desirable. Others are of the opinion that the expansion of the colleges, in this as well as in other directions, is an unavoidable consequence of the times. However, some of these latter educators sometimes fondly add that, by a strange alchemy, whatever is a necessity often becomes a good. If their public statements be the measure of their reflection, college officials have devoted too much thought to the feasibility and too little to the desirability of graduate programs. This is the way educational trends are born: once some leading schools commit themselves to a new policy, a host of motives or causes-among them the desire to be, or to be thought, progressive-will produce countless followers. Few heads are bothered by the theoretical question of what reasons there may be for 1J wish to express my thanks to the Danforth Foundation and to a number of the participants in the Foundation's seventh Workshop on Liberal Arts Education at Colorado Springs, June I7July 5, I963. This paper was stimulated by a series of discussions with Workshop members in nearideal conditions arranged by an efficient team of the Danforth Foundation.