In Defense of Extension Service

Abstract

F ROM as early as I 892, when Dr. William Rainey Harper drew up his unique and comprehensive plan of community service for the newly founded University of Chicago, academic criticism and skepticism have greeted the general idea of university extension. Even now, fifty years later, the same attitude still prevails. Unnecessary almost is it to point out that extension programs are, by and large, common game among college and university faculties. Whenever the professorial Nimrod has the urge to take a pot shot in education, off-campus instruction seems to provide a ready and convenient target with the result that it is always open season on extension work. Among the bull's-eyes reportedly scored in the attack against extension have been lack of standards, weakness of staff, inferior student groups, inadequate control of supervision, poor quality of instruction, and lack of facilities. To counteract this bombardment and correct some of the misconceptions concerning extension teaching, the present case history is placed on the record. During the summer of I94I, the Pennsylvania State College through its Extension Services conducted what was probably the largest full-time extension program ever operated. As part of the Engineering Defense Training (EDT) program sponsored by the United States Office of Education, the College offered a ten-weeks course in Introductory Engineering Subjects (IES) for approximately twenty-five hundred qualified highschool graduates not planning to enter college in the fall. These students went to class five days a week at 95 centers throughout the state