College administration

Front matter

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Prefatory Note

This is, I think, the first book published on the administration of the American college. It grows out of my own reflection, work, experience, and reading. Many limitations, of course, rest upon it. It makes its special appeal, too, to a small constituency. But this constituency, although small, is of great influence in all fundamental relations. Its subject, too, is of unique value in the endeavor to relate the American college and university more vitally to American life. C. F. T.

Western Reserve University, Cleveland.

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Contents

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I Introduction: The Organization op American Education 1

II The Constitution of the American College 21

II II

THE organization of the American college is simple. In most States the organization is ' made under the general law applying to incorporated societies. The essential part of the organization is the legal body which usually calls itself ' Trustees. The body which is usually called the Faculty has to do with giving instruction and performing the work for doing which the college was created. In association with the legal body is sometimes found a second one, frequently known as the Board of Overseers; but the institutions having this second body are few. The Board of Trust and the Faculty are the two bodies to which is generally committed the administration of the college. The Board of Trust is usually, though not always, a close corporation. Its members : choose their own successors. When it is not a close corporation, elections to it are made, as a rule, wholly or largely by the graduates of the college. If the college, however, is denominational, and has intimate affiliations with a church of a

The ConsUtution of the American College

rather strict form of government, tlie church itself not infrequently chooses or nominates certain members for this Board. This intimacy of ecclesiastical relationship is found more frequently in the Episcopal and Presbyterian and Methodist communions. The members of the Board of Trust are seldom less than seven nor more than twenty- five. The duties of this Board relate to the care of the property put into its keeping, and also to the giving of legal \ value to the acts of the Faculty. The Board of f Trust confers degrees ; it fixes salaries ; it deter- I mines the budget of each year ; it holds and controls all investments. The nature of the duties that belong to this Board of Trust vary, of course, somewhat in different colleges. It may be said that usually their authority is supreme, yet this authority they seldom see fit to use arbitrarily. Their decision is ultimate, yet usually they trust the Faculty. In its last analysis the management I of a college rests absolutely in the Board of Trust. To this Board the Faculty and students are responsible.

Though the function of the Board of Trust is thus definitive, yet it is to the second body that the fulfilment of the great purposes for which a college exists is committed. To the members j of the Faculty the work of instruction is, of course, I given. The duty of discipline is theirs. The proper ordering of the various relations of the students belongs to them. All that makes up the daily routine of the college represents their constant and immediate responsibility. To their college work they give themselves. College service represents their profession. The Faculty in certain colleges includes all those who give instruction. In other colleges it includes only those who are chosen to permanent chairs, excluding those whose appointments are for a year or for a term of years. The members are chosen to this body under a great variety of conditions.

The methods of choosing represent so important a part of college order, and are so diverse, that I shall indicate what methods do control in various colleges. The statement descriptive of the method is usually made by the President of the college.

In Yale University : " In the matter of the appointment of professors, our custom— not our written law, but our long-established custom— is that the Faculty of the departments (scientific, theological, or whatever department of the university) in which the new professor is to act nominates him to the Corporation, and the Corporation appoints him to the office. They may, of course, decline to appoint him if they see fit. The matter of nomination is in the hands of the Faculty, the ! matter of election is in the hands of the Corporation. In most of our New England colleges the whole power of nomination is in the hands of the President ; he may not consult the Faculty at all. It is not so with us."

In Williams College : " When we are selecting a new member of our Faculty, if it is a professor we want, I consult with men interested in the same \ department, and mention a name and act with their approbation. If it is an instructor we want, I generally do the same."

In Dartmouth College : " In securing a new member of the Faculty, the President advises with the department concerned, and then puts the matter before the Committee on Instruction in the Board of Trustees. The Trustees vote upon the recommendation of this Committee."

In Brown University : " The President nominates the candidate or suggests several ; then the Advisory and Executive Committee discuss the merits of the candidates, one or more, and vote to recommend to the Corporation. This is equivalent to an election, as the Board never rejects a nomination thus made."

In Columbia College : " Ordinarily the President ) takes the initiative in securing a new member of any of our faculties. I am," says President Low, "in the habit of conferring freely with all those more directly interested in the appointment to be made, so as to be sure that the person called shall be persona grata. When I am satisfied that I am on the track of the right man, I try to ascertain whether he would accept such a call as I have in mind. I always seek a personal interview, if possible, as I am reluctant to have any man appointed to any position in connection with the university whom I have not looked in the face. Of course, I never seek a personal interview until after a very careful inquiry. When I am satisfied upon all the , points involved, I submit a nomination to the Trustees, who act upon it with or without reference to the Committee on Education as the case may demand. I often confer informally with the members of the Committee on Education of the Trustees, so that when the matter comes before the Trustees they are able to confirm the statements of the President, and to express their opinion without delay. There is no law governing these matters, but this, as a matter of fact, is my own method of procedure, which has thus far proved acceptable both to the Trustees and to the members of our faculties."

In Johns Hopkins University : " Appointments f to the Faculty are made by the Trustees, who are largely influenced by the recommendations of the President, and he is influenced in turn by the wishes and recommendations of those in the Faculty who are most capable of advising him, especially by the members of the Academic Council."

In the University of Pennsylvania : " The selec- r tion of new members of any Faculty is entirely in \ the hands of the Board of Trustees, who act primarily through their Committee upon the proper department. This Committee carefully inquires after available candidates, giving great weight, of course, to any recommendations received from the Faculty, and in due time makes a nomination to the Board, which is almost always followed by an election. No professor can be elected at the meeting at which he is nominated. Notice must be sent to every trustee, and a majority of the Board must be present at the election."

In Western Reserve University and Adelbert

College the Faculty nominates and the Trustees confirm. The work of investigation is done by a Committee appointed by the Faculty, and upon its recommendation the nomination is made. The nomination is then submitted to a standing Committee of the Trustees ; this Committee usually investigates and passes on the nomination to the Board of Trust. The President is in constant consultation with each of these committees and they with him.

In the University of Chicago: "When it is decided to make an appointment, the professor in the department and the President both take the matter in hand, the professor being careful in every case not to commit the university in any way. The matter is finally decided upon by the President and the head of the department interested, and the nomination is made by the President to the Board of Trustees. A by-law of the Board of Trustees provides that all nominations shall be made by the President. It is, of course, possible for me," says the writer. President Harper, " to make nominations regardless of the wishes of the members of the department, but it would hardly be thought wise to do this except in special circumstances."

In the University of Illinois: "We follow no particular method in securing a new member of our Faculty. We keep a file of all applications for positions, and when a vacancy occurs we examine the pile — and it is a large one. Sometimes we write to the older universities, and sometimes we communicate with teachers' agencies. In one way or another, we ordinarily find the right person in due time."

In the University of Wisconsin: "Members of the Faculty here are appointed by the Board of Regents on the recommendation of the President. According to the prevailing public opinion in this place, no other method would be encouraged. Neither the Eegents nor the Faculty desire that anybody should be appointed excepting on the nomination of the President; and ordinarily the nomination of the President receives the unquestioning ratification of the Board of Regents."

In the University of Kansas : " Whenever a vacancy occurs in any department, the head of that department and myself [the Chancellor] are appointed to select a person to fill said vacancy. G-enerally the head of the department seeks candidates from such schools as he knows best fit men for his work."

In the University of Nebraska: "A Committee consisting of the Chancellor and the Deans of the colleges look over the ground and determine who shall be recommended to the Board. The Board of Regents acts after this recommendation, though not necessarily upon it. I mean," says the Chancellor, " by this that they do not take original jurisdiction in the case, and are not necessarily bound to follow the suggestion of the Committee if they know good cause to the contrary. Of course, practically the Board formally elects whoever is selected by the Committee."

In the University of Minnesota: "Candidates 27 for professorships and assistant professorships are considered by the permanent officers, — that is, professors as distinguished from instructors, — and, if approved, the President nominates them to the Board of Eegents, and the Board elects. Of course the Board of Eegents can elect without consulting the Faculty."

In the University of California : " We find a professor by seeking advice from men best qualified to judge in the particular lines of work. Sometimes a head of an institution, like President Grilman, is asked for a nomination from his graduates, and he turns over the question to the department expert."

These examples indicate that there are two prevailing methods, which, however, in case all conditions are favorable, do not seriously differ in the results brought forth. There is the democratic method, in which the Faculty takes the initiative and does the larger part of the work in finding a new member for itself. There is also what may be called the monarchical method, in which i the President takes the initiative, in which he may, with or without conferring with his associates of the Faculty, cause an election to be made by the Board of Trust. But both of these methods usually bring forth the same result in case there is harmony of relationship between the various executive departments. A college Faculty would seldom be willing to call a new member into itself without the express approval of the President. It is also true that no worthy President should be willing to bear a nomination to the Board of Trust without the approval of the Faculty.

Between these two methods it cannot, to myf mind, be for one moment doubted but that the[ democratic is superior. A Faculty should have the right of determining who are to be members of that Faculty. If self-government is at all to be pursued, no better illustration of the principle can be found than in the organization of a college Faculty. This method also tends to illustrate the principle that in a multitude of counselors there may be not only safety but also great efficiency. This method also tends to promote a sense of individual responsibility which it is well for each member who works in a college to possess. It awakens enthusiasm and maintains enthusiasm. I am inclined to assent to the opinion of ex-President Dwight of Yale College, expressed in a letter to me, that college presidents usually have too much power. It is difficult to approve of the wisdom of a man, a college President, who, as soon as he was installed, had only one request to make of the Trustees, and that was that he alone should have the right of nomination to the Board. It is only either a high degree of self-confidence which could lead a man to ask that this right be reserved to himself, or an exceeding low degree of confidence in a Faculty.

In the administration of the American college the Board of Trust and the Faculty may in cer- ' tain ways be considered two coordinate bodies, for they work with each other in the bringing forth of certain collegiate results. In another sense the Trustees are superior to the Faculty, for they have absolute power to create or remove, to approve, to confirm, or to qualify. In another sense the Faculty is superior to the Board of Trust, for the Faculty represents the working force of the college, which immediately and constantly performs the duties to promote which the college exists. It is of extreme importance that these two bodies, whether they be regarded as coordinate or as inferior and superior on either side, should be thoroughly harmonious. Any invasion, on the part of the one, upon the territory that belongs to the other results in inefficiency in the college itself. If, for instance, the Board of Trust invades the territory of the Faculty, even to lay down the rules of the daily life and conduct of students, or respecting the method and content of instruction, they usually find that they are dealing with conditions and methods which require the mind and hand of educational experts ; and, as a rule, Trustees are not experts in matters of education. The tendency of the legal body to interfere with the teaching body is forcibly indicated by the late President Porter in writing of the ideal of the American university. He is discussing certain disadvantages of a State university, and among them he notes the tendency for the Regents to interfere with the relations which belong to the Faculty. But what he says does in certain ways have a broad reference :

However carefully the boards of management are removed from direct interference on the part of political or

I popular leaders, the Regents of a State university can never be wholly removed from public and private demands and remonstrances on the part of men who have the ear of the people for the hour. Places will be sought for by unworthy aspirants and their friends ; the teachings of the university will be called in question on every point where they bear upon current questions of science, or religion, or finance, or health, or education. Whatever theory of culture the university may adopt wUl now and then be assailed by an organization of honest or dishonest demagogues, either educational or political.

A great university must be the growth of time, during which a commonwealth of seekers after knowledge shall have been trained by one another, and shall have learned to accept common principles, to adopt common aims, and to share in a culture that has been warmed and made effective by active personal sympathy. To success in such a growth, independence is the prime and indispensable condition. The principles may be defective, the training may be defective, isolation and seclusion may confirm prejudices, but with independence there can be strength and continuity, while without it there can be neither. A State university with no chartered privileges can never in the best sense be a society that perpetuates itself, but must have a precarious and therefore an uncertain life. To expect for a State or a National University stability or independence in such a country as ours is to hope against reason and experience.^

The same result in kind and the same method also are seen in other forms of the public system of education. The evil to which President Porter alludes is far more common in the grammar and

1 Porter, "American Colleges and the American Public," pp. 389, 390.

high schools than in the case of the State university. School boards are inclined to invade the province of school superintendents.

But it is to be said, and with joy, that the tendency of the administrators in public education or in college education to encroach upon the territory of the teachers and of a Faculty is rapidly diminishing. That administrator is the wisest who does his own business and makes no attempt to do the business which belongs to a teacher. Experience, too, is proving that we can in this country expect both stability and independence in a State university. The words written by the late President of Yale are not so true now as they were at the time of their writing, a score of years ago.

On the other hand, a college Faculty may arrogate to itself duties which belong to the legal Board. It may lay out plans of work or enter upon their execution, which call for expenditures of money without consultation with the Board of Trust, which is concerned with financial relations. But, on the whole, a Faculty is far less inclined to invade the territory of the Trustees than Trustees are to invade the territory of the Faculty. It is to be said that Trustees are not usually so jealous of their rights as to be inclined to limit the aggressive tendencies of their professors, if only they have money enough to meet all charges which are the result of these tendencies. In not a few cases the Trustees are inclined to commit what would seem to be a part of their own work in a large degree to the Faculty. Certain boards are accustomed to ask the Faculty

The ConstittLtion of the American College

to determine the salaries of its own members. A gross sum, for instance, is put into the hand of the Faculty to use as its members see fit. This method is somewhat akin to the method formerly pursued in many medical colleges, in which the Faculty retained all fees paid by the students, and used the amount according to the dictates of their own wisdom. The endowment of medical colleges is less than the endowment of any other order of professional schools, and therefore the Trustees, having no income from the investments to pay over to the members of the Faculty, and knowing that whatever income the members of the Faculty receive from instruction belongs, in a peculiar sense, to those who earn it, are more inclined to disclaim the assuming of financial relationships. But when endowments become large, and the income received from these endowments represents the larger share of the sum to be paid to the professors. Trustees are inclined to maintain their financial relationships, as, of course, they ought. The committing of the financial responsibility to a Faculty has advantages in case of poverty, or in case of a lessening income. Professors are more willing to accept of small or of smaller salaries on their own nomination than as a result of the imposition of an outside authority. But the point can hardly be too strongly made that college faculties are not usually best fitted to administer funds.

Without doubt that method of college government is the best in which each of these two bodies, the

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The Canstitution of the American College

corporate and the teaching, keeps itself to its own field, but with full respect for the field of the other. Or, perhaps, to change the figure, that method is the best in which these two bodies constantly and heartily and efficiently cooperate. This result is secured far less through any formal statute than by putting first-rate men jnto the Board of Trust and into the Faculty. It is to be noticed that, in the history of the American colleges, upon both of these bodies clergymen have had a very large place. The representation of clergymen is becoming smaller with each passing year. In the early time the government of Harvard College was committed to them; at the present time they have no professional rights. President Porter has argued that the duties and responsibilities of the management of our colleges must still continue to be committed to clergymen. It is worth while to quote at length what he has to say :

In the first place, most of the colleges have originated in the most thankless and self-sacrificing services. To services of this kind clergymen are consecrated by the vows and the spirit of their profession. The labor, selfdenial, and disinterested toil which have been required to lay the foundations and rear the superstructure of the most successful colleges of this country cannot be too easily estimated. To a very large extent these have been endured and rendered by clergymen. The care, inquiry, invention, and correspondence, the personal toil and sacrifice, which devolve upon those who act as Trustees of an infant and often of a well-estabhshed college, are such that few persons except clergymen are willing to undertake them. Clergymen may not always be good men of business, but they generally know who are such, and have generally the good sense and feeling to ask the advice and to defer to the decisions of those who are, which is more than can always be said of laymen who are called to duties and trusts to which they are not competent. Hence, with the best intentions and with far greater experience in affairs generally, laymen may fail where clergymen succeed. As to defect of tact or power of adaptation, especially in the management of men, an excess of tact has not unfrequently been charged upon the clergy. Clerical art and finesse have in not a few cases become proverbial as grounds of reproach.

Clergymen are far more commonly interested in matters of education than laymen, by reason of a certain breadth of culture and generosity of disposition which are the results of Christian science. Though the idola tribus may exact from them a devotion which is sometimes narrow and exclusive, yet their profession is, from its very nature, as we have shown, the most liberalizing of all, from the common relation it involves to other branches of knowledge and from the habit of seeking for the foundations of truth which the study of God and religion induces. It is but the simple truth to say that there is many a country clergyman, whose income is counted by hundreds where that of his classmate lawyer and judge is counted by thousands, who knows incalculably more of science as such, and of the way to learn and to teach it, than the aforesaid judge or lawyer whose reputation is the very highest in his profession. The professional studies of the clergyman do also very emphatically involve and cultivate a sympathy with literature of all kinds. The practice of composition and of public speaking upon elevated themes, involves more or less interest in the study of language and in works of imaginative literature.

The clergy as sucli have, at least in this country, a more pronounced and catholic literary taste than the members of any other profession. They constitute, indeed, to a verylarge extent, the literary class— the class that furnishes most frequently public addresses, essays, reviews, and pamphlets. Educated lawyers, physicians, and merchants write very little in comparison with them, and are much less frequently readers beyond the range of their own profession.

The reason why clergymen are so generally selected as professors and teachers in colleges, is twofold : first, that the men best qualified by special culture are often er found in the clerical profession ; and, second, that the profession of teaching is akin to that of the clergj^man in the smallness of its pay and the unselfish patience which it involves. At the same time it is not usually true, so far as we have observed, that there is not a sufficiently large number of laymen in the faculties and boards of trust to correct the one-sidedness and to supplement the defects of their clerical colleagues. "We have never ob served that there was in such boards any jealousy of lay cooperation, any disposition to foster a clerical spirit or any one-sided results from clerical supervision. The cloistered, scholastic, and pedantic influences of the college which are sometimes complained of, so far as there are any, usually proceed from lay professors who have never known anything but a scholar's life. The dodores umhratiles of the American colleges are not infrequently laymen.i

But it must be said that the history of American colleges since these paragraphs were written, more than a score of years ago, has weakened the force

1 Porter, "American Colleges and the American Public," pp. 240-242.

The ConstiMion of the American College

of their reasoning. The place occupied by the clergyman as an officer in American education has steadily narrowed. The lawyer and the business man are coming to have as important a place on the Board of Trust as clergymen. The questions which a lawyer is especially fitted to consider, presented to a Board of Trust, rapidly increase. The questions, too, of general relationship which a merchant is fitted to consider also rapidly increase. The questions which may with special propriety come within the domain of a clergyman's consideration and position do not at all increase. It is also to be said that the custom of calling ministers into a Faculty on the ground that they are ministers is very rapidly passing away. It can hardly pass away too rapidly. Men of as pure character, and as influential in forming pure character in young men, can be found outside of the clerical calling. Men, also, of wide learning, of expert scholarship, are to be found without as well as within this vocation. The college demands men who have had special training for teaching the subjects in which they offer instruction. The day of the clergyman, active as a clergyman, in the management of the American college is passing away. All that the clergyman represents as a Christian, as a moralist, as a scholar, as a philanthropist, of course, has not passed and cannot pass away.

Perhaps one of the most important influences which a Board of Trust can render to a college or to a Faculty is represented in what may be called its steadying power. Crises in college life sometimes occur. Rebellions of the students are not unknown, though happily they are far less known now than they were in the times of thekfathers. Strained relations between students and teachers also occasionally exist. Divisions between different members or different sets of members of a Faculty sometimes occur. Such unhappy conditions the Board of Trust, being remote from the immediate turmoil, is better fitted to consider, and to give a judgment based upon facts without prejudice. Trustees are best fitted to serve as both judge and jury. They steady the trembling collegiate structure. It has sometimes been proposed to make the Faculty the legal and governing body of a college. This method still maintains in English universities. The method has been attempted on these shores. About the year 1721 an endeavor was made to turn out the non-resident fellows of Harvard College, and to fill their places by the professors. A long and serious quarrel resulted. About one hundred years afterward a similar attempt was made, and among those who were in favor of the change were Edward Everett, Andrews Norton, and Henry Ware. But this attempt also did not carry. It seems pretty clear that this method of government of a college by its professors would tend to create dissension and division. Under an ideal condition of human nature, and under an ideal system in the relations of men, this method would be the best. But too great intimacy of relations may promote disorder and bickering. ^! The usual method of constitutional government of two bodies seems the best metliod of college gov- / ernment.

In every college is found what is known as an association of the alumni. This association is frequently, though not always, an incorporate body. It is a society of the graduates, formed for keeping its members in close touch with the college after they have left its walls, and also for giving such aid to the college as it may be able. This association may prove, and usually does prove, of the utmost worth to a college. No society of men can have a greater interest in a college than its own sons. It is to them an alma mater. The name suggests rather the devotion of sons than the indifference of the supporters of the institution in which they may have passed, willingly or unwillingly, several years. In certain colleges this association has a representation on the Board of Trust. Ex-President D wight of Yale University says: *'We have one Board, consisting of eighteen members — the President, ten clerical members, six alumni members, and the Governor of the State ex officio. The clerical members hold office 'during good behavior' — that is, for life. They elect their own successors. They, with the President, are the successors of the Board constituted by the old charter of the institution. The alumni members are graduates elected by the graduates for six years — one going out of office every year, but eligible to reelection." President Carter of Williams College writes: "We have five Trustees elected by our alumni, one of whom is elected every year."