Education: Report Card

¶ The University of California, already the most sprawling citadel of education in the U.S. (38,000 full-time students on five campuses), this week added a sixth separate unit, the University of California at Riverside, a liberal arts college. Equipped with a spanking new $6,000.000 campus, U.C.R.’s Provost Gordon S. Watkins, formerly head of U.C.L.A.’s 3,000-student liberal arts college, hopes to keep the addition small in size, but strong in the humanities. Opening enrollment: 200. Anticipated limit: 1,500. ¶ From Boston came two hopeful plans to discover potential juvenile delinquents before they start smashing windows or smoking reefers. One system, devised by Harvard Law School Criminologist Sheldon Glueck and his wife Eleanor, depends on a detailed survey of a pupil’s family surroundings, whereupon investigators can rate the child according to a scale of the Gluecks’ devising. The other method, invented by Boston University’s William C. Kvaraceus, includes both a check list for rating delinquency conditions and a handy set of multiple choice questions for pupils to be surveyed. (Sample: the secret of success is 1) luck, 2) hard work, 3) ability, 4) money.) ¶ President Chester C. Maxey of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash, was cheered by the results of an unusual test for academic efficiency: a full-scale management audit of his college by the American Institute of Management. For five months, A.I.M.’s experts worked on their “public service” inspection. Their tests concluded, they found that Whitman’s strong points (e.g., good academic courses, an attentive student body) more than compensated for its weaknesses (e.g., a cumbersome administrative setup, spotty alumni financial support). A.I.M.’s President Jackson Martindell gave Whitman what amounted to a B-plus—8,100 out of a possible 10,000 points.