Summer Schools: A Boon to the Gifted

In other summers, the tree-shaded grounds of Salem College, in Winston-Salem, N.C., have been hushed in the eerie stillness that haunts deserted campuses. But this year the campus is bubbling like a chemical retort with a heady new experiment. Four hundred of North Carolina’s most brilliant and creative high school students (fall-term juniors and seniors-to-be) have been brought together for an intensive eight-week study program, thanks to the state’s fervently education-minded Governor Terry Sanford. Guiding principle behind this summer school is the Governor’s belief that education precedes economic development and that North Carolina needs to provide all the stimulus it can for its own home-grown talents.

Last January, Sanford got $225,000 —$75,000 for three successive years—from the Carnegie Corporation for his plan. Within ten minutes a few days later, he got an additional pledge of $225,000 from business and foundation leaders in Winston-Salem.

Brisk Pace. The students now on campus are attending free of charge, except for their transportation. The school is totally desegregated; 30 students and one faculty member are Negroes. And the pace is brisk: with 144 hours of classroom instruction devoted to a major study area, each student in eight weeks will do the equivalent of a year’s work in one subject. In addition, on three afternoons a week, the student attends two-hour classes in a subsidiary field of interest. Twice a week, there are two-hour seminar sessions on the great ideas, and every evening there is a lecture, concert or dramatic performance. Despite the taxing schedule, the high-schoolers, 30 of whom are varsity football players, have plenty of surplus energy left over for swimming, tennis, basketball and doing the twist.

Chief exhilaration comes from racing the mind with full intellectual freedom. Says one music student: “At home I was considered something of an oddball. Here, I can talk music all the time.” Social Science Student David Beck, 17, says: “I’m getting the entire field of social science here. When I get to college, I’ll be able to look down the list of courses and know exactly what I should take.”

No Tests. Students at the school do not have to fuss with the pin-pricking routines of tests and homework. There are no credits and no grades. Says Program Director Douglas Carter, 33: “This type of student will dig into things for himself.” Some noted guest lecturers will spur the digging. Last week Laura Fermi, widow of Atomic Physicist Enrico Fermi, began lecturing on science for ten days. She will be followed by Novelist Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), Playwright Paul Green and Secretary of Commerce Luther Hodges. A symphony orchestra, string ensemble, ballet and drama groups are already deep into rehearsals. The sheer responsiveness of the students inspires the 27-man faculty recruited from high schools and colleges in nine states. One college instructor found that he had taught in three days what consumes a month in his college classroom. Says Political Science Instructor Jivan Tabibian of Wake Forest College: “If we could only do this with students like these for nine months, the result would be almost beyond imagination.”