HIGHER EDUCATION SURVEYS

The 1960s were roiling, brawling years on the campuses across the nation. Enrollments grew rapidly—too rapidly to permit the planning and organization needed to accommodate the sudden influx of an increasingly heterogeneous student body. Pressures mounted everywhere—from academic departments, trying to recruit faculty when nationwide there were more positions than faculty to fill them; from physical plants, attempting to stretch available housing and classroom space while overseeing the construction that would ease the situation; and from students, whose growing restlessness became volatile in the last years of the decade. Faced with troubling developments such as these, many boards of trustees and state authorities turned to outside consultants to review their situations and give advice.

I received many requests to participate in studies of this kind but consented to undertake only three, in each case because of some special interest or because of a problem with which I thought I could be helpful: a committee appointed by the Michigan Coordinating Council for Public Higher Education to advise it concerning a possible third medical school in the state of Michigan; a sudy, commissioned by the New York state legislature, of higher education in the state; and a report on the University of Pittsburgh necessitated by a crisis in its financial affairs. My service as an adviser to the board of trustees of Columbia University while it was in the process of selecting and installing a new president and of coping with the transition problems of the 1960s differed from the three illustrations here because I was not expected to make a formal study of the situation.

The Michigan study, which I chaired, was conducted by a Circuit Court judge, a member of the Michigan State Medical Society, the director of a large medical center, a university president, a foundation president, the board chairman of a major pharmaceutical manufacturing firm located in Michigan, and a representative each from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. (See Appendix [J] for list of members, consultants, and staff.)

Michigan State wanted its two-year medical program extended to a full degree program. There was a need for more medical school graduates, but the University of Michigan’s medical school was underfunded and the question was what would be the best use of state tax dollars for medical education under these circumstances. Our committee was given drafts of various options that we could consider and the material supporting them. We agreed on particular ones we wished to study, discussed them, and decided what to recommend. Our general recommendation was for better accommodation of present students and an increase in first-year places under current programs. We also recommended target dates for specified enrollment increases, suggested the mobilization of private resources to found and operate a medical school, and proposed the establishment of a continuing committee for coordinating the development of health education in Michigan. Except that no private institution ready to undertake medical education could be discovered, most of our recommendations were implemented. Later, circumstances made it possible for Michigan State to develop a full-fledged medical school.

The second survey in which I participated during the 1960s was for the New York state legislature. I was appointed by the state Senate and the Assembly as the legislature’s consultant on higher education and given two study associates, John A. Perkins, president of the University of Delaware, and G. Russell Clark, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the Commercial Bank of North America. The state of New York, which had been slow in providing public higher education, launched a massive multicampus building program with adequate appropriations but with inadequate time to satisfy the expectations aroused by this awesome initiative. So much was going on at the time we entered the picture—the summer of 1963 and during 1964—that it nearly staggered the imagination. With the aid of the talented Sidney Tickton as director of studies and with extensive consultation, we were able to make findings and recommendations that proved constructive. Among our conclusions were these: that the state needed to provide for larger enrollments than projected and a greater variety of programs than planned; that the whole area of graduate education and research needed to be greatly strengthened and three or four centers of excellence developed; that the various campuses should have different emphases and specialties; that there should be cooperation between public and private institutions; that governance should be decentralized to a greater extent; that the business management of the system should be decentralized and made more efficient; and so on. Association with Sidney Tickton of the Ford Foundation, who became vice president of the Academy for Educational Development during the course of the study, was a bonus for me. His knowledge and wisdom were impressive. We worked closely on the final report, agreeing on the content before its drafting and doing the writing on my dining room table at home.

The third survey that I undertook was the Ford Foundation–financed study of the University of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh board of trustees had directed its dynamic chancellor, Edward Litchfield, to bring the university to the forefront of American higher education. Litchfield took this challenging directive literally and plunged into a broad plan of change for the university that did revolutionize its program and greatly increase its prestige. In the course of this strong advance, however, grave financial problems were encountered because Litchfield had counted on the availability of a large private fund that did not materialize. The situation was difficult and delicate. Some way had to be found to maintain the gains and continue the progress of the institution, yet prevent financial disaster.

The Pittsburgh board asked the Ford Foundation to have a study made and a course of action recommended. I was asked to head the Study Committee, which consisted of the heads of Case Institute (T. Keith Glennan), the University of California at Berkeley (Roger Heyns), Wayne State University (Clarence Hilberry), and the University of Chicago (Edward Levi). Much of the staff work was carried on by colleagues at Indiana University—Paul Klinge, Joseph Hartley, John Thompson, and E. Ross Bartley—and the drafting of the report, including the preparation of statistical tables, by Louis D’Amico, Leroy Hull, William Sukel, and Dorothy Collins. Henry Hill, president emeritus of George Peabody College and a former superintendent of schools in Pittsburgh, interviewed leading personalities in that city for us and gave us some essential perspectives. Our recommendations—that the university offer to operate a first rate undergraduate college on a contractual basis with the commonwealth and that the commonwealth agree to pay the university’s cost per student beyond the fee charge (there was ample precedent for partial state support of private institutions in Pennsylvania), that the university coordinate its work with other institutions in the area to reduce duplication, that economies be effected and unnecessary financial drains halted, and that the community increase its private financial support of the university—were for the most part adopted and executed. Today the University of Pittsburgh is a strong, viable, leading institution.

All in all, these experiences were useful in broadening my knowledge of higher educational institutions and certain pitfalls, in extending the network of my acquaintance, and in bringing Indiana University to the attention of many new friends.

WHITE HOUSE COMMITTEES AND COMMISSIONS

One of the devices that U.S. presidents have used to explore troublesome public problems or to gain support for their position on particular issues is through the appointment of national commissions or committees, sometimes referred to as White House assignments. Lyndon Johnson used this device often and for a variety of studies. It was my privilege to serve on three of them between 1965 and 1968.

For these groups to be effective, they had to be broadly representative of the nation; that is, considerations of geography, public or private interest, economic loyalties, professions, and political party entered into the selection of appointees. I suppose that my being a Midwesterner, identified with public higher education and moderate in my political views, placed me in a category that fit a need. In addition, it was probably assumed that as an ex-president of a university I must surely have time for public-service assignments. Once cast in this role, I received—and still receive—numerous requests to serve in sundry ways, allowing me to choose ones that may be useful to Indiana University and stimulating to me.

Among these assignments were the Special Committee on U.S. Trade Relations with East European Countries, chaired by J. Irwin Miller of Columbus, Indiana; the National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, chaired by Sherwood Berg, dean of the School of Agriculture at the University of Minnesota; and the President’s Special Committee on Overseas Voluntary Activities, chaired by Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

The Miller Committee (see Appendix [J] for list of members and staff), as it came to be called in my office, was asked by President Johnson to explore all aspects of expanding peaceful trade with the countries of Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. in support of the president’s policy of widening constructive relations there. The committee had the advantage of a great amount of material prepared for its meetings by experts from the departments of State, Commerce, and the Treasury. We also had the benefit of testimony presented by some exceptionally able economists in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and from technologists in the Department of Defense. Interestingly enough, the Department of Defense and CIA experts all believed that we should extend our trade with the Soviet bloc and were unanimous in their view that we would lose little and gain much by such increased contact. They informed us that the U.S. had few technological and economic secrets from the Soviets and that trade with the Eastern bloc was certain to be beneficial to us politically as well as economically. The committee recommended peaceful trade in nonstrategic items as an instrument of national policy in our relations with individual Communist nations of Europe. Our report was favorably received in general by the press and by the public, but right-wing opposition succeeded in scaring off congressional support. I have been told, however, that, as bills in favor of expanding trade were presented in succeeding years, our report served as a standard reference point. I found participation in the work of this committee exceptionally stimulating and interesting. It gave me a large store of information concerning a field about which I had known little, and the contact with the members of the committee and the technological staff furnished me useful insights concerning U.S. relationships with the Communist world. I especially valued working with Irwin Miller, one of the most remarkable men I have known in my lifetime: a superb businessman, a devout churchman, dedicated in his attitude toward public service, active in the promotion of arts and education, and supportive of all that is best in American life.

Six months after the Miller Committee had completed its report, I was asked to be a member of another White House commission. The problems of agriculture, which seem to be omnipresent in the American scene, were especially visible in 1965 and as a consequence a rather comprehensive Food and Agriculture Act was passed. To President Johnson, a farmer and a rancher, this was a subject close to the heart. On the occasion of his signing of the act on November 4, 1965, he made a long statement in which he included an announcement that he was establishing the National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber “to make a penetrating and long-range appraisal of our agricultural and related foreign trade policies.” The commission was to undertake the review “in terms of the national interest, the welfare of our rural Americans, and the well-being of our farmers, the needs of our workers, and the interests of our consumers.” It was this commission to which I was subsequently appointed.

The commission was composed of thirty men and women of widely differing backgrounds. Some came from organized agriculture, some were dirt farmers, some were from the food-processing industry, and others came from agricultural food–processing and marketing industries as well as from agricultural colleges and their extension services (see Appendix [J] for a list of members).

Given eighteen months to carry on its work and a substantial secretariat to service the study, the commission worked intensely and long from the first to the last of its meetings. Hearings were held in seven major cities, and a number of authorities and experts addressed the commission. I found the subject absorbing because of my own personal interest in agriculture stemming from my small town, rural background. For instance, that part of the study that dealt with fiber, cotton mainly, was entirely new to me and proved useful to my thinking. In fact, my participation on the commission taught me a great deal, and I hope that in turn I made some small contribution to the final result. But the agriculture problem seems to me ever with us, demanding continuing study, consideration, and the wisest kind of decisions in the formulation of national policies affecting this all-important segment of our economic and social life.

The third of the White House groups upon which I was asked to serve was in many ways one of the most exciting. It was a committee formed to take a look at the subsidies that had been made clandestinely by the CIA to a variety of American nonprofit organizations. Some of these had been created by the CIA specifically for the purpose of dispensing CIA money, but their nature was concealed through a variety of strategies. These so-called specially created agencies, or front agencies, dispensed money abroad in the furtherance of good causes about which there would be no controversy other than the source of the funds for them. Not all had such reputable purposes, however. Furthermore, in time money from certain of the front organizations was channeled into some of the most prestigious American international voluntary organizations without knowledge on the part of their officers and membership of the source of the funds. When this story finally began to break it caused a big uproar in the press, and properly so. As a consequence, a high-level committee consisting in part of Congressional leaders and in part of representatives of the voluntary organizations of the world was formed to make recommendations to the president and to Congress as to what should be done. On the committee were four members of the House of Representatives, four members of the Senate, and eight nongovernmental members (see Appendix [J] for list of members).

Under the chairmanship of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, the committee reached a general consensus that a bipartisan commission of private citizens would have to be created by Congress to funnel money into international voluntary organizations that had legitimate purposes to perform throughout the world and that could be supported only with government money. A mechanism that would ensure that the government money in no way compromised the organizations’ impartiality, integrity, or international reputations needed to be devised. Obviously, if their reputations were to be jeopardized, their work would be greatly hampered and perhaps rendered impotent. The committee also recommended an initial annual level of appropriations of about $35 million for the commission, including $1o million transferred from government agencies for American overseas universities, libraries, and book activities.

It suggested more effective use of private voluntary organizations by federal agencies in the carrying out of their programs. And it called for an executive branch study of the current cultural and academic exchange programs and of American cultural relationships abroad.

I should like to believe that the time and effort the men and women spent on these White House commissions and committees contributed to the formulation of sound national policy. I am confident that each of the three with which I was acquainted made some contribution in its field.

An interesting facet of that service was the glimpses it afforded of Lyndon Johnson. In each instance the commission reported personally to the president. In our meetings with him he always evidenced a keen interest in what we were doing and expressed great appreciation for the service we were rendering and assured us that he would attempt to act on our recommendations and secure their passage.

President Johnson took a special interest in the East-West trade committee and in the food and fiber commission. I remember that we made an interim report to him on the East-West trade study one morning when he had been up all night trying to decide what to do about the Nicaraguan situation—whether or not to send in U.S. troops. Finally, after much agonizing of spirit and mindful of the recommendation of the ambassador, he decided that troops had to land to protect the lives of Americans in Nicaragua. The president was bemoaning the fact that he had to take this action—he felt especially beleaguered at that time because of the Vietnam issue—and he added rather wistfully that these were not the kinds of problems with which he had hoped to deal as president. In my judgment, he was much more interested in domestic social and economic problems than in international affairs. It will be interesting to observe what place history affords him, but I will wager that through the perspective of time he will be seen as a president who had a very deep and passionate interest in solving such social ills as poverty, racial injustice, and the problems of ethnic minorities. I doubt that any other president in this century, with the possible exception of Franklin Roosevelt, was as much concerned as he was with these problems. I feel that Johnson had an even greater understanding of the enormity of these problems than did Roosevelt.

COMMISSION ON THE HUMANITIES

Not long after I became chancellor I was asked to serve on a commission that was national in significance but nonfederal in character. With the launching of Sputnik by the Russians, the federal government had been stimulated to begin massive grants through the National Science Foundation for the development and promotion of scientific study and experimentation in the United States. The very success of this effort in a way threatened an imbalance in American educational and cultural affairs. Considerable discussion, begun in university and other cultural circles about the need for increased support for the humanities, led in the spring of 1963 to the establishment of the Commission on the Humanities, jointly sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States, and the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. Barnaby C. Keeney, president of Brown University, was made chairman of the commission, and I was made vice chairman in recognition, no doubt, of the lively activity in the humanities on the Indiana University campus.

It was a privilege to work with the distinguished group of men and women appointed to the commission (see Appendix [J] for list of members), which met frequently and produced a well-drafted report that made a persuasive case. It described the state of the humanities in America, America’s need for the humanities, the problems of the academic humanist, humanities in the national interest, and the relationships to the federal government. It concluded by recommending that the president and Congress establish a national humanities foundation. The essence of the report was contained in the letter of transmittal dated April 30, 1964:

We recommend that the three societies take appropriate steps to promote the establishment of a National Humanities Foundation, particularly the enactment of legislation authorizing the appointment of the board of the National Humanities Foundation and the director and staff, and the appropriation of funds for organization and planning. We would hope that the board and the director would then conduct further studies and recommend an appropriation to the Congress.

This report carried the day, and it is now a matter of history that the National Endowment for the Humanities was launched. Barnaby Keeney was persuaded to leave his post as president of Brown University and become the first director of the foundation. He had been a vigorous and stimulating chairman, and in fact the discussions of the talented members were a joy to hear and participate in. I am sure that the quality of the report, much of which was written by Keeney, was responsible in no small measure for the eventual success of the recommendations. Other beneficial circumstances were that the members of the commission worked closely with certain members of Congress who were interested in the proposal and that the commission was sustained throughout by the steady interest of the ACLS, the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States, and the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa. In particular, there was a close relationship between the ACLS and the commission; in fact, there was some overlapping membership.

In a news release issued when we made our report I was quoted as saying that “the realization of our highest national aspirations requires a renewed and vigorous development of the humanities. The steps recommended by the commission are essential to this end. The report, therefore, deserves the sympathetic attention of every citizen.” I have participated in many similar types of committees and commissions in the past forty years and rarely have I had the privilege of being a part of one such as this, where the results were so direct and in my judgment so very beneficial for society.

This brief account of public and civic opportunities that have been mine during the years of my chancellorship helps to fill out the picture of how I have spent my time in that office.

Actually, I noticed little change of pace when I moved from Bryan Hall to Owen Hall. Here in an office that had been furnished and decorated at my own expense, by my request, the problems and pressures seemed just as heavy as before—but different. With my new responsibility for research, I had directed a staff that proved efficient and effective in promoting faculty research. My work with EWA, as I have related, absorbed at least half of my time. For a while matters and projects begun while I was in Bryan Hall still occupied some of my attention. Gradually, the transitional period ended and my role as chancellor began to take form, accelerating when President Stahr instituted the reorganization of the university that was not completed until the early years of President Ryan’s administration. Throughout the years preceding, during, and immediately following the celebration of the university’s Sesquicentennial, I was almost wholly preoccupied with the 150th Birthday Fund drive. Recently, after paring some of my responsibilities in order to get on with this book and having been slowed by some sieges with illness, my work has changed in nature but not in intensity. I look forward to the resumption of tasks laid aside while the book was in gestation. And so I return to the original question, what does a university chancellor do, with a sense of great good luck that for seventeen years Indiana University has had a position, and allowed me to fill it, that offered a potpourri of challenges and pleasures, opportunities and satisfactions, obligations and usefulness. I shall ever be grateful to the administration and to the trustees that they have permitted me to retain an active title and have granted me the resources to carry on my office and to work effectively, even after I reached the age of seventy and became an unsalaried laborer in the vineyard.