Dean Recommends Colleges Initiate Searches for Gifted

Dean Monro yesterday strongly suggested the development of an academic talent-hunting program in which colleges would take the initiative in their own localities for finding gifted students.

He will advocate foundation support for such a program at a meeting of the College Scholarship Service Tuesday, Oct. 25, in New York.

Monro pointed out the need for a plan to interest and attract students with limited educational opportunities or poor economic backgrounds. Most programs "come at this problem from the top," he said, and a foundation like the National Merit Scholarship Corporation "sends people to college who are going anyway."

Report Prompts Suggestion

Remarks in a report by Richard L. Plaut, President of the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students, prompted Monro's recommendation. Plaut advocates "an organization, enjoying both public and private support, of the size, strength, and prestige of, for example, the National Science Foundation," to search for hidden talent.

NSSFNS has helped some 7,000 Negro students enter 350 interracial colleges with $2.5 million in financial aid in the past 12 years. In 10 years' work, NSSFNS has placed 252 Negro students in 45 northern prep schools. Seven of these graduated from preparatory schools this spring, and one has entered Harvard.

Example Cited

For an example of how such a program might function, Monro mentioned Junior High School No. 43 in New York's Harlem district. There, promising children with poor backgrounds are introduced to higher learning and given a chance at college under the auspices of NSSFNS, the College Entrance Examination Board, and the New York Board of Education.

Colleges are in most cases best equipped to develop patterns for talent-hunting in their own neighborhoods, Monro said. "If we could get a dozen colleges rolling on this, we would have the makings of a pilot program," he commented. At present, organizations like NSSFNS seek out promising students and negotiate with college admissions officers.

Monro described the present system of academic talent-hunting as "wasteful and insensitive from grade to grad schools." He cited the principle of equality of opportunity for all people in his argument for the college-initiation program, concluding that "it is up to colleges to do work of this kind in their own localities."