Harvard's Pledge to Public Education: Hints at a New Trend-Setting Role?

For years the University has sponsored a myriad of "continuing education" programs--the Summer School, the Alumni College, Business School Executive programs and so on--most of which involve a cost or measure of selectivity, or both, comparable to Harvard College. Harvard also sponsors a night school--the Extension School--which this fall, under an open admissions policy, enrolled 4700 students who will pay about $20 per credit hour for Harvard courses that could eventually lead to a bachelor's degree.

With the appointment of Michael Shinagel as director of continuing education last fall, the Faculty has renewed its committment to continuing education and given direction of programs to a man who would like to see Harvard assume a national leadership position in the fastest-growing area of higher education--programs such as Harvard's Extension School.

Founded by President Lowell in 1910 in conjunction with the city-wide Lowell Institute, a public education institute funded by the Lowell family, and the Commission on Extension Courses, a consortium of local colleges including Simmons, Boston University, Mass. Institute of Technology, Boston College, Wellesley and Tufts, the Extension School has been solely a Harvard operation from the start. The Lowell Institute provides a small amount of funding (about 7 per cent of annual revenues) and the Commission a helpful facade of community cohesion and a pool for the extension school's faculty.

Over 160,000 men and women have matriculated over the years--1000 have received degrees--to hear Harvard greats ranging from philosopher Josiah Royce at the turn of the century to Oscar Handlin in the present. Most people are surprised to even learn that the school exists, says Thomas Crooks, former director of the Summer School. "Except for some flurry on the seventh floor of Holyoke Center at registration time, a few lights on in Yard classrooms at night, and the Commencement Exercises, the program is largely invisible," he says.

For most of its 66 years, the school has undergone relatively little change. Except for the Faculty awarding the school degree-granting power (for the Bachelor of Arts in 1960, the Associate of Arts in 1971 and the Certificate of Advanced Study in 1976), a general expansion of programs in the '60s, and the introduction of Extension alumni to the Commencement parade, the school "has piddled along on its own friendly turf for years," Crooks says.

When Reginald Phelps, professor of German Literature and former dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, announced his impending retirement from his position as the Extension School's director several years ago, the move touched off faculty concern over national trends in extension education. Shortly before, the American Council on Education Report on Financing Part-time Students announced that in 1972, for the first time, the number of part-time adult students exceeded the number of traditional full-time students in post-secondary education. This led to a report on continuing education authored by Crooks, the reorganization of continuing education programs, and a successful search committee effort to locate a new director to head them. George Goethals, senior lecturer on Psychology, an instructor in the Extension School and a member of its Faculty Advisory Committee, said the committee was aware at the time that "this was a community responsibility of Harvard's--good courses at a low price" and that unification of the continuing educations programs was implemented specifically to provide national leadership opportunities for Harvard.

The concern of those closely involved with extension education traditionally has not been matched with a similar interest on the part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as a whole, though Dr. Leonard Kopelman, an instructor in the program and assistant senior tutor of Leverett House, says he's "never heard a negative comment around the Faculty" about the School. "Bok and Rosovsky consider continuing education important," he says.

According to several observers, the problem is that many faculty aren't even aware of the school's existence, and the administration's reorganization efforts have failed to distinguish between community education for lower-income working people and enrichment programs for full-time students and degree holders. The Faculty, however, is only indirectly concerned with the school. Outside of approving courses and instructors, primary responsibility is held by Dean Rosovsky.

Rosovsky says the Faculty is really waiting to see what Shinagel is going to suggest, and feels the Faculty will most likely go along with whatever he proposes. Shinagel was chosen as an administrative centralizer, Rosovsky says: "We're not yet satisfied that we know exactly where we're going; neither does Shinagel at this point." Rosovsky is sympathetic to the Extension School's aims: 'It's good for the University to make available some of its knowledge and talents and minds to the community." But he insists that "we stand for a certain kind of quality in education--liberal education is something that you can probably get more easily here," he says, as opposed to a heavily pre-professional and technical orientation at a place such as Northeastern. "We should try to differentiate our product, to do things we can do better than other people," he says.

Shinagel, a tutor in Eliot House in the early '60s and an associate director of the Office of Graduate Career planning from 1959 to 1964, left the chairmanship of the English department at Union College to assume his present post. He is charged with reorganizing and overseeing all of the Faculty's continuing education activities. But he brings a special commitment to the public education idea as embodied in the Extension School, to which he devoted half of his time last year.

"Harvard can really play a significant role nationally in continuing education--it has to," he says. Shinagel is presently working on a five-to ten-year planning proposal for the school, but has undertaken a substantial amount of innovation already. His biggest plans are for a new Center for Continuing Education slated to open next year, a proposal that will allow the school to bring in people to teach in non-credit seminars and innovative programs such as "Preventive Medicine" and "Professional Bridge" that wouldn't normally be acceptable under Faculty auspices, the introduction this year of a Certificate of Advanced Study for the equivalent of a year's work beyond the bachelor's level, and the expansion of the school into granting graduate degrees in areas not covered by other Harvard faculties, like offering a master's in Applied Arts or Liberal Studies.

Shinagel would also like to expand enrollment to fully cover heating and other maintenance costs for classrooms now subsidized by the Faculty, something he hopes will be helped by the new Tuition Assistance Plan for Harvard employees and an advertising campaign. But there are limits to expansion, and Shinagel wishes to avoid alienating other schools in the area who fear competition from Harvard's low-cost program, the least expensive in the Boston area.

Shinagel is disappointed that continuing education and the Extension School aren't being considered in the Task Force evaluations in progress. Harvard "should not divorce itself from realities," he says, "the Task Forces are lacking in peripheral vision." But he sees the need for a "sense of timing," and is waiting to see what the Task Forces come up with before pressing his case. The faculty was torn apart by the events of the late '60s, he says, "it has yet to re-define itself in the sense of mission. Whether the Task Forces will achieve this or not, I don't know," he says.

In the meantime, the Extension School continues to contribute a rather substantial effort to public education. While the median family income for Harvard undergraduates has been estimated by one source at around $50,000, that for Extension students is around $10,000, and one-quarter of the Extension students have family incomes of $5000 or less. Extension students come from throughout Boston's metropolitan area, and nearly all either work or hold down family responsibilities full-time. The ratio of women to men in the school is about two-to-one, and about three-quarters fall between the ages of 17 and 36. The school's oldest student was born in 1894, its youngest in 1962.

A specific objective of the school is to provide college-level opportunities for particularly talented high school students, but low cost and night-availability of classes are primary. Two hundred and fifty recent immigrants to the U.S. are enrolled in the Extension School's language courses. About 7 per cent of the students come to the school already holding a bachelor's degree, over 16 per cent with a master's. For most, the purpose is enrichment, but 60 per cent of the 6 per cent who do receive degrees go on for further graduate work, many of them at Harvard.

Probably the strongest commitment to public education comes from the Extension School's faculty, three of every five of whom hold Harvard appointments in other departments. Despite the program's dismally low pay (a stipend of $400 per credit half-course), Harvard people that have taught in the program are very supportive and feel Harvard has a commitment to public education. Deane Lord, director of information and an Extension writing instructor, "My friends that are teaching in it love it because...education means so much to them"

"I like to teach," says William L. Bruce, a dean of the Law School. "I like the idea of Extension: truly open enrollment education at its very best. There's no money or hassle; it's just a question of commitment. Whatever your background and resources you can get a Harvard degree and march in the Harvard Commencement," he says. "There is a positive responsibility that schools have to make available degrees for credit to men and women who haven't completed their education in like institutions," Bruce says.

"I just wanted to see what it would be like to teach older people," says Robert Moore, assistant professor of Economics. "It's fun to teach people that want to be in school and are paying their own money." Leonard Kopelman, who teaches accounting in the Extension School, is concerned about the mushrooming cost of higher education, and sees extension as "a built-in stabilizer for education in the future," preventing it from becoming once again a luxury item, only for the very rich.

The quality of the school's courses is considered just as good as anything offered in the College. The school has attracted a plethora of Harvard's brighter lights over the years, and most instructors teach straight from their notes for courses they give in other departments. Grading standards are also considered on a par with those in the college. "An A is an A," says Bruce.

But Edgar Grossman, an Extension School alumnus and a counselor for the Extension School's students, whose family funded the school's library in Lehman Hall, says there is a possibility of different standards with teachers from other schools, but he says he does not think it is substantial. To offset potential discrepancies, the school requires degree candidates to take ten of their 32 necessary courses with Harvard faculty. "I don't feel my degree is worth any less than my brother's Harvard degree, or yours," Grossman says.

Most courses meet for one-and-a-half to two hours each week, and the workloads are generally half of the norm for the college. Thus, to obtain a degree, the school's students must take double the College's requirement of full courses. Even numbers of people are enrolled for credit and non-credit courses. The course catalogue, with 156 offerings, closely resembles that for the rest of the University, except for a stronger emphasis on language and basic science courses. Seminars are available in conjunction with the Radcliffe Institute, and writing labs are also offered. The six largest enrollment courses this fall are, in order, "Accounting," "Intensive Elementary Spanish," "Intensive Elementary German," "The Human Life Cycle," "Twentieth Century Art" and "Nature and Function of Law."

Many find the school's students a more challenging group than elsewhere. "Everyone that has taught in the program has been surprised at the high quality of the students," says Goethals. There is a small element of significantly slower students that he doesn't find in the college, says Moore. But many of these disappear, along with those who give up when winter weather rolls around or decide the traveling is too much. There is a 20 per cent attrition rate over the course of a semester.

But generally, "the students are eager to learn and put in an awful lot of preparation--eagerness that I had to stimulate in the College," says Lord. Kopelman finds that questions on the whole from the students are more sophisticated, because they've been exposed to a wider range of experience. "As people get older, they really want to know the answers to these questions about the human tribe; most undergraduates just get sparks," says Bruce.

How do the school's students feel about their place in the otherwise elitist educational structure of Harvard? "These are mature people who are looking not for the ticket but the education," says Bruce. "Because they're more mature, they're better able to deal with ego questions. The quality of education is what's really important."

Many are already associated with Harvard, but a large number are younger people attracted to the student mecca of Boston, says Grossman. "They're in awe to think they have available to them an entree to the Harvard community" and to a degree, he says. "Many are scared because they were academic dropouts elsewhere," he says, and the slower pace gives them a chance to build up confidence.

"The secret to getting a Harvard degree in the Extension School is perseverance," Grossman says.

"I enjoy participating in the tradition," says Meg Maugn, a graduate of Brigham Young working in Boston and taking Extension School courses to keep up her teaching certificate. She finds the faculty approachable, open to suggestions, and "never condescending." "I feel very much at home when I go there," she says, "but I don't really feel I have a claim to being a Harvard student," because of the non-selectivity.

Most of the school's students, because they are working or housekeeping full-time, simply do not have the time to become involved with Harvard outside of their classes. Still, Maugn sees a "strong community feeling in the classroom." "We're all in it together, help each other, and enjoy exchanging information," she says.

"Some of them try and do feel a part of Harvard," says Grossman, but "night people are individuals in the main." "For those who wish to become a part of the community, the opportunities are there," says Lord, and the last several years have witnessed the formation of an Extension School Alumni Association and its acceptance into the Associated Harvard Alumni, as well as the introduction of a school newspaper, the Lamplighter. But most "don't feel they have to be part of the University," says Goethals.

Those connected with the school generally agree that things are looking up, that Harvard is becoming more aware of the expanded role it could play in public education. "We're doing a heck of a lot more than anyone ever dreamed," says Crooks.

"Harvard has done less than they should have over the years," says Grossman. "The community was not best served. It had been dawning on them for years; they just never did anything about it," he says. "A lot is going to be heard from the Extension School in the years to come," "I think Shinagel brings a real enthusiasm to the program and a knowledge of its direction," Shinagel says.

But where the Extension School is headed in the years ahead will depend not merely on Shinagel's talents for organization and innovation, but also on his ability to convince Rosovsky and the Faculty of the school's importance.