Document
Samuleson, Agnes, Public Junior Colleges: Preliminary Bulletin, (Des Moines, Iowa: 1928).
Interpretation
When, in 1928, the Iowa department of education finally got around to reporting to its legislature on the status of the public junior college in its state, nearly a dozen junior colleges were already in operation, one for nearly a decade. Clearly, the state’s small number of public junior colleges and their relatively small size (most enrolled fewer than 50 students) were not a priority for Agnes Samuleson and Iowa’s other school leaders – the problems of poorly prepared and paid teachers, the challenge of school consolidation, and the impoverishment of many districts simply had first call on the attention of Samuleson and her colleagues.
But by 1926 the public junior college, if left unchecked by the state, had come to pose a very serious challenge to the more general goal of educational progress in Iowa. For various, and not always necessarily good, reasons, some very small towns – such as Cresco and Britt – had chosen to follow the lead of the considerably larger and wealthier Burlington and Marshalltown and establish a junior college as an integral part of their public schools. Without strict safeguards – what where known at the time as “standards” – it was very possible that other small, Iowa towns would follow Britt’s lead and seek to join the “college club” even though their communities had yet to provide adequately for their primary and secondary schools.
Sensitive to this very real danger, the Iowa legislature, meeting in 1927, adopted the state’s first junior college act (Iowa Acts of the 42nd General Assembly, c. 86, p. 82). This legislation, and similar bills adopted about this time in a number of other states, are frequently misrepresented as “enabling” legislation in the two-year college literature. In fact, it was never the intent of the Iowa legislature (or, for that matter, the Louisiana or Nebraska legislatures) to in any way encourage or “enable” communities to organize public junior colleges. To the contrary, the intent of such laws was to establish barriers – whether of population, local assessed wealth, or even mandatory referenda with super-majorities – to dampen, if not outright end, local enthusiasm for the junior college.
In the specific case of the 1927 Iowa act, the barriers are obvious. First, a school board was no longer free to create a junior college on its own initiative. It was required to first secure the approval of the state school superintendent and then of local voters in a general referendum. Moreover, even if these two hurdles were overcome, a local school board could not operate its junior college as it saw fit. Rather, the legislature directed that the state superintendent promulgate “standards” for junior colleges, accredit any courses offered, and regularly inspect the institutions.
The document that follows responds the legislature’s demand for junior college standards under two broad headings. The first (section VI. A.) sets out standards to be used by the state superintendent in meeting her responsibility to inspect the state’s public junior colleges. A careful reading of these five standards makes it clear that Samuleson was concerned first that a public junior college not draw away local funding required a sponsoring school district’s elementary and secondary schools. If a junior college’s enrollment were simply too small (see VI.A.4) or a district’s assessed valuation inadequate (see VI.A.1), then the addition of a junior college would only make a difficult situation worse. (In 1931, the Iowa legislature sought to make its point even more explicit. In a revision of the 1927 act, the legislature specified prohibited any city with less than a population of 20,000 – and there were, by this time, very few Iowa’s cities with less than 20,000 that did not already have a college of some sort – from establishing a public junior college. This provision effectively brought an end to the organization of public junior colleges in Iowa.) It is also apparent that Samuleson was concerned that a local school district not establish a public junior college that might compete against a proximate private college for what were, at the time, the relatively small number of academically eligible high school graduates in a state with a large number of colleges and universities (cf. VI.A.5). Iowa was not the only state concerned about the possibility of such competition and its potentially negative impact on private colleges – Florida specifically prohibited the establishment of a public junior college in a county that already operated a college, whether public or private, and Texas required the state superintendent of instruction, in evaluating a local petition to establish a public junior college, consider its potential negative impact on established colleges and universities.
Under the report's second broad heading, Samuleson addresses the issue of junior college academic standards, requiring that a public junior college in Iowa, as a condition of the accreditation of its courses and successful inspection by the state school superintendent, must meet the rigorous standards set forth for junior colleges by the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges. While small, Iowa’s public junior colleges were intended by Agnes Samuleson to be as rigorous in their admissions standards, faculty qualifications, and quality of work offered as any well-endowed private college or university. That Iowa's junior colleges were held to very high standards in all these areas is apparent from the accreditation report issued by the University of Illinois for Burlington Junior College in 1929.
A careful reading of the academic standards as summarized by Samuleson makes it clear that Iowa’s public junior colleges were not intended to serve any but students who, if they had wished, could have readily gained acceptance as a traditional college or university. Iowa’s early junior college students – like virtually all early public junior college students – were not socially or academically inferior to their counterparts at Iowa State or Grinnell, they simply wished to stay home for the first year or so of their college studies. At a time when schools of law and medicine did not require the baccalaureate (many required just 10 or so college units), and teaching credentials could be had with about a year of appropriate college study, there really was no pressing need – apart from a desire to participate in Greek life – for most students to attend a college of arts and sciences. A junior college could get them into a professional school or a teaching career just as quickly, and without the need to risk the many, highly publicized temptations to a student’s moral well-being that abounded on most state university campuses of the period.
In evaluating the following document, it is important to keep in mind that such state-wide studies were rare, particularly bearing the imperator of the state school superintendent. Elsewhere, most state legislatures and school superintendents had more pressing issues demanding their attention, notably the expansion of state highway networks, the crisis of falling farm prices toward the end of this period, the eradication of the venerable, but inefficient, one-room school house, and the professionalization of the teacher corps. The impression is that the concerns addressed by Samuleson were shared by other state school superintendents, particularly in the Midwest, but it should be acknowledged that there is limited documentary evidence to confirm this impression.
Text
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Preface
II. Prevailing conceptions of the purpose of public junior colleges
A. Statements from current educational literature
III Statement of findings bearing on merits of junior college movement
A. Statement from current educational literature
IV. Provisions of the Iowa law relative to the establishment and maintenance of public junior colleges
V. The public junior college movement in this state.
A List of public junior colleges
B. Sources of other data
VI. Standardization of public junior colleges
A. Tentative standards for investigation on the part of communities considering the establishment of the junior college
1. The financial situation of the local district
2. The housing situation.
3. The efficiency of the elementary and secondary units of the local school system.
4. The number of students to be served
5. The proximity of independent colleges, state educational institutions, private junior colleges, or other public junior colleges.
B. Tentative standards for all public junior colleges seeking approval
1. Introductory
2. Entrance requirements
3. Enrollment
4. Scope of work offered
5. Instruction
6. Standards of work
7. Equipment
8. Records
9. Extra-Curricular activities
10. Approval of the high school
VII. Bibliography
I. PREFACE
The first chapter in the story of the American public school system is told in the establishment of the common school; until recently the last chapter seemed to have been written in the expansion of the public school program to include the high school. The rapid development of the public junior college movement is adding a new chapter to the story. With the establishment of junior high ached and junior college units, the sequel may be found in the reorganization of the public school system on the basis of six grades o£ elementary, and eight grades of secondary instruction.
The rapidity of the growth of junior colleges and the public interest in their development compel serious study of new problems affecting the entire organization and program of public education. Because of the newness of the movement there has not yet been time to find the scientific answer to many of the pertinent questions involved in any consideration of standards for public junior colleges. In no field of education today is the need of reliable data more obvious, and the search for facts more keen.
This preliminary bulletin is an attempt on our part to be of service to communities dealing with this new situation. It is organized with two groups particularly in mind -- the school districts considering an election to vote on the proposition of establishing a public junior college, and the school districts in which the public junior college is already in operation. It is expected that subsequent bulletins will follow this publication, this one being offered in response to the numerous requests that come to this department for immediate material on this problem.
In the investigation of this educational problem of vital importance to oar state at this time, we solicit the cooperation of all agencies that have any contribution to offer. By working together in accordance with the best that is known in educational practice and research, the public junior college of our state should reach a higher level of efficiency each year.
Agnes Samuelson
Superintendent of Public Instruction
II. PREVAILING CONCEPTIONS OF THE PURPOSE OF THE PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGE
The purpose of the public junior college, as stated In educational literature, college catalogues, and announcements, has been expressed in many different ways. One authority has found twenty-one specific functions listed in such literature. In a recent study these are reduced to four-preparation, popularizing, terminal, guidance.*
The special purposes of the junior college have been stated by Dr. Leonard V. Koos, "The Junior College Movement", pp 319
and 320 follows:**
1 “To give the first two years of curricula (1) is liberal arts and (2) in preprofessional and professional work (where these professional curricula begin with the first college year).
2. To assure instruction as good or better than that on the same level in other higher institutions.
3. To provide terminal general education for those who cannot go on to higher levels of training.
4. To develop lines of semiprofessional training.
5. To popularize higher education.
6. To make possible the extension of home influence during immaturity.
7. To afford more attention to the individual student.
8. To improve the opportunities for laboratory practice in leadership.
9 To foster the inevitable reorganization of secondary and higher education.
10. To bring together into a single institution all work essentially similar in order to effect a better organization of courses and obviate wasteful duplication.''
Ill. STATEMENT OF FINDINGS BEARING ON MERITS OF JUNIOR COLLEGE MOVEMENT
The merits of the junior college movement have been variously described in current educational literature. The following quotations from Dr. Koos have been selected as representing the most pertinent of the findings on this subject. They are found on pp. 313-319 of the previously quoted reference.
I. “It has been shown that in the extent of its offering the average junior college does not fall far short of the work actually taken hy most students during the first two years in the colleges of liberal arts.”
2. ''In certain aspects of instructional situation the junior college does not yet measure up to other higher institutions. The statement applies to the extent of graduate training that the instructors have had and to the proportions of instructors adequately trained for the subjects they
*Thomas, President F. W., Chap. II, “The Function of the Junior College” pp 11-25, in “The Junior College” by William C. Proctor, Stanford University Press, 1927.
** Acknowledgment is made to Dr. Leonard V. Koos and to Ginn and Company for permission to quote the material in Parts II and III.
are teaching. In other respects the comparison is more favorable, as in experience, in remuneration, and in the extent of training in education. Observation of the actual work of teaching corroborates the conclusion drawn from a study of training and experience that, although instructors in junior colleges seem on the average less well equipped from the standpoint of subject matter, at the same time they tend to be superior to instructional procedure. The same observation indicated an approximation to equality in the average level of student performance in accredited junior colleges and in other higher institutions, this judgment being supported by the results of a comparison of average marks earned in their third year of work in standard higher institutions by junior-college graduates and by those who had earned the right to senior-college standing in an estimable state university. The program of the junior college in these instructional matters during its brief history is an earnest of even more progress and of the ultimate attainment of satisfactory standards in all respects. There is no occasion to doubt that the junior college will achieve a type of instruction that is much more suited to students on this level than is much of the classroom procedure in present-day colleges and universities, in which there is to much effort to avoid lower-class teaching responsibilities to get wholesome and constructive results.”
3. ''The junior college will not only be well suited to serve the needs of those who should or can aspire to higher levels of training, but it is clearly better designed than are our typical higher institutions to provide for those who should not or cannot go on. Its superiority in the solution of this problem rests in the fact that with the first two college years as terminal years in the school containing the junior college, there will be a marked tendency to look out for the interests of this group of students.''
4. '”Through proximity and lowered costs the junior college is in a position to make more nearly universal the opportunities of education on this level. This in turn, by removing a large part of the cost of there years, will make it more nearly feasible for many to secure training beyond the junior-college level.”
5. ''Judging from parents’ opinions and from the more youthful age of freshmen in junior colleges and in other higher institutions when they reside in the community of location than when they come from outside, the new unit is looked upon by patrons as affording a continuation of home influences during the critical years of social immaturity.”
6. “Not unrelated to this advantage is the greater attention affordable to the individual students in junior-college units. The marked difference as to size of class sections now obtaining between the new institution and the larger colleges and universities is unlikely in considerable part to disappear as we come to foster and maintain only sizeable junior-college units.
7. “Another element of superiority of the junior college is (and will be more and more) that it gives to students on this level better opportunities for laboratory practice in leadership, for there are no upper-classmen, who in other institutions are usually elected to positions of student responsibility.”
8."The junior-college movement has the support also of apparently inevitable forces of reorganization in higher education.”
IV. PROVISIONS OF THE IOWA LAW RELATIVE TO PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGES
4217. Enumeration of Powers of Electors. The voters assembled at the annual meeting or election shall have power to authorize the establishment and maintenance in each district one ore more schools of a higher order than an approved four-year high school.
Note: Section 4197, which authorizes a board of directors to call a special meeting of the voters of any school corporation, does not list the proposition of establishing and maintaining one or more schools of a higher order than an approved four-year high school course as a proposition that can be submitted to the voters at a special election. Therefore, the only time said proposition can be voted on my the electors is at the regular election on the second Monday in March.
4267-1 Junior College. The board, upon approval of the state superintendent of public instruction, and when duly authorized by the voters, shall have power to establish and maintain in each district one or more schools of higher order than an approved four-year high school course. Said schools of higher order shall be known as public junior colleges and may include courses of study covering one or two years of work in advance of that offered by an accredited four-year high school. The state superintendent of public instruction shall prepare and publish from lime to lime standards for junior colleges, provide adequate inspection for junior colleges, and recommend for accrediting such courses of study offered by junior colleges as may meet the standards determined.
427:3. Tuition. Every person, however, who shall attend any school after graduation from a four-year course in an approved high school or its equivalent shall be charged a sufficient tuition fee to cover the cost of the instruction received by such person.
V. THE PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGE MOVEMENT IN THIS STATE
A. LOCATION
Twenty public junior colleges are in operation in this state during this school year of 1927-1928. All of these were organized before the present law relative to the establishment of public junior colleges was enacted. The list follows:
1. Albia 2. Boone
3. Britt 4. Burlington
5. Chariton 6. Clarinda
7. Creston 8. Cresco
9. Estherville 15. Red Oak
10.Fort Dodge 16. Shelton
11. Maquoketa 17. Tipton
12. Marshalltown 18.Washington
13. Mason City 19. Waukon
14. Osceola 20. Webster City
B. SOURCES OF OTHER DATA
Pertinent data relative to the enrolment, curriculum, equipment, and other items will constitute the basis of a department report at the end of the school year. The findings of a recent study of the public junior college movement in this state are embodied in a recent report of the Public Junior College Committee of the Educational Council of the Iowa State Teachers ' Association. For other sources see bibliography.
VI. STANDARDIZATION OF PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGES
A TENTATIVE STANDARDS FOR INVESTIGATION ON THE PART OF COMMUNITIES INTERESTED IN ESTABLISHING THE PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGE
Before submitting the proposition of the establishment of a public junior college at the annual election, the community interested in projecting a public junior college should make name careful investigations along several important lines. The first preparation will naturally consist of the study of the movement in its general aspects. This can be done by reference to educational literature followed by a visitation to superior junior colleges.
The points for special analysis and study all are: the size of the local school unit and its financial status; the housing facilities; the efficiency of the elementary and secondary units of the local school system; the number of students to be served; the proximity of other higher educational institutions.
While there are other items of more or lean value entering into the merits of the situation in the local community, these points constitute the essential prerequisites to be considered; they represent the type of data to be presented this department on the part of districts interested in an election on of proposition. The purpose of the data is to safeguard the work on the present level, as well as to guarantee a successful program on the new level.
1. The Financial Situation
No community should attempt to establish or maintain a public junior college until the fact is established that the financial conditions is such that the junior college could be maintained without
curtailing the financial support of financial support of the other departments of the school system, particularly the elementary department.
2. Housing Facilities
The housing facilities are of essential importance. If of full capacity of the present building a without the junior college unit, is now required to carry on the activities of the elementary and secondary departments, it is inadvisable to proceed with the proposition of attempting to establish and maintain a public junior college. It to essential that ample housing facilities be available for the purpose of the public jointer college without crowding any other departments of the school system. This means the junior college must have adequate space for recitation, study, library, laboratory, and other instructional activities. The location of the school plant and the buildings should meet proper hygienic requirements and conserve health. Proper housing is a necessary prerequisite.
3. The Efficiency of Elementary and Secondary Instruction
The efficiency to and support of instruction in the elementary and secondary grades must not be curtailed by the establishment of the public junior college. This in a matter of crucial importance. No program of expansion should ever be allowed to sacrifice the work of the elementary grades or jeopardize the support of the high school offering. It to too obvious for elaboration that the work of the elementary grades is fundamental to the entire program of education. No economy can be considered in the grades, involving all the children of the school corporation, in order to offer college credit courses to the few of who can take advantage of them. The first emphasis should be placed upon securing substantial outcomes in the minimum essentials in the grades, with definite progress to higher levels of efficiency each year the same is true for the high school.
In order to secure this information with some degree of accuracy and to judge of the adequacy of the program of instruction, 8 testing program under proper supervision would be helpful. This item really relates to the first point, since it involves adequate financial support. A high level of instructional efficiency in the twelve grades is a necessary prerequisite. 4. The Number of Students to be Served
This is a matter of state-wide as well in as local significance. The securing of work on superior levels of achievement is of mutual interest to local and state school officials. One requisite is the
minimum of students necessary to carry on a stimulating work. This standard depends upon the first point also, since the size of the district and the number of local high school graduates constitute a large factor in determining the enrolment to be expected after the first year. The same set of facts is also needed for the nearby districts from the standpoint of the ultimate distribution of junior colleges in the state. Experience tends to show that, in order to justify the effort and expense in establishing and operating a public junior college, the minimum enrollment should be twenty-five students for the first year and fifty students in the two years. It also indicates that the enrolment the first year tends to he somewhat larger than can be expected in succeeding years, because of the fact that some high school graduates of previous years who have not entered college, increase the first year’s enrollment. That source of student supply will be exhausted the first year.
A careful analysis of the number of students that will be served is an important prerequisite, since the location of the junior college should warrant expectation of an adequate enrollment and a proper development of the institution.
6. Proximity of Institutions of Higher Education
Another factor to be considered in the proximity of other institutions of higher education – such as, independent colleges, state educational institutions, private junior colleges, and other public junior colleges. With a collegiate institution nearby the justification of duplication by a new public junior college may need to be carefully weighed. An analysis of the proximity of nearby institutions of higher education in an important prerequisite.
B. TENTATIVE STANDARDS FOR COMMUNITIES SEEKING APPROVAL FOR PUBLIC JUNIOR COLLEGES
The prerequisites set forth in the preceding section are assumed to have been met by all the public junior colleges now established in this state. Their permanent success depends upon the way in which these prerequisites have been met.
Instead of the recapitulation of the prerequisites, we refer you to the preceding pages. In addition to this preliminary analysis all communities seeking approval this year should be guided by the following tentative standards.
In organizing these standards the reports of junior college standardizing agencies have been considered, especially the regulations
formerly adopted by the Intercollegiate Standardizing Committee of the Iowa State Institutions of Higher Learning and those of the North Central Association of Secondary schools and colleges See bibliography.
1. Introductory
The public junior college is defined in the Code of Iowa as ''a school of higher order than an approved four year course Said school of higher order should be known as public junior colleges and may include courses of study covering one or two years of work in advance of that offered by an accredited four year high school.”
2. Entrance requirements
Unconditional admission to the public junior college shall consist of not less than fifteen units of standard credit, the minimum of credits for conditional admission being fourteen. Entrance requirements should be removed during the first year, the student being required to register at once for the work necessary to remove the deficiencies. The student’s registration, including courses necessary to make up entrance requirements, should not exceed the regulations as to student load.
3. Enrollment
A public junior college should have a minimum of twenty-five students in the first year and fifty students in two years.
4. Scope of work offered
The public junior college offering two years of college work should provide college courses in at least five fields English, foreign languages, natural and physical science, social science, and mathematics. These courses should be of such number and character so as to provide proper preparation for subsequent college work, if the function of the school is preparatory rather than terminal.
The criterion for the selection and organization of the curriculum is found in the analysis of the function of the junior college. Thus far the ami, determined by economic considerations and parental desires to prolong home supervision through the later adolescent period, has been to duplicate college courses.
5. The instruction
(a) The faculty. Instructors in junior colleges are required to told to legal certificate registered in the office of the county superintendent the same as the other teachers in the public school system
The minimum training standards for instructors in public junior colleges shall consist of a Masters degree from a college or university of recognized standing. A teacher who has had one year of graduate training and is actively at work completing the requirements for the advanced degree will be tentatively approved; two years of graduate work are acceptable training qualifications
The work of each, instructor should ho limited to the fields of his graduate major and minor
The safeguarding of the college credits made by students in the public junior college requires that these training standards be rigidly met by school boards in seeking junior college faculty.
In addition to these technical requirements successful public school experience, as well as recent courses in the technique of teaching the special subjects, is an extremely important and desirable qualification.
Intellectual capacity is nor enough; character and personality are also outstanding characteristics to be sought in organizing the faculty of any public school. Since the public junior college should emphasize instruction rather than research, the instructor should, by all means, take personal interest in the students, especially those who have difficulty in orienting themselves in the new situation.
(b) The teaching load. The teaching schedule should not exceed fifteen or eighteen hours of junior college work per week, or twenty hours of high school and junior college work combined.
(c) The student load. The regular credit work of a student shall be fifteen hours per week, one additional hour being permitted for adjustment of registration. Except in the last semester before graduation. extra work should be permitted only in case of superior scholarship, and in no case should a student be allowed to register for more than twenty credit hours per week.
6. Standards of work
A semester hour is defined as one period of classroom work, in lecture or recitation, extending through not less than fifty minutes per week for a semester of eighteen weeks, two periods at laboratory work being counted as rite equivalent of one hour of lecture or recitation.
(a) A minimum of sixty semester unites is required for graduation from a junior college.
(b) The diploma of completion of a junior college curriculum is not to be considered a degree.
(c)The school year shall not be shorter than that of standard colleges.
(d) The work of the entire organization should be on a college basis characterized by scholastic thoroughness of work. It should he equivalent, in quantity and quality, to the work of a similar course in a standard college. A spirit of industry and studiousness should prevail, with due attention paid to the development of proper study habits. A high level of efficiency should dominate every procedure of the administration, including such details as, orderliness in use and care of equipment, and filing of complete records.
7. The equipment
(a) Libraries and laboratories-. A later publication will deal more specifically with the library and its needs. An adequate library of books and materials, germane to the work offered, should be easily accessible to the students. The library of the school should be properly catalogued and in charge of a competent librarian. The addition of new books each year, in order to keep the library facilities up-to-date for the courses offered, is highly recommended.
The laboratories should provide ample facilities for doing a high grade of work in the sciences. They should equal the laboratory facilities of standard colleges.
The other equipment needs of the group should be adequately met. They depend upon the courses offered.
8. Records
A system of records showing clearly the secondary and college credits of each student should be accurately and carefully administered. The original credentials filed from other institutions should be retained by the junior college.
9. Extra Curricular Activities
Although the major emphasis is upon academic standards, this does not preclude provision for extra curricular activities and satisfying opportunities for development of leadership and initiative. Just as the classroom assignments should he distinguished by a high level of efficiency, so the extra curricular activities should be characterized by a superior quality of performance; one wins favor in the articulation with the higher institution, the other interests the community in the junior college unit.
10. Approval of the High School
Before the public junior college is inspected for approval, it
shall first be approved or accredited by an authorized accrediting agency. Accrediting by the North Central Association in addition to approval by the Department of Public Instruction is considered adequate. Tile approval is not completed until all required reports are on file in the Department of Public Instruction.
VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eells, Walter Crosby, Annotated Bibliography, Chap. XIV P. 208-217, The Junior College, Proctor, Wm. N., Stanford University 1927
Headley, Leal A., How to Study in College, Henry Holt and Company, 1926
Koos, Leonard V., The Junior College Movement, Ginn & Company, 1927
Koos, Leonard V., Conditions Favor Integration of Junior Colleges with High Schools, School Life, May, 1927
North Central Association Quarterly, Junior Colleges, p 22, June, 1927
Proctor, Wm. M., The Junior College, Its Organization and Administration, Stanford University Press, 1927
Weaver, Ernest L., et al., Report of the Committee of Educational Council of Iowa State Teachers Association on Public Junior Colleges in Iowa, 415 Shops Building, Des Moines, Iowa, 1927
Contributor: R P
Last Updated: January 15, 2000