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EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY PROGRAMS: ARE THEY ACADEMICALLY JUSTIFIABLE?

Presented by:

Leslie Berger
Director, SEEK Program
The City University of New York

at The First Annual Conference on
Educational Opportunity Programs
in Higher Education
The University of Wisconsin

; Milwaukee, Wisconsin

, July 18, 1969


Tnis spring the black leader James Foreman, under the threat
of seizing church property, demanded $500-million as a down payment
from the churches for reparations to black Americans. I happen not
to agree with either his concept of reparations or his method of
achieving them. However, the incident serves to point up an issue
that we can no longer ignore: at a time when over 50 percent of
our high school graduates are going on to college, black students
constitute only 4 percent of our total college enrollment. Of the
6,700,000 students attending American colleges, only 300,000 are
black students - and half of this number are enrolled at Negro col-
leges. By comparison, on a nationwide basis, black students make up
15 percent of the high school population. The disproportionately
low number of minority group students in the higher educational ex-
perience is largely due to the fact that many of these students have
been unable to acquire the academic skills and the high school grades
necessary for.admission to our colleges. There was a time, not long
ago, when this state of affairs was more or less accepted by both the
blacks and the whites. In 1969, we have a very different climate.
The black community has in various ways been defining and expressing
its grievances against the status quo, and demanding that these
grievances be redressed by the powers that be. And at college campuses
throughout the country where radical and some not so radical white
students have banded together in protests and demonstrations against
the Establishment, the students' demands, however particular to a


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given institution, have almost universally included the admission
of an increased number of black students.

As college administrators, we are thus faced with two alter-
natives: to turn down and fight the demands, or to find ways through
which we can implement those demands which are rational and legitimate.
If our colleges are to survive as viable institutions in today's
world, then I believe we must choose the latter course. We have
reached the point where we can no longer sit back and debate whether
or when to create broader opportunities for higher education. Instead,
we must address ourselves to the urgent business of determining how
to get on with this task. Two questions have to be answered: First,
how can the demands be educationally implemented for the new body
of students who are pressing for admission; and, second, how will the
admission of these students affect the students who are already in
college.

Let us now consider why so few minority group students were
admitted under the existing system. It is not that our colleges have
explicitly excluded these students. Current admissions standards are
based primarily on past high school achievement and college board
scores, and these criteria simply do not take into account the edu-
cational and environmental realities of our poverty areas. There
is now a formidable body of evidence to show how slum living condi-
tions and large city public schools have operated to prevent youngsters
from realizing their potential. Unfortunately, in a social and educa-
tional system that allows for a good deal more upward mobility than


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many other systems allow for, the disadvantaged student is still at
a tremendous - if not altogether hopeless - disadvantage. Our ac-—
tuarial admission criteria provide us with an economical method of
sorting out middle-class candidates for college, but when we are
concerned with urban ghetto youth who have attended ghetto schools,
it is particularly unwerranted to assume that past academic per-
formance in high schools is a direct function of ability. We must
realize that good high school averages are usually indicative of a
number of things - intellectual ability, appropriate motivation for
academic success, adequate study skilis, and a reasonaodly supportive
enviroment. By the same toxen, low grades in high school can re-
sult from a deficiency in any of the these variables. Yet each of
these factors, with the exception of intelligence, is potentially
changeable. For this reason it is an exceedingly difficult task to
determine the potential educability of young people from urban ghettoes
who failed to achieve in high school.

We must recognize that whether a student does well or poorly
in college is not just a result of dimensions that are characteristic
of him prior to his admission to college. His success or failure
also reflects a second group of variables related to the institution
itself. The quality and method of instruction, the availability of
different kinds and amounts of remedial teaching, counseling, finan-
cial assistance, medical care and living arrangements - all these
factors interact with the characteristics of the individual student

to determine what he learns. Of course, if the educational approach



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in college is essentially the same as it was in high school, and if
there is no change in the student's environment or motivation, then
it seems reasonable to assume that those who rank highest in high
school and on standardized tests will produce the greatest number of
"successes" in college. But it mist be acknowledged that such meas-
ures are ineffective wnen it comes to determining the educability
of a specific individual.

Wnat I have been leading up to is that it is not enough fora
college to revise its admission policies and admit students who are
unable to meet the traditional standards. The fact remains that
these students who haven't achieved in the past are different from
the traditional student body, and this difierence cannot and should
not be ignored. Once the students are brought in, it's the respon-
sibility of the college to assess what skills they lack in compari-

son to the regular students, and to build a program to help them ac-—

quire those skills and help them be phased into the regular curriculum.

I first became involved with this educational question in the
early sixties. At that time it wasn't one of the most popular edu-
cational projects, and for some time we had no success in acquiring
financial support. Finally, in the spring of 1965, we were given a
grant of $125,000 to set up an experimental program for 100 high
school graduates from the ghettoes of New York. By September we had
our 100 students, and the following summer, when the New York State
Legislature passed a construction bill for the City University, the
bill had a rider providing the University with $l-million for the



establishment of a special education program for 1000 students from
poverty areas. That was the beginning of the SEEK Program (SEEK,
incidentally, is an acronym for "Search for Education, Elevation and
Knowledge"). ‘The 100-student experinental program at City College
became the prototype for SEEK. That program was expanded, and new
programs were established at Queens College and Brooklyn College.
The total enrollment for the first year of operation came to 600
full-time and 800 part—time students.

By its third year - 1968-69 - SEEK nad Geveloped into an $8-1/4
million progran with approximately 3000 students, almost all of them
full-time, who were enrolled at eight senior colleges of the City

Miversity. From the oceginning, about $0 percent of the SEEK students
have been black or Puerto Rican. All are residents of officially
Gesignated poverty areas of the city. None of them met the standard
admissions criteria for any of the City University colleges.

Let us now turn to the method of selection. When we first
started in 1965, we made an attempt to take many things into consi-
deration. We read the evaluations and recommendations of high school
teachers and principals, and we looked at the students' transcripts.
For the first year or two, we tried to select students on the basis
of an analysis of their high school records. If the students had
averages in the low 70's, we looked for some indication of past
achievement - some high points, rather than a bland 72 in all subjects.
As the program grew, however, we shifted to a totally random method

of selection, and that's the method we have continued to use, Frankly,


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I have been skeptical about the prospécts of identifying promising
students on the basis of personal interviews. It has been our ex-
perience that a poor student may create a better impression in an in-
verview than a gifted student. Too often, an interviewer reaches
conclusions that reflect unsubstantiated or undefined criteria. For
example, social graces or qualities of leadership are not necessarily
indicative of an individual's intellectual or esthetic capacities;
yet interviewers, perhaps understandably, are inclined to respond to
an applicant's personality. The recommendations of high school per-
somnel provec to be virtually worthless to us; they only showed that
the administrators and teachers and guidance counselors of our ghetto
schools nardly kmew one student from the other. Besides, the stu-
dents' high school records testified to the fact that these same
people had failed to develop the capabilities of these students
over a long period of time. Most of the students we were consider—
ing had in fact been steered away from the academic, college-prepara-
tory tract by their guidance counselors, and as a result they came to
us with general or vocational high school diplomas rather than aca-
demic diplomas. According to a survey taken a few years ago in New
York City, only 5 percent of the students who completed high school
with an academic diploma were either black or Puerto Rican, whereas
blacks and Puerto Ricans together account for over 50 percent of
the city's public school population.

In recruiting applicants, we have to a large extent relied on
the help of local community agencies. We maintain contact with over

1500 agencies located in the five boroughs of New York, and they have



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been our principal allies in referring prospective students to the
program. ‘he active parcicipation of these agencies has also been

invaluable in demonstrating to the black and Puerto Rican community

ct

hat higher ecucational opportunities are available - that there are
coors which are open to them despite a lot of evidence to the con-
trary.

I am well aware, and I feel obliged to remind you, that I am

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abouts the City University of New York, where, among other
things, we have operated a program that is considerably larger than
any other experimental program is likely to be. This past year, we
admitted 1800 new students, and according to the University's Master
Plan, we'll be admitting 3500 students by 1975. Our methods may de
effective for our purposes, but perhaps in different areas of the
country, and in dealing with different numbers of students, other
methods can be used with equal or greater effectiveness.

The selection of the students is only the beginning of our
program. At the City University we do not select students with a
view of a specific program. I believe it is more realistic and ef-
fective to first identify the population we must service and then
build a program which can meet the needs of the students we accept.
Since the students are a much more heterogeneous group than the usual
freshman class, we aim to provide an individualized educational ex-
perience for each student, so that each will have an opportunity to
develop his potential to the fullest extent. Only then will we be

able to assess.a student's level of educability under favorable



envirormental conditions. The essential ingredients of our program
are counseling, curriculum, and financial assistance, and I will
discuss them in that order.

An unusual feature of SEEK is its emphasis on the role played
by the psychologist-counselors attached to the program. Every student
is assigned to a counselor, and at least for the first year of college,
he meets with his counselor_on a regular weekly basis. There is one
counselor to every 40 or 50 students. In addition to serving as an
academic adviser, the counselor provides a personal kind of freshman
orientation and is an imporvant element of continuity throughout the
student's college years. Colleges are basically middle-class ori-
ented institutions, and there is very little in the background of
disadvantaged students which prepares them to compete successfully in
such an environment. For many students, success in college will re-
quire a massive change in habits, values and daily routine. Some
of the advice and information that middle-class students may get from
family and friends is simply not available to those wno come from
poverty areas. They have no experience with academic goals, and they
hardly know anyone who has been to college. Highly motivated students
will succeed despite the usual frustrations of dealing with bureau-
cratic demands at large, impersonal institutions. On the other hand,
students who are skeptical and ambivalent about college to begin with,
and who doubt that they are really wanted or belong there, will see
their doubts as being confirmed when they are confronted with the

bureaucratic structure. The counselor's role is to serve as a bridge


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between the student and the Establishment, to help the student con-
nect up with the academic life.

Tne counselor's role is not an easy one. The young black or
Puerto Rican student typically is in the midst of an intense strug-
gle to establish his icentity with pride. The student who wishes to

equire a college Gegree is faced with rejection by his peer group
if his behavior deviates from theirs; and he does not know if he

wants to be accepted - nor does he have any assurance that he w

be accepted - by the group that makes up the majority. By the time
they enter college, many of these students have accumilated a vast ex-
perience of frustration and failure. though they may aspire to
hign-prestige occupations, they wonder if they can expect to achieve
such goals. They are not personally acquainted with anyone who
has achieved success; so wnile they may overtly express confidence,
they are inwardly convinced that people like themselves "don't have
a chance" to be successful in life. These students lack the ability
to postpone gratification of immediate needs in order to achieve
long-range goals, because these long-range goals seem all too remote
and abstract. The counselor establishes a relationship with the
student in the course of working out a program of studies with him;
and if problems arise that tnreaten to interfere with the student's
academic progress, the counselor is there to help the student solve
those difficulties before they become cumulative and force the stu-
dent to drop out of the program prematurely.

I am sometimes asked why the SEEK counselors are clinical psycholo-

gists by training, since a relatively low percentage of the students



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actually use tneir counselors as therapists. When we began to de-
velop tne program, I turned to clinicians for assistance not only se-
cause of professional chauvinism, but also for some more rational
reasons. As I see it, the greatest asset of a good clinician is his
genuine interest in people and his ability to communicate. A psychol-
ogist has been trained to be a problem-solver, and to function in
situations full of ambiguity. He has presumably acquired a sufficient
understanding of himself, and is secure enough in his own identity,
that he will not impose himself on another person. His training
equips nim to deal constructively with the hostility, suspicion and
apathy that may detract from a student's ability to profit from col-
lege instruction. The question that often arises is, can a student
be helped to expand his environment, and orient himself to the
larger environment - and build a sense of trust in it - witnout this
becoming an experience in which tne student is merely being encouraged
to adjust to the demands of society.

In addition, in a broadly based program, the counselor mst
provide support and encouragement, but mist also take into account
the fact that a person may be harmed not only by being discouraged
from obtaining a college-level education, but also through inappro-
priate encouragement that results in failure. When there is suffi-
cient evidence that a student is not educable on the college level, he
must be helped to utilize the college experience in finding an alter-
nate vocational objective. Some students choose to transfer to one

of the two-year commnity colleges for training in a field such as


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mecical or engineering technology. Others decide to enter a program
where they can acquire specific job skills, in order to become, say,
a computer operator. Still others want a job that does not demand
specialized training, and if they need help in finding a suitable
job, they are referred to SEEK's placement service.

Our curriculum reflects our belief that many of our students
wall prove capable of doing college work if they are assigned +
courses appropriate to their level of achievement, and if special
workshops and individual tutoring are made available to the students -
either on an optional or on a sandatory basis, according to the stu-
Gent's needs. Tne SEEK Program is designed to be as flexible as pos-
sible, so that studenvs nave the opporvunity to make up basic de-
ficiencies and yet can enter regular college classes as soon as they
are prepared to do so. On the basis of placement exams, incoming
Students are assigned to coursework in one of three categories: in-
tensive remedial coursework, regular college courses, or courses
specially designed to integrate remedial work with college-level
work. These specially designed courses cover the same syllabus as
the regular college courses, but the classes meet for more hours —- some-
times twice as many hours as the regular classes - and are limited to
from 10 to 15 students per class. When the SEEK students successfully
complete their special courses, they not only receive credit for the
work they have done, but are also prepared to enroll in more advanced
courses in the same department, along with non-SEEK students.

Many faculty members have been concerned about the presence on



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campus of a large body of students who are not on a par academically
with the regularly admitted students. What they fear is the ultimate
devaluation of academic standards. This objection has been antici-
pated and met - at least to the satisfaction of many of the faculty -
by the individualized programming that provides a separate educational
experience for the SEEK students in the areas in which they are weak.
Ours is a frankly experimental program, and one of the things we
have experimented with from time to time is the point at which our
students may be ready to enter classes on a competitive basis with
the regularly nitted students. As a rule, even our first-term stu-
Gents take at least one course with the "regular" students - generally
in a nonsequential subject such as sociology or psychology. Some
or the colleges participating in the SEEK Program have instituted
courses taking into account the special interests of our students and
the special contributions they have to make in the classroom. For
example, last year one college offered a humanities course entitled
"American Traditions of Social Change," which was taken by all the
freshman SEEK students and an equal number of non-SEEK students.
English has been one of the subjects in which almost all of the

students have started out in one or another of the special SEEK classes.

In the fall of 1967, nowever, the English Department at The City College
decided to give a number of our students the benefit of the doubt, and
place them in regular college classes. The 35 students who were chosen
to take part in this experiment had only scored in the 25th percentile

on their English entrance exam, but their essay-type responses had


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shown that despite poor performance on this objective test, they had
no glaring language problems. During the academic year these stu-
dents had access to tutorial assistance from advanced students at the
college who were, for the most part, English majors. As it turned
out, most of the 35 students were able to pass the regular Inglish
course, and one of them got an A.

it most of the students must undergo a long, hard struggle
in order to bring their writing skills and reading comprehension up
to college level. The effort is not a one-sided proposition. SEEK
teachers have to be both dedicated and imaginative enough to work
out alternatives to the traditional teaching methods. There is a
cremendous interest in new techniques on the part of the faculty -
perhaps most of all the English faculty. We have been operating on
the assumption that "standard English" - that is, the Inglish lan-
guage as it is used in colleges and in traditional literature - is a
skill necessary for success not only in college, but in a good many
fields of endeavor which our students may eventually wish to enter
into. Many students have long been accustomed to using the Negro
dialect in writing as well as in speaking. Standard English is a sec-
ond language for these students, just as it is for the Puerto Rican
students. Instead of ignoring this fact, the English teachers have
confronted it by first demonstrating how the Negro dialect itself
functions as a legitimate language system. We have found that with
this background, the student is better able to acquire a good under-

standing of the workings of standard English grammar.


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Since there are actually eight different SEEK programs, each
with its own director, and there are several different departments
involved at each of the eight participating colleges, the possibili-
ties for experimental teaching are multiplied accordingly. The cur-
riculum at each institution suggests different opportunities for in-
terdepartmental coursework or coordination between de ments. For
example, at one college, teachers from three departments - reading,
speech and English - got together and formed a teaching team for the
intensive study of selected texts. With the reading teacher, the
students came to grips with the essential meaning of the work,
whether it was a collection of essays, a novel or a play. The speech
veacher functioned to give each student a sense of personal involve-
ment with the text, and to develop his esthetic awareness. When the
English teacher took over, the students were ready to discuss the
philosophical ideas and implications of the work on a sophisticated
level. At the risk of a certain amount of duplication of efforts,
the students really learned what it was to explore a work of litera-
ture in depth.

At another college, where virtually all the beginning SEEK stu-
dents are enrolled in special English and social science courses, these
two courses are coordinated, and work in skills development is in-
cluded in both courses. While the same text is sometimes chosen for
study in both courses, there is a preference for using complementary
texts rather than the same texts, in order to expose the students to

a greater range of authors and ideas. For example, when Lord of the



Age

Flies is being studied in English classes, Civilization and its Dis-
contents is studied in the social science classroom. The students
may learn about Freud in social science and then apply this know-

ledge to the study of literature; or they may discuss the conflict

f reason versus emotion - or the individual versus society - as it

is seen in literature, and then view the same thing from a different
perspective in social science. At its best, this sort of interde-
partmental coordination results in a stimulating cross-—fertilization
of ideas. Perhaps this is what is at the heart of the learning process.

On occasion, the counselors are called upon to serve as re-

source people to members of the teaching faculty. At times, a counselor's
knowledge of a student and insight into his problems can be useful to
the teacher who is attempting to find a more effective way of working
with that student. If a student isn't moving along satisfactorily, the
teacher is expected to communicate this to the counselor, and to ex—
plore different approaches in the classroom. Just as college is a
strange new world to a student from the ghetto, the experience of
teaching disadvantaged students is a new experience for many of the
faculty. In this area of teaching, the interpersonal relationship
between the student and the teacher takes on a special importance.

It behooves the teacher to examine his attitudes. toward the students
and consider whether he is communicating his belief in their ability

to achieve.


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Earlier, I mentioned that financial assistance was one of the three
necessary elements of our program, along with counseling and curriculum.
In trying to set up a situation in which students would have a real chance
to develop their potential, we could hardly afford to overlook the finan-
cial and physical realities of the students' lives. The students who are
regularly admitted to the City University do not pay tuition, and neither
do our students. But our students also receive their books free and a
weekly stipend to cover their living expenses. In addition, student
housing is provided for a limited number of the SEEK students, because
some of them have been living under conditions that are prohibitive of
effective studying.

Virtually all the SEEK students work during the summer vacation to
help meet expenses for themselves and their families, and many of them
find summer jobs through SEEK's placement services.

Let us ask now how can we measure the effectiveness of a program
of this kind. Perhaps the title of my presentation "Educational Oppor-
tunity Programs: Are they Academically Justifiable?" is in itself mis-
leading because it anticipates a response in terms of conventional
criterion, that is, it requires a comparison of grades and degrees
granted for the two groups. It is my hope and belief that higher ed-
ucation has a more profound effect on students than their grades. But
how can one measure the growth of a person, and the degree to which his
education or experience broadened him? Can education contribute to mak-

ing a group of alienated youth part of the greater society?



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While some of our extremist New Left and black students make one wonder
if education contributed to making tnem part of the society, it is ny
feeling that meaningful educational experience is more likely to make th
black and Puerto Rican community relate to and have an investment in our
current social and political system than the state of alienation in which
they have been till this day.

At this point, let me share with you some data on the progress or
our students in the SEEX Program. Pernaps, it would be easiest if you
will follow me on the Tables I have given you earlier.

The first page gives you some idea of the student's nigh school
achievement. The following pages describes the retention rates, grades
achieved and credits earned for the City College SEK Program. The City
College Program is the oldest of the programs. It started as the Pre-
Baccalaureate Program in Sept. 1965 and became the prototype of the SEEK
Program.

(Discuss Tables)


svn

During the past year, as part of the wide spread movement of blacks
to define and assert their self-identity, SEEK students have been making
their demands heard also. A typical list of demands, among other things,
include black control, black faculty, and "relevant"curriculum. These
demands cannot and must not be ignored. They have important implications
on higher education and they have profound consequenaes on special educa-
tional programs.

How should we select an administrator for an educational opportunity
program? Must he be black? There are blacks who argue that he must be
black because students must be provided a model to identify with. They
state that the black student needs the experience of seeking a black man
in a position of authority. I believe that we cannot talk about a model
without first defining what the model is for. Is our goal integration
or have we already given up on it? Because if we are to provide a model
for integration then what we need is not a black man in authority over
other black men in a black educational program but we need black men in
various positions of authority in the University and also white men in
positions of authority in black programs. We must remember that the
practice of having black officers in black units of the Armed Forces was
much less meaningful than the current practice of having black officers in
positions of authority over wnite men.

Why is there a demand for black administrators? Is it perhaps because
some blacks believe and perhaps quite accurately, that there is still con-
siderable discrimination against black professionals? Are we not copping
out when we so readily agree to appoint black administrators in educational

opportunity programs while not making much effort to appoint capable and



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qualified black administrators in our Universities? Are we perhaps engaged
in false hopes that black administrators will better "control" the black
students? Are we sure that the lack of wnite participation may not be
experienced by blacks as a result of a lack of interest in them? Can we
accept the rhetoric that only blacks can communicate.: to blacks? If our
hope and aspiration is to live together in this country then this state-
ment cannot be accepted. Communication is a skill which is learned.

There are times and conditions wnen meaningful communications are diffi-
cult. If there is a lack of communication - and there is - it becomes
even more important to have an integrated staff.

If we cannot at this time communicate effectively enough, let us
learn together to communicate more effectively. Statements that blacks
must first find themselves among themselves before they can relate to
whites are misleading. There is no evidence that isolation of a group
from another group, be it self-imposed or imposed externally, ever pre-
pares that group to relate better to the other group at a later time.
qi the contrary, there is evidence that when a group is isolated and
communication decreases, then there is increased distortion, there are
rumors, there is suspicion, there is anxiety and increased hostility.

Curriculum is another burning issue, closely related to the issue
of segregated staffs. We have until now, I believe, neglected a great
body of knowledge of critical importance. Here I am referring to the
omission of contribution by blacks to history, literature and the arts.
The question is how to bring about the needed change. Undoubtedly curri-
culum revisions are called for, but as I see it, the answer is not to set

up separate curriculum for black students like in a Black Studies School.



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This will not only fail to correct past distortions but will create new
distortions.

Today, the ivory towers of academia no longer provide us with serenity,
but they do provide us with an exciting challenge. What I am afraid of is
that instead of embracing this educational challenge creatively, we will
become frightened and take the easy way out. In the educational opportunity
programs, it may be the easiest to permit blacks to do their own thing.
Curiously, this is exactly what blacks who have given up hope in the whites are
also asking for. But how representative are they among the black youth? In
my experience, the opinion makers are not representative of the true aspira-
tions of the black youth. This does not mean that individuals will publicly
speak out against them, but when you are speaking to students individually
and privately, or when you give students an opportunity to express themselves
in writing without their being identified, you will begin to get a different
picture. For example, in one of our programs this past spring, among the
eleven demands were tne following two:

1. Ethnic balance should be established in such a way that it reflects the
ethnic ratio. of the students of the center;

2. It must be recognized that the academic qualifications need at times to
be waived in the case of black and Latin American teachers.

Tnese demands were written by a small group of opinion makers. Superficially,
the demands appeared to have had the support of a large group of students. A
month later, the students filled out anonymous evaluations on their teachers
and counselors. Overwhelmingly, they rated them, irrespective of race, as
"helpful". The students wanted "to keep the same counselor or teacher",

they stated that "counselors should be as they are", they preferred "persons



él=

professionally trained with graduate school training", and they stated that
"Cheir teachers' and counselors! ethnic background doesn't matter". During
the confrontation they singled out a white woman teacher. Among other
things, some which cannot be printed, they criticized her because "in ner
course there are 13 books of which only two are by black or Puerto Rican
authors and the rest are by Italians, Irish, and Jews. In other words,
minorities not representative of the minorities at the Center". Within a
month she was rated as the best of the 18 Inglish teachers. The other
teachers who came off with top ratings were the more experienced, demanding
teachers wno had more professional graduate training than their colleagues.
By the same token, the fact that a teacher was young or revolutionary or
New Left did not win him a high rating.
In summary, let me state that in my experience, Educational Opportunity
Programs are academically feasiole and justified. The development of an
| effective program, however, is quite complex and it commands a careful study.
To be successful, we must have the courage to re-examine our old beliefs

and our sacred myths, and we must have the power to resist the rhetoric of

1969.