THE FACULTY COUNCIL
INTERIM REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENROLLMENT POLICY

We should like--for the seke of brevity, clarity, and we hope, force--
to address ourselves at once to our immediate charge: enrollment policy. The
challange has been posed by the recently issued Master Plan, Chapter II, "Student
Enrollment Policies" (Sec. 2a,1, p.5i)

"Graduates of academic high schools who have academic or commercial
diplomas and who ere in the top quarter of the entire body of graduates
of all high schools, public and private, of every type, are considered,
on the basis of our experience over the years to have the ability to
achieve a baccalaureate degree,"

Corollary to this passage is the statement addressed to the Faculty on February
21, 196 by President Gallagher that admission scores "probably will be lowered
in connection with additional freshman admissions, but it does not follow from
this that classroom standards of echievement should also be lowered."

For reasons that it will cite below, this committee feels compelled:

1. To challange the wisdom and the humanity of lowering admission
standards while maintaining standérds of achievenent.

2. To challenge the wisdom and humanity of the transfer procedures
currently operable for bringing students from the Community Colleges
to the Senior Colleges.

3. To challenge the wisdom and humanity of jamming students into utterly
inadequate facilities (see appended "Operation Breakdown") for what
will be clearly a typically "indefinite period of time."

To begin with the last and most obvious challenge, we need perhaps note
only that there has been no significant increase in classroom space since Army
Hall was acquired during World War II. Nor is there any likelihood of addition-
al. space until 1968 to meet alreedy overtaxed facilities--more than thirty
percent beyond capacity at this point. To argue that learning transcends
physical inconvenience betokens a foggy idealism not meeting with the classroom
attended by windowsill sitters, or the hallways lined with students aw: iting
conferences. To avoid the temptation of adjectives, let us merely mention the
librery, the cafeteria, the bathrooms, Finley Center, and the like. The expand-=
ing Greduate Progrem adds to the pressure. The newly announced formula of one
instructor to 19, rather than 15, students mocks the compleints about facilities
and classroom size.

Statisticel reports of the echievement of trensfer students from Community
Colleges h:ve been previously presented to support our contention that it does
an unprepared student little service to bring him here to suffer intellectual
humiliation, The transfer grade of C has been too reedily given at the Commun-
ity Colleges; the task of sustaining a like grade at the Senior College has
proved nigh impossible. A similar objection, of course, may be lodged against
bbinging into the Day Session from the high schools students who are simply in-
capable of meeting the standards which have won for the City College its distinc-
tion in the front ranks of American colleges. A so-called democratization-~in
name rather than in fact--by lowering admission averages, cer “at best add to the
overtaxing of educational facilities. It can-serve rio significantly productive
purpose in the preparation of these young-people for the tasks we should hope
they might one day undertake.

Your committee presents these initial recommendations for meeting the prob-
lems of enrollment:

Z. That no lowering of existing standards be allowed until a further
study has been made. Professor Villard's study, appended to this
report, raises a serious question of the validity of the analysis in
the Master Plan of the role of the Senior Colleges.


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II. That fuller use be made of the resources of the School of General
Studies. This is the established avenue of approach for those who
have not met the admission stendards of the Senior Colleges. A
specific proposal in this field:

A, Admit a special group of pre-matriculated students to be
selected from underprivileged areas after close cooperation
with high school authorities who will work out with us such
problems as:

1. Selection of students having the best motivation to
profit from college admission.

2. Exploring means of measuring this motivation,
through such criteria as student-teacher relation-
ships throughout the high school years.

3. Strengthening the ten year old Student Personnel
Orientation progrem (SPO), which has worked in
small groups and in individual consultation with _
clinical psychological advisors. Currently, ortly
five or six part time workers serve at the City
College. A permanent staff of line personnel is
needed to supervise the development of this special
pre-matriculated -group.

B, Carefully planned advence testing procedures to assign these
people effectively. And, as a follow-up, a program of tutors
ial service for remedial work in mathematics, foreign lane -
guage, and English, Again, a permanent staff is necessary
in these areas.

Such a program could not only succeed in the evening, where
special facilities may readily be set apart without inter-
fering with the established-pattern of General Studies, but
we in the day session can certainly profit, and soon, from
these experiences,

III, Theat the policy for admitting transfer students from the Community
Colleges be revised as follows:

A, Students having an average of B or better be admitted to the
Day Session as at present.

B. Students with average of C be admitted to the School of
General Studies as matriculated students.

C. Transfer of these latter to the Day Session be permitted
upon evidence of ability to maintain Day Session standards.

May we, before closing, remind our colleagues and the administrative staff
that our efforts have been expended at their joint request and with their en-
dorsement. We recall vividly the president's image of the faculty as an ackward
giant. If we are to play out our role as giants, we cannot allow ourselves to
be trenquillized. Giants stride; they do not toddle along, led by their masters.
A sizable segment of this faculty cares about this college. It is aware and
alert, responsive and responsible. It has urgent questions to ask, and it hopes,
significant contributions to make. In this preliminary report we have undertaken
both. We feel we speak for our collegues when we urge once more that administra-
tive leadership not isolate us. We are not parochial. We are capable of "univ-
ersity-wide" thinking.

The Committee
Bernard Bellush David Lewis Bailey Harvey
John A, Davis Arthur Waldhorn