University of Tomorrow

Most colleges stop worrying about a student when he flunks out. But at that point University of Minnesota's General College begins. Flunks worry General College because they are so numerous: half of all U. S. undergraduates flunk out of college. General College believes that, if this large group cannot become competent doctors, lawyers or engineers, at least they must be made competent citizens. After seven years the college is still seeking a formula for turning out good citizens,* but last week it reported progress: it had determined by a prodigious piece of research what a college graduate and good citizen needs to know.

General College's dean is squarejawed, 46-year-old Malcolm Shaw MacLean, who had been a cowhand, college teacher and night editor of the Minneapolis Tribune before he began to build his new kind of college, which he calls "The University of Tomorrow." Believing that college courses had become too specialized for most students, he taught his misfits such broad subjects as biography, "euthenics" (problems of the home). He also undertook to find out all he could about his students--their home life, incomes, diversions, problems, hopes. But Dr. MacLean soon decided that knowing his students' present status was not enough; he had to know their future problems. To find out what they would need to know after college, he went to the horse's mouth, asked college men and women who were out in the workaday world. To 1,600 Minnesota alumni and alumnae he sent a 52-page, illustrated questionnaire entitled "Building the University of Tomorrow." It asked them what kind of jobs they had, how much they made, what they thought of their bosses, whether they were happily married, whether they spanked their children, what they ate, where they bought their clothes, what they read, what movies they liked, what they thought of President Roosevelt, whether they wrote letters to their Congressmen, hundreds of other questions.

By last week Dr. MacLean had heard from 951 pollees, aged 23 to 48. Some answers:

> Most had an income of $1,800 to $2,500.

> Most liked their jobs, found bosses congenial.

> More than half were dissatisfied with chances for advancement.

> Things they most needed to know in their jobs were how to write business letters, how to plan work for others, how to prepare statistical reports, how to interpret economic trends.

> One-fourth needed to know how to make a speech.

> Nearly half kept a budget; three-fourths had financial plans, often inadequate, for their old age.

> Most frequent causes of disagreement between husband and wife were management of the family income, relatives.

> Married men and women often rearranged their furniture, wanted information on how to make their houses comfortable and attractive.

> Most common methods of managing children were reasoning (65%) and spanking (50%). In four families out of five, husband and wife both disciplined children.

> Most frequent sparetime activities were 1) reading newspapers, 2) conversation with family, 3) hobnobbing with cronies, 4) listening to the radio (favorite programs: news, football games, Charlie McCarthy), 5) reading magazines (favorites: Reader's Digest, TIME, LIFE).

> Things people would have liked to do but seldom had time for were sports, literary writing, travel.

> Men most wanted: 1) a happy married life, 2) financial success, 3) security for old age, 4) a comfortable standard of living, 5) making a good home. Women: 1) a happy married life, 2) a comfortable standard of living, 3) making a good home, 4) children they could be proud of, 5) travel and adventure.

> 82% voted.

> 85% discussed politics and social problems with guests, 69% with their families, 63% with fellow workers.

> Less than a fourth took part in political campaigns, wrote to Congressmen or discharged any civic duty other than voting. Pollees were especially apathetic about municipal government and similar local affairs.

Conceding that his survey showed that the University of Today is not a complete failure, Dr. MacLean found some of his findings "shocking." Said he: "It is appalling to discover that there are few, if any, observable differences, in other respects than earning power alone, between the graduates and non-graduates and between those who in college were known as 'good' students . . . and those who were known as 'poor' students. . . . They are culturally much alike: they listen to the same radio programs, read the same magazines, go to the same movies, feel much the same about their jobs and their families and their health, carry on the same and for the most part spectator types of recreations, and almost uniformly find democratic participation in social and civic affairs dull as dishwater and comparatively unimportant."

*Biggest handicap: although no General College student flunks out, 35% of them quit each year.

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