Big Southern Campus

As even the proudest Southerner knew, post-graduate education in the South, particularly in professional fields, was in a sorry state. Florida had neither dental, medical nor veterinary schools; facilities in most other states were hopelessly inadequate. What could be done to bring the South up to par?

At their annual meeting in 1948, nine Dixie governors agreed on a simple answer: they would share each other's campuses. They set up a council, opened headquarters in Atlanta, went into operation in 1949. By last week, the Southern Regional Education Board had become the biggest boon that Southern education has ever known -- "the greatest bargain," says Florida's Fuller Warren, "since manna fell on the children of Israel."

Peaks of Excellence. Under its young (33) director, Sociologist John E. Ivey Jr., the program has invaded every aspect of higher education. Today, 14 states belong to it, and each year hundreds of students who cannot get the training they need in their own states apply to it for help. If the board accepts a student, it can assign him to a school in another state. The student's home legislature foots the bill: $1,500 a year for medical and dental students, $1,000 for veterinarians, $750 for nurses and social workers.

This fall, the board will assign more than 1,000 students, send more than $1,000,000 in extra fees to various institutions. But that is only a fraction of its work. In three years, the board has become not only a vast student clearinghouse, but also a planning agency that is rapidly turning Southern campuses into one prosperous university.

College and university presidents are beginning to learn that they no longer have to spread their budgets thin over dozens of different departments. With the board's help, they can now specialize ("We are building complementary peaks of excellence," says Ivey). Instead of diluting specialities by trying to duplicate those of other campuses, each school can go right on improving what it has: the board is willing to send a student to more than one place to earn a degree.

Isolationist Colleges. The board has also persuaded the Air Force to set up a $40,000 scholarship program for the Air University at Maxwell Field. Largely through the board's contacts with the Federal Government, the South now gets 14% of all research contracts (seven years ago it got 5%).

This year, the board is laying plans to reach out into such fields as city planning, hospital management, marine science, forestry, foreign affairs. It is considering a faculty exchange program and a combined library service. If all goes according to plan, says Ivey, the South's colleges and universities will eventually become a sort of education NATO: "There is nothing more isolationist than our colleges, and there is no greater barrier to sound development than the generally accepted notion of institutional sovereignty."

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