Sharing the Knowledge

When Scandinavia-loving students at Wisconsin's Carroll College return to class this fall, they need not regret that their school has no classes in Norwegian. All they have to do is transfer temporarily to Luther College in Iowa, which has an excellent program in the language, pay not a penny more intuition--and get full credit at Carroll for work done. This free transfer of students will be the most immediately visible result of the newly formed Central States College Association--an educational combine of twelve Midwestern colleges that have agreed to pool their resources by coordinating classes, programs and faculty appointments.

Pressure for Excellence. Technically, the Central States Association is known as a "consortium," which today has become by far the most popular way for schools to make the most of their educational facilities. There are now at least 800 such arrangements to share the cost and spread the wealth in the U.S., with 200 more in the planning stage. "We can do things together that we can't do alone," says President Donald Kleckner of Elmhurst College, near Chicago, which is joining seven other small Midwestern schools next year to form the Mississippi Valley Association. "Many colleges are deciding that they can gain more by cooperation than by competition."

Although the name consortium is new to education, the idea is an old one; Harvard and Radcliffe, for example, have formally permitted student exchange and coordinated their curriculums since 1943. The major growth of consortiums has come within the past five years, as schools both great and small have discovered that the pressure for excellence is forcing them to look beyond their own campuses for help. This has proved particularly true in the field of scientific research: universities have been able to undertake expensive projects together that none of them could have financed alone. In one such coalition, twelve universities stretching from Florida to Texas are currently engaged in a geological exploration of the Gulf of Mexico. One of the largest of the consortiums is that created by 74 schools to operate the nuclear reactors at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.

Collaboration among colleges often reaches clear across the country and even overseas. Math students at Harvard have free access--via telephone--to a unique computer at the University of California's Santa Barbara campus. Kenyon, Oberlin and the ten other schools of the Great Lakes Association together sponsor international study centers for their students in Beirut, Tokyo, Bogota; and Guanajuato, Mexico.

Big Brothers. Not all the consortiums represent agreements among equals. In many cases, a major university will act as a big brother to smaller schools eager to upgrade their teaching capacity. The huge University of Texas (enrollment: 24,778) is the major partner in 60 consortiums, including one that provides for student and faculty exchange with its tiny neighbor, Huston-Tillotson College (615 students). The University of Pennsylvania opens its doors to students from eleven smaller colleges; they earn a Penn engineering degree along with the B.A. from their own schools in a five-year plan.

The most logical consortiums are those arranged by small schools just a few blocks apart. In Fulton, Mo., for example, little William Woods and Westminster colleges saved nearly 15% on food service costs by hiring the same caterer. They have also agreed to share libraries, an auditorium and an infirmary, and even to conduct joint fund-raising campaigns. The students, of course, think this consortium is just fine: Westminster is a men's school, and William Woods is all-girl.

The Girl from Pitzer. Experience has shown that consortiums need not create vast impersonal multiversities; even in the closest alliances, colleges can and do preserve their individuality. One of the oldest such arrangements (1925) is the agreement that now unites California's six neighboring Claremont Colleges near Los Angeles. Next autumn, for example, Linda ("Penny") Kugler, a junior at Pitzer, will study U.S. colonial history at Harvey Mudd, American literature at Claremont Men's College, economics at Pomona. Penny will reside in a Pitzer dorm, most of the time eat in dining rooms at Harvey Mudd or Claremont Men's--but has no doubt about which school is her alma mater. Proud to be a Pitzer girl, she likes the idea of sampling courses at other colleges, says: "It's a bit of a challenge to live up to your school's image."

Most educators are unworried by the possibility that U.S. institutes of higher learning might eventually interlock into one big nationwide university, conclude that the consortium is the key to academic survival for small liberal-arts colleges. "There is no question that we are in for a permanent era of big higher education," said Louis Benezet, president of the Claremont Graduate School and University Center. "The nice little quiet campus that talks about the eternal verities is going to be passed over."

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