Burning the Weekend Oil

Odd-hours classes for working students

James Caygill, public safety director in suburban Woodhaven, Mich., joined the Army right after high school. Later his hope of earning a college degree faded with the pressures of holding down a job and raising five children. True enough, he was free on Saturdays and Sundays, but he knew of no place that offered instruction at such times. Then in 1975 he heard about Weekend College, a pioneering effort of Wayne State University in nearby Detroit. Caygill enrolled, kept up a 3.65 average for five years and in June 1979 became one of 675 graduates who have been awarded a Bachelor of General Studies degree since the founding of the innovative school in 1973. Says Caygill: "It's an excellent opportunity for people who have to work."

A separate academic unit at the 34,337-student WSU, Weekend College has held classes in such places as police and union halls and local libraries in an effort to fit schooling to the schedule of people who work. Of the 1,200 current enrollees, more than 500 are auto company workers; the United Auto Workers union not only helped persuade Wayne State to create the college but also recruits many of its applicants. One typically enthusiastic student is Senior Bob Robertson, 36, a Ford engineer who took one college course per term at night school for 15 years before enrolling in Weekend College. Says Robertson, who will graduate this month: "During two years in this program, I have made more progress toward the degree than I had in the past 15."

Every weekend, students attend small, four-hour discussion groups that can take place in the morning, afternoon or evening. Twice each term they meet at WSU's downtown Detroit campus for larger conferences. Other instruction is accomplished through a series of some 800 "classes" that have been video-taped by college faculty. These are broadcast daily on public TV and commercial channels in 30-min. segments early in the morning, in the late afternoon and after midnight; the week's fare is then repeated on Sunday for makeup and review. The curriculum, taught by the 82-member faculty, includes courses in science, the humanities and the social sciences, as well as mandatory classes in writing and research projects. The program can be completed in four years, but most students take five. That is still much less than the ten to twelve years often required for standard adult-education programs.

WSU's weekenders must maintain the same minimum C average and pay the same tuition ($149 per quarter for freshmen and sophomores, $266.50 for juniors and seniors) required of regular students. But unlike the weekday program, Weekend College admits any high school graduate, regardless of his or her grades. The quarterly dropout rate is about 50%, double WSU's overall average, though many of those who leave do so because of job changes or marital problems and return later on. Laid-offautoworkers can receive unemployment benefits while enrolled in Weekend College, but are ineligible for such aid if they become full-time weekday students. Of those who earn degrees, 20% enter graduate school; 85% of those who apply for advanced study are accepted. Among them: one graduate accepted by Harvard Law School, two others by Harvard Divinity School.

Teachers say the weekend program gains from the maturity of the students. "I find adults enjoyable to teach," says David Levey, assistant professor in the social science department. "Young students tend to be very passive. Adults come back with questions, discussion and arguments." Adds an autoworker enrolled in Weekend College: "The professors are not quite as tempted to try to bull a student as they would be with a roomful of 18-year-olds."

Although courses are currently offered at some 70 locations in the Detroit area, the college is seeking to move most of its classes into regular school buildings. When a class is held in a union hall, the reasoning goes, some worker-students become reluctant to ask questions or risk answering sharp queries within hearing distance of their union officers.

The founder of Weekend College, WSU Political Science Professor Otto Feinstein, 50, aims to promote the concept nationwide. Experiments with weekend colleges have already begun in New York, Minnesota and Kansas, with the help of grants of $380,000 from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and $400,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Beginning this fall, weekend programs are scheduled to open in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and Missouri, many of them using Wayne State's TV courses. The U.A.W. and other unions are working to spread the program. "By the fall of 1981, there will be 20 to 30 operating weekend college units," predicts Feinstein. "Once we reach that goal, the weekend college will become a regular part of the American higher education system."

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