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Pablio&t1ons THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS BULLETIN No. 3512: March 22, 1935 To GRADUATES AND OTHER FRIENDS OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION: This statement contains information concerning the development and present conditions and some of the pressing needs of the School of Education in The University of Texas. It is hoped that the facts herein presented will justify the confidence heretofore shown by the public and school people, and that their support may be enlisted for the School of Education's continued improvement. The School of Education will be forty-four years old this fall. It was first suggested in a letter by A. J. Yates in 1839. The sug-gestion was repeated from time to time during the early years of statehood. The actual establishment, as a chair of Pedagogy, was in 1891. It thus became the second public institution for the training of teachers in Texas, the first being the Sam Houston Normal School. The occupant of the original professorship was Dr. Joseph Baldwin. He was followed in 1897 by Professor W. S. Sutton and Dr. A. Caswell Ellis. From these beginnings the faculty of the School has grown to 19 full-time and 3 part-time regular members, besides numerous tutors and assistants. The staff now includes 10 professors, 2 associate professors, 7 adjunct professors, and 3 instructors. Of these 22 persons, 18 hold the doctorate degree; and 6 are listed in Who's Who in America, and 11 in American Leaders in Education. The enrollment of the School has grown steadily from the begin-ning. Methods of counting registrations have been changed from time to time, so that current figures are not strictly comparable with older ones. From 1897-98 to 1922-23, on a "head count" basis, the number of individual students grew from 91 to 1086. From 1922-23 to 1927-28, individual class registrations were recorded as being more accurate than the head-count, since some students carry more than one course in Education at one time. On this basis the growth during the indicated five-year period was from 1252 to 1753, the count being for the fall term or semester only. Beginning -1-in 1927-28 the figure used has been the total long session semester-hour registrations. In that year these totaled 9,837 semester hours. The maximum long session registration thus far reached was in 1932-33 when the semester hours totalled 13,327, representing 2,055 fall-semester class registrations and some 1800 individual students. During that year between one-fourth and one-third of all students enrolled in The University of Texas were registered for one or more courses in Education. Last year (1933-34) the long session semester-hour registration in education courses dropped to 11,192; but the upward trend has set in again this year. Summer session registrations in the School of Education are increasing even more rapidly than those for the long sessions. From 1928 to 1934, summer semester-hour registra-tions in Education increased from 4,122 to 9,323, more than doubling in these five years. The Summer Session is peculiarly the teachers' school. In 1923 the School of Education was authorized to offer the degree of Bachelor of Science in Education, and three years later the degree of Bachelor of Science in Physical Education. Bachelor's degrees since conferred through the School now total 347 and have increased from 3 in 1924 to 82 in 1934. The number of students enrolled in the School as candidates for these degrees has grown from 6 in 1923-24 to 208 in 1933--34. But still at least five-sixths of the students pursuing courses in the School of Education are registered for degrees in other colleges or schools. At present the School of Education is composed of five instruc-tional departments. These departments, and their last-year's totals of semester-hour registrations, are: Art of Teaching, 3267; Educa-tional Administration, 2270; Educational Psychology, 3643; History and Philosophy of Education, 866; Physical Education, 1146. The housing facilities of the School of Education include Sutton Hall and the new University High School Building. Sutton Hall, the home of the School itself, was the first instructional building erected on the campus under the new building program. Since its erection in 1917 it has also housed the University's major administrative offices. The completion of the new administration building now in progress should release Sutton Hall completely for use by the -2-School, hut even the additional space thus provided will not ade-quately meet present needs. In the fall of 1933 the University High School was opened to supply more adequate opportunity for directed teaching and other laboratory work in Education. This new building houses a laboratory junior high school of nearly a thousand pupils, which is maintained by the city of Austin at almost no cost to the University. The School of Education provides instruction for students at all college levels from the freshman year to the Graduate School. A gradual shift in emphasis from lower division to upper division and graduate courses is evident. In 1927-28, the upper division and graduate courses contained only 34 per cent of the total semester-hour registrations in Education. In 1933-34, this propor-tion reached 44 per cent. During the last five years the School of Education has supplied major instruction and thesis direction for 259 graduates with the Master's and 20 with the Doctor's degrees. The number of graduate degrees granted in Education increased from 45 in 1930 to 68 in 1934. On motion of the School of Education, the Graduate School in 1926 recommended creation of the Master of Education degree and of the Doctor of Education degree in 1934. Also on this School's initiative, it liberalized, for graduates of Texas State Teachers Col-leges, the conditions of admission to the Graduate School for the pursuit of these degrees. These steps have meant real progress toward establishing a definite continuity between the State Teachers College on the undergraduate and the University on the graduate level. Effort has been made to provide as liberal an offering of varied courses in Education as the School's budget would permit, and at the same time avoid undue overlapping of subject-matter. Analysis of the course offerings in schools and colleges of education in eighteen leading state universities, in 1932-33, shows a range of from 21 courses at the University of Colorado to 285 at Ohio State University. The School of Education of The University of Texas, with 71 courses, ranks eleventh from the top. The median is the University of California with 83 courses in Education. It is hoped that this brief survey will offer some idea of the growth and present status of the School of Education. In number -3-of student registrations it ranks among the largest in the state uni-versities. It has been designated by the American Council on Education as one of the twelve departments in The University of Texas, and one of the fifteen Schools of Education in American State Universities, qualified to offer the most advanced graduate degrees. Students in other states are turning to it for graduate study in the fields of instruction now provided. The cordial recep-tion accorded its graduates and faculty by other recognized insti-tutions attest its high national standing. Attention is now invited to some of its present difficulties and needs. The teaching staff of the School of Education was exactly the same in number in 1933-34 as in 1929-30, although registrations in Education classes during that period increased one-third and the burden of upper division and graduate teaching increased from 34 to 44 per cent. The load of graduate instruction, and especially of thesis direction, bears inordinately heavy upon the School of Education faculty, as shown by the following figures: TABLE I THESIS LOAD IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL STAFFS, SIX LEAD-ING GRADUATE DEPARTMENTS, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, 1929-30 TO 1933-34-LONG SESSIONS ONLY Number of Master 's Degrees Departments Conferred Education ---------- 74 History ---------------- 49 Romance Lang. __ 32 English --------------- 46 Bus. Admin. ____ 42 Engineering _____ 38 Number of Doctor·s Degrees Conferred 20 15 4 9 1 0 *Part-time professors counted one-half time each. Semester Hours Represented 804 564 264 426 270 228 Average S emester Hours for Prof e.ssor* and Associate Professor 75.8 64.1 42.6 38.0 27.5 15.0 All departments in the School of Education are understaffed. In some, the lack of teaching force is serious. The Department of Physical Education, for example, has long faced the dilemma of overworking its teachers or of reducing its course offering below the level recognized for nationally accredited training schools in this field. The new health and physical education requirements of the high school accrediting committee and the State Department of Education have placed an additional load on this Department which simply cannot be carried without more teachers. -4-The Department of Educational Administration at present has the services of only one professor whose full time can be given to instruction. This Department is one of the most heavily loaded in the University in the graduate instruction demanded. It is also being urged by the educational forces of Texas to expand its curriculum in order to provide courses needed for leaders in the s~ate curriculum revision program. Modern teacher-training on the undergraduate level centers .around laboratory or practice teaching. Every teacher certificated upon credits from The University of Texas should have such train-ing. At present less than one-third of them do. The new University High School has greatly increased the pupil facilities for this work, .but the Department of the Art of Teaching in the School of Educa-tion lacks the necessary number of supervising teachers. A further need of the School of Education is the expansion of facilities dealing with the problems of pupil adjustment. Spe-cifically, new courses are needed for deans of girls, school psychologists, and visiting teachers. If we are to train persons for such positions effectively, our laboratory facilities must be supple-mented by a fully organized child guidance clinic, and suitable additions must be made to the teaching staff for this purpose. The Summer Session, as has been said, is peculiarly a teachers' school. The proportional responsibilities of the School of Educa-tion are greater in the summer than in the long session, a fact which is clearly shown in the next table. TABLE II PER CENT OF TOTAL UNIVERSITY SEMESTER-HOUR REGISTRATION IN EDUCATION COURSES, LONG AND SUMMER SESSIONS Year 1933-34 1932-33 1931-32 Per cent in Long Session 6.2 7.6 7.2 Per cent in Sum1ller Sess.on 25.1 19.0 20.7 In 1933-34, the School of Education provided 11,192 semester :hours of instruction in the Long Session and 9,323 in the Summer 5ession. The Summer Session is only one-third the length of the Long Session. Equated in terms of time, therefore, the School's summer session load last year was two and a half times as large as the long session load. Moreover, its upper division and graduate -5-registration, only 44 per cent of the lot1g session total, was 79 per cent of the total for the Summer Session. More than 3 times as many Master's degrees in Education were granted in the 1934 Sum-mer Session as in the preceding Long Session. During the last five years, summer session Master's degrees in Education have totalled 185, as compared with a total of 74 for the corresponding long sessions. It is evident that the faculty of the School needs enlargement during the summer term. In 1934, the summer faculty numbered 48 as compared with 22 for the Long Session. In mere numbers, without regard to the doubling of upper division and graduate service required, the student-teacher ratio is thus considerably higher in the Summer Session than in the Long Session. The main difficulty, however, is not that of numbers, but rather the problem of securing adequately trained and experienced per-sonnel. Since summer school instruction is so much more largely advanced, it follows that faculty qualification as a whole should be higher, in the School of Education at least. The regular staff of the School comprises less than half of the summer staff. Those who are brought in should be the equals or superiors of those who carry over from the regular session. At this point the School has been greatly handicapped by summer session salary regulations. Salaries for summer teaching are made disproportionately lower than those for the Long Session, on the theory that long session teachers are available for the service and will be glad to teach for less pay. Elsewhere over the University this theory may hold but not in the School of Education. The entire long session staff, if all were available every year, would not provide half the teaching force needed in the summer in this field. How to double the staff and at the same time maintain standards of com-petency, on the slender stipends available by law for summer work, is a problem that has not been solved. This brings the discussion to the problem of salaries and promo-tional opportunities for the long session staff, a problem which the School of Education shares with other University departments and schools. Salaries are conspicuously low at The University of Texas in relation to teaching load and in comparison with those paid at other similar institutions. During the current year, the median -6-professorial salary at 71 leading universities and colleges in the United States is $3434 as compared with $3325 at The University of Texas. Instructors, most of them with doctor's degrees and many with families, receive less than $1500. The average number of students per teacher at The University of Texas is 15.1, compared with 12.4 in 42 state universities. Here is a problem that must be faced and met, not in the selfish interest of faculty members as such but from the standpoint of the University's future welfare and development. In the School of Education, of the faculty members with six or more years of service, two are now receiving less salary than they received 12 years ago, and five, the same or less than they received IO years ago. Three began their service seven or eight years ago at a salary from 15 to 35 per cent higher than they now receive. In all other cases, the loss suffered in recent years is nearly as bad. The situation is accepted at present as this faculty's portion in a period of hard times for all; but in the interest of the School's development, it must be changed at the earliest opportunity. The University of Texas, more than any other State institution, must compete in trying to secure and maintain an efficient teaching staff with other similar institutions over the entire nation. The School of Education shares this competition and must also compete with opportunities offered in the better city school systems. Persons qualified to teach Education are also qualified to practice it. Here the fact arises that there are many city school superintendencies, and even some principalships, in Texas which pay better salaries than the University can pay as a maximum to its graduate professors. Competition of this sort outside the State is almost unlimited. Universities must increasingly compete with the better city school systems to secure the services of the most competent persons trained in Education. The problem becomes acute in the process of building an adequate faculty for future years. A university is a continuing institution, passed on by each generation of the citizens of a state to succeeding generations. A good faculty will quickly degenerate with the passing of its older members, unless it builds wisely for the future. Of the present staff of the School of Education, most of the older members will doubtless continue until removed by natural causes, and the younger ones will hold on as long as a reasonable -7-hope for improvement exists. But all of these will finally go, and who shall take their places? The generation which founded the University selected its original faculty with care; and until recent vears, the people of Texas have provided opportunity and encourage-ment for those who were added later. This policy must be resumed and continued if future generations of Texans shall inherit from today a real University of the first class. B. F. PITTENGER, Dean, School of Education, The University of Texas. PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY FOUR TIMES A MONTH AND ENTERED AS SECOND·CLASS MATTER AT THE POSTOFFICE AT AUSTIN, TEXAS, UNDER THE ACT OF AUGUST 24, 11U2 -8-

To Graduates and Other Friends of the School of Education

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To Graduates and Other Friends of the School of Education

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