A lecturer in another course felt that he could strike a balance. "I have to be especially careful that I cover everything more thoroughly than in college courses where I can assume a prior knowledge of many things. At the same time, because of the greater variety of individual problems, my approach must be more flexible. It's definitely more of a challenge than most college lecturing," he said.
But Extension students have definite advantage over College students that tend to balance their disadvantages. With the possible exception of some credit students they are generally free from the pressure of grades, finances, and parents, which interferes with learning, lecturers agreed.
"I wish my undergraduate students had as much genuine interest in their work," said one lecturer. "Unlike regular undergraduates, I never see any Extension students reading newspapers, even when my lectures probably are most boring. And they ask almost too many questions; you feel that they appreciate their work much more."
Although the Extension uses only the lecture method of instruction, many lecturers thought lectures worked better with adults, at least in the Extension "There is more freedom to teach and learn," one professor said. "You don't feel so much that your colleagues or department chairman are constantly watching, and you are also talking to people closer to your own age. As a result there is more informality and intimacy."
Another instructor pointed out "noticeable advantages which maturity gives students. Certain problems, whether moral of economical, have more reality for people with greater experience."
Several things counteract these advantages, however, instructors admit. Adults are less fluent with abstract concepts in general and have usually forgotten the techniques of learning developed and practiced in college or school days. In language course they find it more difficult to memorize, although that may be an advantage in other studies, one teacher observed. Many adults, unaccustomed to class recitations, are even more reluctant to participate than most reticent undergraduates. "And a leader of industry doesn't relish correction by a professor half his age," one professor commented.
Some professors enter Extension work primarily because they are interested in adult education, others frankly state they need the money. "None have ever indicated that they considered it wasted time," says Phelps.
Other things equal, Extension students who work for credit seem to do as well as their college counterparts, despite the presence of auditors and other ostensible disadvantages. "As adult education the Extension isn't meant to compare with the best in college education, but it generally equals the better," a professor summarized the consensus of faculty members.
Graduate A.A.'s
Phelps points to the success of A.A. degree graduates as an indication of the quality of work possible. Of the 125 men and 104 women graduates since 1910, 60 per cent to graduate school. The more noted among these include two former professors at the University.
Certainly the quality of the faculty is undisputed. The men invited to teach by the Extension Commission include leading professors from Harvard and Boston Area universities. Lowell's will requires that the stipends be high enough to attract good men, though it also insists that "a lecturer may be taken on trial, but no one shall be appointed for longer than four years, nor from sentiments of delicacy ought his appointment to be renewed when he becomes incapable or superannuated."
Like any liberal arts program, the Extension changes slowly but not unnoticeably. General Education courses have been added with great success, and expansion in that area is going on. "We find Ged. Ed. courses excellent for adults," says Phelps, "and I'm not sure a person isn't better equipped for them when he's over 25 than when's he's 18."
Gen. Ed. Medium
Because Lowell, concerned about providing good lecturers, restricted most of the Institute's funds to salaries, science courses with their expensive laboratories have never been very strong, Phelps says. The Extension hopes to reach a happy medium in General Education science courses.
The steady increase in enrollment seems to corroborate Phelps' statements.
In 1951, the Extension's reach extended through radio broadcasts of lectures, and next year's plans call for telecasts. Recently, an elderly woman with degrees from renowned universities heard and Extension broadcast at her home in Harwich, Mass. She enrolled, and drives over 100 miles once a week to take the courses, staying overnight in a local hotel, and driving back the next day. "It's not hard to be an optimist when someone does that," says Phelps.