5. Require independent academic work while students are not in residence."

The pilot study introduced independent work for academic credit into the Bard curriculum. Defined in extremely broad terms, this independent work was to be done during what had been known as the "field period"--the January-February period which had previously been devoted to work experience directed towards the student's interests.

Bard continued its study during the 1958-59 year when the pilot study was going on, and finally decided to modify the project considerably from the original arrangement of arbitrarily assigned quarters of work and vacation. Last July, James H. Case, President of Bard, announced that a new schedule had been adopted for the current academic year. Instead of using a pure four quarter program, Bard will maintain its two fifteen-week semesters, and add two half-semesters, one in the summer and one in the winter.

The college hopes that this plan will permit increased use of the college facilities without the concommitant disadvantages of antagonizing faculty and students.

The summer session, running from mid-July to early September will be voluntary, as will the winter session. During one of the two half-terms, the student is required to do field work. The college will give courses, often doing experimental work in the brief term. This winter, for example, there will be one course given: "The Breakdown of the Nineteenth Century World View."

Increased Enrollment

It should be possible under this plan to graduate in three years, Case said, and the present enrollment of 250 should be increased by 50-60 per cent. But there is no sign that the full-year program originally envisioned will ever be used. When he announced the new program, Case said, "There seemed no way to make it [the four quarter proposal] acceptable, under present conditions, to students or faculty."

The four-quarter program, which has been so much discussed, thus seems to have little chance for acceptance. To institute it would probably cause a minor social revolution, at least on the secondary school level, for spreading vacations through the year would change the entire complexion of the student employment situation, now based on the great number of jobs available during the summer when most older workers like to go on vacation. Such a revolution would probably have to occur before any public school system could adopt the proposal on a large scale, for otherwise opposition would be overwhelming.

Productive Summers

There is, however, little doubt that something must be done to make the summer educationally productive. A vacation period may be vital to the maturing process and education outside the classroom, but it is inefficient, not only because it wastes plant hours, but also because it fails to utilize a third of teachers' available time.

Until teachers work for a full year, they will have some difficulty in getting a salary remotely related to either their usefulness or their traning. True, full-year work will not keep teachingpay high for it seems impossible to sustain high public pay scales, but it would bring wages to levels from which realistic pay could be maintained.

The most hopeful prospect at the moment is the summer session. As an institution, it has existed for years, but only recently has the summer session become something more than a device by which the brilliant can accelerate their education while the weak catch up with the work they failed to master during the regular year. And even in the relatively long existence of college summer schools, the session has generally been regarded as something for those with unusual needs or interests--teachers or exceptional students who want or need to spend more of their time in classes.

Ransom Lynch '37, one of the members of the Exeter group, sees summer sessions, rather than the full-year school, as the coming trend. He explains that the difficulties of expanding a summer session are far less than those of creating an entirely new curriculum, and points to the National Science Foundation-supported summer sessions in public secondary schools to prove that there are possibilities outside of colleges. Even in schools where there is no selectivity in general admissions, special summer sessions are often restricted to the especially intelligent.

Stanford has taken another approach--integrating the summer session into the regular academic schedule so closely that the school operates effectively for four quarters a year. This cannot be called the four-quarter system, however, for there is no general rotation of vacations (though Stanford permits a student to leave for any term he wishes, with no red tape). Many teachers are able to work for the full year, and considerably more students can attend the University.

In addition, Stanford has a branch in Stuttgart, Germany, which grants full academic credit for courses taken. The combination of these options gives Stanford one of the most flexible academic programs in the country--a student can take a vacation any time he wishes, finish college in three years, or gain degree credit while living abroad.