The Centers
During the 1950's, generous philanthropic support, especially from the Carnegie and Ford Foundations, financed a variety of Ed School projects. The Laboratory of Human Development, the Center for Field Studies, the School and University Program for Research and Develop- ment (SUPRAD), the Center for Studies in Education and Development, the Center for Research in Careers--all these were established, as centers so often are, to gain foundation money. The proliferation of centers has made Harvard a national leader in educational research, particularly in the behavioral sciences.
But foundation support has its disadvantages. The grants are now coming to an end, creating a compelling need for a capital funds drive. Though President Pusey himself recognized the School's need for funds as early as his 1954-55 report, he has done little to satisfy that need. A year as dean may bring him to a renewal of appreciation of the School's financial plight.
In the next two years the Ed School will relocate its classrooms and administrative offices in Longfellow Appian Way. The signs point to a period of consolidation and re-Hall and in the new seven-story castle to be built across the street on examination--and perhaps to a renewed effort at finding "hard" money to give financial strength to programs developed over the past fifteen years.
Business School Overhaul
Consolidation, familiar as the term may be, is not the word to describe the current activity at the Graduate School of Business Administration. From its position of splendid isolation across the river, the Business School has been conducting a quiet but thorough revamping of its curriculum and teaching methods to adjust to a rapidly changing business environment.
Unlike the Ed School, the main problems of the Business School are not financial. Though expenses have doubled in the last ten years and the dean must raise $2,30,0000 of his annual $8 million budget in current gifts, the combination of alumni, corporation, and foundation money has provided a fairly regular income.
Nor is the B-School troubled by growing pains. The faculty has increased slowly (102 in the professorial ranks today, compared with 87 in 1955) but the student body has remained at its present level of 1300 for ten years. Even the administrative expansion has caused little dislocation: students have been getting married and moving off campus fast enough to permit the conversion of dormitory space to offices.
The real change at the Business School in recent years has been the conscious widening of horizons, and the willingness to employ new techniques in training business administrators. Simply stated, the School has asked itself whether its concept of the "tough-minded" decision maker can survive in an era when the businessman needs both an expanded social conscience and a grasp of new quantitative techniques.
In 1959 former Dean Stanley F. Teele set up a committee to review the Master of Business Administration (MBA) Program, and under George P. Bakes '25, James J. Hill Professor of Transportation and the present dean, the Faculty this year approved a number of changes.
Trimester System
Chief among these is the decision to institute a three-semester academic year, starting next fall, to permit students to take a greater number of courses and to organize the school year more efficiently.
Along with the new division of the