The School of Education has accepted off-campus services to professional personnel and school systems as an important aspect of its work. Such services are contributed in part through formal organization and in part through informal activities of the faculty. Formal arrangements have been made through the Bureau of School Services, the University Extension Service, and the Metropolitan Detroit Bureau of School Studies.
Bureau of School Services. — The Bureau of School Services was organized officially in 1948 and was designed to replace the former Bureau of Cooperation with Educational Institutions. From its inception until July 1970, the Bureau of School Services was not a part of any school or college or other unit on campus. It was responsible, through a Director, to an Executive Committee appointed by the Board of Regents. The Director reported directly to a vice-president. Effective July 1, 1970, the Bureau was placed in the School of Education and the Director reports to the Assistant Dean for Services and Institutional Relations. There is a University Advisory Committee, chaired by the Dean of the School of Education and composed of the Deans of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Engineering, and Music, and the Administrative Dean of the Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs.
The Bureau arranges for consultation services, school surveys, and conferences. It conducts an accreditation program for high schools in Michigan and maintains a close relationship with the accrediting program of the North Central Association. It provides a headquarters for nine organizations. It maintains liaison with school districts and the State Department of Education. The Bureau is designed to give some coordination and facilitation to services of the entire University to schools and agencies.
University Extension Services. — The School of Education conducts courses off-campus to improve services of individuals to school systems, for personal growth, to meet the requirements of post baccalaureate instruction for the conversion of provisional certificates to continuing certificates, and to facilitate the acquisition of credits toward graduate degrees, particularly the master's. The courses are offered regularly through the Graduate Centers and may be scheduled in neighboring cities. One hundred and ninety-three courses in education were offered in Extension during the Fall and Winter terms, and the Spring half-term in 1969-70.
Classes were held in 19 Michigan cities: Alpena, Ann Arbor, Jackson, Big Rapids, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Dearborn, Detroit, Farmington, Flint, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids, Mt. Clemens, Muskegon, Pontiac, Port Huron, Saginaw, Walled Lake, and Ypsilanti. A total of 70 regular faculty members, 35 members of the supplementary faculty, and a number of persons in team-taught courses, participated.
Metropolitan Detroit Bureau of School Studies. — The Bureau grew out of a series of discussions in the Superintendents' Conference of the metropolitan area of Detroit. A Committee was formed, including representatives of school systems and the Deans of Education at the University of Michigan and Wayne University. The report of that Committee was adopted to start the Bureau on December 11, 1946. The purposes as stated in the current By laws are as follows:
The Metropolitan Detroit Bureau of School Studies, Inc. is a public nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation established to conduct responsible research relating to matters of concern to member schools, to cooperate with other agencies engaged in educational research, and to cooperatively develop instructional programs and school system personnel through curriculum studies and in-service professional programs.
Sixty-four school systems currently hold active memberships in the Bureau and pay a service charge. Officers are a chairman, a vice-chairman, and a secretary-treasurer. An Executive Board includes representatives of school systems and of Eastern Michigan University, Wayne University, and The University of Michigan. In the early days The University of Michigan supplied quarters in the Rackham Building in Detroit. Wayne University now supplies office space on its campus. Wayne and Michigan assist in paying the costs of the Director of the Bureau and arrange academic appointments.
The Bureau conducts and publishes studies of finance and personnel, holds conferences, and provides services to assist member districts in solving their common problems. There is a current emphasis on management studies, such as collective negotiations, budgeting, contracts, and student activism.
Center for the Study of Higher Education. — The activities of the Center consist principally of postdoctoral programs, doctoral programs, in-service training, research and publications, and professional consultation. All are directed to the improvement of leadership in higher education of all types.
The Center was founded in 1957 when the Carnegie Corporation of New York made a grant to The University of Michigan. In 1962 a further award was made for five additional years. The program for which the money was given, however, was a continuation of one started in 1950 with the appointment of a Professor of Higher Education.
The Center was also to some extent an outgrowth of the University Committee on College Relations. This Committee was established in 1950 as a means through which to contribute to the solution of the problems of higher education in the state. It was this committee that formulated the plans for the Center and authorized the name. The members of the committee became simultaneously members of the University Advisory Committee to the Center for the Study of Higher Education.
In 1956 the program in higher education became designated by the School of Education as the Department of Higher Education. Under the 1971 reorganization, former activities as a department are under the Division of Higher, Occupational, and Continuing Education. The Center retains its identity but reports through the Dean of School of Education rather than directly to the Vice-President for Academic Affairs.
Initially the University made special additions to the budget of the School of Education for faculty, secretarial, and travel expenses for the new program. It made available funds for fieldwork and for conferences of the colleges and universities of the state. Funds were received from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation for the enlargement of programs directed at the improvement of junior-community colleges.
International Education. — From the beginning, education at Michigan has maintained a lively interest in international education. While the instruction of foreign students and the exchange of professorships have long been features of the activities in Ann Arbor, greater emphasis has been developed since World War II.
During the war, the School of Education provided instruction in education to army civil affairs personnel who had been selected for service in Italy, France, Germany, and Japan. In the years just after the war, scores of educators from allied, defeated, and developing nations came to the School for training in educational specialties.
Almost every year since 1950, faculty members and undergraduate and graduate students have studied abroad: (a) through summer session courses in Mexico, Canada, Japan, and England; (b) through semester courses mainly at the University of Sheffield and later at the University of Keele and the University of Edinburgh; (c) in individual Ph.D. programs which took advanced students to every continent and to more than a score of countries; (d) faculty research projects in Russia and Lebanon through the aid of the U.S. Office of Education and the Ford Foundation, respectively; (e) through graduate student and faculty training and research projects in India, largely in Baroda, since 1962, through grants from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Office of Education, and the Ford Foundation. One Agency for International Development (AID) Training Program in vocational education has been conducted in Mexico.
In these years more than forty dissertations have been produced in Comparative Education, of which twenty have been published in the Comparative Educational Series, concerning education in England, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Somaliland, Thailand, Brazil, LeVant, Japan, Ceylon, Germany, and Canada, as well as several in relation to international organizations such as UNESCO.
Research and Development. — Staff members of the School of Education carry on activities to improve instruction and services and to advance knowledge. Opportunities for achieving these purposes are, in varying amounts, built into general fund budgets. In recent years, grants and contracts have provided financial aid from outside funds for greater emphasis and more rapid progress. The first year of substantial aids was 1962-63 with $600,000 budgeted. This increased to $1.5 million in 1967-68, to $1.8 million in 1968-69, and to almost $2.5 million in 1970-71.
The contracts have assisted the preparation of investigators on the doctoral level in psychology and education, institutional research, historical research, and social science education. Programs in special education have provided fellowships for teachers and prospective teachers of the mentally retarded, the emotionally disturbed, the crippled, and the disadvantaged. Other areas receiving financial support from outside sources included educational leadership, higher education, international education, physical education, inquiry, school psychology, child development, and urban education.
The staff of the Office of Research Services assists faculty and students in the design of research and use of machines. Among sophisticated data-processing equipment is a terminal, connected to the University's complex time-sharing computer. Other equipment includes card-punching and sorting machines and a variety of calculators.
The growth of programs has created a necessity for more administrative time. This need was recognized in 1970-71 by the appointment of an Assistant Dean for Research.
Publications. — A School of Education Bulletin, started in October 1929, consisted of short articles by faculty members and a section on news and notes. It appeared eight times a year until, in 1964, it was terminated because of rising costs among other things. Because of a need for increased communication within the School the Innovator was designed. It has a wide circulation among staff, students, alumni, and friends of the School. The Newsletter was launched in September 1969. It is issued eight months of the year, with additional supplementary numbers of special interest to alumni. Each issue has an editorial "From the Dean." The major official publication is the Announcement of the School of Education, usually published each year, which gives comprehensive information on admissions, requirements for graduation, degrees, and certificates, and description of courses. For many years the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate studies published lists of individual faculty publications. The Office of Research Administration is now doing this.
Student Participation. — The School of Education welcomes the participation of students in the improvement of programs. In the early days this was often spasmodic and without formal provisions for representation and responsibility. The Undergraduate Student Advisory Committee was unusually active in 1949-50. Education School Council was a vigorous and enthusiastic adjunct in 1954-55. Representatives of the student body have worked with the Undergraduate Committees, and student officers were welcomed at faculty meetings. A new organization, Students for Educational Innovation (SEI), has provided active leadership. SEI has made surveys, sponsored conferences, provided advisory services, and facilitated increased communication. Provisions are made in the new bylaws, adopted in November 1970, for student membership on all major committees and activities. This includes representation on the Executive Committee, which required action by the Regents. Anonymous evaluation of courses each term by students is summarized, and a confidential report returned to the instructor for the improvement of instruction.
Closing the University School. — The Board of Regents voted in March 1963 to close grades 10, 11, and 12 of the University School under a cooperative plan with the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Action was postponed because of delays in construction of the new Huron High School. It was finally decided to close these grades in June 1968, even though the new building would not be ready. This was made possible by operating two schools at Pioneer High School with the organization of two shifts. Huron High School on North Campus was to be ready for occupancy in the fall of 1969. Plans were prepared for the subsequent phasing out of the elementary grades and junior high school.
The External Review Committee, after studying the operation of the School of Education, recommended that the decision to close the University School be implemented as soon as practicable. Strong support for continuation was given from many quarters. The need for space, however, the high cost of maintaining the School and legislative reluctance to finance laboratory schools were critical factors in the decision to close. The University School continued as an active center for research in the transitional period of closing operations.
Evolution of Organization. — In 1940-41 a Self-Survey Committee was created to study ways in which the School might improve its services. Under the resulting policies the general management of the School rested as before with the faculty and the dean, and was coordinated through an administrative committee, elected at large, with provisions for rotation of membership. Policies for specific functions were developed through five committees: Graduate Programs and Activities, Undergraduate Programs and Activities, Library and Publications, Placement, and State Services.
In 1950-51, the Board of Regents appropriated funds for a study of the School by an outside committee in anticipation of the pending retirement of Dean James B. Edmonson. A committee of the faculty worked during 1951-52 on problems of organization and the appointment of a new dean. An Intervisitation Committee appointed by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education also reviewed the work of the School. On February 9, 1952, Dean Edmonson started his retirement furlough and Willard C. Olson, Director of Research in Child Development and Professor of Education and Psychology, was appointed his successor, beginning his new duties immediately.
A committee on Structural Organization and Bylaws presented an extensive report, which was adopted as a general guide in June 1956. The implementation of the bylaws was completed by the Executive Committee and became effective July 1, 1957. The new structure consisted of an Undergraduate Unit and a Graduate Unit, each with its own committee and chairman. The areas for departmental organization were: Social Foundations; Psychological Foundations and Processes; Curriculum, Instruction, and Administration; Guidance and Counseling; Vocational Education and Practical Arts; Physical Education; Higher Education; and Adult Education. Agencies performing special services were organized under the Office of Student Personnel, a Committee on Educational Research, and a Committee on Institutional Relations.
The new internal bylaws provided for an Appraisal Committee on a five-year rhythm for periodic review. In the fall of 1962 a revised bylaw enlarged and strengthened the Committee on Educational Research. A new bylaw also gave formal status to the Office of Research Services.
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) sent a visiting team to the University on March 2-5, 1965, representing components of the professional programs. This team consulted with members of the School faculty and with other colleges, with executive officers of the University, with officials and teachers in the public schools, and with undergraduate and graduate students. NCATE accredited the programs for elementary and secondary teachers and school service personnel, and including teachers of special and handicapped students, with the doctor's degree the highest to be approved. Accreditation was for a ten-year period starting September 1, 1963.
The next Appraisal Committee in the five-year cycle began its work in the fall of 1966 and by April of 1967 an extensive document reflecting all concerns was prepared as a basis for interaction in discussion sessions. The following year, in preparation for the functioning of the Dean's Selection Committee, the Appraisal Committee prepared a working paper entitled "The School of Education in the Seventies: A Statement of Objectives." The final report of this committee was made in February 1969 for faculty consideration.
In the fall of 1968, the Academy for Educational Development was asked by the University to form a panel of educators to study the School and to make recommendations on the goals and objectives of the School as well as the specific action, which should be taken by the School and the University. This report was delivered on March 10, 1969. Recommendations were made as to the sustained and mutually supportive School-University relations, the provision of adequate physical facilities and personnel resources, and the development of teacher education programs which are less tied to state certification requirements and are more concerned with providing a foundation for career-long development as inquiring scholar-teachers. The report recommended an accelerated schedule for action on the resolution to close the balance of the University School.
On July 1, 1970, Dean Olson retired and Mr. Wilbur Cohen, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the federal government, became Dean-Designate on a part-time basis in the late months of 1968-69 and Dean on July 1, 1969.
The new bylaws (November 1970) provide for a Dean, an Associate Dean, and three Assistant Deans, with the Dean as the executive officer. The three assistant deans serve as chairmen of the three committees for administrative functions: Instructional Affairs, Services and Institutional Relations, and Scholarly Research Activities. A director, elected by the Dean and the Executive Committee, heads a fourth group, described as Institutional Studies. The faculty is organized into four divisions: Teacher Education; Behavioral and Social Foundations; Educational Specialists; and Higher, Occupational, and Continuing Education. Each division is organized on a program basis and has its own chairman and a joint Faculty-Student Executive Committee.
Remodeling. — The final closing of the remaining operations of the University School provided an opportunity for a renovation of space and adaptation to major needs in the School of Education. The renovation was accomplished for the most part in 1970 and 1971. The specific goals were: to provide proximity of administration and instructional functions; to concentrate most programs in the main building, to reduce scattered operations in other buildings, and to abandon the use of rental space; to provide private office space for most faculty members of professorial rank in convenient relationship to others in the same division and to supportive services; to provide functional space on the first floor for service units; to provide an Educational Media Center to coordinate instructional materials, audio-visual equipment and services, graphics laboratories, and experimental and automated instructional and research training facilities. Preliminary provisions have been made for originating closed-circuit television programs from a central studio and sending them to the classrooms. Provisions also have been made for improving facilities for training in guidance and counseling, for a modern science laboratory, for classrooms equipped for use of audio-visual aids, and for a student-faculty lounge.
Willard C. Olson
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey Supplement, Pages 113 - 122.
