Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1952 [PAGE 625]

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722

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[May 18

training for business and to underestimate the responsibility of economics in that process. Although the groups holding these extreme views are small, the fact that the views are held at all is significant. The committee encountered no substantial body of evidence indicating improper past interference with course offerings, projected research, salary increases or promotions in the Department of Economics. It did encounter substantial feeling that the climate is such that future interferences will result. Although the fears expressed are prospective, they are genuine and should be allayed, in order to promote the future growth and development of the Department. The recent controversy within the College encouraged attacks upon the views entertained, or supposed to be entertained, on controversial issues of the day by members of the Department of Economics. These attacks came largely from outside the University, but to some extent from within the College itself. It is inevitable that in any large department of economics there will be diverse points of view on controversial issues of an economic nature. Such diversity is wholesome. No organizational structure can protect the economist completely from attacks of this nature. The faculty of a University, however, should recognize the right of all of its members to hold divergent views and should defend this right. It is only by encouraging freedom of inquiry and expression that progress in the development of the science and in its application to the actual world can be advanced. b. The number of majors in economics is disproportionately small. Despite the fact that a major in economics may be taken by students enrolled either in the College of Commerce or in the College of Liberal Arts, the total number of such majors is very small in comparison with the enrollment in either college or in the University. This situation is in marked contrast to the importance of economics in present-day society. Moreover, a sound program of graduate instruction and of research is encouraged by a broad foundation of undergraduate instruction. It is argued that the scarcity of economics majors among students registered in the College of Commerce is due to registration advice given by members of the Department of Business Organization and Operation. The committee doubts this contention and holds, rather, that the difficulty arises from the fact that the College has attracted relatively few students whose primary interest was other than that of obtaining an education for business. Certainly the committee finds no fault with the existing policy of educating students along professional lines for careers in business. This is a very legitimate educational objective and the College has achieved outstanding success in connection with it. However, the impression apparently has been prevalent in the minds of students that the College offers no other type of education. This erroneous impression probably derives basically from the very name of the College. The full name of the College is "College of Commerce and Business Administration." Students seemingly have tended to regard "Commerce," which possesses both a broad and a restricted meaning, as narrowly synonymous with "Business Administration." Consequently, students whose interests lie in the direction of the social sciences, rather than in the direction of a professional education for business, have registered elsewhere in the University, presumably in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The dual character of the College of Commerce has not been made sufficiently apparent. At the same time, the Department of Economics has not been overly assiduous in cultivating majors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; it has not participated to any substantial extent in the construction of curricula or in the advising of students in that College. While it is argued vigorously, and the committee agrees, that economics is a social science, the requirement of eight hours of social science in the general curriculum of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences cannot presently be satisfied by courses in economics. Greater participation by the members of the economics staff in the affairs of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is needed. c. The location of economics in the College of Commerce results, it is claimed, in its undue isolation from the other social sciences. Earlier in this report the committee has stated briefly its belief that economics is properly classified as one of the social sciences. It clearly has many points of