Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Four-Year Report of UI President (1950) [PAGE 10]

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THE

FOURTH GOAL

Finally the University encourages the creative arts. To quote from my speech at Utrecht: again

Universities . . . can, if they will, put a premium on the creative rts which they have so long admired as a past event. What the microscope and telescope are to visual powers, poetry and drama are to general intelligence. Poetry enlarges the world of human experience, Betting up new images and enabling us to feel what we have known, and to know what we "have felt. The poet, like the Olympic athlete, d o c for us what we are too lazy, too pedestrian, too circumscribed to do for ourselves; unlike the admired athlete he improves our marks. Not through watching but through reading we grow, for reading is in itself a vital experience. Accordingly, the fine arts in any m e d i u m are n o t r e g a r d e d as casual or ephemeral. Any s t u d e n t blind o r deaf to their a p p e a l has missed something t h a t would serve h i m well t h r o u g h o u t life.

What Are the Criteria of Excellence of a University?

A university should r e a c h o r exceed all t h e s t a n d a r d s of excellence that reasonable people consider to be valid. T h e s t a n d a r d s as stated are usually divided i n t o categories. T h u s t h e N o r t h C e n t r a l Association of Schools a n d Colleges has established eleven criteria of institutional excellence: A university shall have a clearly defined purpose. A competent faculty organized for effective service and working under satisfactory conditions. A program of subject-matter offerings geared to its statement of purpose. A sympathetic concern for the quality of instruction offered students and clear evidence of efforts to make instruction effective. A library which provides the reading facilities needed to make the educational program instructive. A student personnel service which is able to assist students to anah and understand their problems and to adjust themselves to the life and work of the institution. Pull provision for the performance of all administrative functions b\ a personnel competent in their respective lines of activity, Financial resources adequate !<,, .ind < lieetively applied to the sup port of its educational pioj'.ram.

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