Policies and Plans, 1945
This report was given by Howard J. McGinnis to the Board of Trustees in 1945. This and other documents may be found in the University Archives.
December 13, 1945
To Members of the Board of Trustees:
Last fall at the September meeting of the Board of Trustees of East Carolina Teachers College I presented a brief report on "The State of the College" for the information of the members of the Board.
May I now present respectfully some matters of policy for consideration at such time as your Board sees fit to take them up.In connection with these matters of policy I submit a program of capital improvements that should receive early consideration. The building program presented here is intended only as a basis for further study of the building needs of the college, now and in the near future, and as a step toward securing some much needed plant improvement at the earliest possible moment.
Respectfully,
Howard J. McGinnis
In order to provide for the orderly progress of East Carolina Teachers College and to provide most intelligently for its future development it seems desirable that policies and plans for such long-time operation be discussed further by those bearing major responsibility for its operation and development at this significant period in the history of the college. It is suggested that the Board of Trustees consider carefully and agree on policies and broad plans for the further improvement of the good work done by the college in the past. Such policies may be formulated in definite statements or they may be merely a general understanding with regard to certain matters. The necessity for such planning is illustrated, for example, by the changes that have been made in the building plans for the college plant since the original plans were drawn in its early history. Several matters are suggested below which it seems appropriate for the Board of Trustees to consider, and if it desires, adopt policies with regard to them.
- Selling the College to its Constituency
To achieve its largest usefulness an educational institution needs to be set before the public in the strongest and most favorable light possible. The public should be informed of the services the college is prepared to perform, and it should be encouraged to utilize those services. Colleges generally do this in part by issuing an annual catalogue, through educational bulletins, through student and other publications, by faculty addresses made at public gatherings, by the work of its Alumni Association, by the qualities that are developed in its students, and, in a teachers college such as this, it is done through the quality of the teachers supplied ot the public schools. State-supported colleges in North Carolina are not permitted to use public funds for commercial advertising, hence our colleges must be sold to the public through other means. Acquainting the public with the work of the college may be looked upon as rendering a report to stockholders on the progress of a business in which they are concerned.
- Standards of Scholarship for Students
In a large part, a college stands or falls according to the standard of scholarship achieved by its students. These standards are determined pretty much by the educational policy of the college and by the instruction offered by its faculty. The prestige of a college and perhaps its real value to its constituency may be measured fairly accurately by the standards of scholarship it requires and maintains. Manifestly, some students will be admitted to college who are incapable of doing a high grade of college work. Some will be admitted, doubtless, who are incapable of doing such a grade of college work as would justify their continuance in college. However, a college should not be deterred from setting high standards of scholarship merely because some students must withdraw because they are incapable or unwilling to achieve such standards.
- Men Students at East Carolina Teachers College
This college has been coeducational ever since it was chartered in 1907, and opened in 1909. Our records indicate, I believe, that men have been enrolled in the college every year since it was first opened. In the early history of the college a limited number of men students were housed in rooms on the third floor of the Austin building. Those rooms have not been used for that purpose, however, during the past twenty years or more. About nine years ago crude quarters were provided for men in the basement floor of Ragsdale Hall, the teachers dormitory. About thirty men can be housed in those quarters. That housing is so inadequate, inconvenient, and unattractive that it is questionable whether we should continue to use it for that purpose, especially since we have not the funds or the accomodations to provide adequate supervision of the men's quarters. (Ragsdale Hall, which was built for a teachers dormitory in 1923, accomodates between thirty and forty women staff members of the college and has done so for twenty-one years. A college cannot operate without a faculty and that faculty will give its best service when it can be secure in comfortable housing). If this college is to attract men in considerable numbers, and those men are available in eastern North Carolina, it must make provision for their housing in a suitable dormitory and provide the supervision needed. Our general, professional, pre-professional and graduate curricula meet the needs and can provide for the education of many young men in eastern North Carolina.
- College Plant
No one knew nor could they guess at the time the college opened how large it would grow nor what the demands of modern education would eventually be. The plant has grown until it now consists of approximately one hundred acres of land and twenty-one buildings of various sorts. For the present we have, it seems an adequate land area, an adequate number of classrooms, laboratories, and dormitories for girls. It seems that our greatest need, at present, so far as plant is concerned, is to make the present facilities more efficient, more comfortable, more attractive, and to add a few much-needed buildings such as a Health and Physical Education Building, a Union Building, a Teachers Dormitory, and make some major changes in the Austin building. Some deficiencies are: a. the lighting in dormitories and in some classrooms is very poor; b. many old classrooms are dingy and unattractive; c. more service personnel is needed to keep the buildings clean and sanitary and to keep the campus attractive.
- A Building Program Needed
Several new buildings are urgently needed as mentioned above, and repairs and extensions are needed in others. At least one and one half million dollars worth of construction and repair is needed at once. The Building Committee of the Board of Trustess spent the day of November 20th on the campus making a preliminary study of present and future building needs of the college. An agressive campaign should be instituted to secure plant improvement.
