Brown University Corporation Survey Committee files (OF.1B.2)

Administrative history

During the first year of Clarence A. Barbour's presidency a committee composed of Chancellor Samuel P. Capen of the University of Buffalo, Dean Luther P. Eisenhart of Princeton University, and Dean Guy S. Ford of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, surveyed all departments to determine the state of the University. Among their conclusions: that Brown had ceased to be a typical New England college and become a University; that Rhode Island depended on Brown as the chief educational institution in the State; that administrative development had failed to keep pace with the growth of the University; that entering students were found by various psychological tests to be above average freshmen, with the women scoring slightly higher than the men; that the Honors courses adopted in 1920 had not been effective as hoped, as the achievement of Brown graduates in professional schools lagged behind that of graduates of comparable schools; that Pembroke should be given more independence in her organization and offerings; that the Graduate School was providing Brown with nation-wide clientele from which to build her its staff; that there was need for reorganization of the curriculum and methods of instruction to stimulate students. This, then, was the state of the University when Barbour took charge. The Survey Committee presented its report to the Corporation, which hoped to begin an endowment campaign. All such plans came to an end with the advent of the Great Depression.

The above excerpt appears in Encyclopedia Brunoniana by Martha Mitchell, copyright 1993 by the Brown University Library.