University of Connecticut at Fort Trumbull - Laurel Yearbook (Fort Trumbull, CT)

Page 11 text:

UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT MEETS NEEDS OF VETERANS Before the war maximum enrollment at the University of Connecticut was in the neighborhood of 2,000. To meet in part the demand for higher education the University established branches at Hartford and Waterbury, in which the first two years of the curricu- lum were offered. The last General Assemblylbefore Pearl Harbor provided, both by direct appropriations and by self liquidating bond issues, total sums of almost five millions of dollars for increasing the facilities at Storrs. None of this money was ever spent because the war intervened. Passage of the G.I. Bill for education doubled the demand for higher education and presented all colleges and universities in the country with a major problem. The University of Connecticut met this problem by setting up a priority system in which first priority was given to veterans who were former students. Second priority was given to veterans who were residents of the state but not former students of the University. During the school year of 1946-47 the University of Connecticut has enrolled in degree courses more than 8,000 students, or four times the number registered in the period shortly preceding the war. Of these 8,000 students, more than half are veterans. It was not untily july, 1946, that the University received a clearance from the United States Government on Fort Trumbull. In little more than two months the University had to recruit a staff and to change over the facilities at Fort Trumbull to University purposes. If Fort Trumbull has not been all that could be hoped for, it has at least worked out better than anyone had a reasonable right to expect. Without the facilities at Fort Trumbull there are some 1,500 veterans who could not possibly have been accommodated in this state-or perhaps anywhere. A Facilities at Storrs, at Fort Trumbull, at Waterbury and at Hartford have all been employed to the utmost this past year. Classes have been too large for the best results, teachers have been overloaded and housing and dining facilities have been stretched. Through it all the students, and particularly the veterans, have, for the most part, shown a commendable patience and forbearance. The peak in registration under the G. I. Bill for Education at the University of Con- necticut has probably not yet been reached. We will be just as crowded in 1947-48 as we have been in 1946-47. We hope that your patience and fortitude do not wear thin. A. N. JORGENSEN, President. 7

Page 10 text:

542122 1, ..l- . w ?JlS?xgws Siffiifx' . ,QQ , W,,.x,. W. :gfvzu,1.grg:,,1,.,.k I X

Page 12 text:

I If democracy is to survive and grow, its citizens must have characters educated to promote the cooperation of men to counteract the disintegration that now drives them toward mutual destruction. To do this, we must have college and university programs that foster and discipline the characters of people for making responsible judgments of a normative nature. Such programs must be designed to socialize and integrate personal commitments and must be built to foster the merging, principle, purpose, and policy into effective programs of action. The making of this kind of a college must avoid dictatorial leadership and the pseudo-neutrality of the indicatively focused institutions that we know so well. This task will foster the same democratic characters in the faculty, administrative staff, working personnel, and student body. Furthermore, it will measure achievement and success of worker and learner primarily in the terms of these characters and the achievement of a discipline of practical intelligence. It will put approval upon those who learn to make individual and group judgments of practice with increased and more dependable human wisdom. With a University program thus normatively ordered, it is my belief that a university education will be relined into an ever improving discipline of citizenship in a humane social order. It is my hope that we can, in our small way, here at Fort Trumbull, contribute to the type of educational program which will result in a nation of men and women who know how to make intelligent judgments of practice and who know how to work cooperatively with other men and women to determine a course of action based upon intelligence. C. A. WEBER, Director. 8