University of Iowa - Hawkeye Yearbook (Iowa City, IA)

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Dean Vernon - stepping down and moving up I am not retiring, I am resigning, emphasized Dean David Vernon of the College of Law. I told them when I came here I would take the job for five years. He has been at the job exactly that long and will officially step down in September of 1971. Dean Vernon came to Iowa from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1966 and has taught one class each semester since he became Dean. However, he is highly interested in returning to full-time teach- ing and part-time writing. In his five years here the law school has chang- ed curriculum programing, which Vernon feels is one of the more important accomplishments of his career. The size of the faculty has increased to 24 members, and Dean Vernon feels the student quality has improved. Students now accepted for admittance have higher grade averages in their undergraduate work than the majority accepted before, and the school has still increased its enrollment of first year students -from 27 in 1966 to 117 in 1970. Dean Vern- on believes the change in curriculum has had much to do with the increased popularity of Iowa's law college. College of Law admission requirements state that a student must have at least a 2.3 grade point on all college work. However, the admissions flyer cau- tions: As a practical matter, a student is normally not given serious consideration who does not have the equivalent of an evaluated grade-point average of close to 3.00. For the class admitted for September 1970 . . . the median evaluated grade-point average was 3.250. Slightly less than one-fourth of the 1970 entrants had grade points of 3.5 or higher in their undergraduate work. We try to do our best to help students take every tdvantage of the outstanding abilities they bring to law schoolf' and Dean Vernon believes that we have done wellg we can do better and I am confident that we will do better. I suggest that the most practical thing a law school can do is to provide a sound theoretical foundation for a lifetime career, Vernon noted. If I were to attempt to sum up the classroom experiences avail- 210 Vernon able at the Iowa law school, I would say that a strong effort is made to develop and hold student interest while helping them develop their 'lawyering' abili- ties. A lack of sufficient funds now plagues the college, as it does many of Iowa's schools and colleges. Dean Vernon believes this problem will be resolved with improved economic conditions and with public un- derstanding of what a University is. Iowa's law school will continue to progress if the funds come through, he vowed. If Dean Vernon were free to change one thing in the law college, it would be the budget - increasing it. He wants the increased funds to improve the quality of education by hiring more faculty members so that the facultyfstudent ratio would be lower, making a more useful and complete library, and assuring all students who could qualify for admission that they could come without worrying financially. When Dean Vernon steps down from his position, he will, as he described it, move upstairs to his new teaching job. SZ

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grad students are more deeply involved . . . onder why profs ignore you? Criticism arises often because the graduate college seems to rank highest in the priorities of University faculty and administration, often to the exclusion of undergraduates. This is in part a valid criticism, according to Dean D. C. Spriestersbach, who heads the college. We haven't willed our program, but responded to society's needs, he noted. But I can't say criticism of priorities isn't without foundation. Many professors prefer to work with graduate stu- dents because the grads seem more deeply involved in their subject and present a professional challenge to the profs. With research such an important part of the lives of many professors, and since it is within their graduate classes that this research can be con- ducted, this is the situation many prefer. Dean Spreistersbach, however, stressed that many profes- sors prefer to teach at the undergraduate level be- cause they find it a stimulating test of their know- ledge. Since education may he in for many changes, he ex- pressed great doubt that the present set-up for gradu- ate school will continue, and predicted that we will see substantial changes, as the results of a system in which higher degrees are being required. There are many fields now in which a bachelor's degree is not sufficient to enter the field, and this will probably continue to be the case, he said. So graduate col- leges will become more important for training while undergraduates will be involved in more general education. Dean Spreistersbacb remarked that some people favor separation of graduate schools into indvidual institutions apart from undergraduate colleges. He believes this would be a mistake, since both colleges can benefit from eachUher. Undergraduates provide learning and teaching experience for graduate stu- dents and at the same time benefit from the stimulus provided to the faculty by graduates. This stimulus helps keep faculty members researching and studying in their fields rather than relying on what could be- come outdated information. They are all inseparable: emphasis and balance should not favor either. The right balance of grads and undergrads under some faculty members could be the most exciting experience for all. The marri- age of graduates and undergraduates, properly handled, provides the best environment for exciting teaching on all levels, he continued. While all of these changes are being considered for the future, the Graduate College is not ignoring the criticism it is receiving now, but is examining such things as the concept of teaching assistants. You can relate T.A.'s to medical students, Spriestersbach noted. How would-you train a doc- tor if you never let him see a patient until he got his degree? It is one of our obligations to train these peo- ple before they leave the school. Everyone has had practice teachers in high school, and they don't argue with the idea of practice teachers. The problem, he explained, is that once T.A.'s are given positions they are not supervised fur- ther: this is the concept that is missing. Spreisters- bach believes T.A.'s should be directed by a super- vising teacher who will give them evaluations, advice and counseling. We must interact with Them, he stressed. Generally, higher education basn't been willing to give this kind of supervision, but we are now moving to do things about it. S2 Irv- if f -V M 51117.32 Graduate College 209

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Vernon 211