University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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Vice-President, Student Affairs: Rev. George Bernard, C.S.C. they might seem to be encouraging a favor or some- thing. I think if they both understood that their pur- pose in being here ... the students and the professors, that this natural contact would be a spontaneous kind of thing. Perhaps at the instigation of the student this would be most fruitful and the most to be desired. You see, this is a very unusual situation in education on a world-wide scene. We always say we don ' t have much contact, and yet every European student who comes here to study or students from the other parts of the world always says the thing that strikes him most is the friendliness and the openness and the accessibility of the professors. This simply doesn ' t happen in Europe. When I studied in Rome you saw the pro- fessor on a high pedestal; he scurried out as soon as the class was over, and no one ever talked to him. You couldn ' t even see him in his room. I think at least our professors are available, but the problem, I think, is to find fruitful ways of prolonging this contact. Scheck. Father, is there any plan to increase the size of the undergraduate school? Fr. Hesburgh: Not at present, Bill. We presently plan to stay approximately at 5,000 undergraduates and to keep the Graduate and Law School to about 1,000 which would be a ratio of about five to one. Naught. Father, a great part of the ten year program at the University is now aimed at increasing faculty salaries and attracting distinguished professors. How will this program be carried out? CONTINUED 21

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Naught. I think anyone would agree that in producing a whole man at Notre Dame it might be more easily accomplished, rather, if it were a better contact be- tween the professors and the students and between the priests and the students, and I was wondering if there was any way that we can try to establish a better con- tact between them in the future . . . even granting the fact that it ' s a large University, and it ' s very difficult because of it. Fr. Hesburgh: Well I think there is much more contact today than there was at the time when I came here to the school. I think this is going to grow because as the University grows in excellence, it must grow at the focal point of education which is the action of the professorial mind acting upon the curious and know- ledge-seeking young mind. And I also think that a great deal of this particular kind of contact needs initiative on the part of its students. I think sometimes students are reluctant to approach a professor because Dean of Students: Rev. A. Leonard Collins, C.S.C. 20 Director of Admissions: Rev. James E. Moran, C.S.C.

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Fr. Hesburgh: Well I believe it will pretty much fol- low the pattern of the past. As you know we received three years ago over three million dollars from the Ford Foundation as support for raising faculty salaries. In the past three years we have put every cent of free money into that fund and have also added to it the money we had already raised before Ford gave us the money, which was about eight hundred thousand we had raised at that time. And we have now got that fund up to about six and one-half million through appreciation of investment. I would hope that in time that fund would go up over fifteen or twenty million .dollars that it would do several things. First of all it would allow our younger professors a promise to grow and have the opportunity of growing to distinc- tion. And it would be able to bring in some people on the senior level, senior professors who would come with their own distinction of years of academic work, either as visitors or permanently, such as Mr. Mestro- vic, and I would hope also that through new programs which will be undoubtedly started at the University in the years to come that it will bring people in from different fields to enrich the University ' s program and to enrich its effect on the total civilization of our times. Acting Director, Notre Dame Foundation: Rev. John H. Wilson, C.S.C. Student Chaplain: Rev. Glen Boarman, C.S.C. 22 Bab. Father, from your background in recent years, what do you think are the most substantial benefits that a university gains from having its president in a position like yours, that is, a leader in national affairs. I suppose this is a fairly common thing in some of the other greater universities in the country in the present day. Fr. Hesburgh: There are several benefits: of course the president himself gets a lot of benefit because he is associating with some of the brightest, and most cap- able and most responsible people in the nation, and indeed, of the most capable people in the world, and some of this does rub off, hope. Also, there are many informal occasions to discuss academic programs, what makes a university great, and to get a larger mea- sure of knowledge about what should be the present- day aims of a great university. Bab. Father, we generally like to try to rate our uni- versities if you would say that, and the only criteria that seems to exist is the amount of fellowships one gets. Is there any other criteria that you would say could be used as a common denominator among uni- versities of the country or at least the larger univer- sities.