Broadening the Specialist

Through their general education programs, scores of U.S. colleges have tried to save their students from overspecialization. But to Dean William Steere of Stanford University's graduate division, the problem still remains for students who go on to graduate school and "hole into their departments wholeheartedly.'' Says Dean Steere: "For the university's cream--the graduate students--the narrowest intellectual loyalties are allowed." What can be done to make the Ph.D. candidate less lopsided? In its current quarterly report, the Carnegie Corp. of New York gives Dean Steere's answer.

In 1954 Steere set up a series of elective courses to pry his students out of their grooves by giving them glimpses of knowledge having nothing specifically to do with their fields. Last year 196 students signed up for the program; this year the enrollment jumped to 250. Though the courses are on the "graduate level intellectually." they are stripped of all technical jargon, require no specialized background. The whole idea is to make the broad concepts of physics intelligible to the future historian and major historical themes understandable to the physicist.

In most cases the courses meet once a week for a three-hour combined lecture and seminar. The subjects range from the Nature of Music and the Masterpieces of Greek Literature to the History of Science. Last fall one professor started a series of seminars on Human Potentiality, soon had his students jumping from psychology to philosophy to religion, reading everything from Sorokin to Fromm to Alexis Carrel. Surprisingly, says Steere. the course has become the particular favorite of electrical engineers, "whom you usually think of as pretty restricted."

Of all the courses, the most popular is one called Geography and Contemporary World Problems. Many of the students liked it so well that they began bringing along wives and friends to take part in the seminar discussions, which sometimes ran at least an hour overtime. Says Professor Joseph Williams: "I seem to have half the graduate business school enrolled in this course. They know a lot about business but not much about the world around them." Last week Williams felt that the situation was changing. As one business specialist proudly told him: "I think that now I can make some sound judgments on Eisenhower's Middle East plan."

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