Consumers' Research

The quality of a college is no more scrutable than a new wife or a secondhand car, but consumers' research helps. Last week students at Trinity College (1,000 men) in Hartford. Conn., put out an exhaustive critique on the school, from architecture to public relations and professorial performance. They politely concluded that Episcopalian-founded (1823) Trinity is "one of the finest schools in the nation." But to "improve further,'' Trinity is in urgent need of correcting:*

>>A "mediocre" English department "burdened with 'dead wood' ripe for pruning."

>>A music department with a "generally poor curriculum."

>> A fine-arts department chiefly concerned with "the education of the student for polite conversation."

>>A generally lax, easy-grading faculty that has trouble "communicating."

Taking a look at themselves, the critics found that the average Trinity student "makes few efforts to distinguish himself culturally." His extracurricular activities are "ludicrous and grotesque," and cheating on exams is "tacitly accepted." Typically, he "does not have any concept of what education involves, nor does he give any evidence of wanting to find out." Music Professor Clarence Walters, whose department got the worst panning, called it "inconceivable that the administration should permit the publication of such a report." But Trinity's President Albert C. Jacobs promptly forwarded the document to his trustees, with a proud note on "the considerable maturity of those who wrote it."

*The Harvard-Crimson's annual "Confi-Guide" has analyzed Harvard professors for 36 years.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.