A Mixed Report

One year ago, the mammoth (207,000 enrollment) City University of New York began its innovative Open Admissions program, which guaranteed classroom space to any city applicant with a high school diploma and imposed a three-semester moratorium on academic dismissals (TIME, Oct. 19, 1970). The purpose of the program was to provide an educational second chance for graduates of the city's mediocre high schools who otherwise would not qualify for college. To critics among faculty, alumni and outside educators, the experiment seemed like a formula for disaster. Many agreed with Vice President Spiro Agnew, who warned that the city was "trading away one of the intellectual assets of the Western world for a four-year community college and 100,000 devalued diplomas."

As in a marriage or a business venture, a year may be too short a period to determine whether Open Admissions has been either a success or a failure. But last week, in testimony before a state legislative committee, CUNY Chancellor Robert J. Kibbee and other officials were cautiously optimistic about their experiment. There was no exodus of professors, and there is no evidence that talented students were held back. Moreover, the task of having to cope with masses of students who lacked basic high school skills forced the university to revamp and modernize its teaching methods, potentially to the benefit of all students.

Lifting Morale. The first year of Open Admissions was a traumatic experiment for CUNY's ten four-year colleges and eight community colleges. Last year's freshman class grew to 35,000, up 16,000 over 1969; this fall the incoming class swelled to 40,000. At Manhattan's Hunter College, a cafeteria designed for 3,000 now serves a mob of 13,000; faculty members sometimes have to share not only desks but desk drawers. University officials insist that a building program will alleviate the space squeeze, but cuts in state and city spending on CUNY have nearly halted construction.

Nationally, about 60% of all high school graduates go on to some kind of college; in New York, thanks to Open Admissions, the figure is 76%. The new policy was set up as a result of pressure from blacks; ironically, two-thirds of the students admitted under its terms were white--the sons and daughters of hardhats and the working poor. Even so, the number of black and Puerto Rican undergraduates enrolled full time in the--? university increased from 14% in 1969 to 23% this year. If nothing else, Open Admissions helped lift morale in the high schools whose failures made the program necessary in the first place. At Benjamin Franklin High in East Harlem two years ago only 10% of the seniors bothered to apply to CUNY, and only 1% were accepted. This year, as the students discovered that they stood a real chance of getting to college, 76% applied.

Another Vision. The racial mix meant racial tensions. A group of black youths at Brooklyn College complained when militant Jewish students kept playing an Israeli song on a campus jukebox, and an ugly fight followed. In classrooms, the conflict between elitist teachers and egalitarian students is more subtle. When one young English instructor offered to share his knowledge of a Walt Whitman first edition with his class, a black student answered: "Look, man, you're into this first-edition bag, and that's all right with me, understand. But man, I think it's a crock."

Nonetheless, Vice Chancellor Timothy Healy argues that the increased presence of minorities is healthy: "One of the great gifts the black and Puerto Rican student can bring to the university is another vision of America--a vision that is not necessarily complimentary."

Pluralistic vitality, however, is no substitute for essential academic skills, and CUNY officials were shocked to discover just how ill-prepared many of their new students were. Tests showed that fully 56% of the 1970 freshman class--not just the Open Admissions students--had a reading level below the national average for college-bound high school seniors. In math, 59% were below the average.

A basic problem that Open Admissions posed at CUNY was the need to provide remedial training at the same time that students were being introduced to college-level work. Not enough remedial specialists were available for hire, and many of the university's older professors were incapable of dealing with semiliterate youths. Occasionally professors gave up on the Open Admissions students, giving passing marks without attempting to teach them at all.

Grace Period. Thanks in part to the hiring of nearly 600 youth-oriented teachers, CUNY officials believe that the solution to the problem is in sight. Instead of merely being given a catalogue and told to choose a program, Open Admissions students are offered counseling. Overall, the educational strategy has been to make the Open Admissions students measure up to normal standards by the end of a course, but to give them extra help and extra time to get there. At Hunter, for instance, the introductory math course has been broken up into small units, which a student can review as many times as he needs to before taking a test on the matter. "So it takes 20 weeks instead of 15 for a student to master the material," says Mary Dolciani, chairman of the math department. "But who said that it had to be covered in 15 weeks?" Hunter President Jacqueline Grennan Wexler points out that "if we make Open Admissions work, it will be beneficial to our most able students as well as our disadvantaged students." For example, the math genius who needs help with English composition or the freshman poet who lags behind in biology can now get help that was never available before.

From a purely academic viewpoint, the results of so much force-fed learning are still uncertain. The slow pace of remedial work means that many of last year's freshmen are freshmen still. Discouragement over difficulties, or the need to help their families by seeking work, has caused 36% of the Open Admissions students to drop out. The figure is almost twice as high as that for CUNY students with conventional academic records, but is no worse than the national average. More significant will be the end of the academic grace period, when the first students are flunked out. CUNY recently moved that point forward from January to next June.

There is still an undercurrent of opposition to the program among the faculty, particularly at the four-year colleges. Henry Villard, a professor of economics at City College, laments a loss of the combative student skepticism for which City was ever famous. "One of the beauties of teaching here used to be that if you told a class that two plus two equals four, one student would always say it equals five. Now if I say two plus two equals five, they dutifully write it down." Other critics share the view of Irving Kristol, professor of urban values at New York University, that the university is being "fraudulent" in "promising more than it can perform," since education alone cannot overcome the deep-rooted deprivations of poverty. Still, CUNY officials argue that the program offers hope and opportunity where none existed before. In decaying, problem-plagued New York City, that is clearly a gain.

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