Daily m3 Trojan
C®(/i M.tvi''
vol. Ixv
no.4
University of Southern California
los angeles, California
thursday, September 21, 1972
Academic plan for the decade can USC reach goals?
By Peter Wong
associate editor
Just how much of a priority is A Priority for the ’70s, the university’s official master plan for academic improvements in this decade?
Since the plan was adopted by the Board of Trustees in April, 1970. relatively little has been done visibly to meet the specific dollar goals in the plan.
However, the lack of visible accomplishments may be accounted for by the current financial outlook in higher education throughout the nation, as universities and colleges cut back their programs, rather than create and expand them.
It may also reflect the extensive time needed for preparation of a major campaign by the university in support of academic improvements.
No action by university
But it could also indicate that the university has been extremely slow in providing the necessary follow-up support after the plan was announced, some may say. Or it could mean that the university is not basically interested in improvingthe liberal arts—though that is what A Priority for the ’70s is designed to do—and will continue to neglect them.
But President John Hubbard, whom William Trombley, the Los^Vngeles Times’ higher education writer, described as “the man who is expected to lead the revival of liberal arts at USC” in an article published April 5, 1970, has no intention of continuing the neglect of the liberal arts.
Devotion to liberal arts
“...I am devoted to the liberal arts and humanizing role they
ought to play in the development of an individual’s personal philosophy....I believe that the liberal arts as intellectual disciplines are as important to our survival as human beings as quantum mechanics,” he said in fall, 1969, after he assumed his duties as vice-president and provost.
“It naturally follows then that 1 believe we can never be a really distinguished university without a really distinguished LAS (Letters, Arts and Sciences) college and graduate school to go along with the fine professional schools with which we are blessed.”
For the Daily Trojan’s editorial comment on this series, please see page 4 of today’s issue.
At the time Hubbard made his remarks, the Master Plan, a program of campus improvements begun by President Norman Topping in May, 1961, was well on its way to completion. Although all segments of the university benefited from the Master Plan, the graduate and professional programs received more support.
A new academic plan
It was time for new academic goals for the university. Attention was turned to the liberal arts.And the plan, A Priority for the ’70s came into being.
On Feb. 17, 1970, the Board of Trustees’ Academic Affairs Committee approved the first phase of an academic master plan for the 1970s, called at that time the Program for the ’70s. It was in the form of a six-part resolution, but one without specific dollar goals.
“There’s nothing really new about the proposals. It’s simply the distillation of a dozen years
Preliminary resolution
Feb. 19, 1970
(From the Daily Trojan, Feb. 19, 1970; six-part resolution approved by the Board of Trustees’ Acadetnic Affairs Committee.)
(1)	Program for the expansion of the University Library's staff and holdings.
(2)	Establishment of an Office of Institutional Studies under the provost for extended and improved data collection with authority to coordinate and unify institutional computing.
(3)	A positive program for the encouragement of excellence in the faculty of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and The Graduate School through:
—Selective salary increases, particularly at the upper ranks, based on demonstrated scholarship and teaching ability.
—Salary increases, also selective, having the goal of achievement of "A" ratings on the AAUP (American Association of University Professors) scales at all ranks.
—Selective establishment of endowed chairs or their equivalent in all crucial areas, particularly in the humanities, to strengthen the ranks of our full professors, and
—A program of expanded support by the university for faculty research and publication and expanded M & S (materials and supplies) and secretarial services.
(4)	A program of academic enrichment in the area of undergraduate liberal arts education . . .Such programs must be supported by expanded scholarship funds, both restricted and unrestricted, (note: The first version of statement #4 was the same as that adopted, except for the last sentence.)
(5)	The assignment of a full-time fund-raiser by (the Division of) University Affairs to the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
(6)	Steps to be taken to increase the building space for the humanities and the social sciences.
of attention given to academic planning by various individuals, committees and planning groups,” then Vice-President Hubbard said two days later in the Daily Trojan.
“What is new is that this committee will recommend to the board that these resolutions be accorded a top priority in the future development of USC.” Committee report The university’s Academic Affairs Committee had reported to the trustee committee on Jan. 14 of that year, with a series of proposals that would implement a committee report on academic goals. The trustee committee adopted these proposals as one resoltuion.
Later, at the Board of Trustees’ annual conference in Palm Springs on April 24-26, 1970, the full board adopted its committee’s resolution, apparently with some changes in goals, and announced specific dollar amounts. (For the two versions ofthe goals, please see this page.)
The details of the plan, A Priority for the ’70s were not released, however, until April 29.
“In the building period(the 1960s), academic planning was not neglected. This is shown by our acceptance into the Association of American Universities (in December, 1969),” Hubbard said April 30 in the Daily Trojan.
“We are now going to support people the same way we concentrated on bricks and mortar for a while. We cannot have a distinguished university without a distinguished LAS.” Attention to other matters But since then, more attention has gone to President Hubbard’s administrative reorganzations, one in October, 1970, and one this April, and his recruitment for key administrative posts, rather than fulfilling the dollar goals of the new plan. However, this did not mean the university stopped acquiring books and journals or refused to recruit top faculty members at good salaries or quit looking for funds for student financial aid or called a halt to major planning.
On the other hand, the Master Plan of the 1960s, a program of campus improvements, was prepared in some detail before its official announcement in May, 1961, although, of course, it was not a perfect document, either.
Topping’s commission Shortly after he assumed the presidency in October, 1958, Topping established a University Planning Commission to determine campus needs. The members of the commission were four trustees. Topping himself, the four vice-presidents, three deans, two faculty members of the University Senate, and two alumni. (Students were not primarily interested at that time in helping to determine such university policies; this was to come later, in the 1960s.)
The commission would keep one idea in mind: “The first order of business was to provide a physical plant in which good teaching and research could be conducted,” Hubbard said some
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11 years later as a vi'ce-president of the university.
In May, 1961, the commission’s work was unveiled in a Master Plan for the campus, totaling $106.7 million. The largest amount, $30.3 million, was designated for academic buildings. Student housing would get $15 million; general campus improvements, $15.4 million.
Educational enrichment—additional members and increased salaries for the faculty, money for research projects, more funds for fellowships and scholarships—would take up $29 million.
Close to 100 years?
Because of the university’s record in fund-raising campaigns until then—generally poor—and because of the size of the Master Plan, it was thought by some that it might take close to 100 years to achieve all the plan’s goals. The commission estimated 20 years for the plan’s fulfillment.
The planners hoped for at least $30.3 million by 1964 as a start on the plan, with estimates on some 20 projects and programs.
However, all these estimates were off the mark. In only five and one-half years, the dollar goals of the plan were met, and by the time Topping retired in 1970, about $150 million was raised, or at the rate of more than $1 million a month since 1961.
Trustees: $8-million start
The fund-raising campaign got off to a big start when the members of the Board of Trustees gave some $8 million of the initial $30-million goal, including a $640,000 gift from H. Leslie Hoffman to establish an endowed faculty chair in the liberal arts
(the money was used later to construct the Graduate School of Business Administration building that bears his name) and $500,000 from Leonard Firestone, then board chairman, as unrestricted funds.
Firestone also gave $250,000 to the university on a matching basis. Other private donors had their contributions matched by Firestone at various ratios, depending on the size of the gifts.
The Olin Corporation awarded the university $2.2 million in November. 1961, to construct the engineering building that bears its name—the first large gift in the campaign.
The National Science Foundation gave the university $7.5 mil-lion during the 1960s for development of science and engineering programs.
Ford Foundation grants
The largest grants, however, came from the Ford Foundation, the first in December, 1962. The foundation announced that it would award USC $6.5 million, provided that the university match that amount with $19.5 million, or on a one-to-three basis, by December, 1965.
A booklet, The Thousand-Day Challenge, was prepared in the hope of spurring giving to the university, listing specific goals of the Master Plan.
The challenge was met in full on Sept. 16, 1964.
In December, 1964, the foundation offered another challenge grant of$7.5 million, on the same one-to-three matching basis. The required $22.5 million was raised ahead of the 1967 deadline.
Buildings, professional schools
The Master Plan concentrated
(Continued on page 2)
Official announcement
April 29, 1970
(From the official announcement, April 29, 1970.)
(1)	Expansion of the library's staff and holdings.
(2)	Positive encouragement of excellence in all faculties in part through selective salary increases for demonstrated teaching and other scholarly activities, and establishment of endowed chairs or their equivalent.
(3)	A program of academic enrichment in the area of undergraduate liberal arts education through the creation and encouragement of a greater variety of curricular alternatives; the expansion of honors programs as well as others to meet various student needs,- strengthening of overseas programs; development of systematic programs for the recruitment, advisement and retention of a well-balanced undergraduate student body.
(4)	Establishment of an Office of Institutional Studies to facilitate more systematic academic planning.
(5)	Increases in the building space for the humanities and the social ^sciences.