The College Reshaped

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the period of innovation in the College curriculum was drawing to a close. Many of the students who entered after four years of high school, instead of remaining just two years at the collegiate level, took three years or more to pass all the "comps" and receive a bachelor's degree. This defeated the original purpose of an accelerated curriculum. It also left the students at a disadvantage when applying for graduate school admission, since many institutions - including the University's own graduate divisions - would not accept two years of collegiate work as equivalent to a full undergraduate program that included specialization in a particular discipline. These and other difficulties, including a high rate of attrition, brought a corresponding drop in enrollment, from about 3,400 College students in 1945-46 to less than 1,200 in 1953-54.

In 1954, with the encouragement of Chancellor Lawrence A. Kimpton, the University Senate reorganized the College to eliminate the Hutchins AB degree and relocate the bachelor's degree to its conventional position at the end of four years of collegiate studies. In 1958, the University adopted a College plan incorporating two years of general education courses for all students to be followed by two years of specialized work.

These efforts to revive the College found fuller expression in 1965 under the leadership of Edward H. Levi, Provost, Acting Dean of the College, and (after 1968) President of the University. As proposed by Levi, the College was reorganized into four Collegiate Divisions corresponding to the four graduate divisions and an unaffiliated fifth division, known as the New Collegiate Division, which would encourage interdisciplinary work.

General education courses were rearranged into an entering "common year" and a second year that could be taken later in the student's program, a sequence which was to become the basis for the College's revised "Common Core."

The Levi plan offered students an opportunity to acquire an integrated general education while permitting disciplinary specialization as well. New offerings in nontraditional fields and non-Western cultures enriched the College curriculum and broadened the alternatives for individual students. When the last of the comprehensive examinations was phased out, the College severed a structural link to the Hutchins tradition, but in its divisional structure and common core it remained profoundly indebted to his academic leadership.

These efforts to revive the College found fuller expression in 1965 under the leadership of Edward H. Levi, Provost, Acting Dean of the College, and (after 1968) President of the University. As proposed by Levi, the College was reorganized into four Collegiate Divisions corresponding to the four graduate divisions and an unaffiliated fifth division, known as the New Collegiate Division, which would encourage interdisciplinary work.

General education courses were rearranged into an entering "common year" and a second year that could be taken later in the student's program, a sequence which was to become the basis for the College's revised "Common Core."

The Levi plan offered students an opportunity to acquire an integrated general education while permitting disciplinary specialization as well. New offerings in nontraditional fields and non-Western cultures enriched the College curriculum and broadened the alternatives for individual students. When the last of the comprehensive examinations was phased out, the College severed a structural link to the Hutchins tradition, but in its divisional structure and common core it remained profoundly indebted to his academic leadership.