Fast Expanding University of Massachusetts Seeks to Discard Outworn 'Cow College' Label

There is more than a football game at stake for the University of Massachusetts in the Stadium this afternoon. The visiting team will be fighting not just to win but "to put UMass on the map" and its adherents will be hoping once and for all to convince the people of Boston that their university is not a "cow college."

But whatever the result of today's game, the people of Boston will remain largely unconvinced. For 92 years they have thought of the state university as an exclusively agricultural school, and it will take more than a football game to change their minds.

The fact is, however, that since the end of World War II the stereotype of UMass as a cow college has been quite untrue.

For in the last eight years the University, which is located on a spacious, beautiful campus in the town of Amherst, has evolved from a largely agricultural college of 1,200 students to a diversified state university with a co-educational enrollment of almost 4,000. Of this present student body, less than ten percent majors in agriculture, while half the students concentrate in the Liberal Arts and Science and the rest specialize in such fields as Engineering, Business Administration, Home Economics, Physical Education, and the newly created School of Nursing. Indeed, so far is agriculture from dominating the University's curriculum that it is the only department whose operating budget for next year represents a decrease from this year's appropriation.

But such was not always the case at the U. of Mass.

The school was established in 1862 as one of the many "land grant" colleges authorized to teach agriculture and mechanical arts, and it came very close to being set up as a part of Harvard University. The state legislature finally decided, however, that a more rural location would be preferable for the new college, and thus the 1,000-acre Amherst site was selected.

The Massachusetts Agricultural College, as it was then called, earned an excellent reputation in the early part of the century in the field of soil study, but as time went on it became less and less agriculturally pre-occupied. The Legislature recognized this in 1931 by changing the school's official name to Massachusetts State College, and in 1947 recognized its further growth and diversification by making it finally the University of Massachusetts.

The "Aggie" Stigma

Thus UMass is now, in organization and character, a typical healthy state university. And yet despite its new personality the school still can't seem to escape the stigma of being an "aggie" college. Even the newest Mass. freshman has an inferiority complex regarding this point; one of them was so afraid of being represented as a cow college student, for example, that he asked the Crimson not to take any pictures of the University's agricultural facilities.

These facilities are, incidentally, quite outstanding. They include laboratories and experimental equipment for soil study, animal husbandry, slaughtering, breeding, etc., and feature a particularly renowned department of food technology. Scholars come from all over the world to study this subject at the University of Massachusetts.

But if Massachusetts resembles other state universities in the scope of its curriculum, it differs from most publicly-financed colleges in having its great period of expansion still ahead of it. The University stands now, in the words of Publicity Director Robert McCartney, "about where Michigan State stood in 1934."

Michigan State, as everyone knows, has grown tremendously in the last 20 years, and the expansion job immediately facing the U. of Mass. is at least equally phenomenal.

The present enrollment of 4,000, which represents a growth of over 300 percent since the war, is scheduled to hit 10,000 by the early 1960's. To accommodate this great influx of students, new living quarters dwarfing the nine or ten dormitories built during the last decade will be needed, in addition to expanded classroom, laboratory, and social facilities. A new men's dormitory and several science buildings are now in the process of construction, while next year will see the ground-breaking for a Student Union and a large women's gymnasium. Meanwhile, the next legislature will be asked to appropriate $4,000,000 to expand the University's library and build a new Liberal Arts classroom building.

One need spend only very little time on the Massachusetts campus to be aware of the dynamic growth taking place there. He sees it in the new buildings going up everywhere, in the enthusiasm everyone shows in discussing the University's future, and especially in the words and ideas of President J. Paul Mather, the man whose job it is to get some $10,000,000 in appropriations from the Legislature each year.

Mather is a 39-year-old Ph.D. in Economics who looks slightly old for his age but is described by all his associates as a "fireball" of enthusiasm and "a man who knows how to talk to the Legislature." As provost of the University before he was named president last year, he worked closely with many student leaders, and as president he has tried to preserve this relationship, even though, as he admits, some faculty members think he spends too much time with the students. The students themselves, however, have a sincere liking for their president; they appreciate, among other things, the attitude that led him to cancel all today's classes so that he migh personally lead a 200-car student motorcade from Amherst to Cambridge.

But Mather is a devoted public educator who has many more important subjects of concern than his popularity among students. He regrets that he must spent 40 percent of his time attending state hearings and meetings in Boston, but regards this function as necessary for philosophical as well as economical reasons, since "the University administration thereby acts as a foil to keep the Legislature out of educational policy." Although a public educator by choice, he received his Ph.D. at privately-endowed Princeton and emphasizes that he has "no bone to pick with private education"; his aim is merely to provide a sound college education for the thousands of Massachusetts students who cannot afford to attend private colleges.

Respects Private Education

Not only is the UMass president well-disposed toward private colleges; he is an outspoken admirer of Harvard and its educational leaders. He considers President-emeritus James B. Conant '14 "one of the greatest men of his time," and described President Pusey's pronouncement of last year on academic freedom as a statement "fit to be engraved in stone."

President Mather's drive to expand his school's enrollment is a direct result of his feeling that it is the University's obligation to educate a maximum number of Mass. citizens. He will not, however, "settle for quantity in education," and asserts that "if we don't get the necessary new buildings and staff we'll keep our present enrollment. We'll stay this size until somebody fires me."

Enrollment at UMass may very well soon equal that of midwestern state universities, but Mather contends that his college will never become as football conscious or intellectually weak as some of those institutions. His attitude toward intercollegiate football is, in fact, considerably less favorable than the Massachusetts student body and athletic staff would probably like.

"I was interviewed last year for the Presidency of the University of Nebraska," Mather relates, "and could have had the job if only I'd accepted their football philosophy." He refused to do that, however, preferring to stay in New England where, he claims, the "tradition of booklearning" and the comparatively excellent high schools create a university atmosphere more conducive to learning.

Stating his general attitude toward an expanded football program, Mather said: "When I see a library enlarged to three times its present size, a new science center and a liberal arts building, then I'll listen to the people who want a stronger football program."

Despite Mather's football-can-wait attitude, however, there are certain forces working on the Massachusetts campus to build the University's athletic future in the image of the Big Ten. One of these forces is Warren McGurk, director of Athletics.

On the issue of building a new stadium on the campus, for example, McGurk's ideas seem in direct contradiction to Mather's. "It's very unlikely that you'll ever see a big football stadium out here," said the President, "because the faculty would raise cain against it." The present dismountable bleachers are far more satisfactory than a permanent football stadium, Mather feels. McGurk has other ideas. Pointing to a flat field some 500 yards away from the present athletic plant, he proudly states: "That's where our new stadium will be in a few years or so."

For the Yankee Conference, the league of six New England state universities in which UMass plays most of its athletic contests, McGurk sees a future of steadily intensifying rivalries and improving competition. "The athletic potential here is as good as in the Big Ten," he states.

Thus it seems that UMass administrators are not in complete accord on at least one issue concerning campus life. No so, however, with the University's students. On any subject, whether it be football or fraternities, they exhibit an amazing spirit of uniformity and acquiescence, apparently accepting the campus status quo as the only possible order of things.

There are on the Massachusetts campus, for example, a number of institutions that would certainly meet with strong opposition from students at most colleges, but at UMass are hardly even criticized.

One of these institutions is the student coun- selor system, under which a student appointed by the Dean lives on each dormitory corridor as a sort of proctor for the other students. It is the counselor's duty, among other things, to make sure every day that all the rooms are cleaned and beds made before classes, and to report any student who fails to observe these rules. Counselors, who are selected by the Dean for their "leadership qualities," receive free living quarters as payment for their service, and are not at all resented by the rest of the student body.

Key "Orientates" Frosh

Another UMass institution that would probably never be accepted at Harvard is the Maroon Key. This is a student organization very much like the Crimson Key except for one important difference: it is the Maroon Key's job to "orientation" the University's new freshman class each fall. Now, this "orientation" includes getting the freshmen settled in their dorms and showing them around the campus, but it also includes such things as routing them out of bed at 5 a.m. to serenade the women's dorms and making sure they wear beanies for a week. Again, however, there is no serious protest from either the students in general or the harrassed freshmen.

Thirdly, there is at UMass a Student Senate, which is elected by the students in often spirited campaigns and corresponds roughly to the Harvard Student Council. The Senate has the added power, however of administering the student tax, a tax of approximately $40 a year which finances such items as the University's semi-weekly newspaper and its cattle judging team, a team of agriculture students that competes with groups from other colleges in judging livestock. Since the tax is administered by the popularly-elected Senate, however, it meets practically no opposition from among the students.

Surrounded by Colleges

Although UMass is located in the center of a college area (Amherst is one mile away, Smith and Mt. Holyoke each only a short drive), the student's social life revolves around the co-educational population of the University campus, where the ratio is approximately six men to four women. The social life of the campus, in turn, revolves around the 14 fraternities, which are virtually the only place where students can bring dates (no women are allowed in men's rooms, or vice versa, and no liquor is allowed anywhere on campus except in fraternities). Thus on Saturday evenings the fraternities become official campus hosts, and the problem is not one of exclusiveness but of over-crowding. President Mather expects, however, that the new Student Union, to be built next year, will provide some of the room now badly needed for campus social activities.

There are several distinct advantages that the University of Massachusetts derives from being a state-supported institution, the most important of these being the low cost of the college education offered. Tuition at UMass costs $100 for a whole year, and officials estimate that the student's total expense for a school year should be only $800. Thus many students from low-income families are given access to a college education that would be denied them, and many others, by working during the summer or at term-time jobs, find it possible to have cars at school or to live in fraternity houses.

But there are, on the other hand, a number of disadvantages that the University of Massachusetts must accept along with the financial support of the Commonwealth.

Its students must, for one thing, resign themselves to at least two years of an R.O.T.C. course, since this is compulsory at all state universities, and they must thereby accept a campus atmosphere tinged for all with regimentation and militarism. ("It is disconcerting," said one professor, "to be talking about Plato and hear 'tramp, tramp, tramp' outside the window.")

Also, the University cannot always avoid the political and religious issues which arise when a legislative body is the ultimate director of an educational institution. There can be no chapel on campus, for example, and no chaplain on the University payroll; and courses in religion can not be counted for full credit on a student's record.

Political Pitfalls

President Mather is probably aware more than anyone else at UMass of the political pitfalls awaiting the careless public educator, and he treads an especially fine line between the two political parties. Since this is an election year he is being more careful than ever, and, as he puts it, will be "just a good boy until after the election."

But despite all the hazards of his job, political and otherwise, Mather can see something really worthwhile in the growth of the school he leads.

"Who knows," he wonders out loud as he looks out of his office window across the rolling Massachusetts campus, "may-be someday a cure for cancer will be discovered down there on the other side of the pond (where the University's science buildings are located). After all, streptomycin was found at Rutgers, not Princeton," he says. "A man with brains can go a long way on the campus of a land-grant college," the President adds."There is a good deal lost for the college administrator in not forcing himself to spend time with the students," says President Mather. Here he confers with the head of a student organization.