college. The other colleges and universities maintain curricula
organized on the conventional premise that virtually every student
should spend four years acquiring a minimum quota of course credits
to earn a bachelor's degree.
In the
non-academic aspects of college life, the majority of the colleges
have treated the Scholars exactly like other students. They have
permitted and encouraged the Scholars to participate in
extra-curricular activities. On most campuses, the Scholars have
been subject to the same regulations as other freshmen, though
because of their age they have been generally discouraged or
prohibited from joining fraternities during the freshman or
sophomore year.
There were
some colleges, however, where special social arrangements were made
for the Scholars during the first year of the experiment. At Fisk,
for example, it was decided to assign the first group of Scholars
to separate dormitories in which they were required to take their
evening meal apart from other students, and their social activities
were strictly supervised. At Yale, the 1951 Scholars were assigned
to dormitories as a group, and other special provisions were made
to set them apart from the student body as a whole. At Columbia,
Oberlin, and Goucher, the 1951 Scholars were required to room
together. At Columbia, they were required to live on the campus,
without the usual student right to commute from other living
quarters.
This
solicitude, the faculties soon recognized, was not unlike that of
parents with their first infant, resulting in the same anxious
overprotection. The situation was well illustrated at one college
where an all-Scholar dormitory was nicknamed "The Nursery." It was
soon recognized that these special arrangements, like those in the
academic sphere, had been unwise, and they too were in almost all
cases withdrawn. The colleges, like parents with their later
children, have been a great deal more relaxed in their handling of
subsequent Scholar groups.
While
academic counseling has been available at all institutions,
provision for trained guidance on personal and social problems