Connecting The Dots

I had a tiny breakthrough recently on how individual contributions might be organized and how significant each might be as we tell the story of the College.

So far the effort has seemed to be made up of a goodly number of individual documents, pictures, articles and media files. I would read one or listen to one and think: "Yes, I remember that event." or "I remember reading that in the mid-1970s." or "What is the relationship of that account to, say, courses taught in Arts and Humanities?" I hadn't, until recently, seen many connections among a whole set of varied documents.

The breakthrough came with four documents that I have had for some years but hadn't read carefully and fully.

The first is a 1966 State of New Jersey document -- intended for the public -- in which the State made its case for adding two new colleges to the seven that had served the state for a century. This document is called A Call To Action and it was issued by The Citizens Committee for Higher Education in New Jersey.

In this 26 page booklet the Committee makes its case for vast expenditures, political reorganization and and engaged public for what it sees as a "crisis" in NJ higher education. As part of its planning, new State colleges were envisioned though not specifically located. The booklet is full of statistical studies such as:

• Percentages of Students In-State and Out-State in 11 States in Fall, 1963
• Hypothetical Distribution of Full-Time Undergraduate Students by Public and Private Institutions In-State and Out-of-State (1965 to 1975)
• Hypothetical Distribution of Daytime Graduate and Professional Students in Public Institutions in New Jersey (1965 to 1975)
• Estimated Costs For Academic Facilities and Annual Operating Expenses for Additional Students in New Jersey Public Colleges and University (1965 to 1975)
• Full-Time College Enrollments in Four States Compared to New Jersey (years 1965 to 1975)
• Planned College Expansion Four States Compared With New Jersey 1965-1975

What this represents is the state of higher education in New Jersey in 1965; a snapshot, if you will, of the rather dire situation in NJ and some strong suggestions about what needed to be done.

The second document is more local to Stockton. It is the Richard Stockton State College Education Policies Committee Planning Seminar (4 - 28 - 1970). It is unclear from the Report exactly what the Education Policies Committee was, who created it and whether it came from the College or the State. The former seems likely.

The Committee was made up of faculty, administrators and students -- all from other institutions. Stockton, itself, had not yet opened; indeed, it had not yet hired any of the Deans. I was interviewed in March and came to NJ on June of 1970. Faculty were not being interviewed for almost a year.

The document has section on topics like:

• Academic Majors
• Academic Organization
• Administrative Organization
• Degrees
• Finances
• General/Liberal Studies
• Requirements For Graduation
• Site Acquisition
• Student Life

The connection between the 1965 Call For Action and this report from the Educational Policies Committee seems clear. In 1965, the State envisioned in very statistical terms what ought to be happening in higher education in the State. In 1970, the report tells us how far into realizing that vision those responsible had gone. In the first there are numbers; in the second their are majors, degrees and graduations.

The third document is the Self-Study of 1975. This, the College's first self-study, explains what we thought we were doing and an analysis of whether we were doing it. By 1975 the college had a couple of thousand students, a faculty of about 100 and a growing administration. We had four buildings and were putting up another four. This document traces how far we had come in five years, what we had mastered and what still was undone. The College was no longer a dream; it had the reality of faculty, students, classes, dorms, a library and cafeteria.

To complete this thread, we will add a Self-Study from, say, 2000 and, finally, our vision for the future called the 2020 Plan.

I hadn't seen all of these connections before looking at individual documents. There will be more; decisions taken in 1965 have powerful consequences in 2010. It is powerfully real for me that history is made up of one fact at a time. The whole narrative comes from how we connect the docs.