Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 306

twelve to fifteen months in an electrical industry, returning to the Institute the following year to complete work for the degree. This industrial cooperative course was elected by ten juniors the first year, most of whom found the contact with actual industrial problems to be very enlightening. In 1922 there were fourteen students who took the option.

The faculty was not at all enthusiastic about the introduction of business administration courses, which some of the alumni were ardently proposing. At an alumni-trustee conference in February, 1921, this subject was opened for discussion by Frederick M. Feiker, '04. The committee to which it was referred, headed by Mr. Feiker, was to consult with President Hollis and the faculty and report in June. Their report was merely one of progress. In June, 1922, however, a full report of the committee was submitted by Mr. Feiker. Several conferences with faculty members had given the alumni a clearer viewpoint of the problem. They could then understand the major faculty objections: that the introduction of new courses into the regular curriculum would crowd out essential technical subjects or force the expansion of the course to five years, and that if a distinct curriculum in Commercial Engineering were added the difficulty of making its requirements equal to those of engineering courses might cause many students to elect it as the easiest route to a degree. The substance of the committee's report was: that the Institute was giving far more business training than the alumni had realized, and that it should tell what it was doing more concisely in the catalogue; that present courses having directive business value should be developed and coordinated; and that a chair of Business should be established with the Wilder fund as a nucleus. This last recommendation lost its potency a short time later, when it was learned that the residue of Mr. Wilder's estate was not sufficient to cover his bequest.

Another favorite item in alumni discussions was the granting of honorary degrees. Several faculty-alumni conferences on the subject finally convinced most of the graduates

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Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999