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If one looks at the conditions present for the launching of highly viable
curriculum innovations, and at the factors absent from the launching of
the failures, it seems clear that money and allocatable human assets are
needed to start innovative projects. Probably, in the past, support of the
administration played an important part, also. Because of the time lapse
between the events, it seems clear that a Little Memorial Lecture by a
leading industrialist, or the attention of the administrative leaders, or
individual department offerings managed by people wielding considerable
power and controlling considerable resources and possessing impressive
titles, or Faculty committees mandated to find and promote innovation
without financial resources or the ability to allocate human resources,
can not generate the development of innovative curriculum. However, in the
same environment and culture, the addition of $1.5M allocated in amounts
of $50K together with administrative entities to provide staff support
-- such as the Science Teaching Center -- innovation can thrive. One sees
in such an environment the burgeoning of innovative projects such as UROP,
ESG and Concourse. The coincidence of all these factors in 1967-71 is too
exceptional not to draw the conclusion that they are causally related.
In this context it should be noted that until the Whitehead funding the
administration jealously guarded the most productive funds raising fields.
That changed with Whitehead, it would appear. So Department level fund
raising was given a boost and funds and human resources at the department
level are arrayed to harvest money for department engineered projects. So
innovative projects supported at the department level are possible, given
the willingness to allocate to the projects funds generated by the department
development office and human assets supported by those funds.
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Malcom W. P. Strandberg
2000-01-07