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THE STETSON
n. ink 5IEISON B
111 Florida % oldest college mewspape$
Vol. 84
Friday, October. 15, 1971
Study shows curriculum healthy
Editor's note: Tilts is the first article in a
sis-part series dealing with curriculum .to
Stetson. There has been a great ieai of
discussion ia such areas as faculty-student
ratio, minimester, the university's philosophy
in hiring professors, etc. There are two
resolutions now before the student senate
dealing with these matters (see page 5).
By ERNIE ACOSTA
Stetson University still has one of the most
desirable student-faculty ratios in the
country. It is still small. It is still very individualistic. But all these attributes will soon
be nothing tat history unless the university
can cheek several of the trends that have
developed in recent years.
Such are our conclusions after three-weeks
of studies conducted by the Reporter on
Stetson's curriculum.
The student-faculty ratio presently stands
at 18 to 1.
By this time next year the ratio will have
increased to 18 to 1. The university will have
lost twelve more faculty members, according
to predictions made by an informed soiree.
In discerning the size of an average
classroom it must be remembered that most
students take a load of four or five courses
while the average professor teaches three or
four.
Thus the average Stetson classroom has 24
people, seven more than what the student-
faculty ratio figures would lead us to believe.
Dr. Robert Chauvin, Dean of the college of
Liberal Arts, explains that the class load is
heaviest at the freshman and sophomore
levels where students must meet their major
and university requirements,
"At the upper division level," says Dr.
Chauvin, "we have almost individual
teaching."
The Stetson student going into Ms junior
year can expect to enroll in classes of about
twelve students, depending on his major.
But it is not in the breakdown by level, but
by department, that the greatest disparity in
ratio shows.
The most burdened departments were in
the social science and education divisions.
The lightest loads were in the natural
sciences and in the School of Music.
Dean Chauvin explains that this is due to a
trend in stadent attitudes that has been
Chauvin
"The emphasis now is in the social and
behavioral sciences," he says. "More and
more students are going into the fields of
sociology and psychology, for example, and
less and less into the technical sciences."
But the university is still functioning with a
faculty prepared for the student body of the
early sixties, when most interest lay ur'-
technical programs, such as pre-engineering.
This explains why the physics department
has-a ratio of 17 to 1 in students taking courses
to available professors. Psychology, on the
other hand, has a ratio of more than 100 to 1.
Dr. Chauvin Believes that the university is
in a very good position to cope with the
situation,
coming since the mid-1960's.
. _ ( Continued On Page .,
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John Howard Griffin, author of the Best-
seBfag book "Black Like Me," will speak
Monday, October 18, at 8 p.m. in Stetson's
Elfaabeth HaU auditorium.
His lecture will concern the latest in race
relations, according to a university
spokesman.
A noted journalist and lecturer, Griffin
undertook a personal assignment in 1959 to
find out what it was like to be a Negro in the
South. He had Ms skin darkened under a
doctor's supervision and travelled through
flie South as a Negro for two months.
The story of Ms experiences was set down ■
in Ms book "Black like Me," which
established the author's fame and helped to
dramatize the immediate need for social
change.
The book had a measurable impact on
people throughout the United States. It has
since been made into a movie and has been
the source of numerous radio and T¥
programs.
Born in Dallas, Texas, in 1920, Griffin
spent most of his life in that state. He served
with the armed forces during World War II in
the Pacific theater and gradually lost Ms
sight' as the result of a wartime injury. He
remained Mind until 1S57 when Ms sight was
restored.
His book "Scattered Shadows" covers the
ten years of Ms blindness.
Other novels include "Nunu" and "The
Devil Rides Outside." The most recent book,
favorably reported by the New York TIMES,
is "The Church and the Black Man." Griffin
now serves annually in Belgium as a visiting
professor at the University of Peace in
Tihange-lez-Huy. He has spoken before
college 'audiences throughout the United
States.
His appearance on the Stetson campus is
being sponsored by the University's Artists
and Lecturers Committee in cooperation with
the Student Government.
Griffin is scheduled to meet informally
with students and faculty in classrooms on
campus Monday from 2 to 5 p.m. and Tuesday
from 9 till 2:30.
ECO wants trash
Dr. Robert ' Loftin led the
Environmental Concern
Organisation in their introductory meeting Tuesday
night on the S.U.B. lawn.
E.C.O., a group of ecology-
minded students has established
a refuse collection center at the
Bridge at 221 Amelia Av. in
DeLand, where discarded cans
and newspapers will be collected
for recycling. The E. C. 0. asks
that aluminum cans, tin cans and
old newspapers be brought to the
Bridge where interested students
will.prepare the material for
processing.
Aluminum and , composite
(aluminum-topped) cans should
be mashed before being brought
to the Bridge. Tin cans should
have the tops and bottotns cut out
and mashed flat; newspaprs
should be tied in bundles.
However, E. C. O. will gladly
take material in any conditioa
The. Bridge is open 24 hours a
day, and delivery can be made at
any time. Do your thing for
ecology - stash your trash for E.
C. O.!
