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let the record also show that following the closing of the hearing record at 5 p.m. on the 29th of March, the chairman, on behalf of the committee, will reserve the right to call upon any witnesses that have appeared or any individuals that have not appeared for supplemental statements if they wish to volunteer them. We will also call in, if we deem it appropriate as we discuss the bill, individuals to advise with us at the professional level before we finally make our recommendation.

I am advised that Dr. Carolyn C. Howlett, legislative chairman of the Women's Alliance, All Souls Church, Washington, D.C., will not be present to testify this afternoon and desires that her statement be inserted in the record, and that will be done at this point.

(The statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF CAROLYN C. HOWLETT, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, WOMEN'S ALLIANCE, ALL SOULS CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D.C.

I am Mrs. Duncan Howlett and I represent the Women's Alliance of All Souls Unitarian Church, located at 16th and Harvard Streets NW., Washington, D.C. Our women's alliance has a membership of 180, the majority of whom are citizens of the District of Columbia, but all of whom reflect their interest in the concerns of this city by their association with our metropolitan church.

For many years a number of our members have vigorously urged that greater opportunity for education beyond the high school should be made available to the young men and women who live in the District of Columbia. This year our legislative committee has made a special study of the problem and on their recommendation our membership voted to support legislation to establish the kinds of institutions provided for in the bills under consideration.

New or expanded institutions of higher learning of all types are being established all over this country, as it becomes universally recognized that posthigh school training will be more and more essential to qualify for the employment market of the future and to face the complexities of our society. Every State and many cities now have public colleges. It is only here, in this the Nation's Capital, that residents have no publicly supported college where they may obtain a liberal arts degree or specialized technical training at modest cost. We have only the limited District of Columbia Teachers College, to which I shall refer again later.

Even if private colleges could, or would, absorb all of our residents who are qualified to benefit from higher education, many of them would be barred by the cost. How can we even begin to guess how many now do not qualify, or fall short of their full potential, because ambition is stifled or incentive lost when boys and girls know that even if they were to qualify they could not aspire to higher education.

We believe that both a 4-year college of arts and sciences and a 2-year community college are needed in this city if our young people are to have the opportunities they need and deserve. We also support the merger of the District of Columbia Teachers College into the new liberal arts college as provided by S. 293. While we were investigating the need for higher education facilities here, a delegation from our committee visited District of Columbia Teachers College. We saw that it is all housed in two pre-World War I structures, separated by nearly a mile of crowded and busy city streets. We saw its well-worn corridors and classrooms and equipment, its limitations of space and the way many areas had had to be converted into uses for which they were not intended. We noted that the top floor of one building could not be used because condemned as a fire hazard. We found all the outdoor recreation area had been sacrificed to parking. Obviously the two buildings which served over half a century ago could not be adequate in the light of all the changes that have taken place in the intervening 53 years, both in the size and composition of our city and in educational techniques. We commend the dedication and competence of the faculty but no one can deny the handicaps under which they work.

We learned, also, that teacher training today is thought to be best carried on in a broader educational setting so that there are few teachers colleges left which exist exclusively for the training of teachers. Accordingly, we believe

that Washington also needs a liberal arts college to help provide the greater number of well-qualified teachers which will be required as our public elementary and secondary schools increase in number and strength.

Education is acknowledged to be one of the most important weapons in the war on poverty. Incentive and opportunity are both essential to accomplishment, and we believe that all our young people should have equal opportunity to reach their fullest potential. To this end, both of the colleges provided for by S. 293 should be established in this city as soon as possible.

Senator MORSE. We will reconvene at 2:30.

(Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m. the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 2:30 p.m. the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The subcommittee reconvened at 2:30 p.m., Senator Wayne Morse, chairman of the subcommitee, presiding.)

Senator MORSE. Senator Gruening, I am delighted to hear you now.

STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST GRUENING, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF ALASKA

Senator GRUENING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is a privilege to testify before your committee.

The District of Columbia should have a modern public city college. I feel that the need is obvious and overdue. If we are to have a Great Society, then we must provide the necessary building blocks for that Great Society.

As President Johnson said in his message to the Congress on international education and health on February 2, 1966:

Our resources will be wasted in defending freedom's frontiers if we neglect the spirit that makes men want to be free.

These words apply at home as well as abroad.

In January of last year, I was pleased to join with you and six of our Senate colleagues in cosponsoring S. 293, which provides for the establishment of a public community college and a public college of arts and sciences in the District of Columbia. I wish to express again my support of this legislation.

I am sure that other Senators, leaders in civic and religious organizations, Government officials, and many public-spirited private citizens have brought to this hearing statistical material that shows the great inadequacy of the District of Columbia's present facilities for public higher education.

I wish only to add a pertinent comment about higher education in Alaska. In my State, the people have long sought to make higher education available to all who can profit from it. Progress toward the attainment of this goal has been particularly gratifying in recent years.

Over the past 6 years, there has been a gain of 189 percent in the appropriations of State tax funds for operating expenses of the University of Alaska. Our university system now includes six branch 2-year colleges, each one an accredited institution.

The record of the growth in services of the community college at Anchorage offers a striking example of what the proposed liberal arts college and community college can mean to the citizens, young students, and adults of the District of Columbia.

Last month, the Anchorage Community College celebrated its 12th anniversary. It opened in 1954 with an enrollment of 384 students. Now there are 2,000 students enrolled, and in the 12 years of its existence 28,000 different individauls have enrolled in its various courses. Alaska's situation with respect to the support of public higher education is not unique. During the past 6 years, within the individual 50 States, State tax fund appropriations for the operating expenses of higher education have more than doubled, and large sums have also been provided for capital expenditures.

I have no doubt, therefore, that each Member of the Congress could speak with pride about the advancement of higher education in his State. But no one can speak with pride about the advancement of public higher education in the District of Columbia. Here there has been no progress. On the contrary, ground has been lost.

Thousands of capable and worthy high school graduates who cannot afford to pay the tuition fees charged by private institutions are still denied an opportunity for higher education. Only a comparatively few young people who plan to become teachers may enroll in the District of Columbia's Teachers College.

I sincerely hope that the proposed legislation will receive prompt and favorable consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I would like placed in the record at this point a news release from the University of Alaska commemorating the 12th year of educational service in Anchorage.

Senator MORSE. Without object, the news release will be inserted in the record at this point.

(The document follows:)

[News release from University of Alaska College, Alaska, Feb. 8, 1964] ANCHORAGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY

An anniversary is being celebrated in Anchorage this month which marks a milestone for public higher education in Alaska.

The Anchorage Community College will commemorate its first 10 years of service to the community with a week of civic events starting with an anniversary luncheon on Saturday. A special anniversary music program on Sunday will be followed by testimonials of appreciation by civic groups during the week. The numerous events scheduled mark the opening of the college on February 8, 1954, under the College Enabling Act passed the year before by the State legislature.

The college is operated by the university as an integral part of the State's system of public higher education in cooperation with the Anchorage Independent School District. It is the oldest of five public community colleges in the State. Ketchikan and Juneau-Douglas Community Colleges will celebrate their 10th anniversaries later this year. Palmer and Sitka Community College are most recent additions.

When the college first opened its doors 384 students enrolled. Today more than 1,600 students are taking credit or noncredit courses. One of the fastest growing areas has been the college credit program in which 900 students are taking freshman and sophomore college classes.

In recent years the college has added to its vocational and technical courses full programs for training practical nurses and technicians in electronics.

Its total program, emphasizing continuing education for everyone, attracts students from age 19 to 90. It has gained widespread popularity through its four music group affiliates: the Anchorage Community Chorus, music festival, community college ensemble and symphony orchestra.

Most of the college's classes meet in the Anchorage West High School in the late afternoon and evening. There are approximately 60 part-time and 11 fulltime instructors. Gene Short has been the resident director of the college since 1959.

Senator GRUENING. I am extremely grateful to you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of this good cause which you have so effectively sponsored as you have had many important improvements in the field of education.

I want to say to those present no one has done more to mold public education than the Senator from Oregon, and I am happy to be associated with him in these and other causes.

Senator MORSE. I appreciate very much your personal remarks and I appreciate the very helpful statement that you have made.

I was just about to tell you how proud I am to be associated with you in this and on other issues. In effect, I am not so sure that by cosponsoring this education bill we are not doing more for the security of our country than those who are killing American boys abroad. Senator GRUENING. I would share that view most emphatically. Senator MORSE. Our next witness is Miss Flaxie M. Pinkett, president of District of Columbia Citizens for Better Public Education, Inc.

Miss Pinkett, we are delighted to have you.

STATEMENT OF FLAXIE M. PINKETT, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CITIZENS FOR BETTER PUBLIC EDUCATION, INC.

Miss PINKETT. Thank you, Senator Morse.

Senator MORSE. Proceed in any way you desire.

Miss PINKETT. The District of Columbia Citizens for Public Education, Inc., is an area wide organization dedicated to the improvement of public education in the District of Columbia.

May I submit for the record a full statement of our views together with a leaflet that we have developed to acquaint the community with the legislation before us.

Senator MORSE. Miss Pinkett's full statement will be incorporated in the record and the exhibit to which she refers will be incorporated in the record at the close of her testimony.

Miss PINKETT. Thank you.

Much of what I want to say has already been said, both by the committee chairman this morning and other witnesses, so I will condense it even further.

We wholeheartedly endorse the purpose and principles of the legislation under consideration today. Public higher education in our society is no luxury. It is a necessity for the community and the individual. It is a necessity for the Nation.

Our President and Vice President, 56 percent of our State Governors, the chairman of this subcommittee, along with 60 percent of the Senators, and 49.2 percent of the Members of the House of Representatives attended institutions of higher learning.

These hearings have brought forth for the record massive and convincing testimony demonstrating from every point of view the need for both a 4-year public college and a 2-year community college in this city. Today we wish to emphasize the impact of this legislation on the community and its citizens.

No one can deny the urgency of equipping children with the knowledge and skills which prepare them to become useful members of society. We frequently overlook, however, the tremendous cost to a

community when the demand for education beyond high school cannot be met.

The influx of skilled, educated people into Washington becomes a doubtful economic benefit in the long run. This influx only isolates the poor, the untrained, and the uneducated who fall even farther behind the technological advances, fall into hopelessness, ignorance and poverty, crime and diseases.

Our rising birthrate places additional strain on community resources for welfare, health, and crime prevention. For a community to expose itself to this type of life is tantamount to economic and social suicide. We completely support the judgment expressed in the report of the President's Committee that "the most urgent educational need in the District of Columbia is hope." The way to infuse hope into our public school system is to provide opportunities beyond high school. legislation will do just that.

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It will open the door at the end of the high school corridor so that secondary education will no longer be a dead end journey for twothirds of our children. Washington has the highest per capita income in the country. We have unexcelled cultural and research resources, libraries, and museums, to stimulate and broaden the interest of our children.

We are immersed in the intellectual and political ferment of the Capital of the Nation and the hub of the free world. Yet our loss rate for students at the secondary level is the fourth highest in the Nation, higher than 46 of the 50 States. The opportunity for public higher education will change the attitude of many children. It will inspire them to prepare themselves for a future of their own choosing. It will reduce the waste of human resources represented by our lost children, children lost to themselves, to the community, and to the Nation.

Perhaps the most dynamic thing that will come from this will be parents and teachers who will be able to motivate youngsters with the simple phrase "when you go to college ***," and from the first grade forward opportunity for improvement becomes something taken for granted.

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Senator Morse has emphasized the problem of the average student. He may be a non-grade-oriented student, a "late bloomer," the "C" student whose potential cannot be determined in high school. Yet no one can say what leaders may rise from these ranks if the doors are not shut in his face before he has a chance to develop his full capabilities. We need continuing public education after high school.

Previous testimony has established its widespread availability elsewhere and the irony of its virtual absence in the District of Columbia. Here flowers, trees, and shrubs, are given more opportunity to grow than are our young people.

Mr. MORSE. I want to thank you very much. (The statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF FLAXIE M. PINKETT, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CITIZENS FOR BETTER PUBLIC EDUCATION, INC.

MARCH 24, 1966.

I am Flaxie M. Pinkett, president of District of Columbia Citizens for Better Public Education, Inc. As an organization with an areawide membership dedicated to the improvement of public education in the District of Columbia, we thank you for holding these hearings and for sponsoring this legislation. We want

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