and tap the source of knowledge that is available in this world capital. They should have the opportunity to learn alone or with other people. They should have counselors that would help them and coach them to overcome blocks of learning to help them to help themselves in solving problems and in understanding man and the world in which he lives. In closing, I again urge the passage of this legislation. And I urge that the proposed community college be viewed not only as an institution to fill the particular needs of a particular city, but as a proud demonstration to all our city's visitors, and to all the world, that Washington is leading the way in solving the problems of continuing education in a changing world. Dr. HOLDEN. The essence of what I have to say is, I am proposing a learning community for the District of Columbia, and I am speaking as an adult educator and with all due respect to everything that has been said about these two institutions, I would like to think that the total adult learning of this community is as important or equally important as to the other particular phases of this program. The first concept that I would like to indicate is that here in the District of Columbia you have the disadvantaged people, and in a sense these disadvantaged people-and to some extent, we are all in this, it is a matter of degree—we have a maze. In other words, the people who are born poor have limited money and limited opportunities, and so because they have low incomes they try to go one way, and they run into one kind of a hurdle. They have limited motivations, they run into another kind of hurdle until finally, perhaps, they do work them through our community. But as I see it, they run into a dead end, and from an adult education standpoint, I would say we have five big jobs. One is, that we have 100,000 people in the District of Columbia who are functionally illiterate. We have an additional 100,000 people in the District of Columbia that have not finished their high school. Then we have more than 50 percent of the people who enter college who are pushed out or dropped out, so they are here and need training. Then a fourth big job is the whole area of continuing education for adults to be better parents, to be better citizens, to have a fuller life. A fifth big job in adult education is to try to update and upgrade and renew, refresh all of the people in the professions, the scientists, the doctors, the lawyers, the nurses, and the accountants. And as I see it, the District of Columbia has very few opportunities to solve these five big jobs. So my second concept, here, is that we need to have a community college. I say that the community college should not only be at one location but should be at least six locations. Also, not directly connected with it but an essential part of this total particular purchase would be the college of arts and sciences. I even see at each one of those six areas at least seven different satellites where people could go to learn. In a sense then you have many opportunities, and there is a relationship. Someone just before here talked about the cost of getting to a school, and I would like to mention here that that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School has been in existence for 45 years and I would like to think that it has been the directors that have been the great contributing factor, but this is not the case. One of the things that has made our program great is its accessibility. People could work during the day, get their dinner at night and go in, continue their education in the same building. They could go to school for 2 hours and they could get home and still be able to meet their obligations the next day. In other words accessibility. So if you try to get even all the people that need this education to come to one central location, you put another artificial hazard. So I am proposing here that we have a central program of a community college, but that we decentralize it into at least six, or it could be the central college with at least six branches and the branches would then-it would be a galaxy, a satellite and have many lesser learning stations around each of the decentralized campuses. Now, the one thing we might say here is, Would this duplicate any of the other educational programs that are now going on? On this particular chart [indicating] I have tried to indicate that we have at least major other kinds of institutions that will continue to make a contribution toward these five jobs. In the red circle are community colleges and the black circles representing the other major contributions to the educational life of this community. I would like to go back to my five jobs, five big jobs and indicate where they are going to be done. Job No. 1, is the hundred thousand illiterates. We need to step up, we need to dramatize the elementary, junior high school programs to help these functionally illiterates that are living in the District of Columbia. The second big job of training to finish high school; we need to expedite, to reinforce the educational opportunities for people to complete their high school or get a high school equivalency. THE The third big job is the training of technicians and the nurses aids, and we need people that are going to build the subway, we need people to manage our hospitals, we need someone to help in the business of environmental improvement of air, water, and soil pollution. This kind of technician can be trained and developed in a broadly based community college that would be getting the cooperation of the vocational schools and the private and technical schools that we have here in the District of Columbia. The fourth big job that we have in adult education is the whole continuing education process of developing better citizens, of getting home rule, I hope, for the District of Columbia, of being prepared for it or having us be prepared for it, being more productive, updating our skills. This we will continue to have done by many. In fact, all of these agencies will make a contribution. The schools, the business, industry, and Government, private institutions of higher learning, the professional trade and labor groups and the laborers and art galleries will all be making a contribution to the enrichment of life. And then the 50 area, which I think is very important in adult education, and that is the updating of our citizens, of our accountants, of our doctors. This, I think, will continue to be done by the institutions, private institutions we have, and I see this as a real responsibility of the colleges of arts and sciences. This college with tax support should be what I would call a community development approach to the District of Columbia. It should tackle the difficult jobs of poverty. It should put on demonstration projects. It should provide research in order that the District of Columbia could be a sort of showcase for the world because we are the world's capital. But we cannot really measure up to this unless we provide continuous educational opportunities for all the adults of this community as well as to provide educational opportunities for the young people who are graduating from the schools and those who do not graduate from the schools, both public and private. Senator MORSE. Dr. Holden, I want to thank you very much. I want to tell you that the material you presented to the committee is something I am going to have to analyze. I have a recommendation to make to the president of either one of the propsed institutions and that they had better draft you early in the program because you have given so much thought to this that I think your views ought to be very carefully considered as they set up the program. Dr. HOLDEN. I would like to say there might be some people who think there is not a need for this and as you know St. Louis is a little smaller than the District of Columbia, but in 1963 they did precisely what I am recommending here. In other words, they developed a community college and they had three locations in St. Louis. And they started out in September of 1963 with about 790 students, as of February. And last year they had 7,000 in these 3 community colleges. So it can be done. Senator MORSE. Thank you very much. Our next witness will be Mr. Robert L. McKee, president, Northern Virginia Technical College, representing American Association of Junior Colleges. We are delighted to have you. I notice you have been here for some time. You notice the procedure I am following. You may proceed in your own way. |