have a fairly well equipped laboratory in which we teach physics, mathematics, and chemistry as they apply to the other technical fields taught in our school. The evening program is built entirely around the needs of the working adult population of our area. Courses are organized to meet the needs of industry and the people, and the content of such courses is determined by consultation with an advisory committee chosen from the field of work represented. Our type of school is the most flexible educational institution in existence. We discontinue the teaching of any course when the need no longer exists for persons in that field of endeavor. We organize new courses when there arises a need for the training of persons in some particular line of work. We also organize new courses to assist in the training of workers for a new industry or an expanding industry. Several industries have located in Louisiana because of our area vocational-technical school program. We are at the present in the process of organizing an emergency training program in one of our communities where an industry recently closed. The workers in this industry will be retrained for employment in other lines of work. The need for our program of education can best be justified by a look at our placement record. Industry and business in our community have accepted our program of training to such an extent that we are not able to keep our students long enough for them to graduate. We are constantly called upon for employees, and we place them when there is evidence that they are employable. We have more calls for employees than we have students available for the jobs. Another sign of the value of the training given in the area vocational-technical school is the constant waiting list that we keep. At the present time we have names on our waiting list whose applications were filed as far back as October 1957. You may judge from the tone of this report that our area vocational-technical school is so busy with its educational program that it has no time for anything else. In a sense, this is true for we have no athletic program or extra curricular activities. However, the staff of the school and the student body are active in many community affairs. We build playgrounds, little league baseball parks, flagpoles, parking racks for bicycles, and many other educational and recreational items. We participate in safety programs, community fund drives, and other such activities. Our disaster work was recently cited by civil defense. We are now working with civil defense on a plan to evacuate, set up, and operate a control center 30 miles from the Lake Charles industrial area. We maintain all their equipment. Gentlemen, I have attempted in this brief time to describe what can happen to the vocational-technical school when it is accepted as a part of the overall educational program. I believe success depends upon four main factors: (1) The program must be flexible, with the offerings based on the need for such training. (2) The material taught must meet the needs in that area of training. (3) The school must have prestige in the community so that its program will be accepted as a part of the overall educational program. (4) There must be adequate finance. The success of this school, which has been presented here only as an example of hundreds of others, did not come easy and without effort. Forty-three days after it was opened, a national emergency occurred, and we were called on to start training for national defense on a 24-hour basis. For more than 4 years we did not close our doors except on the Sabbath. We trained over 6,000 war workers. When that program ended, we were forgotten by those in authority who provide the money. We felt like the bride who was so very much wanted until the groom realized that she needed a new wardrobe. We started our peacetime program with a total annual appropriation of a little more than $45,000, but our school is located in a community noted for lifting itself when the necessity arises. Citizens' committees were formed, and many subcommittees were appointed. One of these was known as the Public Relations Committee and was made up of representatives from all media of public communication. News reporters, radio commentators (TV commentators were later added), and free-lance magazine writers, outdoor advertising executives, and others all did their work well. Within a 12-month period of time, 13 national magazines carried feature articles about the school. Some phase of the school program was included in each broadcast of CBS World News Round-Up every evening over a period of 1 month and later at regular intervals. We became the first vocational-technical school to be featured on the TV program, Industry on Parade. We have the distinct honor of being 22201-58-70 the only such school to have won the Freedoms Foundation George Washington Honor Medal "for outstanding achievement in bringing about a better understanding of the American way of life." In closing, gentlemen, may I say vocational-technical education needs money to buy modern equipment so that we may keep up with the industry for which we are training, but we also need your acceptance of the importance of our program so that we may have the prestige we deserve with the American public. The people of this great Nation of ours have developed a national philosophy that any education other than a college education is not the proper thing for their children. It is only for the children of their neighbor. We need to develop a national feeling that work is honorable and that those who put into reality the dreams and diagrams of the scientists and engineers are just as necessary and just as important to our American way of life as those who had the dreams. Without the skilled workers and the technicians who have built and who maintain the great luxuries that we enjoy in this country, we would be living as the peoples of less fortunate nations are now living. We would not be able to boast that we have more automobiles, more radios, more television sets, more refrigerators, more air-conditioning units, yes, even more bathtubs, than all the nations combined. We would not be able to produce the machines and weapons of war without these same people because there would be no one to put into reality the dreams and diagrams of the scientist and engineer. I would like to ask you as men of influence to do your part, not only by making funds available but by starting a movement among the news media people to stress the importance of technical education along with that of the scientist and mathematician, because we must have them both. I am taking the liberty of including as a part of this report a series of telegrams sent by this witness to the President and Members of Congress. (The documents referred to follow :) THE PRESIDENT, LAKE CHARLES, LA., November 14, 1957. The White House, Washington, D. C.: Your suggestion of a stepped-up educational program to train more scientists is of the utmost importance. However, we should put a great deal of stress or the training of technicians who can relieve the scientist and engineer from basic details that unnecessarily consume a vast amount of time that could be spent on research. We need a program to encourage those students who have no inclination, desire, or interest toward professional training to enter into the study of technology in order that the many scientists and engineers, who are now engaged in menial routine report writing and testing may be free to spend their time on problems of a higher denomination. A program for training technicians can be worked out in a much shorter time, and the training period is much shorter than the training of professional scientists and engineers. Strongly urge that you appoint a committee of educators from vocational and technical education to work with industry and Government officials on a plan to train this second echelon for the all-important task of reaching and holding our rightful place among the nations of the world. REX H. SMELSER, Director, Sowela Vocational-Technical School. THE PRESIDENT, LAKE CHARLES, LA., December 12, 1957. The White House, Washington, D. C.: Urgency of plan contained in my telegram to you of November 14, 1957, accentuated by news release of G. Kerry Smith, executive secretary of the Association for Higher Education. The plan outlined by Mr. Smith does not meet the requirements for the education of the second echelon. We will never win with all chiefs and no Indians. REX H. SMELSER, Director, Sowela Vocational-Technical School. LAKE CHARLES, LA., December 31, 1957. THE PRESIDENT, We will surely become a second-rate nation if we do not produce a corps of first-rate technicians. Any educational program that provides no aid to technical schools or scholarships to their students is almost criminal and definitely shortsighted. Education at the top only will produce research and planning while technical education will aid the producers. REX H. SMELSER, Director, Sowela Vocational-Technical School. LAKE CHARLES, LA., January 20, 1958. Senator LISTER HILL, Chairman, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Washington, D. C.: Since all legislation pertaining to education will come before your committee, I most humbly suggest that you keep in mind the value of our technical education program to national security and the vital work that is being done and will continue to be done by the properly trained technicians of this country. Scientists and engineers are extremely important but we must have technicians to make a reality of the dreams and plans of these people. I strongly urge that you give consideration to assistance to area technical schools so that they may supply the technicians which are so badly needed. REX H. SMELSER, Director, Sowela Vocational-Technical School. LAKE CHARLES, LA., January 20, 1958. Congressman GRAHAM A. BARDEN, Chairman, House Education-Labor Committee, Washington, D. C.: As a champion of vocational-technical education I am sure you will make every effort to include the education of technicians in any legislation proposed to Congress this year. The training of scientists and engineers is an important phase of American education but it has always been stressed as being more important than the training of technicians but the time has come when America must have more highly trained technicians in order that the plans and discoveries of the scientists and engineers may be put into practice. No doctor would enter an operating room without a corps of nurses and likewise no engineer or scientist can produce the goods and materials necessary to our national security without a greater corps of technicians. I hope you will make every effort to include assistance to area vocational-technical schools in any legislation that comes before Congress. REX H. SMELSER, Director, Sowela Vocational-Technical School. The CHAIRMAN. Any questions, gentlemen? Senator PURTELL. I would like to commend the gentleman for what obviously is an outstanding job. I also want to remark that I think part of the thing that has helped do it is the keen sense of humor that you have. I fully appreciate it. I think it is the thing that makes life worth living and makes the hard task easier. Mr. SMELSER. I am sorry, sir, that I do not have time to tell some Cajun stories. The CHAIRMAN. Will you come back sometime, sir? Mr. SMELSER. I will be glad to. The CHAIRMAN. You certainly must have a very fine school there. Mr. SMELSER. Thank you, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. F. Parker Wilber, director, Los Angeles Trade-Technical Junior College, Los Angeles, Calif. We are happy to have you here, Mr. Wilber, and we will be glad now to have you proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF F. PARKER WILBER, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES TRADE-TECHNICAL JUNIOR COLLEGE, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. Mr. WILBER. This morning I am going to speak from a background as a director of a large specialized junior college in the Los Angeles city area, but I am drawing from my experience as a member of the State vocational education steering committee, a group that counsels with the California State Department of Education; also as a chairman of the followup study of the vocational graduates in our State; and as a member of the California Junior College Association, technical education committee. At the college I represent we now have over 11,000 students attending. Some 3,400 of these students are daytime students and they average 23 years of age. In the evening we have some 7,600 students who come to school part time. These are people who are employed in various technical occupations of the community and they come for improvement so that they may advance themselves and compensate in their respective fields. I would request of the chairman that my entire presentation be included in the record because I shall emphasize this morning only a few aspects of the operation of my particular college. The CHAIRMAN. We will be happy to have the full text of your statement appear in the record. (See p. 1097.) Mr. WILBER. Thank you, sir. LOCAL AREA SHORTAGE OF MANPOWER We know, all of us, the committee as well as ourselves, about the national shortage of manpower. So I shall confine my remarks to a local area need. We have in the southern California area, according to the Southern California Research Council (which is probably our most widely respected group) an occupational group known as professional and technical, which will increase in demand in our area by the 1960's at the rate of 166 percent. The occupational group known as operators and kindred workers in our local area as reported by this group should increase at the rate of 133 percent. As you will recognize immediately, both of these figures are well above the national normal anticipated figure. Our area is peculiar in respect to its remarkable growth in recent years. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area was 2,900,000. This grew by 1950 to 4,300,000. As of January 1958, the population was 6,100,000, a net gain in this period of over 3 million individuals. As estimated by the same group, the Los Angeles County alone. which is roughly one-half of the metropolitan area, will have over 6 million people by 1960. This is the chamber of commerce figure. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF LOS ANGELES EMPLOYMENT IN This area, which is heavy with manufacturing, is a community that reflects a great deal of production of aircraft, missiles, and related manufacturing for the parts needed by these plants. About 25 percent of the total employment is related to these types of manufacturing. The continuous expansion at our college reflects planned efforts to train for some of this local area need. Other junior colleges in our area are planning in the same fashion. Enrollment has grown remarkably in recent years. As a matter of fact, our enrollment growth last year was over 15 percent-which is double the rate of growth for junior colleges in California. The size of our faculty indicates the size of our service. We have 142 full-time instructors and 350 part-time instructors; a total faculty of 492. In the daytime we have 151 different trade vocational and technical offerings. In the evening school we have 423 different technical offerings. We face a serious lack of facilities as we try to expand. In some areas they are really acute. For instance, we are using certain facilities on the basis of three shifts a day. We are doing this by running classes continuously from 7 o'clock in the morning until 9:30 at night. We are doing this in the areas of drafting, machine shop, welding, technical illustration, and, within 60 days, the electronics field. SUPERVISORY TRAINING TO MEET LOCAL NEEDS Beyond that we have met local industry needs by supervisory training programs. This was started last September by the Metal Trades Manufacturing Association of Southern California. They represent several hundred manufacturing companies in the area. They send to us for training handpicked, line supervisors. We are conducting an experimental program for steelworkers which I believe is the first one in the United States. We hope to retrain these people while they are still employed so they can go over to the automation equipment as it becomes used more extensively. We are training for apprenticeship alone some 2,000 in our evening school. Sixteen hundred of these 2,000 are in State indenture programs and about 400 are in company programs that are not tied into the State programs. We established a large branch of our school in a local high school some 10 miles distant from our local campus in order to meet the service needs of aircraft people and companies. I want you to know in spite of all these expansion efforts we are still unable to serve all those who apply. Some 2,500 applicants are currently on the waiting list to enter our day or evening school programs, and they will have to wait for months because we lack space and facilities. COOPERATION WITH INDUSTRY AND COMMUNITY We have made studies and followups of some of our graduates. We find graduates are very much desired and are very much needed |