(9-13) .... On fellowships, scholarships, and other support for (14-19) On support for research (20) On buildings and facilities ... (21-24) On mathematical activities in the international field. CONTENTS (Continued) APPENDIX Table I. Table II. Production of doctor's degrees, by major field, in Percent of new full-time teachers at high and low ... Table III. Number of junior-year students majoring in 35 336 37 Table IV. Scientists and engineers, by occupational group, FOREWORD Many agencies of the Federal Government administer programs of various kinds in support of higher education. The Federal Government and also various educational and scientific organizations are engaged in collecting information about these programs, their operation, and their influence on higher education, and in planning for the revision and expansion of these programs. Several opportunities have been offered to the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) to express its opinion on these programs and to make suggestions for their modification and further development in the future. As a result, the Conference Board called a special Conference on the Support of Higher Education by the Federal Government to consider all of these matters; it was held in the Allan Room of the National Education Association Building in Washington, D. C. on November 12-13, 1960. The following were participants in the Conference: A. A. Albert (November 13 only), C. B. Allendoerfer, E. G. Begle, A. H. Bowker, R. C. Buck, F. B. Fitch, H. M. Gehman, B. W. Jones, J. L. Kelley, J. R. Mayor, E. J. McShane, Frederick Mosteller, G. B. Price, Mina S. Rees, J. B. Rosser, A. W. Tucker, D. W. Western, F. J. Weyl, S. S. Wilks. Professor Price, Executive Secretary of the Conference Board, presided. The meeting was called to order at 9:10 a.m., November 12, and it adjourned at 4:00 p.m., November 13. On the first day of the Conference the following speakers (in the order stated) provided information (background statements) about the problem before the Conference and on the programs of the Federal Government in support of higher education: Dean Mina S. Rees, Hunter College; Dr. J. Kenneth Little, U. S. Office of Education; Mr. Charles G. Dobbins, American Council on Education; Dr. Harold F. Dorn, National Institutes of Health; Dr. C. Russell Phelps, National Science Foundation; Dr. Philip W. Hemily, National Science Foundation; Mr. Gilbert Anderson, Department of State; Dr. Arthur Grad, National Science Foundation; Dr. F. Joachim Weyl and Dr. F. D. Rigby, Office of Naval Research. At the end of the afternoon Professor Wilks, Chairman of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, appointed the following committees to draft recommendations during the evening for consideration on November 13. (1) Committee on support for teaching and mathematics education: Buck (chairman), Begle, Jones, Kelley, Mayor, Mosteller, Rees, Western; (2) committee on fellowships, scholarships, and other support for students: Tucker (chairman), Bowker; (3) committee on support for research: McShane (chairman), Albert, Fitch, Rosser; (4) committee on buildings and facilities: Price (chairman), Allendoerfer, Gehman; (5) committee on mathematical activities in the international field: Wilks (chairman), Weyl. The paper of Dean Rees is given in full in the section of the report headed Background Statements, and summaries of the talks of the other speakers are included there also. The committees to draft recommendations met during the evening of November 12, and they presented their recommendations on November 13. The recommendations which were adopted by the Conference are given at the end of this report. Professor Wilks stated that the Conference had been called to formulate the position of the mathematical community with reference to the various programs of the Federal Government which support, or relate to, higher education. With reference to Federal support for the construction of buildings and facilities, he pointed out that the Educational Facilities Laboratories has provided a grant, through the Mathematical Association of America, to enable the CBMS to make a study of the design of buildings and facilities for secondary and higher education. Professor Wilks then described the plan for the Conference. BACKGROUND STATEMENTS Dean Mina S. Rees Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Mathematics In discussing support of higher education by the Federal Government we should recognize that, although there is still much discussion of the pros and cons of such support, and although there has been no over-all policy decision by the Congress or by the executive branch of the government or by any group of representative leaders of American higher education that such support should be given, it is true nonetheless that a substantial amount of support is currently provided to institutions of higher education by various agencies of the national government. This support is estimated as between 1.5 and 2.0 billion dollars per year. To quote from an article by Homer D. Babbidge, Jr., Assistant Commissioner and Director, Division of Higher Education, Office of Education: "A half-dozen different graduate fellowship programs are now in operation, each administered by a different Federal agency. Some 6,000 students are being financed through these programs in their graduate work, at an annual Federal cost of $35 million. Approximately 75 percent of these awards are in mathematics and the sciences, and 17 percent are in the humanities and social sciences, which account for slightly more than a fourth of the Ph.D.'s. The average Federal fellowship in the sciences pays the student $700 more per year than the fellowship in a nonscience field. "Five Federal agencies conduct major research programs, using U. S. universities as the principal resource. This year they will spend at least $750 million for such research, $450 million directly in universities and the remaining $300 million in research centers associated with universities. As a result, more than 70 percent of all research conducted by our universities is federally financed: 86 percent of all university research in the physical sciences and 25 percent in the social sciences. C. V. Kidd, whose studies of this area of Federal activity are highly illuminating, reports that 14 universities received 55 percent of Federal research funds in 1953-54 and that 10 universities received about one-third in 1959. "A recent comparison of 10 large universities with 10 small colleges indicates that the universities received about 33 percent of their general educational income from Federal sources, while the small institutions received about 3 percent of their income from the Federal Government. |