Occasional Papers on Higher Education, Volume: XXI

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“ T E A C H I N G AT A U N I V E R S I T Y O F A C E R TA I N S O R T ”

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the experience, lest it endanger the future of the entire scheme of innovations by a grinding and continuous process of wear on individual members of the faculty.”189 A second critical voice emerged from within the examiner’s office itself. In 1950 Joseph Axelrod, who had served both as an assistant professor in the College and on the staff of the examiner’s office, complained to Ralph Tyler, “I came to the conclusion, as a result of my work at the Board and in the College, that an independent Board of Examinations, however convincing the arguments for it may appear on paper (and I for one was persuaded) creates problems as great as the ones its establishment is intended to solve; that, in a word, it has been bad for the College not to have been given responsibility for the College examinations. I have always looked upon the Board, insofar as its work on College examinations went, as merely a hand-maiden to the College; but the Board has not been willing to see itself in that role. It seems to be pained by the fact that instruction without examining remains a significant activity whereas examining without instruction loses its raison d’etre. I do not mean to belittle the job the Board has done and is doing; that has been of a very high caliber. I mean merely to point out that I believe I have seen the work of the Board in what I think is the proper perspective; and I believe that the Board’s ‘independence’ has led it to see itself in a kind of glorified perspective.”190 The growing tensions between the faculty and the office can be best illustrated by the work of Benjamin Bloom, who worked as a junior 189. Laves’s report is contained in Brumbaugh to Hutchins, March 13, 1941, pp. 5–7, 9–10, College Archive, Box 8, folder 2. 190. Axelrod to Tyler, October 12, 1950, Kimpton Administration, Box 108, folder 11.


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