History nixes submatriculation

Freshmen and sophomores planning to participate in a History Department program that allowed students to earn both bachelor's and master's degrees in four years recently received a rather unpleasant surprise. In a faculty meeting two weeks ago, department professors voted unanimously to cancel the submatriculation program. Despite the immediate termination of the program, the department will allow the few seniors currently enrolled in the program to continue, along with any juniors who declared their major by the beginning of the 1998-99 academic year. History professors said the program usually has four to five students a year, though Frederick Jauss, one of the seniors in the program, said he is one of only two seniors submatriculating this year. There are currently 335 History majors, according to the College office. "We're not going to pull the rug out from people who are already in the program," History Graduate Chairperson Thomas Safley said. But several History majors said they disagreed with the decision. "Their reasoning makes sense but I don't think it was a good idea," said College senior Charles Carol, a History major. "If a student wants to do his master's in his senior year, he should be able to do that." According to History Department professors, the major reason for cancelling the program was a pervasive feeling that the quality of a submatriculant graduate education was not on par with that of graduate students. "It was the feeling that the program really wasn't of high quality," said History Professor Sheldon Hackney, who was president of the University from 1981 to 1993. "We felt it didn't do for students what it should be doing." Jauss, however, said that the submatriculation workload was far higher than that expected of a regular undergraduate. "Since I joined the program, I've had to read five or six books a week," Jauss said. "As an undergraduate I read one or two at most." The decision to eliminate the submatriculation program was reached after careful deliberation over other factors as well. Department faculty and administrators had been toying with the idea for years. "There has been sentiment to cancel [the submatriculation program] for at least a decade," Safley said. Other reasons for cancelling the program ranged from advising issues to concerns about the quality of a submatriculant masters thesis. In fact, some professors said that they considered the submatriculation program to be detrimental to the overall undergraduate education. "I think that what made the difference was that it seemed we were emphasizing the master's program [over their undergraduate education]," History Professor Ann Moyer said. "It wasn't clear that what students were getting from the joint program was helping the undergrad." In order to qualify for the submatriculation program, students had to first be accepted into the department's honors program. After that, students wishing to obtain a master's as an undergraduate then had to apply to the submatriculation program. The process in which applicants are accepted to the program is similar to the regulations for accepting graduate students. A graduate application, two letters of recommendation and a master's thesis idea must be submitted. The only difference is that the Graduate Record Examination is not required of submatriculant applicants. Upon acceptance to the submatriculation program, students need to take eight additional graduate courses -- two of the three 400-level senior honors thesis courses may be counted towards this -- and write both a senior honors thesis and a master's thesis.