Hustler for Quality

After listening to the speech by the young (38) president of the University of Notre Dame, the old grad was frankly disturbed. President Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., had talked so heatedly about raising the academic quality of the university that the old grad wanted to know: "What about the ordinary boy? Why can't he find a place at Notre Dame?" Retorted Hesburgh: "What do you drive, a jalopy or a Cadillac?" The alumnus grinned. "A Cadillac," he replied.

In his four years as president, Father Hesburgh has made it abundantly clear that he intends to have his football-famed campus known at last as a university of Cadillac quality. In the past two weeks he has spoken at half a dozen Universal Notre Dame Nights across the country, has been hammering away relentlessly at his alumni, trying to muster their support. Back on campus last week he had reason to feel that he was making headway. Though some alumni fear that their sons might not be able to make the grade if Hesburgh has his way, most "are buying the program. There isn't one among them who would want Football Coach Terry Brennan to take just ordinary boys on his teams. To succeed in anything, you've got to have quality."

One v. 100. The son of a retired plant manager for the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., Hesburgh got to his present post after rigorous years of training. He took a seminary year at Notre Dame, went through his novitiate for the Congregation of the Holy Cross at Rolling Prairie, Ind., then moved on to Rome's Gregorian University, where "the classes were all in Latin, the dormitory talk in French and the street talk in Italian." In 1945, after earning his S.T.D. at the Catholic University of America, he was called back to Notre Dame. By 1948 he was head of the department of religion; the next year he was appointed executive vice president of the university. When able, popular Father John Cavanaugh finished his term as president (TIME, April 28, 1952), Hesburgh took over.

A stocky hustler who likes to work until 1 or 2 in the morning ("I just get warmed up at that time of night"), he got a grant from the Fund for the Advancement of Education to make a thorough survey of his liberal-arts curriculum. He put up a new science center, a liberal-arts building, two new dormitories, a new bookstore, bought a TV station for a communications center. But new buildings were only minor items on the agenda. In 1952 he made the decision to put the lid on Notre Dame's enrollment (now 5,600) and to concentrate on improving its standards. "We decided," says he, "that it was more important to turn out one well-educated, competent man than 100 mediocrities."

Top 20%. To attract brighter students, he made College Board exams compulsory, insisted on higher high-school grades ("We want to cull our students from the top 20%"). Partly as a result, the average IQ at Notre Dame has gone up from 110 in 1946 to 123. Scholastic aptitude scores have jumped from 112 to 125. He relieved the top 10% of his liberal-arts students of routine requirements after their freshman year, assigned them to special seminars with hours of additional outside reading. The extra-bright he encouraged to get their first degree in three years and then go on to graduate work at the university's expense.

He has made mathematics compulsory for all liberal arts freshmen, has ordered tougher assignments all along the line. Though Notre Dame still offers a degree in physical education, Hesburgh has slashed the number of trade-school courses a student will be allowed to take. He has imported a galaxy of star visiting lecturers--e.g., Historian Arnold Toynbee, Classicist Sir Richard Livingstone, Theologian Martin D'Arcy, S.J., and has given the university an impressive set of stars of its own--e.g., Mathematician Vladimir Seidel, Biochemist Charles E. Brambel, Sculptor Ivan Mestrovic.

In the past year the number of prize graduate fellowships won by Notre Dame students has gone up 2%, and scholarships have doubled since the war. Hesburgh abolished the law school's easygoing elective system, toughened the curriculum so much that enrollments slumped from 243 in 1953 to 141 this year. He added 65,000 volumes to the university's library, has seen the circulation of books double in five years. But all this, says he, is only the beginning. "We've got a long way to go. If we decide to expand 20 years from now, we'll have a good, solid base. After all, what happens to education happens to America. We want the best to happen at Notre Dame."

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