A Centennial Retrospective
Chicago Teachers College
Raymond Mack Cook
In February 1948 Raymond Mack Cook assumed the position of Dean of the College. The title of President no longer was allowed, since the Board of Education desired that the final authority of the General Superintendent of Schools be clearly established, certainly an inauspicious decision.
Cook's administration was to prove to be the second longest in the College's history, only outdistanced by that of Owen. It spanned the years from 1948 until his death shortly after the assumption of control of the College by the State of Illinois in 1965. It may fairly be said that Cook, from the moment of his assumption of office, never lost sight of an increasingly certain fact in the economics of the City of Chicago — that the College's financial survival could be assumed only by securing the monetary help of the State. Cook, furthermore, soon came to believe that the College's academic survival, too, depended upon the transferral of authority over its affairs from the Board of Education of the City of Chicago to the State of Illinois.
The question of State aid versus State control was the dominant theme of the years from 1948 to 1951. The College, all agreed, was in dire financial straits, requiring immediate aid. Various proposals were seriously discussed both by the Board of Education and the State Legislature. These included a few suggestions that the school be abolished entirely — hardly feasible in view of the postwar teacher shortage. Serious proposals were made by many that the College be turned into a State University. Another equally serious proposal was that the school be placed under the control of the Illinois State Teachers College Board which was then responsible for the operation of the other five state teachers colleges. Finally, some felt that the State should assume financial support for the College proportionate to the amount provided to the other teachers colleges, but that the College should remain under the control of the City.
Both Dean Cook and General Superintendent Hunt favored some form of State control. Members of the Board of Education supported Hunt's financial position in general, although most desired State aid with local control as the ideal solution. Neither the alumni nor the faculty supported any form of State control, and a year and one half of intensive debate over the College's future in the waning days of the 1949 General Assembly ended with the hurried passage of an emergency 53.2 million appropriation for the operation of the College.
Secured only because of the election of Adlai E. Stevenson as Governor (Dwight Green had refused to support any emergency appropriation), the appropriation resolved the College's financial crisis. The issue of State control was left unresolved, to be dealt with in the future. Throughout the entire discussion there appears to have been only the slightest consideration of the New York precedent of leaving the College under the control of a local Board of Higher Education. Such a scheme could have, however, resolved faculty fears of domination by an essentially downstate controlled Board, while leaving the College free of the Chicago Board of Education, a body naturally oriented towards the needs of elementary and high schools and structured administratively to deal with the concerns of those educational segments. Some faculty did not want to be free of the Chicago Board of Education, but, it would appear, a majority would have supported the establishment of a local Board of Higher Education, since its urban orientation would have been assured.
Recognizing that the emergency action of the 1949 Legislature left the College's future financial support in doubt, Dean Cook, General Superintendent Hunt, and interested civic organizations proceeded to work vigorously for permanent State aid. Downstate leaders, both in the educational and political areas, lent substantial cooperation to this effort mainly because of the long years of personal association enjoyed by Cook, who had been born in Charleston and educated at both Eastern Illinois Normal School and the University of Illinois.
Not all downstate Colleges were enthusiastic at the prospect of the educational budget being further divided, and Cook's struggle was not without its moments of crisis, tension, and alarm. The work of legislative preparation was, however, well handled and, in 1951, a permanent connection with the State was established with the State Legislature authorizing the appropriation of funds to reimburse the Chicago Board of Education for the operating expenses of Chicago Teachers College. Approximately ninety percent of the College's budget was thus secured. The Act, as amended in 1961, provided for appropriations to cover all expenditures except capital outlay or building construction costs. None of the latter were then or had been in the distant past even contemplated by the Chicago Board.
CAPTION: Dean Cook shown with Governor Adlai Stevenson, Representative John G. Ryan, Senator Robert E. Young, and Representative W.O. Edwards at the signing of the bill in 1951 which provided the first permanent State funding for Chicago Teachers College. [IMG]
After April 1948 the College no longer enjoyed a monopoly in supplying teachers to the Chicago public school system. With the elimination of automatic certification the College abolished the controversial entrance examination which was widely believed to have
been administered with political motivation by the Board of Examiners of the Board of Education. While unrestricted admission undoubtedly lowered the educational quality of the College, it was, the faculty believed, a momentarily necessary price to pay for the reestablishment of traditional academic control over the College's admission policy. The College, in order to avoid all possibility of a renewal of charges of favoritism, for several years admitted all high school graduates.
It was not until 1956 that nationally scored entrance examinations were again required. Gradually raising the percentile cutoff
point for entering freshmen, the College again possessed by the early 1960s a student body somewhat comparable to that of the late 1930s. and early 1940s. This is not to imply that the graduates of the 1950s lacked distinction. Indeed they uniformly scored well on certification examinations, but it must be admitted that the process of weeding out poor college risks was an arduous one costing the school dearly in time, energy, and student and faculty morale.
The social and racial character of the College underwent a significant change in the fifties. Enrollment of black students, never more than ten percent of the student body before the war, now approached thirty percent. The College also drew more heavily than ever before on less-advantaged socio-economic segments of the population. While it is true that the school had always acted as a channel for upward social mobility, daughters of the upper middle class and the wealthy had previously provided a much larger part of the student population. Now they were found in lesser numbers among the members of the student body. The College found itself, as well, in a deteriorating neighborhood. The past glories of Englewood had disappeared. Once stately homes had given way to multiplying rooming houses and subdivided apartments. Vigorous community action might have prevented its decline but the College, as a creature of the Board of Education and as a commuter institution, did not have the traditional academic stake in its surrounding environs.
Gym classes at Teachers College kept students fit and prepared future physical education instructors for the public schools.
Under Cook the College reestablished its academic integrity. The percentage of doctorates among the teachers consistently rose to nearly fifty percent of a faculty numbering more than 160. Some geographic distribution of faculty members' academic origins was 'achieved in spite of an inadequate salary scale and overcrowded physical conditions. Overcoming considerable faculty opposition, rank was established by the administration in 1958 and in the early 1960s a salary scale was achieved which momentarily brought the College's salaries nearly equal to those offered at the downstate teachers colleges. In some of these achievements Cook had the support of Superintendent Benjamin C. Willis; in many other cases it would seem that they were accomplished in the face of the Superintendent's indifference or opposition.
Curriculum development was substantial during the Cook administration. Graduate programs were reestablished in areas where there was a need in the school system, particularly in specialized fields, such as industrial education, library science, and biological sciences, In
1962, the Master of Arts in Teaching degree was established in English, geography, history and mathematics. These evolved into Master of Arts degrees by 1965. In these years there was also a growing commitment to the in-service training of teachers.
Undergraduate curricular reform came in 1962. Long an objective of Cook and a faculty that was increasingly oriented to the liberal arts, the elementary education major was reduced in "professional education" courses to the minimum required for city and state certification. The elementary major was further strengthened by requiring some specialization (equivalent approximately to a minor) in a subject matter field. This curricular reform completed the successful efforts of the early years of Cook's administration to move away from the methods-oriented curriculum of 1943.
The major breakthrough in the revision of the curriculum came in 1962 with the institution of a secondary teaching major which permitted the student sufficient flexibility to build a non-teaching major in a subject matter field and thus qualify himself for high school teaching. For the first time in its history, except for the Bartky years, a major in addition to education was offered by the College. These curricular changes of the Cook era were accomplished by the faculty without Board interference, and, indeed, sometimes with its cooperation. By 1962, then, Cook had more than recouped the losses suffered in the wake of Bartky's wartime departure and the consequences of the political upheavals of the 1940s.
The post-war years also saw the establishment of a number of branches of the College throughout the city. These, with one exception, were eventually merged into the present Northeastern Illinois University. That institution, initially quite experimental in curriculum, had been proposed in 1957 and was opened in 1961 as Chicago Teachers College: North. At a time when Chicago Teachers College's facilities were in a deplorable condition, the construction of a new teachers college under separate administration met with widespread criticism. However, the need for such an institution was recognized even by those who saw its creation as politically motivated, and that school has come to serve well in increasing ways the needs of the City and the State.
Cook died after a short illness in December 1965. He had lived to see his dream of a State College achieved. His term as chief administrator had been a remarkable one, for he had inherited an incredibly depressing situation. To those who examine the difficulty of the task
he faced, his achievements may seem comparable to those of Parker and Bartky. It may be that his challenge was more difficult. They could create; before he could do so, he had had to heal the devastation wrought by the Board's actions in 1943. Only then could lie encourage
curricular revision, initiate rank, encourage academic professionalism, upgrade dim student body and recruit on a national basis in the face of a Board that insisted that College teachers were to be "in school" five days a week, 6% hours a day, sign in and out on time-sheets, and achieve tenure only by passing a certification examination in the field of education. Cook's career was one of educational distinction and total personal service.
A Master Plan for Higher Education in the State of Illinois had been commissioned in 1961 and presented to the Illinois General Assembly in 1965. Setting forth the long-term objectives of the State's system of higher education, the Master Plan spelled out the roles of the various State Colleges and Universities in achievement of these goals. Chicago Teachers College, as well as its sister school on the north side of Chicago, were both included in the Master Plan.
The incorporation of the College into the state system received more faculty support than had similar proposals in the past. Warnings from the General Superintendent to oppose the changeover to State control were bravely ignored. Civic organizations such as the City Club, the city's newspapers, and influential political leaders of both parties pressed effectively for the College's inclusion in the Master Plan. Acceptance of the Master Plan by the Board of Education is difficult to assign firmly single influence, but, perhaps, primary to the Board's decision was the report of Robert J. Havinghurst of the University of Chicago; commissioned by the Board, the report was published in 1964. It clearly emphasized the inadequacies of teacher preparation in Chicago and strongly recommended acceptance of the Master Plan. Despite the unyielding opposition of Willis, Chicago Teachers College passed to the control of the State of Illinois in July 1965. Renamed Illinois Teachers College: Chicago South, the old Cook County Normal School had found its third home .. .
Chicago State College's future is one of great potentiality. Under direction from the Board of Higher Education to become an urban university serving the needs of an urban society, it can afford only the normal centennial remembrances of things past. it is things yet to be that now daily demand its concern. To look hack nostalgically at Englewood's tree-shaded lost tranquility is well; to recall the ways in which service has been rendered is to honor the dead; and, to locate oneself in time and purpose is necessary; but the real centennial act must be to work for, and dream of, the future. Chicago State College which has served County, City and State well, often in the midst of crisis, cannot afford too long a meditation. The needs of society and the Republic press upon it.
Hats Off To Thee!
hail to the green and white,
just watch our colors fly ..
just turn the power on,
and march on to victory.
"Hats Off to Thee" was composed in 1938 by Mary Catherine Brennan as a sound off number in Chicago Teachers College and later Illinois Teachers College: Chicago South. Miss Brennan, who was enrolled in one of the music classes, was always full of pep and ready and anxious to do more than her part in the extra activities demanded in the music department. To turn up with just the right song at the right time was typical of her enthusiasm and interest in the school.
Shortly after she completed her studies at CTC she entered the Novitiate of the Sisters of St. Dominis at Adrian, Michigan. After several years of additional training she was sent to Dominican High School in Detroit where she taught piano, organ and choral music. Extra study at the University of Michigan rewarded her with a Master of Music Degree in Piano. This little school song was just a start in the field of composition. Her music pen later turned out two "Ave Marias," a "Hymn to St. Dominic," a "Welcome Song" and several school songs.
