The brief memo transcribed for today’s posting indicates at least a desire and perhaps indeed first steps to moving graduate education in economics at the University of Chicago away from a course credit orientation (i.e. “majors”) to one based upon examination in aggregates of “fields or subjects”. The memo’s author, James Alfred Field, taught courses on population and vital statistics.
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James Alfred Field (1880-1927).
A.B., Harvard (1903); graduate student, Harvard (1903-6); University of Berlin, 1905-06; Assistant/Teaching Fellow in Economics, Harvard (1903-5); Instructor in Economics Harvard/Radcliffe (1906-08).
Instructor 1908-10, Assistant Professor (1910-13), Associate Professor (1913-1918), Professor (1918-1927) at University of Chicago.
Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register, 1909-1910 .p. 45.
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The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration
Memorandum to Graduate Committee from J. A. Field
December 8, 1919
The Committee on Graduate Students in the Department of Political Economy will meet on Thursday, December 11, at 4:00 o’clock, in Cobb 6 B, to begin the discussion of proposed reforms in the methods of graduate instruction and in the requirements and examinations for the doctor’s degree.
It is proposed, in general, that advanced students who have shown evidence of their qualification be exempted, as far as is practicable, from the routine demands of separate courses, and be assisted and encouraged to organize their studies in significant groups or special fields, with increased opportunities for independent reading and inquiry. Accordingly, it is suggested that the requirements for the doctor’s degree be formulated in terms not of majors, but of fields or subjects, and that the method of examination be correspondingly revised.
The discussion on December 11 will deal particularly with the practical problems of defining suitable fields or groups of studies, and of guiding and testing independent individual work in these fields.
J. A. Field
Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 22, Folder 7.
Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06081, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.