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Columbia Economists

Columbia. Excerpt from Dean’s Report dealing with faculty of political science. 1930-1931

The previous post was a backward look from October 1930 at the first fifty-years of Columbia’s Faculty of Political Science (home of its graduate economics department). The following excerpts from the annual report of the Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science give us a snapshot of the Faculty of Political Science for the year 1930-31.

__________________________

FACULTIES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND PURE SCIENCE

REPORT OF THE DEAN
FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1931

To the President of the University

Sir:

As Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science, I submit the following report for the academic year ending June 30, 1931.

The year was marked by a number of events of interest and importance to the Graduate Faculties. Scarcely was it under way when the University celebrated with appropriate dignity and simplicity the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Faculty of Political Science. The details of this celebration, having been elsewhere recorded in print, need not be repeated here. The presence on that occasion of the venerable founder of the Faculty, Emeritus Professor John William Burgess, still in vigor of mind and of personality, gave it peculiarly interesting and dramatic focus. It was a fortunate circumstance that this expression of the University’s homage and debt to him was given at that time. Only a few months thereafter, deservedly honored and mourned, he passed from the earthly scene.

As a permanently useful memento of this celebration there was published a Bibliography of the Faculty of Political Science containing the list of the several thousand books and important articles written by its members as well as the titles of the nearly seven hundred doctoral dissertations that have been prepared and published under its guidance. Important to our University life as the integrity and unity of this Faculty is both historically and presently, it is regrettable that because of this fact this Bibliography falls far short of including the total of our contributions to the field of the social sciences. A complete bibliography of our publications in this wide field would have included numerous books and articles by members of other faculties, notably the Faculties of Business and of Law.

But while the Faculty of Political Science momentarily paused on the threshold of the year to celebrate its semicentenary, to look back upon its achievements and modestly to rejoice in its traditions, its spirit was in 1930, as in 1880, the spirit of youth. Professor Burgess himself was only thirty-five when he fathered the Faculty. And of the early famous small group whom he called to aid him in his high adventure in scholarship Professors Mayo-Smith and Munroe Smith were only twenty-six, and Professors Goodnow and Seligman twenty-four. Even among later arrivals Professor John Bassett Moore was only thirty-one, Professor Dunning thirty-two, Professor Osgood thirty-five, and Professor Giddings thirty-seven, when they joined the Faculty. It was a youthful company courageously and energetically facing the future.

And so this Faculty continues. It was the Department of Economics that was especially called upon this year to take thought of tomorrow. It had suffered severe losses. Professor Henry L. Moore retired in the spring of 1930. Professor Seager died in August of the same year. Professor Seligman retired at the end of the year. Inevitably the School of Business and the Department of Economics have been developing along many related lines of teaching and research. It would have been calamitous had they developed at cross purposes or in ungenerous rivalry. Happily no such misfortune befell. From the inception of the School of Business these two units have been held to common purpose by ties of common sense and of that fine spirit of loyalty and of friendship that is so much a part of the Columbia spirit. But the breach in the ranks of the Department of Economics seemed an appropriate occasion for welding these separate units, at least in so far as graduate work is concerned, into closer organic integration. Everybody recognizes that under our more or less arbitrary, but certainly unavoidable, scheme of departmentalization there are subjects and interests appropriate to a professional school of business that might not properly be included under a graduate department of economics. Conversely, there are manifestly subjects and interests that not only may be, but also should be, included under both. We severed the knot of this difficult problem of University organization by asking five members of the Faculty of the School of Business to become members of the Department of Economics and accept seats in the Faculty of Political Science. These were Professors Bonbright, Haig, McCrea, Mills, and Willis. This is no mere paper arrangement; it means a vital amalgamation of intellectual forces working toward common ends.

In recognition of the growing rapprochement between law and the social sciences it seemed fitting also that two members of the Faculty of Law, whose fields of interest are considerably economic, should be invited into this enlarged departmental membership. Professors Llewellyn and Berle were in consequence drawn into the unit. This was in line with the historic dual relationship that has so long prevailed with profitable results to teaching and scholarship between the Department of Public Law and the School of Law.

In addition to these internal realignments several new members were added to the Department of Economics. These are: Leo Wolman, eminent economist and practitioner in the field of labor problems; Carter Goodrich, whose special field for development will be American economic history; and Harold Hotelling, a distinguished mathematician turned economist. Arthur R. Burns, Lecturer in Economics in Barnard College, will henceforth devote himself to graduate instruction and research upon problems of industrial and business organization. Michael Florinsky, working upon recent economic developments in Europe, and Joseph Dorfman upon the development of American economic thought, have been made Associates in the Department. The remolding of this important Department at a moment of unprecedentedly swift change in the economic world augurs for the years ahead rich results in scholarship and in service.

In the closely related Department of Social Science the appointment of Robert S. Lynd, distinguished sociological investigator and for some years past Secretary of the Social Science Research Council, is likewise an omen of certain promise. It can scarcely fail to quicken, expand, and deepen the activities of our sociologists in this great laboratory of society in which we live, the city of New York.

[…]

I express the deep grief of the University over the death in August, 1930, of Henry Rogers Seager, Professor of Political Economy, and in June, 1931, of Franklin Henry Giddings, Professor Emeritus in Residence of Sociology and the History of Civilization. For a quarter of a century or more here at Columbia, Professor Seager studied with and expounded to his students the problems of labor in a changing industrial society and the economic problems of corporations and trusts. Scholar, teacher, writer, humanitarian, active participant in welfare movements and organizations, he died at the age of sixty, depriving us of many years of companionship and service upon which we had never thought not to count. Beloved of both students and colleagues, his deep personal interest in and influence upon the former will not be easily supplied by another. His loss to the latter is irreparable.

Professor Giddings’ death brought to its close a long, rich life of labor, of profound reflection, and of purposeful achievement. Trail blazer in an almost unexplored and unstaked field of social inquiry he more than any other American gave meaning to the term sociology and direction to its course. His numerous writings attest the catholicity of his interests, the depth of his penetrating scholarship, and the clarity of his thinking on social problems and developments. Scholars the world over acclaimed him, while the large company of his students and the small company of his immediate colleagues held him in the affectionate regard which his rich humanity and his fineness of spirit inspired and compelled.

The end of the academic year brought with it the retirement from active service to the University of Edwin R. A. Seligman, McVickar Professor of Political Economy, and of Edward Delavan Perry, Jay Professor of Greek. Professor Seligman’s enormous and varied contributions to modern economic thought, especially in the field of public finance, as well as his numerous public and quasi-public services are so widely and so favorably known that it seems quite as useless as it is impossible summarily to estimate them here. His name is known and his views are valued wherever informed men in almost any land discuss problems of finance, and many are the important laws embodying fiscal policies of city, state, and nation that bear in their contours the impress of his studious acumen and practical genius. A scholar in affairs he was and continues to be. Happily he tarries with us in residence as active and as interested as ever. For him relief from classroom instruction can but mean an increase of productive scholarship and of public activity, if such a thing be conceivable.

[…]

Respectfully submitted,
Howard Lee McBain,
Dean

June 30, 1931

Source: Columbia University. Annual Report of the President and Treasurer to the Trustees…for the year ending June 30, 1931. Pp. 202-204; 208-209; 214.

Image Source: Low Memorial Library, Columbia University from the Tichnor Brothers Collection, New York Postcards, at the Boston Public Library, Print Department.

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Columbia Curriculum Regulations

Columbia. Economics graduate students’ memo of suggestions, 1939

 

The following memo with its cover letter was later attached as “Exhibit B” to a general statement submitted October 25, 1939 to Professor Austin P. Evans, Chairman, Committee on Instruction, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.

“There is appended a confidential memorandum submitted to the executive officer of the Department by a graduate student committee which contains interesting comment and suggestions. (Exhibit B).”

__________________

Cover letter for the graduate students’ memo

Columbia University
May 9, 1939

Dean R. C. McCrea,
Columbia University,
New York City.

Dear Dean McCrea:
As we agreed at luncheon with you and Professor Mills the other day, we are sending you the typed notes of student suggestions to the Department of Economics. We believe that these represent the concurrence of general student opinion, plus the thought we have given these matters.
Hoping that the notes will prove useful to you,

Sincerely yours,

WYLLIS BANKDLER
DICKSON RECK
VON DUSEN KENNEDY
FRANK PIERSON

* * *  *

Notes on some student suggestions for the operation of the Department of Economics, Columbia Graduate Faculty. 5/7/39.

The suggestions concern chiefly gaps that are felt to exist in the offering of the department. There are also a few notes on the method of conducting various types of course, and on the requirements placed on students, and on the allotment of credits.

1) History of Economic Thought. Intrinsic interest in this subject is amplified by a) Oral requirement, and b) the fact that many students feel that they will some day be called upon to teach it. Some feel that the subject is already overemphasized. In any case, there is the feeling that students should not be held responsible for so large a topic unless it is offered.
Various treatments are possible. a) A mere recital of doctrines. b) A tracing of current ideas. c) A combination with Economic History, concerned with the influence of the times on the theories, and vice versa. Treatment (c) is that followed by Professor Mitchell in his former course, and in the extremely useful Lecture Notes made from it.
Student feeling is against being held for “all the doctrines, man by man, and all the men, doctrine by doctrine”. A combination of (b) and (c) above would probably be well received.

2) Economic theory. Statements in the first paragraph under (1) above hold here. This topic is understood to include (a) Systematic presentation of current schools of thought, and (b) in particular, the structure of Neo-Classical (and derivative) Theory. The material under (b) is very well handled by Milton Friedman’s Extension course. Convenience would be served by bringing this into the Graduate Catalogue, so that it would count, without special action, for the 15 central points for Master’s candidates.
Further particular large branches include c) Socialist Theory and d) Institutionalism. Student objection to the existing offering of Socialist Theory falls under two heads. First, it is claimed that the subject matter is not covered adequately in class, that the treatment is diffuse, incomplete and wandering. Second, it is protested that the treatment is not either so fair or so sympathetic as that given, say, Neo-Classical Doctrine.
Institutionalism is handsomely handled by Dr. Dorfman. There is some feeling that the material might be expanded to cover modern Institutionalists and their work and problems more intensively.

3) Economic History. Dr. Hacker’s treatment of American Economic History is very popular, as is Professor Burn’s course in modern capitalism. A course in Modern European Economic History, from the breakdown of Feudalism, would be very well received in addition, although the Burns course could be expanded to fill this need.
There is dissatisfaction with the existing Seminar. Auspices that would concentrate more closely on the material are rather widely held to be desirable. Professor Stockder’s seminar might fill this gap were it admitted to graduate economics standing. A suggestion for procedure should this prove impossible is included under “Catalog” below.

4) Labor. This may be discussed under two heads, a) Offering for the student specializing elsewhere, and b) Specialization in Labor Economics.

a) A General Survey Course in Labor Economics under capable, sympathetic auspices will be subject to very wide demand. Students whose major interest is elsewhere seem to feel quite generally that so important a branch of economics should not be left blank in their education. A large demand will also be forthcoming from first-year students who have not previously studied labor, either at all or adequately, whether or not they intend to specialize here. Such a course is of necessity a large lecture type, and requires in its instructor the specific technique relevant.
A counter-suggestion by the Faculty is that Professor Wolman expand the subject-matter of his course. A very wide and almost unopposed sector of student feeling would prefer bringing in an outsider more cordial to the material and more tolerant of the viewpoints and questions of the members of the class.
b) A Seminar in Labor Relations for the specialist would find many applicants. Student desires as to the auspices are in agreement with the above comments. No university adequately specializes in training labor economists, and it is suggested that Columbia might consider filling this more than local gap.

5) Public Economic Policy. It is safe to say that no subject arouses wider interest among students. At present, public policy is dealt with piecemeal among the several courses, with by no means all the most important aspects being covered at all. (The most thoroughly considered section is monetary policy, both existing and proposed.) It is submitted that this is an important need which Columbia is well fitted to meet without much extra trouble.
Suggestions on this score represent the fusion of two streams of thought; a) The proposal of a joint seminar to explore specific areas of planning and policy, and to be conducted by academic experts in the various fields (Angell, Bonbright, Gayer, Orchard, Macmahon, Lynd, etc.); b) The feeling that contact with people actually engaged in forming and executing public policy would provide a realistic knowledge of problems actually faced (economically, politically, administratively, etc.), as well as valuable personal relations. The suggestion under (b) would involve the invitation to Columbia for one, several, or all meetings of the seminar such men as Berle, Ezekiel, Currie, Tugwell, Mumford, Wallace, etc. etc.
Experience with the mere importation of outside lecturers, as in an instance in the Public Law Department, seems to show that a course so built lacks continuity and depth in grappling with such problems as would be considered under (a) above.
Yet to define the benefits of (b) to the membership of a seminar of manageable size would be wasteful and otherwise undesirable. Two solutions have been advanced, which are not mutually exclusive. The first involves the holding of “public” and “private” meetings in the manner of the Banking Seminar. This could be assisted by co-operation with the Economics Club, that is, the visitors could partially be drained off into luncheon meetings. This solution suffers from several difficulties including the discontinuity of having each outsider only once. The second solution is embodied in the suggestion for Panel Seminars below.
Students would greatly like to co-operate in the organization of this seminar.

6) Agricultural Economics. While this is already a subject of inter-university specialization, a survey course is part of a rounded general offering.

7) Population. Students do not feel that this is ably handled. The suggestion has been made that Professor Goodrich’s course in Internal Migration could be expanded to cover this, and also Regionalism (see under (8) below).

8) Economic Geography. The offering in the School of Business is excellent, and needs only to be given graduate economics status. See also under (7) above and “Catalogue” below.

9) Method and Technique of Research. This includes a thousand little troublesome matters that each professor assumes that the student learns elsewhere. What are the Journals in economics and related fields? How do we keep up with current developments in economics? What are the basic sources in various branches? Where are all these things scattered in the library? How do we begin the investigation of a new topic? How doe we prepare a bibliography? And many others.
The suggestions here fall under three heads. First, it is felt that a booklet answering the above and related questions would prove extremely helpful. Second, instructors should keep this need in mind, and clarify the portions of techniques and bibliography that fall in their sphere. Third, careful bibliographies already existing for various courses, and others that may arise, could be assembled and sold at cost.

10) Panel Seminar. This refers to a method of conducting seminars that shows promise of solving the dilemma of the unwieldiness of large numbers on the one hand, and the wastes of exclusiveness on the other. The discussion is conducted by a panel, consisting of one or more instructors and visitors and a carefully selected small group of students. Where student reports are to be presented, the selection is keyed to guaranteeing excellence and pointedness. An “audience” of students interested in the topic may ask occasional questions from the floor, but does not act to lower the tone of the discussion nor to encumber its progress. The “audience” may be regularly enrolled, receiving attendance credit, or may vary with the particular meeting’s content. Large and varying “audiences” are probably too much for this structure to carry.
It is felt that this method would meet the need in several situations. It should operate to raise the quality of the reports, doing away with the boredom and consequent loss of enthusiasm and tempo that so often assails large seminars now. But at the same time, it would avoid the narrow exclusiveness that operates to keep interested students from an organized study of subjects offered only in seminars.
The seating arrangements suggested by the above description seem rather stiff and stilted and disruptive. In point of fact, they are not a necessary corollary of this division of labor. Ordinary seminar seating can be used, the only requirement being that there is a staff of students who are considered capable, intelligible and interesting, and who do the reporting.
The panel seminar method is especially suggested for the discussion of public economic policy advocated in (5) above, where it is felt that wide student interest would be aroused and should be encouraged.

11) Doctor’s Oral Examinations. Under existing conditions, orals engender a period of rather heavy strain in most students. This period is of the order of two weeks or so, and is not related to the quantity of work being done, but rather to the crisis quality of the examinations. No useful purpose is served by this strain, in fact it is generally considered a hindrance to efficiency.
The remedy seems to be a removal of some of the critical focus upon orals. This may be accomplished, with no loss of academic standards or relevant rigor, by the process of having the true examination take place informally with each of the professors involved before the formal oral is taken. The formal assembled examination then assumes the character of a more official formality, in which passing is nearly certain barring a strong reason to the contrary. This division between the investigation of proficiency and ability on the one hand, and the ceremonial opportunity to forbid the banns on the other, should not only relieve most of the strain on the candidate, but also afford the faculty a more intensive chance to satisfy itself as to the student’s competence.
There are some indications that the present situation approximates this suggestion more closely than appears on the surface. Insofar as this is true, all that is necessary is to let this true state of affairs become clear to the candidates. In any event, more could be done along these lines with benefit and relief to all concerned.

12) Training for Careers. It is important periodically to review the types of career for which students in economics at Columbia are acquiring training, and at the same time to survey the curriculum with respect to the kind of training it chiefly affords. The student body is divided in proportions unknown at present* mainly among those preparing for teaching, for research, and for government service. The curriculum is skewed in the direction of training research workers. This fundamental educational divergence is worth noting, and worth investigating in its effects upon the value of the Economics offering to the students.

*One of the questions on this year’s questionnaire will be directed to this problem.

Many of the curricular suggestions above are directed as much to the problem “what kind of work” as to the problem “research in what field”, and are worthy of reconsideration in this light.

13) Catalog. The arrangement of the catalog, and the standing given by it to various courses, can prove a powerful aid in broadening the area of endeavor for which preparation may be secured here, as well as filling many of the lesser holes mentioned above.
In regard to the standing given courses in other departments, particularly in the School of Business, the effort has been made above to mention fields in which benefit would accrue to Master’s candidates if Graduate Economics Standing were given to certain courses. Particularly does this apply to the offerings of Brissenden, Stockder, perhaps Morgan, and to the advanced courses in Economic Geography. Where this is not feasible, something can be done by way of the advisory committee, see below.
Positive encouragement rather than permission can be given to students to broaden the scope of their studies if the catalog, or if necessary a separate printed or mimeographed announcement, would list as fully as possible all courses in related fields, or isolated courses of interest, that would be profitable to economists. In this way many gaps that the Economics Department cannot hope to fill itself would be plugged, and the benefits of intra-University division of labor would be received.

14) Advisory Committee. This has proved itself useful this year, and should certainly be continued. Its mention here is in connection with the potentialities of cooperation between it and the administration and faculty.
Many of the suggestions in these notes that may prove impossible of fulfillment, particularly those which come together under “Catalog”, may be aided by the unofficial action of the advisory Committee. If the committee is in possession of information concerning related courses, for instance, then even in the absence of official action the broadening of courses of study can be advanced. In this and many similar cases, the worthwhileness of the Department to new students can be increased.

 

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 1 “General departmental notices, memoranda, etc. Curriculum material”, Folder “Committee on Instruction”.

Image Source:  Butler Library, 1939. Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library blog. April 19, 2018.