A New Deal

From the Flashback File of the November 1983 Alumni News

 

Bargains and good deals are becoming harder to find in today’s depressed economy. Many people liken our plight to the Great Depression 50 years ago.

 

In 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted several programs designed to rescue America from the depths of economic disaster.

 

“I pledge to you, I pledge to myself to a new deal for the American people.” With those words, President Roosevelt sought to set America on the road to recover.

 

The phrase “New Deal” became the axis around which a stronger, steadier economy was to rotate. Social, political and economic reforms were the order of the day. “A chicken in every pot” symbolized the goal of these programs.

 

Enthusiasm for the New Deal spilled over into many areas of society, but in August 1933, a “new Deal” meant something entirely different to freshmen enrolling at Omaha Municipal University.

 

An academic revolution which had begun on the East Coast hit Omaha that hot summer. Who had ever heard of a college where students took just one exam per semester and didn’t need textbooks?

 

This was the crux of the new “liberal” education deal at the small Midwestern university. The idea was to give students more realistic study with fewer required courses and mastery of broader fields of knowledge.

 

The plan was designed to lay a broad foundation in the student’s first two years so that by the third year, he or she could concentrate on a specialized field.

 

The new curriculum was comprised of four basic areas: the humanities, social, physical and biological sciences.

 

While these new fields of study were coined in phrases similar to the current “core” requirements of UNO’s curriculum, students were allowed more freedom to select their areas of study.

 

Students were required to take courses in the first two areas, but could choose either of the last two to fulfill degree requirements.

 

William E. Sealock, president of the university at the time, explained the purpose of the New Deal to the Omaha World-Herald: “Within the first two year,s the students is expected to obtain a discriminating understanding of the essential features of three of the four fields of learning. From this general knowledge, the student is expected to discover the area in which he is particularly interested. The last two years he will concentrate his courses in his chosen field.”

 

With a few exceptions, syllabi supplanted textbooks and were supplement ted by lectures three times each week. The syllabus listed the general course outline and provided optional reading sources for out of class work. A special library was set up to provide students in the new deal program with an additional 2,000 volumes.

 

Students also were asked to confer with their instructors on a regular basis, usually every two weeks. A student's progress was tracked in an informal manner since emphasis was pale don learning instead of grades.

 

At the end of each semester students were required to take a comprehensive final exam. A grading system was provided for purposes of providing students with a conventional college transcript should he or she decide to transfer to a school with a more traditional curriculum.

 

The New Deal at the municipal university was initially restricted to freshmen but the following year sophomores were allowed to participate.

 

Registration records show that approximately 400 freshmen enrolled under the New Deal program. About half of those tested out of requirements in English and foreign languages.

 

One 1933 graduate remarked that he was “born four yeas too late” when asked how he felt about the program.

 

Although OU eventually returned to a conventional university curriculum years later, the structure of the current system still bears some resemblance to the New Deal instituted more than 50 years ago.