The collection consists of records relating to the Committee on Long Range Planning's involvement with academic, faculty, and institutional development of the University. Correspondence, memoranda, reports, hand-written and typed minutes, clippings, pamphlets, charts, projections, books, comprise this collection. Materials range in date from 1958-1962. Although the majority of the materials were created by the Committee, some reference materials from other sources were collected by the Committee in relation to its work, including letters, reports, booklets and pamphlets about other schools and programs.
Major subjects include University and planning administration, student life (dormitories, athletics, and extracurricular activities), institutional development (philosophical beginnings and practical implementations), enrollment and admission (test data, alumni involvement, prediction equations and geographical distribution) and academic/intellectual life (graduate and undergraduate schools and departments, curriculum information and planning and faculty development).
This collection is divided into six (6) series: Minutes and Agendas, 1958-1962; Meeting Files, 1959-1961; Correspondence, 1958-1962; Reports and Recommendations, 1958-1962; and Reference Materials, 1958-1962; and Subcommittees and Committees, 1958-1962.
The Minutes and Agendas [1958-1962] series includes minutes, agendas, and summaries, and it chronicles the development of planning at the University. Meeting Files [1959-1961] is arranged chronologically and includes memos, letters, reports, booklets, bulletins, news clippings, and statistical information specifically discussed at meetings of the Committee. The materials in the meeting files, in some cases, can be matched against the materials delineated in the Committee minutes. The Committee met almost weekly during the academic year, from 1958-1962.
The Correspondence [1958-1962] represents the wide range of issues faced by the Committee. Primary correspondents consist of the President of the University, the Provost, faculty and staff members of the University, and expert professors and professionals from other universities; these include R. Taylor Cole, Marcus E. Hobbs, Paul M. Gross, A. Hollis Edens, Daryl J. Hart, Richard L. Predmore, Frank DeVyver, and Alan K. Manchester.
The Reports and Recommendations [1958-1962] series is arranged alphabetically. It includes reports and recommendations from academic and non-academic departments, graduate and professional schools, visiting experts on academic programs and departments, and University faculty and staff. Reference Materials [1958-1962] are arranged alphabetically. These folders contain reports, charts, pamphlets, and statistics collected by the Committee for use during its work.
The Subcommittees and Committees [1958-1962] series is arranged topically. The Long Range Planning Committee had a number of subcommittees, but this series includes reports, recommendations, correspondence and records of a few of these committees: the Committee on the Undergraduate Colleges, 1959-1960; the Committee on Faculty and Staff Improvement, 1960-1961; and the Committee on Professional and Graduate School, 1958-1962.
The University Committee on Long Range Planning was formed in 1958 under President A. Hollis Edens. The function according to a letter approving the committee was "to give appropriate consideration to matters of educational programming and policy where institutional planning and advancement are concerned." The Committee at first dealt with issues dealing with academic life, faculty development, and the development of the quality of students and intellectual life through admissions and enrollment. During the Committee's initial academic year it authorized eleven subcommittees which dealt with the Graduate School, Social Sciences, Duke Press, Research Libraries, Science and Mathematics, Religion, Undergraduate Colleges, the University Arts Center, the Institute of Contemporary Literature, Foreign Student Programs, and the Humanities. The committee issued its first report, "Planning and Development at Duke University," in June of 1959.
The Committee's first chairman was Paul M. Gross, the Vice President for Education and Dean of the University. However, on March 23, 1960 in the wake of an administrative crisis known as "the Gross-Edens Affair" the Board of Trustees stripped Dr. Gross of his committee chairmanship and other administrative posts. Vice-Chairman Marcus Hobbs was named to succeed him, but Hobbs tendered his resignation on March 28, 1960. Hobbs was in turn succeeded by Joseph E. Markee, another member of the committee. These events brought the future of the planning process into question. The committee informed the University's faculty and staff that it was in "complete and total disagreement with the action taken by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on March 23, 1960 in removing Dr. Paul M. Gross as a member and the Chairman of the Long Range Planning Committee." In its second Progress Report, (May, 1960) the committee stated that they felt it best to suspend activities "until such time as it receive[d] from the Board of Trustees and from the President of the University a satisfactory expression of their approval of the planning operation as it has been carried on" (page 73). If approval was given, the committee recommended that the University extend the committee's charge until June 1961 and provide a budget to fund it through that period.
This was done; the committee's third progress report, "Duke University in the Decade Ahead," was issued in June 1961. It dealt with enrollment projections, personnel and facility requirements, and financial projections. The committee concluded that systematic planning was "essential" and that "its function should be institutionalized so as to achieve continuity and wide participation throughout the University" (pages 53-54). In 1962, the University Committee on Long Range Planning was reconstituted as the University Planning Committee and assumed a stronger role in the University.
