Header Image: SC Cadets are captured on film heading to class in July of 1943 by Father Hubbard (Image courtesy of SCU Digital Collections). Classes being held during the summer was one of the main changes to the curriculum during World War II. This is the second in a three-part series about the effects of the Great Depression and World War II on SCU. Follow the tag SCU_WWII to read all three posts.
World War II
Once the U.S. entered into World War II in 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the happy-go-lucky period of the 1930s came to an abrupt stop for Santa Clara students. The 1941-1942 yearbook was curtailed and a small, 25-page surrogate called “The Last Roundup” was put out as a small homage to the experience of the class of 1942, ten of whom had already enlisted and had been sent away from Santa Clara. The 1942-1943 yearbook was the same curtailed affair, and there was no yearbook for the following two years. Other campus publications like The Owl also ceased production during the war.
With the thunder of war echoing about the globe, the men of the Class of 1943 of the University of Santa Clara prepare to take their respective places in the service of their native land. Bidding ‘adios’ to the protective portals of the Mission School, which they have come to love as their alma mater, the Class of 1943 answer the call to arms in order to insure that in the not too distant future other youths may also be privileged to enjoy the fruits of a Santa Clara education, as well as all the other rights and freedoms guaranteed to them as Americans…
Foreword to The Last Roundup, The Redwood, 1942-1943
While students tried to keep up a brave face to the service of the nation, with each month that passed, more of their classmates were shipped off to the armed forces. This posed extreme issues for both the students, whose opportunity to complete their education slipped away with each new enlistment or draft announcement, as well as the administration of the school, who would go onto face extreme challenges posed by the lack of tuition revenue brought on by the decline in enrollment.
The other important aspect is that students wanted to go to war, often feeling it a necessary duty on their part. They had eventually recovered from despondency regarding the outlook of their futures and instead focused on the importance of the contributions college-educated men could offer to the armed forces. As Father Walsh quoted an article from the March, 1942 issue of The Owl, written by a student: “The college student knows that his job is as important as any other job in the country. In school, he is preparing himself to defend his nation and its principles. The various branches of the armed forces he knows need officers; he has been told by the nation’s leaders of their desire that he remain in college and be trained to become an officer… The college student realizes today more than ever that his education is important to his nation as well as to himself, because a nation at war needs men who have college training. War is a temporary stopping of our striving toward personal goals, so that we may aid in attaining the goals of the nation as a whole.” It helped in this line of thinking that “the ordinary academic courses had been so arranged that ninety percent of the student body was engaged in some form of military science” (Walsh 944). Students could receive their education and emerge as trained officers due to the R.O.T.C. program in effect.
Image courtesy of Nadia Nasr.
Accelerated Curriculum
Father Walsh—who had come into office as SCU’s president in 1940—announced a new, accelerated program of study that would allow students to finish their degree requirements in three years, increasing the likelihood of completion before being drafted to the war. This program would in effect keep students busy with coursework all year long, except for one week in May, the entire month of August, and about two weeks over Christmas and New Years.
The 1941-1942 course catalog states: “The student will be able to finish his college work by attending six semesters and three quarters. According to this program, a student entering the freshman class on August 31, 1942 will complete his four years of college in July 28, 1945…”
That announcement was a direct draw to high school seniors who may be hesitating to go to college considering the uncertainty of the future—a change that reverberates within our current landscape of high school seniors not knowing if college is worth the gamble this fall in the event their chosen school remains online for instruction, or opens and poses a risk of coronavirus with which the student and their parents are uncomfortable. In the opening of the fall term in 1942, 157 freshman were among the 529 enrolled students (Walsh 956). In his address to the incoming class, Father Charles Walsh said, “Today in World War II, Santa Clara and her students are on their own in a world of turmoil. In cooperation with the Services, the University has taken upon herself the responsibility of helping to fit men for their place, generally as officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force or in war industry. She knows that you freshmen are destined to play a large part in helping to win the war and to save your country’s soul” (Walsh 956).
What about students already enrolled? The 1941-1942 course catalog goes on to say: “Students who have already begun their college education will finish their four years of college work at an earlier date than originally planned. To what extent their course can be accelerated will depend on how much of their work they have already completed,” and this plan was to stay in effect “for the duration of the present war situation and as long afterward as will be required to get back to normal.”
Previous to WWII, SCU employed a semester program as well, but with each term about half a week shorter, and with no summer instruction. By starting fall term about two weeks earlier, and by minimizing the break between fall and spring to about two weeks rather than six, administrators were able to add a hearty seven week summer quarter before a brief one month break in August. The amount of work for each class remained the same as before: “A semester hour is the standard for computing the amount of a student’s work. A semester hour is defined as one lecture or recitation one hour in length per week for one semester. Three hours of laboratory work are equivalent to one recitation hour. Two hours of preparation on the part of the student are required for each hour of lecture or recitation. Regular work for Freshmen is sixteen hours per week. For all others it may be from fifteen to eighteen hours. Candidates for a degree will not be allowed to register for fewer than twelve hours of work” (University of Santa Clara 1940-1941 Course Catalog 36).
Students who did well in their courses received more credit points: “For example: A four hour course in which the student receives the grade of A gives 12 credit points; if the grade is B, 8; credit points; if C, 4 credit points; if D, no credit points. If the grade is F, four credit points are deducted. Thus, in a course where 128 credit hours are required for graduation, the maximum number of credit points that can be secured by a student is 384; the minimum, 128” (University of Santa Clara 1940-1941 Course Catalog 37). So, in the accelerated curriculum, the cumulative credits students would complete during the three summer quarters would fulfill the same credits that two semesters would have fulfilled.
Military Science – R.O.T.C.
Acceleration was not the only change to the curriculum. Tenets of military science infiltrated other aspects of student life. Students subject to the draft were encouraged to join the Army, the Navy, or the Marines reserves, and would be required as students to take “an hour of military training five days a week” from 4-5 pm (Walsh 958). A new course was offered to these students as well, one that studied the elementary theories meteorology, map making and use, instrument reading, and weather reports (Walsh 958). This course was joined by the typical military science courses on offer, such as Field Artillery for each level of student (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior), described as “Military history and policy, military law, administration, leadership (work as instructor in all practical basic field artillery subjects), tactics. Three hours theory, two hours practice” which spanned two semesters and brought in eight units of credit (SCU course catalog, 1944-1945). By integrating this training into the normal topics and activities encountered in a Jesuit education and then accelerating it, SCU not only quickly turned out young men ready to go to war, but young men who had been educated in the classics, ethics, and their chosen major. Indeed many of these students opted to take timely majors such as political science and engineering, but the typical liberal arts background was still very valuable, and was a hallmark of the Jesuit curriculum. As Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said in a 1942 letter to the College English Association, “I can appreciate your concern as to the effect of the War Effort upon the courses of study in colleges. In general, what is required is not necessarily a reduction of effort on basic studies, such as English, but rather a vastly increased emphasis on those studies having a special bearing on our War Effort. In war, as in peace, the ability to report facts and to express ideas clearly is an important attribute of the leader in every field of action. Teachers of English have a very real contribution to make in developing and encouraging that ability” (reprinted in The Owl, Vol 33, Jan. 1943 page 11).
1943 SC Cadets in front of Mission. Image courtesy of SCU Digital Collections.
1943 SC Cadets by Donohoe. Image courtesy of SCU Digital Collections.
Conclusion
While the accelerated curriculum certainly helped student obtain the maximum amount of schooling possible before being shipped off, students were still drafted or enlisted before they graduated. The last graduation of the war was so small it was held in the Adobe Lodge, and only 7 students were members of the graduating class: George Hagmaier, Lawrence Slavich, Samuel Conti, Lawrence Bertolani, Lee Puncochar, Frederick Lautze, and Joseph Rasmusson (SCU Course Catalog 1945-1946 107). Out of the couple hundred students enrolled at the start of the 1944 school year, about 75% were freshmen or sophomores (SCU course catalog, 1944-1945 93-97). While indeed a sobering statistic that highlights how many junior and seniors were called to duty before seeing commencement, the statistic stands as a sort of proof that, to a certain degree, the curriculum changes worked. New students were still entering SCU, but in numbers that couldn’t compare to the following fall, when the war was over and the G.I. Bill funded higher education for thousand of veterans.
Soon we 21st century dwellers subject to the novel coronavirus will find out the specific plans Father O’Brien and Provost Kloppenberg have for the start of the 2020-2021 at SCU. While not at war in the all-encompassing sense as those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II experienced, the community of SCU faces similar challenges of persevering through grief and danger while offering a trademark education on a schedule and format that will ensure the greatest number of students complete their work with the largest benefits to them. Is it possible to do all this while still safeguarding the health and safety of the campus community? We can expect to see an altered schedule for fall–further altered past the online format we are wrapping up this spring–and we can’t help but think of how the agility of change and accelerated learning of this year may echo back to a monumental year 75, 80 years ago.
Engineering Dean George Sullivan and Students, 1943. Image courtesy of SCU Digital Collections.
Next week we will continue the theme of WWII at SCU by taking a look at the financial problems it wreaked on SCU, and what drastic measures the administration had to take to save the Mission School.
Works Cited
Class of 1943, University of Santa Clara. The Last Roundup, University of Santa Clara, 1943, https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/redwood/39/.
Stimson, Henry L., and Frank Knox. “Letters from Cabinet Members.” The Owl, vol. 23, no. 5, 1943, pp. 11.
University of Santa Clara. Catalogue for the Ninetieth Year 1941-1942, University of Santa Clara, 1941, https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/p17268coll9/id/8397.
—. Catalogue for the Ninety-Fifth Year 1945-1946, University of Santa Clara, 1946, https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/p17268coll9/id/9833/rec/1.
—. Catalogue for the Ninety-First Year 1941-1942, University of Santa Clara, 1942, https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/p17268coll9/id/8526.
—. Catalogue for the Ninety-Fourth Year 1944-1945, University of Santa Clara, 1945, https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/p17268coll9/id/8876/rec/1.
Walsh, Henry L. The Annals of Santa Clara : College and University, 1851-1951, https://content.scu.edu/digital/collection/p17268coll4/search.