# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1938_S44
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

44 Report of the Committee on Higher Education

Board for Higher Education for more thoroughgoing study. Some
of the following questions pertain to all our schools, while others
pertain either to ministerial or to teacher-training.

1. Libraries and Laboratories. — With regard to libraries and
laboratories your Committee recommends (1) That the former full
grants to libraries and laboratories be restored, as listed on page 75
in the Synodical Handbook (1937 ed.); (2) that a thorough survey
of the libraries (size and quality of book collections, equipment,
administration, use by faculty and students, etc.) and laboratories
be made by the proposed Board for Higher Education and that
Synod’s Board of Directors be empowered to make special grants,
upon the request of the Board for Higher Education, to schools
whose libraries and laboratories are found to be inadequate or
deficient.

2. Accreditation. — A.B. Degree at St. Louis. — Together with
Synod’s Board of Directors your Committee sent a joint question-
naire to all our schools, gathering data relative to accreditation. We
find that most of our schools have obtained: accreditation of their
high-school departments and some also for their junior-college
work. We took no further steps in this matter,Jeaving that to our
successors.in office and the-respective-loeal~boards. We did, how-
ever, look into the possibility -of-granting an A.B. after the second
year in St. Louis. ..On the-basis of what is offered in our courses
we recommend -that this degree be given and that our St. Louis
faculty -be encouraged to gain recognition for the degree with the
-agencies_cencerned. .

3. Comprehensive Examinations. — Your Committee resolved
that these be instituted at St. Louis and at completion of the courses
~at our junior colleges and teachers’ colleges. Further details we
must leave to our successors in office.

4. Student Guidance and Personnel Work.—The work and
thinking of the Committee on Higher Education has forced it to the
conclusion that in order to consolidate the advantages accruing from
the revised curriculum and the resulting changes in the colleges and
seminaries as well as in the teachers’ colleges it is necessary to in-
stitute a reasonably comprehensive program of personnel work and
student guidance. Your Committee has made only a beginning in
this area, but it feels that a future board should place considerable
emphasis on this phase of the program of higher education. It ap-
pears essential that at least the basic records of all institutions be
alike. A thorough study of the whole problem of personnel work
should precede the inauguration of the program. We believe that
such records of basic information should be made available to
authorized persons to the end that the transfer of students from
the preparatory schools to the St. Louis Seminary be facilitated and