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Chapter II.-Organization

This survey holds no brief for any specific form or type of college home economics organization. Nevertheless the organization of home economics in the institutions tends to reflect and to determine to a considerable degree the conceptions of home economics objectives that are dominant in the land-grant colleges as a group. This relationship between organization and conception of home economics is especially valid as a measure of institutional and administrative attitudes; it does not so accurately indicate the objectives of the home economics staffs that are compelled to adapt their work to organizations over which they have little control. In an institution the organization of home economics may be a survival which is inappropriate to the present, more highly developed purposes of the home economics personnel. Or it may be borrowed ready-made from another institution which has made great progress in definition and attainment of home economics objectives and may, therefore, conceal very vague and limited purposes. Nevertheless, a rather high degree of correlation may be expected between types of institutional objectives and forms of organization when the entire group of home economics units in land-grant colleges is considered.

This is true both with respect to the place of home economics in the institutional organization and with respect to the nature of the internal organization of the home economics unit itself. For convenience of presentation discussion will follow this classification and deal first with the place of the home economics unit in the institution; second, with the internal organization of the home economics unit; and third, with the relationships that arise from the position of home economics in the institutions and from the nature of the internal organization of home economics units.

Institutional Organization

Examination of the formal position occupied by home economics in the land-grant colleges shows four types of assignment that reflect the following four institutional conceptions of home economics objectives: (1) Assignment of home economics to the college of arts and sciences; (2) assignment to the college of education;

(3) assignment to the college of agriculture; and (4) assignment to a position coordinate with the traditional major divisions in university organization. Each of these allocations will be considered in turn.

When home economics in college is thought of merely or primarily as a means whereby special subjects may be offered that will attract girls and appeal to housekeeping mothers the work may be appropriately assigned to almost any college or major division of the institution whose own objectives are not so specific as to render a home economics addition entirely irrelevant. Because of the general purposes of the college of arts and sciences this major division is frequently the one called upon to provide a berth for the new subject. Home economics is assigned to arts and sciences in 5 of the 41 landgrant institutions that report on this phase of the home economics inquiry. As has been indicated, retention of home economics in the college of arts and sciences does not necessarily mean that the work in a specific institution retains the vague objectives that probably led to its original allocation to this major division. The initial scattered work may develop into a curriculum. It may be organized into a department in the college comparable to the departments of history, English, and botany. Such assignment tends to restrict the development of new and wider home economics objectives since administrative control is centered in an educational position that is unlikely to devote a large degree of vigor and initiative to the special development of this field.

When it is regarded as the function of home economics to provide training for gainful employment, it is a logical procedure to assign the work to the major institutional division that is most closely related to the vocation in which the largest number of women find employment. Hence we find home economics curricula or departments administered by schools of education in 11 institutions. However, as women in increasing numbers enter occupations other than teaching it becomes necessary for the school of education to administer home economics preparation for employments quite inappropriate to its own educational objectives or for new home economics units to be established in other more suitable major divisions of the institution. Thus preparation for employment as nutrition or dietetics specialists may be assigned to the college of agriculture as a unit that is concerned with problems that underlie both human and animal feeding. As the variety of unemployments increases, however, this method of assignment becomes awkward to apply, and development of work appropriate to vocational purposes tends to be restricted until such time as an important division of home economics is developed to which major responsibility may be given.

The allotment of home economics to the school of education requires some further discussion. If all home economics work is conducted by this major division, the practice is not in harmony with the relations that exist between other subject-matter fields and the school of education. In other fields the school of education depends upon the subject-matter departments-botany, English, history, etc.for training in subject matter; its function is that of providing professional knowledge and attitudes to be applied in actual teaching of a variety of subjects. It would seem, therefore, that if this common form of organization is sound, the same principle of organization should apply in the case of home economics. In other words, assignment of the entire home economics unit to the school of education is justified only if the sole home economics objective of the institution is that of teacher preparation. On the other hand it is just as much out of harmony with accepted principles of institutional organization to assign home economics teacher training exclusively to a major division other than the school of education when a welldeveloped school of education exists in the institution.

In 21 of the 41 institutions reporting, home economics education or teacher training is shown to be organized either entirely in or jointly with divisions of education. In 12 the home economics teacher-training course or curriculum is located in a division of education: University of Arkansas, University of California (at Berkeley and Los Angeles), Connecticut Agricultural College, University of Illinois, Purdue University, University of Kentucky, University of Maryland, University of Missouri, University of Nevada, University of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania State College, and the University of Wyoming. In six it is organized jointly in the divisions of home economics and education. These are Colorado Agricultural College, University of Minnesota, Oregon Agricultural College, Rhode Island State College, Agricultural College of Utah, and State College of Washington. In three it is organized jointly in divisions of agriculture and education: Ohio State University, West Virginia University, and the University of Wisconsin. In eight it is in the division of agriculture: University of Arizona, Georgia State College of Agriculture, University of Maine, University of Nebraska, Cornell University, University of Tennessee, University of Vermont, and Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. In eight others it is in the division of home economics: Alabama Polytechnic Institute, University of Delaware, Iowa State College, Michigan State College, North Dakota Agricultural College, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, Louisiana State University, and Rutgers University. In three it is in the division of letters and science, or general science. They are University of Hawaii, University of Idaho, and Kansas State Agricultural College. In one, Montana State College, it is in the division of household and industrial arts.

Practice in the land-grant colleges with reference to the relationships that the home economics units bear to home economics teacher training shows considerable variety and indicates frequent departure from sound principles of organization. Present conditions give rise to unfortunate situations such as that reported by 34 institutions in which members of the resident home economics staff are responsible to the titular head of the home economics unit. In 11 of these institutions this situation is due to the fact that home economics subjectmatter teachers are responsible to the head of the department or

school of education rather than to the head of their own subjectmatter field.

Of the 34 institutions 17 report members of the home economics staff responsible for home economics instruction to some one other than the head of the home economics unit; 19 report such responsibility with reference to housing and feeding of students; and report that budgetary responsibility is involved and that research is concerned. In only one of 19 institutions reporting on the point is the State home demonstration leader responsible jointly to the director of Smith-Lever extension and to the resident home economics department; in the other instances the home economics department is not concerned. Further, 13 institutions report Smith-Lever extension specialists as having no responsibility and apparently no relationship to the head of resident home economics work. In two institutions the State supervisor of home economics education is a member of the home economics staff, but in neither case is she in any way responsible to the head of the home economics unit.

Failure to articulate all home economics residence instruction, extension, and research through the head of home economics resident instruction is likely to result in undesirable duplication and a variety of standards within the institution. Further resident work should derive material benefits from connection with Smith-Lever extension and experiment station research and the resident home economics staff should be able to contribute to extension and research programs. If for any reason leadership of all aspects of institutional home economics activities can not be exercised by the head of the home economics unit and if the home economics staff is not able and prepared to participate effectively it would seem probable that the character of home economics personnel is not all that it should be or that defective organization is imposing an undesirable handicap upon the home economics staff.

When home economics is regarded as a means of developing home managers prepared to deal with the various tasks of housekeeping and homemaking these matters are likely to be interpreted by the institutional authorities that determine creation and allocation of new units pretty largely in terms of food and clothing. Hence it seems entirely reasonable to them to assign home economics work to the major division of the institution that is concerned with foods and with the production of wool and cotton, that is to the division of agriculture. This reasoning was probably in many instances supported by the fact that when home economics units were established the majority of homes were rural; in some States they still are and in all they constitute a large proportion of the homes. Further, because the college of agriculture contains the Smith-Lever extension service and the experiment station, both of which carry on home economics work, this division of the institution seemed adapted to resident instruction in home economics. When home economics is assigned to the college of agriculture the close relationship that home economics extension under Smith-Lever services and the agricultural experiment station under the provisions of the Purnell Act,

should have with resident instruction may be facilitated. We find, therefore, that home economics curricula are set up in the college of agriculture in 3 institutions and in departments in 15.

When home economics instruction is conceived in terms of utilizing subject matter derived from home and family relationships as a medium for a combined humanistic and scientific college education it is entirely logical to set up an independent major division of home economics coordinate with the other schools and colleges of the institution. In 19 instances such organizations are reported by the home economics units of the land-grant institutions. In this connection it is interesting to note that the home economics work of eight of these institutions was originally assigned to the college of agriculture; more than one-third of the home economics units originally placed in the college of agriculture have become major divisions of home economics. To this number should probably be added another division of home economics that is connected with the college of agriculture for administrative purposes only. It appears that the affiliation of home economics work with the college of agriculture has provided opportunity in many instances for rather free development. Further evidence also points in this direction, since many of the home economics units still in colleges of agriculture are well developed and exercise a degree of autonomy far in excess of the self-control permitted to other subject-matter departments.

The tendency to desire organization as independent divisions is shown by the fact that 12 of the home economics units that are not organized as major divisions desire to become independent schools or colleges within their institutions. Eight of the home economics units that express this desire state, however, that they do not regard their present organization affiliation as especially unsatisfactory. It may be, therefore, that the wish to make the home economics unit an independent one is in some instances a conventional notion of what is needed rather than an indication that home economics objectives are such as to require separate control. It should be fairly obvious that "freedom" and "independence" might be unsatisfactory both for home economics and for the institutions when the actual local situation and home economics preparation to exercise the full responsibilities of independent major division are not sufficiently weighed. In what ways and under what circumstances an independent administrative unit for home economics can excel in the accomplishment of the objectives of home economics must be defined and demonstrated in terms of institutional situations and home economics resources before it can be accepted and adopted as a standard by any individual land-grant organization.

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