SAMPSON 'COLLEGE' STANDARDS HIGH, EDUCATION CHIEF REPORTS

June 27, 1946

Utica - (GNS) Dr. John S. Allen, director of higher education in the State Education Department, has urged that high schools stay open after school hours for veteran's extension courses.

Speaking before a meeting of Eastern college deans and veteran counselors in Utica, Dr. Allen estimated that New York State still is "16,000 short" in finding places for the 200,000 veterans and civilian students expected to seek higher education this fall.

Allen said that the temporary collegiate center to be established by the state at the former Sampson Naval Station would not be "a dumping ground for students who lack qualifications to be admitted elsewhere."

"Sampson students will have to meet the same admission standards as those set up by the colleges which they would enter in normal times," he said.

He added that a high caliber faculty of 500 would be selected, higher than that for colleges already in existence."

Asked how veterans liked the idea of beginning their college careers in a converted naval training station, he said that first reports from a State Education Department sampling brought an unqualified "yes" from veterans.

Dr Allen added that any university setup similarly at Plattsburgh Barracks and eventually at Utica Rhoads General Hospital would have the same standards of excellence.

Conference discussion indicates that only two or three percent of the veterans now in college may fall by the academic wayside as compared with a figure as high as ten percent for prewar civilians.

COMMITTEE APPROVES TRANSFER OF SAMPSON

Washington (AP) - Transfer of the Sampson, N. Y. Naval Training Station to the War Assets Administration for disposal was approved by the Senate Naval Committee Tuesday.

The State of New York wants to take over the installation for use as a "GI University." The Sampson station cost the navy approximately 41 million dollars.