I had the honor of being one of the first full-time undergraduate students in the University Professors Program (’82) and earning a subsequent masters degree from UNI (’84). While it saddens me to hear of UNI’s imminent demise, a bit of history might help put things into perspective.

UNI was originally a graduate school. The University Professors Program was comprised of a faculty of distinguished professors. The University Scholars Program was its teaching program aimed at graduate students. The struggle to form a coherent degree for a few wandering undergraduates, including myself, led to the formation of the structured undergraduate program that still exists today.

UNI was not an honors school; it was an interdisciplinary one, fashionable in a time that called for placing the faculty outside of the other colleges. More importantly, it was a John Silber creation at a time of student unrest and bitter faculty-administration disputes. A separate faculty was politically useful to set out Silber’s educational vision and provide a source of recognition and reward. It was, however, very expensive to provide such a tutorial-intensive education, so the school was naturally limited to a small body of students. With competition being what it is, the program transformed into an honors school of sorts.

Silber is gone and soon the school will be, too. One can only hope the intention of the current administration is to provide something similarly good (and it was great) for more students. However, I suspect the success was a happy coincidence of intentions and personalities, the likes of which we are unlikely to see again.

Paul Shapiro

UNI ’82, UNI ’84