Nieman Fellows Get Classes, Reading, Leisure In University's Unique Newspaper Grad School

Ten years ago this fall five reporters, three editorial writers, and one editor came to Cambridge to start an experiment in education. They comprised the first Nieman Fellows--men who had won a year's study at Harvard "to promote and elevate standards of journalism in the United States and educate person deemed especially qualified for journalism."

In such terms Agnes Nieman, widow of the founder of the Milwaukee Journal, had set up a fund in memory of her husband. Harvard was left a free hand under the grant to set up the program as it saw fit. What the University has accomplished in a decade is unique in both education and journalism.

One member of the Nieman Committee, which selects the Fellows each year, terms the theory of it "living as a basis for education." What it amounts to mechanically is that three men--Curator Louis Lyons, Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger, and Secretary to the Corporation David W. Bailey '21--filter over 100 applications every year to select about a dozen working newsmen for Fellowships.

The Fellows come to Cambridge each September, arrange a set of courses, and attend as many lectures as they wish. They have a plan of study--which they set forth in their applications--but may do pretty much as they please once they arrive. Laboratories, libraries, professorial offices all are open to the vacationing journalists.

Three distinct groups benefit from this program: the Fellows themselves, journalism, and the University. An even hundred of the first 111 men returned to journalism after sabbaticals; half of these are still with papers that employed them before they came to Cambridge.

Typical of these men is Victor O. Jones '28, who came back to Harvard in 1941 after a long stint as a Boston Globe sportswriter. He had risen to Sports Editor, but felt the need to get out of sports. After his year, he served briefly as a war correspondent, and then moved into the Night Managing Editor's slot at the Globe--a job which makes him top man in the morning edition.

William Dickinson, a 1939 Fellow, moved from the Minneapolis UP office to head the entire Foreign Bureau in New York; Bill Miler (1940) rose from a reporter on the Cleveland Press to News Editor of Time; John Crider (also 1940) stepped up from a staffer's spot on the New York Times to the editorship of the Boston Herald.

There are no figures, no case studies to demonstrate the value of the Fellowships to journalism. There is the list of study programs undertaken by men who are now editors and bureau chiefs and editorial writers--studies in American history, race relations, labor, international affairs, science, social relations. There is the theory that a man who can get away from the daily grind of the desk for a year to read, discuss, and explore his specialty should be a better-prepared reporter the next time he covers a strike or an election or a race riot. There is the fact that Niemans have risen in their field individually, to make use of their better background in places where it will show.

The overall effect of Nieman work cannot be justly measured by ten years or a hundred men: it probably won't show up as a distinct factor for another decade. But the seeds of better journalism are planted with those men who have gone back from Cambridge to their jobs.

And in the College--where do these "pros" fit into a student setup? George Weller '29, a Fellow last year, played 60 minutes at center for Adams House in every intramural football game. Nathan Caldwell of the Nashville Tennessean took part in forums here, lectured twice, and spoke at the Dunster House dinner on "The History of the South" during his stay in 1940-41.

The "Old School Tie"

Bill Pinkerton, another 1940 Nieman, revealed the extent of his infusion in College life in his report at the end of his year: "The extracurricular teaching by the faculty and students of Adams House has been important. I have developed a great deal of the 'old school tie' feeling about Adams House during these six months . . . from eating day after day with faculty and undergraduates, I have formed a new opinion of college professors and have gained new insights into 'the undergraduate mind.'"

This was what one Nieman considered the benefits of living here. But it was more than passive: he spent many hours discussing, expounding, and making positive contribution. And this is true over and over, in the classrooms as well as the dining halls and discussion groups.

They tend to concentrate on a few courses: Merk's History 162--the Westward Movement in the U. S.--has attracted probably the largest number. Merk, whose course consistently wins "most important single item" votes from Niemans, sees their value to the University in a broader sense: "Their contribution to Harvard is their contact with undergraduates, who meet imaginative and live people doing reporting."

Another large segment of the Fellows has promoted the writing courses of Professor Theodore Morrison. Such men as A. B. Guthrie, who came here from the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1946 and used his fellowship to write his best selling "The Big Sky," are loud in their praise of his classes.

The actual routine of a Nieman's Cambridge life is pretty much up to the individual. Organized activity centers around the fortnightly dinners and weekly seminars. At each dinner some guest of distinction in journalism or in public affairs leads a discussion.

The list of these guests is a striking comment on the interest which the profession has in the fellowships. Publishers like Arthur Sulzberger, Joseph Pulitzer, Mrs. Helen Reid, Marshall Field, John and Gardner Cowles have all come to Cambridge. John Dos Passos, Bernard DeVoto, and Lewis Mumford have represented authors; working correspondents like William Shirer, John Gunther, Arthur Krock, and Vincent Sheean keep the vacationing newsmen up to date.

Curator Lyons, a Fellow himself in the first group, is high in praise of these speakers: "To such figures in journalism and public affairs successive groups of Nieman Fellows are indebted for provocative ideas and good talk starting at dinner and lasting often until midnight."

Seminars are the other specially-planned feature of a Nieman Year. Each week a member of the Faculty prepares a paper or leads a roundtable on his field. The beer and cheese of the Faculty Club--seene of the every-Tuesday sessions--has provoked what many Niemans consider the finest talk of their time here. The Fellows pick their speakers from Faculty, administration, and a few outside sources.

The Pattern: Flexibility

The pattern of Nieman Fellowships is still flexible. In ten years the Foundation has developed a workable pattern for operation; but Louis Lyons would be the first to assert that lack of rigid pattern is one of the biggest advantages for the vacationing newsmen.

A Nieman Fellowship can be whatever the individual wants to make it. For some men it has been merely a pleasant year of leisurely study; but for the great majority it has been much more--the chance to write a book, or learn a specialty, or study a field on a schedule more conducive to knowledge than the daily push of a copy desk.

Back in 1936, Mrs. Nieman is reputed to have had the University of Wisconsin in mind for her be quest, but decided on Harvard because of "radical tendencies" in the mid western school. They still blush in the Journal city room when the subject is mentioned.