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Litchfield has other problems. His eleven-month "trimester plan," now copied by some 30 other colleges, tends to stumble along at half-speed in the summer. He has raised tuition by a whopping 50%, so that undergraduate enrollment is down considerably (to 5,210).
On the plus side, Litchfield has drastically raised entrance standards, created dormitories that changed Pitt's provincial student body from 96% Pennsylvanians to 75% now. The history department is far better; anthropology has grown from nothing to good. Last year Litchfield won faculty respect when the state legislature, which supplies 16% of Pitt's budget, scented "subversive" activities at the university. Litchfield spent $100,000 investigating the case of a professor accused of being a Communist fronter, cleared him in an eloquent brief defending Pitt's inalienable right to "free inquiry." Sensitive to criticism. Litchfield is given to hiring pollsters to gauge Pitt's public "image." The Madison Avenue approach appalls academic purists. But it turns out that among the leading citizenry of Pittsburgh, 65% now feel "highly favorable" to the emerging university.