"If they do succeed," said A. Lawrence Lowell 90 years ago, "they will open a new avenue of usefulness." Lowell was speaking of evening courses to be offered to the public by Harvard faculty. The academic program he was planning in 1906 has evolved into the Harvard University Extension School as we know it today.

Nowhere is the success of Lowell's plan more evident than in the work of Extension graduate students enrolled in the Master of Liberal Arts (ALM) program or independently in courses. In each of the three major areas of the University curriculum--humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences--the guidance of one member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in particular has reflected each student's achievements and research interests.

Professor Stilgoe's experiences with master's theses confirms his conviction that many older students have more creative, imaginative powers than younger ones. "They generally choose research topics that would not be chosen by 18-year-olds. Their maturity adds to their ability," he explained. When approached as a prospective thesis director, he often asks himself, "How on earth can I help this capable student with this unusual research topic?" Part of his interest, he confesses, is a willingness to back a long shot--the topic, not the student.

He describes Cindy Fowler, ALM '94, as a good example of this maturity and self-direction. For her thesis, she chose to study the work of sculptress Anne Whitney, seldom recognized even at Harvard, despite her 1902 bronze statue of William Sumner overlooking Harvard Square. By skillfully probing the artist's choices of media, style, subject, and related factors ignored by others, Fowler showed Whitney's compelling understanding of art as a force in social change.

Stilgoe himself has this reputation for perspicacity and independence, especially among students in the College, where he teaches an enormously popular course on landscapes. In that course he demonstrates that changes in our constructed environment provide a useful index to changes in American society since the turn of the century. His scholarly writings also reflect this perspective, depicting the landscape as a metaphor for late 20th-century America.

"Continuing education students bring astonishing life experiences to their studies," Stilgoe observed. For example, George Williams, ALM '90, became a licensed pharmacist, then a career military officer, and afterwards developed an interest in the Civil War, a topic he pursued for his master's thesis. This work led him to special concerns for casualties in the Persian Gulf War, and it continues today as he prepares a book on this topic and a TV documentary. "In courses, Extension students notice what's not there--what's left unsaid--and that's where they want to do their research. That's a common thread--probably it comes from growing older," Stilgoe concluded about his graduate students.

In the social sciences, immigration, ethnicity, and racial issues are the research focus for Mary C. Waters, Professor and Head Tutor in the Department of Sociology. And yet, with only one exception, all the master's theses she has directed recently have been far removed from these topics. Instead they have included a study of the readiness of our military forces, conducted by Chris Wakim, ALM '91, at a most propitious moment, the gathering of Desert Storm; an investigation of the quality of life for people leaving mental hospitals, completed by Lisa Bordeleau, ALM '95; Denise Hammon's, ALM '95, examination of women's experiences in the highly male-dominated, seldom studied field of aviation technology; Joan Cunningham's, ALM '91, archival research on the demographics of asthma and asthma symptoms, using data collected by colleagues at Harvard Medical School; and an investigation of homosexuality in the workplace by Nita Lamborghini, ALM '91, focusing on the specific working environment and mores of the larger society.

How did Waters decide to direct this motley collection of thesis topics? "The students came from my proseminar," she explained. "They were excellent students, and I often choose to work with people as well as topics." One of her students, Suzanne Ballard, ALM '94, did complete a research project in Professor Waters's area of academic interest, focusing on cross-national marriages. "These questions are important," Waters points out, "because they have a bearing on population changes." Population projections do not yet take into account intermarriages across racial and ethnic lines, how such changes will influence population growth, and how the children of these marriages will identify themselves. Partly to address these questions, Waters and a colleague, Professor William Alonso, also in the Department of Sociology, are developing a model for incorporating mixed marriages into population projections.

"We have in the Boston area perhaps the highest concentration of lichenologists in the world," noted Donald H. Pfister, Asa Gray Professor of Systematic Botany and Curator of the Farlow Herbarium, referring to former students who, after their experience at Extension, have continued to work together in the field, conducting research with peers and using the University collections and libraries.

Elizabeth Kneiper, ALM '85, laid the groundwork for this enterprise with an extensive study of the 19th-century lichenological collections in the Boston metropolitan area and subsequent comparisons with the contemporary flora. In this way, she determined the profound changes brought about by the combined influences of pollution and habitat destruction. These data have been employed by various Boston lichenologists, including Philip May and other former Extension students.

These former students, Pfister explained, have organized themselves into a loose association, the Boston Lichen Group, and have continued in lichenology on their own, often with Kneiper as coordinator. They have served as consultants and conducted surveys on lichens as indicators of environmental disturbance, most recently on Martha'"s Vineyard and in Chicopee, at the edge of Westover Air Force Base.

They have worked together as lichenologists for almost a decade. Looking at their enthusiasm and achievements, Pfister remarked, "This is a most tangible outcome of work at the Extension School. . . . It is a fine illustration of what can be done in alternative education--a good example of life enrichment."

Viewing the work of these and other Extension School graduate students across all 20 graduate academic fields, from anthropology to women's studies, an observer today would be compelled to acknowledge that the descendants of President Lowell's first courses certainly seem to be succeeding. From art appreciation to environmental conservation, they have opened up "new avenues of usefulness."