special feature the Sunday doily by' rick perloff steve koppinan Number 25 Night Editor: Rick Perloff March 1, 1970 A case of magnetism: Why students wo' WALK. PASS THE library, pass the placards. People hurry by, girls with long brown hair and tattered blue jeans, people with books, people with beards. Bikes weave in, squeeze out, and excuse them- selves with a smile. You've got to get that paper done. You've got to get to class. The door is up ahead. Mason Hall iswarm today, brush past, around, into people, smile as you go. Breathe deeply now, you're past the crowds, and the Diag . . . into the audi- torium, to the side, skipping into a seat, dropping down the books. Waiting, wait- ing for class. Why? Why am I here? What am I doing? Why did I even get up for this class? What am I learning? And why are they all here? Why don't they all jut drop out? Where are they going? Why? We wondered about these. questions, so we asked some other people what they thought - twenty-five undergraduates, whose names we picked at random from the Student Directory. We wanted to get a better idea of what the anonymous strangers we all pass every day on the Diag are thinking. W HY ARE they here? Why do they stay? I used to think I really know why I was here," says Bucky resitting in his fraternity room, "but I'm not too sure any more. I'm just going to school. It's just the next step from high school. Joyce P, a sophomore living in South Quad, remains in the University even though she says she has become depressed by the monotony of her classes. But she says dropping out never really occurred to her and anyway, "I'd be afraid I wouldn't go back to school." Nevertheless, she is looking forward to graduate school. "My real satisfaction will come in the future," she says. David H has a more positive attitude. "My main reason for being here is to see and experience new things. I wanted to get away from home, meet new people. I come from Flint-that's a really conserva- tive town-and I wouldn't have gotten anything out of staying there "If it weren't for the draft, I think I'd skip an extra term and travel," he con- tinues. "But I like the environment here too much to skip more than that. Besides, if I 'drop out too many terms, I'd be thirty- five by the time I'd get to be a doctor." "This is what they tell me I ought to be doing," says Tom H, an engin sophomore. "It's better than being in the Army. If it weren't for the draft, I wouldn't be here." "I enjoy it here," says Francis M, a senior in psychology. "I really haven't wanted to leave. Why was I here? To get an education would be the obvious an- swer. It's a place of transition between home and the outside world. Being on your own, increasing your social awareness, get- ting broader viewpoints." "I almost did leave," says Marshall R. "I was going to join the Marines, because I thought I'd get a C in this history paper. I think I would've gone through with it, too, but I got a B. Since then, things have improved. Classes seem to be going better. "But," he concludes, "I still often won- der what I'm really doing here. I think .of going off to a South Sea Island, or be- coming a coal shoveller. Most of the time, I think I'm heading toward something. That's why I stay." BUT SUPPOSE you're not heading to- ward something? Do you stay or leave? Many hang in with the expected routine, but others drop out-some for a few months, some for a few years, some permanently. "I left because I couldn't see where I was going and what I was doing," explains Warren V, a crew-cutted history major who dropped out five years ago. "There just weren't things I was interested in. I don't think there was as much wrong with the University as with me, because I wasn't suited for the University; I wasn't motivated to study." Warren says dropping out was the best thing that ever happened to him. He says he gained more of a direction after his four years in the Army; he says he be- came more future-oriented. "It soon became obvious that if you want a comfortable job, you need a degree. The future, when you're out of college, is more immediate, you're closer to it." His attitude toward the University has one' week, then architecture. I 'was even going to be an anthropologist once." Other students echo Warren's feelings- expected to attend a university, they do. Once they arrive, sometimes, like Warren, they are not so glad they came. But they stay - why? Largely, it seems, because society re- wards those who do. Laura H, a freshman, answers firmly when asked whether she has learned any- thing her first term h e r e. "Absolutely not," she says. "Geography was a nice course, but I'm not interested in it. I just studied for tests. I didn't care whether I passed or flunked sociology-I just had a complete lack of interest." She dropped Italian. She seems to look forward to graduation and becoming a nurse ("I'm here to be a nurse and nothing else") but she can't become a nurse until she graduates. Which means three more years in Ann Arbor. Kathleen C. says "I want to teach high school and I need a teaching certifi- cate. Now I want to get that degree and go. I'm tired of being a student. It'll be good to do something-rather than cram- ing for tests, writing ten-page papers and he sits on a couch in his fraternity house. For Ray, there are boring classes a n d monotony, "but they don't bother me enough to make me quit." Ray has friends here, and while he's not especially stim- ulated by academia, he finds this place as good as any to mature and learn. "Besides, there's a million things to do up here, going to football games, concerts and the parties afterwards is as good as going out of state for the weekend. "I have more reason for staying than leaving," he concludes, "my future is in the balance." Is happiness the greatest accumulation of the least amount of unhappiness? Perhaps, implies Nancy O, a dental hy- giene student. "I don't mind studying. How many kids say, 'I love to study?' . . . Ed- ucation is necessary for your future. It's a part of your life, you might as well en- joy it" SO WE'RE ALL here. What are we learn- ing? To relate with people - to define our politics - to live in the University cul- ture?; but what of the chief rationale for our being here - learning, studying, ed- ucation, getting a degree - what about that? "I'm trying to find out what I'm learning all the time," says Tom. "I'm in engineering--I guess it's technology.' He muses on the question for a couple of seconds. "Nothing, really," he says. "Ninety per cent of my time is a waste." K :r9 {,{. s :: - i: fs : vi}:"{":.L;.,. ." L" :vrJ."..".~J:rv:r.:..":" v: : J . . . . . .."... ..:}....::. .,.:}:i}':L.:L".4V"rILr~r:::!}r::, V.:..it':A ::::S:::i:":}:}:~r.":. .lr::" i:^:i{ ?'t leave system that friends of mine arrested in the sit-in have come up against. And I've met opposition from the giant lecture sys- tem. "I really dislike large lectures," she con- tinues, "I don't like to be talked at. I don't want to be an empty pitcher that has to be filled with drops of knowledge. I like to be able to contest, to question what the professor says. Lectures don't teach you to question-they don't teach you to think critically." But Marshall reaffirms the value of traditional classes. "I'd say classes are more important to me," he says, "this is the first semester I've been here that I've really enjoyed all my classes-that I'm really learning something relevant in all of them. Usually, they were courses I had to take-requirements." Bucky feels that while his education has value, it can't be clearly applied to anything. "It's just an education with no regard for what I'll be doing," he says. "I don't feel I've learned anything in the last year and a half that could' be applied to a job. It's just a general knowledge-i t' valuable-but it's sort of a farce. People think it really prepares you for some- thing, but it doesn't." "My education is mostly technical," says Gary N, an engin senior. "It's more job preparation than enlightenment. The things I learn in the classroom are job- related. "Living in the dorms for three years, I picked up a lot of experience," he adds. "That's worth about as much as class." And so are relationships, Joyce says.. She says she matured a lot from a rela- tionship with a guy last year. "He didn't like the way I was, and in order to change myself so he liked me, I had to think of myy relations with other people." She bit her nails once and stared ahead. "That was big." And from a group, she found herself freer and closer to people; from a sociol- ogy course, she "was made aware of the plight of blacks and how society oppresses people." She believes her discussions with dorm friends enlightened her on "the nature of people and what makes you tick." In addition, "I never realized how my parents were so closed-minded on some things. "I brought home a pretty radical friend over Thanksgiving, and they wouldn't lis- ten to my friend's ideas. They said 'I've been here longer than you and I know more than you'". And she says she discovered their ani- mosity toward a black student she is dating. "I've screamed and yelled at the top of my lungs and they're ideas are static. And they're immovable." "Yes, it's changed me," says Betsy. "I'm a lot more self-reliant now. My whole out- look on living has changed. I used to think I'd settle down and raise a fam- ily. Now I want to work, keep in the mainstream of things." Tom feels the combined university ex- periences of Notre Dame last year and the University now have affected his out- look more dramatically. "I can't believe in the American dream any more," he says. "You know, the whole bit-going to college as 'an ideal, then you make money, get a family, go live in the suburbs." DAVID, who grew up in the only Chinese family in his community, and who is intensely aware of racism directed at Chinese-Americans, says he has had his understanding of the problem consider- ably increased by the University. "Before I came here," he continues, "I 4s reading chapters and chapters of things you don't really care about." An education student expressed similar feelings. "I take the things I have to to get out of here I'm trying to get my re- quirements done so I can get my degree and be gone." So he remains, grudingingly, to get a degree so he can become a coach. "You can't learn how to coach without going to college," he says. Gail R, a red-headed freshman, remains in college but she is uncertain just why. The conversation drifts with frequent breaks. "Why am I at the University? I'm still trying to decide. I'm here to meet people. I'm here to learn . . . I'm not extremely sure that dropping out is the best thing to do. I'm going to try and make something good of the classes. "College is also important to me be- cause" . . , she pauses and mentions society's emphasis on a degree. "That's why I'm so confused. I don't think every- one should go to college." Her discourage- ment seems to stem not so much from what she learns in class, but from what she hasn't learned - from dissatisfaction with her classes. The same holds for Joseph U., a Mark- ley freshman. "I really dislike school. There's a good chance I'll leave the University," he says. "Classes are boring," he continues. "I've heard professors are not here to teach, just research." He finds himself pressured by school- work, "I don't care about learning, just abou't tests, and that's why I'd like to quit, because I know it's not right." He adds simply, 'I really don't want to put up with school any more." And he is com- ing to hate the place more and more, es- pecially returning to his room and facing the books he has to study. "I'd like to travel," he says. "Just go out west, see the states, travel, look around." Betsy S, another freshman, is also con- cerned over what she feels she's not learn- ing. "I've seriously considered leaving," she says. "I'm impatient cause I'm not learning as much as I thought I would." But unlike Joe, she is not sure what she would do outside the University, and she does find the campus environment con- genial. 'I don't know what I would do if I were out," she says, "I could only be a waitress or something. And I am learning, if only to live on my own, and it's an aca- demic environment, which I like." SOME PEOPLE SAY clearly they want what the University says it offers. "My goal is to get an education," says fresh- man Susan D, "and Michigan is one of the best schools." "I'll probably get married," she adds, 'but even if I don't work all my life, I want to be more than just a housewife. "I don't think I'm learning that much from courses," says David H. "You learn scientific rules, you get ideas - it helps. But the reactions to new people is prob- ably more important. "For my purposes, the main thing is the atmosphere," he continues. "It's a place where I can be comfortable It's an atmos- phere where it's easy to express ideas. Peo- ple are more receptive to criticism. "I'm happy here," s a y s Harvey S. "I don't know whether I'm getting a good ed- ucation. I'm assuming I am. I like it here enough not to transfer," he continues, ad- ding that the draft prevents him f r o m taking a break from school for a term or two. And what Harvey has disliked in his classes is offset, he says, by the enjoy- ment he finds from his friends in the fra- ternity, who joke with him during the in- terview about being a big shot now. He has no sweeping statements to make about classes; lectures depend on the course, he says. Prof. Daniel Fusfeld's economics lec- ture, for instance, he enjoys immensely, but economics recitations, "I can do with- out. The recitation teacher spits back in- formation from the book. "Some classes I need to go to. Others I like to go to, and some I don't go to. I guess I enjoy myself enough to stay here. I'd like to be trained for my job, but I'd like to be trained for other things that don't affect me for my job." The problem of adjusting to the new en- vironment seems to be a primary concern in students' appraisal of their educa- tion. Marilyn F. feels she has now learned, how to get along with people better. "It's hard to pin down, it's the kind of things you get from having a friend to confide in," she says. "It's an experience being here. It was the first time I had lived away from home; I felt more independent and more willing to do things on my own and meet people on my own. And that was one of the most valuable experiences I had, not having to call mother every Sunday." But Marilyn can't divorce this education from her experiences in classes, although they have of late been disconcerting. She is not overly enthusiastic about the Uni- versity, admitting that it has not meas- ured up to her expectations, partially, she says because of the large impersonal class- es, and partially because her expectations may have been too high. But she says she likes it here. "Its been a good experience. It stimulated me. I real- ly can't isolate this particular class as do- ing this for me. The only way I can eval- uate everything is in the overall picture. I can't say I'm sorry I came here." Tom H. expresses more doubts than most about the validity of his classes. "I don't know what I'm learning," he says, "I'm trying to find out what I'm learning all the time. I'm in engineering, I guess it' technoloav." most other students as "cynical liberals", says, "I don't have the convictions. I sup- port the causes, but I haven't gotten in- volved. I feel sort of guilty about not doing more about certain issues, kind of hypo- critical about supporting them in thought, and not doing anything about them, and I can't explain why or why not." "I'm pretty apathetic politically," says Bucky S. "I'm apathetic on a lot of things. I don't think it's right. When I think in terms of myself in the future, I think eventually I won't be apathetic. I'll have to change, but I just haven't yet." Joyce agrees that political involvement may come in the future eafter she gets out of school. "I'm paying my way to learn this stuff. My studies are more important and everyone must decide for themselves." There's no use procrastinating, she says, adding that, "It's very possible that once I get out of this place, I may start striking and being involved." She nods, "I could see it later." Marshall has a poster of President Nixon up on the wall behind his bed. "I'm not particularly active in anything right now," he 'says, "but I'm very concerned. Right now, my primary concern is with getting an education. I have strong opinions, and in the future, I probably will play more of a role.{ "If I felt strongly that a law was bad," he adds, "I could break it and get ar- rested.But, I don't see too many things in our society unjust enough to get arrested about." BUT SOME students are faced with greater conflict-they feel they should be involved, but are unsure how much they can commit themselves. "I'm politically chicken," says Betsy S, "but not apathetic. I get very angry-but I'm not sure at this point that I want to lay everything on the line, and get busted or bashed. I don't know how much you can accomplish through the system. I have a lot of friends who are beating their heads Warren, who served in Vietnam, takes an entirely different view. "If you provide all these other things, you might as well provide ROTC," he says. "The military profession is as good as any other ... If you've have been in the army, you know that 99 per cent is paperwork; killing people is really a very small part of its' job." R EGARDLESS OF their politics, the peo- ple we talked to were restrained in view of what they could do to effect changes in the overall society. But they seemed generally hopeful that they could make some contribution. "I don't want to be a member of the AMA, and live in a rich suburb where my kids won't see racism themselves,"° says David. "They should realize it early, where- ever they live. I don't want to pick the easy way. I think I'll go out and try to persuade people about what I think is right. "I don't think I'm goin, where I want to go," he continues. "I don't see any ef- fective ways of getting these ideas across. "I'd like to see a militant Chinese group," he adds. "They'd be sacrificing themselves, but they could make the society aware of the problem. The only way I feel I could affect society--more than just a few in- dividuals-would be with something like, that-throwing around pamphlets, point- ing up the problem." Bruce says that "I don't see myself as being a leader in social reforms, but being ' a good and sensitive individual. As a doctor I can make a small section of the popula- tion sensitive, just help 'em, I just hope to retain the idealism I have now. You just roll with the punches, you just bide your time.' "I hope to do something useful," says Kathleen. "I'm really interested in educa- tion. I think everything's wrong with the way English is taught. They're trying to drum all those facts into the kids heads and have them get good marks and good SATs. I think high school should teach kids." "I want people to communicate," says Francis. "I feel that's the key. I can func- tion better with people now-a little less friction. "I know it's a drop in the bucket," he concludes, "but there are thousands of other people like me. It'll make a differ- Betsy S is less hopeful. "I don't know how much of, an impact I can have on society," she says. "I used to think I or a small group could, but now I don't. It's too big a world. "I'd really feel I'd like to be headed toward something," she continues, "but I just don't know what I'm headed toward." Bucky S, echoes this. "I'd like to make some sort of contribution," he says, "but I don't know how I'll do that." And Marshall notes. "I don't get up every morning and wonder why I'm here. The routine keeps me going." The routine-getting up and going to class and continuing though you're bored because you know it's good for you and you know you need your degree and you some- how want to learn. You persist from build- ,d "I used to think I really knew why I was here," says Bucky. "But I'm not too sure any more. I'm just going to school. It's just the next step from high school." .... " . {::r' :Y>."..J. ..... +G GV "+.r: '".S* 'A G{":::::: .'rtr' really didn't have many political ideas. Here, you meet people hitting you con- tinually from the left and right. Being here has helped me form opinions." His views on how the University en- vironment changes peoples' politics re- flects the views of many others. But de- spite the continuing barrage of dialogue, it seems many students have found ways of insulating themselves not only from the demonstrations and the agitation, but even from much of the serious thought and discussion on political questions. Are most students apathetic? Do poli- tical questions matter to them? How do they feel about some of the issues that have e onca sn nnnamnn on stone walls-they just aren't getting anywhere. "Right now," she continues, "I'm won- dering which way I'll go politically. My parents have told me, if I get involved, they'll take away my financial aid. They, say-be in any protest you like, but run like hell when the police come. And it appears that students will gen- erally commit themselves only when some- thing directly touches them. Francis was rent striking last year. "We were getting bad service, and we struck. We wouldn't strike now-we're happy here. But I'd never rent from one of the big slumlords."