Seven fy-Sint! Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIvERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD rN CONTROL OF STUDENT PLBLTCATIONs
Utopia U: Let Them Play Basketball
Where Opinions llArA r Free.
WTtheWi pnon ' 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN APBOR, MICH.
N i:ws PIoNE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in Thi Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1966
NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT JOHNSTON
UN Offers Hope
For Viet Nam War
THE QUESTION of United States inter-
vention in Viet Nam has at last been
moved to the United Nations. In one
sense, the U.S. has, righted one of its
moral wrongs by ceasing to violate the UN
Charter. When one thinks of the U.S.
image as the major supporter of the UN
since its, inception, it seems strange in-
deed that'she should have waited so long
to submit the issue at all.
But the close vote two days ago over
bringing the U.S. peace proposal to the
floor of the Security Council portends
hard, going for any U.S. hope of getting
support from the organization she has
so carefully fostered. The Russian dele-
gation can be expected to attack the
U.S. on the basis of the Geneva Confer-
ence of 1954, which the Russians claim
dictate a complete military withdrawal
from South Viet Nam.
Further, Soviet Delegate Nikolai Fedor-
enko said the U.S., if she wants peace
in Viet Nam, must recognize the National
Liberation Front as; "the only genuine
representative of the people of Viet
Nam."
Thus far the Johnson administration
has justified our presence in Viet Nam
on the basis that the Viet Cong has made
truly free national elections impossible.
Yet our actions in that country, as 11-
lustrated by our extensive bombing of
the North, seem to indicate quite clearly
that there is far more involved than the
mere guarantee of free elections. In-
deed, had it been free elections we were
interested in, they should have been held
nine years ago.
THUS, THE U.S. must be in Viet Nam
for reasons of power politics--the de-
fense of South Viet Nam against country-
men from the North is seen as a Mach-
iavellian. pragmatic move to contain a
Communist threat.
Whether or not this outlook is justi-
fied on the basis of its face value, such an
argument will never hold up in the UN.
If we advertise our purpose in Viet Nam
as being containment of China in South-
east Asia, then the whole plane of the
dialogue will shift to where it should
have been in the first place-to the core
of the real reason we are fighting in Viet
Nam, power politics and military defense.
These issues are hard to defend in
terms of innocent peasantry and a civil
war, but it seems almost inconceivable
that the U.S. could present any other
type of defense for her "moral" ones are
too full of holes.
Now that the issue has cleared its first
hurdle and is being openly discussed in
the Security Council, it seems evident
that we are going to see UN-supervised
elections, probably "guaranteed" by a
UN force of some kind.
THE U.S., by submitting the issue to the
UN, has put itself in a bind. Free elec-
tions, at last proposed by the U.S. in an
important official context, seem a likely
outcome, unless the process is blocked by
Communist demands that the U.S. with-
draw immediately. Such a move would
help the United States in shifting more
of the popular blame for the war to the
Communists, but it would not stop the
fighting.
By submitting itself officially to the
eyes of the world, the U.S. has given the
UN an opportunity to provide some hope
for a future settlement. We must now
hope the Communist bloc will sacrifice its
advantage in morality to allow a viable
compromise to be worked out.
-HARVEY WASSERMAN
N LIEU of an original column, I
offer the following, the text of
my speech given at The Daily's
annual banquet Tuesday.
THERE IS a standard repertory
of titles for these annual ban-
quet speeches, along with a re-
volving file of texts from which
we can choose one. Some of the
usual titles: The Daily in crisis,
the University at the crossroads,
The Daily at the crossroads, ad
infinitum. Former editor Ron
Wilton did a grand synthesis and
came up with, and I quote, "Crisis
at the Crossroads."
But I'll forget about crises and
crossroads and refrain from bor-
ing you with mine or, worse, my
version of somebody else's.
I am going to say a few things
about the University, though I
did vow when I started this to try
to say something original and,
35,000 words under my byline in
The Daily over the past 11 months
notwithstanding, I've really said
very little about what this Uni-
versity should be. I've tossed out
a lot of scattered proposals with
ideas and prognostications, but
never really tried to put them
together to see if they add up to
what I would call a university, or
if they add up to anything at all.
I'M GOING to be radical and
focus my discussion of Utopia U
in 1985 around the student. It is
clear that, historically, the stu-
dent has been very much neglect-
ed. This seems to trace back to
the origins of the university in
the scholarly traditions of the
monastery.
The monks were students of a
small body of literature left over
from earlier civilizations. It was
their task simply to learn what
that literature said from study
supervised by their elders, who
had learned the same things be-
fore them. Only incidentally were
they students, mainly they were
monks.
So to this day we subscribe in
practice, though we may say other
things, to the idea that the only
part of a student's activity that
anyone should care about in an
institutionalized way, and the ideal
type to be held up in establishing
incentive and achievement cri-
teria, is the student as scholar.
Such an ideal is having in-
creasingly upsetting ramifications.
At the undergraduate level it is
facilely subscribed to and ex-
pounded upon at literary college
faculty meetings, but its execu-
tion is a farce for all but a few
in the better honors programs.
At the graduate level the bull-
dozer pressures of enrollment have
not yet fully emasculatedhthat
greatest of all enforcers of the old
tradition, the PhD. But here I
must agree with Kenneth Gould-
ing when he says that the doctor-
ate's inviolable sanctity is one of
the greatest hoaxes perpetrated by
the scholarly world upon itself ...
And undergraduates complain of
the irrelevant things they are
forced to learn.
SO WHAT AM I going to do at
Utopia U? Since we're talking in
terms of students, let's look at it
from their point of view. More
than likely our Utopia U fresh-
man, class of 1989, is at least as
confused as his 1966 predecessors.
He doesn't really understand
learning or scholarship or research
or whatever. He just sees thou-
sands of people in a complex, ur-
ban environment within which he
must carve out a personally satis-
fying role for himself.
If he isn't able to establish his
own little circle of living for
several of them if he's talented),
he is going to be very unhappy.
He'll have identity crises, maybe
flunk out, be unproductive, stage
riots even. He will be alienated.
And heaven forbid that we should
have any alienated students at
Utopia U.
Now our problem is easily de-
fined: to line up the goals and
purposes of the institution with
those of these small, interpersonal
groups. (The sociologists call them
primary groups. but that is an ob-
noxious term which I will ignore.)
What we have to do is make what
is personally and immediately sig-
nificant and rewarding to our
Utopia U student coincide with
what will be most valuable to
himself and to his society in the
longer run.
At the moment the University's
small group circles are most
strongly established in a flourish-
ing fraternity-sorority system (one
of the few such in the country), a
select group of student activities,
departmental honors programs
and a multitude of specialized
pursuits. There is some coinci-
dence of University ideals and in-
terests with those of these groups,
but there is none with those in-
volving by far the largest num-
ber of people, those in the af-
filiate system.
In Utopia U we can encourage
and try to initiate alternatives and
new opportunities.
SOCIAL SCIENTISTS have of-
fered a workable definition of
development (a word under which
I subsume economic, political and
social development), which can
also provide a kind of definition
for the very undefined Enlighten-
ment concept of progress: They
see development as the provision
of a wider range of choice (i.e.
alternatives and opportunities)
for individuals and groups.
For example, when I graduate
from high school there are maybe
10 different things I can do, dif-
ferent types of career interests I
can pursue. When I graduate from
college this choice will have ex-
panded to perhaps a hundred.
Among thesetalternatives, chances
are much better than before that
I will find something that I enjoy
and that contributes to society as
well.
So let us offer alternatives to
the class of '89 at Utopia U. Let
us design 10 different programs
the freshman canrchoose from
when he starts, and build in a
series of switch points and cross-
roads, so that he has many oppor-
tunities to change his mind, de-
Michigan MAD
By ROBERT JOHNSTON
velop new relationships, and try
out new interests without risking
his gradepoint.
Maybe he will want to spend a
year in Tuskegee-excellent; Or
a year as editor of The Daily,
heaven help him; Or six months
devoted to Prof. X's research; Or
a semester doing independent
reading; Or run a free university,
designing his own courses and
making them work. For that mat-
ter, maybe we should just abolish
most courses and make people
come up with their own.
In any case the important thing
is to have a series of programs, of
paths, to follow, with maximum
flexibility, but with somewhere
concrete to start.
'"OING THROUGH four years at
j this university's literary col-
lege is, academically for most
people, and again I except some
upperclass honors programs, like
spending four years in a swamp.
You wander in, you're lost, there
are no roads, no guideposts, you
go one way, then another and
then all of a sudden you find
yourself out in the real world
again, degree in hand with no
clear idea of what you've done, or
where next to go. The only ra-
tional, ongoing order any student
could bring to this would be to
take all his courses from the same
few professors, and perhaps he
should be encouraged to do so.
The hue and cry the tradition-
alists raise is that classical learn-
ing and scholarship will be lost.
What they're really worried about
is that what they teach and have
spent their lives on will be exposed
as irrelevant. Incompetence in
giving lectures out of a text, or
even giving them badly will be
exposed-yes. So much the better.
It's about time.
But scholarship in the classical
disciplines will remain an im-
portant intellectual alternative for
those interested. Finally, a diluted,
falsified and bastardized version of
this classical scholarship won't be
forced onto those who could care
less.
AS THE INCORRIGIBLE oc-
cupant of our editorial page's
single acknowledged corner point-
ed out in a recent piece that never
quite made it into print: "It's a
crime to make Cazzie Russell take
history and English and call it
scholarship, and it's an even
greater crime to make graduate
teaching fellows teach him."
If Cazzie wants to play basket-
ball, let him. And if there's no
place but here for him to do it, let
him play here. Would we were all
as good in whatever we undertake
at this university as he is in
basketball.
I started out with some visions
of Utopia U, what this university
ought to be. I've found myself
making a plea for diversity. This
is not to be confused-with a plea
for the multiversity. A series of
common goals asd standards must
remain. If we're not in this to-
gether to some extent, we're not
in it at all.
The concept of the general edu-
cation is still a valid one, I
think, and if you examine it you
will find that its basis has been
and will continue to be what I
would call rote or institutionalized
learning. It's what we get grades
for and suffer over accordingly,
but the only key question really
asked is "What do you know?"
Facts, concepts, theories, names
and relationships, reel them off,
two hours, time's up, hand in
those bluebooks please and so on.
Here I think we can make great
strides in Utopia U. Electronic
teaching has been proven many
times more effective than lec-
turers and is probably more effec-
tive than recitations larger than
12 people. So let's adopt a policy
of getting the grind stuff out of
the way quickly' and efficiently
and then go on to something in-
teresting.
The only function I can see
that lectures serve is to reinforce
the small group relationships I
was discussing earlier by letting
these people sit together and de-
rive a sense of common purpose
from enduring a, bad lecture, like
going to war together-great spirit
and all that. That's an important
function, but it would be cheaper
to show bad movies and require
attendance. Like the New York
electricity blackout. You force
people into adverse circumstances
and they might even go so far as
to start talking to each other.
SO WE ESTABLISH what it is
we want people to know in the
basic disciplines to be "well edu-
cated." You make everybody in
every school learn it, all of it.
They must be expected to know it
all and do equally well in giving
it back on exams. If they can't
learn it they shouldn't be here.
This is a university, not a tech-
nical school. Some will just take
longer than others-six months for
some, two years for others. In
any case you have a pass-fail
system, in or out.
What will count, achievement
wise, is what the students do be-
yond this program. It will be
easier for them to make forays
into many different fields. If -you
make a mistake now you're stuck
for four months with a real bomb
of a course. Three mistakes and
you're in trouble.
Electronics, however, has many
virtues. If you don't like it you can
change channels, instantly. You
can try out as many different
areas in a day as the determined
drop-adder can in the entire two
weeks allotted him.
Again, don't confuse Utopia U
with the multiversity. I'm not
trying to fragment, I trying to
reorganize. A wide range of op-
portunties within the context of
small group interaction in a var-
iety of styles and for a variety
of purposes, all of them encourag-
ed and supported within the con-
text of the University itself.
Opportunities for self development
through interactions with others
is what I am opting for.
THE ONLY WAY to describe this
university here and now and
not leave something out is to use
the most generalized analysis: a
$100 million per year investment
in human resources. Maximaza-
tion of that investment cannot
help but pay off on both a per-
sonal and social level. It has been
pointed out that social develop-
ment is the sum total of its human
skills and knowledge.
I put Utopia U at the fulcrum
of the type of social development
I'm interested in seeing. And while
I wax philosophical about it, I am
really a realist, because I have
in fact been describing some
vague, but I think well-founded
ideas on where I think this Uni-
versity can be in the not-too-
distant future.
*
Wears Aren't What They Once Were
'U' Must Provide Money
For Out-of-State Students
WHAT RESPONSIBILITY, if any, does a
state supported university have for
providing financial aid to deserving out-
of-state students? Should state funds
be used in any way to benefit needy out-
of-state students?
The answer from both the University
and the State Legislature seems to be
the same-out-of-state students should
be thankful they are allowed to attend
the University at all.
The University, it appears, maintains
this position out of fear of adverse re-
action from the Legislature. However,
the University considers an extensive
out-ofd-state scholarship program, even
under private funds, as a matter of ex-
tremely low priority.
The opportunities for an out-of-state
student to obtain a scholarship are very
limited. The money for the few scholar-
ships presently offered comes primarily,
from the various alumni groups. The
alumni group scholarships, however, are
irregular, depending to a large extent on
'the success of the individual group's
fund raising drives. Other scholarships
come from private endowments, which
contain numerous restrictions as to race,
religion, family background and field of
concentration.
THE NEEDY out-of-state student can-
not attend the University unless he re-
ceives'scholarship money from other pri-
vate sources, such as the National Merit
Scholarships. These scholarship oppor-
tunities are few in number and small in
the amount of money provided. With ris-
ing tuition and living expenses, difficul-
ties have become even greater in raising
the necessary money.
Editorial Staff
ROBERT JOHNSTON. Editor
LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM, Managing Editor
JUDITH FIELDS ...:..............Personnel Director
LAUREN BAHR ........... Associate Managing Editor
JUDITH WARREN...... Assistant Managing Editor
OAIIL BLUMBERGO. ............ ..Magazine Editor
TOM WEINBERG.................Sports Editor
LLOYD GRAFF..........Associate Sports Editor
PETER SARASOHN...........Contributing Editor
MIGHT EDITORS: Robert Carney, Clarence Fanto,
Mark Killingsworth, John Meredith, Lennard Pratt,
There is little chance the Legislature
will ever change its attitude toward out-
of-state students without considerable re-
appraisal by other states first. However,
there must be a change in the attitude
of the University. Attempts must be
made to secure funds from private indi-
viduals and foundations with the intent
of setting up a non-resident scholarship
fund of a reasonable size.
It is most irregular for a state univer-
sity to provide scholarships for students
not residing in that state. However, few
state institutions have nearly one-third
of their student body made up of non-
residents, as the University does, and
most suffer severely from that fact.
If the University does not realize it
has an obligation to out-of-state stu-
dents, it will find itself forfeiting many of
its best students to other educational in-
stitutions.
-MARK LEVIN
SGC Action and
A New Presidei it
LAST NIGHT Student Government
Council took the final step in its ef-
fort to make students a vital part of
the process of selecting a new University
President. The matter is now in the
hands of the Regents.
The underlying hope of all the work
which went into last night's event was
that a new beginning can be marked for
cooperation between Regents, the new
President, alumni, faculty and students.
As established in the bylaws of the SGC
constitution, SGC is the official spokes-
man for the student body; now, follow-
ing the channels which are constitution-
ally established, SGC is making its bid
for a student role in this most important
drama,
The significance of this request lies
deeper than a mere exercise for student
voice-it is a hope that the Regents will
be endorsing close cooperation between
the Regents, the new President, faculty,
alumni--and students, as the new ad-
ministration begins.
By DAVE KNOKE
WHILE IT MAY BE axiomatic
that human nature changes
little over 'th6,,centuries, bre very
notable exception Is the manner
in which men wage war nowadays,
Granted the sophistication of
weapons and tactics have con-
siderably changed since Neander-
thalean brain-bashes were the
most effective way of doing your
neighbor in.
This is not the point; technology
has always made gruesome ad-
vances in killing techniques while
the morality that guides men to
use these has remained relatively
static.
What is most startling in re-
viewing the long and colorful his-
tory of mankind's war is the
realization that war is suddenly
being fought by men with entirely
different attitudes from those
held just a few short centuries
ago. The plain fact seems to be
that men no longer enjoy mas-
sacring each other; war is being
waged out of inertia.
Time was when the common
foot soldier had an immediate,
personal stake in marching down
the paths of glory; today he has
been reduced to the mundane role
of cannon fodder.
BACK IN the good o1' days (al-
ways idealized best by those who
never lived then) when a man
could take the law in his own
hands, fighting was down-right
fun. Rape, torture, pillage, loot-
ing, gluttony, drunkness-the en-
listee's life wasdone eternal round
of glorious entertainment.
The Teutonic war bands enjoyed
the physical pleasure of fighting
so much that, if the chiefs could
not think up an ideological dispute
to start a war, the tribes held a
sort of Super Bacchanalia.
The mob would gather on the
opposite sides of some verdant
spring meadow, and, with a super
abundance of strutting, cursing,
caterwalling and other sorts of
bravura, would run towards each
other at top speed. Pairing off,
they would swing their war clubs,
brandish their spearsand shields
and begin pounding away without
finesse, taking care not to hit
any vital spots. During a daylight
span, the armies would flail away
at each other in concentrated
earnestness, on the whole achiev-
ing at day's end nothing more
than a relaxing exhaustion and a
gog-g
f, 3c r
r r
i Alp
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Nowf
hearty appetite.
This ancient and noble custom
has gone into oblivion, as today's
soldiers unimaginatively attempt
to. knock each other's blocks off
without displaying a modicum of
theatrical talent.
NO LONGER do soldiers from
different armies fraternize when
they pause from battle; this an-
cient curtesy' of the fighting man
towards his foe saw its last gasp
in the winter of 1914 when Ger-
man and Russian troops took time
out to celebrate Christmas to-
gether on the Eastern Front.
Once upon a time the army was
a profession every young man
lusted after; there was no need
of a draft with a surfeit of volun-
teers and wars were genetically
selective. The best fighters were
the ones who went home to father
the next generation.
Sadly, the battlefield as a prov-
ing ground of manhood began to
disappear with the invention of
gunpowder. After all, in trench
warfare, it seems rather unfair
that the short man has the na-
Letters:Fri
Format for
To the Editors:
FTER reading the favorable
editorials concerning the Free
University of Ann Arbor and real-
izing the large, concerned' re-
sponse of the people, I would like
to add a note of real experience
with the FU so that it does not
seem to be just an elevated con-
cept or answer to the status quo.
I would like to express the joy
I shared with the other "student-
teachers" in the education course
of the FU. It seems that a course
in education should serve not
only to instruct but to educate
as well. The FU course is striving
for this by pursuing the essence
of education and by questioning
anything and everything related
to the mass educational process
of today. And I believe we will
achieve a higher degree of suc-
cess than could ever be obtained
in a University classroom situa-
tion.
The reason for this, which also
happens to be one of the most
rewarding and fascinating aspects
of the FU in general, is the het-
erogenity of the course partici-
pants. There are no narrow
boundaries that limit the class to
people with only a certain level
of education. Rather, in contrast
to the normal University situa-
tural survival advantage over the
tall man. No wonder the French
were a nation of midgets , after
World War I.
Another dirty trick played on
the common soldier was the in-
vention of the rules of war. When
restrictions started being put on
the treatment of prisoners and
when extra-curricular rapine was
sharply curtailed by stodgy top
brass, all the fun went out of the
soldier's life. Mass butchery be-
came the property of arm-chair
generals who designed genocide
programs with a minimum of
waste and excitement.
So instead of warring for per-
sonel gain and prestige, the foot
soldier had to start thinking in
ideological terms of National In-
terest, Home, God, and Country as
prix de la guerre. Rather poor
fare for the nasty business they
do, Uut everyone is told that "this
man's army ain't never had it so
good."
THEY DON'T KNOW the half
of it.
.e U Offers
Interaction
tion with the status quo or a
more real situation, but even
more it provides the format for
the interaction of experience and
idea, the atmosphere for change
and friendship, and the opportu-
nity to engage in something real
as well as necessary, free rather
than official.
-Skip M. Taube, '69
Rebuttal
To the Editor:
THIS IS IN REPLY to Mr. Den-
nis Thompson, who attacked
the Young Socialist Alliance in
the Jan. 29 Daily for selling but-
tons labeled "Peace in Viet Nam
-Support the National Libera-
tion Front."
The YSA supports the Nation-
al Liberation Front because we
consider it the true government of
South Viet Nam, having the sup-
port of at least 80 per cent of the
population (ref.: Eisenhower, 1956;
Bernard Fall, 1963).
WE ALSO THINK that Mr.
Thompson is misled by Johnson's
.so-called peace offensive, which
is nothing but a brief bow in the
direction of public and world sen-
timent against the war, and is a
A
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