Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Failings of Our Educational System
e OpinlonsAre Free. 420 MAYNARD ST,. ANN ARBOR, MICH.
'uth Will PrevaY
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed iit The Michigan Dail-, express the inidividual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1966
NIGHT EDITOR: ROGER RAPOPORT
FaXO Investigation
Fulfils Pressing Need
THE HEARINGS on private student
housing at Michigan universities and
colleges announced last week by Rep.
Jack Faxon could prove to be an im-
portant first step in the solution of one
of the critical problems facing the Uni-
versity.
The House-Higher Education Appropri-
ations subcommittee plans an investiga-
tion into the availability and quality
of student housing at state institutions
of higher education. They will also be ex-
amining the future housing needs of state
colleges and universities. Earlier -this
year, the subcommittee sponsored a bill'
that Would have established a Michigan
Higher Education Housing Authority. If
established, the authority would be em-
powered to issue bonds for the construc-
tion of publically financed student hous-
ing facilities.
The housing built by the authority
would be privately, administered by non-
profit organizations such as cooperatives.
THERE IS A CLEAR and pressing need
at the University for some sort of
imaginative action towards solution of
the housing problems here.
The University's attempts to find new
solutions to old housing problems have
not been notably successful. For exam-
ple, the very limited number of apart-
ments provided for married students are
not significantly cheaper than privately
owned facilities. The Cedar Bend experi-
ment, while it is a new direction in hous-
ing, fails to provide any economic advan-
tage over other forms currently avail-
able.
SINCE THE UNIVERSITY has shown it-
self to be unable or unwilling to take
the initiative in providing more econom-
ical housing and since students lack the
financial means to act on their own, the
time is obviously ripe for a state housing
authority as proposed by the higher edu-
cation appropriations subcommittee.
The hearings will hopefully convince
the legislators in Lansing of the need.
for some sort of state aid in the field of
student housing.
ALTHOUGH THERE ARE many details
in any such plan that must still be
resolved, the bill introduced in the last
session of the Legislature was a very
promising beginning. The subcommittee's
housing investigation o fthe private hous-
ing situation in Ann Arbor will hope-
fully speed passage of some form of
comprehensive state aid for student hous-
ing.
-STEVE WILDSTROM
By DAVID KNOKE
Last of a Three-Part Series
"PLEASE TURN down the light."
"Did you know McLuhan says
light is Pure Information?"
"So turn out the light already;
the pure information is over-
whelming me."
This conversation came as an
aside in a serious discussion of the
merits of Toronto communication
scientist Marshall , McLuhan's
theories of education and learn-
ing environments. The unortho-
dox professor's assertions about
the role of mass media in reshap-
ing modern society became a
source of constant comment
throughout the six weeks of the
U.S. Student Press Association's
summer seminar on "Issues in
Higher Education." McLuhan's
glib sentence-graph style is filled
with the sorts of catch-phrases
that college students like to ex-
propriate for their own; yet his
very topicality in a way symbolized
the rapidly changing fabric of
school and society with which we
at the seminar were attempting
to cope.
WITH ACCESS to recently pub-
lished work and visits by speakers
working on the forefront of mod-
ern educational change and re-
form ,we began slowly to accumu-
late the outlined picture of the
current educational world.
There is a stirring across the
land. It is almost imperceptible at
present, yet its evidence crop up
here and there in the bleak, stag-
nant fields of traditional educa-
tion. One would be foolish to
casually survey the state of the
colleges and lower education and
say, like Candide, "This is the best
of all possible worlds," My gen-
eration has witnessed and partici-
pated in Berkeley and we can nev-
er be that naive again.
The change starts slowly; it is
casual and almost entirely disor-
ganized. There are manw critics of
the state of education, and in-
creasingly they belong to the very
establishment which they are
knocking.
IN THE PAST year alone: the
Muscatine Committee issued 42
recommendations for the humani-
zation o fthe Berkeley multiver-
sity; the Byrne committee report
that subversive elements did not
direct the 1964 riots was struck
down by the board of regents be-
cause these were not the findings
they wanted Byrne to arrive at;
David Bell's "General Education,"
a critique and recommendation for
the experimental system at Colum-
bia, was published; and the Stu-
dent Committee on Undergradu-
ate Education at Pennsylvania is-
sued their SCUE report with a
perceptive analysis of the short-
comings of their university.
Running almost as a unitary
theme throughout these epoch-
marking publications is a dawn-
ing realization that education and
learning must consist of more
than classroom technique. What is
being looked for is a new ap-
proach to education, a consisten-
cy of the means o feducation with
goals that student select, or would
select if the full range of choices
were made known to them.
Somewhere in the development
of the American university, the
notion crept in that the primary
purpose of education is prepara-
tion for a career. The four to
eight years within the ivy walls
were seen as years spent in quar-
antine from the "real" world.
RALPH BOR$ODI, who is 88
years old and has been a critic of
society's ills for much of his life,
once told me that until the uni-
versities will include in their cur-
riculum a rational study of all the
gravest problems-not just voca-
tional, as is largely the case-edu-
cation will remain generally in-
adequate to aid people in han-
dling the myriad ethical as well
as trivial dilemmas that confront
them.
When one sees what blatant de-
gree factories the universities have
become, one wonders how any but
the most resolute students can use
the college experience to fully de-
v e 1o p themselves. Unpopular
thought and political action by
students is discouraged or even
suppressed. Students and their ed-
ucation are given secondary con-
sideration behind research pro-
grams. The urban commuter col-
lege reduces the interplay of stu-
dents and the community of schol-
ars to three lectures and a bus trip
home.
The conditions for change are
also of the students' making. Our
generation has marched in Selma,
dug irrigation ditches in Nigeria,
sat-in at Sproul Hall and led the
protest against the injustices of
American foreign policy. We can
no longer, because of the audacity
those ground-breaking visionaries
among us, accept the proposition
that our lives and educational ex-
periences during college are to be
managed by others.
THE SALIENT shortcomings of
modern education are its failure
to make the college experience
meaningful to a great number of
students and its failure to help
the student come to grips with
any but the most obvious problems
of modern life,
One of these problems is the
need for interpersonal relations on
the large campuses. The Univer-
sity's Residential College presents
an excellent opportunity for in-
novation in teacher-student rela-
tionships. But the college planners
must dare to attempt the unknown
and risk possible set-backs and
disappointments; only by trial and
retrial will progress towards a
richer education become reality.
- WHAT FOLLOWS is the story
of one man's vision which goes
beyond specific location and spe-
cific situation.
Paul Lauter is a radical. He is
a radical in the sense that he goes
right to the "root" of the teach-
ing concept. He has spent sever-
al years teaching in the Missis-
sippi Freedom Schools with chil-
dren of vastly different back-
grounds,
Asi e watched and worked with
the children of migrants and
sharecroppers-the "culturally de-
prived" who are the dispair of the
middle-class public school teacher
-he began to relate to them as
real human beings with very real
needs which they had difficulty
expressing.
In the ramshackle, overcrowd-
ed room he began to experiment.
He submerged his personality in-
to the class; he refused to play
an authoritarian role. He wanted
the students to teach him and to
teach each other. If they were
stifled by one subject, they should
agree together to move on to some-
thing more interesting.
GRADUALLY the suppressed
personalities o fthe children began
to emerge; from their viewpoint
they showed Paul Lauter things
in poems, stories, gestures and the
web of life to which he had been
previously blind. And from their
personalities of the children began
to develop a feeling of individual
worth and dignity which they had
not known. They grew. The mir-
acle of Paul Lauter is one of the
buried triumphs of a new outlook
on the purposes of education. It
can be repeated countless times
by those who will see students as
people and topics as living as well
as lore.
A
'V
4
BARRY GOLDWATER:
GOP Conservatism
Attack McDonald Campaign
The Vivian Campaign:
Using The Proper Perspective
WITH NATIONAL ELECTIONS only
months away, it seems natural that
students concern themselves with the is-
sus immediately effecting the Univer-
city.
Major issues of concern to many stu-
dents are the draft and the equally im-
portant question of HUAC.
Governed by a democratic political sys-
tem, voters rightly feel that the views
held by their representative should al-
ways be available to the public. With this
idea in mind, a student representative
recently approached Rep. Weston E. Viv-
ian (D-Mich) in Washington rquesting a
personal statement concerning the Au-
gust subpoena of membership lists of
Voice Political Party-SDS, the Ad Hoc
Committee to Aid the Vietnamese, and
the W. E. B. duBois Club from the Uni-
versity.
VIVIAN, DEFINITELY concerned with
his own political future (and rightly
so), avoided the issue and refused to com-
ment. Naturally, the immediate reaction
was to assume that either Vivian support-
ed the University in its act of supplying
membership lists or that Vivian's convic-
tions were not strong enough to with-
stand public scrutiny. Either way, Vivian
seems to have abandoned the student.
Vivian must pull together his Demo-
cratic backing; attract as many inde-
pendents as possible, and draw, also, some
Rpublican support. With this situation
in mind, students should re-evaluate
their reaction to Vivian's political hop-
scotch. Perhaps, the desire to place a
true liberal in office will outweigh the
students' desire for political purity.
VIVIAN HAS GONE on congressional
record as voting repeatedly against
appropriating funds to HUAC. What more
could we ask of Weston Vivian? At a time
such as this, what would be gained by a
public statement by Vivian chastising
HUAC? We should concern ourselves, in-
stead, withiwhat would be lost.
--CYNTHIA BOYER
OUR REPUBLICAN Party's left-
wing fringe is at it again. They
are 'still publicly moaning and
groaning overathe fact that even
though they are a tiny minority
in the party, everybody in the
party is out of step except them.
They are still trying to use the
Republican Party as a base from
which to launch political pro-
grams that are little more than
carbon copies of Democrat Party
programs.
Currently the case in point is a
report put out by a group calling
itself the Council of Republican
Organizations. This group, of in-
determinate membership, describes
itself as representing 10 "progres-
sive" Republican groups. , What
they mean, of course, is 10 little
welfare-state splinter groups, all
dedicated in one way or another
to using the federal government
as an instrument to regiment,
rule and reconstitute every in-
dividual.
This particular group is par-
ticularly concerned by a remark I
made recently in which I pointed
to the perfectly obvious fact that
the Republican Party basically is
opposed to. collectivist programs,
stands for the individual against
state coercion and can be termed
conservative in today's mixed-up
political labeling.
FROM THIS fact, I drew an-
other perfectly obvious conclusion:
that at least three-fourths of the
delegates to the Republican Party's
next Presidential nominating con-
vention also would be conservative,
just as they have been year after
year (and just as Democrat dele-
gateshave tended to be extremely
liberal, despite the existence in
their party of conservative splinter
groups).
Lo and behold, the Council of
Republican Organizations h a s
looked around the country and
found that what I said was all
true. Their report, which com-
manded attention far beyond that
warranted by the group's actual
stature, makes particularly pain-
ful noises about the fact that con-
servatives h a v e "consolidated"
power in the House of Represent-
atives under Congresman. Melvin
Laird, the Republican Conference
Chairman.
All they are saying, of course, is
that Congressman Laird has con-
sistently behaved like aRepubli-
can in the House and has not
strayed off to become, as the
Council apparently wishes he
would, a Democrat in Republican
clothing.
Actually, the Council could make
the same charge against the ma-
jority of Republican congressmen.
There are actually just a few
congressmen on the Republican
side whose actions are calculated
to give the Council any comfort.
Comparing the record of one of
them with such Republican leaders
as Melvin Laird and Gerald Ford
shows why.
When John Lindsay, for in-.
stance, was in the Congress, and
during the years from 1961-1966,
By NEAL BRUSS
DR. LAWRENCE McDonald was
last January's City Council
candidate, ideologically hailing'
from the Jeffersonian side of the
Democratic Party.
McDonald was the University
urologist and teaching fellow,
ready reservist, and John Birch
Society section leader.
"The present temporary leader-
ship of the Democratic Party,"
McDonald said, "would like to be
called progressive, but they in fact
are retrogressive. To them prog-
ress means moving into a planned
society, cradle to grave, womb
to tomb existence,"
McDonald, however, was a res-
ident doctor at a federal hospital
at roughly the same time he was
campaigning for council.
he was a leader among those: Re-
publican congressmen whose votes
provided the margin of victory for
Democrat legislative programs
time after time. In fact, 36 times
a Lindsay vote provided crucial
strength for the Democrats. Laird,
on the other hand, only voted
twice in such a way. Ford only
voted eight times in such a way.
REPUBLICANS, whether the
noisy left-wing fringe likes it or
not, are conservatives. They are
proud of it. They think their phi-
losophy and programs will ulti-;
mately be best for the nation. And
they are going to keep plugging
away at - it in the face of all the
internal sniping as well as the
growing socialism of the current
Democrat regime.
Copyright, 1966, Los Angeles Times
PAYROLL RECORDS at the
University Hospital show that Dr.
McDonald worked there until last
November.. McDonald was on sal-
ary' in Novembernand December
at the Veterans Administration
Hospital near North Campus, part
of the Ann Arbor area medical
center.
Although the Council primary
was in February, McDonald de-
clared his candidacy on Decem-
ber -24. For several weeks, then,
it would appear that he was cam-
paigning or preparing, a campaign
while an employe of the federal
government, a breach of the Hatch
Political Activities Act.
According to Veterans Hospital
officials, McDonald was advised
by the administrative department
of the hospital that he could face
suspension and other penalties for
continuing political activities while
working there.
The Veterans' Administration
takes precautions to inform its
employes of restrictions on their
political activities prescribed by
federal statutes.
When new employes are orient-
ed to the hospital, they receive a
packet of informational material,
in which is a cartoon-illustrated
pamphlet entitled "Federal Em-
ploye Facts" and a' copy of "VA
Employe Letter 00-64-2" which
informs them:
"Generally speaking, you may
not be a candidate for nomina-
tion or election to a community
(county or municipal) office to be
filled in an election involving par-
tisan candidates. You may not
even engage in the preliminaries
leading to formal announcement
of such candidacy."
In addition to distributing ori-
entation material, hospital admin-
istrators must 'post political reg-
ulations on hospital bulletin
boards.
IT WOULD SEEM unlikely that
McDonald would have been un-
aware of the restrictions prescrib-
ed by the Hatch Act, just as it
would seem unusual' that a John
Birch Society section leader would
work in a federally-financed hos-
pital job,
But as one member of the Law
School faculty mused, it is almost
unrealistic to put political restric-
tions on a medical school resi-
dent, who may shuttle between
local hospitals several times a year
-as McDonald did-and who may
coincidentally be working at Vet-
erans' at the time of a political
campaign.
If only in the case of a resident
doctor likeMcDonald, considera-
tion by federal authorities would
have b'een proper.
McDONALD'S breach of the
statutes, officially a week, was
not significant time in his cam-
paign. While they cautioned him,
Veterans Hospital authorities nev-
er disciplined him. And he did
leave his federally-financed job
before. the more intensive weeks
of his campaign.
But nine months later, McDon-
ald's previously unknown activi-
ties show how much more his
campaign was marked by conflict
and contradiction.
4
SGC Goals: Adopting
More Realistic Ojectives
...; " ?:.r 'X 4? ..: :. : . :::: ..... . ... ... .. ... .....r< ..:: . .... r. . . . .. . .. .. . :.. .r.. . #" : . }:, . .:; s: : :.: : . . . . . . . . .
f... .r. .. .. r: >... . ...., r. .. ... .. ... ..::. :::.. r..! .. ..v. .,...,. ... : .. ... .... . ..... . . . . . . ... ....:. .k. . . . , ' , r? i. . .
Why, John? Why? h~y
4'
After
AT SGC'S FIRST MEETING, President
Ed Robinson indicated that he wishes
to see that body become more vocal and
more effective in issues both on and off
campus. He wishes to see the Council
involve itself more fully in issues' such
as the draft, the submission of member-,
ship lists of 'ce'tain campus political or-
ganizations' to the House Un-American
Activities Committee, and the 18-year-old
vote. The idealism expressed is admir-
able, however the efficacy of any action,
remains to be seen.
The draft is a major issue, on Robin-
son's agenda, He has suggested a refer-
endum which will sample student opin-
ion with regard to the draft, and deter-
mine whether students feel that the Uni-
versity should cooperate with draft
boards by compiling class ranks. Such a
referendum would indeed draw a great
deal of attention to SGC, yet the mag-
nitude of its ultimate effect is very doubt-
ful.
The percentage of students that can
be expected to vote is small: only about
one-third of the student body, judging
from past elections. With this small
amount nothing conclusive can be claim-
ed. Even if the vote is overwhelmingly
against the University's cooperation with
the draft. (This is in itself a dubious out-
come.) Those "on high" can always claim
that it was only those students who felt
strongly against the draft who voted, and
the great majority either agree with
the status quo, or are ambivalent.
Before...
those who will be most affected when
they rewrite the draft law next year.
However, as past experience has indicat-
ed, it is very doubtful that this can oc-
cur.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT project which
Robinson ranks highly is SGC involve-
ment in the statewide committee to eli-
cit support for the 18-year-old vote in
this November's elections. Once more,
many questions arise.
low many people can SGC muster to
campaign? How pressing is the issue to
the University community? How great
wouldthe effect of any SGC activity be?
Would any effect extend solely to the
University, or would it include Ann Ar-
bor and possibly much of Southern Mich-
igan?
Reality may tend to impose pessimism
on idealism, as in the draft issue. But,
in this case, it may also transfer the
ideal to the real. If SGC can run a large,
well-coordinated campaign, it should be
able to gain support from students and
faculty. It may even have some effect
on Ann Arbor voting. However, it cer-
tainly would not have any great effect.
Other organizations would have to ex-
tend the campaign past Ann Arbor. The
ultimate effect of SGC action would
therefore be small, but combined with
a statewide campaign, it could be very
important. If the 18-year-old vote is pass-
ed and Michigan becomes an example,
then similar moves in other states may
. . .
4
it
;: .........:r.:::."