I. A U'P r Athigau Badig Sevenly-Fifth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNivERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS EDUCATIONAL ISSUES: Community Colleges. Growing ti WHY NOTT 0-k A nh-Democracy And the 26,150 By Jeffrey Goodman : : iere Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Prevail NEWs PHONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. FRIDAY, 26 MARCH 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: WILLIAM BENOIT The Viet N rotest: Some Chose Not To Talk 0 0 0 EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third in a series of articles on the issues discussed in the report of Gov. George Romney's "blue rib- bon" Citizens' Committee on High- er Education. By LEONARD PRATT T HE REPORT of Gov. George Romney's "blue ribbon" Citi- zens' Committee on Higher Edu- cation emphasizes Michigan's need for an expanded system of govern- ment-suported two-year colleges and puts an increased stress on the need for technical courses in the 18 colleges already in opera- tion. Stretching from Gogebic to Wayne counties, Michigan's com- munity college net is a diverse one. State community funds come from three sources-state allocations, local taxation, and students' fees. Many community colleges have well-developed technical training programs; others modify this and are similar to models of larger universities in their emphasis on liberal arts. The blue ribbon report charts designs to modify and systematize all this diversity. In planning to do so, it plans moves that will sig- nificantly effect both the system and Michigan higher education. PERHAPS the most significant of the report's proposals, all of which must be implemented by the State Board of Education be- fore they have binding effect, is its emphasis on the vastly ex- panded role community colleges should play in technical educa- tion. "This Committee." the report states, "believes that a statewide system of community colleges- offering the technical vocational programs ... is an essential part of the Michigan system of higher education." The emphasis might tend to op- pose the thinking of many key state figures connected with com- munity colleges. Robert E. Turner, president of Macomb County's col- lege and member of the State Board of Community College Ad- ministrators, told the board of education's March 4 Flint hearing that the present emphasis within community colleges on freshman- sophomore preparatory programs should not be de-emphasized. In addition, Leon Fill, vice- president of the board of educa- tion, though supporting vocation- al education, has said that com- munity colleges must maintain a strong liberal arts program. IT'S INTERESTING to see who makes all the noise at a protest. Many who were at the Diag rally at Wednesday's teach-in clearly remember the large group of people carrying signs protesting the protest. The chant "Bet- ter dead than Red," was seen and heard as the delegation of marchers bearing an American flag and. numerous signs put one in mind of a DAR rally. The vocal minority of dissenters in the teach-in made up for its lack of num- bers with large football-type jeering sec- tions. The speakers on the Diag were hard pressed to get a word in over the chants, drum beats and flying snowballs. THAT THE SPECTACLE of the radical right was discourteous and a display of immaturity befitting a junior high school basketball game is not in doubt. The intriguing question is why these elements refused to participate in the seminar, discussions and present their views in an orderly fashion. The object of the teach-in was not to propagandize but to create a learning situation for anyone interested in the problem. Prof. Kenneth Boulding addressed him- self to the dissenters and admonished them for "the sneer I see on the face of America." One could look out over the crowd and see that sneer. But it was not a sneer of aggression or arrogance; it was rather one of fear and defensiveness. The discussions in the seminars were often basically one-sided. But this was not the wish of the faculty who orga- nized the teach-in. Any relevant com- ments, pro or con, or questions would have been welcome. The con side of the argument was present only in the halls and on the Diag. IT HAS BEEN SAID by many that those who protest the war in Viet Nam or civil rights injustices protest simply for the sake of protesting. It has also been. said by some that protestors are emo- tional and interested only in propagan- dizing their own one-sided viewpoint. But who was uninterested in studying the issues and searching for answers at the teach-in? The problem of Viet Nam is a difficult one. But should one abandon rational dis- cussion of'it and thus abdicate power to the government decision-makers? Or is it best to examine to the best of one's ability the issues at stake and draw logi- cal conclusions from the information at hand? THE ANTI-ANTIS chose the former course Wednesday night. -MICHAEL BADAMO ... It Was Too One-Sided WEDNESDAY NIGHT'S *teach-in had, all the pomp, variety, and excitement Df a county fair. More than 3000 stu- ients and faculty members spent much of the night listening to speeches, par- ticipating in seminars and milling around in the first major. American or- ganized protest against U.S. policy in Viet Nam. The affairs received widespread press coverage and nationwide support, and its overwhelming success cannot be denied. However, the causes of its success, as well as its educational worth, are ques- tionable. The teach-in was the largest political dalmonstration ever conducted at the Uni- versity. However, it is fallacious to as- sume that the majority of those attend- ing were drawn in support of the pro- testing faculty group which sponsored the event. Clearly, the excitement of an all-night gathering, the opportunity for women students to have an overnight "per," the opportunity for men to mingle and socialize with the swarm of females and the pure curiosity aspects inherent in the situation were the predominant bases for the teach-in's unexpectedly high turnout. However, despite the fact that many of those in attendance were deadweight, the demonstration proved a successful and valuable forum for the protestors' position. The speakers clearly presented the justification for seeking U.S. with- drawal from South Viet Nam, and the seminars, when not interrupted by noisy traffic, provided an interesting inter- change of opinions on the Southeast Asian crisis.I MOST OF THE SEMINARS were con- ducted upon the hypothesis that the protestors were correct-that the U.S. should cease its military effort in Viet Nam-and devoted themselves to discuss- ing the consequences of such a move. However, a few seminars avoided this as- sumption and evolved into a modified debate over the fundamental issue -- whether or not the J.S. should stay in Viet Nam. The teach-in, with the partial excep- tions of those seminars in which both sides of the issue were presented, was far from an ideal educational experience. The protesting faculty members should be commended for their attempt to draw at- tention to a questionable American policy in Viet Nam. Unfortunately, they believed that the rationale for this policy had already received enough publicity so that the teach-in did not have to present both sides of the issue. MANY OF THOSE attending the demon- stration were as unfamiliar with the government's "white paper" on Viet Nam as they were with the reasons for seek- ing alternatives in Southeast Asia. The professors were concerned with having their position clearly presented; however, they should have realized that this could be effectively and democratically done only by enlisting both pro and con speak- ers, thus providing an open forum for a free and unprejudiced discussion of the issue, not a subjective one-sided presen- tation. -DAVID BLOCK 'A BOY TEN FEET TALL': African Odyssey Finds Adventure With a Twist At the State Theatre DON'T BE MISLED. "A Boy Ten Feet Tall" is not a science fiction horror movie. Ratherhit's a surprise, an exciting, taut adventure film with a twist. The hero is a blond, British boy of ten, whose quick wits, courage and resourcefulness carry him through a 5000 mile odyssey across Africa. It's a new approach and its works; it's great fun. Fergus McClelland is an appealing discovery as the boy, Sammy. Orphaned during an air raid on Port Said during the 1956 Suez crisis, and friendless in this Arab town because he's English. Sammy decides to go south to an aunt he's never seen, thousands of miles away in South Africa. Sammy must lie, steal and match wits with an adult world that tries to turn him back. But always he heads south. Young McClelland is impressive because he gains your heart, not by being cute, but by matching up to the toughness of his environment. Edward G. Robinson scores as the gruff white hunter complete with grizzled beard, who poaches diamonds on the side. Whether exaggerating about his past, tenderly recalling his dead wife, or stalking a leopard for the kill, Robinson gives a consistently enter- taining performance. BRITISH DIRECTOR Alexander MacKendrick has fused this episodic film together with suspense and humor, interspersed with the spectacle of the African veldt. Many sequences are cut abruptly, how- ever, which may mean distributors have tampered with the print. What's left, however, is some of the most beautiful, honest Cinemascope and color glimpses of the African continent. This film is really one that appeals to all ages. Kids will pull for Sammy and adults will enjoy the lively characters and dialogue. "A Boy Ten Feet Tail" will be here only through Saturday night. Go see it. --ALAN J. GLUECKMAN LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Reader Criticizes Coverage of Teach-In The fact that the prestigious blue ribbon committee put a rela- tive lack of emphasis on freshman and sophomore academic programs in its long range report probably will influence the board of edu- cation's area of concern in favor of technical programs. AN INCREASED emphasis on technical education at the two-year level could also crush the hopes that many university administrators have to shunt off the great mass of undergraduates to community colleges, leaving the larger institutions to advanced undergraduate and graduate edu- cation. Michigan State University President John Hannah declared early this year that the state board of education should imple- ment such a plan in order to allow MSU, the University and Wayne State University to expand their higher level programs. The report itself recognizes a significant obstacle to this tech- nical emphasis: "The teachers in the technical-vocational areas in particular, where change is likely to take place most rapidly, need to have been trained to face change." A SECOND major alteration the report proposes in the present system is greatly increased board of education controls over the community colleges. Specifically, there are three such controls: -"Coordination of educational programs among institutions," to ensure that programs between two community colleges or between a community college and a four- year' college do not overlap. -"Coordination of campuses and types of institutions through- out the state." Again, this is an attempt to prevent duplication of effort between two colleges. -"Administration of the formu- la for state support and capital outlay of community colleges." This is the mailed fist in the velvet glove; it means that the board should take the financial reins, the final arbiter of educa- tional disputes, into its hands for communty colleges as well as for four-year institutions. These three segments of the report give it its teeth and ensure that the diversity mentioned ear- lier will not become wasteful du- plication. Thomas J. Brennan, board president, has indicated h4s willingness to use just such in- struments to enforce coordination if necessary. A THIRD major-area which the report covers is the financing of community college operations and building construction. Stating that "high tuition costs are inconsistent with the very philosophy of the community col- lege, embodying the open door ad- missions policy," the report rec- ommends "a move toward lower tuition charges for community colleges." Since tuition is the major source of operating funds for a college, the report recog- nizes that "in the years immedi- ately ahead, the state will find it necessary to provide a larger share of the operating costs of community colleges." The report also recommends an increase in state capital outlay funds for community colleges. Capital outlay funds have always come to community colleges on a catch-as-catch-can basis. Several years ago, the state entered the picture; last year, the Legislature approved about $1.5 million for community college building opera- tions. THE REPORT concludes its fi- nancial portion by uring the state to "become prepared to pro- vide a substantially increased amount for both operating costs and capital costs of the commun- ity college program." Thus it paves the way for full-scale state com- mitment to the community college idea in the very near future. TOMORROW: The "blue ribbon" committee on instruction in Mich- igan, higher education. SEVERAL RANDOM reflections on spending seven and a half hours yesterday morning being an American: It is more significant that 26,000 students stayed home from the Viet Nam protest than that 3000 came. The whole affair happened because some people are repulsed by the many hypocrisies of our "war to save freedom," but in a more important way, Viet Nam was only the local point of some much deeper considerations. Here we are with a war whose initiation and new directions have not been voted on by Congress and the news of which is managed from Washington. The war involves political and military atrocities by the United States no less than by the Viet Cong. It is being pursued at the conscious risk (perhaps with the con- scious intention?) of escalation into a massive land and nuclear war with China. North Viet Nam is being bombed in the myopic hope that it will-even can-call off a civil war which is manned (over 90 per cent) and supplied almost wholly by the South Vietnamese and which opposes all the militaristic regimes which have flourished under our protection. The war is in disfavor among virtually all our allies and a vast majority of the American public (a recent Gallup poll indicated 82 per cent of those asked felt we should begin negotiations with China to end the warl. Yet there is no concrete talk on our side of what kind of settlement (if any) we would want short of Hanoi's capitula- tion. The war is being prosecuted despite the fact that Lyndon Johnson won an election by promising there would be no war. It is a war we cannot win, unless slaughter and destruction of a whole nation (North Viet Nam? Perhaps China?) are called victory. It is being justified in the lowest of high-sounding cliches. WHAT LED the hard core of the 3000 and their 250 teachers to protest yesterday was a terrifying perception of the impotence of concerned men to alter the course of this sickening war through anything like normal channels-indeed, of their impotence to alter anything in American foreign policy, which imposes our blind paranoia and our arrogance and our puny missionary spirit on small nations and which will lead to many more Viet Nam's if this one is ever settled. Impotent and enraged, there is nothing else a man can do but throw himself symbolically upon the gears of the machine, hoping that while it stops for repairs he can turn it around. And so they gathered to placethemselves on record and to straighten out the doubts each had on where and how to mredirect the machine. And the crowd was swelled by those not yet enraged but curious to know. IT WAS TOO BEAUTIFUL, for what had brought them together was really the 26,000 who did not come and the 150 who would have halted this sanctification of democracy had their jeers been loud enough and their "Drop the Bomb" signs big enough. The concept here rests on our technology, on the centralization of decision-making and its secrecy and on our mania for specialization. It is why the protest has been continually discounted for not originally including anyone from the political science department: supposedly only political scientists are qualified to have opinions on foreign affairs worthy of respect or just attention. But this is too generous, for really it is only the amoral technicians and the bureaucrats with expertise in Washington (from the President on down) who are thought qualified to run the nation. IS IT TOO FAR-FETCHED to maintain that what mattered Wednesday night was not what was being said but simply that non- official, lowly citizens were speaking? To the anti-democratic would-be aristocrats of the right, we have indeed reached the end of ideology, and it is intolerable that anyone pretends to understand and have an opinion on the "complex issues" of war and peace, men and machines, poverty and affluences. Popular opinion itself no longer seems relevant-only managerial techniques, whose sole principle is efficiency. And while wars can be analyzed as efficient or inefficient, peace is far too abstract. (Witness the "Drop the Bomb" signs. It is possible the 150 meant them just as a lark, but how ludicrous a joke. More likely, the signs expressed the unadmitted and unadmittable urge to expunge all insecurities and complexities in one grand, masculine gesture.) It's a dog-in-the-manger kind of concept: the unfortunate who is too awed and frightened by the world will not allow anyone else the right. to understand or feel or want to participate-anyone except hired hands trained specifically to assume the world's annoying burdens. Hired hands can certainly participate in making decisions, and perhaps they can understand, but it is doubtful if they can feel. NOWHERE IS THERE the notion that citizenship and the capacity to have worthwhile opinions on social policies require nothing more than a feeling one has something at stake in those policies. Knowledge flows naturally from here-from a broad, unbiased reading of the press, from thinking, from questioning. So even more basically, the point is that those represented by the 150 have never felt society mattered to them; their primary concern is only to be left alone by forces with which they cannot cope and which they must therefore destroy or forget. If sometimes these people seek power, it is only to subvert its potential more effectively by subdividing it, by hiding with it behind the multiple, "complex" masks which men in high places wear in order that they never have to face their supplicants squarely. So the 3000 gathered to say passionately why Americans should have a stake in Viet Nam, and how to gain that stake by asserting their right to participate in important decisions. And so the 150 howled and thrust their white signs into the air to say passionately, we do not care and we do not understand, and therefore others should not care and others should not understand. THE 26,000? It was not their absence that was conspicuous and bothersome, but rather their potential presence-among the 150 who were afraid this country was getting a little democracy. 'ti. r{y'::v:.. .,..:},-: "ti .ve" v+. ' ' t' .. v^'^+ 4^ : 'i'yvt" r r 1! R Student Judic: Too Weak STUDENT JUDICIARY, at its best, can be invaluable to the University. It can guarantee the student's right to a fair trial by his peers, it can check the pow- er of staff to direct student affairs; and it can give judiciary members valuable experience in law enforcement., Student judiciary, at its worst, can be a perversion of justice and of student participation. It can be a tool of the staff and administration, hiding their tight control of judiciary matters be- hind a facade of student decision, inef- fectual and hypocritical. UNFORTUNATELY, the University judi- ciary system today, because it is close- ly controlled by the administration and staff, is far too weak to come close to fulfilling its duties toward the students. Imagine a court where the accused is not given a copy of the charges against hm ,' .n a -h na, h a ,4an +iis a n - was the Joint Judiciary Council until 1963, when the constitution was changed to give the student these rights. But several months after the revision, during the summer of 1963, the Office of Student Affairs added an appendix to the constitution, providing for a Referral Committee of staff members to handle "severe and delicate" cases. Once again the guarantee of the student's right to a fair, open trial disappeared. THIS CLAUSE, which is still in effect, destroys the most important function of student judiciary: to provide for a stu- dent charged with a "severe or delicate" offense a trial by those who can under- stand the situation, sympathize with the problem, and penetrate the excuses. At the present time, most of the cases han- dled by student judiciary bodies are un- complicated and uncontroversial. IT IS with outrage, with the nauseous taste of bile in my mouth, that I read Thursday's Daily. Someone (a former Daily editor) once told me of the awesome sense of responsibility he felt as editor because he was a part of the last "outpost" of free journalism in the country-a' college newspaper that was bound by no faculty bias, no administrative timidity, no mone- tary fears. That editor would taste bile too if he read this morning's Daily. FOR WHAT have you done but abdicated your responsibility? It is as simple as that; I cannot excuse it as a mistake for you and your staff are "big people" and know "big" news when you see it. I read the faculty gets a raise, that ELI students have prob- lems. Where in hell is your head man? Do you not read the news- papers, do you not have your ear to the students? Last night thousands of stu- dents, faculty, townspeople came together to attempt to re-evaluate American foreign policy, a policy that now seems in the hands that Eisenhower warned us of, a policy that began on the heels of the fascist French rape of Viet Nam, stumbled past lie after lie, exposed its own lies in a "White Paper" that is worse than a white lie, that is worse than whitewash. Again-where was The Daily Wednesday night? To read your paper I would assume, incorrectly, that a bomb or threat of bomb is more important than the thou- sands of bombs that are being dropped in the name of all Ameri- cans in Viet Nam. It does not take a "crusading" newspaper to re- port, to interpret outrage against unreasoned bombings(if any bomb- ing indeed, is reasonable). Yet The dreds of people from all sectors of the country, from all religious and social backgrounds, attempted for one evening to penetrate "labels," to reason together to un- derstanding and action. IF AT any time I ever felt com- passion for my brothers, it was then-then when one person after another humbled himself in the name of his brother and struggled toward understanding, however imperfect. It was painful, but somehow very encouraging. Yet you have failed to record it, failed to interpret it for a wider audience, but yourselves and whatever high- er principles you appeal to for ultimate justification. -George Abbott White, '66 , 'OFFSET': 4 -I i 0u "OFFSET" is a noble idea, and the first issue seems to me very distinguished. The University has badly needed a journal with broad appeal to provide discourse between the thought of various disciplines, between scholars and writers, and between students and faculty. OFFSET is not arty, pre- cious, cliquish, nor written pri- marily by its own staff. The two major contributions by members of the faculty, Professor Oleg Grabar's report on the Uni- versity's archeological expedition to Syria in 1964, and the novel and fascinating "Casos" by Profes- sor Enrique Anderson- Imbert, both so far as I know hitherto unpub- lished, are respectively humanistic discourse and literary art of high quality, not i nthe least conde- ~1 Nor is the interest of the pub- lication limited to honors stu- dents, though students in the lit- erary college Honors Programs have brought it into being, except insofar as Honors represents the best that is thought and said on the campus. Indeed, the issue ends not so much with a bang as a hoot with an outrageous parody of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by Paul Sawyer partly at the expense of honors students. I SHALL LIMIT my comments on the specific contents of the re- view so as not to interfere with the reader's own reaction to it. Three creative essays are highly thoughtful and will prove, I think, quite sufficiently demanding: "Falling Up: Into the Realm of Emeritus Cornelius van Nostrum deals with it, but seems to me somewhat amateurish. The per- sona is not maintained with Swift- ian consistency, and the problem is not so much that social-scien- tific organizations would treat an- imals as people as that they would treat people as things. "K ATHERINE" BY Howard Wolf, a study of a dying 57- year old woman writer, is the major piece of fiction. With some- thing of the compression of An- derson-Imbert's "cases" it presents a whole novel as a brief story. I like it all but the ending, which perhaps I misunderstand. Harris Liechti's "A Sad Jar of Atoms" also depends too heavily on its ending and is in fact not a story partments" on the Michigan Arts Chorale, the Junior Year Abroad, and Campus Security, the first two by Associate Editor Carolyn Teich, ought to have been merely functional but are considerably more. Very thoroughly researched and written with care and a nice play of wit they remind one more if I may say so on this page) of the reports in the "New Yorker" than of those in The Daily. THIS FIRST ISSUE of "Offset" is dated the Ides of March- hence its tribute to Julius Caesar. But obviously it did not proceed with quite the inevitability of the assassination of Caesar, and the strain and haste of getting out a new publication are doubtless re- sponsible for the misprints. mis- k