Seventy-Fifth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Michigan MAD
Hurtling to Doomsday
By Robert Jolnston
ere 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.
THURSDAY, 15 APRIL 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: LEONARD PRATT
FINEST CONTRALTO:
Anderson Still Superb
After 30 Years
At HilltAuditorium
LAST NIGHT, Marion Anderson gave the "penultimate recital of
her farewell tour." For over 30 years this famous Negro contralto
has thrilled audiences all over the world. She has earned praise from
all over the world and from people from every walk of life. Toscanini,
Sibelius and Eisenhower have been unceasing in their praise of her
art. She has lost none of her communicative powers and she is still
growing as an interpreter.
Last night she truly lived up to her past praise.
Miss Anderson was, as usual, accompanied by Franz Rupp, her
accompanist for over 20 years. The rapport between these two artists
is a joy, for they have blended their two personalities into one unified
artist.
Students Must Tale Initiative
For Own Economic Welfare
1~
THAT THE HARD-EARNED University
of Michigan Student Employes -Union
wage increase should be followed so
quickly by announcements that dorm
rates will most likely rise seems to fit
unfortunately well the economic situation
surrounding the University campus.
Each time students gain a little in the
fight to better their academic situation,
they lose somewhere else. In the past
semester, both movies and haircuts went
up in price, along with rents; now it is
to be dorm fees. The fight to make
things less expensive looms as big a task
as ever.
Part of the difficulty in struggling to
better students 'economic position in Ann
Arbor results from the fact that the is-
sues are hot always as clear cut as they
might wish them to be. Indeed, there are
many factors involved that are often
hard to accept because they seem to
"cloud" the issues.
FOR INSTANCEstudents must realize
that when thy buy, they buy from
"Big World" enterprises-enterprises that
are selling to make a profit on the basis
of capitalistic rationality. The American
tradition says this is not wrong; indeed,
this is the basis of our system.
Thus students have to expect to pay
booksellers, landlords, movie owners,
clothes merchants and the rest a profit
for keeping their products on the mar-
ket. They provide goods and services;
students subsidize their time and trou-
ble. This is how the system works.
But if those who sell to the students
have a right to their profits, the stu-
dents should be allowed their right to
self-protection. They cannot say to the
Ann Arbor merchants, "You are entitled
to make so much a year, and if you make
more, you are being unfair to us." This
is ridiculous. Yet they can say, "We see
that what we are forced to purchase in
Ann Arbor is somewhat lower in stand-
ard and somewhat higher in price than
what we get in our home towns. Show us
we can buy better and cheaper."
AND STUDENTS have a gripe when they
cannot find a fruitful alternative sell-
er. The buying area open to the major-
ity of student customers is indeed quite
small. Price differentials within the
campus area seem negligible, while few
students have the time and the means to
go to downtown establishments. Thus
they cannot really effectively force prices
down by patronizing one establishment
over another-there just aren't enough
nearby outlets in each line of trade. If
al the competing firms on campus charge
much the same prices for much the same
quality products, what can students do?
One very popular idea is to go to the
University for help-to ask it to set up
low cost competition to help force prices
down. Yet the merchants can object,
for the University would be using tax
money from local businessmen to com-
pete with them. Would this be fair? In
4his one sense, perhaps not.
But the fact remains that students'
economic welfare plays a large part in
the stresses surrounding their education-
al experience, and indeed the ability to
get that education at all, and this is an
area of concern for the entire commu-
nity
JHnY, INDEED, when the community as
a whole puts tuition support and
scholarship moneys into student pockets
Sightseeing
PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON yes-
terday toured tornado-stricken areas
of the midwest. As he surveyed the shat-
tered rubble of human lives, observers
said the President could only whisper-
over and over-"How awful. How terri-
ble."
President Lyndon B. Johnson yesterday
landed 3000 more Marines in Viet Nam.
The President would do well to tour
some Vietnamese villages.
-LEONARD PRATT
should it be expected not to have some
voice in the economic surroundings into
which so much of that money flows so
profusely? The over large demand on
campus is a product of the University sit-
uation, and some responsibility to keep
it in hand should justifiably lie within
the hands of that institution.
If the people of this state are willing
to help finance our educations and low-
er our tuition costs, then for a few to
derive what seems to be unique benefits
from an abnormal economic situation
which can detract from the educational
process is indeed beyond the realm of the
"fair" and "justifiable" and should come
under the protection of the University,
if as nothing else than a protection of
investment.
Because of the capitalist nature of
our entire economy, however, specific
"rights" and "wrongs" are often hard to
pin down, and maybe students often mis-
direct their efforts. Yet Ann Arbor mer-
chants must realize they are dealing with
an essentially closed market, and as
such they must expect to be asked for
some accounting to customeras who must
"buy or do without" and for whom "doing
without" includes doing without an edu-
cation.
WHAT CAN ANN ARBOR bookmen ex-
pect but cries of "monopoly" and
"cartel" when they make so little appar-
ent effort on their own toward' dispelling
student resentment toward them? What
can Ann Arbor landlords expect but bit-
terness when they charge $65 per month
for cheesecake apartments and then force
Students to accept 12-month leases? When
students work at $1 or even $1.25 an
hour during valuable semester time only
to see much of their earnings disappear
when they have to pay from $30-$65 a
month for four months of apartment
space for which they have no use, is
there any wonder the cry goes up for
help?
The character of the University seems
to be changing, however - activism in
Alabama, the election ,of part of an "ac-
tivist" slate to SGC, UMSEU's efforts and
the teach-in are all signs of a forward
look. It's a shame the semester is end-
ing in the midst of it: the fall after the
long summer will be the test for the
struggle towards administrative aid in
economic welfare.
So far, the laws of supply and de-
mand in Ann Arbor have yielded the
present situation. As such, students have
no complaint against the system, as long
as they keep supporting it and making it
a profitable one. Nor can they really
expect the administration, which has
worries of its own, to act independently.
S THE SEMESTER hurtles to
a close and as late readings
are piled on late papers are piled
on early exams, classes -or at
least their educational content-
become increasingly irrelevant.
The University's demands upon its
students and faculty have been
kept at bay for the better part
of the semester, but the bills
must now be paid up in the face
of, at the very least, a summons
to Window A.
The student is forced to han-
die a series of last-minute hour-
lies, his final exams, some papers
and a special project or two. The
faculty are forced to keep up
with their research, continue to
prepare for classes, keep up with
their panicking students and grade
the last-minute deluge of student
output.
It is a trial by fire, and one
wonders if it isn't becoming a
built-in part of the system - if
this isn't the students' baptism for
his upcoming 40-year race through
American life. The philosophy
that the race goes to the strong
has perhaps sneaked into the Uni-
versity, and the student must
react to the starting gun not at
21 but at 18.
TRYING TO ABSORB, digest
and write about half a semester's
work inside of two weeks has be-
come little more than excellent
training and even selection for
political maneuvering, academic
ladder-climbing or cutting through
the corporate jungle. Add activi-
ties participation to the student's
schedule and the situation be-
comes ludicrous. Nonacademic
commitments increase exponen-
tially and classes, papers, projects,
"directed reading" and exams
cease to become merely irrelev-
ant and instead become impossi-
ble.
Is it worth it? This is the task
that has been set by an unholy
alliance between the University
and society. One can meet it head
on and try to surmount it; one
can ignore it and hope for the
best; one can try to skirt around
it-or perhaps the system can
even be lived with and made use
of.
PROF. FUSFELD of Econ 101
fame once referred, in one of his
less dogmatic lectures, to the
American system as a high-pres-
sure economy. The analogy can
be made broader by referring to
America as the high-pressure so-
ciety. And the pressure-cooker
university is all around us right
now. Cooking.
Unfortunately, the student's life
is now being boiled down to an
endless chaotic routine mixed un-
der high pressure. The theory is
that all the extraneous elements
of education are being filtered out
so that the real thing can be fed
quickly, cheaply and unadulter-
ated to the students. .
I say unfortunately because
there is absolutely no guarantee
that what is passed off as educa-
tion really is. The old brew that
made up a now-extinct pattern
of college living apparently worked
in its day. But we don't know
how it worked, and, in tinkering
with the old pattern, in trying
to preserve education without the
extras because of a lack of time,
money and interest, we may be
eliminating the very elements of
the old pattern that were most
important to successful education.
ACTUAL EDUCATION, center-
ing around personal involvement,
does seem to spring up by chance
-through random, perceptive ac-
quaintances, the unassigned book
that explains everything one has
not understood through six semes-
ters of reading lists, the unex-
pectedly delightful talk with a
teacher, a random exploration of
the many worlds within the Uni-
versity.
Those who pretend to be offer-
ing the student the purified es-
sences of education might be tak-
ing away what is really most val-
uable and offering instead the
routine, the standard and the or-
dinary. One can, in fact, define
education as something that the
student must acquire for himself.
Once that, is admitted, it fol-
lows that what is forced upon the
student by the educational sys-
tem takes up larger and larger
hunks of time which he should
be using in seeking that educa-
tion which he alone can provide
for himself. The University may be
forbidding education to its stu-
dents by the act of denying them
the time to search for it in the
random, personal manner that is
essential to one's education.
Great teachers speak of the
one-to-one correspondence so nec-
essary to great education. It can
be between the student and teach-
er, the student and an author he
has just discovered or between
him and a work of art, a book, a
personal experience or an idle
thought.
A POSSIBLE explanation for
the high-pressure University is
that, as numbers have everywhere
made it harder and harder to
keep up the old methods of edu-
cation, shortcuts have had to be
introduced which have seriously
weakened the educational process
rather than intensifying it as was
expected. As educators saw this
weakening take place, they moved
faster and faster and put more
and more wood on the fire to re-
vive the dying patient with the
very methods that were already
killing it.
They impose more and more
gimmicks and shortcuts and de-
vices in an attempt to preserve
the most vital parts of the edu-
cational process, but instead they
worsen the situation ,and we con-
tinue round the vicious circle.
LAST GLANCES
TWO ARIAS BY
with a feeling for the;
Miss Anderson's gift
HANDEL opened the program; they were done
grand line. The following Haydn songs displayed
for communicating'even the simplest message.
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But the four songs by Schubert which followed proved beyond a
doubt that Miss Anderson is the finest contralto in the world, even
today. The performance of "Liebesbotschaft" was a marvel of under-
statement. "Der Doppelgaenger" was brought to a brooding climax
as Miss Anderson utilized her beautiful chest voice, and the anguish
of "Der Erlkoenig" was the height of the first part of the recital. Half
speaking at times, Miss Anderson invested each person in this song
with individuality. A performance of this difficult song with such
intensity comes once in a generation: we are lucky to have heard it.
Miss Anderson ended the first half of the program with four con-
temporary American and British songs. Samuel Barber's "Nocturne"
was sung with great emotion. The other songs were also well sung,
and she invested each one with her own inimitable art.
THE SECOND HALF of the concert consisted entirely of Negro
spirituals and, as could be expected, brought some of the most moving
moments of the entire evening. Miss Anderson has a rapport, a feeling
for these pieces which few other Negroes have. She sings them with
simplicity, warmth and reverence.
For encores, Miss Anderson offered two Schubert pieces. Her per-
formance of "Ave Maria" was worth waiting for, sung with a fine
sense of line and unusually fine breath control. It was a beautiful
finale to an inspiring recital.
Miss Anderson has proved herself over the years to be one of the
finest artists one can find in the world. Perhaps someday another
contralto will come before the public with as beautiful a voice as hers,
but not for many, many years will one come who has the artistry and
the sensitivity which she showed last night.
IT IS A SAD FACT that Miss Anderson is leaving the recital
stage. One hopes she is not leaving music entirely, for she will certainly
live in our minds for many years as we think about performances
such as last night's.
-RICHARD LeSUEUR
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Getting Educated: the Image vs. the Reality
4
RATHER, STUDENTS are the campus
area consumers, and the initiative
must come from them. Students could
have beaten the movie prices had they
felt like sacrificing and working at it-
they did not. They could have, in the
past, beaten the Ann Arbor 50 per cent
plus book markup had they felt like
walking to the SAB basement and wait-
ing a semester for their money. And they
could even have had lower text book
prices had they supported the USNSA
co-op, hoping time would help eradicate
its shortcomings. They did not. They
have no right to complain when they re-
fuse to work at fostering competition.
It is the students' general attitude, not
any administration verdict as such, that
will decide the question. Administration
decisions do not come to students cold-
they do influence them. There seems
little they can do on their own about
housing-though UMSEU has been taking
some good concrete steps to bring in
apartment competition - without vast
capital.
Nor is there much they can do alone
about a bookstore to handle new texts-
that would require $100,000 and thus ad-
ministration or other "outside" help. They
must, however, support the SBX in the
fall, and must repeatedly vocalize and
organize economic desires where they are
not allowed normal competitive expres-
sion, until they can find the sources to
allow substantial betterment of their sit-
uation.
By DEBORAH BEATTIE
Associate Editorial Director, 1964-65
IF ONE of my classmates were to
tell me now what I was told by
President Hatcher at a freshman
orientation convocation in the fall
of 1961, I would wonder if he and
I had really been attending the
same university.
In spite of all the positive in-
doctrination of orientation week,
it didn't require many semesters
to discover that the University is
not ideal-it's not even a Harvard,
Midwestern or otherwise; that,
though our class, like every class
coming after it,. was the "most
intelligent class ever to enter the
University," few of its members
would be either intellectually stim-
ulating or intellectually stimulat-
ed; that, even if the University is
cosmopolitan in appearance, it is
seldom so in attitude; that the
boastful prediction, meant to be a
challenge, that "it is difficult to
do well at the University," is not
true.. .
But it takes much longer to dis-
cover what makes the University
an admirable institution in spite
of its failures. This is something
that can't be explained in an
orientation session, because the
value of an undergraduate educa-
tion at the University can't be
blanketly assessed for the student
body as a whole; it is a very per-
sonal value that must be discover-
ed by each individual in terms of
his own hopes, needs, frustrations
and fulfillments at the University.
I HAVE SPENT three years
here. I lived in a dormitory and
in a sorority. I sampled a variety
of literary college disciplines,
changing my intended major four
times. I worked on The Daily,
which gave me contact with a
broad spectrum of administrators,
faculty and students and their
schemes and philosophies-or lack
of them.
Some of these confrontations
were stimulating and rewarding,
some just fun and many disap-
pointing. I spent one of myunder-
graduate years as a student in
Paris, which gave me a chance to
test by comparison the value of
a University education.
At the end of this, I understand
the University only enough to say
that it is neither excellent nor bad.
I'm not sure that it can ever be
excellent, but I know it can be
better.
I can't define an ideal Univer-
sity for anyone but myself, because
what I sought from the University
may be totally unlike what the
other 29,000 students here are
seeking. I have wanted different
thnca rrnth nivprcifv f-nm
tured education here, too many
unnecessary requirements. There
isn't enough time to think and
explore. Minds stay closed, dreams
don't grow, partly because that
kind of growth is rarely demand-
ed here except on somebody else's
terms.
Many of the University's fail-
ings are structural. An under-
graduate degree is practically
guaranteed to anyone who stays
around for at least eight semes-
ters. Consequently, just getting a
degree and getting out has become
the obvious and encouraged un-
dergraduate goal. The formula for
attaining it is a simple one: take
15 credit-hours per semester and
get at least a C in every course.
It doesn't matter if the whole
course is forgotten the day after
the final exam is completed and
the final grade is in (unless it is
a prerequisite, in which case you
are expected to wait a year or so
before forgetting it). After that
the degree-granters only count
points; knowledge isn't questioned
again. All one has to do is show
a specified (not to be confused
with lasting) level of competence
eight times in four years and he
can pass Go and collect.
THE UNIVERSITY attempts to
make the game meaningful by
building in guarantees that an
undergraduate's "liberal educa-
tion" will be well chosen and well
earned-distribution requirements,
counselors, final exams-but they
don't assure a good education; in
fact, they often make it more dif-
ficult to attain one.
Distribution requirements -
mandatory insurance of broad aca-
demic acquaintances-do more
harm than good. Education should
be personally defined; the Uni-
versity cannot possibly know what
academic approach will be best
for each student. There is more
value in discovering for oneself
what will be the most meaningful
area of intellectual effort, and to
what degree, and from what direc-
tions the major area or areas of
study will be pursued.
If a student comes to the Uni-
versity undecided about his aca-
demic- interests, then he will
sample independently a variety of
disciplines. If a student comes
determined to bury himself in
nothing but mathematics, then he
should be able to start out just
that way. Sessions with his co-
horts in other disciplines probably
will induce him to explore other
fields. And, if not, he may dis-
cover a vital mathematical prin-
ciple that much sooner.
I can't believe that a semester
of watering geraniums in the bo-
tnnienl -ardens advanced my Pdu.
administrative red tape, rarely
have time to be real academic aids.
They often blunder, and the stu-
dent is forced to suffer the con-
sequences of their miscalculations.
Once a freshman has been ini-
tiated into the intricacies of the
University's system of checks and
balances, he should not again be
forced to check in with a counselor
unless he desires his advice. Freed
from hours of required checking
and signing, counselor-policemen
could become counselor-teachers
with more nearly sufficient time
to give thorough academic advice
to those who truly want and need
it.
Secretaries, not faculty, should
be hired to deal with the unavoid-
able bureaucratic procedures of
pre-classification and registration.
They undobutedly would be more
efficient.
FINAL EXAMS, in principle the
ultimate check on the quality of
academic efforts, have lost their
meaning here due to trimester
pressure. Finals have become hur-
ried, unstimulating, hardly a
means of demonstrating a serious,
lasting learning effort. Indeed, the
student who has only a superficial
grasp of a subject has an advan-
tage because he is better adapted
to the once-over-lightly approach.
In two hours such a tiny por-
tion of the course material can be
covered that students can't pos-
sibly show what they have learned,
and teachers can't evaluate what
they have been able to teach.
But even before the reign of
the two-hour final, the Univer-
sity's exam system was inadequate.
A week-long reading period is es-
sential if finals are to have any
relevance to a learning process.
This seems to be coming slowly
and will be a big step forward.
What I would like most to have
incorporated into the examination
structure is a system of compre-
hensive examinations for seniors.
Not only is this the best way to
measure the total worth of the
houm's put into obtaining a degree,
but it would encourage students to
retain learning and create intel-
lectual correspondences as they
pass from course to course.
MY DEEPEST DISTRESS with
the University, though, has not
been with administrative failings
but with the students' attitudes,
my own certainly included.
The University is extolled ad
nauseum as a magnificently di-
verse and cosmopolitan intellec-
tual body. But this is true only on
the surface. The value of a geo-
graphic admissions policy and the
imnrnsivo numbero f forpin nstu-
the Union. A few have American
"big brothers," but in general they
are a group apart-not unwelcome,
just unnoticed.
In a sense it is not surprising
that tight University circles don't
open up to include foreign stu-
dents. Even East and Midwest,
U.S.A., often seem to mix un-
easily here. Long Islanders want
to recreate Long Island; Birming-
ham, Michigan, reproduces itself
on a smaller scale. Not until such
groups realize that it is not par-
ticularly beneficial to bring their
city limits to the University, will
it seem worthwhile to make more
difficult acquaintances with for-
eign students.
AND, SPEAKING of tight little
circles, I think first of the group
whose circle is made secure with
Greek symbols. Having spent a
little more than a year in this
system, I give whole-hearted ap-
proval to Regent Sorenson's pro-
posal to deny University recogni-
tion to fraternities and sororities.
There is a lot tobesaid for
sorority life. It is gracious, com-
fortable, easy and fun. And social
security besides.
I won't quibble about the mem-
bership selection procedure, al-
though I don't think it is par-
ticularly admirable. I don't claim
that a sorority or fraternity has
no worthwhile function: I value
the few close friendships I made
in a sorority as highly as those I
made outside of it. But I am con-
vinced that the essence of the
Greek system is anti-academic,
and it doesn't merit the benefits
of University recognition.
Particularly in the sorority, but
also in the dormitory, I encoun-
tered another disappointment with
University life: classroom discus-
sions remain just that. Sometimes
an interesting idea is kept alive
long enough to get from Angell
Hall to the Union, but it rarely
survives a trip to a housing unit.
Not that there aren't plenty of
interesting discussions there;
thoughts on sex and religion in-
volve entire corridors for hours at
a time. But ideas and questions
raised in a classroom are rarely
shared by housemates, except
when someone makes a desperate
attempt to find out about every-
thing that might be asked in the
next day's exam. Faculty dinners
are approached with anxiety or
alarm because academic dinner
table discussions in housing units
are such unnatural phenomena.
GOING FROM a negative pic-
ture of the University to the
4. - - - Li - 1- _n sn mr
ful to find an occasional professor
who was dull or did nothing but
lecture from a, text, since that
meant that I could stay home and
read a book.
On the whole, I haven't been
disappointed with the teachers
here. Too often they are hurried
and busy. Rarely are they disin-
terested. I have seldom confront-
ed a professor who was unwilling
to discuss and explain outside of
class. And many of my negative
stereotypes were dissolved by their
efforts in the teach-in on Viet
Nam.
Aside from the obvious things
like the teach-in, APA, cheap
cough medicine at Health Service,
intriguing lectures,. crossing a
a deserted Diag, all-night philo-
phizing, The Daily . . ., I find it
difficult to describe what is "good"
at the University. Not because it
is so difficult to find, rather be-
cause it seems to change as my
ideas and dreams change.
THE CLOSEST I can come is
to say that the good at the Uni-
versity is whatever stimulates per-
sonal development. Most of the
good that I found was outside the
classroom. Not that classes are
worthless in principle, but they
often were so in fact.
In class I took notes; outside I
discovered what I wanted and
needed to learn. I made most of
my discoveries at The Daily. The
gave me made it possible for me
contacts and confrontations it
to consider what the University
ought to be and why it isn't that
way.
But I'm afraid that much of the
good at the University is being
lost. With trimester pressures
haunting everyone, there isn't
time to experience it anymore. A
student here no longer has time
to discover that the rest of the
world relates to his classes.
Time for The Daily had to be
stolen. I missed classes, I didn't
sleep. One should be free to be a
bookworm and work on The Daily
or demonstrate in Selma or write
a novel or campaign for Gold-
water, if he wants to. I am
tempted to say that the latter
are more important experiences
than attending classes because
most courses cL.n be learned from
books, whereas the essence of
student activities is first-hand ex-
perience. Others have different
answers - equally valuable for
them. The University must become
flexible enough to embrace and
encourage all kinds of learning.
I don't know what the best so-
lution to preserving this flexibility
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