Seventy-Fifth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSIT Bof MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTH-ORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
SMALL APPROPRIATIONS...
The Literal Business of Education'
here Opinions Art Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth Will Prevail
NEWs PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual ojiinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1964
NIGHT EDITOR: EDWARD HERSTEIN
The Student Ation League:
There's a Lot for It To Do
THE CAMPUS needs the Student Action
League. Regardless of their intent, the
administration, the faculty, local merch-
ants and students themselves cause mul-
tiple problems which cry for concerted,
organized, student-led direct action. The
problems justify the existence of the SAL;
manifest possibilities for their alleviation
give it plenty to do.
that rate changes during the
contract are prohibited.
period of
There
problem;
self felt
are several major University
areas where SAL could make it-
through pressure-group, direct
action tactics:
ONE: BOOK STORES. The SAL could:
-Greatly enhance the chances that
the co-op book store will be a permanent
success by having all SAL members join
it and give it their support.
-Throw eight-man picket lines around
each of the major book stores during fall
orientation and the first two weeks of the
semester. Pickets could distribute litera-
ture comparing the prices of the major
book stores with those of the co-op book
store and the paperback shop on South
University.
-Organize centralized mass purchas-
ing of books and supplies by making ar-
rangements for large purchases from pub-
lishers, wholesalers, or mail-order houses.
TWO: ,STATE APPROPRIATIONS. One
very successful pressure group - the
John Birch Society-has an interesting
method of putting pressure on legislators
who don't do as it wishes. It has often
showered "borderline" congressmen -
those who have middle-of-the-road vot-
ing records-with hundreds of letters only
days after those congressmen have leaned
too far left in important votes. The SAL
could organize a letter writing drive by
students and their parents which would
be directed at borderline state legislators
during appropriations time. The SAL it-
self could picket and distribute literature
around the capitol during the crucial days
of legislative action.
THREE: APARTMENT rental rates. Here,
SAL could obtain prices from all major
Ann Arbor landlords, print and distribute
to the student body comparative price
lists for apartments. If necessary, it could
arrange selective boycotts of the most un-
fairly-priced apartments; such boycotts
would have to be narrowly aimed (at one
landlord or a few houses) since the apart-
ment occupancy rate in Ann Arbor is high.
FOUR: RESIDENCE HALLS. The dormi-
tories are crowded now, and it appears
they will stay that way in the near future.
The University will admit about500 more
freshmen this fall; administrators now
concede that no new housing will be open
until at least January.
The SAL should apply pressure to de-
mands that, contrary to this year's poli-
cies, the University take the following
actions:
--Allow students above the freshman
level to break their contracts without pay-
ifig a prohibitive penalty.
--Limit contracts for men above the
freshman level and women above the jun-
or level to one semester.
-Change residence hall contracts so
H. NEIL BERKSON, Editor
KENN4ETH WINTER EDWARD HERSTEIN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
ANN GWIRTZMAN ................Personnel Director
BILL BULLARD ........................ Sports Editor
MICHAEL SATTINGER .... Associate Managing Editor
JOHN KENNY.............Assistant Managing Editor
DEBORAH BEATTIE ...... Associate Editorial Director
LOUISE LIND ........ Assistant Editorial Director in
Charge of the Maga~ine
TOM ROWLAND............Associate Sports Editor
GARY WYNER...............Associate Sports Editor
STEVEN HALLER ..............Contributing Editor
MARY LOU BUTCHER .........Contributing Editor
CHARLES TOWLE .,......Contributing Sports Editor
NIGHT EDTORS: David Block, John Bryant, Jeffrey
Goodman. Robert Hippier, Laurence Kirshbaum.
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Gail Blumberg, Rob-
ert Johnston, John Meredith, Leonard Pratt, Bar-
bara Seyfried, Karen Weinhouse.
Business Staff
JONATHON R. WHITE, Business Manager
JAY GAMPEL .......... Associate Business Manager
SDNEY PAUKER.............Advertising Manager
JUDITH GOLDSTEIN...... ....... Finance Manager
BARBARA JOHNSTON.............Personnel Manager
RUTH SCHEMNITZ ................ Systems Manager
JUNIOR MANAGERS: Bonnie Cowan, Susan Craw-
ford, Joyce Feinber, Judith Fields, Judith Grohne,
Judith Popovits, Patricia Termini, Cy Weilman.
afTmrf Amt1' i'NT ANAU'Pa. irr,,. v loh. Sm Chafetz
-Reduce rates for converted rooms
by more than the minimal $10-15 adjust-
ments now in effect. At present, a stu-
dent in a converted double (a single with
two occupants) must pay $25 more than
a student in a "small double," even though
the latter room is larger.
-Make a commitment to convert resi-
dence hall rooms back to normal capacity
within three years. The University could
possibly accomplish this by shifting its
priorities within the residence halls: jun-
ior women could be given apartment per-
mission; residence halls advisory staffs
could be pared down to reasonable size-
partially through the elimination of
housemothers; landscaping work (such as
new flagpoles and fancy walks in front of
South Quadrangle) could. be held to a
minimum.
-Require each student in the residence
halls to pay only for the the meals he
eats. This would not adversely effect the
budget of the residence halls; the total
number of students eating each meal
would be as predictable as it is now. Per-
haps students would eat fewer total meals,
but the University could adjust for this
by charging them less.
FIVE: UNIVERSITY students desperate-
ly need organized student course eval-
uations. The SAL could follow the exam-
ple of "SLATE," a student group at the
University of California, in publishing a
handbook containing the consensus on
each course of a number of students who
have taken it. If the Board in Control
of Student Publications refused to allow
SAL to publish or distribute the evalua-
tion booklets (it has that power), SAL
could use clandestine methods (one might
be to print evaluations during the sum-
mer and distribute them through the
book stores).
SIX: THE UNIVERSITY libraries have
several inconvenient and self-defeat-
ing policies. SAL should work to:
-Reduce library fines. At present, they
are so exorbitant that many students are
encouraged to steal books rather than
chance keeping them a day-or even an
hour-late.
-Eliminate the searching policy at the
doors of the Undergraduate Library. Vir-
tually anybody can sneak a book out now
if he wants to; only a frisking policy could
physically eliminate the vast majority of
book thefts. The library could purchase
500 more books a year if it didn't have
to pay the checker; implementing the
above policies should prevent those books
from being replacements.
SEVEN: MANY STUDENTS desire
changes in various Regents' bylaws and
academic and administrative policies. SAL
should sound out student feeling-and
take action if the feeling is high enough-
on the following issues: grading systems,
departmental divisions, rules governing
Diag demonstrations, initiation of new
classes. Individual students and recog-
nized student organizations are now work-
ing for change in all these areas. But
SAL, as direct action pressure-group,
could be much more effective.
SAL WILL HAVE the best chance for
success if it does not seek-indeed,
shuns-University recognition as an "of-
ficial" student organization. Recognized
student organizations eventually develop
a vested interest in their own recogni-
tion. They begin to depend on their Uni-
versity-supplied offices; they begin to de-
pend on University approval of their
speakers; they begin to have sufficient
purpose for existence in their mere con-
tinued recognition by the University. SAL
must avoid these pitfalls by operating
outside the power structure of the Uni-
versity; it must work for reform through
external pressure.
If SAL dies, as many fear it will, with-
out achieving any of its major aims, its
existence will have proved worthwhile.
For it will have proved that the spirit of
student activism, dormant on this cam-
pus in recent years, is still there if you
look for it. And it will have helped de-
fine what limits there are on the effec-
tiveness of direct action pressure groups
on this campus.
iF, ON THE OTHER HAND, it does
By CHARLES F. LEHMANN
THE THESIS which I advance
here is that the University pre-
occupies itself increasingly with
business procedures. As a con-
sequence, a subtle tribute is ex-
acted from each student and each
faculty member.
Having stated what must for
many seem a truism, let me put
the disclaimer; I seek no malevo-
lent spirit, I find no grand con-
spiracy. Rather, my witness is to
a set of conditions which deliver
to fiscal operatives effective con-
trol of educational institutions.
Some seven years and three
legislatures ago, the University
underwent a fundamental change
of life, from relative plenty, to
relative impecuniocity. The so-
called cash crisis in the state of
Michigan presented the University
withma curtailed income in the face
of mounting enrollments. I sup-
pose most of us thought it was a
temporary dip, and although
piqued, confronted the Legislature
generally with acquiescent mien.
The increased numbers of stu-
dents were accommodated partly
at their own expense in the form
of higher tuition, and partly at
their own expense in the form of
larger classes. The University con-
spicuously protected the virtue of
its faculty during the crisis by
moderate salary increases, but the
faculty also had to bear the real
costs of larger classes, inadequate
space and insufficient secretarial
support.
THE LEGISLATURE attempted
to rationalize its niggardly posture
in the name of improved instruc-
tional efficiency. Now certainly.
there is nothing new about legis-
lative suspicion. concerning the
operation of institutions of higher
education, but in the last decade
or so these suspicions have been
nurtured by large tax-conscious
business organizations, large fund-
granting foundations, and federal
agencies. Somehow, those outside
looking in would like to puncture
the mythology, broach the precious
academic enclave, and arrange it
all more efficiently and more
cheaply-a bigger baccalaureate
for a buck, as it were. Perhaps, as
some suggest, the cost of educa-
tion has exceeded a sort of tax-
able pain threshold and the pres-
ent anguish of large taxpayers
would have been heard inevitably.
One can argue with equal cogency,
however, that large tax payers
were quick to recognize a vulner-
able area which ould be exploited
to their profit.
The University generously lent
its good offices to the noxious
legislative invasion and half-
swallowed the efficiency rational-
ization. Among a host of other
things, we began by listing class
enrollments, including those es-
pecially which had fewer than 15;
then we reported space utilization;
and now we tally the extent of
faculty effort expended monthly
in research projects. Such ac-
tivities, taken alone, seem in-
nocuous enough but collectively
suggest a changed climate at the
University; a defensive, petti-
fogging climate of mistrust and
suspicion. .
Presumably, legislatures have a
right to inquire, and presumably,
universities have an obligation to
explain, but any politeness in the
presumption disappears in the face
of budget control. Most cherish
an illusion of university communi-
ties as social oases which hang
together by mutual trust and in-
dividually responsible action. Ap-
parently, such an illusion can be
sustained only in time of plenty-
when legislatures are responsive
to university needs as universities
describe them. When the budget
shrinks, and internal competition
for insufficient funds commences,
the whole illusion is replaced by a
management and control system
designed to reassure suspicious
legislators that they are getting
their money's worth, so that next
time around the appropriation
may be more generous.
* *
HOW DOES ONE establish a
control system to respond to such
a set of conditions? I can only
speculate, but I am certain no one
did in fact contrive a system; it
just grew. And it grew first from
control of the funds, tiny as it
was, which in the past gave free-
dom to various schools and col-
leges to decide within modest lim-
its what their courses of action
might be-whether to adventure
down this path, whether to close
off this one and push that one.
Second, the accountancy net-
work was broadened. More fac-
ulty and researchers were incor-
porated into it and asked to re-
port on themselves and their col-
leagues. Forms, agencies and pro-
cedures'multiplied and thanks in
part of federal insistence, we have
been reviewed, overseen, audited,
second guessed, monitored and
site-visited.
Third, I suspect that the ac-
might be-when a dean, by pru-
dent management, could carry
over small but crucial surpluses
from one year to the next either
as a hedge against past invest-
ments or as a kitty for future ones.
These were years when faculty
morale was self-sustaining, when
more of a holistic view was possible
and rewarding, when educational
concerns preoccupied faculty time,
when indeed there was time for
reflective examination.
Unless the legislative climate
changes radically, these amenities
are not likely to return-the
drought has been too long with
us, and counter forces have been
too long established to be banish-
ed lightly. The real cost to the
whole system has been the pro-
gressive .and requisite preoccupa-
tion with new and spiralling
schemes for acountancy, and a
corresponding lessening of con-
cern for the educational goals of
a university.
What kind of animal survives
in such a climate? Surely, it can-
not be an altruistic one who takes
a large, selfless view of the uni-
verse, for in an economic power-
play, his wisdom is not negotiable.
No, the surviving species is the
acquisitive, self-protective, cynical
entrepreneur who has the skill to
permit him to withdraw from the
contest. The assumption is that
the environment has made him
that way--that he wasn't born al-
together selfish..
the administration is a subver-
sion of their true role and in-
terest; particularly so when the
committees are used to ratify pre-
determined decisions.
Still, one ought to give proper
credit to those who presume to
manage the sprawling mechanism,
and who attempt to maintain a
kind of institutional sanity by
ascribing pieces of rationality to
various acts and decisions. That
they are the targets of much op-
probrium is no particular cause
for sorrow. A proper empathy,
rather, should concern itself with
the inability of anyone to com-
prehend the system wholly-to
have the kind of prescience which
could foretell the effects of the
introduction of one change upon
all the related parts of the system.
One can sympathize with their
seeming obligation to be infallible;
to make sense out of nonsense, to
preserve equitability among un-
equals.
YET IT IS PRECISELY the
preoccupation of the University
with its own mythological image
which gets in the way of creative
responses to the disjointing strains
of new and unfamiliar pressures
and problems. Why indeed, should
titular leaders behave in the same
ways they did several decades
ago? Why must the University as
it grows more corporate, grow
proportionately thinner skinned-
overly responsive to criticism in-
ternally and externally?
Part of the reason, surely, is
that the very size of the institution
has made the communication
problem among the members more
difficult and less personal. These
negative effects are exagggerated
because they must stand along
side marvels of new communica-
tive devices which have not been
applied to the university setting.
Another part of the reason is that
the control and management sys-
tem itself is outmoded and un-
suited to current tasks. We creak
along with antediluvian forms and
processes and vulcanize new pro-
cedures and safeguards into the
old carcasses. Because we know the
inadequacy of the structure, we
convince ourselves paranoically
that everyone is cheating, and
spend a disporportionate amount
of time looking for crooks. We
create a fog of regulations de-
signed to forestall every question,
and a paper snow storm of reports
to monitor every activity.
In short, the University behaves
as though it were a business which
had a product and was expected
to show a profit. The long arm
of security for state and federal
funds, fortified by the business-
industrial community, has pushed
us over the edge.
WHAT CAN BE DONE about it
-if anything should be done
about it? The first requirement
seems to me to be a frank recog-
nition that the nature of a twen-
tieth century university is vastly
different from what we knew as
students or even what we think
we now know as teachers. It is
an exciting and challenging new
social form and the reasons which
impel people to come to it or
work in it scarcely resemble what
we once knew. Moreover, the ef-
fects which the university in turn
produces on related interacting
social and governmental institu-
tions are profound, and for the
large part, unexamined. Some or-
ganized public discussion of these
and other aspects of the evolving
university could inject trust into
the system, a quality of confidence
which is badlyneeded if the uni-
versity mechanism is to adapt con-
structively to new realities.
Second, we must somehow dis-
cover ways of decentralizing bud-
getary control so that the instruc-
tional units can accept a larger
measure of risk for the course of
their affairs. It seems to me that
real educational invention will be
the product of faculty or college
endeavor and properly so, since
they will need to make the new
inventions work. Consequently, a
greater degree of choice and free-
dom in budget matters seems a
necessary and corollary pre-
requisite.
Finally, it goes without saying
that the role of university admin-
istration across the board is one
of encouragement, stimulation and
facilitation for faculty and stu-
dents. It is also a role of inter-
cession for the University com-
munity with governmental bodies,
not a role as an agent of govern-
ment or business. But their task
is much larger; we expect resist-
ance to the cult of efficiency; we
need leadership in the definition
of a modern university; we expect
the initiative for definition to
occur from within rather than
from without; and we expect to
help. No one suggests that it is
easy; the leadership of equals
never is.
NEXT WEEK:
MARVIN FELHEIM
, ,
;,
... CHANGE THE EMPHASIS
4
I
CHARLES F. LEHMANN, associate dean of
the education school, joined the Univer-
sity faculty in 1955. The same year he re-
ceived the academic honor of Burke Aaron
Hinsdale Scholar in the education school.
Lehmann is especially known for his criti-
cal interest in our growing and sometimes
impersonal University. "The only way a
student can get noticed around here," he
said recently, "is by bending his IBM card."
4
countant's view - of life is power-
fully attractive to University
executive officers who are buffeted
constantly by misinformed and
hostile publics. It is somehow so
oomfortabiy tidy to list, count and
line up figures in balanced
columns.
At any rate, the disease of ef-
ficiency or accountancy is by now
pervasive and has even acquired
an aura of normalcy. Several thick
layers of fiscal operatives have
sprouted whose mission seems
clear-disburse selectively, audit
wholesale to make certain the
control mechanisms are working,
and conceal some of the rules of
the game so that the advantage
will continue to remain with the
house. Finall; , as the system be-
comes institutionalized, no one
ever fundamentally questions it.
The past acts of the leaders are
viewed as right, and the more re-
moved intime they are, the righter
they become. Therefore, one chal-
lenges the gospel knowingly and
at his peril
THE HAZARDS to the faculty
and students lie not wholly in the
visible management system, which
after all, can be described if not
understood, but also in the invis-
ible, internecine contests which
wax and wane between the vice-
presidential baronies. It is a sport-
ing task to solve a problem which
touches the prerogatives, or the
budgets, of mnor. than one.
There was a time in an expand-
ing Universitr economy when a
faculty could plan with some con-
fidence what its future course
PART OF the difficulty is that
the University is not the mytho-
logical institution we pretend it
is, nor ever was. The faculty is
not and probably can no. longer
be the controlling voice in a large
corporate educational mechanism.
University administrators would
likely agree that their major pro-
duct seems increasingly to be
order; finding some way to relate
students, faculty, government,
ideas and markets. They would
also note an increase in the pro-
portion of personnel who are de-
voted to messages and control,
Further, since the space-time ra-
tio is decreasing, it is possible tc
use a single network of control
and order to cover more space, and
with an increase in size, they
would report a large increase in
the use of nonhuman methods and
energy. They would probably alsc
note that such instrumentalities
which spreadover many people
are efficient, but that the con-
sequent interstitial relations are
not so efficient.
Confronted with such a complex
it would seem presumptuous to
even the most knowledgeable fac-
ulty member to tender advice of
any sort, much less to seek an
effective part in the governance
of the institution. A busy, in-
terested member of a teaching
faculty can, after all, have but a
limited view of the institutional
universe, or else lose his credential
in the faculty and become part of
the message and control hier-
archy. One can argue, in fact,
that the creation ofrcommittees of
faculty for the purpose of advising
t
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5
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Rebutting the Argument
Against Student Unions
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To the Editor:
MUST OBJECT to Deborah
Beattie's ill-considered and in-
consistent attack on the University
of Michigan Student Employe's
YUnion which appeared in Wednes-
day's Daily. Several obvious fal-
lacies deserve comment:
1) Miss Beattie claims that stu-
* dents are inferior employes be-
cause "they seldom hold jobs long
enough to be well trained or in-
* tegrated into the business pro-
ceedings." What sort of jobs are
these-clerical, executive, coordin-
ating? No. Students work as bus-
boys, delivery boys, waitresses,
dishwashers-roles so lowly and
menial that, as Miss Beattie ob-
serves herself, they "do not often
require much talent or intelli-
gence." Menial laborers, student or
otherwise, are interchangeable; a
high employe turnover rate in
menial jobs does not hinder busi-
ness proceedings in the least.
2) She claims that "if they were
forced to pay students higher
wages, business would probably
seek the stability of a permanent
labor force that would be hired on
the same salary basis." This con-
tention is absurd. The UMSEU has
set its wage demands at $1.25 per
hour. A full-time worker at that
wage would have a yearly income
of $2400.. President Johnson set the
margin of poverty at $3000, and
most labor economists think $4000
much more realistic. With these
figures in mind, it is impossible to
see students excluded from the
labor market by a wage increase
to $1.25 per hour.
3) She predicts that since the
residence halls are run on a "tight
wagebudget," a "nonessential new
expense" in the form of a student
wage increase would only drive
up dorm fees. But how close are
the dorms to providing only the
bare essentials? It is generally
acknowledged that people under
financial pressure do not provide
themselves with maid service, dup-
licate libraries and commercial
linen service. But the residence
halls do.
TO THE STUDENT forced to
dilute his education with 10-20
hours of work every week, it might
also seem more essential to be paid
higher wages than to nay the
that the gains resulting from wage
increases won by a strike simply
would not compensate for wages
lost during the strike, and there-
fore that the organization is point-
less. By this statement' she mis-
represents and maligns the mem-
bership of the UMSEU. It, like
the Student Action League, was
formed not only to relieve current
student grievances, but also to
build a better University for future
students. If its members must
sacrifice a few dollars in wages
to achieve better student condi-
tions, then they will do so will-
ingly.
They will not share the lazy.
negativism of Miss Beattie and
many other students; they are
committed to action for a better
future.
. -Wiliam Clark, '67
A Place To Study
To the Editor:
IT HAS BECOME increasingly ap-
parent of late that there is an
acute shortage of study space in
the library system. In the past,
one solution for the undergrads
has been to use the carrels at the
G eneral Library. Unfortunately,
because some immature students
seriously abused the privilege, the
University has found it necessary
to close the carrels to undergrad-
uate use.
In his Qditorial of October 11
entitled "A Christmas Carrel (of
Sorts)," Roger Rapoport disre-
gards these abuses which brought
about the decision to close the
carrels. We wonder if Mr. Rapoport
has tried to talk to any library
officials involved. Such facts as
the notes for a doctoral thesis be-
ing lost, theft of personal proper-
ty and rudeness to the grad stu-
dents assigned to the carrels are
not to be overlooked.
Student use of carrels was based
not on the need for library source
material, but on the need for a
quiet place to study. This same
quiet study atmosphere could be
achieved by the use of"Angell
Hall auditoriums as study rooms
in the evenings. Such rooms would,
of course, be subject to the same
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