Pr r ian :Iaitj Section Two-Academics Ann Arbor, Michigan-Thursday, September 9, 1971 Eight Pages ACADEMI CS . .0. An amoeboid expansion By SARA FITZGERALD Supplement Co-editor.:;jr t4< For 154 years, education at the University has been spreading, changing and spreading again. Like an/amoeba under a microscope in one of its re- search facilities, the University has pushed itself out in all directions, pursuing virtually every academic challenge in its path. It has spread to such diverse fields as naval archi- tecture and Russian studies. It has moved out into dozens of research facilities which develop everything f r o m methods of preserving peace to methods for finding mili- tary targets to destroy. It has grown from a 40-acre plot " in the middle of Ann Arbor to include more than 20,000 acres around the city and state. Bringing together 40,000 carefully-selected students and a highly distinguished faculty, the University has combined its ingredients into a stimulating environment and one of the nation's finest institutions. Yet, in recent years, it has seemed that size and R" national reputation have become, not °exemplary of aca- demic excellence, but rather roadblocks along the path towards achieving individualized, quality education. r Though the "multi-versity" offers "incredible educa- tional riches", as one faculty leader describes it, there is am growing fear that the University may have stretched itself too thin. When it becomes impossible for all the psychology pro- fessors to know one another, when a freshman course crams 400 students into an auditorium while another 100 wait to get in, and when the University discovers it has more programs than it can afford, the advantages of diversity seem negated by the consequences. The problem of communication has come to be a Daily-Tom Gotteb major one for administrators, faculty, and students. As the University has grown, administrators have had The multiversity Expanding andsspreading to become like corporate executives who, to keep the University running efficiently, have had to cut faculty members out of many decisions. As a dean expressed it, "I feel frustrated because communication between the executive officers and the deans is so poor. I would like to be in the on the reasons behind the administrators' decisions." .f .;.* The faculty does -make itself heard, however, though its representative body - Senate Assembly- and through new groups such as the Faculty Reform Coalition, an organization of moderate-liberal faculty members. .n.. In contributing its ideas on controversial classified research policies, University budget priorities, and a Uni- versity-wide judicial system and conduct code, the faculty has used these channels to make its presence felt. Just as faculty members feel their influence is limited in some aspects of University decision-making, students feel they have little input into the faculty-controlled areas of curriculum and degree requirements.'r The problems is made worse-by the large classes which , students often find themselves a part of - classes which allow little chance to get to know the professor on an individual basis. Although most professors schedule "of- ; fice hours" during which students can come and talk with their instructors, monolithic schools like the 16,000-student literary college make student/faculty camaraderie and a -- "collegiate" atmosphere next to impossible to achieve. Steps have been taken, however, to individualize the academic experience. Students are increasingly register- ing for independent study projects and the establishment of the Residential College and the Pilot Program has marked the creation of small living/learning communities for at least some LSA students. ° Yet the majority of students remain suspended In the amorphous mass that is the University. As former LSA;t k " Dean Alfred Sussman explains, "If you are the right kind :tHj of person, the University offers you the independence to by-...y.t'.. do your thing. But if a person cannot take advan--Daily-Tom Gottieb See 'U' EDUCATION, Page 8 . . with too many students for too few teachers? A University education: From registration to graduation Classified research debate: Soul-searching for the U' By STEVE KOPPMAN "Ann Arbor - Research Center of the Midwest", boasts the postmark on corres- pondence from the University of Michi- gan. But there is another name the University has earned for its research efforts - "Eyes of the Army" - a title conferred by the Department of Defense (DOD) for the large amount of research done here by faculty members on contracts with the DOD in the fields of remote sensing, surveil- lance, and countermeasures. And after a three-year lull, the issue of the propriety of this research emerged last term to become a leading subject of con- troversy on campus. University; researchers have specialized In developing equipment with which men and materiel can be detected, and with which efforts to detect men and materiel by others can be thwarted. In the 1 a s t fiscal year, over $10 million of the Uni- versity's $60- million in research contracts came from the defense department - and over half this research was classified. Only four' universities in the nation captured a larger share of the DOD pie. A 'classified' project, by University de- finition, is at the minimum, one in which one or more of the researchers involved requires security clearance so he can gain access to classified data which will aid him in his work. Classification of a project usually im- plies some restriction on the dissemina- tion of the results of the research and often places a shroud of secrecy over the entire operation, with the results going straight to the DOD. Projects whose results are classified, are, presumably, those which in- volve discoveries which the defenseudepart- ment feels must be kept from potential foreign" adversaries. The dispute over the research is not a new one. But with the establishment of a committee to review all classified pro- jects and the surprising defeat of a student referendum asking a ban on classified re- search in 1968, the issue appeared to have been laid to rest. But last term, the controversy re-emerg- ed. In the fall, a Daily series detailing the relationship of research done here to the Army's "electronic battlefield" in Indo- china, aroused little visible reaction. But in February came the invasion of Laos and the release of a letter from a member of the committee reviewing class- ified projects denouncing the committee's procedures. These events sparked marches, demonstrations and a fast, overwhelming anti-classified and military research re- ferendum votes by students, and a re- evaluation of the subject by Senate As- sembly, the University-wide faculty repre- sentative body. The issues of classified and military re- search arouse strong emotions, on the parts of both faculty and students. This is to be expected, for they raise fundamental ques- tions involving the University's relationship to the government, the meaning of academic freedom, the Indochina War, and secrecy in an academic community. Critics of the research have attacked it on two levels. Faculty liberals, especially, culty opposition to the research stems from opposition not to the classified natureof the research, but to the uses to which it is put, in support of American policy in Indochina. Aware that devices developed and perfect- ed at the University are being used today by American forces in Indochina, t h e s e opponents of military research argue that the University should not be aiding and abetting the U.S. military in what they regard as an immoral war effort. This combination of arguments has spelled the end of classified research on many major University campuses in the last several years- Harvard, Yale, Prince- ton, Stanford d Wisconsin, Berkeley. and Michigan State, among others. But, the defenders of classified research have thus far held the upper hand on this campus. On the specific question of research class- ification, it is argued that the defense de- See TO BAN, Page 6 :: >?$ >: ............ ......-........."r,, -'-- ----. ........,...., . fao kmommaao