i4v fiitirlyian Daily
. Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan

futures past
The times... tey're not a changin'
by dave chudwin

4j

420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.

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, SEPTEMBER 10, 1971

NIGHT EDITOR: W. E. SCHROCK

The Rhodes appointment

IN THE PAST decade, a reaction h a s
grown here against the University's
primary role as producer of trained man-
power.
As disillusionment has increased with
purely technological values, there has
been a questioning of the University's
place as a component of the industrial
machine.
Increasingly, the feeling has taken root
that too little attention has been paid
to the development and enlightenment
of individual students, particularly under-
graduates, in 'the big University.'
And it has been widely felt that the
educational process here was often more
a .stifling than an uplifting experience.
Against this background, the appoint-
ment of Frank Rhodes as dean of the
literary college could signal greater in-
fluence for changing educational values
in the University.
It is silly to argue that no progress
has been made toward academic reform
in recent years. Experimental programs
such as the Residential College and the
Pilot Program have won wide approval,
interdisciplinary programs and courses
have spread, student input in academic
decisions has increased, the Bachelor in
General Studies program has been in-
stituted, and the latitude for students
determined to shape their own educa-
tions has grown.
Despite these steps, the failures in
education continue. Basic problems in
University education remain, and the
literary college academic process still
falls far short of its potential. Based
on his statements and practices as a
teacher, Dean Rhodes appears to be one
who recognizes this.
In an interview with The Daily in May,
Rhodes set forth ideas about the literary
college that seem likely to encounter
significant opposition if he tries to move
forcefully toward implementing them.
" IT'VE GOT to get people out of grad-
uate mothballs into undergraduate
teaching," said Rhodes. "I hope first of
all we can make our basic aim the res-
toration of the dignity, the importance

and the centrality of undergraduate edu-
cation - especially in the first t w o
years. At the moment, many of the
brightest stars on the LSA faculty don't
get near undergraduate audiences.
"I'm looking, and I won't disguise this,
for a commitment that everybody has got
to be involved in undergraduate teach-
ing, in some shape or form," he said.
Far easier said than done. It has long
been a commonplace here that many of
the most noted professors devote them-
selves exclusively to research and grad-
uate teaching. The new dean will have
to look hard and steadily if he is to make
progress in this area.
"Liberal education is supposed to make
men free," said Rhodes. "What we've got
to do is do it in such a way that really
sets people free. My worry now is that
much of what we offer really makes them
slaves."
Certainly these are words that stu-
dents could agree with. But they are
problems that require leadership to do
much about.
Rhodes has demonstrated concern with
community in the college, more em-
phasis on undergraduate teaching, and
greater academic experimentation. But
these are ideals far easier enunciated
than implemented, and it remains to be
seen what the new Dean can or will do to
make good on the promise he displayed
when appointed.
ALREADY QUESTIONS have been rais-
ed about Rhodes for his failure to
push for retention of the Center for Re-
search on Conflict Resolution. In addi-
tion, Rhodes had said he would continue
teaching an introductory geology course
while dean, to avoid the distance that
often comes between administrators and
the teaching process. But, Rhodes is not
scheduled to teach any courses this term.
Often men and women are promoted to
administrative positions with ideals for
change, but then fail to maintain them.
We hope this won't happen to D e a n
Rhodes.
-STEVE KOPPMAN
Editorial Page Editor

A fellow rolls a cigarette,
in moments of distraction,
And in its airy smoke wreaths
finds passing satisfaction
But in the sterner hours of life,
when somber thoughts grow
ripe,
There is no deeper comfort
than the solace of a pipe.
NOT MUCH has actually chang-
ed at the University since this
song was included in a 1920 guide
for entering freshmen. Pipes are
still smoked, even though they
contain a weed other than to-
bacco. Cigarettes are rolled, but
they're often called joints now.
However, much of the excite-
ment of coming to Ann Arbor for
the first time remains, whether
the freshmen are the class of 1924
or the class of 1975.
"Here you will form, the lasting
friendships of life," University
President Marion Burton, of Bur-
ton Tower fame, wrote in the
frontspiece of the guidebook.
"Here you will dream dreams and
see. visions of what you purpose
to be and to become."
Much of the advice offered in
the book, titled "The Way In," is
as timely now as a half century
ago. One of the book's first hints
is to "put a roofbover yourhead
as soon as possible." Apparently
the housing situation then was as
bad as it is now.
"Ann Arbor is not a large city
and lodging accommodations are
inadequate to care for a student
bodyerunning into five figures."
the book notes.
THE AUTHORS suggest t h a t
new students "fulfill your part of
the contract" with the girl you
left behind back home. "You have
entered a job that will preclude
matrimony for a long time. Much
water will pass under the bridge
between now and 1924."
The guidebook also counsels a

man, in which case he can be re-
cognized at half a mile!"
For those of us who have been
here, returning to the University
is accompanied by mixed feelings.
It's good to be back to familiar
haunts and old friends.
This joy, however, is tempered
by a return to the absurdities and
foibles of life at the University,
known more commonly as t h e
"Big U."
You know you've returned to
the "Big U" when:
The University asks the legis-
lature for $10 million more than
it needs, and the Legislature cuts
$20 million from the request.
A radical group calls for a
strike and mass rally on the Diag
and 20 people show up.
Ann Arbor police walk by and
say hello while you're tripping in
the Arb.
The day you leave town the Re-
gents raise your tuition $350.
Speaking of the "constituencies"
he must please, President Flem-
ing seeks consensus like a latter-
day LBJ (and comes out with the
same result). "I will go to the
dorms, I will meet you any time,
any place."
You go to Health Service with
a broken finger and they send you
away with two aspirins.
The chief business item at the
faculty's Senate Assembly meet-
ing is getting a liquor license for
a new University Club.
The University scraps a peace
center for lack of money while
subsidizing laboratories for bet-
ter military hardware.
Regent Robert Brown asks Pre-
sident Fleming what the Univer-
sity is doing about sex and secur-
ity in the dorms.
The hip capitalists on campus
sell you revolutionary goods at
pre-revolutionary prices.
University researchers at Wil-
low Run say their military r e -
search has "important peaceful
applications."
You loose your ID card and
driver's license and can't prove
you exist,

-Daily-Jim Judkis

Puritan existence, cautioning new
students that loafing can easily
become a habit in the first few
days before classes begin.
Freshmen are told that "to
spend the afternoon sauntering
about the streets, and the eve-
nings at the movies, for a week
preceding the beginning of in-

struction may mean your ruina-
tion." Groovers beware!
THEN, AS NOW, there w e r e
also doubts whether extra curri-
cular activities such as rioting or
football are more important than
the classroom.
"One of the chief attractions of

a college or university is a win-
ning team and a spirit of good
sportsmanship," the Class of 1924
read. "Don't hoot at visiting
teams, or cat-call individual play-
ers." Right. on.
One of the best suggestions is:
"Don't attempt to conceal the
fact that you are a freshman. The
seasoned college man can identi-
fy a freshman one hundred yards
off; unless the latter should try
to disguise the fact he is a fresh-

A

The death of CRCR

THE CENTER FOR Research on Conflict
Resolution (CRCR) is no more.
While .students scurried to classes or
lazed in the summer sun, the Regents
quashed the internationally-known cen-
ter after just two short reports at their
meeting-one from the LSA executive
committee, the other from the Center's
director, psychology professor Robert
Hefner.
The LSA committee based its case for
cutting off funds to CRCR on the deter-
iorating state of University finances, and
what it claimed was the Center's inability
to obtain research grants. President Rob-
ben Fleming agreed, saying that in times
of financial crisis, even certain programs
which contribute to the University have
to be "weeded out."
However, there is good reason to be-
lieve that the Regents' decision was based
more on political motivations than on fi-
nancial ones.
Several years ago, Fleming said of CR-
CR: "The goal of its staff is noble and
heartening. It has our support and pro-
found hopes for success."
UNFORTUNATELY FOR Fleming, the
Center has not always cooperated with
Administration policy. CRCR served as
A headquarters for the Black Action
Movement during the BAM strike in 1970,
and was associated with both the teach-
ins of the sixties and with the formation
of the Students for a Democratic Society.
Apparently as a result of the Center's
political radicalism, Fleming's moral as-
pirations have suddenly vanished under
the cloak of a money crisis.
And it is statements such as these
which expose Fleming's real intentions
in this matter. For if he really supported
the Center's lofty intentions, why did he
torpedo it instead of attempting to re-
form it so that it might survive?
Is it not indeed the Administration's
purpose to see that valuable functions of
the University are able to function? No

doubt. Thus, given Fleming's recalci-
trance, one can only conclude that he ac-
tually desired to see the Center abolish-
ed, and he certainly had no trouble
achieving this desire.
THE REGENTS' action was based solely
on a one-page recommendation by the
LSA Executive Committee. The months
of discussion and debate over the Center
were all capuslized in this one-page re-
port.
Instead of considering Center director
Robert Hefner's plea to present an accur-
ate all-around picture of the Center, the
Regents rubber-stamped the Executive
Committee's recommendation to close
down the center with almost no questions
asked.
Aside from the loss of the Center it-
self, this action raises two more general
questions about the University and its
operations in the society as a whole. First
of all, it points out exactly who the Uni-
versity exists to serve.
For while the Regents were quietly
closing one of the most widely recogniz-
ed peace research centers in the coun-
try, it continues to extend free use of
University facilities to ROTC and cor-
porations engaged in the production of
military hardware.
Obviously, the Regents still fail to un-
derstand that the University unavoidably
influences the activity of the larger so-
ciety, and thus, that it cannot disregard
the moral and political consequences of
its actions.
SECOND, the fact that the Regents can
make such a decision during the sum-
mer, when most students are away, points
out the real role of students in the Uni-~
versity's decision-making process-none
at all.
This is one condition at the University
which students need not tolerate, how-
ever. It has been shown on a number of
occasions in the past that when a large
mass of students attends Regents meet-

-JAMES WECHSLERIum
The o ntradicio ns
of Richard Nixon
IF THERE was anyone who dared to forecast at the start of this
year that Richard Nixon would initiate plans for a visit to
Peking and impose even temporary wage-price controls before autumn,
such prescience escaped my attention. Whatever else may be said
about the moves, they obviously astounded and confounded-both
his fans and detractors.
As the shock-impact of these actions subsides, there is an in-
creasing tendency to ask what happens next, and to question whether
these dramatic strokes represent any grand design or desperate
grandstand improvisation.
But even if his opening to China leads to no momentous agree-
ment at this juncture and his economic turnabout proved inconclus-
ive and inequitable, the events will have some enduring importance.
For what Nixon has done is finally place the stamp of his own re-
spectability on heresy, and undermine cherished battle-cries of the
American right.
It will never seem quite as easy to equate the call for recogni-
tion of Red China with treason (as an earlier Nixon did) or to
depict government intervention in the economic structure as un-
American folly (as Mr. Nixon was doing until shortly before his
reversal). The altered, subdued tone of the current American Legion
convention on the China issue is indicative of the early result.
While the ideologues of the National Review may cry out in
anguish over Nixon's defection, it will be hard for them to persuade
"Middle America" that he has become a disciple of Mao or a soft-
headed muddler. Meanwhile, the tidesset in motion for Peking's ad-
mission to the UN are now plainly irresistible.
And on thececonomic level, it is difficult to envisage any abrupt
reversion to decontrol. In fact yesterday's Wall Street Journal was
reporting from Washington that "Phase 2 may be forever," adding:
"They (many officials) fear the U.S. economy has become so infla-
tionary that it will need some form of government restraint on wages
and prices, far into the future."
It seems like only yesterday - and it was not very long ago -
that Treasury Secretary Connally was vowing that such things could
not happen here in Nixon's time.
THOSE OF US who were convinced by Nixon's first two 'years
in office that such sweeping policy shifts were implausible shared
a crucial misjudgment with Bill Buckley and others on the right.
While seeing him as an intensely political man, we had concluded
that he had an indestructible commitment to certain basic prejudices,
or principles. (The choice of the word depended on the perspective of
the viewer).
He seemed utterly dedicated to the Dulles doctrine of A s i a n
dominoes, requiring the eternal "containment" of Red China, and
equally devout in his conviction that controls were morally repugnant
and economically calamitous. And we even began to believe that,
regardless of what the polls showed, he was prepared to sacrifice his
own political life to uphold those prejudices or principles. We were
wrong.
IN ANY CASE the sad fact about this Nixon term is that more
than half of it was devoted to the pursuit of doctrines now largely
repudiated. In view of his present stance vis-a-vis Peking, there was
no shred of rationality in his refusal to negotiate a settlement in
Vietnam as soon as he took office; continued resistance to a coalition
solution was largely based on the notion that we needed a puppet
regime in Saigon to intimidate the Chinese hordes.
Just as it can be said that the toll of lost life in that still un-
finished the war now seems more grotesque than ever, so too it can be
argued that 30 months of economic do-nothingism (except for the
nrnirttrl ary an fP~riing o' f Tneh,1,4and nthr's~pecial interest

*14

-Dai1y-Jim Judhis
The inefficiencies of the state's
bicameral legislative system

By PAT MAHONEY
Assistant Editorial Page Editor
E VERY JANUARY the Legislature returns to
Lansing with a burst of publicity and enthu-
siasm for tackling the state's problems. But by
July, when the new fiscal year begins, the en-
thusiasm has evaporated. Major budget bills are
often approved in all-night sessions as the Legis-
lature concludes the session in a flury of activity.
This year the delay in passing appropriations
bills has exceeded two months. Yet some of the
reasons behind the legislative logjam are un-
changed. In Michigan. a two-house legislature has
become inefficient and costly to the state. A uni-
cameral single-house system offers the best hope
of limiting the delays that have plagued the Leg-
islature.
THE DIFFERENCES between the two houses
are minimal. Senators come from larger districts,
have longer terms and larger offices. But both
houses have their own leadership and separate
committees on appropriation, taxation, educa-
tion and other topics. Yet these committees, part-
ly as a result of the archaic seniority system, tend
to be run by chairmen out of touch with the so-
nia.l-, .-..,..A.-. ofS 4-V.. -4-,- i A nd a.c n4-. nnc.Cfliflfflf

Even after a bill is passed by both houses,
however, legislative action on it is usually not
complete. Often the two houses disagree, Then a
conference committee is formed to settle the dif-
ferences.
MICHIGAN NOW has 110 representatives and
38 senators. Simply by reducing the number of
legislators, a unicameral body would save the
state money.
In the past decade, the state has invested
heavily in making legislators' jobs more attrac-
tive. Salaries have more than doubled. Recently
the capitol has been renovated to provide new
offices with carpeting and paneling. After the
state's current economic problems end, a new ca-
pitol will probably be built. A unicameral legis-
lature might save the state millions by reducing
the number of legislators' offices needed and re-
quiring one instead of two chambers for meetings.
Opponents of the unicameral plan claim it
will increase lgeislators' susceptibility to corrup-
tion. And the smaller number of legislators does
make it easier for lobbyists to control a signifi-
cant percentage of the group. But legislators will
also become more visible as their numbers de-
crease. This should encourage greater public scru-

s