Report Card on Columbia

...A decision was made to discipline students involved in the registration protest, but to do this very discretely so as not to provoke any further mass demonstrations...

...The Student Assembly "would have final jurisdiction over matters of siudent life, subject only to overruling by the University Senate...

...A faculty Senate would have carefully delimited authority and, unlike the University Senate, would not have the power to revise University statutes...

...Students tended to look upon the new demands, such as the abolition of International Affairs, as intentionally unnegotiable and intransigent...

...Whether the administration will be able to maintain such a strategy in the face of sds' continuing efforts One sds leader warned a meeting of his group that it should not underestimate the effectiveness of Cor-dier's "Dutch Uncle" style...

...it acts like a weather vane that the administration must keep pointed in the same direction—toward University reform...

...He has contributed to a forthcoming book on the events of last spring, Up Against the Ivy Wall...

...No final reports on this matter have yet appeared, but it is expected that student and faculty groups will agree upon proposals for revising the method of trustee selection, with the purpose of changing the composition and ultimately the attitudes of the Board...

...gradually adjusted and reworked their positions...

...None of these bodies has made a significant decision independent of the administration for years, and their paralysis was particularly apparent this spring...

...Shortly thereafter, by an act of "executive clemency," Cordier lifted the suspensions of some 42 students involved in the second occupation of Hamilton Hall on May 21, changing their penalty to censure...

...By September things were very much changed: The most significant political movement afoot was no longer the McCarthy challenge, but the Wallace campaign...

...In June, the armies departed from Columbia as waves of outsiders moved in to take summer-session courses...

...At the same faculty meeting an elaborate plan for reorganizing the University was distributed...

...One of the most important changes the various student and faculty groups hope to effect involves the method of selecting trustees...

...But a committee of the trustees headed by Alan Temple, Director of the First National Bank, issued an interim report in late August stating that, "The structure and functioning of the trustees are subject to restudy equally with all other parts of the University...

...Aside from a small, ill-fated demonstration outside the faculty meeting of September 12, the first major action sds launched was a march on the University gymnasium September 18 to try to register the 21 students who still remained suspended...

...The radicals are convinced that those plans will get bogged down in debate, public hearings, reformulation, referenda, and eventual submission to the Board of Trustees, which they doubt will ratify any significant changes in the foreseeable future...

...Only 150 students participated in the protest and they only blocked one of the doors to the gymnasium, but the administration shut down registration for the rest of the day...

...AS THE NEW SEMESTER STARTS Report Card on Columbia By Paul Starr The upheaval that kept Columbia University in ferment last spring has become an occasional tremor after three sultry months of vacation...

...In addition, it would have power to place matters before the Senate and to require the Senate to respond to requests for information and action...

...If sru now turns back to the radicals, the administration will know it has failed to isolate sds from mass support...

...Instead of using McMillin, the radicals moved to Schermerhorn Hall and held the conference in a large lecture room...

...When the revolt began last April 23, the McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns were at their apex of strength and optimism...

...But the new demands do not...

...Following the campus rioting, the ifg had advocated extensive "shifts of authority" in the University's decision-making structure, and the dropping of criminal charges lodged against arrested students...

...The next day, however, the University realized its mistake and allowed the radicals to use McMillin...

...One student told me he could no longer participate in sds' fantasies of a national revolution and had decided to play "deaf and dumb" if the strike were renewed...

...Several students who were dismayed at the trustees' choice spoke with Michael Sovern, the young professor of law who serves as chairman of the powerful Executive Committee of the Faculty...

...These issues were crystallized in no less than 21 demands, including an end to all University expansion, abolition of Columbia's rotc program and the School of International Affairs, and total amnesty...

...The others are chosen for six-year terms by the Alumni Federation...

...Is this some sort of joke...

...On July 28, sds and sru sponsored a demonstration in support of two Barnard girls sentenced to 15 days on charges of criminal trespassing...

...Cordier, who had not yet moved in, naturally did not appear...

...Desultory classes on the revolution and "the disintegration of bourgeois society" were conducted at the Liberation School, a converted fraternity house, sds members also joined in various demonstrations around New York City—against Vice President Humphrey, in support of the Black Panthers, in sympathy with the people of Czechoslovakia ("The tanks in the streets of Prague should be in the jungles of Vietnam...

...Students hardly knew the man, though a large number of them had heard Connor Cruise O'Brien, speaking the previous winter at Columbia's Teachers College, denounce Cordier for his role as UN special representative in the Congo in 1961...

...Johnson had been forced to withdraw, McCarthy had just won a major victory in Wisconsin...

...In that atmosphere the radicals dared to believe that a revolution in this country was actually possible and even imminent—a belief that would have struck them as a romantic fantasy at almost any other time...

...Restructuring the University," Rudd said, "won't solve anything...

...Just as sds needs the people sru represents, sru depends upon the people sds commands...

...The organization itself has little leverage...

...The remaining 12 members would be administrators and alumni...

...Over the summer one frequently heard students who had been arrested express doubts about the direction the Left had taken at Columbia...

...Although the majority of the Senate's members?0 out of 92—would be senior faculty, the Senate would also include 20 non-tenured junior faculty and 10 students elected by a new Student Assembly...

...Several protests were held at Columbia and one of them flowed into West Harlem late one night, bringing the area perilously close to a riot...

...They think, 'Here is a man who has spent his life in the quest for peace . . ."' Probably another factor behind the selection is the long-standing split at Columbia between the "core University"-—the College and Graduate Faculties—and the financially independent professional schools, of which International Affairs is the most recent...

...While the "core University" remains in cramped facilities built at the turn of the century, the wealthy professional schools?Law, Business, Engineering, and International Affairs—have moved into newly-constructed buildings...

...An administration threat to revoke official recognition of sds as a campus organization was at least temporarily withdrawn...

...This is unprecedented at Columbia, and though Cordier says little of substance when he speaks, his presence is disarming...

...Many people had hoped that David Truman would take over from Kirk and correct this imbalance...

...Both measures were taken the week before a large meeting of the Joint Faculties of Morningside Heights, called by the Executive Committee for September 12...

...In his initial public act, Cordier announced that the trustees would ask the courts to exercise "maximum leniency" toward the approximately 400 students arrested only once during the spring and charged with criminal trespassing...

...Nevertheless, the faculty did recommend that the University's request for maximum leniency be extended to multiple charges of criminal trespass and charges of resisting arrest...

...One possibility is to elect the six alumni trustees by a postcard ballot to all former Columbia students—a standard practice at many universities...

...Most observers have noted the despair among New Left students with the existing parties, but have failed to see the element of hope that was crucial to the struggle at Columbia...

...Even before Cordier's appointment, a new administration was established in the College, the center of discontent...

...This has been supported by the Disciplinary Committee, but nothing has been done by the administration or trustees...

...For the fall sds decided to concentrate on three major issues: Columbia's policies towards the Harlem and Morningside communities ("racism"), the University's relationship to the Federal government ("imperialism"), and the discipline and prosecutions arising out of earlier protests ("repression...

...The reformers are counting on the dissatisfaction with past management of the University among some of the younger Board members...

...Mark Rudd, chairman of sds, used the demonstration to attack sru for accepting a grant from the Ford Foundation and working for student power, which he said would only increase privileges in an elite institution...

...It is generally assumed now that Truman will soon leave, perhaps in January...

...Essentially, the proposal was a compromise between a bicameral and a unicameral system...

...Rudd was telling another radical leader that things had already changed...

...The difference in spirit was immeasurable...

...From its inception sru has been beleagured by internal problems and disagreements that have repeatedly forced it to delay adopting any program...

...Realizing the importance of these students to the success of last spring's uprising, the administration is anxious to keep sru divided from sds...

...And on September 26, the 1968-69 academic year got under way without serious incident...

...While it agreed with the Executive Committee research staff that existing structures for faculty and student representation were inadequate, the administration's proposals failed to suggest any bodies much stronger than those it offered to eliminate...

...Though he has said as much to several faculty members and one student, Truman refuses to substantiate the claim for the press...

...Columbia's radicals tended to look upon the supporters of the anti-war candidates as children who might very well grow up into the radical movement...

...Cordier has announced an "open door" policy whereby he will speak with all students, even those suspended, who have grievances or demands to place before him...

...One of the first things the trustees did during the summer was to hire public relations and management consultant firms—a clear indication of their backgrounds and what they thought the problems were...

...It is very doubtful that an sru plan of this kind would be approved...

...Almost all the trustees are business or bank executives and realtors, a few are professionals, but none is an educator...

...With the publication of its extended list of demands, this alienation from sds deepened...

...Then, in the weeks before the University was scheduled to reopen, they regrouped and began to surface, one at a time...

...The crowd dispersed, but it was clear that the growth of sds demonstrations had been enormous in the course of one day...

...Associate Professor of English Carl F. Hovde was named Dean, and he brought in Professor Robert Belknap of the Russian Department to replace the Associate Dean in charge of dealing with student demonstrations when the crisis first erupted...

...The major forces on Morn-ingside Heights—the administration and trustees, the reform-minded faculty, and the Students for a Democratic Society (sds)—thus Paul Starr is on the news board of the Columbia University Daily Spectator...

...Many of those most deeply involved in the campus struggle, both students and faculty, retreated to New England, Europe and elsewhere—leaving behind small committees busy generating plans for the fall...

...In the spring, the students supporting the strike were divided between those who understood its purpose to be institutional reform and those who saw it as a means of building a radical movement in this country...

...At the conclusion of a conference on restructuring held in early August, a former sds chairman rose from the floor and said ominously, "In 1905 the Tsar set up a Duma...

...The Executive Committee itself had not had a chance to act on its research staff's proposals because very few of its members were in New York during the summer...

...sru later issued a statement comparing the sds leader to a soldier who "turns his back on the enemy and begins firing into his own camp...

...by that night Mark to provoke violent and indiscriminate counterattacks is uncertain...

...Cordier's age also prompted remark...

...It would not be possible for faculty members to serve on the board, since that is prohibited by the University Charter, but there may be a recommendation that the faculty—or the University Senate—elect several trustees...

...The goals of last spring—like the demands to halt construction of the Morningside gymnasium and sever relations with the Institute for Defense Analyses—appeared to be within the University's power to grant...

...During the summer sds had tried to maintain a certain level of activity to prevent the strike from expiring completely...

...It is clear today, even to some radicals, that if a revolutionary situation were created in this country through persistent confrontations, George Wallace would seize power, not Tom Hayden...

...The choice of Cordier, however, dimmed Truman's once bright chances for the Presidency, and seemed to reaffirm the trustees' confidence in the successful fund raisers of the professional schools...

...His attitude was certainly not universal, yet it does represent the feelings of a fairly sizeable group of students disturbed by the "boiling off of sanity" in the radical movement...

...Young" means less than 62, the average age of Columbia's trustees...

...This last minute decision proved to be a major, though not an irretrievable blunder...

...But by the middle of the summer even that tenuous alliance broke down...

...Not entirely happy himself, Sovern explained why he thought Cordier was chosen...

...It seems unlikely that there will be more than sporadic action at Columbia this year...

...Early that afternoon people in sds were despondent...

...The crowd went to the President's house, chanting, "Come out and face the people...

...The nation was gripped by deep uncertainty about the direction it was taking...

...His approach clearly worries sds much more than the faculty and sru reform proposals...

...sru's political strength does not derive from the number of students it can now mobilize for a protest, but from the critical role its sympathizers played as individuals last spring and might play again this fall...

...They will probably urge the elimination of life trusteeships, so that all trustees would serve limited terms of perhaps six years, and a retirement age may be imposed...

...Both Hovde and Belknap were leading members of the Independent Faculty Group (ifg), a loose association of about 200 liberal professors...

...Registration, begun September 18 amid a flurry of violence, finally proceeded with little difficulty...

...The trustees and administration were the first to act...

...O'Brien's charges that Cordier made decisions prejudicial to Patrice Lumumba's political survival have been distorted by radicals into a claim that he planned Lumumba's assassination and worked directly for the cia...

...He was clearly the kind of administrator the trustees considered adept at handling violent disputes and shrewd in negotiating settlements...

...It recommended the creation of a University Senate with broad legislative powers, subject only to a veto by the Board of Trustees...

...Remember how the trustees look at this," he said...

...In late April Martin Luther King had just been assassinated and many radicals believed that his death would mark the end of non-violence for the black movement in America...

...Four sds leaders did go to speak to him, but without any result...

...To many students they seem unreasonable and even ridiculous...

...The split between the Students for a Restructured University (sru) and sds was fairly amicable at that time, and both continued to support the six demands...

...At that meeting Cordier further announced that he would abide by the decisions of the Joint Committee on Disciplinary Affairs, thereby putting to rest one of the thorniest sources of friction—the question of final disciplinary authority at Columbia...

...Although they scorned both campaign efforts, the support that McCarthy and Kennedy were receiving no doubt encouraged them...

...Radicals have evinced little interest in reforms that will probably not affect the function of the university or the quality of daily experience within the institution...

...This reaction to sds' position, coupled with Cordier's conciliatory policy, has apparently blunted the force of sds' initial calls to protest...

...The current Board consists of 24 trustees, 18 of whom are chosen for life terms by the Board itself...

...The administration also developed restructuring plans over the summer...

...Administrators would be responsible to the relevant committees, which would deal with such matters as physical planning, labor relations, and appropriations...

...Temporarily replacing him was Andrew Cordier, Dean of Columbia's School of International Affairs and for 15 years an Under Secretary General at the United Nations...

...The unicameral legislature sru proposes would have the same number of student and faculty representatives, as would all but three of the legislature's committees...

...The radicals unconsciously mistook people who were fed up with the war for people who were alienated from the system...

...A motion for a general amnesty from University discipline for all the protesters was defeated by a surprisingly narrow margin, 242-163...

...On August 23 —four months to the day after the start of the campus uprising in April—President Grayson Kirk announced his retirement...

...Early last month, Acting President Cordier and the trustees took a succession of conciliatory steps to meet prior requests of the Executive Faculty Committee, the Independent Faculty Group, and the Joint Committee on Disciplinary Affairs (a tri-partite commission comprised of seven faculty members, seven students, and three administrators, dealing with disciplinary matters arising out of the protests...

...This was the work of a research project to investigate the University's operations and suggest changes, set up by the Executive Committee on a mandate from the trustees (who set up their own group to study reform, too...

...one member asked at an sds meeting...

...The intervention of a summer vacation separated them...

...The Duma didn't prove sufficient for the people of Russia...

...The radicals' hope of leading the United States down the path of social revolution?that frail hope has been virtually obliterated...

...A third recommendation will probably concern the method of selecting the six alumni trustees, currently chosen by the officers of the Alumni Federation, who represent only a fraction of the total number of alumni...

...Cordier has also opened the door the other way, coming out of his office on occasion to address students at meetings...

...They were able to agree on six basic demands that fit into the institutional and the societal contexts, and they were wedded together by the intervention of police in the University's civil war...

...Adoption of the staff proposal would necessitate the elimination of three pro forma institutions at Columbia—the University Council, the Advisory Committee of the Faculties, and the Columbia University Student Council...

...The guiding principle of the reforms it advocates is equal faculty and student participation in decisionmaking wherever possible...

...Partly because of this misunderstanding of the national political situation, they were tempted to engage in a struggle whose essential purpose, so far as its leaders were concerned, was the building of a radical movement...

...A Student Council would be able to do little more than arrange regular meetings with the trustees or their committees...

...Whether they were legitimate or not, they did seem "do-able...

...The Executive Committee is unlikely to press for these reforms until all or part of its plan for a parliamentary system has been accepted...

...If there were not several hundred radicals ready to march on Low Library, sru would be without influence...

...Afterward, they marched through the campus, capitalizing on the free speech issue the administration had created and drawing over a thousand students into their ranks...

...Comparatively few people from Columbia sds went to the Democratic Convention in Chicago, for they had no desire to take part in what they knew, from their own experience, would be a "massacre...

...But far from mobilizing mass support, the new and enlarged list of demands seemed to make students previously committed to the strike uneasy about the sds leadership and uncertain of their position...

...Only at Columbia, it was said, could Kirk, aged 65, retire in favor of Cordier, aged 67...

...Toward the end of the spring semester a number of the striking students interested in institutional reform broke away from the sds members of the Strike Coordinating Committee to form an organization whose main purpose was to radically change Columbia, not America...

...Only last year Truman was elevated from Dean of Columbia College to Vice President and Provost of the University...

...Neither the conciliatory measures taken by Cordier nor the proposals for restructuring have met the approval, much less the demands, of the striking students...

...Mobilizing mass support was clearly sds' key problem as it moved into the fall semester...

...However the organization seems to regard its proposals more as statements of principle than as practical suggestions...

...Late in the afternoon the administration decided to prohibit sds from using McMillin Theater for an international assembly that had been scheduled in advance for that night...

...Whether the trustees will approve such changes is not known...