STUDENTS CONFRONT THE UNIVERSITIES

...As a footnote, which is perhaps of some significance in these crises, it should be noted that in all of the cases the top university authorities were well-known liberals—and those responsible for seemingly "tough" and "repressive" actions against student activists were liberals devoted to academic freedom...

...The protesting students claim, and the use of massive outside police force on campus seems, on the surface at least, to support their contention, that the university is an integral part of the broader society, and that claims of academic autonomy are a sham...

...The most important elements in these crises were, of course, the student activists, who either initiated the events or reacted to them...

...The Madison crisis saw at least fifty-five students and more than a score of police injured in demonstrations, caused a student and teaching assistant strike against the University administration and against alleged police brutality, and disrupted the routine of higher education...

...In the past, leftist student groups were concerned primarily with building a political consciousness on the campus, and had a fairly concrete idea of their tactics...

...As a result of these pressures, an incident which—under other circumstances or in an institution which was not under such strong public pressure —might have remained a minor skirmish, blew up into a major crisis...

...And clearly the changing role of the university in the West is a cause for the unrest on campus, and demands new ways of looking at a variety of academic issues...

...policy in Vietnam...

...What is the role of the university in a technological society...

...Each of the three universities under consideration is financed by public funds—in the two American cases by state governments, and in Berlin by the municipal authorities...

...It is possible that some of the difficulties encountered at these three universities stem from the fact that they are large, publicly supported institutions, which have aspirations to greatness as universities...

...Later, after a crisis situation had been created, the faculty engaged in bitter and divisive debate, and eventually supported the administration...

...These three crises suggest some of the crucial questions facing universities in an era of technological change and of student political consciousness...

...At Berlin, issues have become complicated by the existence of a self-styled "Horror Commune" of what can be described as politically minded hippies...

...It has thought through neither its role in society nor its relationship to the university and issues of higher education, and as a result is both unpredictable and often irresponsible in its actions...

...In each university, administrators felt it necessary to demonstrate their "control" over the institution, and particularly over the activities of a small minority of leftist students in an effort to mollify critical legislators...

...To dismiss them as "anarchists" or as a tiny and insignificant minority is a mistake, not only because they can cause difficulties for the institution, but because a number of studies, both in the United States and abroad, have shown that the activists are among the most thoughtful and academically able students on the campus...

...In the case of the University of Wisconsin, the newly appointed chancellor, William Sewell, has been one of the most prominent spokesmen for student rights and academic freedom in the University, and an outspoken dissenter from U.S...

...The Free Speech Movement at the University of California was complicated by such factors as the Filthy Speech crisis, and had no clear focus during parts of its campaigns...

...Furthermore, the new activist is devoted to revolutionary social change in a society which does not give much latitude to revolutionary politics...

...The university is, he feels, part of an unjust and reactionary society, and the knowledge which it represents has been prostituted to the military-industrial complex...

...This element of Berlin politics, which has some following among the students, is devoted to an extreme type of "confrontation politics" against both the University and society...

...The older notion of the university as a place for the building of character, and for "pure" research, seems to be de-creasingly viable in modern society...

...Before coming to Wisconsin he was a lecturer on education at Harvard...

...It is likely that under more normal circumstances the administration at the University of Wisconsin would have been able to find a modus vivendi during some early stage of the Dow affair, and could have averted the use of the city police force...

...At least a part of its leadership was as devoted to stopping the wheels of the University as to the specific issues of free speech on campus...

...Much of the new "student left" has no ideology, and is devoted to what has been called "confrontation politics...

...Former President Clark Kerr of the University of California, who was eventually fired as a result of the Berkeley events, is a well-known liberal scholar and administrator, and the Berlin crisis erupted soon after a liberal rector was elected...

...And in all three cases, the universities were under scrutiny and substantial criticism by legislators and the press...

...The crisis generated a serious split in the faculty, and much resentment against a University administration which has prided itself on its good relations with both faculty and students...

...Students in Latin America, Asia, and Africa have occasionally toppled governments, and often play a key role in national politics...

...The new generation is questioning some of the basic concepts of the university as they have evolved in the West, although as yet the students have been unable to articulate a coherent set of questions or a consistent program...

...While it is clear that the University administration had an obligation to carry out the mandate of the faculty in permitting business interviewing on campus, the means which the University used are open to serious question...

...and salaries, but also to maintain as much academic freedom and university autonomy as possible in what was perceived as a threat to the institution...

...The lessons of the crisis at Madison, as well as those at Berkeley and Berlin, are not simple and clear cut, because the situation in which the university finds itself is complex...

...The ambivalence shown by the administration over university autonomy may well be reflected in the attitudes of the faculty...

...While the student activists, regardless of their political views, constitute only a small minority of the student population, it is the minority which often articulates the views of a larger proportion of the student population...

...There are two particularly dramatic examples of student activism which come to mind as the University of Wisconsin gropes its way out of a serious crisis...

...The mechanisms of faculty control over university affairs were called into question, and the essential impotence of the faculty to do more than set rather general guidelines for policy was made clear...

...They were usually unwilling to attack the university directly, since the university provided them a base for recruitment and usually at least a modicum of freedom of expression...

...And in Berlin, administrators under similar outside pressures, suddenly withdrew permission for holding political meetings on campus in the Spring of 1966, thereby intensifying a political crisis which resulted in an .eventual withdrawal of their order as well as creating substantial student resentment...

...If, however, the crises are able to create a concern for these issues, and a determination to think through answers, then the disruption and violence may produce positive results...

...Indeed, the patterns which can be seen in each of these situations are strikingly similar, and a discussion of some of these patterns may prove useful...

...As a result of this general orientation, and more specific issues such as the Vietnam war and the failure of the civil rights struggle, there is a tendency to attack society wherever it is most vulnerable —and the university is a readily available target...

...Despite the violence and disruption, however, the crisis may have served at least one useful purpose if it stimulates some careful thinking on some of the challenges which face the university...

...It may be, indeed, that conservative administrators are better able to handle crises of this kind precisely because they are under less severe outside pressure to "prove" their authority...

...Recent political crises at the University of California at Berkeley, and at the Free University of Berlin, will be considered in a comparative context...

...Threats to cut budgets, complaints about leftism on the campus, allegations concerning "outside agitators," and strong implications that university autonomy was in jeopardy characterized each institution, and university administrators were naturally concerned not only to protect their budgets PHILIP G. ALTBACH, an assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin, has spent the last few years studying the role of students on university campuses in the United States and abroad...

...In the industrially advanced nations of the West, students are not so politically powerful, but there has been an increase in student activism in many Western nations in recent years...

...In each of these three cases academic crises were created over relatively isolated local incidents which had broader political overtones...

...These factors increase tensions on the faculty, make them fearful of outside authority and sensitive to the opinions of an often hostile community, and create divisions within the faculty because of promotions policies, salary differentials, and similar issues...

...There is a new type of student activist on the campuses of the Western nations...

...The Madison campus is not alone in facing major crises brought about by student activism and administrative response...

...Furthermore, the protesting students object to being judged twice—once by civil authorities and again by university laws—with the possible result of both jail sentences and expulsion or suspension from the university...

...At least some of the students are also questioning the traditional idea of the university as an autonomous institution...

...Yet, there seems to be a new breed of student who has neither loyalty to, nor respect for, the university he attends...

...In all three cases, the university administration acted without specific faculty approval but under general mandates from the faculty in the initial stages of the crises...

...And at Madison, too, at least some of the leadership of the demonstrations against Dow Chemical was as much interested in forcing the University to take a stand on the Vietnam war as with the specific issue of preventing the interviews...

...Underlying these specific questions, however, are some more serious, but as yet unarticulated issues...

...In these incidents, there were allegations of unfair maneuvering by the administration in attempts to secure a faculty mandate for administrative actions...

...One punishment is enough, they say...

...STUDENTS CONFRONT THE UNIVERSITIES by PHILIP G. ALTBACH The recent grisis at the University of Wisconsin in Madison over the issue of job interviewing by the Dow Chemical Company—and comparable developments across the country—again focuses attention on the role of students in politics, and the reaction of university authorities and the public to student activism...

...Certainly they are questioning the concept of in loco parentis, and there seems to be a good deal of agreement in the student community that the university should give up its control over the social and personal life of the students...

...Issues of the university and politics were a strong underlying factor in all three cases...

...The mass media have labeled these individuals "anarchists" and "political beatniks," and this is clearly an oversimplification...

...And some students want to have a role in academic policy-making as well as control over their social affairs...

...While it is likely that the heat of the crisis is over, its implications will be felt for some time...

...The Berkeley "revolt," was started, after all, when the University of California administration, under state pressure, rescinded permission for students to engage freely in disseminating political propaganda in a small area of the campus...

...Yet, with the exceptions of men like Clark Kerr and James Perkins, Carnegie Corporation education specialist, who are generally sanguine about these changes, and Robert Hutchins, who is not, there has been little understanding of these issues by the general academic community...

...Clark Kerr's definition of a ''multiversity," and certainly Wisconsin fits this category, links the academic community ever more closely to the broader society, not only in terms of increasing financial dependence on Government research funds, but in serving society by performing directly relevant research and professional training...

...These three crises also bring up several important questions relating to the role of the faculty in university administration, and the relationship of the faculty to the students...

...For the most part, student activism in the West has caused internal university crises rather than disruption in the broader society...

...The student militants, with their limited objectives, have not pinpointed the challenges to the university, and university administrators, in their calculations based on outside political pressures and a desire to "muddle through" have also been unable to focus on the crucial issues...

...This kind of "pop" politics is a marriage of an ideological vacuum and frustration...

...Again, there are parallels among Berlin, Berkeley, and Madison...

...The student left now claims that the university is an integral part of society, and that it should therefore be governed by society's laws...

...The political role of students in many of the developing nations is well known...

...The student left is now demanding that university jurisdiction over matters of student discipline should be ended, that students should be subject only to the laws and sanctions of society...

...This demand, in effect, goes against 500 years of academic tradition, which has from the Middle Ages held that the university is a sanctuary from the pressures of society, and has the right to govern itself...