Vanguard of Campus Protest
Albatch, Philip G.
Vanguard of Campus Protest by PHILIP G. ALTBACH The San Francisco Bay Area, we are told, is the crucible of the modern American revolution. In the vanguard of the revolution is the student move-...
...In both cases, off-campus forces helped to force the issue and made matters con- siderably worse...
...Even after a careful reading of all four books, the sequence and nature of the events at San Fran- cisco State are not entirely clear...
...colleges and universities are subject to many pres- sures, and it is clear that political forces on and off the campuses will exploit crises for their own ends...
...and a descriptive account by a former student editor of the Daily Gater, Dikran Karagueuzian (Blow It Up...
...Sum- merskill was criticized during the crisis for his indecisiveness and if this book is indicative, one can understand why...
...The books under consideration here (there are several more, including Kay Boyle's The Long Walk at San Francisco State) are the reminiscences of the most liberal of the three pres- idents who tried to administer the col- lege during its travail, psychologist John Summerskill (President Seven) ; a collection of essays by activists in the militant American Federation of Teachers local at the college (Ac- ademics on the Line) ; a fairly bal- anced account of the crisis by three "establishment liberals" in the admin- istration, including Summer-skill's suc- cessor, Robert Smith (By Any Means Necessary...
...The literature on the Berkeley sit- uation now fills a small bookshelf...
...San Francisco State College is a unique institution and the books deal- ing with its crisis are also unique...
...All of the books attempt to describe and analyze the campus events at Berkeley or San Francisco State from various points of view...
...The most puzzling of the volumes, John SummerskilPs President Seven, provides a personal account of his year or so at the helm of the college...
...Perhaps the most interesting part of The Beginning is Heirich's consider- ation of the role of the university ad- ministration, headed at that time by Clark Kerr, and the Berkeley faculty...
...by the student editor of the Gater during the crisis, is the least satisfying in terms of its analysis of the events, but Dikran Karagueuzian does provide some fascinating descriptive accounts of some of the most dramatic aspects of the crisis...
...Probably the best single volume in terms of explaining what happened is By Any Means Necessary, by former President Robert Smith, Richard Ax- en, and De Vere Pentony...
...It is curious, and perhaps signif- icant, that at the institution more open to change, San Francisco State, with its nationally known Experimental College and early commitment to mi- nority group studies, consensus was impossible to reach, and neither rad- icals nor conservatives felt that the innovations which had been developed at the college were worth much...
...Heirich points out that one of the big "busts" at Berkeley was ordered directly by then-Governor Pat Brown over the objection of the university administra- tion, which had reached a tentative settlement with student protest leaders...
...Indeed, the complexity of a campus crisis becomes clear in these analyses in a way which is not possible from press or television accounts...
...In addition, the University of Califor- nia at Berkeley is the very model of the "multiversity" (it is the place which Clark Kerr, former president of the University of California, had in mind when he coined the term in 1963), and therefore has major insti- tutional implications for other Amer- ican universities...
...Government involvement in academic affairs and a many-layered bureau- cratic university structure tie the hands of those who wish to resolve crises...
...Significantly, San Francisco State was the home of the first Black Students' Union, a move- ment which spread to other campuses quickly and had major educational and political results...
...They are two of the best books published in recent years on any university crisis, and I believe they will provide a model for future research and writing on academic in- stitutions...
...They indicate the complexity of academic de- cision-making...
...Behind the situation on the campus lurked the state authorities...
...They demonstrate that public higher education during the early period of the Reagan administra- tion was caught in the crossfire of broader political struggles in the state...
...What do these books tell us...
...He comes across as a sincere individ- ual, but one caught in the winds of a crisis which he could not handle and in which many of the key decisions were made from above...
...The faculty, it is clear, has not been an effective mediator...
...This volume is an especially useful addition to the literature on student protest because it considers the relations between the University of California and its stu- dents over a period of nearly a cen- tury...
...They also present an inside perspective of the faculty and administration reaction to the crisis...
...Two recent books—Max Heirich's The Beginning: Berkeley, 1964 and C. Michael Otten's University Authority and the Student: The Berkeley Expe- rience—are probably the best written ones to date and are first class scholar- ly studies as well...
...University crises do not take place in a vacuum, and the Otten book am- ply documents this fact...
...The 1968- 69 crisis at San Francisco State in- volved a large number of arrests, the largest strike by professors in recent years in the United States, and the rise to power of S. I. Hayakawa as pres- ident of the college...
...The American notion of in loco parentis—the idea that the uni- versity should act as a parent for its students—was developed in quieter times...
...Academic administrators and others concerned with the operations of universities during crises will be well advised to peruse these volumes...
...If those concerned with —and about—higher education would read books such as these, they might be able to help the universities create the means for solving some of their problems...
...His dramatic resignation and departure from the campus for Ethiopia on a day's notice must certainly be a classic incident in American academic history...
...Otten points out that the tradi- tional relationships between universi- ties and their students were designed for small institutions in periods of so- cial peace...
...At both Berkeley and San Francisco State the academic administrators did not act with the kind of imagination which might have solved the crises without major confrontation—and it is clear that both crises were soluble...
...The Beginning is a study of the 1964 crisis and its causes and ramifications...
...Student movements at the two schools have been crucial to the development of the art of confrontation politics in the United States...
...Heirich, now a sociologist at the University of Michigan, was a grad- uate student at Berkeley during the events of 1964...
...Heir- ich analyzes in detail the Free Speech Movement and the issues which sur- rounded the original confrontation...
...The "Berkeley student revolt" of 1964 was the first of the major student agitations which con- vulsed the campuses in the late 1960s...
...It was the first major campus disruption and provided an impetus and a model for many of the others which followed...
...In the vanguard of the revolution is the student move- ment...
...a longer version of the book entitled The Spiral of Con- flict: Berkeley, 1964 includes a wealth of methodological information...
...Ac- ademic governance has been unable to solve its own problems, and the con- sensus which once kept the campuses calm no longer exists at many schools...
...The books under review also repre- sent a new genre in the literature on student protest and the campus crisis: the case study...
...While no clear answer emerges, the problems of the large and prestigious universi- ties are analyzed effectively in these two books...
...These books provide an interesting contrast, for each one presents a dif- ferent perspective...
...Berkeley, in the last analysis, is the more important of the two crises...
...The large numbers of stu- dents on a single campus and the growth of diverse subcultures among them provide one major pressure...
...Both the Heirich and Otten books indicate that large public universities operate under a tremendous number of pressures and constraints which make rational decision-making next to impossible...
...Blow It Up...
...Ac- ademic institutions developed bureau- cracies to deal with student affairs, at the same time that the students them- selves were rejecting many of the as- sumptions on which discipline was based...
...After World War II, the numbers of students increased dra- matically, and their age also rose...
...Perhaps most disheartening, the ac- ademic community seems to have learned little from the crises of the past six years...
...Readers will be surprised at the many forces at work in any campus crisis—police, student radicals, factions within the faculty, administrators, and even the mass media...
...The great period of growth in higher education, Otten points out, ushered in an entirely new equation on the campus...
...With the growth of political consciousness in the early 1960s, the stage was set for confrontation over the many orthodox campus rules and regulations...
...The book, unfortunately, is rather unevenly writ- ten and provides only a fragmentary account of the events...
...The events at San Francisco State Col- lege are somewhat less well known, but are important nevertheless...
...While much can be learned from these books, their lesson is not a pleas- ant one for the future of American higher education...
...They are well worthwhile for anyone interested in the dynamics of American higher education...
...Academics on the Line, by Arlene Kaplan Daniels, Rachel Kahn-hut, and their activist associates, is a radical critique of the crisis, with strong at- tacks on both S. I. Hayakawa and the college administration...
...The books under review here deal with the various campus crises at the University of California in Berkeley and San Francisco State Col- lege and their effects on the institu- tions and students involved...
...First of all, they clearly indicate that what seem to be simple acts of disruption by militant students have deeper causes and wide ranging results...
...Vanguard of Campus Protest by PHILIP G. ALTBACH The San Francisco Bay Area, we are told, is the crucible of the modern American revolution...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 8
