Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

University (which will begin offering
courses in September) will eventually find
their way into the regular university curriculum.
Perhaps The Free University is a
source of embarrassment to the administration;
certainly, the name, by implication,
casts aspersions upon Day Hall's
university. Yet, when the diverse list of
courses contemplated by the group is
viewed, one can understand why the administration
has not yet sanctioned reggular
academic courses-for-credit in these
areas. The subjects tend to be extremely
topical, even faddish, and often seem not
to justify more than one or two lectures.
Courses for which professors have already
been found include: The University in
Transition; Southern Politics and the Negro
Problem; The Death of God; Existentialism;
and Ideologies of Economic Development
in Latin America (which will
be taught by a graduate student).
Another group of courses will be taught
as soon as instructors are found. Included
are: Pop Art and After; The Literature
of the American Negro; The Current
American Stage; Comparative Religion;
and Sexual Expression. But the list does
not end here. Students at the organizational
meeting surprised the organizers
with their widely varied suggestions. A
few of the courses that were requested
from the floor are: Mind Amplification;
Pacifism or Conscientious Objection;
Black Humor; McCarthyism and its
Remnants; Suicide; Problems of Cornell
Phenomonology; and a laboratory course
in Political Protest.
In an article entitled "It's the Same Old
Thing," published in the May 6 Cornell
Sun, student Mark A. Sommer '67
pointed out that The Free University
idea has been employed already at
Berkeley, in New York, and at Brown,
where a student can earn his B.A. through
The Free University. Sommer added
that: "the topics suggested for courses
were often a little humorous in their
vagueness and a little pathetic in their
imitative character: drugs, poverty, anarchy,
sexual expression. One wonders
what can be gotten out of a round-table
discussion of 'sexual expression.' "
Sommer's contention that Cornell students
should discover new areas that
other college communities have not investigated
seems irrelevant: merely because
the free university idea has been
tried at Berkeley first is no reason to exclude
it from Ithaca. But his consideration
of the topics offered seems worthy
of thought. Many of the courses established
within Cornell's Free University
have the aura of sensationalism. The test
of sincere student interest might well be
to compare the number of people attending
"University in Transition" lectures
with the number present at a typical
"Sexual Expression" course. Both
topics should have high interest content
for truly concerned students, although
the "University in Transition" seems a
less exhaustible subject.
President Perkins has come under a
mild barrage of fire within these recent
developments. An article in the May 2
Sun called Perkins' recently published
The University in Transition "an intellectual
justification for the modern multiversity
and the role it is playing in
society. Mr. Perkins accepts the increasingly
specialized nature of research, and
indeed, the increasing specialization of
learning at the undergraduate level. The
problems with which students and faculty
are really concerned must be taught, and
if they cannot be found in the structure
of Cornell, as too often they cannot,
then we must go beyond that structure."
A spreading theory, only recently being
voiced on the campus, is that the
students are beginning to gain more control
of their academic futures than is
good for them. The same article from the
May 2 Sun suggested that: "The student
. . . should decide about certain aspects
of his own life, including what he wants
to study." What at first seemed a healthy
student interest in academic administration
and the quality of courses offered
may well develop into irrational demands
that, if granted, the students themselves
will live to regret. If this argument is
taken to its extreme, we see that The
Free University could gain academic
recognition, and that the student who
"should decide . . . what he wants to
study," could graduate from Cornell
with a BA in Sexual Expression.
Professor L. Peatce Williams '48,
PhD '52, sensing that the students are
touting academic reform largely for reasons
of private laziness, recently told a
group of students at a history lecture:
"You want knowledge poured into you
like an open bucket. You want to be instructed,
not taught. . . . You can instruct
a bird-dog; we are supposed to educate
you." Williams said that he had been active
in Students For Education, a group
that last spring attempted to abolish the
grading system. "From now on I will be
more skeptical of these things," he said,
adding that the grade is the most effective
means of ensuring student motivation.
Of course, there is little chance that
The Free University will ever gain such
a strong grip on the university community.
Skeptics believe that simply because
no credit is given with the courses offered,
The Free University will crumble
within weeks of its inception next September.
Initial interest may be high, but
as soon as the student has to decide between
attending a Free University lecture
and earning an A on the next day's
prelim, he will follow his competitivelyconditioned
desire to get a high grade.
Since a principal contention of student
academic reform groups is that the love
of learning should supercede the desire
for a good grade, such a demise would
be an ironical end to The Free University.
CLASS NOTES
Addresses in the following columns are in
New York State unless otherwise noted,
Personal items, newspaper clippings, or
other notes are welcomed for publication.
'99 ME - E. Austin Barnes of 322 Farmer
St., Syracuse, was honored on his 90th birthday,
April 7, by 107 fellow members of the
Century Club of Syracuse. Cornellians attending
the dinner party in addition to
"Skipper" were Charles Estabrook ΌO,
Henry W. Brown Ίl, William J. Thorne Ίl,
William H. G. Murray '16, Frederick Scott
'18, Charles A. Wood '22, Henry S. Fraser
'26, Foster T. Rhodes '28, David A. Fraser,
LL.B. '37, Roger T. Clark '41, Follett Hodgkins,
Jr. '49, Stewart F. Hancock, Jr., LL.B.
'50, Edward B. Collum '52, and Thad P.
Collum '53.
'08 - Attending the 1908 Reunion committee
meeting on April 19 at the Cornell Club
of New York were: William B. Mennon,
John Holt, Sid Gridley, M. J. Hartung, Howard
Simonds, George N. Brown, J. W. Taussig,
Seth Shoemaker, and Edwin S. Boegehold.
Recent deaths among the class include
Ernest Billwer, 5/12/64; Jacques Birkhahn,
5/31/65; Samuel Boothroyd, 4/4/65; Seth
Bullis, 2/25/66; Gardner Bullis, 2/25/66; Lyall
Decker, 9/25/65; Harold Desbecker,
6/12/65; Victor Herriman, 1/9/66; Stanley
Japhet, 10/16/65; Stanley Mellen, 2/15/66;
Lt. Col. Robert Owens, 10/15/65; John Ridenour,
6/7/65; Lewis Toan, 8/30/65; Richard
Watson, 10/16/65; Katherine Larkin Abbott
(Mrs. William), 11/30/64; Mary Caldwell
Dransfield (Mrs. Thomas), 5/10/65; and
Pearl Gertrude Sheldon, 2/24/66.
There were 825 graduated in our class,
and according to the records of the Alumni
Office, there are now 256 living. The records
list 77 women living.
1908 was well supplied with good athletes,
June 1966 29