PAGE 6
1970*8 Stvle Horatio Alger
Word Warren - Termpaper, Inc.
by Brooks Roddan
BERKELEY (CPS) -Ward
Warren is 22. He is the youngest
"self-made" millionaire in the
country - perhaps in the world.
He started Termpaper, Inc. in
Boston just one year ago with a
staff of four; "just me, two
ex-VISTA workers, and a legal
secretary." Now there are 100
offices in America and Canada.
In two years Warren expects
to "go over the counter" (stock
market parlance for issuing stock
on the New York Stock
Exchange) and in two years after
that, in 1976, he anticipates
having amassed a fortune of 20
million dollars.
There is money in
termpapers.
It would be easy, then, to say
Ward Warren is in it for the
money. But he isn't. At least he
says he isn't. And some fairly
hard evidene would indeed
testify that this young man has
other things up his sleeve. Things
like completely revolutionizing
the American university/college
system.
"I started Termpaper, Inc.
with the idea of bringing about
massive educational reform. 1
want to make the American
university defunct by 1976. By
'76 I will have the means, the
technology, and the manpower,
(he claims his company has more
Ph.D's and M.A.'s employed
proportionately than the Rand
Corporation) to do it. My
system will thoroughly
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restructure the student-teacher
relationship and, consequently,
the system."
But let's regress momentarily.
Right now Warren is engaged in
buying and selling termpapers
a controversial subject among
American educators and
students.
"We're strictly a research
service," says Warren, a chubby,
every-mother's-son-type who
was dressed for this interview in
an unfashionable blue sport
coat, a tieless psychedelic shirt,
and chunky black 1950 malt
shop shoes.
One is inclined to think of
Warren's business as a "research
service" in the same terms one
regards a garbage collector who
calls himself a "sanitation
engineer" with extreme
skepticism. But he stresses the
point; "Look," he points to a
sign on the far wall of
Termpaper, Inc.'s sparsely
settled, functional San Francisco
office "that's our motto 'We
Don't Condone Plagiarism!"
"We are a research facility.
It's been proven that very few of
the students who buy a paper
from us immediately turn it in.
They invariably re-structure it,
re-write it, or use it for
reference. If a student comes in
here and it's obvious that he is
going to use the paper stupidly,
or dishonestly, then we won't do
business with him. We keep
extensive files on every paper we
turn out and we are extremely
careful about re-cycling them."
THE GUILFORDIAN
Termpaper, Inc. has about
2,000 people writing for it now.
Once accused of having a style
that, according to one professor,
"you could smell a mile away"
this diversity of contribution has
made it hard for teachers to spot
them.
Also, where they once
devoted their efforts almost
entirely to undergraduate
research papers, they are
expanding now in fact, only
60 percent of their business is
built around undergraduate
papers. The expansion lies in
several interesting fields:
graduate papers, doctorate
thesis', corporate research, and
finally, Wade Warren's special
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29W341
project an advanced, unique
education system that, in his
words, "will make the university
in America defunct by 1976."
"You know, it's the lazy
teacher who is afraid of us. The
teacher who uses the term paper
to constrict the student or who
uses it because it is the
conventional thing to do.
"The term paper is often just
a procedural smokescreen for
the professor to hide behind -
they don't have to face the
hazards of dealing with the
student on a human level, on a
level that would contribute to
the student's education, to his
awareness of life. This termpaper
business is just a small step in
the process of restructuring the
university in the United States.
How would he go about
re-structuring the university?
"I am developing plans right
now for a series of computerized
memory banks which would
enable a student to do research
in a matter of moments," said
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Warren. "Say he wanted to
know something about William
Shakespeare he'd press a
button and on a screen would be
all the references listed that
pertained to Shakespeare."
"Then the student could pick
out which ones he wanted and
press another button for them.
Classes could be taught by this
method. It would eliminate
professors who could not
compete with it and it would
make libraries obsolete all of
which would cut tuition in half.
The teachers who really teach,
who really relate to the students
and make education a
challenging and meaningful
experience would stay," he said.
"It's an extremely elaborate,
complicated system and I can't
get into it yet in detail. As far as
I know only Mr. White (the
former president of Xerox who
died last month) and
Buckminster Fuller know much
about it. And Bucky Fuller is 77
years old. The whole is up to
me."