I J M n O
"y I I M 1 j iff UU j ! ! ! M f '! ! ;' i U M
i jj
! f H I S i M (i ; 0
j ' f ! ' : j j j ' )
1 I 1 ? f i i ! 1 I
- '"-J ' i f f ft
I !
(Editor's note: The problem with
education in Chapel Hill is that too few
people ere concerned about improving it.
Educational reform is not the
responsibility of just the Chancellor's
Advisory Committee on Teaching and
Curriculum. Its burden does not fall
solely on the faculty or on the Office of
Experimental Studies.
The quality and quantity of
educational opportunities will only
improve as more and more students seek
and demand them. The demands met by
this University are the demands voiced
most loudly, persistently and persuasively
by the academic community.
People need to be more aware of the
need for educational reform and its
possibilities. Like a bucket of cold water
in the face, it hopes to awaken and
stiumlate, to provoke thought,
commitment and maybe even action.
Only a few aspects of educational
reform are touched on here. There are
countless others that need to be explored,
analyzed and worked on. )
At Fordham University, students and faculty live and study together as long as
mutual interest in areas of common concern remain alive. Every academic
undertaking is an ad hoc arrangement and there are no grades, credits or degree
requirements as such.
At Callison College of the University of the Pacific, each student spends his
sophomore year in India to experience the shock of cultural clash.
....w.w
..V.V.V.V.'
WiViV.w.w.vwwW,
With the frontier long closed and with
the population and degree of technicality
increasing, America is how faced with
what perhaps may become its greatest
challenge: keeping itself busy.
I Within thirty years, industry's work
'week will be substantially shorter. A
twenty or thirty hour week will not be an
uncommon contract stipulation. The
mandatory retirement age will be reduced
to somewhere between forty-five or fifty
years of age. Vacation time will be
increased. Benefits, social security,
;welfare-all these will be bolstered. Where
is this leading us?
Obviously the first conclusion is that
jnore and more people are being and will .
be paid not to work. It is also not too
far-fetched to predict that sometime in
the future those people who do not want
to enter the labor force will be paid not
to. The government has been paying
farmers for a number of years now to
plant certain crops in order to keep those
crops' market value up.
TT7 Jl
If education is life and not just
preparation for life, should students
be isolated in Chapel Hill for eight
consecutive semesters?
The Peace Corps has recently
emphasized the potential
destructiveness of prolonged
confinement within the protective
academic community. Students
come to rely too heavily on
authoritarian support and
prefabricated structure. They are
exposed to few cross-cultural
contacts or experiential training. A
Bachelor of Arts generalist must
usually be retooled before he can
'work, live and contribute to a
community in India, Kenya or
Chad. The 22-year-old Chapel Hill
graduate is often unable to teach
himself or learn from such radically
personal involvement.
"We can experience learning
tasks only by engagement with
particular problems, people and
times," emphasizes Bob Sigmon,
director of the North Carolina
Internship Program. "Students
should be able to bring back to
their regular studies questions and
concerns aroused through
experiences like internships.
Experiential modules can
supplement the quality of
education."
likewise, industry and government
may in the utzx future decide that in
order to maintain a certain qualtiy cf
work and a certian minimum productivity
rate, the best course will be truly to pay
people not to work. It may be the only
alternative.
It may become the only alternative
because with population increasing and
with technology also continuing to
rapidly advance, there will be, relatively
speaking, fewer jobs for a greater number
of people. In the future there will not be
enough jobs for everybody who needs
one; yet, if a technical society can be
created, there should not be.
Already today, because we have
created "jobs" in order to fulfill union
contracts or to maintian a level close to
maximum employment, may jobs are
intrinsically valueless. This not only
frustrates the individual, but also hinders
the productivity of the industry.
In any event, citizens of the U.S. will
in the next thirty years have an ever
increasing amount of free time. Within
those years it will also become the U.S.'s
greatest problem. It a man retires in 2000
at the age of 54, he will probably be
expected to live another forty years.
What will he be able to do for that period
of time?
People will obviously have to learn
how to entertain themselves. As the
population continues to increase,
pollution at least for the near future, will
also increase. This means that more rivers
and lakes will become too dangerous to
use. Pollution of land will make other
forms of outdoor recreation at best,
unattractive, and in many cases,
inconceivable. To illustrate this point,
city planners are already discussing a
continuous urban area from Atlanta to
Charlotte. One can easily envision this
expanding to cover the area from
Jacksonville to Boston. Another
illustration of the problem is Yosemite
- National Park. Yosemite , Village during
the summer now "enjoys" a density per
square mile that is greater than that of
San Francisco's. Vacationing there in the
summer no longer means "getting away
from it." The point though is that in the
future, land will not be available for
recreation and that those lands that have
u
Are students isolated for 8 semesters?
Students finding summer jobs
over the Christmas holidays could
outline a parallel program of study.
They could seek credit for their
work under Honors 38 or a
departmental independent study
course.
For example, Mike Almond, a
senior political science major, is
receiving 15 hours credit for his
At Antioch College, each student initiates his own academic program, including
periods of regular university course work interspersed with internships off campus.
Work-study and independent study programs are thus emphasized, giving maximum
opportunity for individual freedom and social development.
At Livingston College at Rutgers, the policy is to offer an outstanding and
relevant education in a congenial and responsive environment. Its liberal arts
curriculum is "problem-centered and multidisciplinary."
a m J a k sin a s
V t..S&Z&&Z
research on student activism in
Europe last spring. Almond will be
credited with nien hours under
Honors 38, three hours under
Political Science 99 (independent
study) and three hours under
Political Science 91. He is presently
writing his honors thesis on his
research in Political Science 92,
another three hours credit.
been set aside for par land will be too
crowed to enjoy.
Having made and accepted these
conclusions, the chief way man will then
be able to justify or satisfy himself is in
the pursuit of knowledge. Golf or tennis
and si casual glance at "Newsweek" will
not suffice to fulfill the long hours of
idleness.
However, !by suggesting that the
answer to what may become America's
greatest problem is the pursuit of
knowledge for the sake of one's own
curiosity and self-satisfaction is also to
suggest a major change in American life
and culture. Certainly, this is true;
however, compared to the change in
structure and philosophy that will occur
when people are paid not to work, it will
only seem natural.
Work has been and is the foundation
of the American system. Without it a
whole new set of standards-economic,
social, political-will all have to be
established. No longer will one be able t&
look at a man's job and determine many,
of his political views, his social standing,'
or his economic base. This is the change
that will truly revolutionize the United
States.
Education, if it wants to remain
relevant to the needs of the nation, will
also have to undergo a tremendous
revolution. It will no longer be able to
operate as a finite sixteen year package
that the student buys and resells through,
the labor market. Instead of pointing
towards training the student for a job,
education will have to be restructured
and redefined as not a finite experience,
but an infinite experience that becomes'
the means not to a definite end, but to a
continous search and obtainment of,
knowledge and self-satisfaction.
If, in the future, education accepts this
redefinition, the university will become
the center of American life. It of course,
will not be the univeristy as we think of it
today.
The great libraries and the
centralization of scholars will be the:
same, but instead of being a packaged;
unit, the university will be open and free.
One professor described it as a "library
system" where the student will come to
the university and take from it what
knowledge he feels that he needs. It will
operated entirely on a self-orientated,
self-initiated format that is directed
towards self-justification and
self-satisfaction.
...For the majority of people , it is'.
America's greatest hope.- The university,
by becoming open to everyone, will not
only assure a free flow of personnel, and
consequently, ideas, to and from industry
and government; but for those out of
work it will assure a means to satisfaction
and justification as well as offer a
never-ending task.
"The most important thing to
do is to have your proposal
thoroughly outlined when you
approach the Honors office,"
Almond explained. "You ought to
knock them over, show them you
have considered everything in
advance."
He submitted a reading list of
about 30 books on student
activism. He proposed to talk with
students and educators in four or
five European countries. He
requested the freedom to take
advantage of situations in Europe as
they came up during his travel.
Now he is writing his thesis, already
180 pages and only half or a third
completed.
Another political science senior,
Class coordinator Skip McGaughey fields questions from
his Political Science 95 A class. Small seminars, flexible class
attendance and grading scale and the reliance on
Project Minion one step
toward
Educational reformers' first task
is to clarify the aim of education.
John Dewey once said that
education is life itself, not
preparation for life. Since life is not
calm, the university's purpose must
not be to run smoothly. Since life is
pushlrig'and'iJullin the Vhiveristy
must constantly change, grow and
search for answers.
The university must be lifelike, a
place where ideas are tried. If they
fail, they are analyzed and tried
again. The university must be an
atmosphere inspiring creativity. It
must be a community lending
support to its struggling members.
This sense of community is
achieved in large universities
through smaller units within the
whole. Project Hinton is one of
these smaller units. It evolved from
the current national movement to
form independent clusters within
the larger university. A residential
college experiment to improve
Virginia Carson, received six hours
credit last spring working in Mayor
Howard Lee's office. She
researched the availability of
federal grants and programs for the
Mayor. She also studied the values
reflected in government and the
relation of society to government
with Dr. Alden Lind.
A third political science major,
Blair Ruble, will receive nine hours
credit for study in the Soviet Union
this spring. Ruble will undergo five
weeks of intensive study- of
language and East European law at
Ohio State University. He will
travel with a group through the
Soviet Union for six weeks in April
and May. The group will interview
judges and examine courts and
penal institutions at Moscow,
Prague, Kiev and Belgrade. Dr. Glen
Elder, sociology, and Dr. Robert
Rupen, political science, are his
sponsors. He is also taking two
reading courses in conjunction with
his study under Dr. Will Brooks and
Dr. William Levine.
Experiential woik-study
programs are one means of
improving the quality and
meaningfulness of education. Like
Project Hinton, internships are only
one alternative, one experiment.
There are many, many more.
i'i
i
1
A
& W-iif- --iMirr'Tirmi
eaucanonm rejorra
dormitory life, the Project is a
coeducational community on the
ninth and tenth floors of South
Campus' Hinton James dormijory.
The experiment was designed to
include an academic program and
has evolved into a new, exciting
"commuriity. ;
Proiect Hinton's
academic
emphasis is the mutual effort of
students seeking an academic
experience outside the classroom
and faculty fellows fighting the
crisis of classroom ennui. Project
Hinton members design their own
courses, recruit faculty to offer
them, and work with the professors
on the syllabus. The student is the
center of the curriculum. The often
first-name student-professor
relationship continues after class
through meals, town meetings,
retreats and parties. The result is a
more balanced, rewarding
relationship.
Project participants are 100
women, 100 men, resident directors
Jim and Vivian Wharton and
faculty fellows selected by the
students. Doctors Bill Peck
(religion), E. Willis Brooks
(history), Frank McCormick
(botany), Walt Spearman
(journalism) and Bob Voitle
(English) teach "out there" this
year.
Many things are required for the
success of such a living-learning
experiment. First, the Project
requires sincere, dedicated faculty
commitment. Some faculty fellows
are released somewhat from their
normal departmental teaching
loads. But their participation in the
Project (where "we are all students,
we are all teachers") requires
extensive time and effort. Teaching
a Project course doesn't mean
dusting off aimless standard
lectures, but evolving passionately
with the class' fellow members.
Each Project Hinton course is
unique because the faculty fellow
tries to respond directly to the
students' concerns.
Being a faculty fellow does not
This pna written szcldly for The
Ddly Tsr Heel by Chris Snvyer, chief
II:oa between the Inter Fraternity
Council end Upverd Bound; Jim
Vhextcn, co-director cf the Project
Hinton residence promm end Judy
Hippler, chdrmzn of the Toronto
"t V-
Vv4
controversial speakers such as Rennie Davis and Jane FondJ
have made this Contemporary Affairs course one of the
most popular on campus.
r
mean only classroom teaching. It
means becoming a part of the
Project life through endless kinds of
activities.
Bill Peck, Bob Viotle, Frank
McCormick, Will Brooks and Walt
Spearman are all sincerely
rcomniifted tpVifucation and id flic
Project as an educational
alternative. They have done an
excellent job The problem has not
at all been with individual faculty
fellows, but with the
administration. The teacher reward
system recognizes not involvement
with or concern for students, but
research, published works and
administrative ability. This value
judgment must change before the
University can radically improve
the quality of its educational
opportunities.
Success also requires
administrative commitment. The
College of Arts and Sciences and
other schools within the University
must allow more academic freedom
within guidelines rather than the
existing massive rules and restrictive
regulations. More Project courses
must be approved. And the
administration should pursue the
project further as an educai tonal
alternative.
Success further necessitates
better physical facilities. Education
communities like the Project
require an integrated building with
cafeteria, community living rooms
and study areas.
Success also requires students to
elect to live and grow in the
Project. The housing office
currently assigns some students to
live there who do not really wont to
become a part of the Project. All
Project participants must desire to
live there, not be dumped there by
the housing office.
Project Hinton is only the first
phase of what could develop into a
number of fantastic learning
opportunities. Much more is
possible if only the University will
commit itself to student-oriented
education.
i