Letters, Michigan Today, December 95

. . . December 1995

Michigan Today
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Ann Arbor MI 48109-1399
email: MToday@umich.edu
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Oops on Oswald

IN OCTOBER'S "A Famous ELI Student," it states of Marina Oswald, "She arrived in Ann Arbor . . . in January 1965, two months after Kennedy's slaying." Wasn't Kennedy killed on November 22, 1963? Oops. Edith Horvath Ann Arbor

Yes, Marina Oswald came to U-M 14 months after the assassination of President Kennedy, not two months, as we erroneously inserted into Kathy Hulik's story.--Ed. Memory of 1965 Teach-In

I WAS enrolled in a political science class during the spring of 1965. One member of our class attended the teach-in and came to recitation the next day all pumped up about the scandalous things she had learned the previous night. Our recitation leader calmly responded to her rantings by citing historical precedents and correcting her misconceptions.

She had made herself known earlier in the semester by strutting into class and snarling, “I'm a physics major; why do I have to take this PoliSci crap?” I thought the ignorance she demonstrated the day after the teach-in was similar to the ignorance I continue to observe in many adults, whose unwillingness to learn history mandates that every generation has to rediscover the wheel. Robert Probasco '66 Moscow, Idaho

THANKS VERY much for the evocative article by Matthew Newman on the teach-ins at Michigan during the early days of the Vietnam war. It was evocative because it brought back to me thoughts of a time in a place long suppressed in the recesses of stored memory.

I came to Ann Arbor in the late '60s as a graduate student and experienced the maelstrom of anti-war activities, not as an active participant, but as a sympathetic observer of the sceneand quite a scene it was. I recall, for example, attending one particular meeting of the University community in the large ballroom of the Michigan Union. Protest strategies and other heated issues were up for debate. Invective, deprecations and political rhetoric flew between the factions of the left and far left. The late Professor of Sociology Horace Miner got up to add civility and calming words to the din. He prefaced his remarks, however, by saying that he hesitated to speak for fear that his lineage would be maligned, after a dean was vilified by an angry student with a profane reference to his mother.

Although student protests and other forms of political mobilization did thankfully contribute to the de-escalation and ultimate termination of our military involvement in Vietnam, what remains with me are memories of the rancor and divisions the war created. And while many students acted out of a genuine revulsion to the war and exercised constitutionally guaranteed rights, others thrived on the conflict.

Today, I study the plight of Vietnam veterans professionally. While most do as well as their nonveteran peers, others still suffer from the trauma of their war experience. It is on them I focus and know that there but for the grace of God go I. Robert E. Klein '70 MA; '78 PhD Washington, DC < NAME="rh">

I MUST PROTEST the glorification of the 1965 “teach-in” protest. This activity, and the subsequent campus demonstrations during the 1960's, certainly did not add luster to the reputation of the University. I was not proud then of a wimpish administration that would allow a handful of radicals to disrupt a major university, and cannot feel positive about your publication describing these protests as "debates."

The only positive item I can remember from the entire series of episodes was a 1967 College of Engineering letter from the then dean noting that as far as he knew, none of the students of the College had participated in the "anti-war protests" because, in his opinion, they were all too busy with their studies.

An occasional historical item in Michigan Today is appreciated. However, you should stick to items that represent positive happenings, and not attempt to glorify events which only served to tarnish the image of a great University. Richard A. Humes '51 Eng. Bel Air, Maryland More on Rank Rankings

SURVEYING THE US News academic rankings this year of undergraduate, grad, and professional schools, Michigan adherents have some cause for pride, but also, unfortunately, much cause for chagrin. It simply will not do, as some with a clearly vested interest contend, to say that only Michigan professors and administrators are qualified to assess Michigan's academic standing. That would be the logic of Lloyd Carr voting the Wolverines first in the coaches poll, and no one could imagine him doing anything like that in 1995.

The good news is that taken as a whole the professional schools do quite well, with some 10 or 11 being ranked in the top 10 nationally. Social Work, Law, Dentistry, Nursing, Music, Public Health, Pharmacy, Engineering, and Business Administration score impressively, although slight improvement could be expected from the latter three. Medicine ranks 10th in the estimation of professors, and a majestic fourth in the opinion of directors of intern and residence programs.

The crucial ranking of graduate school departments, so vital to the University's standing as a research giant, gives a mixed result. The behavioral sciences continue to be the strongest area. Political science came in second only to Harvard, and represented the only subject in which Michigan outranked Berkeley (U-M 2; Cal 3). The bad news is that in vital subjects such as physics, chemistry and biology, Michigan just does not measure up to the quality expected of a university which aspires to world-class research status. Michigan outscores the mediocre schools; it falls short when compared to the super powers. The real disaster, however, is the undergraduate ranking, even though in the first column---academic reputation---Michigan is tied for 8th with five other schools. As far as the other parameters, Michigan's performance on SAT scores is unimpressive to say the least. Not only do a number of private schools outdo it, but so does the University of Virginia.

Does Michigan have the clout to lure full professors from the Harvards and Stanfords and Cals? Does it have the status to keep them from luring away its full professors? The University can attract an associate professor from anywhere, promote him or her to full professor, and then feel self-important until that scholar accomplishes something terrific and then gets a call from Harvard or Cal or Stanford or some similar school, and leaves Ann Arbor, and never looks back. Michigan seems, alas, to have become a kind of Triple-A farm team for the Major Leagues of academe. I. N. Kaye '54 Boulder, Colorado M.F.K. Mistake

I AM A serious collector of the works of M.F.K. Fisher, with an almost-complete collection of her writings. I have also consulted dozens of sources for biographical information about her. I cannot imagine what information led you to identify her as an alumna of the University of Michigan, in your Editor's Note on page 14, in regard to the letter from Susan Tyler Hitchcock '71.

Mrs. Fisher's only connection to Michigan was her birth in Albion in 1908. She moved with her family to California before she was three years old. She attended several colleges, including Occidental College in California, but never received a degree. Yours for editorial accuracy, Kathryn P. Seestedt Marine City, Michigan Someone reading the October letter about Alumna Helen Worth '35 mentioned that M.F.K. Fisher was “from Michigan.” That remark was misinterpreted, believed and carelessly left unchecked. In fact, Fisher wrote in later years that because her spirit was of the Far West, she was sorry even to have been born in Michigan!--Ed. Rankings, Co-ops and Lewis

SINCE YOUR October issue has a number of items relating directly on my personal experience, I am making several comments:

1. On "Rankings," your point on the difference between percentage of alumni giving and amount is well taken. Universities waste a lot of money and effort seeking many small gifts in order to build percentage rather than focus on prospects able/willing to give annual gifts of $1,000 and up. I continue to be puzzled over the many low ranking in "alumni satisfaction" in US News for U of M. In the past 45 years, I have met hundreds of U of M alumni from coast to coast and abroad, only one of whom seemed dissatisfied. (He felt lost in a big institution.)

2. The new publication on housing coops at Michigan sounds intriguing. I was involved in the Rev. Harry Lynn Pickerill's Disciples Guild House on Maynard St. in 1941-43 , with its boarding co-op in back. "Reverend Pick" came to U of M from TCU in 1934 and quickly became involved in the nascent coop movement, to which he introduced the Rochdale Principles for the first time. (Hence the Pickerill House.)

When I arrived in Ann Arbor in Sept. 1941, Abe Lincoln House was charging $1.75 a week for board. Guild House was charging $3. We had an Intercoop Council Purchasing Service, to which I was assigned because of my produce background from my Dad's farm in the Fruit Belt around Benton Harbor, Michigan.

In 1941-42, the Coops faced an enormous crisis because the University began to react to the sniping by many leaders of the Intercoop Council who were members of the Communist Party. The U proposed to establish an "advisory council" of deans, threatening our total independence. In order to meet this threat, several of us mounted a campaign to wrest control of the ICC from the CP card-holders. After we were successful, the advisory council idea died. (This was my first introduction to real politics as an untutored, barely 18-year-old farm boy facing a group of brilliant, well-organized mainly New York intellectuals who still believed Marxism was the answer to the Great Depression.)

3. Thank you for the coverage of Prof. Emeritus William Lewis. I have a wonderful watercolor he did on a boat on the river across from the River Rouge Ford Motor Co. plant.

Your publication continues to bring great pleasure and poignant memories of my dozen years in Ann Arbor. It is a delightful mix of the old and new, the scholarly and the newsworthy. Melvin M. Marcus '45, BA '47, '48 MA, '59 PhD Co-Founder of Friends of U-M Museum Baltimore

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