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Free University Right Now

Free University Right Now image
Parent Issue
Day
26
Month
November
Year
1971
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
OCR Text

FREE UNIVERSITY RIGHT NOW

The following is an excerpt from a pamphlet published by the Program for Educational and Social Change (PESC) in Ann Arbor. Inside the pamphlet is an explanation of what their goals are and what kinds of courses are offered, including all kinds of studies and familiar academic courses as well as ones like the Community Course--the Socio-Economic and Political Foundations of County Politics: A Seminar in Ann Arbor for Students and Members of the Washtenaw Community. There are thirteen pages listing the different courses offered, it's all free and well worth looking into for anyone who wants to learn, or teach.

No effort to transform American society or, for that matter, education at the University of Michigan, needs explanation. What is required is to justify one course of action over another. We choose to create a program for education and social change because we are- -we believe it is possible and even necessary to be -- teachers, learners, scholars, intellectuals, radicals, brothers and sisters in a communal endeavor to change the ways we teach and learn and live.

We are also involved in every aspect of academic life at the University of Michigan. We believe the University is a proper place to teach and learn and work for social change -- within it and outside it. We want to make it a more useful, more humane, more accessible, and more effective community as well.

We wish our knowledge to serve people. We recognize that the primary focus of social change must be the larger American society and its economic, social, political, and military institutions, of which the power-serving university is only a minor and derivative part. Nevertheless, the university is where we work and live, and we have as many rights and responsibilities in determining how its resources are used and whom it serves as those of any other point of view. We believe we can use the resources and intelligence which exist within the university to create a community, to forge ideas, to make a difference in how American society is transformed.

Our goals include the following:

1. To create a community and open institutions where persons of all ages and roles within and outside the university can come together as equals, where they can share, sustain, and develop an integrated intellectual, political, and personal life. 

2. To provide information and assistance to undergraduate and graduate students who wish to study social change, to create concentrations and graduate programs, to pursue knowledge independently or to gain understanding of social changes from outside the University.

3. To foster cooperation and greater community among faculty engaged in teaching and research on social change, working toward greater unity and interrelationship among course offerings, and the planning of needed courses, not found in the University curriculum. 

4. To provide means of communicating ideas and knowledge about social change through independent media, possibly including a journal and a press to publish pamphlets, student papers, documentary material, etc..

5. To endeavor to make the resources of the University more readily accessible to persons now excluded from it, and, in particular, to seek ways of uniting our own intellectual and social efforts with those of non-University individuals and groups. 

6. To utilize our intellectual and social resources in efforts to bring about social change in our local and national communities.

7. To apply our efforts to the transformation of the curriculum, the educational environment, and the social commitments of the University.

These are broad and varied goals, and they are stated in a way that they do not exclude persons whom we hope to serve, from the uncommitted student seeking a single course, to the person who devotes his or her entire life to social transformation. To have stated them, to have organized ourselves, is an essential and desirable beginning. . . .

Community groups working for social change frequently need the resources of experts. We of PESC can provide a variety of professional skills ranging from American history and anthropology to mathematics and economics. This "research bank" is especially at the disposition of community groups (Chicanos, Blacks, Women, American Indians, Workers, and others) who need these research resources to facilitate their goals through legal or political actions, and frequently have no access to them.

If you or your group has need of the resources that PESC can provide, contact Marshall Sahlins at 764-7431 or 663-6368.