ustxtxb_obs_1966_11_11_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

I HIFITURA PRESS HI 2-8682 HI 2-2426 1714 SO. CONGRESS M al s & Silk Screen Work & Po itical Printing & Novelties & Mimeograph Supplies & Conventi on Badges & Advertising Campaigns & Statil nt 0 rs ds to AUSTIN e. tE t: is “In the Heart of Downtown Dallas” 24-Hour Coffee Shop . $5.00 up No Charge for Children Under 18 24-Hour Coffee Shop Radio-Television Completely Air Conditioned FREE INSIDE PARKING HOTEL ottilitrath Commerce-Murphy-Main Streets Telephone: Riverside 2-6431 Dallas, Texas sphere and for circumstances which will attract well-prepared people from good universities to our state and keep them here. We know what such an atmosphere is. We easily recognize its presence; and when it is absent we feel its absence in our bones. First, then, we believe that the government of a university or college is not best understood as analogous to that of a battalion, or a corporation. Nor is it a Greek democracy, nor even a representative one. It is a community of crochety, opinionated oldsters, known as professors and of brash, opinionated youngsters, the students. Both groups must be presumed to be amenable to reason and to have the good of the educational enterprise at heart. It is, in fact, their enterprise. They have been set up in business by the state, but if they cannot carry it on, then it will not succeed. They do sometimes need leadership, but the leadership that is needed is not that of Leviathan, whose word has become law merely because of the inability of his subjects to live together without a ruler. It is that of a philosopher-king; a somewhat unplatonic philosopher-king, that is, one who is guided by rational dialogue with his subjects, and not by his private and uncriticized promptings. But if the voice of his subjects is to be heard, then it must be provided with a senate or other assembly through which it may speak. We hold that a so-called community in which there is no such faculty organization is a college or university in name only, because it is not a community, but a corporationor battalion-like group posing as a community. The organization of a corporation or a battalion is dictated by the ends for which they exist: to show a profit, and to win battles. But a university cannot be organized for maximum efficiency in achieving a given end, since there is no single end or purpose intrinsic to the very notion of a university. . . . Thirdly, we hold that free discussion is essential to the development and maintenance of a civilized world, that colleges and universities are the last redoubt of free discussion, that this is so largely because of the protection offered students and faculty under a policy of academic freedom, and that faculty freedom can exist only if there is tenure, and tenure only if there is due process. In spite of the glad tidings of the moment, in spite of the activities of our journalistic friends, academic freedom is in precarious circumstances in Texas. The public is not yet sufficiently aware of its importance. It is not interested. . . . Even if there are bows in the direction of academic freedom, freedom can’t live on courtesy. -It must have solid guarantees of tenure. If you can throw a man out of his job for what he says, then he must be careful to say what you like to hear. In this age of consumer education we have November 11, 1966 been taught to scrutinize guarantees very closely. And this applies to guarantees of tenure. I don’t have tenure if there is a provision in the statutes of my university that I may be dismissed for conduct unbecoming a professor, and if the President is to be the sole connoisseur of professorial conduct. I need much more careful specification of the grounds on which I may be dismissed; but above all, I need specification of the procedure by which I am to learn of the charges against me, the right I have to appeal, and the way in which my appeal will be heard and decided. And not just any procedure will do; not one, especially, in which the agents of the administration which dismissed me are to decide whether that same administration has acted correctly. Students are a part of the academic community, and should be not just allowed but encouraged to participate freely in its discussions. We agree with the Committee [of the A.A.U.P.], which says in its by now well-honed statement that while students are, naturally, “responsible for learning thoroughly the content of any study . . . they should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered, and to reserve judgment on matters of opinion”; that outside of the classroom students should have freedom of association; and that the “student press should be free of censorship and advance approval of copy, and its editors and managers should be free to develop their own editorial policies and news coverage.” It does not require great prescience to predict that student academic freedom is an issue that will loom larger in the discussions and activities of this Conference. There are, as you must know, straws in the wind; and while we have no wish to judge the merits of any particular case, here and now, it may be worth while to let students and administrations know on what principles we stand. Need I make a fourth and fifth point about an adequate salary scale and other benefits to attract and retain good academics in the state of Texas; and about the subtly degrading effect of the disclaimer affidavit we must sign to receive our pay checks? Where we stand on these matters should by now be abundantly clear from our past actions; and we will try to make it yet more clear in the fu Campaign Cards & Placards & Bumperstrips & Brochures & Flyers & Letterheads & Err. elopes &Vertical Posters & Buttons & Ribb ons & Badges & Process Color Work & Art Work & Forms & Newspapers & Political P rinting & Books & Silk Screen Work & Magz sk2” Car in & Nov -1 P . r s ture. Our great effort in this legislative year must be to muster strong support for the faculty fringe benefits which will presumably be presented to the legislature by the excellent committee on faculty compensation appointed by Speaker Ben Barnes and Lieutenant Governor Preston Smith. WITH DAYLIGHT showing at the seams of our buildings, students coming out of our ears, and the cost of educating each one of them creeping higher and higher, only an obstructionist \(so it professorial utopia. But it will be time to worry about the debilitating effects of utopia when we come within shouting distance of it; and even at the present gratifying ,rate of progress, the tips of utopia’s towers do not grow appreciably on the horizon. We do not want a utopia, but a viable academic community, and the principles for which we stand, and have stood, and will stand, are necessary conditions for the attainment of such a community. . . . The next step is, taking advantage of the political maturity we are attaining, to work with our new-found friends, in this suddenly salubrious climate, for the legislation which will implement our desires.