Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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1975: THE YEAR OF THE CRISIS AND A YEAR OF ' JUST OU . . . '

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IMWfe The Year of the Crisis 4 Freshmen Dorms 6 Interim President Crewson 12 UFW Strike 16 Student Governing Board 18 The Resignation and Pardon of Nixon 20 Watergate Trials 22 John Dean visits Athens 24 The Economy 26 Viet Nam Revisited 28

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1975: You might call it the year of the CRISIS. For graduates at OU and all over the country, it was an employment crisis. For the university it was an enrollment crisis (among other things). For government it was the political crisis of Watergate and a food crisis threatened the world. For America it was an energy crisis, an economic crisis . . . inflation, recession, depression . . . whatever. For the freshmen it was a housing crisis (the 90-hour rule), for Harry Crewson it was an administrative crisis, for the supporters of the United Farm Workers it was a grapes-lettuce crisis, for the Student Governing Board it was an existence crisis, or a non-existence crisis . . . or maybe a why bother? crisis. ONE OF the attitudes that was repeating itself as the year progressed was a sort of looking back to how the things of the recent past had shaped the present. For example, refer to: Bob Tkacz: One could go on for maudlin hours over Vietnam . . . (p. 28). Gary Putka: Not too many years ago when freshmen still came to the university with a blooming — even if naive — social consciousness, a pair of enlightened older students were discussing Southeastern Ohio . . . (p. 116). GaleSeider: . . . when hometown friends ask me to profile an OU student, it ' s not so easy. To make it simple, many say everyone is from Cleveland, participates in spring riots and . . . four years ago this university had a reputation for the biggest party school in Ohio ... (p. 124). Noreen Wilson: What will they remember? Perhaps playing Frisbee on the green, or cards in the dorm. The tough exam they aced, those miserable eight o ' clocks and climbing the stairs of Copeland and Ellis Halls . . . (p. 130). Jake Newman: October 7, 1971 : Athens, Ohio is shocked into Gay awareness . . . (p. 142). Horace Coleman: In that time so recent and so far away when blacks and many others were voting in the streets across the nation, colleges and universities were also polling places of opinion . . . (p. 154). AND LOOKING at the present problems, for example: Jan Johnston: Naming an interim president for a one year period as the university approached a crisis situation was no easy job ... a campus turned its eyes toward Crewson in hopes that he would have the answers to the university ' s problems . . . (p. 12). Mark Payler: . . .this may have been the last year the band performed under a restricted male membership ... (p. 40). Margaret Van Demark: With the famed drops in enrollment and the budget cutbacks, academic programs have been cut, instructors relieved of their jobs and courses eliminated . . . (p. 168). Dan Sewell: 1975-75 will not be entered into the annals of OU sports history as being particularly memorable. In fact, for the majority of OU fans, it will probably be remembered as a year of extreme frustration ... (p. 178.) BUT THE whole year wasn ' t problems and hard times. There were all the traditional OU activities, as well as new events, making 1975 a year of just OU. For example, refer to the rest of 1975 Spectrum GREEN: