University of Miami - Ibis Yearbook (Coral Gables, FL)

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X - - f I f i ' T - 1 V Th e New PoliHa A recent UM graduate candidly discusses his role in the ' new politics and the relationship of his academic preparation to political reality

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It is 1960; Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy are running for the presidency and Richard Brown, 9, is running around sandlots with a Kennedy button in his baseball cap. It is 1972; Richard M. Nixon and George McGovern are running for the presi- dency, and Richard Brown 21, is running around the University of Miami campus attending classes and simultaneously campaigning for state and local Demo- cratic candidates. Richard Brown is a member of the Poli- tics and Public Affairs Department 213 course - Practical Politics. This is a course which gives politically interested students like Richard the op- portunity to earn academic credit by participating and working with political parties, campaigns, and or organiza- tions. Each student has his own choice of ac- tivity, does the field work (often taking several weeks or months), and submits a final report. The reports outline the student ' s work, sometimes monotonous and routine, sometimes exciting. Jobs range from ringing doorbells and pass- ing out leaflets to highly paid jobs in the strategy levels of various organizations. The reports also comment on these ac- tivities ' validity, and advance construc- tive criticisms. Dr. Virgil Shipley, PPA Department Chairman, explained that the idea of the course is to have students work in the practical field work and then come back to their textbooks and theories and compare the two. And how would Richard feel after the long hours of phone calls and gallons of stale coffee ending in the defeat of his candidates? Well . . . there ' s always next year.

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interview by Tony Passarello (Editor ' s note: The academic year 1969-70 represented one of the last years in which spontaneous, massive student involvement in the affairs of the policies of the United States and the world was the order of the day. Part of the special significance of this kind of activism is attributable to the fact that the vast majority of UM students of 1969 were still a part of that mass of half-citizens who often paid taxes, served in the nation ' s armed forces, and carried out other obligations to the government of the United States without having the privilege of choosing its leaders. Peter Yaffe, as an executive assistant to the vice-president of the then Undergraduate Student Government, was responsible for the initiation and coordination of UM ' s partic- ipation in the national Moratoria against the Vietnam War in the autumn of 1969. A 1970 graduate of the University of Miami, Yaffe was in Miami Beach in the summer of 1972 in his capactiy as executive assistant to the Governor of Pennsylvania ' s delegation to the Democratic National Convention. This exclusive Ibis Illustrated interview was recorded in the lobby of the Pennsylvania delegation ' s quarters at Miami Beach ' s Barcelona Hotel;) Passarello: Peter, it ' s quite a jump from being a newly-graduated A.B. in government to becoming the executive assistant to the Gover- nor of Pennsylvania in two short years. Is this sort of attainment completely out of the reach of a UM graduate today? Yaffe: Not to any student who ' s interested enough in going into politics to get into it on more than a textbook level while he ' s in school. I began seriously working in 1968 while I was still in school as an advance man for Eugene McCarthy. Everyone knows how that one turned out. My second candidate, a man by the name of Norville Reese who was running for state senate in my home state of Pennsylvania from Philadelphia, also lost. But the association was valuable, as it later turned out. After I graduated from UM in 1970, I was spending a summer vacation in Massachusetts, where Reese called me to ask if I wanted to help in a campaign he was working on for the Pennsyl- vania governorshop. The candidate was named Shapp, and, during the campaign, I became a very intergral part of his personal staff. After the election, he offered many of us jobs in the ad- ministration. That ' s how it happened. Passarello: In what types of political activity were you engaged on campus prior to your graduation?