University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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The issue in student politics this year was bluntly: student power. The Action Student Party, after narrowly losing last year ' s student body presidential race, this year elected 13 members to Student Senate on a platform calling for student self-government the right of the students to make and enforce their own rules of behavior, as well as to participate in decisions of academic policy. Bills were passed by the Senate to implement these proposals, a student judi- ciary was set up, and course and teacher evaluation was begun. But repeated attempts by various halls to follow their own rules, especially in the area of parietal hours, were stopped by the administration. Fin ally, a General Assembly of Students was con- vened in February, and after two tumultuous sessions, passed bills endorsing self-government, stay hall, parietal hours, and academic reforms. Two weeks later, Richard Rossie, campaigning strongly for student power, was elected student body presi- dent by an unprecedented landslide of 60 percent. This enthusiastic endorsement of the principles of student power and the mandate for their implemen- tation was the result of many years of activity by gradually growing numbers of students. Nationally, student power has developed as a reaction to certain trends in the university. The first is the gradual disintegration of the university community. The second is the metamorphosis of the university into a full fledged business enterprise, concerned primarily with production (students, re- search, and publications), rewards, and image. It also expresses the growing estrangement of the younger generation from the traditional American society and youth ' s growing frustration at its own lack of power and ability to control their own lives and to bring about needed social change. The growth in student radicalism at Notre Dame has paralleled the disintegration of its traditional student community. This disintegration with its re- sulting alienation and frustration first manifested itself in the Corby Riot of 1960 when hundreds of angry students snowballed Corby Hall and the Dean of Students. But the change had begun earlier. The composition of the student body was changing; the effects of Fr. Hesburgh ' s academic excellence were being felt. The new type of student was different; he was better prepared, more intelligent and ques- tioning. He did not come to Notre Dame to accept answers but to seek them for himself. The new students found themselves increasingly unable to identify with the traditional image of the Notre Dame man and increasingly unable to integrate themselves into the student community founded on this image. The rules which reflected the old com- munity no longer served their purpose of unifying the student body and had become repression rather than regulation of order. And in turn this repressive atmosphere tended to increase student distrust of the administration, as well as further alienation and frustration. Football, once a unifying factor, was in inj new lac- tor of unity arose to replace athletcis and image. At the same time, Notre Dame was rapidly ex- panding until it began to resemble the multiversity, concerned with much more than just education. Academe is no longer a quiet oasis of intellect, a retreat from mundane cares where scholars can pursue their work in meditative silence. Research, great conferences, construction, and fund drives have become full-time activities. Students at any university are no longer the central object of con- cern that they once were, so they seek to offset this loss of status by achieving a position of influence and power within the university. But power can only be achieved by men working together in groups, and is impossible for men alien- ated from one another to exercise. Environments of alienation and frustration produce radicals and Notre Dame is an excellent example of this. Alien- ated men seek community and the radical commun- ity, beginning with the Popular Front, has grown as an answer to the distintegration of the old com- munity. Most have become members not out of intel- lectual conviction but in search of the intangibles that cannot be found in isolated existence. It is a loosely defined group suffering in varying degrees of alienation from the system. They cannot iden- tify with the old image, but seek to create a new one. The growth of the radical community as a sociological group with group symbols and activities can be measured by the increase in its power and influence over the last few years. This year the com- munity has become strong enough to support the Delphic Oracle, a coffee house, and a radical news- paper, the River City Review. They are numerous enough to man a student political party and to hold large demonstrations against the war and for free speech on campus. There has been a gradual acceptance of their solu- tions to the problems that exist at Notre Dame. But the most important single contribution that student radicalism has made at Notre Dame is to make the students aware of the problems confronting them and of their power to effect change. Apathy is de- clining and activism is now ascendent. This shows not only an awareness of Notre Dame ' s problems, but also of those which afflict America. For student power ultimately aims beyond the university, seek- ing to change our society as well. Since the univer- sities are becoming key institutions in this country, they can eventually change society, but only if they are transformed first. This is what student power is trying to do restructure the universities into democratic educational communities which will be- come the bases for an eventual transformation and liberation of the whole society. Jon Sherry

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The all-American crew-cut college kid no longer exists. He belonged to the late forties and fifties when the Cold War, flag waving patriotism, and Pat Boone were in vogue. Today ' s college student, though coming from the same background, has encountered a vastly different university than his predecessor did a decade and a half ago. He is more aware and recep- tive to the world around him. His concern for civil rights sparked the Southern Negro voter registration drives of the sixties. His concern for the underprivi- leged peoples of his own country and the world are manifest in his interest in VISTA and the Peace Corps. But in the last year, this concern has appeared to be waning, or at least changing direction. There are several reasons for this change. First, the university has assumed a much more prominent role in the structure of American society. The largest segment of the university, the students, are now more interested in student power the way they can use their collective influence in changing the univer- sity and the world around them. Second, the war in Viet Nam and its corresponding demands for man- power have reached such proportions that students can no longer take an extended absence from school or join one of these volunteer programs after gradu- ation for fear of being drafted. American society is turning to the universities for finding solutions to its problems and at the same time demanding that its students go out and solve those problems. It is not the students who have changed the university from a monastery to a government research plant and em- ployment source. But the students are at the very center of that change. For the following six pages of the Dome, four students discuss these topics and their relation to the students. On pages 10 and 11, Jon Sherry, senior government major and ASP party chairman, outlines the history and goals of student power in the nation ' s universities and specifically at Notre Dame. On pages 12 and 13 Forrest Hainline, a senior English major, attacks American involvement in Viet Nam, while Chris Manion, a senior history major, demands a quick, decisive victory. Then on pages 14 and 15, Ned Allen Buchbinder, senior General Program ma- jor and student draft counsellor, tells what he knows of the Selective Service ' s plans for the class of 1968 and suggests alternative actions for students who need them. Keith Harklns

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: ' STUDENT POWER: The growth of radicalism at Notre Dame has paralleled the disintegration of its tra- ditional student community.