Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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iff as the case may be, can't handle the situation then they call in the State Police. If the State Police feel that they can't handle it, they would be the ones to ask the governor to call in the National Guard, Shadow: In general, do you believe that these outside authorities, mainly police and National Guard, are equipped to handle campus disorders? Dr. Elliott: They're equipped to deal with violence. Shadow: But how about campus disorders? Dr. Elliott: To the extent that campus disorders are violence, yes, I think they are. Let's face it, violence be- gets violence. The moment you have violence the only kind of response that you can have Cit's almost a maximj is a violent response. I heard a faculty member raise the question, Should we bring the police on campus? In the first place, at a certain point, we have no say in the matter. The police always have the right to come on campus. They always have had that right, and so there's nothing that can be done about it. The police have respected the concern of the college that it be allowed to regulate itself to the extent that it is capable of doing so. We have an excellent relationship with the area police: in fact, I suspect that most students aren't even aware of them or think much about the police sim- ply because the local police don't bother about things on campus for the most part. Shadow: In your opinion should marijuana be legalized? Dr. Elliott: You're asking my opinion, and l'll violate my regular procedure of not giving a personal opinion on a public issue. No, I don't think it should. And for this reason: I think that the medical service in the United States has probably done us a disservice in not doing a better job of studying the effects of marijuana so that they can say that it is, or is not, a general threat to health. There is a great deal of evidence that is start- ing to come out now to the effect that marijuana is harmful. I have talked to a number of doctors, including my brother-in-law who teaches internal medicine. He, on the basis of his experience with his patients, is ab- solutely convinced that marijuana causes a progres- sively depressant effect. Recently I talked to one of the deans of one of the major medical schools in the country who, on the basis of a fair number of autopsies, makes the flat statement that it causes deterioration within the brain. And he is just getting more cases before he publishes his results. Are they right? Are they wrong? I really don't know. But, I think l've seen enough, and l've talked to enough people who I think are serious, genuine scientists who would not be saying that marijuana was harmful unless they were really convinced as medical men that this is true. Shadow: What is your reaction to the Scranton Com- mittee Report? Dr. Elliot: I still haven't had a chance to read itg we haven't got a copy yet. I guess they ran out of the money and haven't been able to circulate the whole thing. Having read a great deal about it, though, I guess my reaction to it is that they're talking about a college and are saying too many faculty members are indiffer- ent to the students and more concerned about their own research. I have been at colleges, one college in particular, where this was true. That was Columbia Uni- versity, where I was from 1961 to 1964. This was before Columbia had all of its trouble. And I can name you names of faculty members who clearly fall into that cat- egory. On the other hand, I can also name you names of Columbia faculty members who were there at that time who were everything you could conceivably ask for. These were great men: these were wise men: men who were outstanding scholars. But they were also magnificent teachers who were genuinely concerned about the students. Shadow: On this campus, to what extent does the Scranton Committee complaint about faculty members who are more concerned about research than about students apply? Dr. Elliott: I honestly don't know of a single faculty member on this campus that this could apply to. I do know there are some faculty members who are a little casual about maintaining office hours. And we're trying to do something about that. I think that one of the things that the Ad Hoc committee on faculty evaluation did was to emphasize that the chief thing that we should be looking for is good teaching. This is the thing we are really concerned about. We aren't indifferent to scholarship which is a reflection of good teaching and is an integral part of good teaching. But we are really concerned about this man or woman who stands in front of a class or works, sits down with the class and attempts to convey a certain amount of information: the whole learning process. The Scranton Committee also made the complaint that in many cases the curriculum is not relevant. That is true. This has been true on many campuses. I think that it has been true on this campus. But I think that you can carry relevance too far. However, let's face it, last year this campus-on its own and long before any Scranton committee report came along-undertook a really radical change in the whole division of Arts and Sciences. Business and Education had done this a year earlier. Shadow: Let's turn to the Indo-China conflict now for a few questions. And in regard to it, would you care to classify yourself as a hawk or a dove or some- where in-betvveen? Dr, Elliott: I'd have to be somewhere in-between. l guess l've seen enough war in my own life as a soldier so that I don't like the idea of war. On the other hand, as a historian, I can't escape the fact that man simply frequently has not found it possible to avoid war. Na- tions do have interests, and there are principles in- volved. The thing that keeps bothering me is that we 9

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stood. The role of the trustee is to set broad, overall guildelines to operate the college or the university as the case may be. Trustees have the obligation of check- ing to make sure that the president is administering the college along those general guidelines. And they should not be concerned with the day-to-day operation of the college, regardless of what the issue is. Take the case in point. In conferring the additional responsibilities to the student government, in terms of social regulations what they did was to say OK, within these guidelines, let the Student Government Association regulate the activities of the student. Now this is the way l think it should be done. It is then my responsibility as president to see that this is done within the general guidelines es- tablished by the Board of Trustees. But we do not have the Board of Trustees coming on deck all the time mak- ing sure this is done. Shadow: Assuming that it's not done within these proper guide lines, then what happens? Dr. Elliott: Well, ultimately I assume it's my head. That's the way it should be. Shadow: Assume that last year, or even in the future, the ROTC building is burned down and students are again at a point of occupying buildings as they have been, as they were before you came. What stands will you take beyond normal precautions? Dr. Elliott: That's such a hard thing to answer. lt's like asking a halfback what do you do when you are given the ball and you run toward the line and there isn't a hole there. Well, you kind of cope with the situation. You see some halfback trying to go around to the left, you see someone trying to go around to the right, some will try to blow straight through, some will drop back and try to do something else-you cope with the situ- 8 ation. We have clearly defined rules as to what we will do and the procedure we will follow in case something like that were to happen. This has been spelled out in considerable detail. I gave a copy to Duane Volk when I became president and he was S.G.A, president, and I gave a copy to Frank Coviello. I also gave a copy to John Finnegan. We have gone over these regulations so that they are aware of the rules of the game and the role that they are supposed to play in it, too. But, in the final analysis, even though you have all of these different things spelled-out, a lot of this still re- mains a judgment call. How do you make the distinction between a situation in which a person or property is clearly in danger? There's no way of doing that except to do so on the spot. I can't really tell in advance. I think that this is just a situation where you hope that your judgment is right. You hope that your past experience is such that you are going to make the right judgment. And you hope that you have the perspective so that you can distinguish between that which is basic and that which is peripheral ton it all. Shadow: Would it ever come to the point, say where you call in the National Guard? Dr. Elliott: I couIdn't call in the National Guard. Shadow: Why not? Dr. Elliott: The National Guard can only be called in by the governor. . Shadow: All right, would you ever ask the governor to make that call? I Dr. Elliott: It probably wouldn't happen anyway. The order of calling police, if it comes to that, is first you call in the Township Police. Then, once you've called in the Township Police it's pretty much out of our control be- cause if the Township Police feel that they, or the Sher-

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keep running away from history. A case in point: People are saying that the Domino Theory does not apply in Indo-China. I don't know whether it does or not. The Domino Theory is one that I don't think has ever been proved or disproved. There is a great deal of evidence in the captured documents at the end of World War Il to the effect that if certain actions had been taken at the time that Hitler had been moving into Czechoslovakia, that he would have stopped. Now, given the pressures within Germany at that time, given the nature of Hitler, I suspect they might have found a different outlet at a dif- ferent time in a different way. Yet I think World War ll could clearly have been pre- vented or at least postponed. This is what bothers me. Many Americans were saying we should not become in- volved in Europe. All right, maybe we shouldn't have . . . at age 17, I was just frightfully offended by what Hitler's German was doing to the world, doing to the Jews, and so on. I just felt that was a wrong thing. It's so easy to say it's all different in Indo-China. Obviously it is differ- ent. However, is it all that different? I honestly don't know. Shadow: What if, for example, your son was willing to go to jail or to Canada to avoid fighting? Would you be opposed to this kind of thing? Dr. Elliott: No, l'd simply say that if l had lived with this boy for 18 years, I would hope that I had instilled cer- tain values-a sense of independence, a certain level of maturity, a certain sense of perspective-so that he could make judgments right or wrong that he was going to be willing to live with, and that he was going to live with the obligations as well as the responsibilities. But, as far as I'm concerned, this would be my son. And, there are certain bonds of affection which transcend what I might do or what I might personally feel that he should do. There are certain things you have to make your own decision on. And this is one of them. Shadow: On this issue would you then be in favor of a volunteer army, or do you think it would not work? What is your opinion on that? Dr. Elliott: No, I don't think a volunteer army would work. I wish that it would work. Given the state of the world, I think that we've got to assume that there is go- ing to be a continued need for armies, if for no other reason than for deterrent purposes. In a democracy I think that we have to assume that one of the responsi- bilities of citizenship is the obligation to bear arms when need be. Therefore, I believe we do need a draft of some sort, but I do think that we could make a great many changes in the draft laws which would help im- prove the situation so that it was better than it is now. Shadow: Intervisitation at Rider: Do you think that it's working? Dr. Elliott: My impression is that it is working and working quite well. I am sure there have been some abuses: it would be a little presumptuous to assume that there hadn't in some cases. There have been com- 10 plaints on the part of roommates that they have not had freedom of access to their room. This I'm sure has been true, that there are cases where the individual right of roommates have been violated. I would question if there have really been any more abuses of conventional moral standards as a result of Intervisitation than there were in the so-called good old days when students would wander off into various isolated parts of the campus or the parking lots, or neighborhood motels, or what have you. Shadow: Being a father with two daughters and knowing how other parents feel in similar situations, would the fact that a school had 24-hour Intervisitation affect your decision as to sending your daughter to a school? Dr. Elliott: I am not ducking the question when I say that I think that that largely depends on my daughters. If they become the mature people I think they are going to be, then I think they will have a sense of personal val- ues so that I'm not going to have to stand over them with a club as a policeman. And being very realistic I suspect that if I have to stand over them with a club as a policeman that it probably won't work anyway. So what I'm trying to do is instill a sense of morality, a sense of personal value, a sense even of good taste, which I hope will enable them to make individual deci- sions which they can live with and which as a result I can live with. Shadow: You have said that the Student Government Association's greatest single weakness is its inability to represent the entire student body effectively. On what basis do you make that statement? Dr. Elliott: I think that the problem starts in the first place, when you have a fairly hotly-contested election with only about 20'Z, of the student body voting. Ob- viously, you have a relatively small group of students who are choosing the officers of the Senate. Our present S.G.A. framework provides for a smaller amount of responsibility than is desirable. For instance, people are being elected from areas where there is no clear cut constituency. Let's put it this way: If I'm a rep- resentative to the S.G.A. from Poyda B and I vote for something CI don't care what it isp and it becomes known that I supported it-then there are some 40 people in Poyda B in the position to say Elliott, why in the world did you do that or EIliott, that is the great- est thing you ever did, I'm in back of you all the way. Now it is entirely conceivable under the existing frame of government that you could have all of the male rep- resentatives of the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior classes living on the same floor ofthe same wing of the same dorm. That is not probable but it is entirely possible that that could happen. At that point, opportu- nity for the constituents to say to their S.G.A. represent- ative what in the world are you doing is just gone. It is not at all certain that the elected representativefsj will even have a chance to check with the constituency to