University
operating
jobs corps
center
“Early in 1965, the Job Corps began to
set up its first centers. Young people from
all over the country joined the new
program. They came to learn things they
missed in school. They came to learn skills
that would help them get good jobs.
“And they came to work . . .”
So reads the first few lines of “Centers
for Work and Training,” one of the many
booklets used in teaching reading to job
■|rps women.
Puob corps is a relatively new idea,
having been in existence for a mere seven
years. Job corps centers exist all over the
United States, and are designed to provide
vocational and educational training for
high school and college-age disadvantaged
men and women.
All job corps centers in the United States
are funded by the U.S. Department of
Labor. And all centers are administered
by private corporations—all but one: the
women’s center located at the former
Tongue Point naval air station near
Astoria.
still
By CLAY EALS
Of the Emerald
That center is administered by the
University.
Tongue Point’s 250 academic and
classified staff are on the University’s
payroll, and the center comes under the
jurisdiction of the University’s College of
Education.
700 corpswomen at Tongue Point
About 700 women from around the
country—mostly from the southeastern
portion of the United States—are enrolled
in the center’s various educational and
vocational programs. About 85 per cent of
the women are non-white.
^Why is the University administrating the
Bmgue Point center, and why did it
initially seek the contract for ad
ministrating it in 1965?
Ray Hawk, University vice president
and an administrator under then
University President Arthur Flemming,
says the reasons are two-fold.
“First, President Flemming felt a
tremendous awareness and concern for
the problems of minorities competing for
jobs . . . and felt that the University should
play a role in the matter of helping these
young people prepare for jobs.”
And second, “Schools have been failures
in recruiting and continuing minority
students . Tongue Point was a ready
made laboratory. We had the opportunity
to study the implications of why youth who
were disadvantaged did not make it into
college," and how to correct that situation.
"It was a desire to have a human
resources laboratory,” Hawk says. “From
an educational standpoint, there’s a lot to
be said for Tongue Point.”
Hawk says there are few federal
guidelines set down for the administration
‘ of Tongue Point. Other than specifying the
vocational skills to be taught—according
to the job situation in the country as a
whole—and setting several program
guidelines, the federal government does
not intervene, he says.
"We have the latitude to do as much as
we have the abilities to do," Hawk says
The University has used a method of
programmed learning at Tongue Point
step by step formula-type processes for all
subjects taught at the center—because
“simply, we don't know what else to do.’
Hawk says the programmed learning
being administrated at Tongue Point is not
so much a problem as are several other
aspects of the center:
Tongue Point Job Corps Center
—“We have had trouble finding people
who are innovative,” he says, teachers
who can create different types of learning
situations and who can work with minority
youth at the same time.
“Extremely small” minority staff
—Also, “We are constantly building the
staff of minority persons at the center,”
which currently is “extremely small,”
Hawk says. According to the center’s
director Raymond McDonald, 23.5 per cent
of fhe 100 classified staff and four per cent
of the 150 academic staff are non-white.
—“Generally, these centers are not easy
centers to run,” Hawk says. A job corps
center can become a political issue easily,
he says, and a center may have difficult
relations with the surrounding com
munity. Most centers are located in small
communities throughout the country on
federal government land, Hawk says.
Despite the potential conflicts between a
nearly all-white small community and a
nearly all non-white job corps center, the
situation at Tongue Point has been ex
ceptionally good, Hawk says.
“We’ve done our best job in community
relations,” he says, "a heck of a good job
on both sides. We’ve worked through this
bug with a minimum amount of hassles.”
University ‘supports' job corps
Does the University’s involvement with
the federal job corps center at Tongue
Point mean that the University is
philosophically supporting the idea of
federal job corps centers?
Hawk says yes.
“There is more than one road to an
objective,” he says, citing Tongue Point as
one road toward helping disadvantaged
high school and college age youth obtain
educational and vocational skills.
The center is “providing, at an entry
level, educational and vocational ability
for a group of young people who really
don't have much destiny in history unless
something’s done.’’
Most of the women who complete
programs at Tongue Point go on to obtain
jobs elsewhere, but some do attend college
after their Tongue Point experience. And
this is one substantial direct benefit to the
University, Hawk says.
As with many federally funded
programs, there is an excess amount of
money spent by the federal government
which can turn out to be profit for the
administrating agency—called overhead
Overhead money from the federal
government for Tongue Point is received
by the University, Hawk says, but the
amount isn’t substantial.
Most federally funded research and
development programs leave as much as a
44 per cent overhead, but the overhead
from Tongue Point is “less than five per
cent,” Hawk says.
And by the time the indirect costs—the
time spent by University administrators,
College of Education faculty members and
University committees—are accounted
for, the five per cent overhead is soon
reduced to nothing.
Small overhead
“There’s no money in it at all,” for the
University, Hawk says.
What is the future of the University’s
relationship with Tongue Point? "We will
continue as we have been,” Hawk says. “It
is a splendid laboratory as an adjunct to
the University.” College of Education
faculty are “very pleased” with the
center, Hawk says.
"We would like to do more research
there,” Hawk says, but the main obstacle
to that is the distance—about 200 miles
bet ween Eugene and Astoria.
“I do not have any doubts that we will
continue” to seek the contract for ad
ministrating Tongue Point, Hawk says.
From the federal government’s stand
point, the University’s administration of
the center is good because the University’s
stated mission is education, while the
mission of private corporations, for the
most part, is profit.
“They (the federal government) would
hate to lose the only University they have”
administrating job corps centers
throughout the country, Hawk says.
It didn’t used to be that way, he says.
When the centers were opened around the
country in 1965, many were administrated
by universities. But since then, all but the
University have dropped the job corps
center contracts, for various reasons—
either political problems or bad com
munity-center relations.
Suminer conflict
Earlier this summer, a conflict
developed at Tongue Point between the
center director, McDonald, and two thirds
of the summer term student teachers
there
On June 29, 12 of the 17 student teachers
charged the center with racial
discrimination in center staff hiring The
charges were made in a letter signed by
the 12 student teachers and addressed to
the University’s Office for Affirmative
Action.
The letter charged that, “Since the corps
women who are clients of the center are all
female and 85 per cent non white, present
staffing practices are overtly racist.”
It also said, "Presently, the teaching
staff is composed overwhelmingly of
whites while the administration is entirely
\*;hite. As this center is under contract to
the University, and therefore all center
staff is on the University payroll, the af
firmative action plan should abide here ”
The letter demanded that “there be an
immediate halt to the hiring at this center
until an investigation is made ”
ASUO President Bill Wyatt decided to
visit the center after receiving a copy of
the letter and toured the center’s grounds
on Aug 2 and 3 He met with center
director McDonald to obtain a respnse to
the charges made in the letter.
McDonald told him the charges were
"erroneous, untrue . and made without
investigation." He also said, "To make
overall conclusions without investigating,
1 have no sympathy for students who do
that. It shows poor judgment.”
Charges 'erroneous'
The center at Tongue Point “had been
investigated, audited and reviewed" by
federal, regional and local agencies, and
has been termini a “successful program,”
despite the low percentages of non-white
academic and classified staff, McDonald
said.
Persons “might be able to find some
fault” with the center, McDonald said,
"but it has to be done on an open and
sincere, constructive basis.”
He addl'd he was irritated the student
teachers had written the letter charging
discrimination. Student teachers are only
at the center to obtain teaching experience
with disadvantaged persons, he said, and
therefore, "We have to draw lines as to
what the student teacher role is in the
program.
"We’re dealing with a large, disad
vantaged volatile group of corps women. I
don’t want anything interfering with the
potential success of our corps women," he
said
Student teachers, without question,
have made some great points,” he told
Wyatt, “but they have to know what their
limitations are ”
University students who need to com
plete a term of student teaching are en
couraged by the College of Education to
apply to teach for a term at Tongue Point.
Glenn Scofield, director of student
teachers at Tongue Point, explains the
benefits to student teachers, in a recent
memo concerning student teaching, for
mally called the “field experience
program”:
“The purpose of the program is to
provide specialized training for teacher
trainees who, upon graduation, will seek
teaching jobs in urban or rural areas with
large concentrations of disadvantaged
children
“Job Corps centers, like the one located
in Astoria, offer realistic laboratories for
learning to understand the characteristics,
the value systems and the educational
problems of the millions of youngsters who
annually drop out of our public schools
"The traditional American education
system has been unable to offer
meaningful and purposeful classroom
experiences for large numbers of these
youngsters
“Many of today's teacher trainees, both
secondary and elementary, are concerned
about this problem and are dedicated to
playing a part in educational change that
will make a difference.
lne Astoria project is designed to help
prospective teachers gain the perceptual
skills and the knowledge of specialized
materials which will enable them to make
a difference when they enter the field as
certified teachers.”