Loveys:
‘We are
servants
of the
students ’
By JOHN PIPER
< If the Emerald
About live minutes after our
scheduled meeting, Fred Loveys
buzzes into the Friendly Mall
parking lot with his bright red
1968 Fiat two-seater, and an
Emerald photographer and I
climb in.
It's spring the sun is shining.
Loveys the number two man
m tiie ASUO Executive Office- is
smiling It’s rare when he’s not.
Even when doing verbal battle
with his most vociferous Senate
opponents, he usually manages to
come out with that little-boy grin
that belies his 29 years.
He used to have a beard, but
clipped it after announcing his
resignation after one and a half
years in the ASUO Senate. He
said he’d rather be a lover than a
politician but he didn't keep his
word
We stop at George’s 19lh and
Agate Market before heading for
Loveys’ small house on Columbia
Street He picks up a six-pack of
1’abst Blue Ribbon, some
(’Incken in a Bisket, yogurt, and a
lew oranges and bananas for our
trip to the quickly agreed upon
interview site near Hendricks
Park
Loveys' roommate is former
ASUO president lain More a
Scotsman who Fred says has
been "half mv education here at
the University.”
The house is cluttered with
books and other things; a
lireplace More made himself sits
m one corner of the living room
and the kitchen is painted several
bright colors
Fred’s room is just large
enough for his muscular T>'4”
trame it appears to be a con
verted closet and pictures of
mountaineering dot the walls
I ,o\ e\ s stalls the car once on a
corner as we head for a quiet spot
near Hendricks Park, but we lay
out a tarp in the sunshine on a
grassy slope and turn on the lain’
ireorder
He appears to be enjoying the
interview , and shows no fear of
Photo by Svea Bogue
Fred Loveys
the microphone or the
photographer shooting from all
angles. The words flow on and
on frequently interrupted by
“you knows”—as the man who
owns the house above mows his
lawn.
Fred Loveys is an Englishman,
all right, but many of his at
titudes have changed since he
came to the University in August
of 1970 He spent six years
teaching physical education
at Swindon, a city of lOO.(KK) about
loo miles west of London.
Outdoor activities and youth
leadership were his special in
terests, as they still are today. A
friend whom he met while at
tending Oxford came to the
University in 1964 and Loveys
saved for six years to make the
trip to Oregon.
Within five days after reaching
the States, he spent three days in
the Three Sisters “on a solo—
without food and without
shelter "
“This was some kind of
clearing house between England
and the States,” he says, “1 kind
of cleared my mind, as it were.”
"It certainly was a totally new
experience for me It was really
remarkable I've never been in
such really beautiful country at
such a hot time I was really
impressed with Oregon, Eugene
and the pretty area where I'm
living the trees and the
peacefulness was so beautiful in
the summer when I came over.”
Loveys holds no love for
Oregon rain, however, but he
admits it does have its good
qualities
I guess it had to happen,” he
savs "If you want to have pretty
things m the spring you’ve got to
have a lot o! ram to get it there.”
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It’s obvious just how important
outdoor activities are to Loveys
after listening to him rap about
Northwest Outward Bound.
Oregon doesn’t really make it
compared with the North
Cascades, where he spent last
summer:
“I've never been in such wild
and natural kind of country. I
mean Oregon is pretty desolate
compared to the grandeur of the
North Cascades, I think. It’s just
great up there.”
He likes the out-of-doors so
much, in fact, that he spent his
only free weekend spring term on
a trip with some of his former
mountaineering students. For
him, it has a deeper meaning:
“Every time I go away for a
weekend I sit amongst the green
stuff,” he says, pointing at the
trees lining the hillside. “You
can’t change the color of that.
That’s reality, that’s where it is.
Whereas people put on these airs
and graces and this
sophistication and this plasticity
and it's very hard to get beyond it
unless they want you to get
beyond it .”
He gets turned on by "the kind
of naturalness of the hills and the
naturalness of the personality—
when 1 see that personality
growing and perhaps reaching
out at something."
Outdoor activities are also
important to I,oveys in terms of
Ins studies in the I’ E depart
ment an area of physical
education he says is being
neglected at the University.
"What I'm concerned with is
the kind of experiences that I am
able to offer people who enroll in
the undergraduate or service
program in mountaineering and
rock climbing these kinds of
experiences should be offered to
the profi ssional l’ E teachers as
w ell "
He feels P E students in this
country should be trained to
teach more than the traditional
sports, such as football and
basketball
1 was trained at Oxford as a
P K teacher but also with an
emphasis in outdoor activities, to
use all aspects of P E to provide
an educational offering to
students through the physical, if
you like, and that doesn’t happen
here "
lbs courses in mountaineering
and rock climbing are popular
with students, as is evident by
sorting through the class reaction
reports he asks students to fill out
after completing a class
Initially 1 view Kred I/neys
as an asshole.” one student
wrote "but after two (field*
trips I know better He's just a
damn Englishman, and more
importantly, lies just Kred
I n\ i'\s
I ovevs prides himself on his
teaching—or non-teaching
methods.
“My kind of courses get me into
the students more than anybody
else . . we expose these students
to a different environment—
sometimes a hostile en
vironment—but an environment
that they can be creative in and
find their own thing in. . . . We
expose them to something else
and to something that’s really
beautiful.”
As for Loveys’ social ad
justment at the University, it is
clear that no one had more effect
on his life than his roommate,
lain More.
“The first year I really didn’t
socialize at all,” Loveys says. “It
was really amazing to be with
Iain. You know, I saw more
young ladies before breakfast
than most people. Iain has been
half my education over here, he
really has.
"Normally I just would have
concentrated on my studies and
stayed there and done the usual
things English people do when
they come to Oregon: played
their soccer, gotten their Grade
A's and this kind of thing and
socialized amongst themselves.
Hut I think being exposed to so
many different kinds of lifestyles
through living with Iain has been
educational to say the least."
l.oveys also became involved
with the Senate, More’s old
playground, until he moved up to
the Executive suite. And
although student politics and
politicians have at times been
harsh on him, he says he is glad
he got involved, because “it
exposed me to so many different
lifestyles and attitudes.”
“I get really upset with the
Senate because 1 see so much
potential completely screwed
around every time. And yet
there's so many good people in
there ”
He says his belief that elected
rulers are servants of the
students is viewed in a different
light at the University than it is in
England
"We are servants of the
students, we have been elected to
sen e the students It's something
I d be quite content to admit to in
a private conversation but to
admit to the Senate that I am now
a servant of the students which
is how I see my role as vice
president is laughable and they
would just laugh me out of the
Senate
I m not sure 1 understand
—ome senator s' animosity." he
continues I can't see that the
things 1 \e boon advocating are
anti-students
\mong the attitudes Loveys
questions after spending a year
and a half at the University are
lus heliols about Christianity and
n .in lage Hes.ivs lie used to talk
about Christianity in his classes
in England, and “I was pretty
convinced the kind of values I
held over there were the ultimate
ones, the ones that I was going to
go all the way through with. Now
I'm not so sure.”
As for marriage, he says he
was ‘‘pretty idealistic” about the
subject when he taught personal
relationships (sex education) to
school children. He now feels a
relationship can be good without
marriage—“if it’s responsibly
done and not selfishly entered
into. And that’s a kind of ex
perience or idea or concept that I
never would have gotten into if I
had stayed in England. That’s
why 1 value the kind of ex
periences I’ve had over here.”
As an example, he mentions a
scene in the movie “Cabaret,” in
which Liza Minnelli offers herself
to an Englishman in his bedroom.
“The Englishman responds:
Well not before breakfast, dear,
it’s just not done,’ and I thought
how British.”
“To my mind I was able to
laugh at that—I used to live it
before,” he says.
Loveys—who returned to
England during last Christmas
vacation—says he doesn’t want to
go back for at least five or six
\ ears.
"I was really shocked at how
slow they are in terms of
developing, as 1 feel I’ve
developed in my year and a half
here. I was almost a totally
different person. I’ve had to
question a lot of the values I
had.”
He says jobs are scarce in
Kngland and the pay doesn't
compare with the money
teachers are paid in the United
States or Canada. He went
through six years of savings in
his first year at the University.
Uoveys would like to find a job
which would allow him the luxury
of traveling to Canada, Australia,
South America, Africa, etc. He
doesn't like to stay in one area
more than six years because "it’s
too easy to be comfortable in that
kind of situation where
everybody isreinforcingthe kinds
"f things you are doing and
everybody is expecting you to
keep doing them.
In a few years. Loveys will
probably move on to another
challenge. It really doesn't
matter where
"I think it’s in reaction to
people that I grow,” he says.
"That’s why I didn't want to
isolate myself by going back into
my studies and by going back into
my shell because I think it is in
joining with other people in
challenging one’s self and
meeting challenges that you tend
to achieve a lot "
V it < \en at 29- Fred Uoveys
mm > a lot ol grow mg in his luture.