Oregon daily emerald., October 30, 1973, Page 7, Image 7

Kesey advocates working in prison system
By BARTON EBERWEIN
Of the Emerald
Ken Kesey the author, lecturer and
local hero showed up at last week’s
Thursday night meeting of a Univer
sity Search class dealing with the
American prison system.
Kesey was not the main speaker of
the evening, he was a surprise, and
mind-blowing.
Paul Lenorduzzi, Director of Lane
County Juvenile Service, was the sche
duled guest speaker, and he addressed
a hostile audience of 150-200 students.
The students enrolled in the Search class,
which is sponsored by the Oregon
Prisoner Coalition, tend to be bitter about
Correctional Institutions—either because
they’ve been bent out of shape by so
ciety’s pliers or because they’re just
used to being down on most institu
tions. (In fact when it was announced
that Lenorduzzi might be coming there
was speculation as to whether he would
have enough guts to show). This bu
reaucrat, this Lenorduzzi cop-type was
standing up there in front of all these
people trying to emphasize the need
for volunteers, he was saying that
people must work within the system,
and he was coming across very establish
ment.
There were the classic responses:
Hatred towards the institution with no
acknowledgement that real live people
are involved; students ready to alleviate
all evil with slogans; and Lenorduzzi
trying to defend himself and his role
within the system. It wasn’t exactly
boring, it was just another day of
half-wracked prejudices at the Univer
sity...
But then there was Kesey saying:
“The man is right.” Kesey, who has
been in jail. Kesey the outlaw-fugi
tive Prankster Kesey who God-knows
(and English professors have told us)
is really McMurphy—smashing out at
the systems within society. Yes it was
him all right. All of the sudden in
front of the class, big and brash like
somebody out of a Jim Croce song.
He said Lenorduzzi is right. ‘‘You
can work within the system or you can
just sit around, like tonight, and throw
out cliches in a group snivel.”
Kesey told a story about going down
to San Francisco to meet with a group
of people who were interested in getting
Timothy Leary out of jail. The problem
with the group, according to Kesey,
is that they don’t know shit from
Shinola about getting a person out of
jail—because they’re not willing to work
from within. Kesey described their
meeting as a waste of time—planning rock
and roll benefits and making up wild
schemes like breaking out both Gordon
Liddy and Leary and having them
take acid together.
“I’ve watched it a thousand times,”
Kesey said, “people standing up and
yelling RIGHT ON, but piss on it. That
iust doesn’t work. You can chant or ring
bells all night long but that ain’t
gonna get a man out of jail.”
From EMU office
IFC-GPA papers stolen
The EMU office shared by the Incidental Fee
Committee (IFC) and the Eugene Gay People’s
Alliance (GPA) was ripped off last week, said
Randy Shilts, IFC Chairer and GPA activist.
“Whoever pulled the theft must have had
specific qualms against both GPA and the IFC,”
Shilts said. “Many important IFC memos per
taining to the recent Constitution Committee
hearing were stolen, as well as many specific
budgets and IFC policy statements.
“Probably the most important items stolen
were petitions with about 1,000 signatures sup
porting the proposed amendment to the city’s anti
discrimination ordinances that would prohibit
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation —
essentially, the widespread discrimination against
gay people,” Shilts said.
The amendment, proposed by the Eugene
Human Rights Commission in conjunction with
GPA and Eugene Gay Women, will be voted on in
November by the City Council.
“Since this amendment’s proposal has
precipitated an onslaught of hate mail against gay
people, these petitions were necessary to show the
council that Eugene has many unbigoted citizens,”
Shilts said. “Consequently we’d like those who
previously signed our petitions to come to the GPA
office, or the GPA terrace table and sign again so
that their opinions can be presented to Council
members,” he said.
Shilts also noted that other GPA posters and
information were stolen. If anyone has any in
formation on the whereabouts of the GPA or IFC
materials, they should contact the IFC-GPA office
in 305 EMU (686-3720), Shilts said.
Carnegie starts project
for education reform
i\ilw )UKK—I he Carnegie Corporation
of New York has awarded the Association
of American Colleges (AAC) a grant
of $595,000 toward a million dollar five
year project to encourage and support
reforms in undergraduate education. The
project, to be co-sponsored by five national
higher educational associations including the
ACC will involve the cooperation of approxi
mately ten institutions which will work with
the project staff in implementing new
curricular approaches to liberal learning
on their campuses
The project grew out of a year’s
study by the ACC's Commission on Liberal
Learning, which concluded that the tradi
tional goals of liberal education are as
important as ever but that the means
of attaining them need to be revised.
Samuel H. Magill of the ACC staff,
in commenting on the project which he
remains overwhelmingly based on study
of the disciplines—a mode which is proving
too narrow and rigid and thus inadequate
to the task of equipping individuals to
meet the challenges of a complex and
changing society. “However,” he addefl,
“many of the notable experiments going
on in new colleges or in sections of tradi
tional institutions, such as work-study, use
of learning contracts, and off-campus ex
perience, are not really addressed to a
fundamental restructuring of higher educa
tion but are content with rearranging
present academic furniture.
“The dilemma, of course, in any of
these efforts is how to institute lasting,
effective change without creating new diffi
culties which may, in fact, undermine the
very purposes of innovation. A major part
of the ACC’s project therefore will be
to spell out the dilemmas and problems
in promoting reform, to challenge the
assumptions underlying traditional higher
education, and to suggest a framework
where alternatives to the disciplinary-based
curriculum will have- the best chance of
evolving.”
The first three years of the ACC project
will be devoted to developing various hy
pothetical models for undergraduate educa
tion and modifying them to suit the mission
and resources of the participating institu
tions The project time-table calls for insti
tutional programs to be in full operation by
the end of the third year. This will pro
vide two years’ operating experience and
time to evolve strategies to assess the ex
perimental programs against a control group
of colleges and universities with comparable
objectives.
The ten participants, which will be
selected over the next seven months, will
be drawn from diverse types of institutions,
including liberal arts colleges, liberal arts
components of universities, community and
junior colleges, and undergraduate profess
ional schools with a liberal education empha
sis in their programs. They will be chosen
on the basis of demonstrated commitment
to the project’s goals, and will each be
responsible—through an institutional policy
and programming group of faculty, students,
administrators, trustees, and others—for the
study and formulation of proposals for
institutional reform and for the promotion
of concrete results.
The sponsoring associations in addition
to the ACC are the American Association
of Community and Junior Colleges, the
American Association of State Colleges and
Universities, the American Association of
University Professors, and the National
Association of State Universities and Land
Grant Colleges. They will participate through
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today’s schedule
THE SOCIAL USES OF MAGIC emu 214 3 pm
A faculty panel consisting of George Zaninovich (Political
Science), Vernon Dorjahn (Anthropology), and Stephen
Reynolds (Religious Studies).
RAY HYMAN
Northwest Forum
emu 214 12:30 p.m.
Hyman, a U of O Professor
of Psychology and former
magician, is an expert on
magic, fantasy, ESP, AND
CREATIVITY. He will dem
onstrate and discuss the
deception of reality.
IRV WEINER
emu ballroom 8 pm.
A master magician, Weiner
explains and performs ef
♦eets achieved by the great
Houdini, as well as the
skillful arts of the card
shark and demonstrations of
ESP