~HE
FEDERALIST
Vol. VII. No.4
"LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED"
LOCAL 1533, CFT, FRESNO, CALIF.
JANUARY,
1969
Next Month: Special Suggestion-Box Issue
We hope to kick off the new semester with a special edition of The
Federalist featuring specific recommendations for improving instruction
and life in general in the State Center Junior College District.
We urge
everyone -- from students to board members -- to contribute.
Please
keep your suggestions brief and ABOVE ALL,SPECIFIC.
Examples:
1) Combine the English and Speech departments to distribute the essay-reading
load among all language arts people.
2) Install chalk bins in the mail
room to be serviced by custodians like toilet paper or paper towels. 3)
Convert the coffee lounge into an art gallery and poetry reading room, and
fix up a corner of the faculty dining room into a new coffee drinking
.
area. 4) Begin a teacher and administrator exchange program with other
California J.C.'s on a one year basis ( home for home, job for job) to
swap ideas and see how other people do it. Get your suggestions to Jim
Piper within four weeks.
The San Francisco State Teachers' Strike
According to the L.A. Times (Jan. 12), leaders of the striking teachw
ers at San Francisco State feel they have nothing to lose and much to gail
by going out at a time when the campus is crippled by student unrest.
Strike leaders believe they have an oytside chance of bringing the conflict-weary state board around to acceptance of collective bargaining.
But the CFT leaders are aware that the probable consequences of th.eir
strike will be mass firings and a spate of repressive legislation.
Such
actions, the strike leaders feel, would work to their ultimate advantage
by galvanizing thousands of hitherto uncommitted nonunion teachers into
concerted action against the state -- a force ~hich even the Governor
could not long resist.
The second thesis has a familiar but dull ring to it -- not unlike
the contention of some black militants that if full-scale revolution comer
to the ghettoes and blacks are massacred, once-indifferent white America
will rise up £E masse to support the cause of the blacks. Both suppositions are shaky, but there is perhaps more evidence that nonunion teachers
will support their beleaguered brethren more readily than white Americans
will come to aid of blacks under siege. As everyone knows, and as the
Times reports, most professional teachers organizations now sanction both
the strike and the principle of collective bargaining.
Times labor writer
Harry Bernstein allows that most teachers now support all of the CFT's
demands for "reduced work loads, better grievance procedures, and greater
voice in the running of the schools and colleRes."
Bernstein continues:
•
SFSC Strike, cant.
"Teacher opposition
when, not whether."
page 2
to strike action seems based more on a question of
vrhen, not whether, to call ,0, strike is the issue a,t SFSC'i t'oo".
According to Bernstein, the local is badly split over the timing of the
strike -- for obvious reasons. A defender of the strike explained: "When
would they have us call a strike, when it is most convenient for management?" Bernstein also suggests that the teachers' strike, at least as
leaders have conceived it, is not-:(ntendedas a sympathy gesture for..the
dissident students.
The local wants to keep the issues separate ..
_
'
TheI-care strikes and then there are strikes. Some are justified,
others not. But in the long run, five, ten, twenty years from now, the
movement toward collective bargaining and genuine teacher power will be
irresistible.
'
From the Grapevine
, The following items of information bearing on the agony of San Francisco State come to us from various uno f f i c i aL sources, all of wh i ch
have close dealings with that college. We give them here because it is
not lik~ly they will be reported in the popular ~ress.
* Mayor Alioto has stated in private that all of the fifteen demands
of th,e student activists are ~reasonable" and "worth implementing."
* Before -his appointment as acting president, S. 1. Hayakawa expressE
the view that the ten demands laid before the administration by black
students did not, in fact, go far enough, and that the blacks should have
asked for much more.
*
~
Dr , Hayakawa refused to .speak to a group of black students twenty
.minutes before he went on came'ra to say he would be glad to meet with
any student grgup to discuss campus issues.
'
* During one day/tt.rmoil, students hurled empty milk cartons at
the police.
In California newspapers the next day these. car-bons had
been transformed into bottles and chunks of concrete.
* A faculty member was beaten to the ground and later arrested while
trying to pass from his office in one building to his classroom in
another. Because of this arrest and accompanying "police record," the
administr~tion is now taking st~ps to fire the' man.
'
* It was very unlikely the English Department wouldhave rehired
George Hurray for the coming semester.
It is not only the English staff
but other departments as well that are disturbed about Dumke's precipitous action in "firing" Hurray •. The faculty prefer' to police ·them.selves,
thank you, They now expect all sorts of repressive and regulatory legislation in'the wake of the semester's sad events .•
The official journalism on SFSC has not been good. The Bee, for
.instance, has yet to print the fifteen demands in ful-l...
, The reporting
of th~ '64 Berkeley "riots" (there were, in _fact, no riots at all) vas
just as bad. It appears that we shall not get the full story on SFSC
until people start writing books about it and publishing articles in the
.ore respected periodicals, a~ they inevitably shall. But then these
accounts are not likely to reach even a fraction of the reading puhlic
that newspapers reach.
/
page 3·
Reveries
by Jim Ruston
The other day, as I was returning from the library toward the administration building, I was struck by the good, old-fashioned beauty of
that ivied brick edifice.
What a wonderful symbol~ I thought, of a way
of life that should not have p~ssed:
a way of life in which there were
no long-haired, dirty, pseudo-students trying to tell us how to run
their schools;
a way of life which put violence in its proper place, on
the gridiron where it belonged; a way of life in which each individual
knew his place in the well-oiled functioning machinery of society, where
the administrators administrated, where the teachers taught, and where
the students studied; a way of life in wh i eh our glorious flag wa s revered and where no one even thought, much less said, that it ought to be
flushed down the toilet; a way of life in which our students appreciated
the sacrifices we made for them and showed it by repeating on their examr
sometimes word for word, what we told them in our lectures; a way of lif(
in short, where one was not constantly beset by troubles and change.
Ani
as I gazed at the red bricks and tt:.egreen ivy, the idea occurred to me
that it would be a wonderful idea if, once a year, we could have an institutional celebration that celebrated the joyous old and better way of
doing things.
I thought and thought about what students, real students,
did in the old days that 've could do today.
Once I did think of such an
activity, it was obvious that no other activity could serve as well.
I
was even able to coin a slogan for it which borrows some of the words
from a slogan out of our glorious past. Here it is, beloved colleagues.
What this campus needs is a good, old-fashioned panty raid.
From the Docket
by Fran Weinschenck
His father had always told him, "Sam, with your sports ability
you could be one of the top pros in the country.
If you'd only get
yourself a haircut!"
His high school coaches and counselors agreed;
this kid had tremendous potential -- if he'd only get himself a haircut.
""lhy, you couldn't fit that much hair into a helmet!"
Everybody figured that when Sam started going with Lila, she would
be a good influence on him. She was such an attractive, sensible girl.
And indeed she was a good influence on him except for a couple of things
for one thing, he still remained adamant about keeping his long hair,
and for ac.ot.he
r he liked to run around with a bunch of weirdos on weekends.
One weekend, wh i Le Sam vas gone, Lila, in a fit of dop ressi on , resenting her loneliness 1 called the cops and told them wh oro Sam and the
freaky weirdos were hanging out. So they arrested him and put him in
juvie because he was really just a few months from being eighteen.
The next day his case came up for a hearing.
The prosecuting attorney pressed his suit under t~e provisions of Section 113 and 113.2
of the penal code -- alleging that even though these sections weren't
generally used1 they do provide laws with which to order freaky weirdos.
The judge told Sam he had a choice:
he could either go into the service
or stay at juvie.
Sam decided on the latter.
According to regulations1 they gave him the proper haircuto
He
looked at himself in the metal mirror and screamed, "That's not me!"
Then he went to the chaplain and asked him for a pair of dark glasses
so that no one could recognize him ~nd so that he couldn't recognize
Weinschenk2 cont.
page 4
~
himself.
The chaplain got some money out of petty cash and bought him a
pair.
There was a very complete program of intra- and extra-mural sports
at juvie to help rehabilitate the boys.
The director there was, of course
quite pleased inasmuch as Sam's ability practically cinched th~ upcoming
all-county juvie playoffs.
.
On the day of the playoffs, everyone came to wa t ch', People on
bleachers, on bandstands, on fences, on balustrades, on the window-sills
of tenement houses.
The games started.
Sam, whose hair had grown back'
some by now, lived up to his reputation.
Everyone enjoyed his feat~ of
strength and agility.
However, toward the end of the games, Sam took his
glasses off, ran over to the bleachers where Lila was sitting and with a
tremendous heave pulled out one of the key metal struts which supported
the thing.
Amid shouting and screaming the bleachers tottered back' and
forth; they crashed into the bandstand, then into the balustrades and finally into the tenement houses, sending tons and tons of rubble down on
spectators and competitors alike.
Scores of people we ro kd Ll cd and hun->
dreds were injured.
.
Inasmuch as there were some complaints, the County Board'of Supervisors channeled the matter to the Adult Authority, which according to administrative practices guidelines, forw~rded the complQint to the youth
Sub-committee of the Authority which in its turn convened a special Blue
Ribbon Big Brother Committee to review Gnd advise.
This committee, which
was chaired by the county counsel, recommended th~t all future playoffs
m~st be held behind
the electric fence which had juat recently been purchased for juvie.
Selah.
Sandbox Language?
by Bob Smalling, student~ FeC
In Mr. Rowe's open letter to Mro Ruston which the faculty received
some weeks ago there is much namecalling, emotionalism, and accusation
without proof.
This type of language brings the exchange down to a personal level, no different than a playground fued: "Yer a creep." "No I
ain't." "Yes ya are."
Thus use of language has been transported to the
world's meeting ground, where, with even more sophistication, the entire
country seems to say, "Get outa my sandbox." "It ain't yer sandbox." "Yes
it is.""No
it ain't."
In the house of communication, this language belongs in a roam with Hitler's speeches.
This room has become crowded, ane
when people .speak, the entire house is e-ffected.
.
Surely we cannot say the-t this abuse of language inevitably leadS to
violence, but we can say that it is a gigantic steptownrd
violence.
The
namecalling and the accusing qnd the fearful m60d th~t seeps out through
the language user's style tend to lead readers in a direction away from
the communication of understanding.
These tend to lead the reader to reaction instead of thoughtful action.
Communication of understanding,
most agree, is a step toward humqn comp~tibility.
Human compatibility
is a good step toward a peaceful society.
This concept of an underst~nding, compatible, peaceful society can result only in the proper use of OUT
resources of language, which is our only method of thinking.
The element
of language and its words has become as natural to modern man as moving' :::
our bowels; a.nd·we.kno.wthat if our bowels are not controlled properly,
as our language, we are liable to foul up the entire countryside
0
*
*
*.
Charles J. Hitoh, President, University of California:
"99% of
students quietly and earnestly go about the business of acquiring their
education ••• but a large number of students -- perhaps a majority -share the views of the vocal activist groups.
'"lhetherwe want to or not,
we had better listen to the charges by these, our own sons and dFt1..lghtcrs.'
-- L.A. Times, Dec. 18, 1968