Campus Climate in The Swinging Sixties
In 1966, students established an Upward Bound program, funded by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, to help prepare students from lower-income and poverty areas for college. The Arts Castle, the Early Childhood Center, the Big Pal/Little Pal Program, the Andrews House, the Office of Community Service, and the International Ambassador High School Program are among the many programs founded since the 1970s to provide services to the larger community in Delaware.
Elden Smith, Wesleyan's 11th president, appointed a commission in 1968 to study student life and to refine and further edit Wesleyan's previously too-broad Statement of Aims. The commission's report recommended four criteria that OWU's educators should foster: perception, critical judgement, enjoyment, and active responsibility for the problems of society. On "active responsibility for the problems of society", the report stated, "A socially concerned individual who had no capacity for enjoyment, who exercised glib and trite rather than critical judgement, and who had no perception of reality, would be a public menace. Perhaps this is the meaning of 'do-gooder'. On the other hand, the absence of active responsibility for social problems might degenerate into obsession with self, and that perception might become dilettantism."
In 1969, the Commission on Student Life drafted a new form of student life. It formed the Wesleyan Council of Student Affairs (WCSA) with the right to decide basic policies on matters related to student life. The group was controversial from the start: more than two hundred students held a sit-in at the student union to gain faculty approval for issues-oriented representation. WCSA became involved in the first major controversy on the Wesleyan campus in the 1960s: its representatives called for the elimination of academic credit and existence for ROTC and demanded access to the University's budget and general financial statements.
Read more about this topic: Activism At Ohio Wesleyan University
Famous quotes containing the words swinging sixties, climate, swinging and/or sixties:
“All that Swinging Sixties nonsense, we all thought it was passé at the time.”
—David Bailey (b. 1938)
“A positive learning climate in a school for young children is a composite of many things. It is an attitude that respects children. It is a place where children receive guidance and encouragement from the responsible adults around them. It is an environment where children can experiment and try out new ideas without fear of failure. It is an atmosphere that builds children’s self-confidence so they dare to take risks. It is an environment that nurtures a love of learning.”
—Carol B. Hillman (20th century)
“Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance and keep afloat.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.”
—John Lennon (1940–1980)