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ELI J. SEGAL
University of Michigan Law School
Ann Arbor, MI
Sat., May 15, 1993
&
ELI SEGAL - Itinerary
The University of Michigan, Law School
May 15 & 16
Saturday May 15:
6:50 - 8:23 AM
flight to Detroit Metro,
Norhtwest #1223, seat 23 D
8:23 AM
Anne Percy Knott, Assistant Dean of the
Law School and Director of the Office of
Devolopment and Alumni Relations, meets
you and Phyllis at the gate. She will
wear an ivory silk blouse and dark
flowered skirt and will hold a
"University of Michigan" sign.
9:10 AM
Meet with Professor Jeff Lehman,
director of the Law School's program of
Support for Community-Based Economic
Development in Low-Income Urban
Neighborhoods, over a Zingerman's
breakfast at Professor Lehman's home
10:00 AM
Meet with the University of Michigan
Task Force on Community Service
Tappan Room, Michigan Union
The Task Force is reviewing the
University's current community service
activities, proposing new directions and
initiatives for these activities, and
considering ways to position the
University as a leader in community
service.
Congressman Ford will be joining you at
10:15
11:10 AM
Thomas A. Butts, Associate Vice
President for Government Relations and
Director of the University of Michigan's
Washington office, takes you to Dean
Bollinger house for lunch
11:30 AM
lunch for you and Phyllis with Lee and
Jean Bollinger in their home
1:00 PM
you and Lee Bollinger don academic gowns
at the Natural Science Building
1:15 PM
Academic procession begins
1:30
Commencement begins in Hill Auditorium
3:45 PM
you proceed to the Michigan Union with
Lee Bollinger and students for
photographs
4:00 PM
Reception for graduates and families in
the W.W. Cook Law Quadrangle
5:00 PM
Jane Myers, writer for the Michigan
Today in the University's Office of
Donor Relations, and selected Detroit
area press interview you and Phyllis,
location to be determined
6:00 PM
car and driver available for dinner
with Mr. and Mrs. Mike Oberman
Accomodations at the Bell Tower Hotel
300 South Thayer Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Phone: (313) 769-3010; fax: (313) 769-4339
Sunday May, 16:
brunch with Phyllis and friends
3:10 - 4:40 PM
flight to Washington National,
Northwest #330, seat 26 D
car and driver available to Metro
MEMORANDUM
To:
Eli
From: Susan Am
Re:
Meeting with the University of Michigan Community Service Task Force
At 10:00 am on May 15, you will meet with the University of Michigan Task Force on
Community Service Learning in the Tappan Room in the Michigan Union. Congressman
Ford will join you at the meeting at 10:15 and will probably have to leave the meeting
before it is over to get to an 11:00 meeting elsewhere.
Task Force: The Task Force members include 15-20 faculty, students, staff and
members of the community from southeastern Michigan who meet to discuss
connections between the community service programs and the curriculum. The meeting
will be facilitated by the Chair, Barry Checkoway, Professor of Social Work and Urban
Planning. This should be a fairly informal discussion.
Agenda:
Welcome and Introductions
Eli Segal: President Clinton and your vision of national service report on
the national service legislation
Congressman Ford: report on the legislative process; predictions of how
the bill will proceed through Congress
Task Force: brief description of community service learning activities at
the University of Michigan, including a student's perspective (Jen
Bastress) and issues of multicultural participation (Professor Bunyan
Bryant, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment).
Discussion of how the University of Michigan might be helpful: They are
considering holding a national symposium in the fall to raise important
issues related to community service learning on campuses. They are
looking for advice from you about what might be helpful to the national
service program and would like to forge some ongoing relationship
between U of M and ONS that is substantive.
You could raise the suggestion that I have made to Barry Checkoway and
Tom Butts that the subject of the symposium might be to discuss/develop
models for the "during" college part of the national service program. We
know what some of the models for the "before" and "after" programs will
look like, but less work has been done on the "during" college programs
that could be certified. I am planning to organize an expert panel to begin
work on this, and a national symposium to float some models, develop the
thinking further, issue a report, etc. would be helpful.
The meeting should end at 11:15. Tom Butts will be at the meeting with you and will
then drive you to Dean Bollinger's house for lunch at 11:30.
The White House
Office of National Service
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: ETHAN ZINDLER
MAY 14, 1993
202/456-6444
*** Press Advisory ***
Eli Segal to Speak
at University of Michigan Law School Graduation
On Saturday, May 15, Eli Segal, Assistant to the President
and Director of the White House Office of National Service, will
address students and faculty at the University of Michigan Law
School commencement. Mr. Segal, an alumnus of the school, will
speak at 1:30 PM at the Hill Auditorium at Thayer and North
University on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.
Last week the President's National Service Trust Act of 1993
was introduced to Congress. The bill would allow young people to
help pay their way through college by performing one or two years
of domestic national service. Under Mr. Segal's direction, the
White House Office of National Service researched and helped
write national service legislation.
###
XIII
COMMENCEMENT
SPEECHES
PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
CALLS THE MIDSHIPMEN TO
THEIR DUTY
"You cannot forget your duty for a moment, because there might come a time
when that weak spot in you should affect you
and then the whole history
of the world might be changed by what you did not do or did wrong."
WHEN OUR TWENTY-SEVENTH PRESIDENT attended the 1916
graduation ceremony at the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis,
he had no prepared comments. Few speakers are so confident of their
ability to deliver appropriate remarks on such a formal occasion. The short
speech that follows is impromptu, off the cuff, ad lib-but Woodrow Wil-
son must have given the matter some thought while being introduced.
President Wilson's subsequently printed address, "Responding to the
New Call of Duty," took its title from his praise of the graduating class in
the second sentence of the speech. (Wilson liked the word "new"; a col-
lection of his campaign speeches in 1912 was called The New Freedom,
designed to top Theodore Roosevelt's The New Nationalism.) Delivered
three years after his inauguration, Wilson's talk offered four paragraphs in
alluding not only to his college background but also to the gravity of the
world situation in June 1916, as he was preparing to campaign for reelec-
tion with the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War."
The presidential remarks stress the "special obligation" for the gradu-
ates through direct address and parallel structure ("not of private duty
merely, but of public duty also"). With parallelism even in his advice
("you get your zest by doing a thing that is difficult, not a thing that is
easy"), Wilson conveyed a sense of the trouble ahead.
Ten months after President Wilson's remarks to the class of 1916, the
United States declared war on Germany.
M
r. Superintendent, young gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen:
It had not been my purpose when I came here to say anything
today, but as I sit here and look at you youngsters, I find that
903
904
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
my feeling is a very personal feeling indeed. I know some of the things
that you have been through, and I admire the way in which you have
responded to the new call of duty. I would feel that I had not done either
you or myself justice if I did not tell you so.
I have thought that there was one interesting bond that united us. You
were at Washington three years ago and saw me get into trouble, and now
I am here to see the beginning of your trouble. Your trouble will last longer
than mine, but I doubt if it will be any more interesting. I have had a
liberal education in the last three years, with which nothing that I under-
went before bears the slightest comparison. But what I want to say to you
young gentlemen is this: I can illustrate it in this way. Once and again
when youngsters here or at West Point have forgotten themselves and
done something that they ought not to do and were about to be disciplined,
perhaps severely, for it, I have been appealed to by their friends to excuse
them from the penalty. Knowing that I have spent most of my life at a
college, they commonly say to me, "You know college boys. You know
what they are. They are heedless youngsters very often, and they ought not
to be held up to the same standards of responsibility that older men must
submit to." And I have always replied, "Yes; I know college boys. But
while these youngsters are college boys, they are something more. They
are officers of the United States. They are not merely college boys. If they
were, I would look at derelictions of duty on their part in another spirit; but
any dereliction of duty on the party of a naval officer of the United States
may involve the fortunes of a nation and cannot be overlooked." Do you
not see the difference? You cannot indulge yourselves in weaknesses, gen-
tlemen. You cannot forget your duty for a moment, because there might
come a time when that weak spot in you should affect you in the midst of a
great engagement, and then the whole history of the world might be
changed by what you did not do or did wrong.
So that the personal feeling I have for you is this: we are all bound
together, I for the time being and you permanently, under a special obliga-
tion, the most solemn that the mind can conceive. The fortunes of a nation
are confided to us. Now, that ought not to depress a man. Sometimes I
think that nothing is worthwhile that is not hard. You do not improve your
muscle by doing the easy thing; you improve it by doing the hard thing.
and you get your zest by doing a thing that is difficult, not a thing that is
easy. I would a great deal rather, so far as my sense of enjoyment is
concerned, have something strenuous to do than have something that can
be done leisurely and without a stimulation of the faculties.
Therefore, I congratulate you that you are going to live your lives under
the most stimulating compulsion that any man can feel, the sense, not of
William ALLEN WHITE
905
private duty merely. but of public duty also. And then if you perform that
duty, there is a reward awaiting you which is superior to any other reward
in the world. That is the affectionate remembrance of your fellow men-
their honor, their affection. No man could wish for more than that or find
anything higher than that to strive for. And, therefore, I want you to know,
gentlemen, if it is any satisfaction to you, that I shall personally follow
your careers in the days that are ahead of you with real personal interest. I
wish you Godspeed, and remind you that yours is the honor of the United
States.
EDITOR WILLIAM ALLEN
WHITE CALLS THE PREWAR
GENERATION TO Its DUTY
"LIBERTY, if it shall cement man into political unity, must be something more
than a man's conception of his rights, much more than his desire to fight for
his own rights. True liberty is founded upon a lively sense of the rights of others
and a fighting conviction that the rights of others must be maintained."
IN 1896, the new editor of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette-a Republican
and a liberal-wrote a ringing editorial titled "What's the Matter with
Kansas?" This blast at the Populist party helped elect William McKinley
and called national attention to a small-town newspaperman who could
express the values of tens of millions of upright, tolerant people. He
coined the phrase "tinhorn politician" and styled himself as an authentic
906
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
voice of the grass roots. He was editor of the Gazette for forty-nine years;
though its circulation never rose to more than eight thousand, it became
his platform for commentary that gained and held international recogni-
tion.
In June of 1936, he gave a commencement address to the graduating
class of Northwestern University, in Illinois. These graduates were the
young men and women who in five years would be bearing the brunt of the
American participation in World War II. He revealed "the screw loose in
[his] mental processes," warning, "You have this dementia in your
blood," and identifying its manifestation: "Your fathers, mothers, and
remote ancestors for several thousand years believed in the reality of duty.
Upon that madness they built the world."
He presents long thoughts in short sentences. He anticipates by a gener-
ation the longing for a "new frontier," and packs much food for thought
in such passages as "You may love for the moment the indolent sense of
futility that comes with the grand cynicism of youth. But life, experience,
the hazards of your day, and time will bring out of you the courage bred
into you."
A
bout all that a commencement orator can do for his auditors is to
turn their faces around. He looks back upon the world as he
thinks it was. Then he considers the world as he thinks it is.
Finally in his receding perspective he discloses the pictured phantasm
which he hopes will be the future. Thereupon his young listeners may see
mirrored in the gloss of his picture the world which they think they will
make. It is a pleasant exercise. This commencement oratory which floods
our land every June may be an effective anesthetic which youth may take
at its second birth, out of the solid, unyielding, factual environment of
childhood and of books, out of the substantial fabric of the curriculum
with its sure reward of grade, class standing, and satisfying compensation
into the bewildering. hazy. and altogether ironic mockeries that we call, in
humorous euphony, real life. I stand here tiptoeing near the end of my
three score years and ten. There you sit across an abysm scarcely fifty feet
wide but deeper than the distance to the moon. I come out of one dream
world that is memory. You go into a visionary world that is hope. I tell you
of the things that I imagine are true in my world. You hold in your hearts
the picture of your world that shall be. We dwell on these two different
planets. How can I hope to get across the chasm of time and space any
hint, even a flickering shadow of my truth that will reach your hearts? For
William ALLEN WHITE
907
my world seemed to be a static world when I stood fifty years ago where
you stand now. My forebears since Caesar's day had not greatly changed
the tools with which they made their clothes, got their food. built their
houses; nor had they changed greatly in those twenty centuries the philos-
ophy upon which they erected their future. Today you look back upon a
world that has moved so far in one hundred years that nothing you see and
feel, touch and taste, hope, believe, and love is as it was when your grand-
fathers learned from their grandfathers how to live in another day. So what
I shall say here you may well discount. It is only the truth as I see it. Yet it
may have some bearing, though heaven only knows what, upon your
lives. Perhaps I can tell you something, and being called here, I shall
try
We know we have not done God's work perfectly. The world we have
made out of the inheritance of our grandfathers is a pretty sad botch. It is
full of gross injustices. Obviously a couple of centuries of hard work needs
to be done on it, before America is turned out, finished in its millennial
beauty. But with all these inequities, the old thing does hold together. We
turn our country over to you in one piece-which is something. Even if it
isn't a pretty piece, it is yours, with its spiritual hereditaments. And may I
be pardoned the vanity of one who worked on the job if I try to give you
some idea of what has held this nation in unity during a century and a half
when in many other parts of the globe races and tongues and economic
units have been breaking into small states, magnifying nationalism into a
vice.
Today, as never before, nationalism in small geographical areas is pull-
ing men into bitter disunion and controversy. Some flame of envy and
rancor is abroad in the world. We see it moving across the face of Europe
in various tyrannies, each exalting its own nationalism, each challenging
liberty in its own way-Italy under fascism, Germany under the Nazis,
Russia under communism, Spain boiling with confusion, while the two
principles of dictatorship, that of the plutocracy and that of the proletariat,
struggle for possession of that brave land. These isms are types of one
pestilence which is threatening civilization. That this spiritual pestilence
will attack America, no one can doubt.
How can we Americans immunize ourselves? The class of '37 must find
out why small geographical, social, racial units are erupting into a virulent
nationalism that threatens Western civilization. It's your problem, es-
teemed descendants, but here's a hint that might help you to solve it.
I am satisfied that the disease has its root in a lack of social faith. The
thing that has bound America into one nation is tolerance-tolerance and
patience; indeed, tolerance and patience upheld by a sense of duty.
908
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
At this point, dearly beloved members of the class of '37, I propose to
reveal the screw loose in my mental processes, also to show you some-
thing of the aberration of your forebears. You have this dementia in your
blood, and you might as well know it. Your fathers, mothers, and remote
ancestors for several thousand years believed in the reality of duty. Upon
that madness they built the world. Not that I wish to brag about it-this
sense of duty-but I still hug the delirium of my generation to my heart
and believe there is something in those old-fashioned eccentricities
known as the Christian virtues. Don't get excited. I am not preaching
piety. I have no plan of salvation to offer you, no theology to defend. But I
feel, and my generation has believed in a general way, that democracy
with its freedom, with its patience, with its tolerance, with its altruism, is
a sort of rough attempt to institutionalize the Christian philosophy. And
when I say rough, I mean rough, something like a 20 percent realization of
a noble ideal. Our American Constitution, for instance, is a national com-
pact of our individual and of our social duties. It has worked in this coun-
try after a fashion. Yet the same Constitution, or nearly the same, has been
adopted in a dozen other lands and has failed. Why has it held us to an
essential unity? I am satisfied that our Constitution has stood up because
Americans actually have established here a sort of code of duties. That has
been the crystallizing principle that has held us together-duty of man to
man, of region to region, of class to class, of race to race, of faith to faith.
That duty has bred something more than neighborly tolerance. It has en-
gendered a profound desire in every American's heart to make life as
pleasant as it may be made-not merely for himself, indeed not chiefly for
himself, but for others. Thus we have found and cherished true liberty.
Liberty, if it shall cement man into political unity, must be something
more than a man's conception of his rights, much more than his desire to
fight for his own rights. True liberty is founded upon a lively sense of the
rights of others and a fighting conviction that the rights of others must be
maintained. Only when a people have this love of liberty, this militant
belief in the sacredness of another man's self-respect, do races and nations
possess the catalyzer in their political and social organism which produces
the chemical miracle of crystallized national unity and strength. We
Americans have had it for three hundred years on this continent. It was in
the blood of our fathers. It was the basis of our faith in humanity when we
wrote our Constitution. It has been with us a long time on this continent-
this capacity for compromise, this practical passion for social justice and
for altruistic equity in settling the genuine differences of men. This high
quality of mutual respect is no slight gift. It is a heroic spiritual endow-
ment, this knack of getting along together on a continental scale.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
909
We have set as a national custom the habit of majority rule. This custom
is maintained not by arms but by a saving sense in the heart of every
minority that any majority will not be puffed up, will not infringe upon the
rights of the minority. Matching this duty of the majority to be fair, we
have set up the component duty of the minority to be patient, but to agitate
until the justice of a losing cause has convinced the winning majority.
This American tradition of political adjustment cuts through every line of
cleavage and all differences in our social organization-regions classes,
races, creeds. Here is the way it has worked. As our country has expanded
geographically, this political genius for unity has tapped our store of cer-
tain basic virtues: neighborly forbearance, meekness, unselfishness, and
that belief in the essential decency of one's neighbors which for want of a
better word we have called love. Now, in our land abideth these three—
faith in our fellows, hope in the triumph of reason, and love for humanity.
With all the grievous faults and glaring weaknesses of our federal union,
these things are the centripetal spiritual forces which have solidified
America.
These commonsense qualities which have grown out of the Beatitudes
have helped to preserve the American Union for the last century and a
half. Now, what are you going to do about it, you who stand here at the
threshold of the reality of your past, looking into the evanescent horizon of
your future? We who shall soon be petrified into pedestaled ghosts as your
ancestors have a notion that you, our descendants, don't have much use
for duty, for patience, and for tolerance. We get the general idea that you
have no sort of faith in the strength of the humble. Yet it is out of this lack
of faith that a new challenge has appeared in the world, a challenge aimed
at democracy, a challenge which scorns these lowly neighborly virtues
that have held our world together. This challenge is finding its way into
our American life. We are being told that the majority sometimes has
emergency mandates to ignore the rights of the minorities. We have set up
rulers all over the earth who preach against the virtue of patience. It is a
new thing in our America to hear men defending the tyrannies of
Europe-communism. fascism, and the Nazis-declaring that the minor-
ity may oppress the majority if the minority happens to be convinced that
it is right. It is even a stranger doctrine in America, which holds that a
passing majority, by reason of its being a ballot box majority at one or two
elections, has an inherent right immediately to suppress and ruthlessly
destroy an honest minority.
Now, as an ancestor, let me caution you, my heirs and assigns, that
these new political attitudes are symptoms of greed for power. They will
fool you if you channel your thinking into narrow dialectics. Don't take
910
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
your logical premise from your class self-interest. Don't build your logic
upon a purely selfish structure. Don't think as plutocrats. Don't reason as
members of the middle class or as proletarians. Such thinking is too sure
of its own syllogisms ever to be just. Such thinking rejects the possibility
that there is truth and that there may be reason in the contention of another
class of society. This same discord that has torn as under so many peoples
in Europe, where fifty years ago democracy seemed to be taking root, today
is seeding in our land. Capitalists are scorning labor leaders. Labor leaders
are preaching distrust and hatred for capitalists. The revelations of the La
Follette committee in the United States Senate now investigating the in-
fringement of civil liberties certainly lay bare the cancer of hatred in our
economic body that is poisoning our national blood. The class-conscious
arrogance of wealth is creating its own class morals. Proletarian logic is
justifying the use of force in class conflict and condoning cunning. The
industrial enterpriser shuts his eyes to the tragedy of the farmer's eco-
nomic plight. Then the farmer envies the financier.
But I feel sure the tide will turn. You who stand here, chisel in hand,
about to hew out the future, have something in you; humanity's most
precious mental gift-the eternal resilience, the everlasting bounce in
man. You may love for the moment the indolent sense of futility that
comes with the grand cynicism of youth. But life, experience, the hazards
of your day, and time will bring out of you the courage bred into you. You
will find that you have the urge that we had. You will want to believe in
something in spite of yourselves. You will want to construct something.
*
For you are the sons and daughters of a creative people, inventive, re-
sourceful, daring. And above all, in spite of the many unpleasant things
you have learned in this cloister, in spite of the hard realities that have
molded your youth, you are mystics, you are crusaders, you are incorrigi-
ble visionaries in the noblest sense of these words. The eternal verities of
your inheritance, the organizing brains, the industry, the noble purpose
that during the nineteenth century made America a kindlier and more
beautiful land than ever before was brought forth on this planet, will be
beckoning you, urging you, indeed, stemly commanding you to follow
whatever is fine and just in the achievement of your country
The residuum of what I am trying to say is this: you must reorganize life
in your America and point your achievement toward a fairer distributive
system. Abundance is here for the taking. Don't bemoan your lost frontier.
It is even now flashing on your horizon. A gorgeous land lies before you
fair and more beautiful than man before has ever known. Out of the labo-
ratories will come new processes to multiply material things for your
America, to multiply them almost infinitely; but only if you will hold open
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
911
the channels of free science, unfettered thought, and the right of a man to
use his talents to the utmost provided he gives honest social returns for the
rewards he takes. Don't delude yourselves about your new frontier. For on
that frontier which will rise over the laboratories you will find the same
struggle, the same hardships, the same inequities that your forefathers
have found on every frontier since the beginning of time. You will find
rapacious men trying to grab more than their share of the common boun-
ties of the new frontier. You will find human greeds and human perfidies
there as we found them fifty years ago and as our fathers found them
generations upon generations before. Energetic buccaneers always thrive
wherever men are pioneering. In every one of the ten long generations
during which your ancestors have been conquering this continent and
building a proud civilization here, they have struggled as you will struggle
against the injustices of life which are bred out of the lust for power in
unsocial men. But don't let that discourage you
And now, in closing, on behalf of your fathers who are bequeathing to you
their choicest gifts, let me say that your heritage is not in these great lovely
cities, not this wide and fertile land, not the mountains full of undreamed-
of riches. These you may find in other continents. What we leave you that
is precious are the few simple virtues which have stood us in good stead in
the struggle of our generation. We will and bequeath to you our enthusi-
asm, our diligence, our zeal for a better world, that were the lode stars of
our fathers. As our legatees we assign you our tolerance, our patience, our
kindness, our faith, hope, and love, which make for the self-respect of
man. These qualities of heart and mind grow out of a conviction that the
democratic philosophy as mode of thinking will lead mankind into a no-
bler way of life
912
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
ECONOMIST ARTHUR BURNS
SHARES THREE DISCOVERIES
WITH YOUNG ISRAELIS
"I do not hold with those who say that power corrupts men. Rather, it is the
other way around; men without morality corrupt power." "
DR. ARTHUR BURNS, an immigrant to the United States from Austria
at the age of eight, founded the Bureau of Economic Research, became
chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Dwight Eisenhower,
and served as Richard Nixon's domestic policy counselor before being
appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He finished his career,
coming full circle, as ambassador to West Germany.
His speaking style was precise; his official writing was afflicted with too
many facts and figures. But because he had an organized mind and liked to
make a clear point, his extemporaneous speaking and rare informal ad-
dresses were models of clarity.
The following commencement address, made at Hebrew University, in
Jerusalem, on July 6. 1970, is uneditable-that is, it cannot be cut without
the cut showing. That demonstrates a tight construction in speechwriting,
with points logically marching to a satisfying conclusion. It begins with a
couple of anecdotes. drawing the audience in with easy-to-follow stories
about people. Then Dr. Burns previews, or billboards, the three elements to
come in his speech: discoveries in economics (where he's the expert),
power management (always of interest), and the achievement of ideals
(which should be on the minds of young people).
He then delivers as advertised, each discovery helpfully labeled and
briefly expounded. At the end, like a good college lecturer to students
taking notes, he summarizes his trinity of points. Then he poses three
questions, designed to give his listeners something to puzzle out in each of
the three areas as they live their lives. Not an exciting speech, but reflective
of the speaker: helpful; structured; wise.
ARTHUR BURNS 913
T
his is my third visit to Israel. I remember, just before my first visit
here, in 1958, being admonished not to come by several United
States ambassadors.
The reason for the warning was plain. Israel was then in the midst of the
Lebanon crisis. With tension mounting by the hour, even a professor
ought to have enough sense to stay away from a country about to become
involved in war. The men who told me this were seasoned diplomats; they
were gravely alarmed by the state of affairs.
But when I came here, I was struck by just the opposite-not by the
tension, not by the alarm, but by the coolness of the Israeli people in the
midst of international anxiety.
There is an ironic saying we have in America, paraphrasing a line in a
Kipling poem: "If you can keep your head while all about you are losing
theirs, perhaps you do not understand the gravity of the situation."
But the fact was that the Israelis I met here-some of whom had been
my students at Columbia University in years past-fully understood the
gravity of the international situation. They kept the calm that is found in
the eye of a hurricane.
I was struck then, as I am struck now, by what Ernest Hemingway
defined as the essence of courage-"grace under pressure."
That quality of calm courage is found only in a people with a clear sense
of purpose and a firm sense of duty. This simple fact must weigh heavily
in every assessment by outsiders of the future of Israel.
On another visit, I asked David Ben-Gurion how the Israelis were able to
achieve so rapidly their advances in industry and commerce. As you
know, many economists associate economic growth with a nation's en-
dowment of natural resources. England's early progress was attributed to
her coal; America's to her abundant minerals and vast agricultural re-
sources. But Israel was not blessed with large mineral deposits, much of its
land was barren, and even water was in short supply.
How, I therefore asked the prime minister, was Israel able to build such
a strong economy in such a short time? He answered, "We did it first by
dreaming, then by doing what the economists said was impossible."
Keeping in mind that gentle reminder of fallibility, I would like to speak
to you today about three discoveries in seemingly different fields-in the
management of economic affairs, in the management of power, and in the
achievement of ideals.
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You are a part of those discoveries, and the way the young people of
Israel govern their lives will have an important impact on the use of those
discoveries in the years ahead.
The first discovery, in the field of economic management, is this: the
human element is basic in the creation of an economy that combines full
employment with high productivity and relative price stability.
The great debate you read about in economics today is between those
who feel that fiscal policy is all-important and those who believe that
monetary policy is all-important. The two schools joust in learned debate,
but both are also beginning to take account of the human element in eco-
nomic affairs-that is, the dreams, fears, and hopes that so often upset the
most expert calculations.
And so we are gradually discovering-or perhaps I should say rediscov-
ering-that there is more to economic policy than the established princi-
ples of economics. When the older writers on economics entitled their
treatises "political arithmetic" or "political economy." they were telling
us something we have forgotten: that man's hope is a crucial element in
man's fate.
What is your role in this discovery? Right now, right here in Israel, you
are proving that hope is perhaps the most powerful of all economic forces.
You are proving that a spirit of purpose can give meaning to human energy
and overcome a lack of material resources. In this, you are not breaking
any rules of economics; but you are developing new rules of political
economy.
A generation ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the
only thing we should despair of is despair. In nations all around the world,
on both sides of the Iron Curtain, an enervating mood of despair is becom-
ing fashionable, especially on the part of some young people. The cultiva-
tion of despair can do as much to undermine the strength of some econo-
mies as the cultivation of hope can do to overcome the apparent
weaknesses of other economies.
This brings me to a second discovery that is being made, in a related but
different field-in the exercise of power in the world.
Power traditionally has been thought of in military terms. And, of
course, as you know better than most, the survival of freedom in the world
as it is today would be impossible without military power.
But I do not hold with those who say that power corrupts men. Rather, it
is the other way around; men without morality corrupt power. And the
world is making a remarkable discovery about the exercise of power: with
nations, as with individual men, the most effective application of power is
the power of moral example.
ARTHUR BURNS
915
This, I submit, is what has made and continues to make America great.
We have a dream of freedom, of equal opportunity, and of human dignity.
It is true, of course, that our reach exceeds our grasp, but by striving to
make our way of life better and to help other nations enrich their freedom,
we set a moral example that is one of the greatest sources of our power. We
are criticized so much around the world because people expect so much of
America; I would never trade away those high expectations for mere ap-
proval.
And this, too, is what makes Israel a "great power" in her own right.
The power of her example in dignifying life, in conquering disease, and in
extending technical assistance to other poor nations, can never be under-
estimated. I know that President Nixon feels this deeply. Not long ago, in
discussing why America supports Israel, he put it this way: "Americans
admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israe-
lis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism,
idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know."
The young people of Israel, born to this noble example, have a special
responsibility both to their own nation and to the world to preserve and
enhance those qualities. You must continue to show the world that you
know the difference between bravery and bravado. You must continue to
show the world how dearly you hold the moral precepts of brotherhood.
You must continue to show the world your readiness to seek peace and
progress for yourselves and for your neighbors.
The example of Israel is nowhere more vivid than in the field of educa-
tion. You have the privilege of being graduated today from one of the great
universities of the world. But what impresses the world is not so much
your fine educational facilities or the magnificence of Mount Scopus,
where you began to build this university, but the fact that education in
Israel permeates the very existence of her people.
You do not "go to school" in Israel; in a sense, this whole land-
every home, factory. kibbutz, or even army camp-is a school. Educa-
tion is an exciting part of life. The mistake that others sometimes make,
and that I trust you will never make, is to treat education as a chore in-
stead of a joy; to treat graduation as an end of education rather than as
a beginning.
You consider yourselves pioneers in many things, and rightly so, but I
suggest that there is a discovery you are making that you may not be aware
of: that a passion for learning diffused throughout a society is the surest
road to the achievement of its ideals.
The president of the United States likes to say, "When you're through
learning, you're through." And he's right-the strength of a nation, like
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the strength of an individual, depends on its ability to learn how to change
and to grow.
Perhaps the greatest thing that can be said about the people of Israel is
that in fighting for the life of your nation, you have stimulated the life of
the mind.
Today I have been speaking of three discoveries that are being made in
the world, and of your part in them in the years ahead.
In creating a lasting prosperity, the human element is at last being rec-
ognized as of fundamental importance.
In exercising power in the world, the power of moral example can be far
greater than material riches or equipment.
In achieving ideals, a reverence for learning and education is indispens-
able.
As you take leave of the university, as you graduate into a new life of the
mind, may each of you ask yourself this: What am I doing to increase the
sum of hope in this world? What am I doing to nourish the sense of
purpose that founded this nation and made it strong? What am I doing to
teach someone else what I have learned?
In asking questions like these, you will come to new discoveries, you
will rise to new challenges, and you will justify the faith of your fathers
and the admiration of millions of free men all around the world.
I am deeply honored to join the fellowship of this graduating class and I
salute you: Shalom.
ART BUCHWALD O917
HUMORIST ART BUCHWALD
SPEAKS TO
LAW GRADUATES
"No matter what you read in the newspapers or see on television, I assure you
that we're all going to make it.''
A KEENING OBSERVER OF WASHINGTON POLITICS, Art Buch-
wald knows how to ask the tough questions, like "Have you ever seen a
candidate talking to a rich person on television?"
The winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary.
Buchwald as political humorist reaches an international audience through
the worldwide syndication of his column to more than 550 newspapers.
He outlectures Mark Twain. Among his recent books are I Think I Don't
Remember (1987) and Whose Rose Garden Is It Anyway? (1989).
On May 7. 1977, Buchwald delivered the commencement day address at
Catholic University's Columbus School of Law, in Washington, D.C.
The commencement address is vintage Buchwald, from the presidential
salutation ("My fellow Americans") to the common-man close ("Now, I
could have said something very profound today, but you would have for-
gotten it in ten minutes"). With chapter and verse of biblical and court-
case allusions, Buchwald prepares the law graduates for trying careers.
M
y fellow Americans, or as we're going to be saying for the
next four years-How y'all? It is a great honor for me to
address the graduating class of Catholic Law School of 130
men and 85 persons. You couldn't have selected a better person to be your
commencement speaker today.
I am no stranger to the bar. I first became interested in the law when I
was working in Paris for the Herald Tribune, and I covered a trial which had
to do with a couple caught in a very compromising situation in a Volks-
wagen. Now. everyone in France was interested in the case because it had
to do with such a small car. The defense lawyer argued it was impossible
to do what the couple had been accused of doing in a Volkswagen. The
918
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
judge said he didn't know if this was true or not, so he appointed a com-
mission to study it. It took them six months to render their verdict, and
they said ''it was possible but very difficult."
What does a speaker say to a fresh-faced, well-scrubbed graduating
class of neophyte lawyers? Your studies are over, and now you will leave
these hallowed halls, this ivy-covered campus, to go out and practice the
second-oldest profession in the world.
It is an honorable calling that you have chosen. Some of you will soon
be defending poor, helpless insurance companies who are constantly
being sued by greedy widows and orphans trying to collect on their poli-
cies. Others will work tirelessly to protect frightened, beleaguered oil com-
panies who are being attacked by wicked and depraved antitrust officials.
A few of you will devote your lives to suing doctors, while many of you
will choose to sue the patients. As lawyers you will see to it that whether
you represent General Motors, Coca-Cola, or the telephone company, the
little fellow will get his day in court.
There are some of you who have chosen to go into criminal law-which
I must admit is getting harder and harder to distinguish from civil law. To
you I say, this, too, is an honorable undertaking-only if you keep one
thing in mind, and that is to always get your fee in advance. No matter
how hard you defended him, a convicted criminal is the most reluctant of
all clients to pay the lawyer after the jury has returned a verdict of guilty.
This great government of ours has made the law profession the growth
industry of America. Every time a new regulation is issued, a new law is
passed, and an old law is repealed, fifty thousand lawyers are needed to
explain it. Just one amendment to the IRS code will give every lawyer in
this country enough work to last him thirteen years. One memorandum
from the Food and Drug Administration will provide enough litigation to
feed your families for the rest of your lives. Our country looks kindly on
lawyers. Our government hires them to make the rules. Then the private
sector is forced to hire lawyers to find ways of breaking them.
The beauty of the law is that the more complicated lawmakers make it,
the more work it generates for other lawyers. Had the Ten Commandments
been written by a government lawyer, Moses could never have carried
them on a stone tablet. He would have had to haul them down from Mount
Sinai on the Rock of Gibraltar. And if you ever get discouraged, remember
this: even if the meek do inherit the earth, some lawyer will have to pro-
bate the will.
I am not trying to give you the impression that your life will be all milk
and Gulf Oil. The fact of the matter is that the legal profession faces many
problems these days. According to a recent survey, lawyers rated lower
ART BUCHWALD 919
than garbage collectors in the public's esteem. Now, I think this is an
unfair image. I know many lawyers who would make good garbage collec-
tors-but I don't know one garbage collector who would make a good
lawyer.
Another problem you face is that you will soon be forced to advertise.
This is an anathema to most lawyers, but it's coming and there is no sense
fighting it. I think if you have to advertise you should put most of your
money into television. I have been working on some TV commercials
which might be appropriate. One, which I already have in script form,
would show a nattily dressed man standing in front of the Atlanta Federal
Prison. He would say, "Hi, I used to be a vice-president of Lockheed
Aircraft. I'd be inside these gates now if it hadn't been for Covington &
Burling. If you have committed a white-collar crime-or are thinking of
committing one, call this toll free number: 800-367-2345. We have a
special sale this week on income tax fraud and SEC violations. Don't
delay. Had the men inside this prison called Covington & Burling, they
would be standing out here with me today.'
The tendency today in this country is to wring our hands and say every-
thing is rotten, but I don't feel that way. I am basically an optimist-
otherwise I would never fly Allegheny Airlines. I don't know if this is the
best of times or the worst of times, but I can assure you of this: this is the
only time you've got-and you can either sit on your expletive deleted or go
out and pick a daisy.
Now we seem to be going through a period of nostalgia, and everyone
seems to think yesterday was better than today. I personally don't think it
was, and I would advise you not to wait ten years from now before admit-
ting today was great. If you're hung up on nostalgia, pretend today is
yesterday. and just go out and have one hell of a time.
You know, if you were looking for a name for this country right now,
you'd have to call it the uptight society. Everyone seems uptight about
something. The white students want out of our system; the black students
want in; the people are mad at the cops; and the priests aren't talking to the
cardinals. And doing the column the way I do, I discovered that for every
uptight person in this country, there's an uptight organization to back him
up. And I discovered that the most uptight organization in this country
right now is the National Rifle Association. Now, before you get to like me,
I am for gun registration, and it's very personal with me. My neighbor has
a gun, and he can't even water his lawn straight. But every time I do an
article for gun registration, I get hundreds of letters, all neatly typewritten,
telling me I'm trying to destroy the Constitution. And I discovered that
everybody in this country who owns a gun also owns a typewriter. So my
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COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
solution to the gun registration problem is to make everybody register his
typewriter. People are very uptight about pornography and what it is doing
to all our lives. Now, I'll be very honest with you. I have always wanted to
write a pornographic book. But I get so excited doing the research that I
can never get around to the book
My final message to you today is that no matter what you read in the
newspapers or see on television, I assure you that we're all going to make
it. For two hundred years this country has muddled through one crisis
after another, and we have done it without changing our form of govern-
ment. And it seems like centuries, but it was only three years ago that a
president of the United States was forced to resign from office under the
darkness of clouds, and he was asked to leave the office because he lied to
the American people. I was at the White House that night to hear his
resignation speech. What impressed me more than anything else was that
while one leader of our country was resigning and another was taking his
place, I did not see one tank or one helmeted soldier in the street, and the
only uniforms I saw that night were on two motorcycle policemen who
were directing traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. Two hundred million peo-
ple were able to change presidents overnight without one bayonet being
unsheathed. And I believe that any country in the world that can still do
that can't be all bad.
Now, I could have said something very profound today, but you would
have forgotten it in ten minutes; so I chose to give this kind of speech
instead so that in twenty years from now when your children ask you what
you did on graduation day, you can proudly say, "I laughed."
Thank you, and God bless you.
WILLIAM SAFIRE
921
LANGUAGE MAVEN
WILLIAM SAFIRE DENOUNCES
THE TELEPHONE AS THE
SUBVERTER OF GOOD ENGLISH
"IT is harder to put your foot in your mouth when you have your pen in your
hand."
LOOK, THIS DOESN'T COMPARE with Pericles and Patrick Henry,
but every anthologist is entitled to the inclusion of one of his own. It was
delivered at my alma mater, Syracuse University, on May 13, 1978, and
the graduates lapped it up.
lassmates:
C
I entered Syracuse University with the class of '51, dropped out
after two years, and am finally receiving my degree with the class
of '78. There is hope for slow learners.
My subject today is "The Decline of the Written Word." If the speech I
have written is disjointed and confusing, you will get my point the hard
way.
We have not heard a really eloquent speech out of the White House in a
long time. Why? When you ask the speechwriters of Mr. Ford and Mr.
Carter, they give you this explanation: they say that "high-flown rhetoric"
is not their man's style.
But that is not responsive. A flowery speech is a bad speech. Simple,
straight English prose can be used to build a great speech. There has to be a
more profound reason for the reluctance of the presidents of the seventies
to write out their thoughts plainly and deliver them in words we can all
understand.
If you press the president's aides-and that's my job, to press them
hard-they'll admit that their man much prefers to "ad-lib" answers to
questions. He's not good at what they call a "set" speech.
What do they really mean by that? They mean a speech-a written
922
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
speech, developing an idea-is not what people want to hear. People pre-
fer short takes, Q. and A.; the attention span of most Americans on serious
matters is about twenty seconds, the length of a television clip.
In the same way, people do not want to read articles as they once did;
today. if you cannot get your message in a paragraph, forget it.
As a result, we're becoming a short-take society. Our presidency, which
Theodore Roosevelt called a "bully pulpit," has become a forum for
twenty-second spots. Our food for thought is junk food.
What has brought this about? I don't blame President Carter for this-he
reflects the trend; he did not start it. I don't flail out at the usual whipping
boy, television.
The reason for the decline of the written word-speeches, written arti-
cles-is that we, as a people, are writing less and talking more. Because it
takes longer to prepare our thoughts on paper, that means we are ad-
libbing more, and it also means we are thinking more superficially. An ad
lib has its place, but not ad nauseam.
That's one of those sweeping statements that pundits are permitted to
make. But let me turn reporter for a minute and prove to you that we're
talking more and writing less.
Most people are not writing personal letters any more. Oh, the volume
of first-class mail has doubled since 1950, but here's the way the mail
breaks down. Over 80 percent is business related; over 10 percent is greet-
ing card and Christmas card; and only 3 percent is from one person to
another to chew the fat.
More and more, we're relying on commercial poets and cartoonists to
express our thoughts for us. Tomorrow is Mother's Day; how many of us
are relying on canned sentiments? I remember my brother once labori-
ously handmade a card for my mother: on the front was "I'll never forget
you, Mother," and inside it said, "You gave away my dog." Okay, he was
sore, but at least he was original.
The greatest cultural villain of our times has a motherly image: Ma Bell.
The telephone company. Instead of writing, people are calling; instead of
communicating, they're "staying in touch."
There you are, all about to be holders of college degrees. When was the
last time you wrote, or received, a long, thoughtful letter? When was the
last time you wrote a passionate love letter? No, that takes time, effort,
thought-there's a much easier way, the telephone. The worst insult is
when kids call home, collect, for money; when my kids go to college. the
only way they'll get a nickel out of me is to write for it.
As the percentage of personal mail has dwindled, the number of tele-
phone installations since 1950 has quadrupled. The average person's need
WILLIAM SAFIRE 923
to write has been undermined by simple economics: as the cost of a letter
has gone up, the cost of a call has gone down.
During World War I, a first-class letter cost two cents an ounce; in a few
weeks, it will be fifteen cents an ounce. In that same sixty years, a New
York-to-San Francisco call has gone from twenty dollars for three minutes
down to fifty-three cents today, if you're willing to call at night or on a
weekend. The penny postcard is a dime. Letters up almost 800 percent;
phone calls down to one-fortieth of the cost to grandpa. No wonder the
market share of communication has dropped for letter writers. In the year I
was a freshman here, the Postal Service had over a third of the communi-
cation business; today, it is one-sixth, and falling.
And it's going to get worse: phonevision is on the way. We have seen
what happened to the interpersonal correspondence of love in the past
generation. The purple passages of prose, and tear-stained pages of the
love letter-that's gone now. It has become the heavy breathing, grunts,
and "like, I mean, y'know, wow" of the love call. The next stage, with the
visual dimension, will not even require a loud sigh: we can just wave at
each other to say hello; wiggle our fingers to express affection; raise our
eyebrows to ask, "What's new?." get a shrug in reply, and sign off with a
smile and a wink.
We need not degenerate further from written English to verbal grunts,
and then to sign language. We need to become modern reactionaries; I
consider myself a neo-Neanderthal, and my happiest moment of the year
comes as daylight savings ends in October, when I can turn back the clock.
How do we save ourselves from the tyranny of the telephone? How do
we liberate our language from the addiction to the ad lib?
If this were an off-the-cuff presentation, I would drift off into a fuzzy
evasion like "There are no easy answers." But one thing I have learned in
preparing my first commencement address, and the main advice I shall
burden you with today is this: there are plenty of easy answers. The big
trick is to think about them and write them down.
There are four steps to the salvation of the English language, and thus to
the rejuvenation of clear thinking in your working lives.
First, remember that first drafts are usually stupid. If you shoot off your
mouth with your first draft-that is, if you say what you think before
you've had a chance to think-your stupidity shines forth for all to hear.
But, if you write your first draft-of a letter, a memo, a description of some
transcendental experience that comes to you while jogging-then you fall
on your face in absolute privacy. You get the chance to change it all
around. It is harder to put your foot in your mouth when you have your
pen in your hand.
924
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
Second, reject the notion that honesty and candor demand that you "let
it all hang out." That's not honesty; that's intellectual laziness. Tuck some
of it in; edit some of it out. Talking on your feet, spinning thoughts off the
top of your head, and just rapping along in a laid-back way have been
glorified as "expressing your natural self." But you did not get an educa-
tion to become natural; you got an education to become civilized. Compo-
sition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to "get in touch with
your feelings," fine-talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to com-
municate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your
thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to
instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down
and then cut out the confusing parts.
Third, never forget that you own the telephone; the telephone does not
own you. Most people cannot bear to listen to a phone ring without an-
swering it. It's easy to not answer a letter, but it's hard to not answer a
phone. Let me pass along a solution that has changed my life. When I was
in the Nixon administration, my telephone was tapped-I had been as-
sociating with known journalists. So I took an interest in the instrument
itself. Turn it upside down; you will notice a lever that says "louder."
Turn it away from the direction of louder. That is the direction of emanci-
pation. If somebody needs to see you, he'll come over. If others need to tell
you what they think, or even express how they feel, they can write. There
are those who will call you a recluse-but it is better to listen to your own
different drummer than to go through life with a ringing in your ears.
My fourth point will impress upon you the significance of the written
word. Those of you who have been secretly taking notes, out of a four-year
habit, will recall that I spoke of "four steps" to the salvation of the English
language. Here it is: there is no fourth step. I had the fourth step in mind
when I began, but I forgot it.
Now, if I were ad-libbing, I would remember I had promised four
points, and I would do what so many stump speakers do-toss in the
all-purpose last point, which usually begins, "There are no easy answers."
But, in writing down what you think, you can go back and fix it-instead
of having to phumph around with a phony fourth point, you can change
your introduction to "there are three steps." Perhaps you wonder why I
did not do so. Not out of any excess of honesty. or unwillingness to make a
simple fix-I just wanted you to see the fourth step take shape before your
very eyes.
Is the decline of the written word inevitable? Will the historians of the
future deal merely in oral history? I hope not. I hope-that oral history will
limit itself to the discovery of toothpaste and the invention of mouthwash.
William SAFIRE
925
I don't want to witness the decomposing of the art of composition, or be
present when we get in touch with our feelings and lose contact with our
minds.
I'm a conservative in politics, which means I believe that we as a people
have to lead our leaders, to show them how we want to be led.
Accordingly, I think we have to send a message to the podium from the
audience: we're ready for more than Q. and A. We're ready for five or ten
minutes of sustained explication. A "fireside chat" will not turn out our
fires. On the contrary-if a speaker will take the time to prepare, we are
prepared to pay in the coin of our attention.
That, of course, is contrary to the trend, against the grain. It can come
only from people who care enough to compose, who get in the habit of
reading rather than listening, of being in communication instead of only
in contact.
When Great Britain was fighting World War II alone, an American pres-
ident did something that would be considered cornball today: FDR sent
Churchill a poem, along with a letter, that read:
Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, o Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
Churchill took the message-delivered to him by Wendell Willkie, who
had just been defeated by FDR-and selected a poem in answer. At that
moment, looking east, England faced invasion; looking to the west across
the Atlantic, Churchill saw potential help. The poem he sent concluded
with the words:
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
High-flown rhetoric? Perhaps. And perhaps poetry, which had an hon-
orable place in a 1961 inauguration, is too rich for some tastes today.
And now I remember the fourth step. I like to think we can demand
some sense of an occasion, some uplift, some inspiration from our lead-
ers. Not empty words and phony promises-but words full of meaning.
binding thoughts together with purpose, holding promise of understand-
926
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
able progress. If we ask for it, we'll get it-if we fail to ask, we'll get more
Q. and A.
I believe we can arrest the decline of the written word, thereby achieving
a renaissance of clarity. And not by eastern establishment windows only.
The hope is on this side of the Potomac, the Charles, and the Hudson
rivers-westward, look, the land is bright.
FINANCIER FELIX G. ROHATYN
EXAMINES A
FRAGILE ECONOMY
"WHEN a democratic society does not meet the test of fairness freedom is in
jeopardy. Whether the attack comes from the left or from the right is irrelevant;
both extremes are equally lethal."
WHEN FELIX G. ROHATYN rose to address the graduating class of his
alma mater, Middlebury College, in Vermont, his speech in May 1982
drew heavily on his own experience as a leader in business and public
affairs. Rohatyn, born in Austria in 1928, came to the United States during
World War II and was naturalized in 1950. An investment banker and
chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation (New York City's fiscal
watchdog agency). Rohatyn was largely responsible for helping New York
City survive its financial crisis of the midseventies.
These experiences led into Rohatyn's discussion of the economy in
1982, as it began pulling out of severe recession. Called "The Fragile
FELIX G. ROHATYN
927
System," Democrat Rohatyn's speech focused on the challenges facing
our nation's economy in the boom times of the Reagan era.
With the anaphora of "There is no reason" to enumerate seven needed
changes in policy. Rohatyn posits a reformation of the American econ-
omy. A listing of the nation's worries, combined with his recollections of
the handling of New York City's fiscal crisis, underscores his direct ad-
dress to the class of 1982, particularly in his perorational avoidance of
sentiment in a nice ''I do not envy you, but I do not feel sorry for you."
I
t has been more than thirty years since I graduated, without the
slightest distinction, from a small, idyllic, some might say ivory
tower college in Vermont called Middlebury. I had come to the
United States in 1942, a refugee from Nazi-occupied France. America
meant freedom and opportunity for me; Franklin Roosevelt was America;
Middlebury was part of a heady postwar period, of belonging somewhere,
of becoming a U.S. citizen, of having a future. A small, bouncy, bald
professor named Benjamin Wissler taught me the difference between a
fact and an assumption, between reasoning and guessing. Even though.
soon after graduation, I was drafted for the Korean War and graduated
from that experience as a sergeant of infantry, also without distinction,
nothing during that period dimmed my conviction that in the U.S. tomor-
row would be better than today. as would every tomorrow thereafter. Inso-
far as I am concerned, America has far exceeded my personal expecta-
tions. No European country would have given a Jewish refugee, of Polish
extraction, the opportunities in business and in public affairs that this
country has given me.
And yet it would be disingenuous and unrealistic not to recognize that
the world as a whole and the U.S. in particular, are profoundly changed
from my graduating year of 1949.
A friend of mine, one of the more civilized corporate chairmen, said to
me recently, "I no longer give commencement addresses; the graduates
are entitled to an upbeat speech, and I am no longer capable of delivering
it.'' It gave me pause because I certainly do not have an upbeat speech;
however, a realistic assessment of where we are cannot be equated with
hopelessness. We saved New York City from bankruptcy against much
greater odds than those facing this country today. But we did it by being
ruthlessly realistic about the mess we were dealing with and by assuming,
quite correctly, that when things look very bad, they usually turn out to be
worse than they look.
928
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
The United States is more than a nation; it is a continent. Within this
continent lie our greatest challenges and the most serious threat to our
democratic form of government: income and class disparities on the one
hand, regional disparities on the other. The Reagan administration's ap-
proach to these issues was to state that tax policy should not be used to
effect social change and that citizens should vote with their feet. As a
result, a completely laudable attempt to improve American productivity by
stimulating investment has resulted in an economic program incoherent
in its application.
Budget cuts have been largely concentrated on lower-income programs
such as food stamps and welfare and have not, so far, touched the large,
middle-income support programs, indexed to the cost of living, such as
Social Security and pensions. Massive tax cuts, coupled with enormous
and apparently indiscriminate increases in military spending, have cre-
ated the perspective of enormous federal deficits for years to come. The
growth in the economy which was expected to pay for these programs is,
time and again, choked off by high interest rates.
At the same time, a strong regional tide is running away from this part
of the country. Unless vigorous actions are taken soon, older America, the
Northeast and Midwest-tied to traditional industries like autos, steel,
glass and rubber, seriously wounded by Japanese competition-will not
provide the jobs, the schools, the taxbase to maintain the physical plant of
its cities, and the minimum requirements of its citizens. Half this country
will be basking in the sun, swimming in oil and defense contracts, while
the other half will sink further and further into physical decay. social
stress, and despair.
The basic test of a functioning democracy is its ability to create new
wealth and see to its fair distribution. When a democratic society does not
meet the test of fairness, when, as in the present state, no attempt seems to
be made at fairness, freedom is in jeopardy. Whether the attack comes
from the left or from the right is irrelevant; both extremes are equally
lethal
Maybe for the first time in its history, the United States is faced with
doubts about its destiny. In less than twenty-five years we have gone from
the American century to the American crisis.
The United States today is a country in transition. It is in transition from
being the world's dominant military power to sharing that role with the
Soviet Union; it is in transition from an industrial to a service society;
from being a predominantly white, northern European society based in the
Northeast and Midwest to being a multiracial society with its center of
gravity in the Sunbelt. A society in transition cannot be governed by rigid
FELIX G. ROHATYN
929
dogma; on the contrary, it requires a government which is flexible, prag-
matic, even sometimes deliberately ambiguous. Shared values must be
clear, but the means to the end cannot be rigid. From fascism to commu-
nism, from monarchy to anarchy, the ends of government are purportedly
the same. Justice with opportunity, higher standards of living. peace in
our time. The means to the end are very different, however, and the means
are what determine whether we live in a free society.
The critical issues we face today are not the levels of interest rates or
what kind of package finally comes out of budget negotiations. These
things are important, but our fascination with numbers must not obscure
the real issues. These are, in no particular order:
The rapid growth of a permanent underclass in America: the
residents of inner-city ghettos, black and Hispanic, undereducated,
underskilled, without real hope of participating in the future of the
country;
The regional split between Sunbelt and Frostbelt, which is
accelerating and which will leave the northern half of the United
States in serious difficulty;
The decline of our traditional manufacturing sectors, the decay of
our older cities and the decline in the quality of urban life;
Illegal immigration in great numbers, especially from Mexico,
which will create additional social tensions unless we produce
enough jobs to absorb our own unemployed along with new
arrivals;
Nuclear proliferation and the need to control and reduce the level of
nuclear weapons while being realistic about Soviet power.
To be fair and evenhanded, I should probably attempt to sketch the
many reasons today to be optimistic about the future. The new technolo-
gies and inventions, the exploration of space and the oceans, communica-
tions and education, advances in medicine and knowledge of the human
body, plus the myriad new developments we cannot even conceive of
today. We must also be realistic in recognizing that we are today the stron-
gest economic power in the world and that we are facing a Soviet system
which is spiritually and financially bankrupt.
If I seem to dwell on the problems, it is probably for two reasons. First,
because I have been trained, professionally, to look after the bad news first
and let the good news take care of itself. Second, because I believe that in
our problems lie the most serious challenges to our system and in their
resolution lie some of the greatest opportunities for tomorrow.
930
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
And yet the list of problems that I reviewed is by no means a complete
list, and their diversity and complexity indicate the futility of trying to deal
with them by across-the-board economic theories and "hands-off" gov-
emment. The role of government, in the last decades of this century, will
be the paramount question to be decided.
Today, we are witnessing a paradox: a government which abdicates to a
theoretical marketplace most of its responsibilities for the welfare of the
people, while wishing to intrude on people's most private decisions. How
does one equate the conservative passion to intrude on such issues as
abortion, school prayer, and the death penalty with its equally fervent
passion for the free market as the fount of all benefits? Today's conserva-
tive experiment will fail because it has no relevance to the world we live
in, just as yesterday's liberalism failed for exactly the same reason. We are
soon, however, going to run out of time for experiments.
Benny Wissler once snappily explained to me that there was no such
thing as the wrong answer; there was only a wrong answer. It was only re-
cently, however, that I concluded that, especially in government and pub-
lic life, there may not be any such thing as the right answer. There may, at
best, exist a process whereby trends can be affected and the direction of
social and economic behavior temporarily influenced. This is the antithe-
sis of the planned, central domination of government, but it means gov-
ernment committed to oppose destabilizing trends before they become
flood tides. It is a permanent but ever-changing process.
A Rabelaisian friend of mine once compared saving New York City to
making love to a gorilla. "You don't stop when you're tired," he said to
me; "you stop when he's tired." The gorilla never tires, and government
can never abdicate its responsibilities
There is no reason why a hardheaded liberalism cannot live with the
reality that we cannot spend ourselves into bankruptcy.
There is no reason why social programs, impeccable in their objectives,
have to be grossly abused, or expanded to include those who really don't
need them.
There is no reason why an economy, geared mostly to private-sector
growth, cannot at the same time permit limited government intervention
where needed. A modern version of the Reconstruction Finance Corpora-
tion of the 1930s could help rebuild our cities and restructure our basic
industries without threatening our basic free-enterprise system.
There is no reason why limited and temporary protection for our hard-
hit industries cannot be conditioned on restrained wage and price behavior
by labor and management; this might become the model for an incomes
policy where wage and price behavior could be linked to productivity.
FELIX G. ROHATYN 0 931
There is no reason why large savings cannot be effected in defense, and
particularly in reducing nuclear delivery systems, if we are willing to pay
the price of larger standing conventional forces.
There is no reason to abandon human rights abroad and deal with mur-
derers from the right because they happen to be anti-Communist. Nor is
there reason to tolerate murderers from the left on the romantic notion that
they are agrarian reformers.
However, although there is no reason why these results cannot be
achieved, we must be realistic about the political difficulty of bringing this
about. Without the active support of the American people and the active
cooperation of business, labor, and government, it cannot happen.
In times of upheaval, the passions must be for moderation and not for
extremes. As Anwar Sadat well knew, the passion for moderation may be
one of the most dangerous passions today. and yet it is especially vital to
our future. Sadat took the risks and paid the price. Even though today's
technology provides us with mountains of instant data, it is useless with-
out judgment. And if judgments are to have value, policy decisions have
to be made early. When the crisis is clear, it is often too late to act. That is
the dilemma of statesmanship and the possibly fatal flaw in a political
system which only seems to act when it is too late.
France has given the world a lot; not least is the skepticism of Mon-
taigne and of Voltaire. Skepticism is what is needed today-skepticism of
easy solutions, of cant, of ideology of the left or right. Skepticism does not
equate with cynicism; it is not inconsistent with the fiercest patriotism or
the firmest belief in basic values. But it can be the anchor to windward
when our basic institutions seem to be adrift with the tides.
Yesterday, your president spoke to you of the American dream; today, I
speak to you of the American reality. They are not inconsistent with each
other, but unless you face the latter, you will never achieve the former.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 1982, I do not envy you, but I do not
feel sorry for you. You will have an exciting time, and it is likely to be hard
going. The United States is in need of change, and your challenge will be
to provide it as well as to adjust to it. As the rate of change accelerates, as
the problems become greater and the solutions more elusive, get involved
in public affairs. It is a great adventure.
Politics is not the only way to become involved in public life. There will
be many structures such as Municipal Assistance Corporation, where pri-
vate citizens can play important roles. I had the privilege of participating
in a great adventure, the rescue of New York City. It was an experience
both terrifying and exhilarating, which I would not have missed for any-
thing. It taught me what you will find out. To be skeptical and always look
932
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
over your shoulder, but to get involved deeply and to shoot for the moon.
To beware of lawyers and consultants and people who do not take risks
and who do not get their hands dirty. There are even more experts today
than there are problems, but there is no greater strength than an open mind
combined with a willingness to take risks. Middlebury opened my mind,
as I am sure it did yours. In order to take risks, however, you have to go in
harm's way. What happens then and how you perform, will depend on the
fates as well as on your character.
GOVERNOR MARIO CUOMO
SPEAKS OVER THE HEADS
OF THE GRADUATES TO
THE PARENTS
"WE have for a full lifetime taught our children to be go-getters. Can we now
say to them that if they want to be happy they must be go-givers?"
THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK is often a political leader with the
potential for national stature, and Mario Cuomo made the most of a key-
note address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention to establish
himself as a party leader; his emotional evocation of "family values,"
combined with a view of the nation as an extended family, marked him as
a politician to watch.
In that same summer, on June 3, 1984, he delivered a commencement
MARIO CUOMO 933
address to Iona College, in New Rochelle, New York. As he wrote to the
anthologist, "This is certainly not a great speech, but it is my favorite.
Others have received more attention; this one says best what is most im-
portant to me."
Cuomo is a politician, like Adlai Stevenson, who pays close attention to
words and writes many of his own speeches. When a columnist chided
him for convoluted "Jesuitical reasoning." the governor quickly coun-
tered with "That's how little you know-it's Vincentian reasoning."
I
t was an Irishman who gave me the best advice I've ever been given
about the art of delivering a commencement speech.
Father Flynn was the president of my alma mater, St. John's, and
the first time I was ever asked to speak at a graduation, I asked him how I
should approach it.
"Commencement speakers," said Father Flynn, "should think of them-
selves as the body at an old-fashioned Irish wake. They need you in order
to have the party, but nobody expects you to say very much."
That's advice I intend to remember today
I know that you are thinking-good parents and grandparents, loved
ones of the graduates-what I'm thinking. "We've been through it all, at
least most of it, or a lot of it. There's so much ahead that they ought to
know about. So many temptations they should ignore. So much we can
tell them about how to begin answering these hard questions.
We have the obligation to tell them, to reduce as much as possible the
pain of their learning only from their own blunders.
We have the obligation. But do we have the right?
Can we, who found the ultimate truth so elusive for so long, tell them
with confidence now of the futility of gathering up riches and the things of
the world?
It's clear to us that all the newly won power over space and time, the
conquest of the forces of nature, the fulfilling of age-old challenges, have
not made us any happier or surer of ourselves.
We have built rockets and spaceships and shuttles; we have harnessed
the atom; we have dazzled a generation with a display of our technological
skills. But we still spend millions of dollars on aspirin and psychiatrists
and tissues to wipe away the tears of anguish and uncertainty that result
from our confusion and our emptiness.
Most of us have achieved levels of affluence and comfort unthought of
two generations ago.
934
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
We've never had it so good, most of us.
Nor have we ever complained so bitterly about our problems.
The closed circle of pure materialism is clear to us now-aspirations
become wants, wants become needs, and self-gratification becomes a bot-
tomless pit.
All around us we have seen success in this world's terms become ulti-
mate and desperate failure. Teenagers and college students, raised in af-
fluent surroundings and given all the material comforts our society can
offer, commit suicide.
Entertainers and sports figures achieve fame and wealth but find the
world empty and dull without the solace or stimulation of drugs.
Men and women rise to the top of their professions after years of strug-
gling. But despite their apparent success, they are driven nearly mad by a
frantic search for diversions, new mates, games, new experiences-any-
thing to fill the diminishing interval between their existence and eternity.
We know because we've been there. But do we have the right to tell
these graduates that the most important thing in their lives will be their
ability to believe in believing? And that without that ability, sooner or later
they will be doomed to despair?
Do you think they would believe us if we told them today, what we know
to be true: That after the pride of obtaining a degree and maybe later
another degree and after their first few love affairs, that after earning their
first big title, their first shiny new car and traveling around the world for
the first time and having had it all-they will discover that none of it
counts unless they have something real and permanent to believe in?
Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, are we the ones to tell them what their
instructors have tried to teach them for years?
That the philosophers were right. That Saint Francis, Buddha, Muham-
mad, Maimonides-all spoke the truth when they said the way to serve
yourself is to serve others; and that Aristotle was right, before them, when
he said the only way to assure yourself happiness is to learn to give happi-
ness.
Don't you remember that we were told all this when we were younger?
But nevertheless, we got caught up in the struggle and the sweat and the
frustration and the joy of small victories, and forgot it all. Until recently
when we began to look back.
How simple it seems now. We thought the Sermon on the Mount was a
nice allegory and nothing more. What we didn't understand until we got
to be a little older was that it was the whole answer, the whole truth. That
the way-the only way-to succeed and to be happy is to learn those rules
MARIO CUOMO
935
so basic that a shepherd's son could teach them to an ignorant flock with-
out notes or formulae.
We carried Saint Francis's prayer in our wallets for years and never
learned to live the message.
Do we have the right now to tell them that when Saint Francis begged
the Lord to teach him to want to console instead of seeking to be con-
soled-to teach him to want to love instead of desiring to be loved-that
he was really being intensely selfish? Because he knew the only way to be
fulfilled and pleased and happy was to give instead of trying to get.
We have for a full lifetime taught our children to be go-getters. Can we
now say to them that if they want to be happy they must be go-givers?
I wonder if we can, in good conscience, say these things to them today
when we ourselves failed so often to practice what we would preach.
I wonder if we-who have fought, argued, and bickered and so often
done the wrong thing to one another-are the ones to teach them love.
How do we tell them that one ought not to be discouraged by imperfec-
tion in the world and the inevitability of death and diminishment? How do
we tell them when they lose a child, or are crippled, or know that they will
themselves die too soon-that God permits pain and sickness and unfair-
ness and evil to exist, only in order to permit us to test our mettle and to
earn a fulfillment that would otherwise not be possible?
How can we tell our children that-when we have ourselves so often
cried out in bitter despair at what we regarded to be the injustice of life-
and when we have so often surrendered?
How can we tell them that it is their duty to use all that they have been
given to make a better world, not only for themselves and their families,
but for all who live in this world, when it was our generation that permit-
ted two great wars and a number of smaller ones, our generation that made
the world a place where the great powers are so alienated from one another
that they can't even play together in an Olympics?
Do we have the right to tell them, as our teachers told us, that they have
an obligation in justice to participate in politics and government? Can we
without shame say to them that our system of democracy works well only
when there is involvement by all? That in our democracy the policies that
become law, the rules of justice, the treatment of individuals are the re-
sponsibility of each citizen? That you get what you deserve out of our
system, and that indifference deserves nothing good?
When we ourselves have chosen to sit at home on so many election days
muttering grim remarks about the politicians who appear on the television
set, instead of doing what we could to change things, for the better?
936
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
Will they believe us if we said these things?
Would we be able to explain the embarrassment of our own failures?
Do you blame me, ladies and gentlemen, for being reluctant to deliver to
them the message that is traditional on commencement day?
But maybe, ladies and gentlemen, this problem is not as great as I've
made it out to be.
I've been taking a closer look at these graduates. They are actually taller,
stronger, smarter than we were, smart enough maybe to take our mistakes
as their messages, to make our weaknesses their lessons, and to make our
example-good and not so good-part of their education.
I think I see in their eyes a depth of perception that perhaps we didn't
have. A sense of truth, deeper and less fragile than ours.
As you talk to them, you get the feeling that they are certainly mature
enough to see the real problems of our society: the need for peace, the need
to keep pure the environment God offered us, the need to provide people
the dignity of earning their own way.
Indeed, as I think about it, I have to conclude that these young people
before me today are the best reason for hope that this world knows.
I see them as believers and doers who will take what we will pass on to
them so clumsily, and make it something better than we have ever known.
Honoring us by their works, but wanting to be better than we have been.
I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, looking at them now, closer and harder
than I have before, I have a feeling about these people that makes me want
to live long enough to see and be part of the world they will create.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, parents and grandparents, I would like to
tell them, the graduates, all of this, and I know that if we thought they
wouldn't be embarrassed by hearing it, we would all be telling them about
how proud we are of them and how much we believe in them and their
future. But again maybe we don't have to tell them; maybe they know.
Maybe they can tell just by seeing the love in our eyes today.
Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, on the good children you have
cared for and raised.
LANE KIRKLAND 937
LABOR'S LANE KIRKLAND
REJECTS THE LABELS
"LIBERAL" AND
"CONSERVATIVE'
"As for those terms 'liberal' and 'conservative,' as one who has been afflicted by
both labels, I doubt their utility in this day and age for anyone except
slapdash journalists."
LANE KIRKLAND is revered by speechwriters as one of their own who
made it to the top of his profession. He began as a merchant seaman
during World War II and later drafted nautical charts to pay for his college
degree at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, but he veered from
diplomacy to the labor movement in 1948 as a researcher. The AFL-CIO
lent him to the Truman and later the Stevenson campaigns as a speech-
writer; in 1961, he became an assistant to George Meany, writing that
redoubtable labor leader's speeches, and in 1979 succeeded Meany as
president of the AFL-CIO.
In speeches, as in his career, he is an organizer; his speeches march to a
point. He returned to his native state of South Carolina (where his great-
great-grandfather signed the Declaration of Secession) in 1985 to deliver
the commencement address to the University of South Carolina. The open-
ing makes the proper obeisance to the lessons of life required of com-
mencement speakers. but with a twist: his quotation is taken from a recent
western movie. (A mark of originality in a speech is a fresh source to cite,
especially one unlikely to yield wisdom; by reading universal meaning
into a colorful statement, the speaker shows both his common touch and
his philosophical depth.) Its message about the relevance of history is
reprised, extended, and deepened at the end in an unfamiliar quotation
from Sidney Hook and a famous line from George Santayana.
The second section centers on the social changes of the past two genera-
tions. Short paragraphs begin with "I remember" (sometimes with a po-
etic evocation, as ''I remember a South Carolina that was too poor to paint
and too proud to whitewash") and are followed by "When I note" or
938
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
"When I see" lines that chide today's healthy patients for throwing their
old crutches at the doctor.
With a transition line, "I did not come here today to organize but to
philosophize," he then applies the lesson of those hard-fought-for social
changes to current political labeling. The students, and a broader public
beyond, needed this clarification of labels: the labor movement under his
leadership has been liberal in economic affairs and conservative or hawk-
ish in foreign affairs; its staunch espousal of the rights of Poland's Solidar-
ity movement worried many U.S. doves who usually associate with do-
mestic liberals-a situation that confused those who like their categories
tidy. Kirkland delivers the message at the end that "there really are things
one ought to be conservative about and things one ought to be liberal
about, and they do change." Unlike most commencement addresses,
which tend to meander self-indulgently, this is an easy-to-hear speech
with a shape and a purpose.
I
understand that commencement audiences are tolerant, to a degree,
of speakers who reminisce and wax philosophical about what les-
sons they have picked up along the way about life and all that.
As to the lessons of life, I can't improve on some lines from a western
movie called Missouri Breaks.
Two cutthroats with murderous designs on each other are sharing a
campfire. One is strumming a guitar and singing an old gospel song called
"Life Is like a Mountain Railroad."
He stops and asks the other fellow in a taunting manner, "Is life really
like a mountain railroad?" "Naw," the other replies. "Then what is life
like?" asks the first character. "Mister," came the reply, "life ain't like
nothing I ever heard of before."
That takes care of what life is all about, and I can vouch for it. I can
assure the graduates here that life ain't going to be like anything you ever
heard of before.
Nevertheless, nothing in my experience has contradicted what I ab-
sorbed in my youth in South Carolina, and I remember it well.
I remember the names of the six Confederate generals from Camden,
enshrined in the Pantheon, where I played as a kid: Cantey, Chesnut,
Deas, Kennedy, Kershaw, and Villepigue.
There still echoes in my mind the sound of the hours struck by the
old bell in the clock tower of the Opera House in Newberry, where for a
dime on Saturdays I could join my peers in tribute to Ken Maynard and
LANE KIRKLAND
939
Hoot Gibson and even witness the last death throes of live vaudeville in
America.
I remember it well.
I remember some other things whenever I return to a thriving and
beautified South Carolina.
I remember a South Carolina that was too poor to paint and too proud to
whitewash.
And the more fiercely the current national debate rages about the appro-
priate role of the federal government and its various programs, the more
clearly I remember a South Carolina before there was such a role, when
states' rights ruled and enterprise was free to do as it pleased.
I remember when the destitute aged were sheltered not in the bosom of a
warm and loving family but in county poor farms. Then Social Security
came and tore those poor houses down, freeing young and old alike of that
specter.
When I note the now flourishing institutions of higher learning spread
across this state, I remember when some fine little colleges were one jump
ahead of the sheriff, were hard-pressed to put meals on their student ta-
bles, and couldn't meet their payrolls. They were rescued and made sol-
vent by the National Youth Administration, wartime training programs,
and the GI Bill of Rights.
When I see now the clear waters of our rivers, I remember when the
Broad, the Wateree, the Bush, and the Saluda ran brick-red from the ero-
sion of farms and deforested uplands. The Soil Conservation Service and
the millions of trees planted by the thirty or so CCC camps that were placed
in South Carolina had something to do with the improvement. Free enter-
prises such as the paper and forest products industries shared abundantly
in the benefits of those government initiatives.
I remember when kerosene lit the farms of this land until the REA
electrified and humanized them, bridging the cultural gap between town
and country-and incidentally creating new markets for the appliance in-
dustry.
When I hear complaints about affirmative action, I remember some
mean things that used to happen in this land, in the treatment of people by
people. While we still have a way to go, does anyone really think we
would have approached our present level of equity and civility without the
intervention of the federal government? I have met no South Carolinian
who has expressed to me any desire to return to the old days of racial
cruelty and exclusion.
I did not come here today to organize but to philosophize. Yet, when I
hear it said that southern working people have some cultural aversion to
940
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
the exercise of the right of freedom of association, I cannot help but re-
member the old days when cotton mills sometimes bristled with National
Guard bayonets and machine guns to enforce that alleged aversion. Still
today the question returns to my mind: if southern workers don't want
their own unions, why have states and corporations found it so expedient
to collaborate in forging measures to thwart the effective pursuit of that
aspiration?
Lest it be thought that these reflections are just another expression of
outmoded "liberal" balderdash, let me point out that such stout conserva-
tives as James Byrnes, Olin Johnston, and Burnet Maybank were among
the authors of the larger federal role that helped bring this state into the
modern age.
I do not counsel worship at the altar of government for its own sake, for
I share fully the wholesome antipathy to government-federal, state, or
local-unrestrained by strong free and private institutions, for one of
which I speak.
I do suggest that the citizens of a modern republic should not go too far
in support of those who would dismantle or ruin the benign capacity of
their government, for they may need it badly some day. When it happens
to you, you'll know it's true.
As for those terms "liberal" and "conservative," as one who has been
afflicted by both labels, depending on the stance of the afflictor and the
foreign or domestic nature of the issue, I doubt their utility in this day and
age for anyone except slapdash journalists.
Real meaning has surely been drained from a term when the clammy
hand of fashion appears in the form of a hyphen preceded by "neo," as in
"neo-conservative" and "neo-liberal." In all areas of human discourse,
"neo hyphen" is a sure sign of something that is not long for this world.
If, as has been said, a modern "liberal" is someone who believes that
his country's adversaries are probably right, I strongly reject that label.
And what is the objective meaning of the word "conservative," when
its leadership has brought us a $200 billion annual deficit, put forward a
measure that will mindlessly gut our defense forces year after year, and
now, in the wake of Geneva, escorts clamoring hordes of businessmen
east in pursuit of Moscow gold, exposing to that "evil empire" the soft
underbelly of freedom, the stateless avarice of capital?
Hear now the words of Shakespeare, in Henry IV, on this matter: "From
the Orient to the drooping West
stuffing the ears of men with false
reports. I speak of peace, while covert enmity, under the smile of safety.
wounds the world."
Today's graduates ought not waste too much time worrying about which
LANE KIRKLAND
941
category they ought to fit. There may be a few pure liberals and pure
conservatives about who march in lockstep, but I don't really know any,
present parties included.
The great rank and file of the American people are liberal about some
things and conservative about others, and the shifting distribution of such
impulses depends largely upon circumstances and interest.
That is the way it should be, because there really are things one ought to
be conservative about and things one ought to be liberal about, and they do
change.
I owe to Sidney Hook a thought that I offer as my final conclusion from
all this. From him I learned the difference between a truth and a deep
truth. A deep truth is a truth the converse of which is equally true.
For example, it is true, as Santayana said, that those who cannot re-
member the past are doomed to repeat it.
Yet it is equally true that those who do remember the past may not know
when it is over.
That is a deep truth.
Thank you, and good luck to you all.
942
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
PROFESSOR JACOB NEUSNER
DEFINES THE
SOCIAL CONTRACT BETWEEN
TEACHER AND STUDENT
"OUR theory of teaching is to tell students, 'Don't ask, discover!'
Learning
takes place
when you find out for yourself.
JACOB NEUSNER is the most provocative and prolific scholar in the
world of Judaic studies. While a professor at Brown University, a fellow of
the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, and a research professor at
the University of South Florida in Tampa, he has written 240 learned
books, including Canon and Connection: Intertextuality in Judaism, a popular
work, How to Grade Your Professors, and one best-seller with Reverend An-
drew Greeley, The Bible and Us: A Priest and a Rabbi Read Scripture Together.
Few scholars relish controversy; however, Neusner's views on the Tal-
mud, on government support of the arts and humanities, and on the dy-
namics of academic life keep him in hot water, which he never avoids.
The following speech, delivered at Elizabethtown College, in Pennsyl-
vania, on September 25, 1991, is not a commencement speech but a con-
vocation-an address to incoming rather than departing students. It uses
internal interrogation ("What should you ask of your professors?
What should your professors ask of you?") to hold interest, and he gives
specific advice to teachers and students about the real purpose of educa-
tion: teaching people to teach themselves.
T
he beginning of the school year challenges us to ask tough ques-
tions: What do I expect in the next ten months or so? For you
don't have to be here, and it's costing plenty of money for you to
stay here. Not only so, but a college like Elizabethtown takes teaching
JACOB NEUSNER
943
seriously and is not an expensive baby-sitting operation. Your families
have sent you here, and your college and its professors have received you
here, because they, and you, must agree it is the most important thing you
can do with your life this year. You should therefore ask why. Given all of
the many things you can do with your time and money, why should you
turn your back on everything else in the world and spend the next ten
months here, in these classrooms and laboratories and library, and with
these professors? Only if the answer is, because there is nothing more
important, should you stay here. And why should that be so? Because
you're going to learn things here that matter and that you cannot learn in
any other place or circumstance. What that means has nothing to do with
acquiring information: you can learn more from an encyclopedia than you
can from me or any other professor. What it means is that you're going to
learn in a way in which you can only learn here and nowhere else: that is
the social contract of the college classroom; it is what we promise you, and
what you must demand of us.
Since everybody knows we learn all the time and everywhere, that is a
considerable claim in behalf of Elizabethtown College, or University of
South Florida, where I teach, or any of the other thousands of colleges and
universities in this country. public and private, religious and secular, fa-
mous and homely, where, this morning, a year of studies starts. Why do I
think you've made the right decision to come here: why is this the most
important thing you can do with your life this year, this month, this min-
ute? The answer is, because here, if your teachers teach and if you learn,
you will learn a new way of learning, one that will guide you for all time to
come. That's the one point I want to leave with you: demand of your
teachers and yourself not merely information but a way of learning that
you can use every day for the rest of your life. It is what we professors
promise, and sometimes even deliver: the secret of how to learn by discov-
ering things on your own-learn not by asking but by finding out on your
own.
It is the particularly American way of learning, which is, by discovering
things for yourself. We American professors at our best aim at teaching by
helping students learn on their own. Our theory of teaching is to tell stu-
dents, "Don't ask, discover!" The more we tell you, the less you learn. The
more you learn, the more we teach. And learning takes place, in a country
as practical and as rich in innovation as this country, when you find out for
yourself. Professors are there to guide, to help, to goad, to irritate, to stim-
ulate. Students are there to explore, to inquire, to ask questions, to experi-
ment, to negotiate knowledge. The ideal teachers for our students there-
944
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
fore are people like Socrates, Jesus, and Hillel, and what you have to ask of
your professors here at Elizabethtown is that they measure themselves by
the model of Socrates, Jesus, and Hillel
Great teachers don't teach. They help students learn. Students teach
themselves. Three of the all-time greats-Socrates, Jesus, and his Jewish
contemporary the sage Hillel-share a dislike of heavyweight speeches.
They spoke briefly, painting pictures and telling tales ("parables"), and
always raised more questions than they settled.
Socrates was the greatest philosopher of all time, and all he did was
walk around the streets and ask people irritating questions. Jesus was
certainly the most influential teacher in history, and his longest "lec-
ture"-for instance, the Sermon on the Mount-cannot have filled up an
hour of classroom time or a page in a notebook. And Hillel's greatest
lesson, in answer to someone who told him to teach the entire Torah while
standing on one foot-"What is hateful to yourself, don't do to someone
else. That's the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now go study"-
directed people to go off and learn on their own.
The great teacher makes a few simple points. The powerful teacher
leaves one or two fundamental truths. And the memorable teacher makes
the point not by telling but by helping the students discover on their own.
Learning takes place through discovery, not when you're told something
but when you figure it out for yourself. All a really fine teacher does is
make suggestions, point out problems, above all, ask questions, and more
questions, and more questions
Our teaching encourages not only discovery but initiative. Good teach-
ing in our schools leads to risk-taking; good teaching in theirs [the Ger-
mans'], to note-taking. Successful professors in our system present learn-
ing as answers to important questions; successful professors in their
system go over familiar facts and pass their opinion on this and that. They
tell people things. We want people to make their own discoveries.
All Socrates did was ask questions; he never really gave any answers,
nothing you could memorize and say back on an exam. And, with all due
respect, Jesus did not dictate long lectures, so the students could carry
home thick notebooks. And Hillel would have lasted about a minute and a
half-"Now, go study"-indeed! Our kids would have given Socrates a
good time, and I think they would have patience for a teacher who just told
them stories, like Jesus, or who advised them that everything he could
teach he could tell them by standing on one foot, like Hillel. Now, there's
real teaching: taking the risk of telling people what you really think, and
why you think it, and what difference it makes.
In this country, with its tradition of pragmatism and experiment, we
JACOB NEUSNER
945
aim at helping students teach themselves, asking them questions to stimu-
late their own inquiry. We do not indoctrinate; we stimulate. We do not
just tell people things; we try to make knowledge important because
knowing helps answer urgent questions. The best classes state the prob-
lem, for students to find the answer.
It's no accident that in America, many of us teachers demand of our
students, "Don't ask, discover!" We have an educational tradition that
serves the needs of a society in process, a nation never fully finished, a
country in quest, a people of peoples in perpetual search. That is why
entire fields of learning are founded here-social science as we know it
now, for instance. That explains why new ideas, new sciences, find in this
country a ready hearing, a warm welcome.
True, we pay a price for this intellectual restlessness of ours: our kids are
better at process than at proposition. They seem to know less; when they
need to know, they go and learn. So they spend more time in the labora-
tory, work harder at writing their own thoughts, do research on their own.
But then they spend less time learning what we know, work less hard at
fully understanding other people's thoughts, sometimes do research
aimed at reinventing the wheel. We've made our choices. For an open
society, an always changing economy, a responsible politics of participa-
tion and endless negotiation, we need an alert, inventive citizen.
What should you ask of your professors? (1) Don't tell me things; let me
find out for myself. (2) But when I need help, give it to me. (3) And when
my work is poor, don't tell me it's good. Many professors would rather be
liked than be understood; not a few find it easier to indulge the students
than teach them. Don't accept from professors compliments when they
owe you criticism. And love them when they're tough. Proverbs says,
"Rebuke a wise person, and you'll be loved, rebuke a fool and you'll be
hated." Show yourselves wise, and you'll get professors who care about
what you know.
What should your professors ask of you? (1) Don't ask me to sell you my
subject; let me explain it to you. Once you're in the classroom, relevance is
a settled question: this is what you want to know; now let me teach it. (2)
Don't stop work in the middle of the semester. It's easy to start with
enthusiasm, and it's easy to end with commitment. But in the middle of a
course, it's hard to sustain your work; the beginning is out of sight, the end
and goal and purpose of the course not yet on the horizon. Do your best
when the weather looks bleak. (3) Don't sit back and wait to be told things;
stay with me and allow the logic of the course to guide us both; join me,
think with me. The most remarkable student I've ever taught was a late-
middle-aged woman who audited a course of mine at University of South
946
COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES
Florida in Sarasota; after five minutes in each class session of three hours,
she would say, "Oh, is this what you mean?" And she would proceed to
lay out for me the entire argument that I was beginning to develop. Yes, a
remarkable student, but I never walked into class without fearing that I
would run out of things to tell people in the first ten minutes. You owe
your teachers that moment of trepidation: make them afraid they'll run out
of things to tell you. They won't, of course, but you'll make them work and
give them life. The challenge is not in disagreeing or agreeing but in un-
derstanding: uncovering the logic and accepting its dictates. That you owe
your teachers.
Your imagination is our richest national resource; an open and active
mind, our most precious intangible treasure. That's what we try to do at
our universities and colleges in this country: teach people to teach them-
selves, which is what life is all about-during the coming year, and during
all the years of your lives and mine.
Clinton Presidential Records
Digital Records Marker
This is not a presidential record. This is used as an administrative
marker by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library Staff.
This marker identifies the place of a publication.
Publications have not been scanned in their entirety for the purpose
of digitization. To see the full publication please search online or
visit the Clinton Presidential Library's Research Room.
Law School Support for Community-
22
Based Economic Development in Low-
Income Urban Neighborhoods
LAW SCHOOL SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY-BASED
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN LOW-INCOME
URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS
JEFFREY S. LEHMAN
ROCHELLE E. LENTO
Reprinted from
Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law
Volume 42, 1992
Copyright © 1992 Washington University
THE UNIVERSITY
OF MICHIGAN
LAW SCHOOL
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
Proposed Itinerary: Eli Segal
May 14, 1993
Car and driver available to meet Eli and Phyllis Segal at Detroit Metro Airport
Flight arrangements to be determined
Accomodations at the Bell Tower, 300 South Thayer Street, 313-769-3010
May 15, 1993
8:30 a.m.
Breakfast with Law School Clinical Program faculty
Location to be determined
10:00 a.m.
Meet with the University of Michigan Task Force on Community Service
Tappan Room, Michigan Union
The Task Force is reviewing the University's current community service
activities, proposing new directions and initiatives for these activities, and
considering ways to position the University as a leader in community
service.
11:10 a.m.
Thomas A. Butts, Associate Vice President for Government Relations and
Director of the University of Michigan's Washington Office, takes Eli Segal
to the Bollingers' home for lunch
11:30 a.m.
Lunch for Eli and Phyllis Segal with Lee and Jean Bollinger in their home
1:00 p.m.
Eli Segal and Lee Bollinger don academic gowns at the Natural Science
Building
1:15 p.m.
Academic procession begins
1:30 p.m.
Commencement begins in Hill Auditorium
3:45 p.m.
Eli Segal proceeds to the Michigan Union with Lee Bollinger and students
for photographs
Proposed Itinerary: Eli Segal, page 2
4:00 p.m.
Reception for graduates and families in the W.W. Cook Law Quadrangle
5:00 p.m.
Jane Myers, writer for Michigan Today in the University's Office of Donor
Relations, and selected Detroit area press interview Eli and Phyllis Segal
Location to be determined
6:00 p.m.
Car and driver available
Accomodations at the Bell Tower
May 16, 1993
Car and driver available
Flight arrangements to be determined
Proposed Itinerary: Phyllis Nichamoff Segal
May 14, 1993
Car and driver available to meet Eli and Phyllis Segal at Detroit Metro Airport
Flight arrangements to be determined
Accomocations at the Bell Tower, 300 South Thayer Street, 313-769-3010
May 15, 1993
8:30 a.m.
Breakfast with Law School Clinical Program faculty
Location to be determined
10:00 a.m.
Coffee with selected members of the Law School faculty
Cook room, Legal Research building
11:10 a.m.
Professor Jeff Lehman takes Phyllis Segal to the Bollingers' home for lunch
11:30 a.m.
Lunch for Eli and Phyllis Segal with Lee and Jean Bollinger in their home
1:00 p.m.
Phyllis Segal and Jean Bollinger proceed to Hill Auditorium
1:30 p.m.
Commencement begins in Hill Auditorium
4:00 p.m.
Reception for graduates and families in the W.W. Cook Law Quadrangle
5:00 p.m.
Jane Myers, writer for Michigan Today in the University's Office of Donor
Relations, and selected Detroit area press interview Eli and Phyllis Segal
6:00 p.m.
Car and driver available
Accomodations at the Bell Tower
May 16, 1993
Car and driver available
Flight arrangements to be determined
An Overview: The Current Programs
The University of Michigan Law School currently funds two full-fledged clinics and
two other programs that are listed under the rubric of "clinical offerings" (though they are
really more like externships). In addition, in the last couple of years a few experimental
clinics have been introduced for a term or two. Finally, there are several student-run
organizations that provide some practical opportunities for students on a non-credit basis.
Each of these programs is described briefly below.
I. Full-Fledged Clinics
A. The General Clinic (The Michigan Clinical Law Program)
In existence since 1968, the Michigan Clinical Law Program is the Law School's
general practice civil-criminal clinic. Students earn three credits for their lawyering-skills
seminars and NITA-style (National Institute of Trial Advocacy) trial practice simulations, and
four credits for their fieldwork on real cases in a poverty law setting. MCLP students
represent indigent clients in landlord/tenant matters, consumer and family law cases, small
tort claims, criminal misdemeanors, and involuntary civil commitments. In recent years the
MCLP has also taken on employment discrimination and prisoners' civil rights cases.
Students first-chair the cases from intake interviews to full jury trials. The cases range from
simple administrative hearings to complex class actions and appeals raising issues of first
impression.
Under faculty supervision, students practice in the local district, probate, circuit, and
federal courts, as well as in the courts of appeal. Students also participate in simulated
hearings, interviews, and negotiations, as well as in mock jury trials. They receive detailed,
individualized feedback from the clinical faculty, including review of their work on videotape.
Students are criticized and evaluated on their written work and oral performances throughout
the term, and they are graded on a pass/fail basis.
The Law School pays the salaries of two full-time clinical professors, who work with
the students on an 8/1 or 10/1 student-faculty ratio. In some years outside grants permit the
hiring of additional faculty. About 40-60 students are served by the MCLP each year,
depending on the number of faculty.
B. The Child Advocacy Law Clinic
Established in 1976, the Child Advocacy Law Clinic provides legal representation to
children, parents, and the Department of Social Services in child abuse and neglect cases.
Law students handle all aspects of client representation from initial interviews through trial
and, at times, through appeal.
During their semester in the Clinic, students attend six hours of class per week. Class
time is devoted to teaching an inter-disciplinary approach to child protection law. A child
psychiatrist is on the Clinic's staff and teaches law students the fundamentals of child
development. Students participate in simulated hearings, interviews and negotiations,
including a jury trial. They receive immediate review of their work, usually on videotape.
They are personally evaluated by the clinic faculty throughout the semester and are graded on
a pass/fail basis.
The Clinic represents children in one county, parents in another, and the Department
of Social Services in six other counties in Michigan. Students are often called on to interview
children, negotiate case plans with attorneys and social workers, and take the testimony of
expert witnesses. Ethical issues are addressed as they arise throughout the semester.
Students are encouraged to discuss their cases with each other, with guidance from the staff
psychiatrist, in the frequent case conferences scheduled during the term.
Forty to fifty students are enrolled each year, handling a total of approximately 50-70
cases a year. In addition, faculty involve students in outside projects, including legislative
reform and research. Students who have completed the Child Advocacy Clinic are qualified
to enroll in the University of Michigan's Interdisciplinary Program in Child Abuse and
Neglect. Along with graduate students from the Schools of Social Work, Psychology,
Medicine and Education, six law students a year engage in intensive interdisciplinary study of
child abuse and neglect.
The Clinic is staffed with a ratio of one clinical professor to 8-10 students.
II. Clinical Offerings
A. The Criminal Appellate Clinic
The Criminal Appellate Clinic functions as a branch of the State Appellate Defender's
Office. Every year SADO loans one of its staff attorneys full time to the Law School. The
lawyer brings a reduced caseload of felony appeals to the School, where 10 students a term
polish their writing and advocacy skills by helping to write the appellate briefs. Each student
handles a case or two in conjunction with a 3-credit seminar in criminal appellate practice.
B. The Environmental Law Clinic
The National Wildlife Federation operates its Midwest Regional Office out of Ann
Arbor (just across the street from the Law School). During the academic year law students
serve as interns to the NWF regional director, assisting that attorney on litigation involving
environmental issues in the Great Lakes watershed. The law students work with students
from the Schools of Natural Resources and Public Health, primarily challenging discharge
permits issued by the state Department of Natural Resources and the federal Environmental
Protection Agency, and enforcing the provisions of the Clean Water Act. The NWF lawyer
also teaches a course in Environmental Law during the winter-spring term. The Clinic was
established in 1982 and serves approximately six students a year.
III. New and Experimental Programs
In addition to the offerings listed above, the Law School has experimented with two
new clinics in the last few years, and is running a third pilot project this fall.
A. The Immigration Law Clinic
In 1988 Professor Alex Aleinikoff, who teaches immigration law, ran an Immigration Law
Clinic. The Clinic allowed students to do advanced reading in immigration law and policy,
while in the practical component of the course students represented two Central American
families who were seeking asylum in the United States.
B. The AIDS Clinic
In 1989 Professor David Chambers started an AIDS Clinic, in which students worked
with clients who had been diagnosed as HIV positive. During the fall term students took a
seminar, reviewing current literature concerning AIDS and exploring problems of public
policy raised by AIDS.
During the winter term students did two sorts of projects. First, all students wrote a
will or provided other individual representation to a client with HIV. Second, all students
worked on a broader project addressing policy issues, such as drafting legislation or policies
for public institutions. In 1989-90 students helped with estate planning for AIDS patients at
the V.A. Hospital, worked on a submission to the Department of Corrections regarding
placement of prisoners with HIV in community-based facilities, and drafted a hospital policy
regarding confidentiality of records.
For 1990-91 an attorney from Detroit will continue to run the AIDS Clinic for about
eight students during the school year. Students earn five credits--two graded credits in the
fall seminar, and three pass/fail credits for the winter Clinic.
C. The Women and the Law Clinic
The Women and the Law Clinic is the Law School's newest addition to its clinical
offerings. Starting in the fall of 1990, students are providing representation to women in a
variety of cases involving legal issues significant to women. The majority of cases involve
representation of victims of domestic violence in divorce, custody and child support
proceedings. The Clinic is also handling employment discrimination claims referred by the
Michigan Department of Civil Rights. One day a week students meet with prisoners at the
nearby state women's prison to provide legal counsel to inmates concerning child custody
issues. Clinical faculty will call on students to begin to recognize connections between the
various cases which can be traced to the particular status of poor women and children in
America. While handling individual cases, students are being encouraged to consider legal
and legislative reforms aimed at improving the legal system's response to poor women and
children.
During the semester students will attend four hours of class a week and participate in
simulated interviews, depositions, negotiations and a mock trial. All of the simulations are
derived from actual cases involving domestic violence, employment discrimination and child
protection. Faculty provide videotaped review of the students' performances. Students are
also free to participate in legislative projects under the supervision of faculty. For instance,
the entire Family Law Code is presently under revision in Michigan, presenting major issues
for women and children. Students will be able to evaluate the proposed legislation and work
with the Legislature to advocate for or against various reforms.
Emphasis placed on identifying and resolving ethical dilemmas as they arise in
students' cases. Guest speakers are being used to give students exposure to the opinions and
experiences of attorneys, judges, caseworkers and mental health experts who work with cases
like the students'. In its first semester, the Clinic is serving 10 students, under the direction
of one clinical professor, handling approximately 20 cases. Students will be graded on a
pass/fail basis and evaluated throughout the term by their supervisor.
IV. Student Projects
A. The Immigration Law Project
Subsequent to the 1988 Immigration Law Clinic a few students each year have
continued working on immigration cases under the supervision of a local attorney. The
project serves as a supplement to the immigration law lecture course, and students can earn
extra credit for their participation. There is no direct faculty involvement in the project.
B. The Unemployment Benefits Clinic
This Clinic is a student-run organization set up by the student chapter of the National
Lawyers Guild. Students represent claimants in unemployment compensation hearings before
the Michigan Employment Security Commission. Students do not receive credit for their
work. They can invest a very small or a very large amount of time, depending on their
interest and the availability of clients.
C. The Family Law Project
The Family Law Project is a volunteer organization which provides free legal
representation to victims of domestic violence. The Project is 10 years old and is managed
by students and a board of directors made up of attorneys from the Ann Arbor community.
Student volunteers handle cases referred to the Project by the local domestic violence shelter.
The Project has a part-time staff attorney and relies heavily on volunteer supervision provided
by the board members. In Michigan, only second and third year law students can appear in
court under supervision. The Project allows first year students to volunteer and handle all
aspects of representation short of court appearances.
Providing the only free legal services available to domestic violence victims in the
community, the Project plays a vital role. Over 100 law students volunteer each school year
and most handle one or two cases throughout the year. Approximately eight third-year
students serve as case supervisors, providing direction to new volunteers. (All but one of the
case supervisors for the 1990-91 school year have enrolled in the Women and the Law Clinic
described above.) There is a training program offered each fall for volunteers, but students
do not receive credit for their work. Unlike the clinics, the Project's emphasis is on provision
of legal services, not lawyer training.
MCLP
Clinical Faculty - 1990-91
Julie Kunce Field was a Nebraska Regents' Scholar who graduated magna
cum laude from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1982. She went to law
school at the University of Chicago Law School, where she was active in the
Mandel Legal Aid Clinic and in moot court competition. She then clerked for
two years for Judge John W. Oliver in the federal district court in Kansas
City. For the next two years she worked as a litigation associate at
Nutter, McClennan & Fish in Boston, before joining the Michigan Law School
in 1989. Julie's husband Stuart Field also moved to the U-M from Boston,
accepting an appointment in the Department of Nuclear Physics.
Mark Mitshkun is a graduate of the U-M's Residential College (1971) and
a magna cum laude graduate of the Wayne Law School (1974). He spent seven
years in Seattle at the office of the King County Public Defender, eventual-
ly directing the office's Mental Health Division. From 1981 to 1989 he was
on the clinical faculty at Boston University, where he was granted clinical
tenure and promoted to the rank of clinical associate professor after a full
faculty review in 1987. Mark has developed course materials in immigration
law and practice in addition to teaching a wide range of clinical courses.
He joined Michigan's clinical faculty in the fall of 1989. At the same time
his wife Diane Rosenblum switched her teaching career (in special education)
from the Brookline schools to Huron High School in Ann Arbor.
Paul Reingold has been associated with the Law School since 1982. He
served as the acting director of the Michigan Clinical Law Program from 1982
to 1989, when he was given clinical tenure and awarded a long-term clinical
professorship. Paul graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1973,
and he earned his J.D. at Boston University in 1977. He worked as a Legal
Services attorney for five years, and as an assistant city attorney in Ann
Arbor for a year, before coming over to the Law School. As the program
director, he designs the clinical course, authors most of the major grant
proposals, and supervises the hiring of new faculty in the general clinic.
Paul has worked on cases at all levels of state and federal practice, in-
cluding three cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nick Rine is a past president of the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association
(1985-86) who has 15 years of litigation experience. He was a partner in
the Detroit firm of Philo, Cockrel in the early 1970's, and from 1977 to
1987 he was a partner at Kelman, Loria, also in Detroit. He left the firm
in 1988 to try his hand at full-time writing. Nick is a well-known Michigan
trial lawyer with contacts around the state and throughout the Midwest. He
has also published several practice-oriented articles on employment discrim-
ination, evidence, and the law of torts. He is twice a graduate of Wayne
State University (B.A. 1969; J.D. 1973). Nick came to the Michigan Law
School in the fall of 1989.
cl-fac--.bio
THE CHILD ADVOCACY LAW CLINIC FACULTY
DONALD N. DUQUETTE, a graduate of Michigan State University,
and the University of Michigan Law School, is Director of
the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Interdisciplinary
Fellowship Program in Child Abuse and Neglect. Prior to
attending law school, he worked as a social worker in child
protection and foster care. Before joining the clinical law
faculty in 1976, he served as an assistant professor of
Pediatrics and Human Development at Michigan State
University. His principal research and teaching interests
are in clinical law and interdisciplinary approaches to
child welfare law and policy. He is editor and principal
author of Advocating for the Child in Protection
Proceedings.
JUDITH G. OLIN received her bachelor's degree from New York
University and her J.S. from the State University of New
York at Buffalo. Before coming to the Child Advocacy Law
Clinic she practiced as a legal services lawyer in
Massachusetts and Buffalo, N.Y. for four years, representing
indigent clients in the areas of administrative law,
landlord-tenant, and family and matrimonial law.
SUELLYN SCARNECCHIA received her bachelor's degree in
history from Northwestern University and her law degree from
the University of Michigan. She practiced for six years
with the law firm of McCroskey, Feldman, Cochrane and Brock
in western Michigan, specializing in employment
discrimination litigation on behalf of plaintiffs. She left
the firm as a partner and joined the Child Advocacy Law
Clinic in 1987. Her research interests focus on gender and
racial bias in trial courts. She is currently teaching a
Women and the Law Clinic.
Clinton Presidential Records
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Urban Co mmuni es Program
NEWSLETTER FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL PROGRAM IN LEGAL ASSISTANCE FOR URBAN COMMUNITIES
801 Monroe Street
531 Legal Research
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1210
(313) 763-9152
April 1993
The Program in
The Program focuses on economic
in Legal Assistance for Urban
development problems which often lie
Communities forms community
Legal Assistance
at the root of community concerns and
economic development corporations
for Urban
often depend upon legal expertise for
and pursues federal tax-exempt status
solutions. Community economic
Communities
under $501(c)(3) of the Internal
development law utilizes corporate
law, tax law, property law, landlord-
Revenue code for client organiza-
The Program in Legal Assistance
tenant law, environmental law, and
tions. It assists in the development of
for Urban Communities was estab-
municipal law. It includes such areas
low- to moderate-income housing,
lished in 1989 by the University of
as nonprofit housing redevelopment,
addresses legal issues of abandoned
Michigan Law School to assist poor
neighborhood-oriented commercial
properties, and drafts legislative
communities in their transformation
development, community education,
reform proposals. The Program
and the development of worker-owned
and redevelopment. The Program's
educates clients about how they can be
ventures. Business and community
goal is to enable community-based
development issues are addressed
effective in legal matters. It also
organizations serving low-income
through a transactional mode of legal
initiates and organizes coalitions of
areas to surmount some of the legal
practice, rather than a dispute-oriented
client organizations around areas of
obstacles they face as they strive to
mode. Through the Program, students
common concern. In addition, the
rebuild their neighborhoods' eco-
negotiate and create innovative
Program develops cooperative
nomic and social bases. The Program
contractual remedies for disputes and
relations with a range of Detroit
new forms of joint economic or social
serves a variety of community-based
governmental and nongovernmental
ventures. Each student advocate
organizations while offering select law
entities in order to promote the
practices community economic
students an opportunity to work
development law and develops his or
interests of community-based
directly with the organizations as part
her skills as researcher, interviewer,
organizations.
of a clinical educational experience.
counselor, draftsperson, and
Program Director, Rochelle Lento,
In this unique program, the clients
negotiator. The Program is designed to
brings experience as a community
who receive assistance are the
provide students with a valuable
organizer, campaign and political
organizations and their communities,
experience which exposes them to the
advisor, and as an attorney in public
unique practical and ethical dilemmas
rather than individuals. The Program
and private practice to the Program.
that can arise outside the context of
seeks to provide legal assistance that
The Program also has a part-time staff
litigation.
improves the quality of life in the
attorney, Robert Poznanski, who has
Among its activities, the Program
clients' communities.
expertise in housing law.
Community
and affirmative obligation to serve the
moderate-income neighborhoods.
Reinvestment Act:
public, and especially to meet the
The Legal Assistance Program
deposit and credit needs of the local
project is to produce a report to
Analysis of CRA
communities in which they are char-
introduce Detroit area community
tered.
and Perspectives
organizations to CRA. It is hoped that
This obligation exists because
by informing and educating organiza-
for Communities
financial institutions have some special
tion leaders about the potential use of
privileges, including: charters to do
CRA, the organizations may use it as a
A new project for this spring
business; deposit insurance; and access
tool to increase credit availability in
concerns the Community Reinvestment
to special borrowing privileges such as
low- and moderate-income neighbor-
Act of 1977 (CRA). The Act was
the Federal Reserve discount window
hoods in which they operate. A senior
created to affirm the idea that banks and
and Federal Home Loan Bank advances.
student advisor in the Program has
savings institutions are granted charters
CRA requires federal agencies that
conducted the research, including
to help meet the convenience and needs
supervise financial institutions to
interviews with bankers and commu-
of the communities where they are
encourage institutions to meet the credit
nity organizers in Detroit to draft the
located. The Act states that banks and
needs of their communities, including
report.
savings institutions have a continuing
the needs of residents in low- and
1
Task Force on Community Service Learning
Business Administration
University of Michigan
Law
Medicine
Public Health
Professional
Social Work
Practica
of
Nursing
professional
Education
Art & Architecture
Special
Populations
Criminal
Chemical
Justice
Dependency
Health
Care
Education
Project Community
Info &
Research
Referral
Office of
Praxis
Community
SERVE
publication
Service Learning
Work
advancing
Journal of
the
Project
Alternative
Community
field
SERVE
Spring
Service
not
JRJ
Break
Learning
credit
SERVE
Faculty
Week
collaboration
Outreach
Faculty
Award
StEPP
Sociology
English
Greek System
Psychology
Residence Halls
Political Science
Undergraduate
Student
Courses
Biology
Initiatives
Individuals
Education
Natural Resources
Student Organizations
Women's Studies
TASK FORCE ON COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING
Gruhr
Michigan Union Tappan Room
Saturday, May 15, 1993
10:00 - 11:15 a.m.
Buy
Shyon
AGENDA
Jeff
4400 students
Service enhances
academic learning
1.
Welcome and Purpose of the Meeting JeN
FIRST time belonged
2.
Eli Segal on National Service
Homlesin >> advoce,
Phenomed expecuses
TRONSFUL- For- university Choster
3.
Introduction of Congressman Ford
Bwnyer Bryant
Detroit Summer
Gang leader conflict resolu-
this
4.
Community Service Learning at the
90 kids, half For Debortt
University of Michigan
14/- for around of
country
5.
Multicultural Education and Service Learning
6.
Proposed Symposium on Community Service
7.
Closing
- Infraimuatere
es. supervery volunteers
- Corr to refunance svedelions
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Task Force on Community Service Learning
FROM:
Barry Checkoway
SUBJ:
Next Regular Meeting
DATE:
May 14, 1993
Our next regular meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 19,
at 8:30 a.m. in the 6th floor conference room of the Fleming
Building.
Enclosed are some materials for review in preparation for
the meeting. They include:
Michigan Summer of Service Proposal
Chapters on Service Learning - Definitions, etc.
Wingspread Principles of Good Practice
Enclosed also is a draft agenda for the meeting.
See you soon!
TASK FORCE ON COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING
Fleming Building 6th Floor Conference Room
Wednesday, May 19, 1993
8:30 - 10:00 a.m.
AGENDA
1. Welcome and Announcements
2. Summer of Service Proposal
3. Key Concepts of Service Learning
4. Wingspread Principles of Good Practice
5. Agenda for Task Force Retreat
6. Closing
Task Force on Community Service Learning
Revised Brainstorming List
According to Constituencies
Students
Develop a student strategy
Prepare and disseminate a comprehensive list of programs, courses, faculty, etc.
Residence hall training
Faculty/Academic Culture
Develop a faculty strategy -- consciousness-raising, increasing involvement,
building support, overcoming obstacles, etc.
Foundation proposal to make CSL part of the academic culture, e.g., research
projects, course revisions, etc.
Requirement in 2 or 3 key units, e.g., Business Administration.
Put community service on UM transcript.
Working paper reviewing the CSL literature.
Community
Develop a national strategy.
Conduct a campuswide/national symposium on CSL.
Hold MCC meeting here next year.
President or Vice President attend MCC meeting.
Support new Journal of Community Service Learning.
Bring national speakers to campus on CSL issues, e.g., Norman Brown, Edgard
Beckham, Robert Coles.
Use National Commission funds to visit other programs nationwide.
Existing Programs
Strengthen support, space, staff, and $$$.
Talk with Philip Power about his CSL Center idea.
Other
Schedule task force retreat for June 2.
Summer of Service 1993 followup - voluntary program?
Hire a student for task force summer staff.
PROPOSAL SUBMITTED TO:
The Commission of National and Community Service
529 14th Street, N.W., Suite 452
Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 724-0600
TITLE: MICHIGAN SUMMER OF COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING
SUBMITTED BY: THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
University Task Force on Community Service Learning
Division of Student Affairs (Office of the Vice President
and Office of Community Service Learning)
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:
Eastern Michigan University
Focus: HOPE
United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit
(Youth Volunteer Corps, NAACP Detroit Branch)
Warren/Conner Development Coalition
(Youth on the Edge of Greatness)
Learning Community Coalition
CONTACT:
Barry Checkoway, Chairperson
University Task Force of Community Service Learning
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
(313) 763-5960
TOTAL AMOUNT REQUESTED:
$1,795,730
NUMBER OF STIPENDED PARTICIPANTS:
350
NUMBER OF NON-STIPENDED VOLUNTEERS:
700
SUMMARY OF PROJECT ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNITIES SERVED:
The purpose of the Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning is to
engage young people in meeting critical community needs in Detroit and
Ypsilanti (including the area of Willow Run). The program will involve
university students and community youth from diverse racial and economic
backgrounds in serving the health, education, environment, and safety of at-risk
children. It will be managed by the University of Michigan in partnership with
community agencies with records of excellence in community service, and
demonstrated capacity in working with young people.
Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning
Title Page Signatures
SIGNATURES OF LEGAL APPLICANT AND PRINCIPAL PARTNERS
The University of Michigan
James J. Duderstadt, President
Janes
The University of Michigan
Maureen A. Hartford, V.P. for Student Affairs
Focus: Father William HOPE T. Cunningham, Executive Director
Learning Community Coalition
Jeannine LoSavage, Director
Junnine Hasoveyi
Warren/Conner Development Coalition
Maggie DeSantis, Executive Director
Magie
United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit
Geneva Williams, President
Eastern Michigan University
William E. Shelton
William
Part III - Higher Education Innovative Projects Forms
Certification - Signature
Before
Before completing certification. please read Certification Instructions. page 23.
You Start
Signature
By signing this Certification page, the applicant certifies that it will agree to perform all
actions and support all intentions stated in the Certification sections in Part Hof this
application. The three Certifications are:
Certification: Debarment, Suspension, and Other Responsibility Matters
Certification: Drug-Free Workplace
Certification: Lobbying Activities
The Regents of the University of Michigan
Organization Name
Summer of Community Service Learning
Project Name
Alan Walter Steiss, Ph.D.
Director, Div. of Research Development
and Administration
Name and Pitlo of Authorized Representative
Signature
3/31/93
Date
The Commission on National and Community Service
MICHIGAN SUMMER OF COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page Number
A.
PROGRAM NARRATIVE
1
Community Needs and Benefits
1
Program Objectives
2
Program Participants
2
Service Activities
3
B.
OTHER PROGRAM ELEMENTS
6
University-Community Advisory Committee
6
Program Management
6
Planning for Implementation
7
Selection of Community Agencies and Field Supervisors
7
Community Service Learning and Learning Contracts
7
Opening Orientation and Training
8
Midsummer Leadership Development Program
8
Closing Community Conference
9
Post-Service Learning
9
Community Education and Network Newsletter
9
Venture Grants Program
9
Participatory Action Research
9
Cultural Programs
10
Detroit Rackham Building
10
Multiplier Effect and Middle Schools
10
Sustainability
10
C.
ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY
12
The University of Michigan
12
Focus: HOPE
13
United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit
14
Warren/Conner Development Coalition
15
Learning Community Coalition
16
D.
NATIONAL LEADERSHIP TRAINING
16
E.
NATIONAL THINK-TANK ON COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING 16
F.
PROGRAM EVALUATION
16
i
G.
INSTITUTIONAL AND PERSONNEL INFORMATION
17
Resumes
19
H. BUDGET
APPENDICES
Statement of Liability
Endorsement Letters
Supplementary Information
ii
A. PROGRAM NARRATIVE
Community Needs and Benefits
The cities of Detroit and Ypsilanti (including the area of Willow Run) Michigan, face
similar circumstances. Following years of sustained growth as hubs of automobile
production, they have suffered through economic recession, changes in industry, and
reductions in federal expenditures. Private institutions have disinvested from the
area in favor of suburban and sunbelt locations, and public institutions have
disinvested by reducing the levels of services provided. This has resulted in a
downward cycle of deteriorating infrastructure, worsening social conditions, and
withdrawal from participation in the community.
In addition, state budget deficits and tax revenue shortages have caused cutbacks in
services for the poor, members of minority groups, displaced workers, and other
special populations. Soup kitchens, housing shelters, and health clinics report
increasing requests for emergency services.
These cities have many children from poor families who live in inadequate housing
in disinvested neighborhoods. They may lack access to health care, immunizations
against disease, nutritious meals, and basic resources needed for a good start in life. In
1993, nearly half of all children under 18 years of age in the city of Detroit, for
example, are living below the poverty level.
These cities also have young people who attend unsafe schools with inadequate
facilities, drop out of school, or cannot find a job. They may become affected by class
inequities and racial segregation, abused by adults victimized by poverty, and become
victims of violence. They are only part of the overall population - indeed, many
children and youth are achieving despite forces beyond their control - but they
represent continuing needs for community response.
These cities also have citizens who have organized in response to these conditions --
with exceptional efforts to plan new programs, provide needed services, and
revitalize their communities. Their organizations are increasing in number and
capacity, and demonstrate that citizens can take initiative and mobilize resources to
help themselves.
The community agencies with which we propose to collaborate have records of
excellence in serving the community. They have deep commitments to meeting local
needs, a range of quality programs and services, and demonstrated capacity for
providing placements for students. They are a solid foundation on which to develop
the present program.
1
Program Objectives
The Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning will have the following
objectives:
Engage young people in meeting critical community needs in Detroit and
Ypsilanti (including the Willow Run area) Michigan;
Demonstrate the potential of community service to provide tangible and
measurable benefits for serving the health, education, environment, and
safety of at risk children;
Develop the leadership skills of young people in ways which serve the
community;
Increase multicultural interaction and understanding between university
students and community youth diverse backgrounds;
Contribute to university students' understanding of the forces affecting
communities, root causes of problems, and strategies for change;
Strengthen the lifelong social responsibility and civic mindedness of
university students;
Create a model of community service learning for replication elsewhere;
Assist participants by contributing to the costs of their educational
training.
Program Participants
The Michigan Summer of Service Learning will provide meaningful service
opportunities, stipends, and post-service benefits for 350 participants. Stipended
participants will be 17-25 years old and from diverse racial, economic, and educational
backgrounds.
Three hundred entering, current, and just-graduated university students will be
recruited from the three campuses of the University of Michigan --- Ann Arbor,
Dearborn, Flint, and from Eastern Michigan University.
University recruitment efforts will include publicity posters, stories, and
advertisements in school and community media, notices in career planning and
community service offices, and direct mail to campus groups. With assistance from
the Office of Admissions and Office of Minority Affairs, special efforts will be made to
identify and involve students who come from the target cities of Detroit and
Ypsilanti.
2
Selection of university students will be based upon review of a written application
designed for the purpose and, in some cases, a supplementary interview seeking
additional information. The aim is to select qualified participants from diverse racial,
economic, and educational backgrounds, who have strong commitment to
community service and who want to make a difference in one of the target cities.
Community agencies will recruit and select 50 community youth to participate in the
program. Each agency will develop its own process for recruitment and selection.
Most of these youth will be drawn from programs described elsewhere which operate
on an ongoing basis regardless of the fate of this proposal.
Service Activities
Focus: HOPE
Focus: HOPE is a non-profit civil rights and human rights organization which aims to
resolve the effects of discrimination and to build integration in the Detroit area.
For the Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning, 50 University
participants will work in the following programs:
20 university students will work with the Focus: HOPE Food Prescription
Program to supply nutritious U.S. Department of Agriculture commodity foods to
low income at-risk mothers, babies, and preschool children at five self-centers in the
Detroit area. This is the largest Commodity Supplemental Food program in the
United States,
20 university students will work with at-risk children in the Glazer School.
Focus: HOPE adopted this K-5 school from the public school system for operation on a
year-round basis. The university students will tutor children in several skills -
including computer usage - and involve them in environmental improvement
projects in the neighborhood, and
10 university students will work in the Focus: HOPE Center for Children.
The Center provides infant and toddler care, preschool children, and a before-after
school program for the children of participants in Focus: HOPE employees and
trainees, thus linking child care to economic development in areas of high
unemployment.
United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit
(Youth Volunteer Corps)
(NAACP Detroit Branch)
United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit (UCS) is a major human
services agency working to build strong and caring communities, neighborhoods, and
families throughout metropolitan Detroit and southeastern Michigan.
3
For the Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning, 100 university students
will work with UCS in the following programs:
20 university students will work with the Youth Volunteer Corps of
Metropolitan Detroit (YVC): One of the largest youth corps in the nation, YVC brings
together more than 600 young people from diverse backgrounds to serve the
community. The student participants will work with community youth in packing
emergency food boxes for shelters and soup kitchens; helping handicapped children
at day camp and the Special Olympics; beautifying the neighborhoods by helping to
renovate housing; working with children by providing tutoring, child care, and
playground monitoring; and dramatizing issues of teen interest through the YVC
Traveling Theater Troupe.
20 participants will work with the NAACP Thurgood Marshall Community
Development Corporation: This program is associated with the NAACP Detroit
Branch, the largest branch of this organization in the United States. The students will
work hand-in-hand with community youth in activities designed to promote health,
education, and safety of at-risk children through community development.
40 participants will work with the Special Summer Program: This program
provides funding for eighty to one hundred Detroit community and neighborhood-
based organizations for leisure, recreation, and educational services for low income
children (ages 6-14) with some special problem or need. The students' university will
serve as monitors/liaisons to these organizations to assist in their program
implementation and assure that they meet their summer objectives of serving at-risk
children.
20 students will work with the Campership Program: This program enables
low income youth (ages 6-21) to experience an outdoor camping experience. The
students will serve as camp counselors, special skills instructors, leadership training
specialists, parent liaison coordinators, and assistant camp directors.
Warren/Conner Development Coalition
(Youth on the Edge of Greatness)
Warren/Conner Development Coalition (WCDC) is a neighborhood-based
community development corporation whose mission is the revitalization of Detroit's
eastside. Youth on the Edge of Greatness (YOE) is a WCDC program which involves
at risk youth (ages 12-18) in crime prevention, public safety, and community
development.
For the Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning, 20 YOE graduates
(community youth) will be hired to serve as team leaders of the project. They will
work together with 10 university students to receive community crime prevention
and public safety training, and to play roles as Crew Supervisors, Crime Prevention
Practitioners, and Study Group Facilitators and Researchers.
4
Crime Prevention Practitioners will form block watches, canvass the
neighborhood with crime prevention information, provide auto etching and auto
theft "courtesy ticketing" services, and encourage people to complete anonymous
reports through the NARC Hotline on crack houses and chop shops.
Study Group Facilitators and Researchers will conduct research and propose
recommendations on two issues of increasing importance in the community:
guns/gun violence and public housing conditions. YOE graduates will use the
research and recommendations in meetings with school board members and other
public officials.
Learning Community Coalition
The Learning Community Coalition serves a critical need in building community
collaboration for the education of at- risk children in Ypsilanti which is suffering
from declining economic conditions.
For the Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning, 140 university students
will work with the Coalition in the following programs:
University students and parent/community teams will be given training to
provide a multicultural reading program. Teams will work with small groups of at-
risk children reading stories, learning some history related to books, choral reading,
songs, dance, and creative writing. Children will learn some word processing and
desk top publishing skills as they write and publish their own stories.
NASA Science Program: University students, parent volunteers, and NASA
college students will work in teams to provide hands-on math and science lessons
already prepared by NASA. Workshops will include classes at the School of
Engineering at the University of Michigan and the planetarium at Eastern Michigan
University.
Math Program: University students and community volunteers will
collaborate in math clubs to help children keep and expand math skills over the
summer. Schools will provide books, workbook and hands-on math manipulatives,
and training to use materials.
Health Fitness Program: University students, recreation department staff,
and parent volunteers will conduct a range of instructional and fitness programs.
One goal is to help children develop health awareness, respect for their bodies, and
learn activities for individuals and groups to be more physically active. Teens and
parents will learn coaching and refereeing skills designed to promote the health of at
risk children. Participants will activate neighborhoods to sustain their own health
fitness programs within neighborhood housing and church centers. Ypsilanti
Recreation Department will provide overall administration and coordination of the
5
program, some of which will be conducted on the campuses of the University of
Michigan and Eastern Michigan University.
B. OTHER PROGRAM ELEMENTS
University-Community Advisory Committee
A University-Community Advisory Committee will guide the program. Committee
members will represent the university community agencies in the target cities; and
other at-large representatives of the community. Emphasis will be placed on
individuals who represent the social diversity of the area population, including
students who will be viewed as equal partners and active participants in the process.
Advisory committee members will advise and consult with the staff directors in
policy, planning, and program decisions. They will meet regularly, provide diverse
perspectives on arising issues, and help build support for the program in the
community.
Program Management
The program will be managed through faculty and staff at the University of Michigan.
The Office of Community Service Learning will serve as the focus of activity. This
office has ongoing supervision of Project Community and Project S.E.R.V.E.-both
higher education leaders in community service learning.
The program will be directed by two professional staff members, two faculty members,
and two students with experience in the field. This group will have responsibility for
overall management, implementation, and evaluation of the program. They will
have responsibility for approving and selecting community agencies in accordance
with stated purposes and procedures. They will routinely gather information from
agencies, monitor the scope and quality of activities, and collaborate with the
community to enlarge and improve the experience.
Program directors will select three graduate students to serve a university-community
liaison, responsible for coordination between program management and community
agencies. They will review activities with agency field supervisors; meet individually
with and monitor progress of student participants and community youth; notify staff
of significant changes, problems or other developments in the field; and maintain
positive working relationships with the agency.
Each community agency will involve its executive director and assign one or more
professional staff to serve as field supervisors for the program.
One or more student participants will be designated to serve as team leaders in each
community agency.
6
Planning for Implementation
With the advice and consultation of the University-Community Advisory
Committee, program staff will finalize an action plan for implementation. The plan
will include the objectives and activities of the program, roles and responsibilities of
the participants, and strategies for successful implementation.
The planning, implementation, and evaluation of this program will emphasize the
following principles: mutual agreement on objectives among the program partners;
respect for institutional differences and resource capacities; community involvement
in the identification of issues; youth as competent citizens and community resources
rather than passive recipients of services; service and learning as recipròcal activities;
social responsibility of the university to the community; and an empowering process
in which all participants develop as a result.
Selection of Community Agencies and Field Supervisors
Selection of community agencies were guided by the collaborative concept. The aims
of the concept are to assure a quality experience for student participants and
community youth; to implement needed activities that serve the community; and to
strengthen collaboration between the university and community.
Implementing the collaborative concept means that we limited the number of
community agencies and drew on the following criteria for their selection: location
in one of the target cities; capability for accommodating multiple student participants
and provision of adequate physical facilities for program purposes; and ability to
involve participants in meaningful health, environment, education, and/or public
safety projects that improve the lives of at risk children. Each agency executive
director is expected to create and maintain a favorable atmosphere for meaningful
service; to identify one or more staff members able to provide quality supervision;
and to allow staff sufficient time for program preparation, conferences with
participants, and consultation with program staff at the university.
Field supervisors will be identified by the agency executive director and approved by
university program staff. Persons identified should demonstrate evidence of
competence in student supervision, possess the interest and time for participation,
and show commitment to the objectives of the program.
Community Service Learning and Learning Contracts
University student participants and community youth will be viewed as part of a
process in which they develop knowledge and enhance learning while serving the
community. Knowledge development is not accidental but results from actual
experience in conjunction with structured learning activities.
7
At the beginning of the program, each participant will prepare a Learning Contract.
This written statement will be shaped by the interests and objectives of the individual
participant and the programs and needs of community agency. Each participant will
be expected to read at least one book related to the community service by the end of
the summer.
Opening Orientation and Training
Program participants will be expected to participate in an Opening Orientation and
Training. The orientation will provide a vehicle for participants to get acquainted,
build working relationships, and develop knowledge for beginning the program.
Workshop sessions will include information on the purposes and procèdures of the
program; roles and responsibilities of the participants; functions and services of the
community agencies; and an assessment of the needs and resources of the
community, a critical component of the community service learning process. Other
sessions will include training in practical hands-on skills - e.g., multicultural
organizing, team building, tutoring younger children - required in each community
agency. Yet other sessions will emphasize leadership skills, e.g., setting goals,
formulating strategy, strengthening commitment. With the assistance of the
University of Michigan Outdoor Recreation Challenge Course, other sessions will
employ indoor and outdoor experiential exercises designed to challenge individuals,
develop group cohesion, and build spirit for the program.
Young people will be enlisted to serve as workshop trainers in their areas of expertise,
such as the New Detroit Youth Non-Violence Training Program, a group of young
people (funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in conjunction with the Center for
Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta) who train others in non-violent conflict
management in urban neighborhoods, and Students Educating Each other about
Discrimination (SEED), a group of local youth with a national reputation for
educating themselves and training others about overcoming racial discrimination in
multicultural communities.
Midsummer Leadership Development Program
Tentatively scheduled for the University of Michigan Fresh Air Camp in Pinckney,
Michigan, this program will provide an opportunity for participants to step back,
assess progress, and build momentum for the remainder of the program. Participants
will review their own progress in achieving predetermined activity and outcome
objectives. They will make decisions about the best use of resources, make changes in
objectives or activities as appropriate, and provide feedback to key people. They will
have a chance to tell stories, share experiences, strengthen their sense of community,
and build mutual support.
8
Closing Community Conference
This conference will provide a closing opportunity for participants to assess their
experiences and evaluate the overall program. Each participant will have an
opportunity to describe his or her individual involvement, the nature and extent of
individual learning, the scope and quality of the group process, and the impacts of
activities on the broader community. Each participant will describe what he or she
will take away from the summer, and how this will affect their future plans. The
conference will be designed to provide a sensitive ending, and provide information
essential for future project development.
Post-Service Learning
Post-service learning activities will be developed to facilitate continuing education
and leadership development after the summer program. Activities will include
opportunities for further reflection, knowledge development, research and writing, in
addition to follow-up problem solving and program planning.
Program participants will also have the option to enroll in Sociology 389/Project
Community, a course offered at the University of Michigan. They will receive 3 credit
units from the university for undertaking an academic course of study that builds
upon the learning of their community service.
Community Education and Network Newspaper
Program participants will produce a weekly newspaper to facilitate the exchange of
information about projects within the cities, across communities, and between
Michigan and communities elsewhere, including information on Summer of Service
programs in other areas of the United States. The newspaper will include project
stories, editorial opinion columns, calendar listings, and other features.
In consultation with the University's News and Information Services, program
participants also will formulate a communications strategy designed to extend the
educational reach to the broadest general audience. The strategy will assure coverage
in local, regional, and national newspapers, radio, and television.
Venture Grants Program
Student participants and community youth will be eligible to apply for venture funds
to undertake special service projects of their choosing, e.g., purchasing lumber to
build bookshelves at the local community center.
Participatory Action Research
The program will promote participatory action research projects that strengthen the
service learning and benefit the community. In consultation with the University-
9
Community Steering Committee and the University Office of the Vice President for
Research, we will issue a Request for Proposals inviting university and community
participants to propose research projects consistent with the program objectives.
Special efforts will be made to stimulate projects that develop knowledge to
strengthen the health, environment, education, and public safety of children at risk.
Cultural Programs
Student participants and community youth will attend at least one cultural
enrichment program during the summer. Participants also will be encouraged to
offer cultural programs of their own, building on their experiences during the
summer.
Detroit Rackham Building
The Detroit Rackham Building will serve as a base of operations for program
coordination and educational activities in that city. The building is located in the
heart of the city near downtown and accessible to groups from the entire community.
The building has offices, classrooms, and other facilities for individual and group
meetings, evening and weekend programs, technical assistance, community
consultation, and other supportive services. Special programs might include skills
sessions in organizational development and community capacity-building, urban
affairs, and multicultural education.
Multiplier Effect and Middle Schools
The program will demonstrate a multiplier effect by engaging additional participants,
especially middle school children, in community service learning activities. For
example, support will be offered to Detroit Summer '93 --- a voluntary program
which involves young people from Detroit and nationwide in efforts to research river
pollution, turn vacant lots into playgrounds, and rehabilitate houses - for activities
that involve middle school children in the process.
The program also will identify representatives of area middle schools, and involve
them in meetings designed to formulate strategy for strengthening community
service learning in the schools. These meetings will include teachers, parents, and
children themselves, and will be first such meetings of their kind on an areawide
basis.
Sustainability
At the University of Michigan, the University Task Force for Community Service
Learning has been established to assess the status of community service learning
campuswide, and to propose new initiatives and pilot programs worthy of external
funding and national recognition.
10
During the summer, the Task Force members will formulate a two-phase strategy for
sustaining the program in subsequent summers without funding from the
Commission on National and Community Service. First, they will identify and
involve campus and community groups with interest in community service
learning. There are many university programs and nonprofit community-based
organizations which already collaborate together, and which offer an excellent
foundation on which to build new initiatives.
Special efforts will be made to increase university-community collaboration in
Detroit. The University has personnel with knowledge and skills that could
contribute to the Detroit community, and the present program will allow us to
strengthen planning and coordination of activities which have operatèd independent
of one another for years.
Second, the Task Force will identify public and private institutions which show
interest in proposals to strengthen community service learning. They will consult
with the University's Division of Research Development and Administration to (1)
screen funding sources by subject and field of interest (2) identify potentially
interested institutions (3) investigate grants history and (4) initiate contact for possible
proposal preparation.
They also will compile a list of government, private corporation and nonprofit
foundation funding opportunities interested in funding proposals to strengthen
community service learning. They will produce an information packet on funding
opportunities for community service learning for distribution to interested
individuals and groups on campus and in the community, and make this
information available to other programs supported by the Commission on National
and Community Service.
In recognition of its importance, the University will create a paid position for
someone who will have primary responsibility to strengthen national service
community service learning and to plan for sustaining the present program in
subsequent summers.
11
C. ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY
The University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is strategically situated for this initiative. The University
has a long tradition of voluntary community service - from its historic role in the
founding of the Peace Corps, to the active involvement of more than 5500
undergraduate and graduate students in local nonprofit and community-based
organizations today. The University has a record of collaboration with organizations
in these cities, experience in the placement of students within them, and expertise in
the management of community service learning programs.
The University's Office of Community Service Learning - which includes Project
Community and Project S.E.R.V.E. - is regarded as an exemplary office of its kind
nationwide. In 1992, for example, Good Morning America featured a program
segment on student community service at Michigan. Correspondent Bettina Gregory
began the broadcast by saying: "In 1960, John Kennedy conceived the idea for the
Peace Corps here at the University of Michigan right where I am standing now.
Thirty-two years later students are turning not to government programs to serve their
country. They're taking matters into their own hands by volunteering."
In 1992, Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton stood a few steps away from this place,
reiterated the story about the founding of the Peace Corps, and challenged a new
generation of university students to serve their country through his proposed
program on national service.
The Michigan Summer of Community Service Learning will draw upon the
extensive resources of the University, including its libraries, museums, and other
facilities. Special efforts will be made to inform and involve university units already
active in the target cities, to encourage exchange among them, and to increase
integration of the university with the overall community. Units that are already
active include architecture and urban planning, business administration, education,
engineering, Institute for Social Research, Institute of Public Policy Studies, Literature
Sciences and the Arts, medicine, natural resources, nursing, political science, public
health, social work, and sociology.
For example, the School of Social Work has a nationally recognized practicum
program which places more than 600 students in social agencies and community-
based organizations in the three target cities. The School of Public Health has a major
Community-Based Public Health Initiative which involves faculty and students in
grassroots health promotion in the neighborhoods of Detroit and Flint.
12
Focus: HOPE
Focus: HOPE is a nonprofit civil and human rights organization. Founded in 1968, its
purpose is to resolve the effects of discrimination and to build integration in the
Detroit area. Its programs include:
Food Prescription Program: Started in 1971, this is the nation's largest Supplemental
Food Program for low-income, nutritionally at risk mothers, babies, preschool
children, and senior citizens. Each month, Focus: HOPE supplies a nutritious
selection of U.S. Department of Agriculture commodity foods to eligible persons at
five self-serve centers in the Detroit area.
Center for Children: This Center provides infant and toddler care, preschool
education, and a before-after school program for the children of Focus: HOPE
employees and trainees. The Center showcases the value of linking child care to
economic development in areas of high unemployment.
K-5 Glazer School Program: Focus: HOPE has adopted Glazer School from the Detroit
Public Schools to provide educational programs for at risk children in grades K-5 in a
Detroit neighborhood. The school is open year-round, and includes intensive efforts
to tutor the children in school subjects and community themes, and to involve them
in activities designed to improve the neighborhood environment.
FAST TRACK: This is a seven and one-half week school to work transition program
which upgrades the academic skills and discipline of recent high school graduates to
the levels needed for further technical training, high education, or employment.
Personal computers are used for intensive, self-paced math and reading instruction.
Small group sessions cover math concepts, computer applications, communications,
and technical career options in manufacturing. Youths who achieve FAST TRACK's
demanding productivity and performance requirements are assured entry in the
Machinist Training Institution or placement assistance in growth-opportunity
employment.
Machinist Training Institute (MTI): This program provides state-licensed, industry
specific training in precision machining and metalworking. The MTI basic course,
full-time for thirty-one weeks, combines practical hands-on experience with classes in
applied mathematics, manufacturing theory, graphics, quality control, and
communications. Master craftsmen teach machine tool set-up and operation,
including computer control, in the MTI's large and well-equipped shop laboratory.
An advanced course of pre-engineering study and computer-integrated applications is
also offered, full-time for twenty-one weeks.
Other Programs: Focus: HOPE informs the public and its volunteers through
publications, group presentations and tours, videotape documentaries and public
service announcements. Special events such as the Walk for Justice and Holiday
Music Festival bring thousands of people together to affirm their commitment to
13
integration. Share With a Senior and Family to Family organize community concern
for poor seniors and families during the Christmas holidays, and Focus: HOPE's
Journalism Olympics stimulates civil rights awareness at area high schools.
University Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit
(Youth Volunteer Corps)
(NAACP Detroit Branch)
Since 1917, United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit (UCS) has been in
the forefront of community human services by fulfilling its mission of building
strong and caring communities, neighborhoods, and families throughout
metropolitan Detroit and southeastern Michigan.
As the area's primary community planning and problem-solving organization, UCS
brings people and organizations together to identify and seek solutions to human
service needs, paying special attention to emerging social issues.
UCS provides community-based planning and problem-solving leadership through
the partnership efforts of more than 800 volunteers and 100 staff members. These
efforts include research, planning, community service and demonstration projects,
information and referral, volunteer training and placement, coalition-building,
public advocacy, and promoting citizen involvement in community affairs.
Initiated by UCS in 1991, the Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) brings together diverse
ethnic, social, economic, and geographic backgrounds. They gain practical, satisfying
experiences in volunteerism, learn about teamwork, and improve interpersonal
relationships and personal skills by working together on projects which improve the
community.
YVC is one of the largest youth corps in the nation. More than 600 young people
donate thousands of hours to community service projects during this year-round
program. Programs include packing emergency food boxes for shelters and soup
kitchens; helping handicapped children at day camp and the Special Olympics;
beautifying neighborhoods by helping to renovate housing; helping seniors with
cleaning, gardening and simple home repairs; working with children by providing
tutoring, child care and playground monitoring; and dramatizing issues of teen
interest through the YVC Traveling Theatre Troupe.
YVC members and those they help are from all areas of metropolitan Detroit. The
young people volunteer at human service agencies such as Gleaners Community
Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, Coalition on Temporary
Shelter, Project S.A.V.E., Grateful Home, Inc., and many others.
YVC believes that young people are the single biggest asset for changing the
community for the better. The program helps them grow and gives them
14
opportunities to learn that cooperation, determination and teamwork are successful
tools for change.
Warren/Conner Development Coalition
(Youth on the Edge....of Greatness)
Warren/Conner Development Coalition (WCDC) is a neighborhood based
community development corporation whose mission is the revitalization of Detroit's
eastside. The community is beset with the economic and social problems of industrial
and retail decline, unemployment, crime, and blight. It also is an area of considerable
strength, with a racially and economically diverse residential population, several
active neighborhood organizations, and a spirit of commitment to the future.
Founded by community leaders, WCDC is a membership organization, whose
constituents include neighborhood councils and block clubs, retail and industrial
firms and business associations, public and private community service institutions,
and hundreds of individual residents. Members elect the 25-member Board of
Directors which is equally divided among residents, businesses, and institutions.
WCDC has an operating budget of $1.5 million, 20 public and private funders and 40
corporate contributors, and a staff of 38 members. WCDC takes a comprehensive,
collaborative approach to community development, operating several model
programs in the areas of Youth and Family Development, Economic Development,
and Community Education and Organizing. The coalition has an operating budget of
$1.5 million, and WCDC recently won the Crains Detroit Business Award for Best
Managed Nonprofit in Metropolitan Detroit.
WCDC has a wide range of activities. In the area of economic development, Detroit
East Community Development Corporation was incorporated to strengthen
community control of the neighborhood economy. An initial project of the
corporation is Mack-Alter-Square, a six-block commercial strip and community center
for an area previously littered with burned-out houses and boarded-up buildings.
Youth on the Edge of Greatness (YOE) was created in 1986 to involve at-risk youth in
a program of academic support, character development, and employment
opportunities. Funded as a national demonstration by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, YOE engages 60 young
people (ages 12-18) in crime prevention and community development. The program
demonstrates that at-risk youth are more likely not to use or sell drugs or alcohol if
they have strong social support and serve their community.
YOE members are recruited through the WCDC network of block clubs, community
groups, schools, social agencies, and probation officers. They participate in an
extensive program of life skills planning, job readiness training, cultural awareness,
family counseling, academic support, and recreational activities.
15
Learning Community Coalition
The Learning Community Coalition was established to bring together K-12, higher
education, business, government, parents, and other community stakeholders to
promote effective learning experiences for at risk children and their families in
schools and neighborhoods in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The Coalition forms community
teams and coordinates many programs through "Opportunity Centers" for children in
community sites and college campuses on weekends, during evenings, and in the
summer. Special efforts are made to connect community residents with teachers and
counselors in order to support the learning of children in their schools and
classrooms.
The Coalition serves a critical need for community collaboration in the education of
at risk children in two cities suffering from worsening economic conditions. Teenage
pregnancies, school drop-out rates, poor standardized test performances among
minority students, increased violence in schools and neighborhoods, drug and
alcohol abuse, high unemployment rates - these are facts of daily life in these cities.
Public agencies, community organizations, and local schools have programs for at risk
children and their families, but they have lacked the coordination needed to build
support for quality services at a time when needs are increasing.
The Coalition was formed in response to these conditions, and takes an old African
proverb as its operating principle: "It takes an entire village to raise a child."
D. NATIONAL LEADERSHIP TRAINING
Program participants will make a commitment to attend national training activities
organized by the Commission on National and Community Service. The training
may include: (1) 5-day training for participants, including program leaders and mid-
level supervisors, tentatively scheduled for June on the west coast and (2) Closing
weekend summit tentatively scheduled for the end of the program in August in the
Washington, D.C. area.
E. NATIONAL THINK-TANK ON COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING
The University of Michigan will work in consultation with the Commission on
National and Community Service to host a special invitational conference on
community service learning. This conference will recognize the increasing
importance of the field, and include invitations to selected participants from other
Summer of Service programs and elsewhere.
F. PROGRAM EVALUATION
Program staff will monitor and evaluate the program throughout, both by informal
discussions and formal written responses to a questionnaire designed for the purpose.
16
This evaluation will help identify program strengths and improvements while work
is underway.
Program participants will be asked to evaluate their experience and major points of
learning through a written pretest and posttest questionnaire seeking both open and
closed ended responses on content and process. They also will be asked to evaluate
their experience and learning 6 and 12 months after the summer.
Evaluation will employ measurable criteria relevant to community service learning.
For example, university students will be evaluated according to their levels of
commitment to social responsibility by the Social Responsibility Inventory developed
by one of our program directors; academic learning with emphasis on the role of
external forces; and non-academic learning, e.g., interpersonal development,
leadership skills.
Evaluation will be viewed as part of the national effort to develop a model for the
evaluation of community service learning, and to disseminate its content and process
findings as a contribution to knowledge about the effects of community service
learning.
G. INSTITUTIONAL AND PERSONNEL INFORMATION
The University of Michigan and the community agencies which will serve as its
institutional partners have records of excellence in the leadership and management
of community service programs, as described elsewhere in this proposal.
The individuals who will lead and manage this program are highly experienced and
well qualified for their responsibilities. They have extensive experience in
recruiting, selecting, and supervising youth participants in community service
programs, and in the facilitation of the service learning process.
At the University of Michigan, the program will be managed by two professional
staff members, two faculty members, and two students with experience in the field.
The following five persons are already committed to the program, with one of the
students to be recruited:
Jennifer Bastress
Jennifer Bastress is a nationally recognized collegiate spokesperson for the
community service movement. She is the Chairwoman of Youth Service America's
Youth Action Council, Chairwoman of the Training Track for C.O.O.L.'s National
"Into the Streets" Program, Co-Chairwoman of the University of Michigan's Project
S.E.R.V.E. Student Board of Directors, and a member of the President's Advisory
Council of the Michigan Campus Compact. She has participated in the Youth
Service Congressional Roundtable, and planned the first conference of the Student
17
Marty Duckenfield and Lorilei Swanson,
SERVICE LEARNING: MEETING THE NEEDS OF YOUTH
ATRISK. Clemson: National Droport Prevention Center,
Service Learning
Clemson university, 1992.
Chapter One
"I like the program because / get to help little kids who are falling behind in
their work. There are two that are going to pass because / helped them."
Michael, a high school student who tutors elementary at-risk children
(Montemayor, 1990).
INTRODUCTION
Middle school students planting shrubs at a day care center. First graders
making centerpieces for a senior citizen's luncheon. A tenth grader helping a
second grader with math. Ninth graders proposing a carefully designed environ-
mental clean-up project at their city council meeting. What do these activities have
in common? Each incorporates service into the learning process.
A grassroots movement involving America's young people as active partici-
pants in their communities is gathering momentum. The success of local service
learning projects has gained dedicated advocates for youth service activities
across the country. Now, with the passage of the National and Community Service
Act of 1990 by Congress and the recommendations of the President's America
2000 initiative, this exemplary learning strategy is also being linked to school
reform.
Of even greater significance to those who work with at-risk students, service
learning is a potentially powerful dropout prevention tool. Analysis by the National
Dropout Prevention Center (Duckenfield, Hamby & Smink, 1990) revealed that
twelve strategies were seen to be most successful in dropout prevention. Several
of these practices-especially mentoring and tutoring, flexible schedules and
alternative programs, school-based management, community and business col-
laboration, and workforce readiness and career counseling-are strong compo-
nents of a well-designed school-based service learning program. Other researchers
(Peck, Law & Mills, 1989) have determined that successful programs for at-risk
youth should incorporate course work which emphasizes practical, real-world
problem solving; experiential, hands-on learning; and experiences with respon-
sible and mature adults. These same components are fundamental to service
learning programs. Thus, service learning combines the best dropout prevention
practices and provides practitioners with an innovative way to reach students at
risk.
6
Service Learning
ability to take risks and accept challenges
a sense of usefulness and purpose
personal values and beliefs
responsibility for one's self and actions
self-respect
Social Growth includes the social skills which are necessary for relating to
others in society.
communication skills
interpersonal skills
leadership skills
ability to work cooperatively with others
a sense of caring for others
a sense of belonging
acceptance and awareness of others from diverse and multicultural backgrounds
peer group affiliation
Intellectual Growth encompasses the cognitive skills necessary to enhance
academic learning and acquire higher level thinking skills.
application of knowledge, relevance of curriculum
problem-solving and decision-making skills
critical thinking skills
skills in learning from experience
use of all learning styles
development of a positive attitude toward learning
8
Service Learning
Twelve year old James comes home every day to an empty house,
usually feeling lonesome, with little interest in doing his homework. One
day, bored with TV, James went outside looking for something to do. The
other boys in the neighborhood were equally restless, and together they
began to roam the streets. They ran into Arthur who offered them some
beer he had found in his parents' refrigerator. Everyone had some, and
soon the group got rowdy. Somehow things developed into a rock throwing
fight, and James was hit over his left eye. He figured he'd have to come up
with a pretty good story to tell his mother.
Schools have the potential to create an environment that provides positive
alternatives to adolescent risk taking. Because it is accessible to the majority of
young people, school is the logical place where intervention programs such as
service learning can be implemented. Service learning allows all students to
actively participate in a community that truly needs their services. In return,
students develop qualities that fulfill many of their developmental needs and
prepare them for a successful transition to adulthood. Many at-risk students fail
to make this transition because they are more vulnerable to the adverse conditions
of our society. Typically, these students come from low income or single parent
households; have parents who practice high-risk behaviors; have a history of
academic failure; and exhibit low self-esteem (Dryfoos, 1990). The efforts of
society to meet the developmental needs of these at-risk students are often
insufficient. Schools can fill this void through a revitalized curriculum incorporating
service learning for all students with at-risk youth benefiting the most because they
have so much more to gain.
Twelve year old Joseph has been spending several of his afternoons
with a seven-year old child named Aubrey at the elementary school. Aubrey
is having trouble with math, and Joseph has been matched to help him in
the school cross-age tutoring program. Joseph has seen how Aubrey looks
up to him and values his assistance, and he knows that he is helping Aubrey
do well in school. This has made Joseph feel pretty good about himself.
When he does get home, his own homework seems more important than it
used to. Joseph is finding school a much more pleasant place to be be-
cause his own math skills have improved from his tutoring experience.
10
Service Learning
At both the state and local level, there has been controversy about requiring either service
learning courses or hours of service prior to graduation. Service learning courses can be
voluntary or mandatory. Mandatory programs can motivate students who would never
normally volunteer, contribute more hours of work to the community, and expand the range of
a school's educational mission (NCPC, 1988). On the other hand, voluntary programs attract
students truly committed to serving others rather than those who do not care to get involved.
Voluntary programs are also more manageable because fewer students participate (NCPC,
1988).
Level Four: School-Wide Integration
The final and highest level of implementation is community service as a school-wide theme.
A variation of this level of implementation is a community service focus in an entire school
district. This approach to integrating service into the academic curriculum is rare but highly
desirable. In this type of school or district, service to others is woven into many courses and
serves as an organizing principle for the total academic program (Conrad and Hedin, 1987).
The school itself is organized to serve the community and the curriculum centers on addressing
the real issues of the community (Cairn & Kielsmeier, 1991). As an example, students from
several classes could serve the local nursing home in unique ways applicable to their course
content. Science students could teach nutrition to the elderly; English students could write
letters to an adopted grandparent; and industrial arts students could build ramps for the
handicapped. This level of implementation has the potential to reach all students rather than
a few motivated students who choose to become community service providers (Conrad and
Hedin, 1987).
12
Service Learning
provides students with the opportunity to ask questions and explores potential experiences
and issues that they may encounter during their service (Boyce and Cairn, 1991)
Certain skills may need to be acquired before actual participation. General service skills
include cooperation, communication, organization, responsibility, problem solving, and
awareness of working with special populations. The service project may also require that
participants learn techniques that require hands-on experience. Technical skills include
learning how to take water samples, certification in CPR, or learning the correct way to push
a wheelchair.
Training is an ongoing process; it continues until the completion of the service project. Follow
up occurs every time there is contact between the supervisor and the student. It is a time to
address problems, raise important questions, enhance learning, and improve the performance
of students (Boyce and Cairn, 1991). At some point all service projects end, and closure
becomes important. Closure helps participants formally deal with the issues that surface when
a service relationship is over. It is also a time to recognize the accomplishments of each
student and celebrate a job well done.
ACTION
Action is the actual service of caring for others performed by the student participating in the
service project. The service itself must be engaging, challenging and meaningful (MSSA,
1989b). There must be a real need in the community for the service, and students must play
a significant role in designing the service experience (Cairn and Keilsmeier, 1991). It may also
be necessary to adjust the initial service plan as new information is gained and new
circumstances are encountered (MSSA, 1989b). Students can participate in service activities
through direct service, indirect service, and civic action.
Direct Service
Direct service requires personal contact with people in need. This type of service is generally
the most rewarding for students because they receive immediate positive feedback during the
process of helping others. Examples of direct service are a 12th grade student counseling an
incoming 9th grade student or a 5th grade student serving meals at a soup kitchen. "Whenever
possible, students should be encouraged to commit to direct service projects that last for
several weeks or months. This gives students time to feel they have made a contribution, to
develop friendships with the people they are serving and serving with, and to understand better
the problem they are working to solve" (MSSA, 1989b).
Indirect Service
Indirect service activities are commonly implemented in schools because they are easy to
organize. These activities involve channeling resources to the problem rather than working
directly with an individual who may need service. Examples of indirect service activities include
participating in a bike-a-thon to raise money for muscular dystrophy patients and collecting
cans of food for local disadvantaged families. This type of service may be of the least value
to students because they are so far removed from the need and do not directly experience the
benefit of their efforts (MSSA, 1989b).
14
Service Learning
Reading
A classroom reading assignment associated with the community service project greatly
enriches the students' learning experience. This method differs from discussion in that an
entire literary work is read rather than a brief excerpt. High school students can read Silent
Spring by Rachel Carson or elementary students can have The Lorax by Dr. Seuss read to
them to enhance service associated with an environmental project.
Writing
Writing is a natural outgrowth of discussion and assigned reading. Writing can include
letters, essays, stories, newspapers, and journals. Journal writing is an excellent way for
students to explore their service experience on a very personal level. Keeping a regular
journal enables students to think about what is happening as a result of their service
experience. It causes them to gain insight into understanding themselves and how they relate
to others. Questions are helpful in directing the students' work beyond the obvious
observations. The National Crime Prevention Council (1988) provides excellent examples of
guided journal questions.
What was the best thing that happened today at your site? How did
it make you feel?
What thing(s) did you like the least about today at your site? What
made you dislike it?
What compliments have you received today, and how did they make
you feel? What have you learned about yourself and the people you
are helping?
How have you changed or grown since you began to volunteer at this
site? helping? What have you learned about yourself and the people you are
Projects
Projects developed by students raise their awareness about issues associated with service.
Many methods can be employed to accentuate the skills of each subject area. Projects may
vary from posters, plays, and multimedia presentations to political campaigns and research.
When students develop their own projects, their creativity is expressed and their learning
becomes more meaningful. Middle school students may interview older citizens in their
community and document a local oral history. Elementary school students may star in a video
on school safety created and directed by high school students.
16
WINGSPREAD
SPECIAL REPORT
Principles of Good Practice For
Combining Service and Learning
by Ellen Porter Honnet and Susan J. Poulsen. The Johnson Foundation
These Principles result
PREAMBLE
1
from extensive consultation
We are a nation founded upon active
with more than 70
citizenship and participation in community
An effective
organizations interested In
service and learning. Those
life. We have always believed that
program engages
consultations were
individuals can and should serve.
people in
conducted by the National
It is crucial that service toward the
responsible and
Society for Internships and
common good be combined with reflective
challenging
Experiential Education
learning to assure that service programs of
(NSIEE).
high quality can be created and sustained
actions for the
In May, 1989, a small
over time, and to help individuals appreciate
common good.
advisory group met at
how service can be a significant and
Wingspread to compose the
preamble and the language of
ongoing part of life. Service, combined with
learning, adds value to each and transforms
2
the ten Principles.
The Johnson Foundation
both.
An effective
recognizes and thanks all of
Those who serve and those who are
those who have had a hand in
served are thus able to develop the informed
program provides
the development of these
judgment, imagination, and skills that lead
structured
ten Principles of Good
to a greater capacity to contribute to the
opportunities for
Practice For Combining
common good.
Service and Learning.
people to reflect
The Principles that follow are a
critically on their
statement of what we believe are essential
service
components of good practice. We invite you
to use them in the context of your particular
experience.
needs and purposes.
Designed to be used as a gatefold poster
3
6
8
10
An effective
An effective
An effective
program
An effective
program matches
articulates clear
program includes
program is
service providers
service and
training,
committed to
and service needs
learning goals for
supervision,
program
through a process
monitoring,
everyone involved.
that recognizes
participation by
support,
and with diverse
changing
recognition, and
populations.
4
circumstances.
evaluation to meet
An effective
service and
program allows for
7
learning goals.
those with needs
An effective
to define those
program expects
9
needs.
genuine, active,
An effective
and sustained
program insures
5
organizational
that the time
commitment.
An effective
commitment for
program clarifies
service and
the responsibilities
learning is
of each person
flexible,
and organization
appropriate, and in
involved.
the best interests
of all involved.
MAY 12 '93 11:13AM GOV REL/U-REL/EVENTS
5/15/93
P.2/2
Members of Task Force on Community Service
The University of Michigan
\ Eli Segal meeting at
Michigan Union
Ms. Lisa Baker - Director of Public Affairs
Mr. Thomas Butts - Associate Vice President for Government Relations and Executive Director of the
University of Michigan Washington, D.C. Office. Directs the activities of the Washington office and
serves as principal liaison between the federal government and the Ann Arbor campus.
Judith Cawhorn - SOS Crisis Center Works with volunteers.
Barry Checkoway, Ph.D - Professor of Social Work and Professor of Urban, Technological and
Environmental Planning, College of Architecture & Urban Planning
Mark Chesler, Ph.D. - Professor of Sociology, College of Literature, Science & the Arts.
Frank Cianciola, M.A. -Associate Dean of Students. In charge of maintenance and programming for
the Michigan League, the Michigan Union, & North Campus Commons, Greek Liaison, Student
Organization Development Center, Office of Service and Community Learning, Major Events and
student activities and programming.
Ms. Linda Forster - Assistant to Executive Director of University Relations. Staff to the Task Force.
Sarah Gegenheimer - UM Undergraduate On the Project S.E.R.V.E. Board, Greek Liaison.
Charlie Grose - UM Undergraduate - External Co-Chair for Project S.E.R.V.E. Board
Dr. Walter Harrison - Executive Director, Office of University Relations. Principal spokesperson for
the University. Oversees federal relations, news and information services, marketing
communications, and Michigan Radio.
Dr. Maureen Hartford - Vice President for Student Affairs. Oversees policy and judicial matters,
Ombudsman, Health Service, Campus Information Center, Counseling, services for students with
disabilities, emergency services, crisis lines, multicultural organizations: International Center, lesbian
and gay programs, minority peer advisors, Career Planning & Placement and Housing (family
housing, conferences and catering).
Jeffrey Howard - Director of Community Service Learning. Include Project Serve, a community
volunteer program and source for alternative career information and Project Community, where
students can get credit for volunteer activities.
Barbara Isreal, Dr.P.H. - Associate Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education,School of
Public Health and Adjunct Assoicate Professor of Sociology.
Claudette Rowley - Project S.E.R.V.E. Graduate Intern from the School of Social Work.
Greg Shannon - UM Undergraduate - Project S.E.R.V.E. Board. Coordinator of the Alternative
Weekends Program, a spin-off of the Alternative Spring Break Program.
Sharon Sutton, Ph.D. - Associate Professor of Architecture, College of Architecture & Urban
Planning
11 May 1993
Mr. Eli Segal
ANNE PERCY KNOTT
Director, Office of National Service
Assistant Dean
Room 145, O.E.O.B.
Law School Campaign
Washington, D.C. 20500
DEVELOPMENT
AND ALUMNI
Dear Mr. Segal:
RELATIONS
THE UNIVERSITY
The Law School is delighted that you will be our honored guest speaker at
OF MICHIGAN
Commencement on Saturday, May 15. The Class of 1993's graduation
LAW SCHOOL
promises to be even more splendid than 1967's.
721 South State Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Enclosed for your information and approval are proposed itineraries for
48104-3071
Mrs. Segal's and your day on campus. Please have Karen confirm these
Telephone: 313 998-6132
arrangements with me.
Telefax: 313 998-7340
Also included are some materials describing our clinical programs. "An
Overview: The Current Programs" provides general background
information. The pamphlet and accompanying newsletter describe
Professor Jeff Lehman's program of Law School Support for Community-
Based Economic Development in Low-Income Urban Neighborhoods.
This pilot program offers a model for other law schools in urban areas
across the nation.
I thought you might also enjoy our Law School video, which visually
captures the Cook Law Quadrangle and recalls the experience (pain?) of
being a first-year law student. It's actually raising a lot of money for our
Law School Campaign.
We are all looking forward to your visit to Ann Arbor.
Sincerely,
anne Percy Knott
Anne Percy Knott
encs.
cc: Karen Ewing w/ itineraries (via FAX)
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
DELIVERED BY
JOHN H. PICKERING
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL
MAY 10, 1992
Dean Bollinger, members of the graduating class, parents
(and others who have paid the freight), friends
Thank you, Dean Bollinger, for that generous introduction.
It is a privilege to give today's commencement address. I never
thought, when I graduated 52 years ago from the Law School, I would
have this honor.
I begin with these familiar lines from Charles Dickens:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
=
These words were as apt when I graduated in 1940, and they are as
apt today, as when Charles Dickens wrote them about the French
revolution.¹
On the good side, we have the end of the Cold War and the
emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
But just as the world seems to be improving, things at home are
worse. Distrust of our institutions increases. Incumbency is a dirty
word, like liberal and taxes. The verdict in the Rodney King case and
the resulting riots starkly reveal serious flaws in our social and legal
structure. As the noted New York Times columnist, James Reston,
1/
Tale of Two Cities, C. Dickens.
- 2 -
asked in his recent memoirs - Now that we are at peace with the
world, why aren't we at peace with ourselves? In the few minutes I
have, I shall try to suggest some answers, and what lawyers can do to
help.
But first, I must say the last two decades have not been
good for the image of lawyers. In the seventies there was the
Watergate coverup that drove President Nixon from office. As his
White House counsel, John Dean, confessed, "an awful lot of lawyers"
were involved. I agree those lawyers were an "awful lot", not just in
numbers, but also in character. They were a blot on our profession,
but we survived.
The excesses, the materialism and the greed of the eighties
have further tarnished the legal profession. Merger mania flourished,
lawyers went to jail for insider trading, and a noted federal judge asked
"Where were the lawyers?" when the savings and loan industry
collapsed. "Where were the lawyers," indeed? This cry from a judge
who had been the chief enforcement officer of the Securities and
Exchange Commission underscores what the general public does not
appreciate -- that roughly 95% of our law enforcement is voluntary. It
happens because ethical lawyers carefully advise clients about the
requirements and limitations of the law.
But damage has been done to the profession. Many major
firms are retrenching, jobs are scarcer, and lawyer bashing is again a
favorite sport, from the White House to the comics. Anti-lawyer jokes
are legion. The latest one I know, which I hope you have not heard, is
an argument between St. Peter and the Devil over responsibility for
repairing the gate between Heaven and Hell. St. Peter said his record
showed it was the Devil's turn, but the Devil refused. St. Peter then
threatened to sue, and the Devil laughingly replied, "Pete, where will
you find a lawyer?"
- 3 -
A recent report of the President's Council on
Competitiveness² asserts that major reforms are needed in our legal
system to restore our competitiveness in world markets. Speaking to
the American Bar Association last August in support of the report, Vice
President Quayle was critical of the legal profession and asked whether
we need 800,000 lawyers. As I listened I wondered -- with everything
that is already being blamed on the lawyers, is it really fair to blame us
for one more thing -- are we lawyers really to blame because the public
likes Japanese cars, VCRs, and stereos? I was struck, however, that
the question about our need for 800,000 lawyers deserves serious
consideration, but the jokesters are already at that also -- here is one
example: according to the usual reliable sources, Government
projections show that by the year 2020 -- if present trends continue --
there will be more lawyers than people in the United States.
Be that as it may, the Vice President's query - -- do we need
800,000 lawyers - -- also brought to mind Shakespeare's famous line:
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
That is hardly what the Vice President had in mind, and the line itself is
one of the most misunderstood in all literature. Taken in context, it is
a pro-, not an anti-lawyer statement. England was in the turmoil of the
War of the Roses -- a bloody civil war. The line was spoken by a
follower of the rebel Jack Cade who preached anarchy and was killed
because of the excesses he and his followers committed after they had
captured London. Properly understood, the statement shows why we
need lawyers. It also suggests to me the paradox of the Vice
President's query -- that we may have too few rather than too many
lawyers, or at least too few doing some of the things that desperately
need to be done.
2/
An Agenda for Civil Justice Reform in America (1991).
31
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene Two.
- 4 -
What the public, and even some lawyers, fail to understand,
I
is that Shakespeare was saying that lawyers, with all their faults - and
there are many -- are necessary if we are to have the system of
"ordered liberty" that is essential for a fair and just society.⁴/
This brings me back to the Rodney King verdict and the
riots that followed. The King verdict is not the first, nor will it be the
last, time that a jury does something wrong, unjust -- even bizarre -- in
the eyes of the public. But what was unusual was the anger and the
destruction that followed. Politicians are pointing fingers at each other
and avoiding positive stands for fear of alienating this or that voting
bloc. We have seen the tentative steps, the charges and
countercharges, the withdrawals and the reassertions that the Great
Society of President Lyndon Johnson is -- or is not -- responsible for
the riots. Incidentally, it was on this campus that President Johnson
announced the Great Society program in his 1964 commencement
address and it was here that President Bush criticized the Great Society
in his commencement address last year. Happily, no one has tried to
blame the University of Michigan for the Los Angeles Riots!
As the dust settles over Los Angeles, the public is calling
for solutions, not scapegoats. These solutions will not be easy, nor
will they come from efforts to achieve partisan advantage. They will
come from non-partisan efforts to use the best thinking of all parts of
the political spectrum -- conservative, liberal and independent and of
the diverse elements of our society. Here is where there there is a
great - indeed a noble -- role for lawyers to play. At this great Law
School, you have been trained to solve problems. You have also
learned, I fondly hope, that with your professional license -- with your
monopoly to serve the public -- comes some sense of professional
obligation. So, in a sense this can be the best of times for lawyers.
There is much work to do, if we are to remedy injustice, rebuild
communities, restore trust, improve race relations and do the many
other things that are needed to repair and renew our social compact --
4/
Cf. Palko V. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937).
- 5 -
to bridge the huge gap between what we say and what we do as a
nation. Lawyers are needed for these tasks, for history teaches that
11
there can be no free and just society without lawyers.
Just as Jack Cade and his followers wanted to do away
with lawyers, the first step of any totalitarian regime is to kill, or at
least stifle, lawyers, and to bend the legal system towards its bidding.
=
Lawyers are dangerous people when they are true to the ideals of their
profession. For then they believe in and serve such goals as freedom,
justice, and a system in which the rights of the individual are protected
against the tyranny of the mob and the excesses of autocratic or
majoritarian rule. Therefore
It is no accident that the intellectual leaders of our
Revolution and the drafters of our Constitution were mainly lawyers.
It is no accident that dictatorships -- whether of the right
such as Hitler or Mussolini or of the left such as Communist China and
the Soviet Union of Stalin - have followed Shakespeare's line quite
literally.
It is no accident that lawyers stood tall against the tyranny
of the Stuart monarchs, epitomized by Sir Edward Coke's great
statement that no man is above the law a principle that the
Watergate prosecutors asserted and the Supreme Court sustained by
holding that our President, like the Stuart kings, is also bound by the
law.
And it is no accident that as the winds of freedom blow
across China, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union the need for
lawyers and a fair legal system is recognized. Indeed, one of our
greatest exports now are lawyers. American law firms are rushing to
open offices in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Hundreds
of American volunteer lawyers are helping these countries restructure
their legal and their government systems and learn how to do business
with the West.
- 6 -
So I say there is a paradox in the Vice President's question
-- instead of having too many lawyers, we may have too few. There
are challenging opportunities before us and much to do if we are ever
to achieve our lofty ideal of "Equal Justice under Law" the ideal
which is inscribed above the great doors of the Supreme Court - -- but
which we are far from meeting today.
Despite the work of the Legal Services Corporation, which
the Reagan administration did its best to kill, and despite the massive
efforts of the private bar, it is estimated that only 20 percent of our
poor and disadvantaged citizens have access to justice to remedy their
grievances. Regrettably, but understandably, when our citizens believe
there is no justice for them, they feel alienated and shut out, and they
are moved to act, like Jack Cade and his followers did and like the
unhappy recent events in Los Angeles following the acquittal of the
police officers charged with using excessive force against Rodney
King.
Rioting and violence cannot be condoned, but as lawyers
we need to understand something about their causes and we need to
seek remedies. The King acquittal and many other things demonstrate
that our legal system is far from perfect and that change is needed.
We have a legal system that is truly in crisis. Many of the
recommendations of the President's Council on Competitiveness are
sound and should be adopted. Others should be seriously debated.
But the report fails to address one of the most important issues of our
society - the pressing need that many of our citizens have for access
to justice.
Courts throughout the country are underfunded and
overworked. The drug problem is literally swamping the courts' ability
to handle civil dockets. The lack of funds is so acute that our trial
courts in the District of Columbia face the prospect of ending jury trials
in August, three months before the end of the current fiscal year.
- 7 -
We like simplistic solutions, but I submit that it is no answer
to arrest more people on drug charges, when we lack the court
facilities to process them and the prisons to hold them.
Likewise, I submit, it is no answer to impose the death
sentence for more and more crimes. I am personally opposed to the
death sentence on both moral and practical grounds. There is no
evidence whatsoever that it has ever stopped crime. The State of
Michigan is to be applauded for continuing to be one of our states that
have no death penalty.
Nor is it any answer to cut off habeas corpus review by the
federal courts when statistics show that almost 50 percent of state
death penalty cases are reversed because of constitutional error.
Yet there is a public clamor for these simplistic solutions.
They are easier than attacking the social causes of crime, broken
families, homelessness, inadequate education and lack of economic
opportunity. They are less expensive than providing competent
counsel for those accused of murder, than providing decent housing,
good schools and job opportunities, than furnishing lawyers to help the
poor get their rights less expensive, that is, until we consider the
enormous cost of crime and urban riots which vent the frustration of
those who feel left out riots that simply compound rather than solve
the problems and that leave us anguished night after night as we
watch the televised scenes from Los Angeles.
We are a litigious -- perhaps overlitigious -- society, but too
many of our citizens remain shut off from the means to redress their
grievances. That is why the American Bar Association has led the
fight to improve the delivery and the availability of legal services to
those who need them why it has fought to preserve and expand the
Legal Services Corporation against the administration's effort to kill or
hobble the Corporation -- why it has encouraged law firms and lawyers
to do pro bono work why it supports prepaid legal insurance plans --
why it has a death penalty representation project to provide competent
counsel for those faced with the death penalty why it supports full
- 8 -
funding for the courts and adequate compensation for our judges - and
why it supports efforts to reform our legal system and improve the
administration of justice.
Few, if any, of us will ever be called on to be great
champions of liberty -- to be heroes of the Bar like Sir Thomas More,
Lord Coke, Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow and Justice Thurgood
Marshall who risked or even lost their lives in upholding justice.
But we need present day heroes - lawyers who on either
a full or a part time basis -- fight to uphold the rights of the individual,
to protect the innocent, to see that no one is put to death without the
fullest measure of due process, to represent and help the poor, the
homeless, the disadvantaged, and the elderly get redress of their
grievances, to oppose discrimination in all its ugly forms, to promote
racial harmony, to help fledgling businesses and minority enterprises,
and to work in neighborhood offices in the ghettos to advocate what
needs to be done.
This work takes dedication, skill and the willingness to
overcome or accept barriers.
One barrier is the large and unwarranted compensation
difference between the public and the private sectors. There was no
such difference when I graduated, and it was not a financial sacrifice
to become a government lawyer or a professor. Indeed, the rewards
for government service or law school teaching were often better, and
more secure than private practice.
A second barrier - one that unfortunately compounds the
first is the high cost of law school and the resulting debt burden that
much too often dictates career choice. My tuition was $200 a year as
an out-of-state student (in 1937 to 1940), as contrasted with more
than $17,000 now. This cost and debt is forcing too many of our best
and brightest into private practice at the expense of government,
academia, and public service.
- 9 -
Other barriers are the growing emphasis on the bottom line
and specific requirements for billable hours. Happily, many firms and
lawyers still believe there is more to being a lawyer than making
money, and more lawyers and law firms are doing pro bono work than
ever before. According to the latest information from the American Bar
Association there are approximately 850 bar sponsored pro bono
programs involving about 125,000 lawyers, and there are many more
lawyers doing pro bono work on their own outside of these bar
sponsored programs. Many large firms do pro bono work directly for
organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights under Law, the Women's Legal Defense
Fund, the Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and many others. I am
enormously proud that my own firm does a substantial amount of this
work and has recently made a gift of $500,000 to this Law School to
support scholarships with one of the requirements being a commitment.
by the student to devote at least 10 percent of his or her professional
life to pro bono, public service, or professional activities.
So, everything is not all gloom and doom. There are bright
spots, but voluntary efforts can do only so much. That is why we
must have an effective, fully funded Legal Services Corporation, why
we must have public defender systems at state expense, why we must
do something about the pay difference between the public and the
private sectors, why we must find ways to help students who want
careers in public service or public interest, and why we must increase
pro bono services.
Another bright spot, and the most exciting change in the
profession since my graduation, is the increasing numbers of women
and minorities in our ranks. They bring a richness and a diversity
heretofore lacking, but they are yet to achieve their full potential.
Because of the length of time involved in coming up through the ranks,
there are still too few minority and women partners in law firms, too
few in leadership positions in the bar, and too few on our courts. But
that too is changing -- perhaps not as fast as some of us would like,
but it is changing -- particularly with the help of the American Bar
- 10 -
Association's Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the
Profession, and its Commission on Women in the Profession.
We hear much these days about the decline of
professionalism, and the lack of civility in the bar. There are some
problems that do need correction, but most lawyers are decent,
trustworthy, ethical practitioners. An example of the problem,
however, was a recent story in the Washington Post about events at
the Harvard Law School which quoted a student as saying, "This is
not a gentle place. A gentle lawyer is a bad lawyer."
I do not know whether the Harvard Law School is or is "not
a gentle place." I do know and am proud that this school has not had
the well publicized problems of Harvard. I also know from 52 years of
experience that the young man is in for a great shock. Unlike the
sports arena where nice guys are supposed to finish last, the law is still
a place in which nice persons can and do finish first. Rude, angry,
bumptious, or devious behavior is self defeating. Success with clients,
courts, opponents and other colleagues at the bar depends upon
courtesy, consideration, integrity, and a reputation for good
professional work, not on bluster or braggadocio.
I could go on and on, but I must close with a few words of
hope. You are entering a noble, if misunderstood, profession one
that has stood strong against tyranny and for individual rights from the
time of Magna Carta. Not all of you can be heroes, but you can, by
the way you act, make a difference, and that difference can be vital --
just as alumni giving is vital to the life of this Law School.
These are exciting times - and perhaps the best and the
worst of times - to be a lawyer. I hope these musings of mine - from
the perspective of half a century - will tell you something of what it
means to be a lawyer and the challenges ahead. You may take them
as unabashed idealism - and they are that. But there is another ideal --
the necessity of making a living. That living is easier to those who
practice the idealism of our profession. I have had a fine and bully
time myself. I wish you all success and happiness, and I charge you to
- 11 -
do your part to advance the lofty goals of our profession. Go with a
passion for justice -- go with a dedication to work for the public good.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1993
MEMORANDUM FOR MACK McLARTY
FROM:
Howard Paster HP
SUBJECT: Dave McCurdy and Bill Ford
At the request of the White House, Chairman Ford has offered to
Representative McCurdy:
1) The opportunity to be the first co-sponsor of the bill after
the members of the Committee; and
2) The very valuable opportunity to be the first witness at the
first hearing, appearing even before the Administration
witnesses.
My judgment, confirmed by the Vice President, is that the
Chairman has acted fairly at our behest.
In addition, we had hand delivered today a Presidential letter to
Dave McCurdy taking special recognition of his extraordinary
effort on this project.
Eli - - In response to
our recent v.s.t.
Desk med