The Grlnnoll REPORTER

NORMAN THOMAS SPEAKS WITH A GROUP OF STUDENTS of

Friend: World Institute at the Lon
parmn-ho-perron contact and app.

liland armour. The retool atrouea
ation at learning to the relevant

prablamr at the world community. ”Campulel" hay. been or m pr.-
.anily being established in several countries including lnclia, Mexico. sw.

den. and Ruuia.

Photon by John Phillips

Former Grinnellian finds challenge in
lruly liberal education of Friends' college

by John F. Phillips
Ed. Note:

John Phillips was dismissed from
Grinnell It the end of last year for
“academic reasonst" During his
three years here he was involved
wltlt the yearbook and the newspaper
and last year he was wedltor/pho-
lographer of the 1m yearbook.
Alter leaving Grlmell he chose to
Ittend the Friend: World Institute
because of its “realistic look at life
Ind education."

Phillips commented, “it is the ap-
piicatlon of one‘s education that is
really Important in tile. Knowing a
[rent deli and then not being able
to apply it to one's life and commu—
nity is an educational failure."

Phillips is now with the school in
Mexico where they are living in
small groups in remote villages.
learning the language and mores of
the imple-

Some or Phllllp’a photographs are
currently being considered for use In
a story about the school in Made
molselle magazine.

' “She looked like a pile of rags, lying
there an the sidewalk. We almost kept
on walking, even after we realized she
was a human being. That’s a strange
impulse to have felt, wanting to leave
her there. Perhaps we rationalized that
she was drunk or else dead or that
someone else would come along soon.
Maybe we just didn't want to get in-
volved. It took a lot of courage to walk
over and bend down and see if she
was breathing, The smell of alcohol
was very strong. Good thing we stopped.
Judging irom the dried blood no one
else had stopped for quite a while and
might not have for quite a while to
come. It was 3:00 in the morning. A
chilly morning. She had apparently
Itumbled on the decaying sidewalk,
atriking her head as she fell. We got
her address out of the purse she held
In her half delirious grip. it was hard
to guess her age. She looked very old
and very'tired. With our help she was

able to walk. after a fashion. Hel- as
partment was about two blocks away.
As we walked along, she began to
talk, nut to us, but to God — “Why
did you take him away from me, we
had so many good years together, he
said life in America would be better. . .
and we got along. . .it was hard but
we were happy. . .and then you took
him after I prayed to you to take me
first. . .please let ma die. . ." Not
without difficulty we got her into her
apartment and into bed. We washed
her face. The head out didn't appear
to be very serious. She was able to
thank us, after assuring herself that we
had appreciated the wedding portrait
on her dresser of what had once been
a truly handsome couple. We then
found ourselves back in the middle of
Harlem. But we weren’t quite as chilled
as before, nor nearly as tired."

The above is an excerpt from the
journal I keep as a student at Friends
World Institute FWl urges its student:
to keep some sort of record of their
"intellectual growth." This journal can
take just about any form that the nu-
dent wishes and constitutes the only
formal written requirement the school
imposes on its students. Just what I
and the two girls that accompanied ma
learned that night is hard to say Per-
haps I learned how dangerously tempt-
ing it is — how easy it is — to avoid
involvement, to ignore the humanity
that lies beneath that pile of rags across
the street. Surely i learned how fulv
hlling it is to recognize that humanity,
even in so small a way.

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5 dollars for 3 days
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The kind of painful but fulfilling can-
fi'ontation with conscience that l have
described happens to everyone from
time to time regardless of who they
are or where they go to school. The
diiierence with FWI as a school is that

it wants this kind of thing to happen
to its students and, as lunch as pos
sible, provides for it. As part of our
study of “problems on the city level"
each student in my class (about to girls

and 22 boys) spent two to three days
living in Manhattan with a total .01 $5
to spend per person for food and lodging
Well armed with emergency addresses
and telephone numbers, we Set off to
discover, however briefly, the less
pleasant and most often ignored aspects
of this ultimate example of a metropolis.
My little group of three decided to
walk the streets for 24 hours or so to
get at least a taste of the eternal
struggle for life that the over 7,000
homeless of Manhattan know as their
entire existencer it’s the kind of thing
that’s hard to get through Vicarious

description alone. it may even sound .

corny. But try it and you may dis—
cover as you iinally sit down for a
nap in Grand Central station (go to
sleep in about 30 seconds and the po-
liceman tells you to produce a train
ticket 01' get the hell out of there)
why a lot of people don’t like cops. i
mean, like, he was a real bastard, he
didn't even understand at all when I
said that it was all a sort of game
and we really had nice clothes at home
and parents with lots of money and
We'd been walking for hours and hadn’t
been eating very well and Laura is
REALLY exhausted and its just a game
and can't we stay here for just a half
nndhour and then... ,

The faculty at FWI call this sort of
thing a "learning experience
school believes that the most basic and
universally understood knowledge has to
be individually discovered to have any
realistic meaning. Before visiting New
York City we spent several Weeks in
our seminars discussing “the city" as
an abstract concept. We heard a num-
ber of speakers, were exposed to an
appropriate reading list, and saw a
number of films dealing with the city.
We learned funny, silly, little thingsli
for instance, the whole population of
the United States could live in the met-
ropolitan area of New York City in the
buildings already existing there if they
were distributed at the same density
in which people ARE living in certain
blocks of Harlem. Then we went to
Harlem. . . .

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7 campuses around the world
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FWI went into actual operation not
quite two year- Ago under the auspices
of the New York Yearly Meeting, Re-
ligious Society of Friends. it won the
brainchild almost reven years before
of the Westbury (Lang island) Friends
Meeting. The guidelines set up by the
New York Yearly Meeting atipulated
that FWI be: 1) A four year liberal
arts college Quaker in spirit; 2) A
world oollege, international in charac-
ter and outreach. in 1965 the State of
New York grantod to rwr a provisional
charter which lasts for five years, dur»
ing which time the school is being de-
veloped into Friends World College.
Degrees granted during the time that
FM is not oiiiclaily a college will
he retroactively validated when FWI
receives a college charter. Rather than
having a single campus, FWI will ulti-
mately have seven campuses in differ-
ent parts of the world. Each student
will attend each of these Campuses for
six months and then return for the last
semester to his original campus to com-

lete a final thesis or project concern-
ng a specific subject he has become in-
terested in during his travels and pre-
vious study. Ultimately it is hoped that
classes will originate from each of these
seven different campuses, However, for
the present all classes are beginning
from the North American Center lo
cated near Westbury, New York, in
an old deserted air base known as
Mitchel Gardens, Headquarters of FWl
are at Harrow Hill, Long island at the
home of the director, Morris Mitchell,

Fridayr April l4. nu

former director of Putney Graduate
School. I’m writing this in Cuemovace,
Mexico. At present there is no Mexican
campus as such. Our time in Mexico
is being spent between studying Spanish
and Mexican history at the Institute and
direct living experience in lndian vil~
lager in addition to study trips to sur.
rounding points of historical and intel-
lectual interest. During the next three
years the schedule of my class at FWI
includes study and travel in Eastern
and Western Europe, Russia, Austria,
Kenya, India and Japan.

A new class begins at the North A-
merican campus every six months under
the present schedule. I'm in the third
class. The first two Classes are in
Europe, presently, while the fourth is
still at the North American Center on
Long island, The classes have varied
in size, averaging around 35. As plan-
ned they will gradually get larger
until reaching a maximum of around
100 students per class, half boys and
half girls. FWl was started as an ex—
perimental college and certainly hasn’t
left the experimental stage, At times
fhis is hard on students and faculty
alike. but it makes FWl an exciting
place. Anything can happen, While
the second class was traveling through
the southern United States in Volkswagen
buses studying racial problems and the
South in general, they temporarily
dropped their work or voter registration
in Selma, Alabama to observe (and
participate in, as it tumed out for the
majority) the Meredith March through
Mississippi. The journals of the several
FWl students who were fear gassed in
Canton, Mississippi make very inter»
esting reading. The fourth class of FWI
which is still based on the North Amen
loan campus on Long Island has just
recently altered its schedule to provide
for three weeks of working intensively
on the planning and organization of a
major national peace demonstration sat
for the middle of April. The school ll
negotiating for a castle in Austria for
the permanent European center. There
have even been rumors that future
classes may sail a small schooner from
Florida to Acapulco in order to get
to Mexico. I wouldn't be surprised,
anything can happen at FWl. . .Wheyi
traveling we camp out whenever poa-
rible and do our own cooking. For
longer stays such as our present month
in Cuemavaca we stay in groups of one
and two with local families. Thil makes
for a good experience: it's also finanr
cioliy efficient, making possible an all-
inclusive tuition of $2.800 per year. Th.
American Friends Service Committee
provides invaluable information and as.
sistance for FWl in foreign countries
ls well as in the United States.

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Marine biology study

while living on boat
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For three weeks before coming to
Mexico my class lived on a moron
boat in Miami, Florida studying Marina
bloIOgyr taking advantage of the many
Marine Museums and laboratories in
that area and getting a taste of the no-
cessity of cooperation and cleanlinesa
when living in close quarters The ship
was a lightning research vessel and
was offered for temporary use to our
school during the “nonrstormy” season.
In addition to several hours of ciassaa
and seminars every day, numerous
short study trips, and the inevitable
reading lists and available books (alwnya
encourgaged but never required), we
were given the opportunity for skin
and SCUBA diving and observed sev-
eral demonstrations of artificial light-
hing phenomena. To get from Miami
to Mexico City each student in my clan!
was given a plane ticket to Houston,