The Midpeninsula Free University

MFU Articles Published by The Stanford Daily
1968

Free University Stresses Course Flexibility

The MidPeninsula Free University (M.F.U.) is a stump of political activism with shoots of Zen, bioenergetics, Gestalt workshops, Japanese pottery-making, Jungian astrology, advanced group loving, and Mahler's symphonies.

The Free U. which began its second year last Fall, was at one time characterized by a radical political minority. The seminar-oriented organization is now pervaded by a quest for self-discovery, spiritual development and a sense of community in thing.

Tiring of the routine and irrelevance of a $900-a-quarter conventional education, a student can pay a $10 fee to the Free U and enroll in any of its 130 courses and projects.

Offerings include meditation, massage, candle-making, the Platonic dialogues, draft resistance workshop, camera and film workshops, the art of giving away bread, social theories of constructive rebellion, and the philosophy of the American Indian.

A member of the Free U. can live in a Harrad Experiment (as in the book by Robert Rimmer), analyze racism and neo-colonialism, taste the wines of Burgundy and the Rhone, help schizophrenic children, or participate in spontaneous dance.

And close to 1000 adults and youths—most of them from Stanford—have done just that. Enrollment last quarter was 600, up more than 250 from previous quarters. Over half the enrollment comes from the university community.

The Free U. has an open curriculum: anyone can teach a course on anything he wishes and in any way he wishes to teach it.

Only a half dozen regular professors teach courses: most are led by grad students, TA's, and interested members of the community. The MJF.U. is probably the most successful Free University in the nation, according to Robb Crist, Executive Director and Curriculum Coordinator. It has more members and more money than other free universities.

Most Free U.'s are politically motivated and born of a resentful activist mentality. They fold as fast as they rise, he said.

M.F.U. is in the mainstream of what people are vitally interested in: sex, dope, ways to change their lives and heighten their awareness of others, he added.

About two-thirds of the courses in any one quarter are successful and are offered again. Attendance is not mandatory, so the success of a course depends upon the ability of its leader to present interesting material, and to get them to relate to and interact with each other.

The other university, according to many In the Free U. Is Incapable of meeting the needs of a changing society, because It is dedicated to the preservation of the status quo.

The Free U. affirms that real education aims at generality rather than specialization and "should supply the glue which cements together our fragmented lives."

Established institutions are slow to change, and it is probably impossible to change the system of conventional education, said Vic Lovell, M.F.U. coordinator.

You have to smuggle things in, connive, persuade or con people into doing the new things that ought to be done, like pass-fail, and new living arrangements. The results are small and the reward is frustration. The smart ones realize that the cards are stacked against them from the beginning, and they don't even try anymore, he said.

The Free U. sees itself as an alternative, or at least a viable supplement to conventional education.

In terms of content, the Free U. sees many shortcomings in the "other university." According to Vic Lovell, the philosophy department, for example, makes no serious effort to teach existential, Eastern, or classical thought before Plato.

He sees the English department grinding along as though contemporary American literature did not exist. They are still back in the 20's and 30's. No one teaches or even regards Ginsberg, Sneider, Burrows, Miller, and others, said Lovell.

The content of the University is intellectual and verbal, he emphasizes. No one teaches you about sex. No one teaches you to feel. There is no course at Stanford to teach you to reach out and touch another individual with tenderness and respect.

Robb Crist sees no incompatibility with the existing university and envisions the Free U. as a community, a small college which covers the ground that the University does not.

He compared the Free U. to a John Stuart Mill type of organization, a market place of people and ideas, where it does not take long for people to find what they want; what they want lasts, and what they don't want falls away.

Over 100 people have signed up for a course, Sexual Morality Now, taught by Robb Crist and Vic Lovell. Over 100 have signed up for human contact courses.