ABSTRACT
Thinking about the turbulent sixties I’m tempted to start off the way Charles Dickens began his famous novel about the French Revolution. It was the best of times because much of our academic, cultural, and political rigidity was being challenged. It was the worst of times for the same reasons. Any optimism or despair about change was joined at the middle with uncertainty. In the middle was where most of us professors were, and our perplexity seemed to be foreshadowed, again, by Dickens: “We had everything before us, we had nothing before us.” Everythingall our old standbys, assumptions, course syllabi, admission standards, graduation requirements —all seemed up for grabs. All we knew for certain was that nothing was going to be the same. Most of the turmoil was aimed at tradition, particularly at the inherited paternalism that controlled society, set academic policy, and sent youths off to a frustrating and apparently unwinnable war in Vietnam. Political activist Mario Savio’s famous metaphor spoke to campus radicals: it was time to shut the machine down.
