NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education)
This compilation of essays explores the issues on today’s American campuses that grew from the movement for student freedom in the 1960s.
The issues date to the ’60s when student activists put institutions on notice that they wanted their independence from out-dated notions such as in loco parentis, in which colleges assumed some parental duties over students. This collection examines how students have used the freedoms gained since the 1960s, Ackerman says.
The authors of the essays are mostly professionals in student services or institutional presidents, but one is a student, and another is described as “an online activist and anarchist.” The volume’s editors are Robert Ackerman, professor of educational leadership; William B. Werner, hotel management professor and an adjunct professor in the Boyd School of Law; and Louis C. Vaccaro, who has served as president of several colleges.
Ackerman wrote about “Student Academic Freedom: An Uncertain Future,” in which he addresses, among other things, the way the Internet changes the way students learn. Werner discusses the legal cases that impact student freedoms, including those involving hate speech and the many campus speech codes that have come under legal attack, as well as cases involving religion on campus.
The student contributor, Seth Kujat, a senior at Kent State University, describes his efforts to establish permanent funding for the memorial marking the tragic May 4, 1970, shooting of Kent State students by Ohio National Guardsmen that resulted in four student deaths.
Self-styled anarchist Aaron Kreider takes a look at the political involvement of today’s students, and challenges the common view that students are more apathetic than those of the 1960s. He argues that comparisons generally use the late 60s, when activism peaked, rather than the earlier years of the decade, against which today’s student shows up well. He also notes that today’s student has far more causes to deal with, and the lack of an overall focus results in less media attention.
