Voice of action. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1933-1936, 1934-08-17
New Deal at University

After more than year of realtive chaos
while the regents were trying to find an edu-
Gator who would be willing to risk his career
by heading a politcsridden institution. they
finally announced early this summer the APP
pointment of Lee Paul Sieg the new presid-
ent. Now he is on the job and everyone interest
ed in the University is anXiOusly watching for
clues to his policy"
His public announcements so far have been
the usual "blah' which conservative men in
public life soon learn to hand out completely
noncommittal, they leave the men who make
them perfectly free to act as they see fit when
the occasions arise without troubling to make
their acts consistent with any clear principles.
Thus Seg has told the public that he be
lieves in well paid faculty. and that is all right
by the faculty, but he adds that the taxpayers
deserve to get their moneys worth in good
teaching, and in defining good" teaching he is
vague enough to keep each faculty member wor-
ried as to whether his particular line qualities.
However, liberals and radicals, both on and
Off the faculty. need be in no doubt as to what
to expect from Sieg an any administrative is.
sues that have the least public Importance.
They need only know that Sieg served in an
administrative capacity with apparent satisfac-
tion at the University of Pittsburgh, in order
to assure themselves what stand he will take
on all important public questions.
Pittsburgh was the university which in its
anxiety to please the Mellon interests in order
to finance their building program, took no
chances with pink professors. Anxious that his
selling talk to Pittsburgh millionaires should be
man discharged Prof. Turner from his faculty
man discharge da Prof Turner from his faculty
for the crime of being very mildly liberal-an
act that even stuck in the craw of the capitalist
press. As far as we know, Sieg was not in the
vanguard of public condemnation of this most
vicious stab of the year at academic freedom.
If it were not for this background we might
feel hopeful about line that Seg adopted in
one of his press releases. In celebrating on good
teaching he implied that he favored interpret
ative teaching contrasted with technical
teaching.
A technical teacher is one who sticks to his
last and hands out his little bunch of facts
while an interpretative teacher tries constantly
to tie up his speciality with the whole field of
human learning.
A university made up of teachers of the
latter type offers the student chance at uni
fled, comprehensive education instead of
hodge-pOdge of unintegrated material
OF course no one interested in education can
be too enthusiastic about an emphasis of this
type. The trouble is that if it is carried out
consistently it contains much dynamite that
we can't believe Sieg saw all its Implications For
ii teacher is concerned in the Interpretation of
his material his first concern is in the social in
terpretatOn and if he wants such an interpret
alton to have any meaning for the Individual
student it must have contemporary signifi-
canoe.
1t is obvious that in times of social crises
such as ours no teacher could satisfy such re-
quirements of good teaching without bias-and
we cannot believe Sieg favors that What Sieg
was thinking of when he favored nterpretative
teaching was Interpretation within the UNIVERSE
ty curriculum and there is no dynamite in that.
If we keep the university carefully isolated
from contemporary historical movements we
can go as far we like in integrating its vari-
Gus speeialtes without fear of stirring up any
trouble with the tax payers or of giving the
students an education that will equip them to
take part in the class struggle