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People's University

People's University image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
February
Year
1972
OCR Text

People's University

Programs for Educational and Social Change (PESC) is doing a killer thing on the U of M campus. The people most involved in organizing PESC are aware of the separations between the University and the Ann Arbor community and are also aware of the potential for us all to come together as the community we are. The resources available both in the University and in the Streets should be combined to benefit the most people possible in the most together way. This is what PESC is involved in developing.

For a while there was a hassle about whether students would get credit for the courses offered within the PESC programs, but that has been resolved and students do get credit. But, as Charles Thomas, one of the instructors in the Community Control program pointed out, PESC seeks to do a lot more than that. He emphasized the need to expand the support services offered only minimally now to people who want to participate in the University. In certain instances already money is paid to selected people who want to study, and these instances should be greatly expanded so people who want to study can do so and be economically secure. Money should also be paid to all the people whose resources are used as instructors of any kind. There is a continuing hassle with the University's reluctance to pay such "non-academic" people like John Sinclair, Chairman of the Rainbow People's Party, for teaching his Community Control of Prisons course. This is being reported on almost every day in the Michigan Daily.

Charles Thomas also pointed out how the program should work on a county wide basis. Anyone in Washtenaw county who wants an education should be able to get it. Some programs have already begun to be implemented at Washtenaw Community College and should be spreading to Eastern Michigan University too. PESC would like to see high school students be able to get credit for University courses also.

The main hassle of course is always economic, which is what PESC directs itself to. We have to remember what a threat something like this is to the people in power over the University now. It's the Educational-Military-Industrial Complex that we're up against, evidenced in the continuing hassles about classified research and military contracts on campus, as well as with the hassles with PESC. But it's the combined resources and energy of all of us together as students/street people (we are the same) that will come up with the solutions to our problems and deal with the situation. Anyone interested in any way, whether to help with the hassles, or to find out about the courses offered, can call the PESC office in Ann Arbor at 764-7548.

--Genie Plamondon, RPP

John Sinclair teaching his Community Control of Prisons class.