The University of Oregon has been found guilty of violating all the advances in education won from the 1960s. In the 1960s the Free University was founded. The idea behind it was that Universities do not have a monopoly on education. Education is ingrained in the very fabric of life. There are great lessons on unknown subjects, guiding principles, practical and constructive guidelines, and wisdom that can rescue your love life as well as your spiritual life. Unique ideas came out of it. Not only time honored subjects were taught, like ballet, but also practical considerations, like how to smoke tobacco without harm, how to swim and how to float (how to invent your own floats), martial arts, tai-chi, as well as new advances in religion, philosophy and the humanities.
The standard university realized their shortcomings and formulated their answer to the dilemma. It was called Extended Education or Continuing Education, as well as a number of different names. It is by nature a non-credit course, usually for personal fulfillment. Under this special new category, teachers did not have to have credentials, but they did have to know what they were teaching – and so an interview with targeted questions was used. Classes were arranged from this special extension of the University and not from the departmental heads. This advance in education made universities “hip” again, “groovy” and “in with the in crowd.” In the ’80s and ’90s, it was called “liberal.” Now, all that is left of this idea at backward universities is an empty shell. Just like this university.
The Continuing Education Arm of the University of Oregon is a phony. Take my example. I proposed a course entitled: The History of American Popular Music from 1870 to 1970. At the Continuing Education Offices, I was immediately referred to the music department. I was interviewed by Ann Mclucas at Collier Hall. She immediately asked me for my credentials, but I have none. I do have a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music, however this was dismissed, because I didn’t have a résumé. She claimed to know all about what I was teaching and indicated that all the teachers in the music department also knew. I knew this to be a lie, since she could not name any forms of Ragtime Era Parlor Music. Other than Scott Joplin, she did not know Ragtime composers or even the different types of Ragtime. I asked her if I could play the piano for her to demonstrate my knowledge of the music and my skill at it – she declined. Thus, she revealed to me that she was not an open-minded professor or an open-minded musician. Here is the common-sense-guiding-principle of music: You can talk till the cows come home, but a real musician judges you by how you sound on your instrument. They allow this waste of money and manpower, because they are not true educators but more like politicians. They have forgotten what it means to be an educator. It is no longer important.
G. Julian Walker is a musical historian and performer.