Mid-peninsula Free University
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| Midpeninsula Free University | |
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| Active: | 1965—1971 |
| Students: | 1,200 (in 1969)[1] |
| Location: | Palo Alto, California, USA |
| Nickname: | Do-Your-Thing U |
The Midpeninsula Free University (MFU) was a free university that emerged in Palo Alto, California out of the burgeoning counterculture scene of there in the 1960s and 1970s[2]. It offered classes on everything from intentional communities and "To Be Gentle", to sand-casting candles and "The Art of Giving Away Bread",[3] to Maoist political theory and alternative education.
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[edit] History
Midpeninsula Free University was formed as a reaction to the growing influence of the military-industrial complex on American universities.[4] The school opened in Menlo Park in 1965.[5]
The university organized a debate in 1967 between LSD proponent Timothy Leary and Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver.[6] In 1968, it was one of the targets of a series of small local bombings.[7]
In 1969, Jim Warren volunteered to produce the university's course catalog and newsletter, The Free You[8], and was thus elected the MFU's General Secretary. Sometime thereafter, Larry Tesler began helping with the publication production using an IBM Selectric Composer and quickly realized that computers could be used to make publishing much easier. It was through that experience that Tesler would later go on to develop cut, copy and paste functionality at Xerox PARC.
By the 1970s, a rift had developed in the university between the Pacifists and the more militant Maoist newcomers.[9] Phil Trounstine started working with the Venceremos Organization to take over the Midpeninsula Free University with the aim of turning it into a recruitment forum.[10] The university's enrollment dwindled to 70 by 1971 and the program closed its doors.
[edit] People
- Robert Cullenbine
- Vic Lovell
- Larry Tesler
- Phil Trounstine [4]
- Jim Warren [11]
[edit] References
- ^ "The Shadow Schools", TIME, 1969-06-06.
- ^ Markoff, John (2005-04-25). What the Dormouse Said (in English). New York: Viking, 336. ISBN 0670033820. OCLC 57068812.
- ^ "The Semester That Might Have Been...", The Harvard Crimson, 1968-01-26.
- ^ a b Learmonth, Michael. "Political Animal", Metro Active, 1999-04-29.
- ^ Tindall, Blair. "Psychedelic Palo Alto", Palo Alto Weekly, 2000-03-08.
- ^ McClanahan, Ed [1985] (10 2003). "Chapter One: Introducing . . . Jimmy Sacca?", Famous People I Have Known. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 232. ISBN 081319069X. OCLC 52554217. “In 1967 Timothy Leary met Ken Kesey in my living room. (This cosmic confluence was sponsored by the Mid-Peninsula Free University of Palo Alto, California, an institution of higher-and higher, and higher-learning, of which I was, at the time, the Department of Creative Writing.)”
- ^ Sussman, Diane. "The tumultuous '60s", Palo Alto Weekly, 1994-04-13.
- ^ Blitzer, Carol. "Stanford Weekend Acres", Palo Alto Weekly, 2002-06-14. "Midpeninsula Free University (MFU), which sponsored a variety of classes . . . and published a semi-annual catalog, "The Free You.""
- ^ D'Agostino, Bill. "Running to stand still", Palo Alto Weekly, 2003-08-22.
- ^ Martin, Jim (2003). America's Al-Qaeda: The SLA-Venceremos Connection.
- ^ Raney, Rebecca Fairley. "A Utopian With a Twinkle and an Idea: Online Democracy", New York Times, 2000-02-24.
