By Sheldon Greaves

Frequent readers of this blog will have noticed by now that the state of higher education constitutes a proverbial burr under my saddle. While describing the nature of what afflicts American universities (or even agreeing that an affliction exists) is problematic, many years ago, something magical happened: the Midpeninsula Free University

Once upon a time there was a state of mind known as “The Sixties.” It was a time when youthful idealism clashed with youthful cynicism in the face of irrefutable evidence that something was seriously wrong with the country and many of its institutions. Space does not permit even a superficial list of the many points of contention; the Viet Nam War, the emerging environmental crisis, the ethical dilemmas facing scientists who worked on building nuclear weapons, the growing power of corporations in politics, civil rights, feminism, and much more. The young protesters met these issues in a variety of ways, some more effective than others. But as Theodor Roszak, who wrote one of the best contemporary accounts of the counterculture observed, in spite of the unevenness of the response, the instincts of those kids were dead on target.

One major area of contention was the university itself. There was a growing sense that the education offered by universities was geared to service an economy and corporate culture that many felt was morally, spiritually, and intellectually bankrupt. Students were hungry for knowledge that was directly relevant to the problems they faced, and would have to face in the coming years. Moreover, there was a feeling that the university become too much of an institution at the expense of being a community of learners, scholars, and teachers.

The Bay Area was not the only place to see Free Universities spring up in the wake of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and other such protests. But it was one of the more successful and definitely one of the most interesting. Starting in 1965 The Free University of Berkeley and The Experimental College at San Francisco State began offering classes. The following January 1966 saw the beginning of classes at The Experiment at Stanford and the Free University of Palo Alto. In 1968 they merged to become The Midpeninsula Free University.

The philosophy behind this effort was that anyone could learn, and anyone could teach. And teach they did: quite literally everything under the sun from Zen to vegetarian cooking to philosophy, politics, “Whole Earth Studies” and everything in between. It was partly a direct jab at nearby Stanford University, which employed some of the MFU’s harshest critics. Ironically, Stanford has recently acquired a complete set of the beautifully designed and offset-printed course catalogues, and the newsletter, The Free You. The MFU gradually came to include representatives from every slice of the counterculture.

Classes were available to anyone who paid the $10 fee per quarter. The MFU also supported itself through local businesses they owned; a restaurant, a print shop, a thrift store, plus concerts and other public events. Naturally, there were “patriotic” detractors. The FBI kept tabs on it, because of course they did. The local Palo Alto Times raged against it, but from 1966 to 1970, this remarkable experiment public education thrived. In the end, it was done in mainly be an overdose of doctrinaire Marxism during a shift in its leadership.

But the MFU left behind an extensive documentary and cultural legacy; many of the adult learning centers and community learning projects today are offshoots of the general idea of the Free University movement. The Sixties and Seventies saw a Cambrian Explosion on new and experimental approaches to education. Most of the fizzled for various reasons, mainly due to a lack of seasoned leadership and guidance by established scholars and teachers. A few still remain, such as Evergreen College in Washington State.

As MFU participant Douglas M. Knight, who went on to become President of Duke University, poignantly expressed it in his memoir Street of Dreams: the Nature and Legacy of the 1960’s: 

“These courses, these catalogs are the perfect embodiments of attitudes and approaches which flashed like moonlight on the sea and were lost again, replaced by those mundane, conventional, but less alive patterns to which we quickly returned in the 1970’s. Once again we saw Camelot, crazy and beautiful; once again we lost it.”

I hope to revisit this topic in later installments; there’s a great deal to explore because, as with the issues of the day, I do think that on the whole, the kids had the right idea. It’s an idea that bears reconsidering in the face f an uncertain future.

I want to make special mention of the excellent website on the MFU written and maintained by Jim Wolpman. I’ve leaned heavily on his site for this post and recommend visiting it for more information.