After the Kent State Shootings: Bowling Green State University's Reaction

70_06_04_Nordlund01

Kent State Shootings at Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University 70_06_04_Nordlund01

TEI Letters

2017 Mathew Sweet Created the initial version of the article
2017 Mathew Sweet Converted to TEI
Ralph T. Nordlund Ohio June 3, 1970 William T. Jerome
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RALPH T NORDLUND
586 MAPLE ST
FOSTORIA OH
44830


586 Maple St.
Fostoria, Oh. 44830

June 3, 1970

Dr. Wm. Travers Jerome III, President,
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402

Dear President Jerome:

Your response of May 20th to my copy of my letter to Stanley
K. Coffman, Jr.
of May 12th., deserves an answer. You condemned
Dave Smith of Fostoria Review-Times for his report of his con-
versation with you over the phone about the five "new" colleges.
One of your admiring students from Fostoria admitted, however,
that the original plan called for optional Ssatisfactory-Uunsatisfactory grading so that
some students could drop out of their regular classes and still
get an Ssatisfactory, if in lieu of class room work they attended these
radical problem-oriented bull sessions called colleges; but that
it had been changed to an optional attendance at these sessions
while still attending their regular classes. So on the day Dave
Smith
called you he was perfectly right in what he said. What
I condemned in both you and Dr. Coffman was the granting of this
student demand before you really knew how it would be worked
out. That did not appeal to me as responsible administration.

In your reply you enclosed mimeos of pro and con letters
you had received from others. By length they were ten to one
in your favor and in number two to one. Perhaps that is the
way your correspondence has run, but what is happening now in
the state legislature proves that the overwhelming pressure is
for the outlawing of campus disorder. However, what I want to
answer is your amazing unwillingness to comprehend such citizen
and taxpayer reaction. You say,
".... ...I simply stand aghast at the unwillingness of people
like you to understand the concern and frustration of children from
communities such as Fostoria. There have been no victories on
any of our campuses, only a shameful drama that tells of a nation
which, for some reason, has lost some of its creative spark and
basic humanity........ Is it possible that the families of these
young people and their schools and their pastors have failed us
rather than we they?"

Your use of the nominative in the last word may be a slip of
your secretary; but I assure you I am in close contact with six
area high schools, and the older teachers shake their heads at
the "quality" education given by recent BGSUBowling Green State University English instructors.
They are only "professional" in bargaining for big salaries and
in engineering "study days." I also want to call your attention

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to the "Inkstone" just off the press. As I told your as-
sistant instructor
, Mr. Golightly, in a student-adult con-
ference last week, four letter words is not progress in
literature, but a retrogression toward savagery. He was
arguing that he and the students were very anxious for
progress. I have read about half of that booklet, skipping
the worst one after finding it so obscene there was no reason
why I should defile my mind with it. Of the rest I can describe
it in the words of Henry Commager in THE AMERICAN MIND: "The
attack upon reason, meaning, coherence, normality, grammar and
morality was the distinguishing character of this new school
of literature." All I have to do is change the tense to the
present. The booklet or magazine is copywrited by BGSUBowling Green State University, so
you cannot escape the conclusion that your idea of freedom of
speech is license of the Berkeley type. Only in recent years
have such magazines been allowed, so it is evident that our
founding fathers never had pornography in mind when they guar-
anteed freedom of speech.

I need not argue about your concern for the frustrations of
modern young pepplepeople. Please read "Where you Have to Be Retired
to Be Hired" in the June Reader's Digest. This quote is enough
to cinch my claim that our schools have made them frustrated
and revolutionary: "Disrupters have muscle only when they have
faculty support." That school does not have disorder, even
though very near to the San Francisco trouble spot. Neither
does 4,000 student Bob Jones University, or any other Bible true
college. It might be well for you to read Dr. Toole's article
in the same issue, though you may have read that already in
The Blade. Young people have always had personal frustrations,
but the ones we are talking about are fanned up in our schools
and geared to revolution. I am CONCERNED about saving our
country from such a revolution. Are you?

As a retired minister, I am concerned about keeping this
country Christian. With a few exceptional instructors in our
universities still holding out, you know as well as I that
from orientation days until graduation, the students are fed
on scientific theories, anti-Bible slams, atheistic or Pan-
theistic philosophies, and wild, Marxist-oriented social
reform ideas, and for the most part they go out with no faith
at all or with one so uncertain they are of no earthly good to
the church. I would know that after fifty years of pastoral
experience even if I had never had any higher education; but
like most ministers of my age, I worked my way through school
and finally graduated from both college and seminary at the
age of 31. The only reason I did not become a "modern" minister
and betray my Saviour was because I had a personal experience
of salvation at the age of sixteen. For me Bible Christianity
worked then; and it works in real Christian schools today. A
return to it in all our schools could again give us that lost
creative spark and basic humanity. I hope you will try Jesus
Christ
and stop wasting your time trying to reform the world
with unconverted sinners.

Sincerely,
Sign off missing from this letter

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June 26, 1970

The Reverend Ralph T. Nordlund
586 Maple Street
Fostoria, Ohio 44830


Dear Mr. Nordlund:

Since you and I appear to live in two different worlds, it is almost im-
possible to reply in any constructive way to your letter of June 3. I do
appreciate your writing, however, and I would agree that if everyone would
accept your version of Jesus Christ I wouldn't have very many problems to
worry about. At a university, however, many ideas are in conflict and our
job, hopefully, is to help each of our students develop a philosophy of life
meaningful to him.

I can also agree that Inkstone is not one of our proudest publications.
Your correction of my grammar is also appreciated. The mistake was mine,
I ruefully admit, and not my secretary's.

Your use of the word condemn in connection to my reaction to Dave
Smith
's reporting seems rather strong. You also persist reading into my
reaction to the so-called "New University" a lack of knowledge about its
scope and objectives which perhaps does neither of us justice. Both
Dr. Coffman and I well knew that a few students wanted the optional grad-
ing to apply to all their courses so that they could play hooky for the re-
mainder of the quarter. We also were confident, however, that the faculty
would not put up with such charlatanism any more than I would but since
you seem to have a rather low regard for my perspicacity and administrative
ability, it is perhaps foolish to pursue further the accuracy of Mr. Smith's
reporting.

Since I will be leaving the state shortly, I am afraid your letter terminates
our correspondence. Even though we haven't seen eye to eye on most matters,
I do appreciate your interest and your concern for our young people.

Good luck and best wishes.

Cordially,

Wm. Travers Jerome III
President

WTJ:da