Mid-peninsula Free University
Encyclopedia
The Midpeninsula Free University (MFU) was one of the largest and most successful of the many free universities that sprang up on and around college campuses in the mid-1960s in the wake of the Free Speech Movement
at UC-Berkeley and the nationwide anti-war Teach-in
s which followed. Like other free universities, it featured an open curriculum—anyone who paid the nominal membership fee ($10) could offer a course in anything—marxism, pacifism, candle making, computers, encounter, dance, literature, walking in the woods, whatever. Courses were publicized in illustrated catalogs, issued quarterly and widely distributed. It had no campus; classes were taught in homes and storefronts. Its magazine-style, illustrated newsletter, The Free You, published articles, features, fiction, poetry, and reviews contributed by both members and nonmembers. The MFU sponsored, Be-Ins, street concerts, a restaurant, a store, and was actively involved in every aspect of the flourishing counterculture on the Midpeninsula, including the anti-war movement at Stanford.
. Later, as its courses and interests expanded to include the full range of ’60’s counterculture—especially the burgeoning human potential movement
—the MFU adopted a revised Preamble reflecting a more expansive vision—a document which one commentator characterized as “a compelling and almost classical manifesto” of the aspirations of 1960’s counterculture.
In so far as the MFU had a concrete political philosophy, it was the belief that the counterculture harbored the potential for a new politics—open, more humane, and more creative—one that could lead to a true community and a better society. Realizing that potential would require a radical transformation of personal and interpersonal relationships. Eventually the MFU came to focus on the encounter group and the psychodrama as the primary vehicle for that transformation.
The MFU strove for full participatory democracy
. All significant decisions were made by the membership, either at monthly membership meetings or weekly Coordinating Committee meetings open to any member who wished to participate and presided over by an elected Coordinator.
The character of the MFU was defined as much by the concrete struggles and controversies it confronted as by its declared aims and goals. There was, first of all, its unsuccessful quest for a much needed community center. A site was found, but at the last moment the landlord, a prominent Palo Alto lawyer, reneged. That led to a peaceful demonstration and a series of street concerts featuring local rock bands. Not long after, the MFU was denied the right to hold one of its regular be-ins at a city park. It further antagonized the already hostile city fathers and the conservative Palo Alto Times by going to court, having Palo Alto’s park ordinance declared unconstitutional, and holding its Be-In as scheduled. All of this occurred as opposition to Stanford’s involvement in war related research was crystallizing. MFU members participated in the protests and sit-ins which ultimately—after injunctions, mass arrests and trials—resulted in Stanford divesting itself of the Stanford Research Institute and eliminating ROTC. While all that was happening, the MFU—along with Kepler’s Books, the local Kennedy Action Corps headquarters, the Resistance, and the home of a Palo Alto Councilmember who supported gun control—became the target of a series of firebombings, conducted by a right-wing group calling themselves the Society of Man.
Its editorial policy was, like the MFU’s classes, wide-open. Any member of the community could submit an article, story, poem or what-have-you, and it would be published with minimum editing by the staff. It also published original work by well-known writers and poets—Ken Kesey
, Wendell Berry
, Robert Stone, Thom Gunn
, Ed McClanahan
, Gurney Norman
.
was the principal speaker at an early organizational meeting; Herbert Marcuse
taught a seminar; Joan Baez
lectured on non-violence; Norman O. Brown
, Stewart Brand
, Richard Alpert (later, Ram Dass
), Alexander Lowen
, Robert Hass
, and David Harris
all taught classes at one time or another.
While the MFU model was egalitarian, much of its success was due to a core group of leaders and a dedicated staff, all of whom taught classes and most of whom held elected positions: Robb Crist, Vic Lovell, Robert Cullenbine
, Kim Woodard, Larry Tesler
, Marc Porat
, Jim Warren, John McCarthy
, Graham and Rene Lewis, Tom Reidy, Roy Kepler, Kathy Kirby, Tom Crystal, Gail Teel, Grace Olsen, Mark Jensen, Docey Baldwin, Dorothy Bender, and Jim Wolpman, to name a few.
The Free You newsletter was first edited by Jim Warren and later by Fred Nelson, Ed McClanahan
, Gurney Norman
, and Jon Buckley. Bob Palmer was its master printer; Nina Wolf, Joan Larimore, Emil Pierre, Lee Reeves, and Phil Trounstine were responsible for most of its graphics and much of its photography.
operation directed at dissident political organizations—conducted extensive surveillance of the MFU and many of its leaders. The available FBI file runs about 200 pages, with numerous redactions. Informants were utilized. Individual names were noted, and a number of members were included or considered for inclusion in the FBI’s “Security Index” of persons to be detained without warrant should a crisis occur.
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
at UC-Berkeley and the nationwide anti-war Teach-in
Teach-in
A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific frame of time or an academic scope of the topic. Teach-ins...
s which followed. Like other free universities, it featured an open curriculum—anyone who paid the nominal membership fee ($10) could offer a course in anything—marxism, pacifism, candle making, computers, encounter, dance, literature, walking in the woods, whatever. Courses were publicized in illustrated catalogs, issued quarterly and widely distributed. It had no campus; classes were taught in homes and storefronts. Its magazine-style, illustrated newsletter, The Free You, published articles, features, fiction, poetry, and reviews contributed by both members and nonmembers. The MFU sponsored, Be-Ins, street concerts, a restaurant, a store, and was actively involved in every aspect of the flourishing counterculture on the Midpeninsula, including the anti-war movement at Stanford.
Aims and goals
Its original Preamble focused on the criticism of education found in SDS’s Port Huron StatementPort Huron Statement
The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society , written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Michigan, a...
. Later, as its courses and interests expanded to include the full range of ’60’s counterculture—especially the burgeoning human potential movement
Human Potential Movement
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...
—the MFU adopted a revised Preamble reflecting a more expansive vision—a document which one commentator characterized as “a compelling and almost classical manifesto” of the aspirations of 1960’s counterculture.
In so far as the MFU had a concrete political philosophy, it was the belief that the counterculture harbored the potential for a new politics—open, more humane, and more creative—one that could lead to a true community and a better society. Realizing that potential would require a radical transformation of personal and interpersonal relationships. Eventually the MFU came to focus on the encounter group and the psychodrama as the primary vehicle for that transformation.
Enrollment, curriculum and governance
In its most active and successful years—1968-1969—enrollment varied between 1,000 and 1,275. Between 150 and 300 courses were offered each quarter, covering a variety of categories: Encounter/Sensitivity (26%), Arts (15%), Philosophy & Religion (13%), Crafts (12%), Politics & Economics (12%), Leisure (10%), Whole Earth Studies (8%), Education (4%). It was known for its intriguing and disparate mix of classes.The MFU strove for full participatory democracy
Participatory democracy
Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...
. All significant decisions were made by the membership, either at monthly membership meetings or weekly Coordinating Committee meetings open to any member who wished to participate and presided over by an elected Coordinator.
Community and political involvement
The MFU brought together in classes and at meetings the diverse, overlapping and sometimes divergent, strains of the local counterculture—artists, crafts-people, writers, leftists, pacifists, dissatisfied liberals, disaffected street-people, environmentalists, people involved or interested in mysticism, computers, encounter, drugs, rock music and sexual freedom. It also supported, publicized, and collaborated with other countercultural organizations on the Midpeninsula and throughout the Bay Area.The character of the MFU was defined as much by the concrete struggles and controversies it confronted as by its declared aims and goals. There was, first of all, its unsuccessful quest for a much needed community center. A site was found, but at the last moment the landlord, a prominent Palo Alto lawyer, reneged. That led to a peaceful demonstration and a series of street concerts featuring local rock bands. Not long after, the MFU was denied the right to hold one of its regular be-ins at a city park. It further antagonized the already hostile city fathers and the conservative Palo Alto Times by going to court, having Palo Alto’s park ordinance declared unconstitutional, and holding its Be-In as scheduled. All of this occurred as opposition to Stanford’s involvement in war related research was crystallizing. MFU members participated in the protests and sit-ins which ultimately—after injunctions, mass arrests and trials—resulted in Stanford divesting itself of the Stanford Research Institute and eliminating ROTC. While all that was happening, the MFU—along with Kepler’s Books, the local Kennedy Action Corps headquarters, the Resistance, and the home of a Palo Alto Councilmember who supported gun control—became the target of a series of firebombings, conducted by a right-wing group calling themselves the Society of Man.
The Free You newsletter
The Free You was no ordinary newsletter. Besides the usual announcements and in-house news, it published stories, poems, essays, humor, reviews, travel pieces, re-prints, commentary, and even recipes, accompanied by photographs, illustrations and art work, often in color, in a magazine-like format, utilizing the recently developed IBM Selectric Composer. Like the catalogs, which used the same technology, it was widely distributed.Its editorial policy was, like the MFU’s classes, wide-open. Any member of the community could submit an article, story, poem or what-have-you, and it would be published with minimum editing by the staff. It also published original work by well-known writers and poets—Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
, Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
, Robert Stone, Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
, Ed McClanahan
Ed McClanahan
Ed McClanahan is an American novelist, essayist, and professor.-Biography:Edward Poage McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky in 1932 to Edward Leroy and Jesse McClanahan. He attended school there and later in nearby Maysville, Kentucky where the family relocated in 1948. McClanahan...
, Gurney Norman
Gurney Norman
Gurney Norman is an American novelist, documentarian, and professor.-Biography:Gurney Norman was born in Grundy, Virginia in 1937...
.
Decline and demise
By late 1969, the political and life-style tensions latent in the counterculture had emerged, and the leadership of the MFU—weary and frustrated in their attempts to realize its aims and aspirations—looked for a new generation of leaders and another path. That new leadership came from a group of members affiliated with the Revolutionary Union, a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization, which later became Venceremos (political organization). In 1970 it took control of the MFU, repudiated its Preamble and re-organized its newsletter. Enrollment fell to 700 in 1970 and to 70 by 1971; in July the MFU was disbanded.People
Course leaders came primarily from the community. Some were well known and some were prominent visitors: Paul GoodmanPaul Goodman
Paul Goodman may refer to:*Paul Goodman , British politician*Paul Goodman , American ice hockey player*Paul Goodman , Grammy Award-winning sound engineer...
was the principal speaker at an early organizational meeting; Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
taught a seminar; Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
lectured on non-violence; Norman O. Brown
Norman O. Brown
Norman Oliver Brown was an American classicist.-Life:Brown's father was an Anglo-Irish mining engineer. His mother was a Cuban of Alsatian and Cuban origin...
, Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...
, Richard Alpert (later, Ram Dass
Ram Dass
Ram Dass is an American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem...
), Alexander Lowen
Alexander Lowen
Dr. Alexander Lowen was an American psychotherapist. A student of Wilhelm Reich in the 1940s and early 1950s in New York, he developed Bioenergetic Analysis, a form of mind-body psychotherapy, with his then-colleague, John Pierrakos...
, Robert Hass
Robert Hass
Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He was awarded the 2007 National Book Award and the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Time and Materials.-Life:...
, and David Harris
David Harris
David Harris may refer to:In politics and government:* David B. Harris, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service planner and terrorism consultant* David Harris , the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee...
all taught classes at one time or another.
While the MFU model was egalitarian, much of its success was due to a core group of leaders and a dedicated staff, all of whom taught classes and most of whom held elected positions: Robb Crist, Vic Lovell, Robert Cullenbine
Robert Cullenbine
Robert Cullenbine was one of the Merry Pranksters and a coordinator at Mid-peninsula Free University.-Biography:Robert "Bob" "Cully" "Papa Elf" Cullenbine was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Yale and Washington University prior to moving in 1958 to Palo Alto, California. He served in...
, Kim Woodard, Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler
Larry Tesler is a computer scientist working in the field of human-computer interaction. Tesler has worked at Xerox PARC, Apple Computer, Amazon.com, and Yahoo!...
, Marc Porat
Marc Porat
Marc Porat is an entrepreneur in information technologies and sustainable materials. He is currently Chairman of Serious Materials, a manufacturer of sustainable building materials, and chairman and CEO of CalStar Cement....
, Jim Warren, John McCarthy
John McCarthy (computer scientist)
John McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He coined the term "artificial intelligence" , invented the Lisp programming language and was highly influential in the early development of AI.McCarthy also influenced other areas of computing such as time sharing systems...
, Graham and Rene Lewis, Tom Reidy, Roy Kepler, Kathy Kirby, Tom Crystal, Gail Teel, Grace Olsen, Mark Jensen, Docey Baldwin, Dorothy Bender, and Jim Wolpman, to name a few.
The Free You newsletter was first edited by Jim Warren and later by Fred Nelson, Ed McClanahan
Ed McClanahan
Ed McClanahan is an American novelist, essayist, and professor.-Biography:Edward Poage McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky in 1932 to Edward Leroy and Jesse McClanahan. He attended school there and later in nearby Maysville, Kentucky where the family relocated in 1948. McClanahan...
, Gurney Norman
Gurney Norman
Gurney Norman is an American novelist, documentarian, and professor.-Biography:Gurney Norman was born in Grundy, Virginia in 1937...
, and Jon Buckley. Bob Palmer was its master printer; Nina Wolf, Joan Larimore, Emil Pierre, Lee Reeves, and Phil Trounstine were responsible for most of its graphics and much of its photography.
FBI surveillance
From 1968 through 1971, the FBI—as a part of its nationwide COINTELPROCOINTELPRO
COINTELPRO was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.COINTELPRO tactics included discrediting targets through psychological...
operation directed at dissident political organizations—conducted extensive surveillance of the MFU and many of its leaders. The available FBI file runs about 200 pages, with numerous redactions. Informants were utilized. Individual names were noted, and a number of members were included or considered for inclusion in the FBI’s “Security Index” of persons to be detained without warrant should a crisis occur.