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STEPHEN DONADIO
of boycott or strike by both students and faculty might be in order.
INTERVIEWER:
What is the role of the current Independent Faculty
Group with which you are associated?
PARSONS:
Let me say first of all that at this point I think we should all
be devoting a lot of attention to general proposals for reform of the
University-that's of course the primary mission of the Executive
Committee, and I think both individual faculties and independent
groups on the faculty should be concerned with that. The Indepen–
dent Faculty Group itself, however, has so far been concerned much
more with more immediate issues. In its original conception it was
to be a left center pressure group, and I think that there will prob–
ably be a continuing role for such a group. I don't at this point
think that we're terribly strong. It seems that both the Administration
and a lot of conservative faculty members take a very dim view of
us. The students are not impressed with our power, and find (I
think rightly) that our sympathy with them is less than complete–
although I think they probably tend to underestimate the extent of
our sympathy. We're likely to continue to take positions about the
more immediate issues and also to engage in private discussions with
some of the parties to this dispute-as we already have for instance
with members of the Joint Disciplinary Committee, with members
of the Executive Committee, with students, and to a lesser extent with
members of the Administration (we're not on close enough terms with
them). Our attempt in these discussions is to persuade the various
parties to move in directions which we feel will lead to a resolution
of the conflict.
Lionel Trilling
INTERVIEWER:
What do you regard as the most important issue raised
during the course of the conflict at Columbia?
TRILLING:
It has more and more come to seem to me that the explicit
issues were largely factitious. The gymnasium issue lost its force and
was virtually forgotten as soon as the Trustees made their concessions.
The IDA issue, when examined, was more symbolic than substantive.
The demand for the resignation of the President and the Vice-Presi–
dent was obviously not serious---it was a talking point, a gesture
of
intransigence and was soon dropped. The actual issue, I believe, was
-is-a very large and general one, best to be described as a cultural
issue. The most radical students were expressing their doctrinaire
alienation from and disgust with the whole of American culture. The
less radical but still militant students were attempting to reach a new
Lionel Trilling, George Edward Woodberry Professor of Literature and
Criticism at Columbia, has been active from the beginning in attempts to re–
solve the conflict. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee
of the Faculty.
