Education: Uneasy Return to Campus

As college and university administrators await the return of most students this week, their apprehension turns less on the almost certain resumption of protest than on the possibility of terrorist violence. The worst such incident to date, last month's bombing of the mathematics research center at the University of Wisconsin, left a badly demoralized campus amid the rubble. To assess the implications of that bitter event for academic institutions elsewhere, TIME Correspondent Gregory Wierzynski visited the university and sent this report:

So many shattered windows in nearby buildings are now boarded up that one high administration official ruefully calls the institution "Old Plywood U." Nevertheless, the administrators ironically find comfort in the bombing. They believe that it is the peak of long years of frustration that began with the Dow Chemical demonstrations in 1967. The revulsion it will cause among students and faculty, they think, may help reforge understanding between them.

This will not halt the violence on campus, which officials feel represents the acts of a desperate fringe of "crazies." It should, however, prevent the crazies from drumming up support for massive disruptions. Says Chancellor Edwin Young: "I expect more violence this year, but from fewer people."

That is small cheer. The student body has grown highly cynical. Says Anatole Beck, an activist professor: "The kids don't believe anything any more. The skepticism about ever ending the war is everywhere."

Cynicism and disillusionment with academic life go far beyond politics. Last year cheating reached epidemic proportions. Weary of the poisonous atmosphere, many students have moved into apartments or to outlying farm areas. There they have set up communes and cooperatives to experiment with a more constructive and calmer lifestyle.

Departing Professors. Out of fear and weariness, the faculty has lost much of its zest for teaching. Says Hugh Richards, the 51-year-old acting chairman of the physics department: "I guess what depresses me most is that some of my colleagues are taking a second look at whether academic life is where they can make the most effective contribution and be happy." Many liberal arts faculty members are resentful of what they consider the administration's heavyhanded tactics during the past year. Nineteen professors had their pay docked, for instance, because they did not hold classes during the days of protest following the U.S. incursion into Cambodia.

More and more, professors have been leaving the campus immediately after their classes end each day. Many have taken leaves of absence to wait out the current year. Others have left for other universities and more would follow if there were not so few places to go. Less prestigious institutions have little appeal; more prestigious ones have tensions that often are just as bad.