Thirdly, there is at UMass a Student Senate, which is elected by the students in often spirited campaigns and corresponds roughly to the Harvard Student Council. The Senate has the added power, however of administering the student tax, a tax of approximately $40 a year which finances such items as the University's semi-weekly newspaper and its cattle judging team, a team of agriculture students that competes with groups from other colleges in judging livestock. Since the tax is administered by the popularly-elected Senate, however, it meets practically no opposition from among the students.
Surrounded by Colleges
Although UMass is located in the center of a college area (Amherst is one mile away, Smith and Mt. Holyoke each only a short drive), the student's social life revolves around the co-educational population of the University campus, where the ratio is approximately six men to four women. The social life of the campus, in turn, revolves around the 14 fraternities, which are virtually the only place where students can bring dates (no women are allowed in men's rooms, or vice versa, and no liquor is allowed anywhere on campus except in fraternities). Thus on Saturday evenings the fraternities become official campus hosts, and the problem is not one of exclusiveness but of over-crowding. President Mather expects, however, that the new Student Union, to be built next year, will provide some of the room now badly needed for campus social activities.
There are several distinct advantages that the University of Massachusetts derives from being a state-supported institution, the most important of these being the low cost of the college education offered. Tuition at UMass costs $100 for a whole year, and officials estimate that the student's total expense for a school year should be only $800. Thus many students from low-income families are given access to a college education that would be denied them, and many others, by working during the summer or at term-time jobs, find it possible to have cars at school or to live in fraternity houses.
But there are, on the other hand, a number of disadvantages that the University of Massachusetts must accept along with the financial support of the Commonwealth.
Its students must, for one thing, resign themselves to at least two years of an R.O.T.C. course, since this is compulsory at all state universities, and they must thereby accept a campus atmosphere tinged for all with regimentation and militarism. ("It is disconcerting," said one professor, "to be talking about Plato and hear 'tramp, tramp, tramp' outside the window.")
Also, the University cannot always avoid the political and religious issues which arise when a legislative body is the ultimate director of an educational institution. There can be no chapel on campus, for example, and no chaplain on the University payroll; and courses in religion can not be counted for full credit on a student's record.
Political Pitfalls
President Mather is probably aware more than anyone else at UMass of the political pitfalls awaiting the careless public educator, and he treads an especially fine line between the two political parties. Since this is an election year he is being more careful than ever, and, as he puts it, will be "just a good boy until after the election."
But despite all the hazards of his job, political and otherwise, Mather can see something really worthwhile in the growth of the school he leads.
"Who knows," he wonders out loud as he looks out of his office window across the rolling Massachusetts campus, "may-be someday a cure for cancer will be discovered down there on the other side of the pond (where the University's science buildings are located). After all, streptomycin was found at Rutgers, not Princeton," he says. "A man with brains can go a long way on the campus of a land-grant college," the President adds.