An Attempt at Innovative Education in Hawaii: New College in an Historical Perspective, 1969-1973

Abstract

In 1966, a conference of the Union for Research and Experimentation in Higher Education was held in Colorado, at which the President of the Union proclaimed, "Never in the history of higher education has there been a more urgent need to develop fresh approaches and to bring to it the pervading dynamics of change, so that institutions may fully adapt themselves to a world." The 1960s were turbulent years in many parts of the world, including America, and much attention has been devoted to this period of recent U.S. history. It was a decade of social unrest and movements--civil rights movements, women’s liberation movements, anti-war movements, and so on. We saw the deaths of such figures as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King; we watched the nation become entangled more and more deeply in an increasingly unpopular war, far from home--the quagmire that was Vietnam. It was also a decade of frustration, with the threat of the draft and the excitement of teach-ins, the first of which took place at the University of Michigan in 1965. The frustration of America’s young people manifested itself most visibly on university campuses across the nation. The university was the instrument most accessible to students, the draft-age generation, and the university as an institution had little choice but to respond.