"I was fleeing from the impersonality and bureaucracy of a great state university." Thus Friedman explained his reasons for coming to Sarah Lawrence from Ohio State University. Just as surely Friedman was reacting against his undergraduate years at Harvard. He described going to classes "scribbling notes furiously, and listening to nazal lectures." In sum, "I learned discipline there, but missed any dialogue at Harvard."

Frustrated as a teacher at Ohio State, Friedman began a careful study of the unique educational policy being pioneered at Sarah Lawrence. Convinced, he came East and joined the Sarah Lawrence faculty in 1951.

Four branches of the "experimental" system impressed Friedman particularly. He listed them. (1) "A teacher giving a course of his own choice and divising makes it more meaningful for himself and for his students;" (2) "I was tired of grades, and besides, I don't believe in them;" (3) "I liked the 'Conference' system;" and (4) "I believe in education through an exchange of ideas."

But the pure Sarah Lawrence system exists no more. Friedman pointed to the areas of change. In the last decade the student body has increased from 370 to 540. The faculty, too, has been expanded, though not proportionately. With size has come impersonality and a diminished dedication to the original "experimental" plan.

The First Examinations

With the introduction of lecture courses have come the first examinations in the school's history. Furthermore, due to the expanded student body, the most popular classes are invariably oversubscribed. As a result, many students wind up taking their fourth and fifth choice courses.

The key to Sarah Lawrence's personality remains the individual students and teachers; and in them seems to lie the real shift. For as Friedman noted, most students who come to Sarah Lawrence might just as easily have gone to Radcliffe or Barnard. More and more the Sarah Lawrence girl could pass for an "eighth sister," though not yet an identical twin.

By deciding what courses will be given and how, teachers share responsibility for the school's tone. Friedman's classes stress "dialogue" and "interaction of teacher and student"--terms which he savoured continually while discussing Buber's edu-educational theory. But another, more traditional teacher, might make his course as conventional as he chose. And more and more, as the faculty expands, the college acquires the latter breed.

Francis Randall is such a one. "A. B., Amherst College. M.A., Ph.D. Columbia University. Taught at Amherst College, 1956-59; Columbia University and Barnard College, 1959-1961. Sarah Lawrence College, 1961--." So the college Catalogue describes him.

Asked why he came to Sarah Lawrence, Randall easily replied "they made me such a good offer that I couldn't refuse it." Before accepting, Randall said, he knew little about the college or its educational philosophy.

Then we asked Randall to contrast teaching at Sarah Lawrence with teaching at Columbia or Barnard. He was puzzled. To him the student body seems about the same as that of any Ivy school. And the educational system is, to him, pretty conventional. The reason for this view, as one girl pointed out later, is perfectly simple. In coming to Sarah Lawrence from Columbia, Randall did not change his style of teaching.

We audited his class, "The Soviet Union and World Communism." It meets in a bright square room which has no furniture other than a large round table surrounded by chairs. There were 14 chairs at the table and only nine students. The two chairs on either side of Randall were vacant, giving the class a strained formality. After hearing the popular stories about the school's artistic sloppiness, it was surprising to see the girls neatly dressed. Many wore sweaters, mostly shetland. In front of each girl lay an orderly loose leaf notebook, into which the girls made frequent entries. Several girls kept outline notes.

Randall's style is challenging and inventive; but it leaves little room for dialogue. He was describing the growth of communist parties in Europe. Colorfully, he would illustrate each point with a dramatic example. In England, for instance: "Imagine that you are a communist agent sent to England in 1918 to set up a communist party. You have no previous contacts. Where do you look for help?" The students are somewhat baffled, not by the question, but by the approach. The answer is perfectly simple, but who will bother to give it? It is too simple to offer a challenge, too straightforward to offer a reward. In a class based on discussion, reward comes in a different form than in a class based on exams. To the Sarah Lawrence girl excitement comes in the form of an original idea finally conceived, not in the image of a multiple-choice test properly answered.

Finally someone answers Randall's question (trade unions and the Socialist party) and he goes on. But his style is consistent. "Who would be more likely to join the Communist party in the United States, displaced Negro workers or consistently employed Ladies Garment Workers?" "In Boston who would be more likely to oppose the government, an Irish fireman or a German grocer? Why?"

Often the questions bring no response. "What European nation besides England had a Socialist party with little Marxist influence?" Then, after the silence, "the answer may seem too obvious," another silence. Then, finally, "Russia herself."