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Show The Broad Ax June 1975 Page 15 May Dear Friend: | : The mid-America Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel is announcing its first membership drive. Approximately 300 people met at the Abbey in Fontana, Wisconsin in November of 1974 and ratified the Association’s 1, 1975 Constitution. Since that time the Association’s Executive Committee has held three meetings, one a dinner meeting with Dr. Joseph Cosand, former Chairman of the American Council on Education and a member of the Carnegie Commission. : Quite recently two members of the Executive Committee were invited to testify on HR 3471 before the House Committee on Postsecondary Education. As you can see, the Association is determined to involve itself seriously and responsibly in the issues and policy questions affecting American higher education. For persons who were at the Abbey Conference, it is especially important that you join. What you began there cannot continue unless you support it. The courage and conviction demonstrated at the Abbey ment higher educational community became a key target. Associations and groups, mostly outside of higher education, sprang up to address the many concerns, fears, and hopes of that time. It was also around this time that Upward Bound emerged, and with Upward Bound there developed a cadre of professional educators who have been described by a ‘member of their own ranks as: ‘We, the willing, led by the unknowing are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much with so little for so long, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” with regionalization _ education and American society. With social that in change in- mind, we f would like to invite you to join MAEOP. has not in framework peers. of a bona and my unity within the fide association of our Accordingly, | hope that project directors, their staffs, and other professionals in the postsecondary community complete the enclosed application form. Persons who are not members of the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin Associa- tions qualify only for affiliate membership; affiliate members cannot vote or hold office, but such members do enjoy all the other advantages of the Association. Finally, keep in mind that our first annual conference will be held again at the Abbey 9-192. on November Sincerely, MAEOP, many of us feel, is rooted in that sentiment and is therefore very much a part of a broad movement toward policy reform in higher unusual, judgement worked as well in other regions as it has here, but centralization of USOE authority offers no long-term solutions either. The solution, generally speaking, to many of our problems and concerns, even beyond the question of federal sponsorship, rests to a large extent in professional Political and social tumuly and tragedy of the sixties both broadened and deepened our awareness and understanding of inequities in our society. Professor Coleman’s monumental report of 1966 came like a rifle shot and the was dramatically different from the attitudes and behavior patterns of Trio folk in many other regions. Yet even now, what you have accomplished to date is beginning, particularly in Region Ill, to penetrate the apathy, and frankly, the insecurity, that Trio personnel feel in other parts of the country. The experi- Arnold L. Mitchem, President Mid-America Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel |
