"...[T]here were numerous "houses" worthy of mention whose only names were simply their addresses. Summer of '68 saw 412 and 1/2 South Holmes just south of the main drag in Lansing not far from the capitol. The likes of Bill Faunce, Denny McGuire, Tom-Tom, Sue Juni, Rebecca Morris and numerous others came and went. It was a 4-plex that we eventually took over in its entirety. ..."

"...435 MAC was the place to be. I truly regret that there is no evidence of Richard Levis' amazing day-glo Chinese dragons. Richard's room was long with straight vertical walls that then sloped to a flat ceiling. Levis painted several dragons which were 4 or 5 feet high very intricately and detailed with day-glo colors. He then painted the space between the dragons in black. When he turned his black light on at night, the dragons came alive. I remember one night..., we realized that Richard's dragons had attracted a crowd of about 20 people down on the street who could see the dragons through the window. They were most appreciative. I remember sitting and talking in the kitchen at 435 MAC with Keith Fleeman and John Yost while Bob Lustig took a shower in the bathroom next to the kitchen which had a tendency to periodically and suddenly lose all hot water. Our conversation was punctuated several times when the hot water ran out and Bob would scream "Goddamn reality". Someone told me that 435 MAC had burned down. Those houses were a lot of fun. Hope everyone else had just as good a time. "

"In the summer of '69, 500 Charles St started with Bill Ivey, Richard Resco, Ted Strunk and myself and ... it was a lot of fun..."

Established in the fall of 1972... The Think Tank was a house full of JMC people just east of the campus. The membership varied, but at various times included [...the people listed to the left...]

The house is still standing, but now it's painted white instead of light green. I drive past it when I visit East Lansing and remember the good old days. We used to sit on the front porch and discuss cosmic truths. Here are a few memories.

Food, an important part of student life. We tried to have dinner together every day and got adventurous in our cooking. Cooking duty rotated daily. For a while we had a rule that no cook could make the same meal twice. Things really got interesting when Jay bought some squid and found a Vietnamese cookbook in the MSU Library. The communal meals really gave the place a family atmosphere. We used to make a weekly trip to the Farmers Market in downtown Lansing for fruit and vegetables. I still think of the occupants as my brothers and sisters.

We did not have a television. For some weird reason, the sound of the local CBS TV station could be picked up at the far end of the FM radio dial. During dinner we would listen to Walter Cronkite, without the visuals. At the end of the broadcast, he would close by saying "and that's the way it is.'' In unison, we would all respond "no it's not."

Housekeeping and cleaning was done on Sunday morning, because everyone was there and able to pitch in. The Allman Brothers were the housework music.

The building in whose auditorium JMC's I & E movies were presented each week.

"Bing, bong, bing, bong......These are the balls of Beaumont Phallus, on the parklike campus of Michigan State University....."

"...a mutant lineal descendent of Pillowcayse and Midnight Sun that was playing on the weekends at Brown's Pizza Tavern in Laingsburg; when the snow was deep, a number of the locals drove in to the bar cross-country on their snowmobiles..."

"Bonzo Flatt's line-up was familiar players on unfamiliar instruments - - the electric piano player was a Laingsburg local who had gotten the gig at Brown's, John Sase had moved from bass to the Gibson SG and was writing a rock operetta featuring classics such as the unforgettable "Burgers of Love" and a Mott the Hoople-ish collaboration titled "Watch Out Buddy" which made it into the set list as well as another more precious concept piece organized around a song titled "Shattered Glass" which didn't, Mike Eddy had moved from keyboards to bass and was working a John Entwhistle/Paul McCartney stylistic groove, Brad Laing had set down his guitar and moved to drums, and I had been promoted from Midnight Sun's roadie to vocals and second guitar parts on Mike's clavinet in Bonzo Flatt, as well as some dubious between-set covers of Tom Waits and Randy Newman songs performed under the name Fred Bubba Freejohn Sinclair on the electric piano..."

"The standard set list for Bonzo Flatt included the aforementioned originals, some I've forgotten and of course.....Wipe Out, Smoke on the Water, All Right Now, Brown Sugar, the obligatory Mitch Ryder medley, assorted Chuck Berry, some Hank Williams, a bunch of Velvet Underground and New York Dolls tunes.....and Proud Mary. The patrons at Brown's insisted on hearing Proud Mary and Wipe Out during every set... The mix of classic covers, proto-punk, and Dolls-style glam was not exactly what many of the bar's patrons, mostly farmers who came primarily for cold beer and hot euchre tournaments, had come to expect on the weekend."

"One name that hardly anyone will remember except for those from the first year or two was "Cellar Dwellers". It used to be where the offices in the basement of Snyder were located. It was the only one that didn't start with "S". This precinct was in use for only the first and maybe second year of JMC until they switched it over for offices. I remember it was a sad day for all of us that lived there when we found there would be no more Cellar Dwellers."

"Gary Cohn had lived in the house earlier and was responsible for the mediterranean yellow sun color scheme of the living room, Jim Grossfeld lived in the house later after I disappeared in the middle of spring semester drowning in debt and unpaid back rent."

"It is my belief that Chateau Clarizio was the birthplace of the "End of the World Party," a phenomenon transplanted to Monterey California in 1980 under the title "End of the World Party: Apocolypse How?" and picked up by a stray partygoer who took it upstate to Chico State University, where it has become a recurring college phenomenon that has gotten national press."

An adjective connoting a scope of interest spanning multiple cultures (and hence multiple nations). One of the most common descriptors for the viewpoint represented in the JMC model and the outlook expected of a JMC graduate.

"Eleutheria - now there was a house! 23 people, 2 dogs and uncounted cats.

I had the extreme pleasure of living in the ground floor bedroom, the only one with its own private bath and the only bathtub in the house - which I shared freely. The side of our house was adjacent to the back of Yat Wah restaurant on Grand River, ensuring the scent of egg rolls wafting through the house continuously.

If you wanted to know how to live on the cheap, the residents of Eleutheria could give you plenty of tips. On many a Friday or Saturday night, a small contingent (2-3) people from the house would go to the front door of the movie theater that opened onto Abbott, buy their tickets, then proceed to the back door to open it for their friends waiting there.

Magazine subscriptions - we had plenty. I remember one subscription that arrived monthly for Ronald McDonald at our house and another, a subscription for Playboy that arrived for the artfully named subscriber Mal E. Chauvino.

Other JMC people I remember living there were Wes and Ernie (last names?) and Tom Prosper was around a lot, but I'm not sure he lived there.

There was communal eating at dinner (participation optional), but I did not participate because there was way too much poached fish.

The dining room had four or so rectangular tables pushed together in the center of the room to make one huge table. House meetings would find 12-20 people around the table... Really, the only conflict I remember in the house was dishes - but it was never ultimately resolved - the double institutional sinks in the kitchen were always piled high, although Ernie washed a LOT of dishes. ...

Another good memory was that occasionally someone (anyone in a good mood) would make pancake batter and leave it on the counter along with an electric griddle so that we could make our own when we got up. The house was co-ed in every way and even bathrooms were not segregated. You could be in the shower on the second floor and have an announced person of either sex just come in to take a pee. You didn't see them, they didn't see you, so what difference did it make. I believe that is the finest place I have ever lived in my life. I had already moved out when the house burned down. A great loss to the community -- I still go visit the site from time to time when in E.L."

Anthony Hall (former home of the world's largest hairball and the I&E film series) was on the corner of Shaw and Farm Lane.

1. JMC-era nickname for Ed Keller (ID'd in the 'Grill Rats' photo)
    
   
2. JMC-era nickname for Mike Rosati.

For more about the notion of a Field of Concentration, see the JMC Concept Page.

1. A project or course of study pursued by a student under the supervision of a faculty advisor and conducted at a site off-campus within the United States.
    
   
2. One of three ways in which a JMC student could satisfy his / her requirement for an entire term dedicated to personal education / experience. (Cf. the JMC Curriculum)

1. A popular R. Crumb cartoon character of the late 1960's / early 1970's - the existentially-challenged nebbish always bugging Mr. Natural for enlightenment.
    
   
2. The JMC-era nickname of Chris Boughton (Baughton?).

1. A project or course of study pursued by a student under the supervision of a faculty advisor and conducted at a site off-campus outside the United States.
    
   
2. One of three ways in which a JMC student could satisfy his / her requirement for an entire term dedicated to personal education / experience. (Cf. the JMC Curriculum)

1. A popular R. Crumb cartoon character of the late 1960's / early 1970's - a stylized tomcat with morals (or lack of same) to match.
    
   
2. The JMC-era nickname of Chris Boughton (Baughton?).
    
   
3. The JMC-era nickname of Paul Luezac (spelling?).

"Although it may not have been limited to the bridge/poker/hearts crowd we always referred to ourselves as 'GRILL RATS'..."

"My bridge crowd were folks like Bob Bao, Rahman Padmanabhan, Mark Dirasian, Tom (Robot) (last name?), Jessie Rosenbury, Chris Pino, etc. Remember any of those? I always remember Rahman twitting Bao with the phrase, "Bao, you live in a tree!" He also coined Panmanabhan's first law of poker, "The shark plays his cards, the fish plays his chips."

- Stewart Lachman, September 2002

"The Grove Street Roof and Porch Brigade -- that's what my friends and I called Grove Street residents in the year of 70-71.

At the time I lived in a three-story gray (unnamed) house on Grove at Elizabeth(?) (first corner north of 7-11). The second and third floors formed one unit with 4 women and the first floor had 3 or 4 other women, one of whom was Carolyn Forche, whose bedroom was the sun porch at the front of the house. I got to know her one night when she was home alone and her cat was giving birth, because she thought I might want to come see the kittens being born.

Down the street lived Carolyn's ex-husband who played the flute, and across from him (right next to the 7-11, which had just been built), Phil and Jerry lived, friends of my roomate Maja Piff. It was a time of candle-making and we did a lot of that. One of my favorite memories of that time was when Phil and Jerry and Maja and I piled into the car, with 20 degree weather and blowing snow, to go to the drive-in, where we saw Barbarella."

1. A self-directed course of study on a topic conducted by a student under the supervision of a faculty advisor. A student would lay out a study plan for an academic term on a given subject, get the advice and approval of a JMC faculty member in the relevant area, and conduct that study for credit. JMC students effectively had unlimited opportunities for independent study within the JMC Curriculum.
    
   
2. One of three ways in which a JMC student could satisfy his / her requirement for an entire term dedicated to personal education / experience.

In the mid-1970's, JMC's foreign language requirement was weakened, and the intensive foreign language programs were transferred from Justin Morrill College to the individual language departments of MSU.

"Our international theme threads this entire fabric in a variety of ways. We interpret the word "international" as "cross-cultural" because we are more interested in the relations of mankind than in the relations of nation-states. The college requires the foreign language not only to equip students for cross-cultural study abroad, but also to set a global tone to the succeeding years of college from the very first week of classes. We wanted to get our students quickly inside another major foreign culture, and we assumed the fastest way to start this was through language study. Whether our students go abroad or not, all will have had this liberalizing experience. In addition, all will have had the chance to be taught by a faculty which, in almost every case, has had significant international experience. Many JMC teachers have chosen to give courses with specifically international and cross-cultural topics; some are themselves foreign nationals."

In the remake: "They call it Just Immoral, but it looks Just and Moral to me."

- Fred Little, December 2002

JMC was named for Justin Smith Morrill (1801-1898), eminent U.S. Senator from Vermont. He authored the Morrill Act of 1862 -- the legislation which established the land grant college system. As the first land grant college, Michigan State University has a special tie to Morrill. It is no surprise, then, that MSU's first residential college unit was named for him.

"[L]ate minutes were those things that the women endured because they were locked up at night...I do not remember what the hours were, but if the co-ed happened to be late getting into the front door (all other being locked at 10 p.m.), she was given late minutes, and after so many, the co-ed was restricted to the dorm in the evenings and I believe her parents were notified. ... This was a across campus rule for co-eds. The men on campus were free to come and go as they pleased at any hour." (Dennis Hall, January 2004)

"When I started at JMC in 1966, women had to be in by something like 11pm on weekdays and midnight on weekends; you could arrange to be out later than that on perhaps two occasions per semester. If you came in after the curfew, you accrued late minutes, although I forget what the consequences were...some loss of privileges, I guess, or an earlier curfew." (Grace Higginbottom, January 2004)

"At least the first term I was in Phillips, women still had hours - midnight weekdays, 1 am weekends and 2 special 2 am curfews per term that you could schedule in advance for a big occasion. I assume it was a university-wide dorm regulation ... If you accrued 15 (I think) late minutes, there would be some disciplinary action. But late minutes were recorded each time they occurred - how many mintues after curfew you arrived at the dorm, even if only 2 or 3. So it was a gallant custom for the man who had caused your tardiness to make it up to you the next day with a bouquet of roses totalling the number of late minutes. Don't know if that was just Phillips, or also campus wide." (Nancy Snyder, January 2004)

"The College assumes that the best use of an undergraduate liberal education is to prepare a student for both a satisfying career and a satisfying life. And the College believes that both these goals are best characterized by a life of inquiry, that is a life:

• of intelligent curiosity,
  
• of intellectual development,
  
• of responsible participation,
  
• of lifelong learning."

(MSU Catalog, 1975)

For more about the "Life of Inquiry" notion, see the JMC Concept Page.

1. A phrase (among several) used to connote the notion that JMC was intended to prepare people for learning throughout their lives (i.e., beyond the university experience per se). In the early days, this theme was discernible but not really highlighted. By 1975, the label 'Life of Inquiry' had arisen to describe that for which JMC students were being prepared. It connotes a commitment to lifelong learning, as opposed to compartmentalizing one's educational experience into only the years spent in a university.

   For more about the "Life of Inquiry" notion, see the JMC Concept Page.

   Cf. Life of Inquiry
    
   

2. A phrase ostensibly used in a more narrow sense to denote the continuing / adult education experiments first conducted by JMC under a Ford Foundation grant and alleged to have become a major theme of the College in its latter days.

   "[M]y association with the phrase "Lifelong Learning" is entirely negative. Isn't that what the crippled, post-strike version of JMC eventually became-- a college of "Lifelong Learning"--a sort of commuter school for old folks to come to and take a few classes...."

   - JMC alumnus, August 2002

"...[B]efore co-ed visits started (2 or 3 hours after the football game, door must remain ajar), we had to yell out "man on the floor" if our Dad came to visit. Such sheltering of our (short-lived) virginal fragility!" (Nancy Snyder, January 2004)

"... Mañana House was on the south side of the 3rd floor of Phillips."

It is not known if either the concept or the label 'Mash Bash' occurred on any other occasion prior to or after spring 1969.

To see the announcement for the Mash Bash from The Sheet, go to:

Terminology denoting an experimental approach to JMC course structure and scheduling initiated in Fall Term 1972. Basically, courses were reconfigured as 'modules' which ran for approximately half the term. Some modules were full courses (allowing students to take one thing as a first half module, then switch to something completely different for the second half module). Some modules were interrelated subcomponents of a single track or overarching topical course.

As the Fall 1972 JMC Course Descriptions explained:

"The modular scheduling system is designed to reduce the number of involvements that a student has at one time and thus to enhance the quality and depth of his involvement in each course. In addition to allowing the students to concentrate on fewer courses with less distractions, the modular scheduling system allows greater flexibility of meeting times and places. ...

Dates for the first half modular courses: September 21 - October 20

As described in a science fiction newsgroup: "Moopsball is somewhere between football, an SCA field war, and an improv theater competition. It's difficult to describe briefly. Lasts three days. Teams of people, riding bicycles, armed with hula hoops, frisbees, and long plastic squeaky-hammers. Goals count, but style points count too."

A comprehensive set of moopsball rules is nowhere to be found on the Internet. To get an idea of moopsball's oddities, you might review what effect moopsball as 'primary inspiration' had on the mutation of Capture the Flag into the game described at:

1. The ever-popular R. Crumb cartoon character - a staple of comix, posters, and sly allusions during the late 1960's / early 1970's.
    
   
2. The JMC-era nickname of Jim Back.

"... I did a program together with Maja Piff (Nancy Snyder's roomie) on WMSN called Nero's Fiddle that experimented with a mixture of poetry, music of all genres, and other readings around topics like: "Time and Space" or "The City." We might mix classical, jazz, rock, avant garde poetry, a pargraph from a novel or material from technical and scientific manuals all in the same show. At the time, these were fairly new concepts, and we had a lot of fun."

"I think it was [in] Phillips basement, on the door of the room one faced as one came down the corridor from the main part of the building ... then turned left to an outside door. ... I can remember somebody knew the people (3?) who lived in the room. I didn't. But I was always amused by the sign."

( Keven Bridge: August, 2002 )

NOTE:  This quote is attributed to (a) Merry Prankster Paul Foster and (b) a sign outside Ken Kesey's La Honda home. This phrase was apparently the inspiration for titling a song written by Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead (a song frequently misidentified as "Cardboard Cowboy").

For more on this origin, see:

"Otto: cut off a head and two heads grow in its place;
Cut off an arm and two heads grow in its place."

Otto may also have been a mysterious student looking for a ride to Upper Smegma, just past the Isles of Langorhans, or someone who gave out tips on where to get the hottest water for your tea in the cafeteria"

MSU bureaucratic parlance for 'students making out'. In the early days of JMC (mid- to late-'60's) there were University regulations (or at least guidelines) delineating acceptable norms and limits to such behaviors.

The JMC Library was located on the basement level of Phillips Hall.

I first heard it used in games of progression (or "Oh Hell"). This was a card game where you bid on the number of tricks you thought your hand could capture. The dealer was the last person to bid and was "pimped" if he could not bid a number that would make the total number of bids equal to the total number of tricks. It was first explained to me by Shelley Hamilton.

"Whether it was JMC talk or not, I'm not sure, because I don't remember we had Political Science and Natural Science requirements, but I do remember talk around breakfast tables that a person had to 'go deal with Polly Sci and her brother Nat.'"

When Snyder Phillips went coed, men's and women's living areas were primarily designated in terms of alternating precincts.

Back in the 60's / 70's it was common practice (at least in the men's dorms) for precincts to have names or labels. These names were primarily used to identify that precinct's intramural team(s). Some of the Snyder precinct names have been dredged up from memory and included in this Glossary. They include Cellar Dwellers, Satans, Setutitsorp ('Setutes'), Snark, Spiders (Spyders?), Stalag 17, Sultans, and Superstition.

Occasional rumors to the contrary, we've not yet been able to confirm the existence of a similarly-comprehensive set of precinct names for the Phillips side of the complex.

(Citing Popular Campus Legends:) "The Red Cedar River (aka the Red Sewer River) was polluted with some hideous and uspecified chemicals that were somehow the fault of the University administration." (Mark Jaede, January 2004)

"The story Dan Follette (an Okemos native) told me was that the pollution was due to a battery factory near Okemos. I was quite horrified at the yellow hue of the ice my freshman year." (Kevin Fulton, January 2004)

"...I was instructed as an RA in 68-69 that if any of my charges were to fall in the river I was to get them to Olin ASAP for shots. Whatever was in the river, the medical authorities felt that a mere shower would not be enough to protect a victim of immersion." (Tom Dale Keever, January 2004)

"I do remember that while I lived in Phillips in the mid-70s a friend that fell in the river when their canoe tipped over was sent to the health center for some sort of inoculation against infectious disease. Unfortunately, I can't remember what sort of disease they were worried about, but it was someone I knew well enough to believe the story." (Cleo Parker, January 2004)

A precinct name in Snyder.

"2nd Floor, North End, 1966 - 1967 (home to myself, Jackie Martling, and others) was known as "Setutitsorp". That's right, "prostitutes", spelled DaVinci-style in hopes that our intramural shirts -- one of which I still have -- could somehow sneak by censors; this pre-JMC ploy failed, however, so the shirts simply said, "Setutes"."

"I remember the famous "sleep-in" - we were told that the guys in Snyder were going to come and "liberate" us (and yes, that was the word that was used. We in Phillips thought that interesting, since we didn't think we needed the help... We sat on the stairs to the second floor watching the "liberators" enter the Phillips lobby - some in pajamas and robes!, with pillows... They took up residence in the lobby - so much for the bold move : ) But yes, that was the first step to trading rooms."

"Distinctly uncomplimentary and suggestive of danger (snake + narc) as in:

"I don't know if you should fire that up here, that guy over there looks pretty snarky."

Snyder Hall was opened in 1947.

"The Snyder-Phillips Commune was a theoretical construct overlaying some very interesting concepts. Of course, early in the spring of 70, in a series of meetings in the Snyder dining hall, many of the residents declared the dorms to be a "free" commune, independent of the Michigan State dorm system, with all rules and regulations proclaimed null and void. Specifically, the previously separated men's and women's sides were to become co-ed."

- SOURCE: Jack McCullough, June 2004

"A number of JMCers and friends lived at a house on Kedzie Street dubbed 'Starship Kedzie.'"

"Some of the same people who lived [...in Starship Kedzie...] later settled at the northern edge of East Lansing at a house dubbed 'Stinking Creek Farms' due to its sulphurous well water."

"I recall that during my freshman year (1966-67), men were required to wear ties to Sunday lunch (some referred to it as called dinner, since it offered the evening menu), and the women had to wear skirts." (Kevin Fulton, January 2004)

Any of the myriad such groups conducted as JMC Psychology classes, which JMC students either loved or hated. To illustrate:

"Almost everybody was into T-groups for a while and almost everybody got upset. It was related to drugs and getting high and getting into yourself and getting out of yourself and getting other selves and meditating on your navel and your toenail. That passed also."

(SOURCE: JMC: The 'Middle' Years, 1975)

"I personally found that the T- Groups/Encounter Group I took in the Winter of 70 to have been very influential. Being basically an overeducated, intellectualized, Jesuit high school nerd, the concept of blowing out your feelings in front of other people and then putting your emotions back together again was very scary and liberating. I can also see how you could have a very bad experience under different circumstances."

(SOURCE: David Brigode: A Few Observations on Justin Morrill College)

"Weekly lectures on topics ... are followed by small writing laboratories with a writing coach who leads discussions on the lectures and makes writing assignments based on the lectures and readings. Each group features intensive evaluation of each student's writing and thinking."

"I still remember Jim Yousling fulfilling a long-cherished dream, walking around the campus in a gorilla suit to advertise that week's screenings of "King Kong." The newly possible past-time of watching several movies a day all weekend came to be called "yousling," yielding the back-constructed verb 'to yousle.' "

"... Lived in the basement of Phillips @ 1971 - 1972 and scared the crap out of all us non-urban coeds. They blared "Bang a Gong" [why, I don't know] and never wore ANYTHING but workshirts and jeans. Looks can be deceiving, but they personified scary-hip. I am seeing long dark wild hair and slits for eyes because of the cig/pot smoke."

1. The Anthony Quinn character in a popular film apparently never shown in JMC's Inquiry and Expression series.
    
   
2. The JMC-era nickname of Bill Halvangis (otherwise known as 'Wild Bill').

EMAIL: EnolaGaia@aol.com