Chapter XXVI. CAMPUS CRISIS

   Details of the events of April 15-June 14, 1970, at Miami University are recorded in a 52-page typescript "Diary of Disruption," compiled by the Miami University Office of Public Information. This chronology eschews subjective interpreting and evaluation. A brief "Report on the Closing of Miami University," comprising news media accounts, was issued as a Newsletter of the Miami Alumnus, dated May, 1970. Interpretation and evaluation are included in the 30-page "Report of the President's Commission to Investigate the Events of April 15, 1970" and in the 26-page SCAR report "Findings of the Select Committee on the Abuse of Rights." Various viewpoints are represented in the concurrent minutes of the University Senate, Miami University Faculty Council, Miami University Council of Deans, Miami University Council of Student Affairs, and the Miami University Student Senate. Soon after the Kent State tragedy Reader's Digest sent researchers and editors to Kent to gather information on the events of the first week of May, 1970. Interviews with students, faculty, University officials, and the Ohio National Guard were followed by visits to other Ohio institutions--Ohio State University, Ohio University, and Miami University--that had experienced campus disruption. Author James Michener was called in three months after Kent's violent weekend. From his own interviews, observations and researches, along with the accumulated mass of information, came his volume Kent State, New York: Random House, 1971. (n.b. While the Thomas Hume epigraph on the title page of The Miami Years seems contradicted by this chapter, one may reflect that times are always trying, and no path of life can be free of obstacles.)