George Conklin


I married in 1965. My wife was a member of a pacifist church, The Brethren in Christ. Had I joined, I probably could have gotten CO status. However, I was in graduate school and had a 2-S, which I kept until I started teaching. My draft board apparently had enough people and never took me off the 2-S status.

I was opposed to the Vietnam war, but never had to make a decision about what to do if drafted. I was in my first year of teaching when Kent State shut down my classes. I was Syracuse University at the time, and the 'radicals' came into class and took it over. It was a large lecture hall with several hundred students. Apparently half the campus knew they were going to push me aside. I did not.

However, at the last moment the university was closed. I made the announcement from the back of the room to 450 students while my welcoming committee was sitting on the stage.

The right-wing students demanded the scheduled exam. Most just walked out. The welcoming committee was totally deflated. I had no idea who they were and had not seen them before. Later I found out that most of the graduate students in sociology had been in the audience, since it had been advertised as an upcoming show. When I cancelled the class, the committee up front looked like they had been had. They simply walked out protesting that I should not have canceled class. In reality, I supported what they were doing, so there would have been no fight or anything.

It was a hell of a way to begin a teaching career, although I had been a TA and done other teaching before that.

Following the standoff, students occupied the administration building. How it all worked out I don't remember, but I do remember the head of the City of Syracuse police force visiting the students in the administration building. It was all handled with taste. You mention Camus in your questions. He died in 1961, as I remember, and had nothing to do with the anti-war movement. Satre, of course, did.

I was a TA at Wharton school when I saw the first of the changes of the later 1960s. It was in 1967 in a Principles of Sociology class taught by Rodney Mott (of GM fortune). Students stopped wearing sports jackets and ties one by one. One day a male arrived in class wearing a "Joe's Texaco" set of grease moneky overalls. I felt sure someone would ask him to leave. No one said a world. That was the start. I'll never forget the Texaco star on the back of his overalls.