Student Switchboard

One rickety floor above the Patisserie Gabrielle, in a renovated building at 52 Boylston Street, the International Commission of the U.S. National Student Association has its offices. Mimeograph machines, stacks of information bulletins ready for mailing, and shabby gray walls with travel posters covering cracks in the plaster all contribute to the cluttered but "worked-in" appearance of the five-room flat. Yet in the middle of this apparent disorder there are three carefully organized files on student movements from California to Chile. These files indicate the ambitious task of the Commission: to help bring order to the chaotic state of student organizations throughout the world.

Most of this task falls of Paul Sigmund 4G, NSA's international vice-president; John Reichard, a full-time administrator of campus programs; and their staff of three secretaries. The present International Committee is actually the outgrowth of a group of Harvard students who in 1947 made foreign contacts, arranged travel programs, and formed a committee under the Student Council. NSA has now replaced the Student Council organ, although volunteers from the College still work with the NSA Commission.

Requests of all kinds come into the International Commission. Greek students have written for American support of their efforts to free Cyprus from British control, saying that Cypriots were civilized people when the British were still "swinging from trees." Costa Ricans actually appealed to the office for military aid from U.S. students in repelling an invasion "supported by the tyrant of Nicaragua." Students in this country, too, ask for information about many subjects--a proposed tour by Soviet editors, or the best ways to integrate foreign students on U.S. campuses.

To provide full information on such student activities, NSA has sent Americans sleuthing in many parts of the world. Sometimes they have traveled alone, as in the case of three students who went to Asia to report on student organizations. Others have been members of international groups, journeying to such places as Central Africa. Sigmund himself will travel to the Union of South Africa in March to investigate apartheid and academic fredom in the universities there.

The office has been far more than a tour director, however. Last spring it sent to 1,500 universities throughout the world a bulletin in student reactions to the Supreme Court's segregation decision. And each summer, NSA runs a seminar to train American college leaders in the intricacies of international student problems.

With all of its activities--collecting and channeling information, arranging tours for visiting leaders, and working with American colleges in international programs--NSA's International Commission is somewhat like the small but overflowing car in the circus: visitors are often amazed that the little office near the Square accomplished so much.