|
|
||
|
|
Howard John Zitko (1911-2003)
An
obituary Tuesday, May 27, 2003 Howard John Zitko, founder of the World University, died in a
nursing home in Arizona, USA, on November 12, 2003 aged 92. Zitko was responsible, largely single-handedly, for the creation
of the World University Roundtable, an international learned society that
was, some twenty years later, to create the World University in Arizona and,
via its Regional Colleges, in Africa, Asia and South Africa as well. His
vision of education was ambitious and all-encompassing,
rooted in an esoteric spiritual consciousness which pervaded everything that
he did. In his pursuit of the World University ideal of a global educational
establishment transcending national and cultural boundaries, Zitko was far ahead
of his time; many of his ideas concerning
experiential education have since passed into the mainstream contexts of the
non-traditional, open and distance education movements in the USA and
elsewhere. If his pioneering achievement was at times
acknowledged more by a circle of initiates rather than by the public at
large, this was a reflection of the way his ideas had come to capture the
mind of a generation to such an extent that they had ceased to be merely the
property of a single individual and passed into common consciousness. Born on 26 October 1911 and educated at the Universities of
Wisconsin and California, Zitko entered the Christian ministry in the 1930s
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, later becoming pastor of churches in Hollywood and
Huntington Park, California. His interest in spiritual matters transcended
orthodox Christianity, however, and he began to become increasingly involved
with the Arcane school of belief, whose chief protagonist was Alice A.
Bailey. Other esoteric spiritual influences acknowledged by Zitko at this
time included C.W. Leadbeater
(Theosophy), Max Heindel (Rosicrucianism), Manly P.
Hall, Edgar Cayce, Krishnamurti, Aurobindo and Sivananda.
Influenced by these teachings, Zitko became much involved in Lemurian and
Atlantean philosophy, which was at that time to the forefront of spiritual
investigation, and was a leading member of the Lemurian Fellowship, heading
its Midwestern Division. Spurred on by this research, he produced in 1936 his
philosophical masterwork; the Lemurian Theo-Christic
Conception, a complex and extremely wide-ranging work of some 325,000 words
outlining in a lucid and cogent manner his credo, and addressing much that
was then at the forefront of spiritual science and esoteric philosophy. This was presented by the Lemurian Fellowship as a study course
during the 1940s, when it attracted many students, and was subsequently
revised in 1956 and 1979 before publication by the World University Press. In
1940, Zitko had followed the Conception with the publication of, An
Earth-Dweller’s Return, the edited unpublished manuscripts of the spiritual
master Phylos, part of which had
been published in 1884 by the medium Frederick Spencer Oliver as, A
Dweller on Two Planets. These, Zitko also made available to the public,
initially through the Lemurian Press and later through the World University
Press. He was later to author, Democracy in Economics - Streamers of Light
from the New World, World University Insights, and New Age Tantra
Yoga. Zitko’s productive activity was crowned
in 1946, when, inspired by the recent foundation of the United Nations, he
addressed an audience of educators and lay members on the winter solstice at
the Echo Park Women’s Club, Los Angeles, outlining the establishment of a
world university on a world scale with a world programme
that would further the cause of world peace and understanding. From that meeting a board of thirteen
trustees was formed in Los Angeles, resulting in the
incorporation of the World University Roundtable in California on February 24,
1947, as a non-profit religious, educational and charitable corporation that
would work towards the furtherance of the World University vision. Of these
thirteen, comprising spiritual leaders, educators, naturopaths and others,
Zitko was the last to survive, although his colleague Dr. Norman Walker was to
live to the age of 108. It was this board that inaugurated the Los Angeles
Section of the World University in 1948 with forty instructors and a diverse
curriculum; however, the section was to founder for lack of funding and
suitable space a few years afterwards. The World University movement thus
created was to be described as the “Grandaddy” of all such experiments by Dr. Robert Muller,
former secretary-general of the United Nations. In 1950, the erstwhile First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, endorsed
the World University, praising its world peace initiatives. With a mind
towards expansion, Zitko oversaw the creation of the World University
Association of Schools, which was to embrace numerous worldwide institutions
in the succeeding years. The concept, partly born of financial necessity, was
that in each country the university would grow from
the grass roots rather than according to a centralised
plan; in this way existing schools would affiliate to the World University
and in time work towards Regional College status. In 1952, adherents in
Buenos Aires published a four-page informative bulletin about the World
University and distributed 10,000 copies; this complimented the University’s
own bimonthly journal, eventually entitled Liftoff, which continued in
publication for 56 years from 1947 until its last issue in May-June 2003,
bringing news of the World University to its many adherents around the globe.
From 1947 onwards, an Annual Conference was organised
in accordance with the Roundtable constitution, initially at the Roundtable
headquarters, then in Washington, DC from 1967-75, but subsequently expanding
to take in locations in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The 1970
Conference was held simultaneously in Nigeria, the Netherlands and the USA;
after this Conferences took place in, amongst other places, Brussels (1992),
Rome (1993), England (1996), Bali (1997), Korea (1979, 1990), India (1987),
Canada (1984), Puerto Rico (1994), Germany (1995), USA (Los Angeles, 1976,
Oregon, 1977, Texas, 2000) and St Lucia (2002). The 2003 Conference had been scheduled for Arizona, but was pre-empted by
Zitko’s death. It was perhaps these Annual Conferences, which brought
together educators from around the world, that were
the supreme demonstration of the strength of support for the World University
movement. The organisation
of the Roundtable proceeded with the appointment of Chief Delegates in each
country in which there was representation (that total rising to more than 80
countries by the close of the twentieth-century) and the formation of
national offices in those countries beginning with India in 1987 and
succeeded by Nigeria and Ghana in 1991, Italy in 1992, Argentina, Greece,
Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Bangladesh and others. Membership was by invitation,
with each Chief Delegate invited to nominate individuals of considerable
distinction in their fields for the award of the Cultural Doctorate in their
discipline, which honorary award then brought these individuals into the work
of the World University. In addition ordinary
membership of the Roundtable was open to those from all walks of life who
wished to support the endeavour. In time the roll of the Cultural Doctorate membership was to
grow to several hundred, embracing educators, spiritual and political
leaders, business people, writers, artists, musicians and others. One of the
last recipients was the Governor-General of St Lucia, Dame Pearlette Louisy. In India, the
members of the Roundtable were so numerous as to merit the creation of the
“Indian Alumni of the World University” under the chairmanship
of Dr. J.J. Bennett in 1988; the roll of this organisation stood at 88 in 2001. Its activities have
included the reprinting of Liftoff in Indian languages, the sponsorship of
essay competitions, and the involvement in political, social and humanitarian
projects throughout the sub-continent. In 1958, the World University Roundtable offices moved to
Huntington Park from their former location in Hollywood and Burbank, in consequence
of Zitko’s appointment to a new ministry there. He was to hold this
appointment until 1964, when he devoted himself full-time to the work of the
World University. 1962 had seen former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower
advocate a World University in an address to the Confederation of
Organizations of the Teaching Profession in Stockholm, Sweden, and as a result the World University received banner headlines in
the Los Angeles Times. In 1964, Zitko and the World University organised a move to Arizona, where two years later they
reached an agreement with the Horizon Land Corporation to relinquish six
hundred acres leased from the State Land Department. Once it had become clear
that a substantial campus was now a real possibility, the Roundtable trustees
organised the new incorporation of the World
University itself in Arizona as an institution of higher education on
December 21, 1967, having registered the Roundtable in Arizona in 1964. This
represented a fulfilment of the original aims of
the Roundtable conceived some twenty years earlier, thus creating a twofold organisation comprised of a spiritual arm (the
Roundtable) and an academic arm (the University). 1967 also saw the
publication of Michael Zweig’s “The Idea of a World
University” (Southern Illinois University Press) in which the World
University was given honourable mention. In 1969, after surrendering the lease on their previous land,
the World University purchased a complex of buildings in Tucson, to which was added a library, which was to be the University’s home
until 1985. That year saw the purchase of the University’s present home, the
80-acre Desert Sanctuary Campus at the foot of the Rincon Mountain Range near
Benson, Arizona, and two years later, once the move was complete, the Tucson
campus was sold. The Desert Sanctuary Campus had originally been used as a yoga ashram and a school for
disadvantaged young people; now it was adapted for the World University with
the conversion of its nine buildings to provide offices, visitor accommodation
and a substantial library. The library building came to house what is
arguably the finest library on esoteric and spiritual science and related
subjects in the world, consisting of some 25,000 books, manuscripts and other
resources, together with theses that had been submitted
for the cultural doctorate. 2003 had seen a successful restoration project
completed on the library building. The campus, which is of outstanding
natural beauty, also features an Olympic-size swimming pool. Zitko was to
make the campus his home; he received visitors from throughout the world
there, and together with a small staff of volunteers administered the
business of the World University without salary, funded by donations and by
the trust that he had established to support the University in perpetuity.
Chief among this staff must be mentioned Zitko’s
devoted Secretary, Dr. Jill Overway, an expert in
yoga also resident on the campus, who typed and prepared each edition of
Liftoff and handled much in the way of communications, latterly including
messages from around the world via email. The activities of the University expanded to encompass a
substantial publications arm during the 1970s; as
well as Zitko’s writings, it published works of literary criticism, child
development, poetry by the acclaimed Canadian poet Stephen Gill and the
autobiography of impresario Irwin Parnes. By the 1990s the World University was
ready to initiate a series of Regional Colleges, beginning with the North
American Regional College (housed at the Desert Sanctuary Campus) in 1998.
This college published a prospectus of non-traditional experiential and
spiritual studies leading to certificate and diploma awards, with forty-four
faculty members drawn from around the world. Although all courses were offered
by distance learning, some on-campus instruction also took
place, and in 2002 programmes leading to the award
of a research doctorate in association with Zoroastrian College were
made generally available (from which programme Dr.
S.S. Walia was the first to graduate in Energy
Science, following a thesis on the therapeutic qualities of solar energy). In
the following year, the Design, Technology and Management Society initiated
the South African Regional College in Ladismith,
although this was to cease affiliation in 2002 following a change in
management of the DTMS. This was to be followed by
the South East Asian Regional College (the World Association of Integrated
Medicine in India), the West African Regional College and World University
Computer Center (Nigeria) and the Zoroastrian Regional College (the
Zoroastrian College, India). At the time of Zitko’s death, Queen’s
University, Bangladesh (the largest private university in that country) and
the Daya Pertiwi
Foundation, Indonesia, were in the process of seeking Regional College
status. Some twenty or so schools and other organisations, whilst not achieving Regional College
status, were affiliated or associated with the World University; these
included to name but a few, the University for Human Goodness in North
Carolina, USA, the Vidya Yoga Free University,
Brazil, Ansted University, British Virgin Islands
and Malaysia, the International States Parliament for Safety and Peace, the
International Association of Educators for World Peace, the Academy of
Ethical Science, India, and the Mandingo Academy, New York, USA. Other institutions had formed
affiliations with the World University in earlier years, including notably
the Parthasarathy International Cultural Academy,
India, the Accademia Superiore
di Studi di Scienze Naturali
e Psicobiofisiche Prof. Ambrosini
- Diandra International University and Academy,
Italy, Brazil, Spain and USA, and the World University of Intercultural
Studies, Bulgaria. A website was set up by the World University and Roundtable in
1998, and in 2001 this registered 45,784 hits. After
the September 11 attacks, the number of hits snowballed from an average of
1,800 per month to an astonishing 12,959 in the month of those events,
suggesting that a wider audience was turning to the World University in times
of crisis. Each winter solstice from 1956, commemorating the tenth
anniversary of the foundation of the Roundtable, was designated World
University Day and formed the focus for an outpouring of worldwide messages
to the Desert Sanctuary Campus, sharing in telepathic rapport with the
ceremony conducted there. 2002 saw an unprecedented demonstration of support,
with many messages from around the globe producing what Zitko described as a
“stream of love divine”. In his own words, “there never was a greater
conviction among all...that the World University was linked with a Higher
Authority, cognizant of the dedication expressed by all those who have made
the commitment to support the vision which underlies the New World Civilisation of “Light, Love and Power.” The ceremony had
included the Affirmation of Djwhal Khul the Tibetan, a Message of the Master Phylos and Zitko’s own keynote address delivered earlier
that year at the Annual Conference in St Lucia. Zitko was a man of imposing presence and energy, and his
spiritual qualities became quickly apparent in any discourse. He was generous
with his time and encouragement and was an entertaining and thought-provoking
correspondent, sending his review of the year’s events as a Christmas gift
annually. His humanity and warmth were witnessed by the
many friends he counted throughout the entire world, making the Desert
Sanctuary Campus a focus for those who sought an educational and
philosophical ideal that transcended temporal boundaries. One rarely
exchanged ideas with him without leaving with a renewed faith in human
nature. He is survived by his three children Lenodene Muriel, now retired, Terel,
owner of the Landmark Furniture Store in Cottonwood, Arizona, and a spiritual
teacher, Beth Ellen, a professor at Winthrop University, South Carolina, and
his granddaughter Tiffany, a medical student at North Carolina State
University. In answer to the question of how he
maintained his faith in the World University in the face of what was at times
significant opposition, including at one point a death threat against his
person, Zitko replied simply, “Serve as selflessly as possible with your eyes
on the stars and your feet on the ground, and let the result take care of
itself.” The Hon. Professor John Kersey Founder
Member, World University, and Cultural Doctorate Member, World University
Roundtable Vice-Delegate and President, English National Office of the World
University |
|
|
|
|
|
