Mount Holyoke College - Llamarada Yearbook (South Hadley, MA)

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It also imposes constraints upon an in- structor. A significant challenge is that of the development of scholarly expertise in an era of constantly increasing special- ization of subject matter. This trend has both good and bad features, but it ap- pears irreversible. It implies increasing difficulty for the instructor in covering a broad course offering in his discipline and at the same time keeping up with the many recent developments in each area. Institutions dedicated to identifying, dis- secting. and even transmitting social change can cope with important changed occurring within their walls and inside American education in general through collaboration of students, alumni, admin- istrators. teachers, and any others who arc anxious to preserve the values of a liberal education. Robert .. Robertson Life on a college campus makes one almost constantly aware of developments taking place in philosophy. This is especially true of a college like Mount Hol- yoke. Students come from all over the United States and bring with them what they learn from friends at- tending other colleges and universities. What is being taught and discussed elsewhere buzzes around my cars. The buzzing has become noticeably more audible with the more selective student body in recent years. It has also been increased by a lowering of the walls of the college. An intcr-collcgiatc community in the Valley is gradually replacing the independent college commu- nity. Developments in philosophy are communicated and preserved in philosophical periodicals. No apparatus, no computers arc needed as in other disciplines to keep abreast of what is being discussed in philosophy. All that is required is leisure to read the contemporary literature. As for drawbacks, the comparatively small size of a college philosophy department should perhaps be men- tioned. and also the comparative absence of graduate students The latter tend to have a feverish interest in what is occurring elsewhere. George Tovey To an instructor in the social sciences, the liberal arts college, compared with the typical large university, offers distinc- tive academic benefits and raises particu- lar challenges. The benefits are the en- vironment of a community of dedicated, capable students, and opportunities for close faculty-student relations, including those engendered by independent and honors projects.

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SOCIAL SCIENCES ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY Pi of. John 1 obb Assoc. Prof. Vuginia L. Galbraith vo. Prof. William S. Cassels Asm. Prof. Thomas E. Dow. Jr AsM. Prof. Sarah S. Montgomery A«t. Prof. Robert I. Robertson. Jr A«l. Prof. Bulkelcy Smith. Jr. Asst. Prof. Elisabeth J. TooKcr Visiting Lecturer May M, Fbihara Gel land Reader Mary L. Heath HISTORY Pi of, Nonna Adams Pi of. Meribcth E. Cameron Prof. Peter R. Vvereck Assoc. Prof. Mary S. Benson Assoc. Prof. Wilma J Pugh Assoc. Prof. John L. Tcall Mr. Leslie C. Duly Render Mrs. Mary A. Osgood PHILOSOPHY Prof. Roger W Holmes Assoc. Prof Grace I- Rose Assoc. Prof. George V. Tovcy Visiting Assoc. Prof. Joe W. Swanson Avu. Prof Richard S. Robin Visiting Asst. Prof Murray I. Kiteley Reader Mrs. Miriam T. Sajkovic POLITICAL SCIENCE Prof. Ruth C. Lawson Prof. Donald G Morgan Prof. Victoria Schuck Assoc. Prof. Gerhard Loewenberg Asst. Prof. George A Feavet Asst. Prof T. Jean Grossholu Mr. Richard L Hendrickson Miss Barbara Turlington Asst. Elinor C. Hartshorn PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION Prof. Horace H. Corbin Prof. Thomas W. Reese Prof. Richard T. Sollenberger Prof. John Volkmann Assoc. Prof. Lorraine W. Benner Assoc. Prof. John C, Osgood Asst. Prof Edward A Chittenden A»st. Prof Stephen H. Davol Asst. Prof. Rachel I Smith Mrs. Frances M Kerr Sirs. Ellen P. Rccsc Miss Barbara A. Scanned Mary L. Belles Mrs. Gloria H. Sinclair Dorthea Hudelson Asst. Dorothy McKanc RELIGION Prof. J. Paul Williams Asst. Prof, Robert F. Berkey Mr. John F. Piper Mr. Tadanori Yamnshita l ecturer Deane W. Form Lecturer Solomon M Kaplan There is a bi-valent group of subjects which are not completely humanities, not sciences but partable in various proportions on the nature of both . . . a very miscellaneous group, maybe just what was left over. There are two subdivisions, the social studies: economics, political science, sociology and psychology, and the reflective or interpretive studies: history, philosophy and religion. Economics, political science and psychology arc concerned with the behavior of man as a social animal. These subjects are scientific in the sense fhat they pose questions, gather and analyze data and arrive at conclusions. To this extent the scientific method is applicable. Still, in essence, these subjects deal with human beings. The keeping of historical records, the sense of the past and of human development arc essential to civilized beings. Historians arc not trying to be scientific but have the “histoiical method. Though mere fact. the problems of evidence anti how we know about the past and what history is arc very involved. Philosophy is concerned with the problems of individual conduct and the theories of human life and its meaning, but logic comes very close indeed to mathematics. Religion in our curriculum is a subject of study as part of an understanding of the develop- ment of human life. The social sciences arc not and do not intend to be sciences in the full sense, but ccrlain strong elements of the art of dealing with the individual. But what will scientific knowledge avail us unless we have suffered understanding of man as a social creature to put this scientific knowledge to creative use. Mcribeth E. Cameror 26

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no more separate from the mainstream of social experience than any after in the H e evde of the individual such as family life, marriage, the job. or religious dedication .Each is a unique expert and each can invoke m a measure of isolation, but none is outside the realities of living in our civilization. Mount Holyoke, it seems to me. has always offered both faculty and students an abundance of contacts with other aspects of living. In the social sciences ,« ,s virtually impossible to teach the material which is contemporary and constantly changing and be isolated from the academic and social standards of the society at large In this. Mount Holyoke's programs of study and teaching ‘ «h« steadily improving media of communication arc a constant reminder of the practi- cal realities of society. But a college must stick to its central purpose-education. In this, as in one’s future occupation, there grows up in our thinking a tendency to ratify the environ- ment and set it apart. If it were truly isolated, it would be fatal to our endeavors to learn and to teach. . . ... Political Science must today try to un- derstand a world where governments un- dertake a whole host of new tasks; where complex patterns of individual, group and state behavior emerge; and where a large number of new states with very different cultures and political histories lustily demand attention. Older political theories are challenged and new methods of inquiry developed. Removing the scholar from the demands of students and the academic life isolates him from the larger purposes of his life. Removing the teacher from the demands of re- search and its attendant necessities alien- ates him from his own discipline. For it is in the classroom that the scholar searches for the larger context of his own research and learns to integrate his own findings into the vast body of inherited knowledge. Mount Holyoke will change as a result of this explosion of knowl- edge. But I believe that the warmth and civility of this campus can accommodate itself to a new situation which will pre- serve much of the old and add the re- wards to be gained from a faculty com- mitted to the wider world of particular disciplines and lively intellectual produc- tivity. For a liberal education is more than an intellectual capacity, it is a ca- pacity for passion, delight and excite- ment for the world and its people in our daily lives. 28 T. Jean Grossholtz