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Page 31 text:
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At first, it is easier to say what the university is not. It is definitely not an employment agency. The campus should not be merely a training area for future technocrats and bureaucrats ready to serve only the needs of a corporation or a state. There are plenty of institutions available whose legitimate aim is to train and provide specialists. But the university can and must provide a broader experience and purpose for individual growth and education. In other words, the university should not be a place for specialization — at least as it serves the undergraduate. And service to undergraduate education, .in the most broad and liberal sense, is surely one of the primary aims of the uni- versity and its faculty. The fact is that the urge towards spe- cialization begins not with the student, but with the faculty and administration. When such an. urge is predominant, the result is a place — not a university — which values research more than teaching, data gathering more than education; the result is expertise and its consequent isolation. The function of the university is not to be isolated. Granted, each instructor does face the responsibility of always increasing his knowledge of his field. Indeed the university may be a re- pository of knowledge. But it must also be a center of com- munication. If we cannot speak to one another within, the rela- tive homogeneity of the university, then, there is little hope for our already fragmented society. In fact, contrary to present trends, the university may be the place to begin to reunify the country. To succeed, the university must not be a never ending, growth retarding home for the perennial student or an ivory tower for the absent minded pro- fessor. It can and must encourage mature generalists (men and women — human beings who may have specialties) to reenter the community, the society, and the universe of man, in order to serve and work with other men. In fact, by the senior year, the truly mature student should find the university a surprisingly small world, which is now limiting his growth. He must move on. Finally the university is not a place for privileged students. Surely, the university should reflect the republic of which it is a part.-Our universities can surely serve the entire community. In fact, in order to remain relevant to a democracy, the uni- versity must open its doors and enrollment to the entire com- munity. Is URI a university? Ask most students and they will tell you, in one way or another, that it is an employment agency. Mrs. Linda Shamoon English 27
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Page 32 text:
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The University in the Modern World The most serious mistake anyone can make is to endow the university with meaning and a function simply because it exists or simply because many people have a stake in it. To think that the university can end the wars in the Middle and Far East, the slow death-by-environment-pollution, the slow torture of poverty is to be cruelly deluded. As human beings we are power- less to stop the numerous and frequent man-made catastrophies we see flashed on the T.V. screen. By the time the problem gets bad enough to make the news media all that we are capable of doing is recognizing that it is too late, shaking our heads and repeating. Well. There that goes. Yessir. If you believe that there are workable solutions to the big problems facing us, then you probably believe that the uni- versity can provide some of these solutions. But if you believe that the individual is virtually helpless to stop any process he believes is destructive, then I imagine you concur with me when I say that the university can only teach people diverse, clever, articulate ways of enunciating the basic: Well. There that goes. Yessir. Not only is the university incapable of making a better world (what is, after all, capable of such a task), but also it cannot even make someone a better person. A student is what he is when he comes here as a freshman; its too late to do the forming that has already been done by society in general and by the parents in particular. The university seems to be a traditional way for people to mark time— at best they can come here, fool around with some ideas and perhaps. I emphasize that word perhaps. learn what they have already become. Learn-a-trade, get-a-degree. meet-a-mate, know-thyself. make-some friends. The university is not such a big deal. Perhaps you expect me to advocate the abolishment of the university since it serves no purpose. In its purposelessness the university is like many another institution which is a fossil of another age. However there isn ' t much that you can name these days that serves as im- portant. earth-saving purpose. After all, it is not destructive. Furthermore, the price of tearing it down might be more un- necessary pain, suffering and void. But what about you? I hear you say. What am I doing here? An instructor ' s job is pleasurable: you talk to people about books, thoughts, insights, feelings. I do not feel that I 28
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