University of Rhode Island - Renaissance / Grist Yearbook (Kingston, RI)

Page 33 text:

am doing anything of ultimate value to society or for the future of the world. I cannot teach people how to think or how to feel or how to care or how to create. Whether people think, feel, care, create or destroy has nothing to do with whether or not they received a letter grade from me in a college class- room. Obviously, the university would never continue if everyone thought like me. The very existence of the un-iversity reminds me that people really do think there are solutions to spirit- and life-destroying problems. I admire that optimism because I tend to like those illusions that people dig up in order to justify their lives and to create sanity out of the natural chaos. I admire that optimism, but I cannot share it. Rosalyn Hauptman English 29

Page 32 text:

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

Page 34 text:

Personalized Education Having been on the faculty at U.R.I. for seven years, I have seen the University grow to the extent that now we have many large classes. The students who are talcing these large classes, especially if the course is a required one, are definitely at a disadvantage. It has often been said that if you can lecture well to a group of twenty students, then there should be no problem of distributing knowledge to a group of three hundred. Perhaps this is true but what do you know about the student sitting in seat number 201, or 42, or any seat for that matter? Do you as an instructor even make an effort to meet with the students which are in your large class? When I say meet with, I mean do you invite them to visit your office just to talk and perhaps have a “Bull Session? Such meetings will give the instructor a much broader insight to the student body, and some of the problems which con- front the academic community. Meetings such as these will help bring back personalized education to our system. The stu- dents will actually get to know the teacher and what is more important, the teacher will actually get to know the student. Robinson Hindel Horticulture 30