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

Page 17 text:

il The hardest part of URI to describe is the living. Only one’s own experiences can be written; to try to characterize the lifestyles of others isn’t fair. Few have experienced all the lifestyles avail- able. Few have to. Once your own niche is found, it seems unnecessary to move around and change. To determine one’s own lifestyle is a trying experience. To realize that you are both an individual and a part in a world that contradicts itself by stressing both individuality and conformity is not easy; it makes one Fidget uncomfortably to be either one or the other. We gain titles and names. Individuals become the whole. We gain from the dorms not only an address but a part of our identification. From fraternities and sororities come not only instant families of brothers or sisters, but sym- bols and letters to be worn inside in spirit and outside on clothing. Com- muters receive a colored parking sticker to accentuate their mobility, and band together in various rooms of the Union. Those living down-the-line share rooms, rent, household chores and addresses often unknown to many campus-dwellers. You may be the first in the parking lot by morning, but your car will be lost among the countless rows of vehicles by mid-afternoon. Your dorm room looks to you like the only one of it ' s kind on the inside; but from the outside it becomes a small cubicle just like the other two dozen in the corridor. Your Greek letters merge and become a part of an entire alphabet of shapes. It’s so easy to assimilate and become a part of the whole instead of main- taining your individuality. It’s simple to lie back and know that classes still go on, parties are still held, Greeks still compete in Greek Week activities, con- certs are still presented and tuition rates go up, even without your presence. But the individual retains importance. When every room on one dorm is lit but one, that room’s occupant becomes conspicuous by it’s absence. The con- ductor before the chorus in Greek Sing is the most noticable figure. You may believe that when you slip into class Five minutes late because of traffic tie-ups that nobody notices your entry; but the moment lends a bit more evi- dence to that commuter identity. The wheel won’t turn when the cog is missing a tooth. Each individual is important in making up the whole. The place cannot exist without the people. The people make up the living. And the living lends character to the place. Y ou know your own living, and recognize the lifestyles of others. And the knowing and the recognizing be- come part of one’s memories of the time spent at URI. IHH 13