Assumtion College - Heights Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

Page 13 text:

The Dawning of a New Age The dawn is a very mysterious, awe-inspiring time, measured as it is by a night that is no more and a day that is not yet. Likewise is the new age in whose early hours we now find ourselves. Clearly, it is a diff erent age from times we can clock in terms of Classical, Medieval, and even Modern periods. Undoubtedly, it is this phenomenal degree of difference that makes us feel that our age is so new, an age when so much of the dynamic of life is bursting the once-honored forms of man ' s life in the Spirit. And yet one must ask, if ask he will, whether all that is now is really so radically new? What is the present unless it is the culmination of a selftransforming past? Our failure to perceive reality from such a vantage point cuts us off from history, from the insights and contri¬ butions of previous wise men to whom their day was also very new. Thus ostracized, we do not feel at home we become strangers to the humanity in which we of necessity participate. In the dawning of this new age stands Assumption College, committed to the enlightenment of individuals through participation in the achievements of the past, the realities of the present, the hopes of the future. Only as individuals, through self and world knowledge, transcend the present can they live in a new age without being squeezed into its mold. Only then can one gain a per¬ spective enabling them to engage in the ongoing struggle and adventure to make certain that the new approximates the good. To this task Assumption dedicates all its energies and re¬ sources. Oscar E. Remick February 21, 1971

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Today ' s password is change. We are giddy from the increased pace of technological innovation and its many repercussions; but more significant yet are the changes that have taken place in our values and mores. No longer do we live in an apparently stable, controlled society, following pre- established and universally accepted rules and norms. No longer are the traditions and principles cherished down through the years held in reverence, or even readily accepted. We live today in a society in flux, determined largely by external circumstance, a society in which being has given way to becoming. Adjustment to change is the constant which underlies ail of today ' s problems - problems with which our colleges are necessarily concerned. We cannot insulate ourselves from society, nor should we want to do so. However, colleges should be vitally concerned, also, with tomorrow ' s problems and with educating students to solve them with intelligence. Our society is faced today with urgent cries and awesome challenges. These questions will be with us for some time to come. There are no easy answers. Let us distinguish, however, between training for citizenship and training for scholarship. Acti¬ vism and commitment to public issues can be an escape from the disciplines and boredom of serious study. The point to bear in mind is that American higher education is available to every¬ one and not just to the intellectually elite; and most American students are not intellectuals. Pre¬ paration for a life of accelerating change requires changing methods of education, true; but the waiving of academic requirements and lowering our standards of excellence in order to make higher education accessible to more of those who are not really prepared for it? Higher educa¬ tion should not be equated with longer education — that is, education beyond high school — or even with broader, or continuing education. Perhaps in our rediscovery of the nature, and the imperatives of a college education, we would do well to reflect upon the development of this American institution in the pursuit of excellence? Can we afford to ignore the rich store of wisdom past generations have left us; the treasure of worldly experience accumulated by keen and observing minds, aided in their observations by the greater simplicity and leisure of life around them? It is such minds who have taught us to specu¬ late and inquire boldly, to fell and enjoy deeply, and to create and communicate effectively. While there ought to be attractive alternatives to college, such as stronger and more diversified community college programs, it is essential that the private liberal arts college, with its commit¬ ment to civilization, remain an important part of our educational system. Lola E. Boyd Dean of Coordinate College

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Age has connotations of geological periods and I believe most students envisage something of shorter duration. For the purposes of this note , I think age means a decade. Instead of being the beginning of the 70 ' s, 1970 was the end of the 60 ' s. As it unfolded — and there is every indication that the first half of 1971 if following the same pattern — the shape of the 70 ' s became clearer and the differences with the 60 ' s became more apparent. The more one thinks about it, the more it seems true to say that, as far as higher education is concerned, the 60 ' s really began late in 1957, when the Soviets launched their Sputnik. The shock which went through the American people when they realized that America ' s position as unquestionable intel¬ lectual and technological leader of the world had been successfully challenged, led to concern over our educatjonal system, its programs and funding. The Federal Government launched a top priority campaign to recover its leadership and as the years went by there gradually developed in the educational establishment a number of assumptions and expectations which undergirded higher education until 1968-69. When the Nixon administration came to Washington, the full significance of this event was misread by many. It might be fairer to say that the Nixon administration if 1968 did not have as clear a conception of the priorities it would adopt in 1970 as is now evident. During 1970 these priorities became painfully clear and they added up to a downgrading of the claim of higher edu¬ cation upon the resources of the country. The substitution of interest subsidy for direct borrowing from the government for educational facilities seemed at first to be only an attempt to channel some of this financial business back into the private share and to take a few halting steps toward limiting big government — two planks in the Republican platform of 1968. As a matter of fact, however, this was a first indication of the new order of priorities which would place increased welfare, pollution control, crime deterrance and urban renewal above education. Under the priorities which prevailed in the 60 ' s, the educational establishment came to believe: (1) that the dual (public-private) higher educational system constituted a fundamental value in our pluralistic society; (2) that the relative proportion of the student population being served by the private and public sectors would be maintained; (3) that if the private sector proved it could continue to service its share of a rapidly ex¬ panding student population — which will reach its peak about 1980 — there would be some kind of government bail out from the indebtedness into which the private sector had gone to help educate our people; and finally (4) that the growth of the government grant and loan programs for living accommodations, student unions, athletic facilities, libraries, laboratories, classroom and office buildings was proof that these beliefs were well founded. In the late 60 ' s there slowly developed an uneasy feeling that some or all of these beliefs were not shared by the new Republican administration with the same whole-heartedness that the pre¬ vious administration had shown.