Assumtion College - Heights Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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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.

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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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From 1957 to 1968 a momentum had built up, based on these beliefs. To shift gears would not be easy. How does one go from a state of mind consisting of inflation, expansion and trust in an eventual bail-out, to a frame of mind which must have as its key components: (1) that the share of the burden of higher education which the private sector will have to bear will be smaller than in the past, while the public sector will have to absorb the major part of the growth in the college-age population; (2) that indebtedness will have to be amortized from the oper¬ ational proceeds of each educational institution; and (3) that any further capital additions will have to be financed in the same way. For those who may be familiar with the stock market, the ques¬ tion is one of going from a decade and more of bull attitude to a period of bear mentality. A bull market is one which is ex¬ pected to go even higher, hence the need to plan for bigger, more diversified operations. Hence, also, the need to decentralize to encourage initiative in growth opportunities. In this kind of at¬ mosphere, one can tolerate unused facilities and personnel on the grounds that tomorrow ' s growth will make them necessary. A deficit today will be made up out of tomorrow ' s profits. Trans¬ lated into educational terms, a bull market is the time of prolifer¬ ation of programs, hurried additions to plant, and headlong hiring of staff to stay abreast of the growth in the student population without endangering the quality of the educational effort nor the style of campus life. It is a time of optimism, when the pot at the end of the rainbow is one ' s fingertips. A bear market, on the other hand, is a time when tomorrow will be more difficult than today. It is a time for belt tightening in order to ride out what will hopefully be a short period of dwindling resources. Everything which is not essential to survival must be jettisoned. It is a time of more work for less pay — to stretch out the available funds until the upturn comes. In educa¬ tional terms, a bear market is a time of consolidation of programs, a time when quality is sought intensely since there can be no additional quantity. As far as students are concerned, a bear period is one when they can expect the educational institutions to provide them with the best education opportunities since the total effort must be towards quality — there being no means of pursuing quantitative growth. Some of the frills will disappear from the campus, but the essentials of quality education will be all the more evident. This is how the new decade (age?) seems to be dawning — at least from the president ' s desk. George Bissonnette, A.A.