Chatham College - Cornerstone Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

Page 10 text:

The student can never forget what she must have known m choosing such a college — that, above all, she is here to learn. The standard of excellence is high, the work load, heavy, and the pressure, acute. There are times, usually around 4 a.m., when it seems to us that life with- out profound and weighty thought is certainly admissable ; but that life without passion, feeling, and ]oy is unthink- able. Most of us finally decide that the only unthinkable thing IS to establish a dichotomy between the two. There are many such judgments to be made ; for, if it is clear that the foreground of value is knowledge, it is unclear to what extent the principle will be embodied m each of us. Somehow the academic must be integrated with our interest in the organizational and social ; and while these three spheres are not unrelated, they have a way of col- liding when we are operating in a sphere of time. Each of us will invest in the three areas, but to a different degree; each is seeking the best of all possible worlds, but our definitions differ. Whatever else we may be, we are people who are confronted w ith many choices. And although the decisions may not be made with ritual-like awareness and precision, along the path that changes from leaves to snow to grass four times over, each stu- dent is eliminating options, establishing goals — sorting mice and queens. . . .

Page 12 text:

By the time we are seniors, we nave decided much and invested much ; and we find that now, so close to the immediate goal of a degree, we still have many decisions to make, much investing to do. And as the exit becomes more imminent, the self-appraisal becomes more intense. What matters is not whether we plod through or soar through, but, rather what had happened to us by the time we reach the other side. With many things still uncer- tain, there are a few that can be said with assurance. Most of us are glad we never succumbed to the tempta- tion to trade this little kingdom for a . . . well, there were times when we would have traded it for just about any- thing. Most of us found a queen, but we had not all chosen the same queen. Though we may stand together in our respect for Chatham and our recognition of the values she offers, each must speak for herself in saying what she got out of her four years. In the final analysis what each got out of Chatham depended largely on what she intended to get out of it, and how much she had been willing to put into it. But then, perhaps all worth is the result of human intention: not an intrinsic presence, but a work of investiture.