Creighton University - Bluejay Yearbook (Omaha, NE)

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Controversy fades as students go slower This year was the public relations depart- ment ' s dream. Stud ents had become students again. Alumni Library was jammed every night of the week. Student dress, once confined to blue jeans and Army jackets, blossomed out into checkered flares, and the skirt returned to the classroom. The 1950s influence was everywhere, as the activist 1960s were pushed to the sidelines. But everything was not the same as when our parents went to college. If the ' SO ' , meant obedience, and unquestioning acceptance of the status quo and the simple pleasures of being in college, the ' 70s are not at all the same. — Newsweek, Nov. 6, 1972 In recent years it was come to Creighton and get involved. Sit-ins, student strikes, moratoriums — it ' s hard to believe all these occurred just two short years ago. It was not the innocence of the ' 50s that prevailed, it was more an escape from the frenetic activity of the late ' 60s. We ' re not going to stir up controversy just to fill the pages of Creightonian We ' re going to work through the system to get what we want. — Tim Lannon, President Student Board of Governors Three years ago these words would have been heretical to the student who wanted to get something done. This year, Lannon ' s statement expressed the prevalent mood on campus, as student-administration battles were confined to committee meetings instead of the quadrangle. And the Creightonian had a hard time filling its pages. What had happened to all the controversial issues? Most had been dulled by either change or simply the passage of time. Alcohol was legal in the dorms, and open-dorms were taken for granted. Many more stu- dents were allowed off-campus than in the past and the Vietnam war was no longer a major issue. 18-year- olds had voting rights, but even youth-oriented George McGovern could not spur strong student interest, though he did get a majority of Creighton student votes. The usage or non-usage of the once-controversial marijuana weed was no longer charged with emotion: some smoked it, many did not. It did not drastically split students as many feared it would. If students were concerned about anything, it was not the idealistic ambiguities of the past, but rather the pressing realities of the future. Specifically: jobs. Hav- ing discovered that a college diploma no longer guaran- teed a ready income, students concentrated on the books, leaving activism to others. It was often easier to sit back and watch things happen than to get out and do. Our task as responsible teachers is no longer to urge stu- dents to take up more boldly radical positions, to let go of traditional safeguards, intellectual, moral, social, it is to ask them to be more cautious, to be sure they have really read the book, to give what they condemn a fair hearing, to go slower, to distrust their own passion I — Father Labaj Students definitely went slower this year. Books and beer, not demonstrations and drugs, were the rule. Whether this was a passing fad, or the beginning of a new trend in student attitudes, remained to be seen. 16