East Carolina University - Buccaneer Tecoan Yearbook (Greenville, NC)

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Collins: The students make the town, so there ' s a teeling of belonging — when the entire business district of the town caters to the college community, and there ' s bound to be a more intimate relation than in a city where the univer- sity stops at its own gates. Dynamo: I think the most pleasing thing about Greenville and East Carolina is the fact that it is so small and the town is so small. This is initially pleasing because you can come from another part of the state or even another part of the coun- try and sooner or later, you wind up knowing a good many people and you don ' t feel threatened by downtown Greenville. It doesn ' t intimidate you, and the same thing with the university. It seems as though everything is on a small town basis with everybody know- ing everybody else, and you can ' t feel intimidated and initially that is pleasing. But, in the long run, it is monoto- nous. The town is boring. After a short period of time, you have been every- where in the downtown there is to go, you ' ve seen everything there is to see and, after while, you realize that you ' ve seen everything there is to see and you realize that you ' ve met just about every- body that you are going to meet. After the first year that I was here, I just had a feeling that I had just about done it all as far as Greenville was con- cerned. I didn ' t know what else there was to do because everything just starts to get repetitive and monotonous. It ' s a nice place to come and get away from things, but after awhile, you realize that you have to get closer to things, not further away from them. Alexander: I think Greenville is a delightful place to live. I think East Carolina is an excit- ing place to work. The friendly spirit, in both city and university, contributes a great degree to this feeling. The uni- versity provides each person who works here with a sense of contributing to helping bright young men and women become better prepared to serve the nation, the state, themselves and to be just good citizens and contributing members of society. I think, in my own case, that it is a lot of fun to be associated with this endeavor. The students are friendly and pleasant to work with. Each year, you see a new group come through with var- ious committees and organizations and you feel the satisfaction from seeing a group of individuals develope into work- ing teams and accomplishing whatever goals their organization has. So, the business of working at an educational institution is exciting. Being able to work with students and the cooperative spirit that is seen on every hand from the administration, faculty and students just makes ECU a really enjoyable place to be.

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Dynamo; This Is, what is my definition of a university, right? Well, I ' d have to say that a university should be, first and foremost, an institute of learning. By this, I mean not solely books but cul- tural exchange. There should be expen- Tientation with life styles and different nodes of grappling with the problems Df What is life? or something like that. It should be a time when you can try things out, when you can learn different things. It should be a time when you are al- owed to think, a time when you are al- owed to reflect and be stimulated by new ideals. I think stimuli is the most mportant thing. I don ' t believe ECU measures up very well in these things. As far as culturally stimulating, they seem to be trying very lard to keep the out-of-state students 3ut of here, eliminating many different 3utlooks. The emphasis at ECU is ob- iously not on books or learning. I don ' t now too many places it is, but it sure 38 hell isn ' t like that here. Most of the Deople run home on weekends, so there s almost nothing for the weekend stu- dent to do except for the Friday night Tiovie and an occasional Sunday con- ;ert. People seem more relaxed and more willing to get involved with you, :han say for a big city. But, for the most Dart, everybody in Greenville is into :heir own trip. Narrator: Now can you tell me what you like Tiost about ECU with its blue sky and Greenville with its red of neck? East; I think the thing I like best about the entire community, including East Caro- lina as well as Greenville, is the whole attitude of people in eastern North Car- olina. I ' m originally a native of Illinois and I find that eastern North Carolin- ians are good people, solid people. They accept people who move in from outside in a very gracious way. They make you feel at home. Eastern North Carolina, whatever faults it may have and it has them as any area does, has the great virtues you find in a more traditional rural area where people are friendly, families are close and there are the ties that bind. Things haven ' t been torn asunder. This IS not often the case in large urban cen- ters where life is very impersonal, very mobile and very quick-changing. All of this then, I think, makes for a healthy setting for a family, for a home, for a city and also, for a university.

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Narrator: What changes have you focalized on in your stretch at EZU, friends? Dynamo: I ' ve noticed a few changes, though not very big ones. Some of them have been right in line with changes that have been happening all over the coun- try. Some of them are a bit behind time, ones that should have been made a long time ago. The students, as a whole, seem to be moving away from the hippie thing. People seem much more concerned with their own affairs and their own immediate circle of friends. The activism is gone, especially political activism. This is something President Nixon ' s reelection shows. It ' s all over the country, people are just tired and fed up. It is kind of a frustra- tion. People just want to get out of here. They are not concerned with burn- ing political issues anymore. Maybe that is one reason why the Fountainhead has degenerated the way it has. If it is any reflection of the burn- ing issues in the student ' s minds, then it shows really sterile minds or minds concerned with trifles. Things are just changing slowly here. The university is not getting any more liberal, it is still way behind times. It will always be behind times, most likely. This school will never be in the fore- front of any change. I think people are slipping back into the mentality of the sixties. They had their little flirtation with intellectualism and involvement, and now it ' s over. The whole move now seems to be to just enjoy yourself. East: East Carolina has grown considerably since I have been here. I came here in 1964 and East Carolina was then an institution of about 6500 students. I think there has been some important changes in addition to this increase in size. I believe that there is a greater per missiveness on campus in terms of dress and in terms of appearance, think there has been too much permis siveness in the area of scholarly disci pline and application. For example there is, in many cases, nearly a tota permissive attitude as far as the ques tion of class attendance goes. This question of permissiveness is one of the most striking things that I have seen. I am not saying that this is confined to this university. I think we ' re simply a part of a whole national culture that has moved in a direction of permissiveness which I think has gone beyond the proper bounds of freedom and moved into a world of license and slovenliness. On the other hand, I do feel that we now have more good students at East Carolina. We have more students that are serious and conscientious in the pursuit of scholarly things. Alexander: In the past 10 to 11 years, there have been significant changes that have oc-