Furman University - Bonhomie Yearbook (Greenville, SC)

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Student Opinion BONHOMIE: Considering your four-year educational experience at Furman. if you could make one change, what would it be? BOB CARBREY (Senior): I would attempt to remedy the problem concerning the existence of two distinct communities on campus. It seems evident that sexual segregation exists as a deterent to the establishment of a university-wide community. Furman men and women are not only separated geographically but also by the archaic. ante-bellum morals which govern so many of the rules they live under. Physical isolation of residence halls and policies such as in loco parentis and ultra-conservative dormitory hours for coeds limit, if not extinguish most attempts to establish mature relationships between the sexes. As long as antiquated ideas govern rules which attempt to isolate and limit the interactions between Furman men and women, two distinct “societies will continue to prevail. BONHOMIE: Considering your four-year educational experience at Furman, if you could make one change, what would it be? BARB REID (Senior): Only one change? This would have to be for me an increasing importance placed upon relating the liberal arts education we receive to the lives we plan to forge outside the academic community. This would mean a change in both professor and student attitudes and would require a coordination between the two in choosing and preparing for a career. It is a discouraging fact to face, but at present, the typical Furman graduate (teachers and potential graduate students excluded) is faced with career decisions for which he is generally unprepared. BONHOMIE: Has Furman lived up to your expectations of an American university? LEVI REEVES (Junior. Republic of Liberia): As a citizen of a country where less than fifteen percent of the population is literate. I find it difficult to express what my expectations of an American uni- 20 Student Opinion versify are. However, based on mw experiences at Barrington Colleg®) (a Christian school) in Rhode Island. and Howard University, I can admit that Furman University has lived up to my expectation academically. As a Baptist institution Furman is relatively more liberal than Barrington, where it is immoral to smoke, dance, and where one is required to attend religious chapel services twice weekly. But like Furman. Barrington has a student government with little or no participation in decisions that affect student campus life. It is often said students are not mature enough to be given full responsibi-ity like other Baptist institutions, i.e. Brown University. This has some truth, but during our four years here, if we are considered irresponsible and nothing, other than more rules, is done about it. where else are we to learn to accept responsibility? Students must be judged by what they have failed to do responsibly when they were given power, and not by what they might not do or could do wrongly. Furman, as I see it, can only be objectively compared with other American universities mainly on the basis of its high academic quality and not on the basis of stimulating and maintaining leadership ability and creating a sense of responsibility in most students. These statements do not imply my dislike for the school, since, of the three higher educational institutions in my native land, none can be compared with Furman in almost all aspects: a fact which demands a much broader scope in education for most African students abroad. With the rate at which Furman is growing, there is no doubt in my mind that it will become an all-around superior university in the very near future.