North Carolina State University - Agromeck Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

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As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before not turning away fromthe old, but turning toward the new. —Richard M. Nixon Inaugural Address

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There was, I decided, hope after all. But it still bothered me that so much of my school work was antiquated or meaningless. On top of that, so many of my friends seemed lethargic when- ever I suggested that education at State needed to be made more pur- poseful. At least in my estimation an academic outlook that once would have satis- fied students who came to college for mere job training simply had no rele- vance to the type of student the University is breeding now. For there are students at State who are dedi- cated to the same basic fields of study which the school has always of- fered. . .the predominantly scientific disciplines. But when people across the entire country are concerning themselves more and more with the morality of a way, the dignity of a race, the ability of an educational structure such as Duke or Columbia to turn out better human beings, i.e. the decidedly non- materialistic side of life, how can State fail to see the need for human- izing education? How can the growing involvement of University students in community affairs pass State by? Applying the same analytic approach I had used myself, I soon began to realize that State too had its problems of identity and purpose. The more I pondered the more intriguing became the parallels I could draw between disgruntled students like myself and North Carolina State and its growing pains.

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state ' s problems are rooted in the school ' s history. For so long N. C. College of Agricultural and Mechani- cal Arts and later N. C. State College did an exceptional job of providing strict technological training for North Carolina ' s farmers, factory workers, engineers, etc. From this standpoint, no other school in the area had contributed more to the well-being of North Carolina. And yet while I recognize the unique- ness of the institution, I feel there are changes afoot. From the past comes a dual tradition of technical and liberal education--and the factors have clashed openly in the present. As the humanistic problems of the day de- mand attention, the engineer or the architect, or the textile worker finds that he alone as a technical expert cannot offer an adequate solution to ghettos, pollution, or population problems. 10