Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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A ' by Dr. Sandra S. Walther, Asst. Prof of Philosophy The College Degree is the last decade's contribution to the American Dream, our cultural vision of the Good Life. Its mythic quality is evidenced by the manner in which it is marketed in commercials by banks and insurance companies as something every self-respecting parent must provide for his children, as unquestioned a social and personal necessity as kissing sweet breath. The sweet smell of success, the myth implies, will be enjoyed only by those who possess the right toothpaste, the right deodorant and the right degree. Thus, students become customers for educations they do not really want and Colleges and Universities measure their own value in terms of the numbers of degrees produced and the aver- age salary of their alumni. Myths survive as long as they continue to have prag- matic value-that is, as long as they are supported by the behavior of a community of believers. ln this case, the connection between the paper credentials of the educa- tion process Cie., the transcript and the diplomaj and the Good Life is sustained as long as the economic system does in fact show the preference to the possessors of the proper papers. Presently, on the whole, it seems to still manage to do so but there are disquieting lapses. For example, in 1969, there was a glut on the labor market of graduates in such fields as chemistry, engineering and mathematics, as well as in the more esoteric fields of lan- guage study and philosophy. More significantly, public reaction to the recent ten- sions within academic institutions suggests that, al- though a degree may still be a socially approved com- 14 modity, the professional staffs of institutions of higher education are viewed with a mixture of alarm, suspicion and contempt. How long will it take for those attitudes to be transferred to the Product-the degree itself? If that were to happen, some Colleges and Universities might quite literally be forced out of business. Pressures are being exerted on the educational pro- cess from all sides-from those previously excluded who want to get in the system, from those within who want a variety of reforms, from alumni who want the old forms preserved, from the community demanding attention and respect for its concerns. Nature itself has served notice that our insensitivity to the role we play in shaping our environment is no longer tenable. These pressures are forcing a re-examination of present procedures, assump- tions, purposes and priorities. And the problems of pol- lution, overcrowding and depletion of resources cannot be solved by rhetoric, diplomacy or repression, although these techniques may still appear to work in other prob- lem areas. All these factors indicate to me a vital need to dis- tinguish the outward appearances and accidental fea- tures of our entire orientation to education from the sub- stantive considerations, which to my mind boil down to this point: What is an educated person able to do? . And that question must be tied to the consideration of the realities of the situation-what needs to be done. What kinds of intelligence do we need to solve the prob- lems we have? What methods, what experiences, what attitudes do individuals need to operate meaningfully in

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F aa,-.Q-......,f,.....,,g, I-.1f1:,tfj'V '- .- z -gg--L .-Y 1 '-- . -1- , T .- '- ' .3f1f,Q3:-L .-E-1' 'V -. , --- .- .. '.w:,.1 v , 1-:Ha-fQ' ,! ' LI. -I ..,,.,. J T 7. 5,--, I, U. 'ag ' --w , -. it 'N . Y I 'i by Dr. Robert R. Ross Assoc. Prof of Law The constitution of the United States cloaks every American with certain rights. A confrontation, triggered by an encounter with law enforcement authorities, should signal in the mind of the subject of such ques- tioning the following: 1. I have the right not to answer questions. 2. I have the right not to sign anything. 3. I have the right to a lawyer, if arrested. When questioned by the police as a third party wit- ness Cyou are not personally involvedj the general rule is to cooperate and assist authorities. But suppose the questions involve you personally you need only tell the officer your name and address. If it sounds like the offi- cer thinks you did something against the law, ask him: Am I under arrest? If he says yes, ask him: What for? If you're under arrest, you do not have to answer any more questions. Whatever you tell the policeman could be held against you. WATCH WHAT YOU SAY! If he says, No, you are not under arrest, you may ask May I go? If he says NO to that, you ARE under arrest, and do not have to answer any more questions. lf you are placed under arrest do not resist. Fighting with a policeman is a serious crime. A policeman does not have the right to search you unless he has a search warrant, or he has good reason to believe you have committed a crime or are about to commit a crime. But even if he searches you when you do not think he has the right, do not try to stop him. You may tell him: I do not give you permission to search me. lf a policeman stops you while you are driving a car, he has a right to see your driver's license and registra- tion. If he searches the car without a warrant and with- out your permission, remember his badge number or the police car number. lf a policeman asks to come into your room on campus or your home you do not have to let him in. If the officer has a search warrant, ask for a copy of it. Make sure the warrant talks about your precise prem- ises. lf the officer insists on coming in without a warrant do not try to stop him. State emphatically, I do not give permission for you to search. If officers have a warrant for your premises the col- lege authorities must allow them in. But without a war- rant the college administration has no right to say it is alright to search your premises without your permission. If you are arrested ask what the charge is. Regardless of the number of questions that may be asked of you, you need give only your name and address. Ask for a lawyer and do not answer questions until the lawyer comes. The police may only let you make one completed tele- phone call. If you do not have the right change, or you do not know the lawyer's number, ask the police to make change for you and to give you a telephone book. If they do not want to, ask and keep asking until they do. Remember you need not answer questions or sign anything until the lawyer is there. U.S. Law says that you should be taken before a judge right away to find out what the changes against you are and whether there is enough evidence to hold you. At this hearing-an arraignment-the judge will tell you what your bail is. Ask to have a lawyer for this hearing. A If the police hold you in jail and do not take you be- fore the judge without delay, you may remind them of your right to a prompt hearing. You have a right to meet privately with your lawyer. What you tell him is just between you and him. It cannot be used against you. So, remember, whatever you want to tell-tell your lawyer and no one else. You also have the right to have your lawyer with you during questioning. It is important to be informed on these basics. In the event that the situation involves a specific exception to a right such as a search warrant requirement, the bur- den would be on the enforcement authorities to show this, therefore, regardless of your estimate as to the cir- cumstances you should fully assert all of the rights mentioned. They apply to everyone, regardless of race, color, religion or age. Know them, button your coat of rights. S9 13

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the multidimensional, continuously accelerating modern human situation? To keep these questions from sliding back into the mythical context demands a rigorous yet imaginative log- ical technique of proposing hypothetical models and in- vestigating their implications both conceptually and fact- ually, while at the same time impartially accepting a wide base of actual occurrences as stimuli for the devel- opment and correction of the models. Emphasis on the first half alone, that of the speculative determination of solutions without the feedback from events, runs the risk of producing wholly theoretical answers that can be- come operative only under ideal conditions but cannot be put into practice in the historical setting. Emphasis on the second half alone promotes a directionless, short range solution for each immediate problem that arises with no anticipation of the ramifications of any one solu- tion on any other. The art of combining these two ap- proaches in any situation and to any subject that presents a problem for human decision making is itself a working definition of what an educated person should be able to do. It comes quite close to what John Dewey, the often mentioned but rarely appreciated American philos- opher, proposed as a pragmatic definition of education. Shifting attention from degrees to deeds, from paper credentials to demonstrations of working knowledge, from calculations of how much can l earn to projec- igfgg . tions of how much can I serve, would bring our educa- tional values out of the mythic stage and initiate a re- examination of our understanding of ourselves, our cul- ture, our condition. As long as the myth persists and pro- grams and procedures pay more attention to surface fea- tures than to basic assumptions, the pragmatic meaning of success will tend to be what the Peter Principle sug- gests it is-to advance to the level of your own in- competence. W by Donald B. Veix, Asst. Prof. of Education How can our schools capitalize on their most valuable resources, the potential creativity of their students? One must first recognize C13 the necessity for encouraging creativity C25 the nature of the creative student and his frustrations in the normal educational setting and C35 the fact that there are ways to encourage creativity. Creativity should be taught fsemanticists take warning, taught j because it occupies several factors in Guil- ford's structure of intellect. Intellect is, after all, the school's province. Thus, originality and flexibility should be encouraged, as well as more commonly recognized factors. ln a world where mass culture mass noise press in from all sides, the divergent thinker must be encour- aged for society's sake. ln all the logical fury he stands forth irritating, illogical and refreshing. As long ago as the 1840's Thoreau fled a Manhattan of 500,000 ex- claiming, There is a danger that a child growing up in such an environment would think of man as a herd. What is the creative student like? He is a mixture of lQ intelligence and creativity in varying high-low com- binations, according to Getzels and Jackson. He prob- ably drops in creativity in the fourth and seventh grades and climbs from the sandbox thereafter. He or she is in college if he is a good mix of intelligence and cre- ativity. However, according to Paul Torrance, the drop- out rate of high creatives in high school is far higher than that of high intelligences. He or she is humorous, self- starting, obsessed with truth and with the Ancient Mari- ner's necessity to tell his truths, playful and often irritat- ing in the normal classroom setting in both elementary and secondary school. In college, if he's made it, he's learned from many of his peers and teachers to keep his mouth shut and graduate. His divergent ideas are, after all, not the stuff that objective tests are made of. Thus his ideas are not rewarded on a convergent scale and he learns. The learner from elementary to graduate school is a product of educational evolution, a PARVACLET- REM: part parrot, part vacuum cleaner, part tape rec- order, part man. Creatives can be identified. Peer group identification is one of the quickest ways for a classroom teacher as well as interpretation of pictures. Everyone is creative to a de- gree just as everyone possesses IQ intelligence to some degree. Schools could identify thorrible wordj their cre- ative-intelligence mixes both among their faculty and stu- dent bodies and go from there. Creative environments could be blended into the schools. Creativity can be taught. Pre-conditions for creative 15