Rochester Institute of Technology - Techmila / Ramikin Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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ably only a few wanted. The changed was worked in many ways. Most of the ways were invisible at the time, yet recog- nizable later on as significant and important, while a few others were dramatic enough to be immediately recognizable as im- portant variations in the life of the Institute. First among these was the actual move from the city to the suburbs. Probably only a few far-sighted persons realized what a significant experience that shift was to bring to the mood and make up of the RIT community. Even now, years after the move began, the effects are still tangible, and one suspects that the impact of the changeover will continue to be a factor in the personality of the Institute for some more years. The dust of moving has hardly settled. Released from the confines of the city and the cramped style of life students had to adopt to successfully work and play there, the student is now faced with a new set of what admini- strators like to term “challenges” but what are often closer to dilemmas. More than before they talk about the “quality of life” in the huge residential and educational complexes, itself a word that should make the more perceptive stop and think a moment. While the physical plant is quadruple the size of the old campus, the emptiness has also expanded. At the old cam- pus people were forced, by sheer necessity, to come in contact with one another, to come to grips with other people. In the wide-open spaces of Henrietta, the necessity is diminished and 7

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one can exist by himself as he could not have before. If the gaps between people have expanded, if the distinctions between groups has widened into “them” and “us” and “all the rest,” then the counter-movement is stronger than it was before. As the distance between people grew, the attempt to get together grew in response. Sometimes cooly, sometimes un- consciously, and sometimes in desperation they try to reach one another. Something tells them that this is the time to try to achieve some kind of student feeling of unity before it is too late and the Institute degenerates into the scattered lonely crowds that characterize most large colleges and universities. Their effort seemed aided by the gradual entrance into the Institute of a new kind of student. Many observers began to note that newly-entering freshmen classes seemed to be differ- ent from the classes that preceded. Generally, the younger classes appeared to have a slightly diminished interest in the purely sockets-and-grommets curriculum the Institute offered. Many were dissatisfied with the inability of science and busi- ness to solve any of the basic problems of the nation, and they showed greater interest in the humanities courses offered as sidelines to their majors. This spirit seemed to infiltrate the Institute during the year, slowly killing the self-degrading view students held of them- selves as unconcerned and apathy-ridden individuals bent on making their education pay for itself as soon as possible, like some Detroit product, bcFore it became obsolete. Students be- gan to critically examine their education from more than its possible employment benefits, and started demanding courses more relevant to the present and future needs. When it was apparent that the Institute could not. or would not, be able to meet the need in time, programs such as Earth Day and the Alternative University were formulated and presented pri- marily through student effort. Something was happening here, something that had not hap- pened before in the history or the Institute. Change was accel- erating. The forces seeking to divide and to unite the campus became more powerful. As the school year concluded, the question of which of those forces would ultimately prevail was unclear, but the very question itself looked like the most important factor the Institute would have to confront in the years to come. 9