Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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it. While, for example, the students of the “quiet generation” of the Fifties were content to accept as their identity the role placed upon them by society, the students of the current generation arc more apt to seek other means of defining their identities. Instead of allowing their identities to be defined by their roles, they are more likely to want to define their roles by their identities. Thus, the finding of an identity becomes a matter of great importance. Concurrent with this search for identity, and related to the underlying nihilism of society, is the search for a stable system of values, a guide in life. In the past this has been supplied by religion, with its rules and moralities, by the rules of society, by parents, or by peer groups. But the nihilism of the age has destroyed most of these as reliable sources of this system of values, and increasingly students are looking elsew'here. Consequently, the college years are marked by the search for meaningful values and the identity that depends upon them. This becomes a major concern of students, especially of the more sensitive ones, but to some degree characterizes all students. 17

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This search is an aspect of the student character that the colleges and universities have failed adequately to take into consideration when setting goals and planning programs and structures, and this failure has caused the bulk of the student unrest of the past few years. The impersonality of structures and institutions, the failure to take legitimate student complaints seriously merely because some such complaints have been misguided or irresponsible —these are manifestations of the lack of understanding of student concerns and characteristics by those who control the university. The result of such misunderstanding was shown at Berkeley in 1965. It is thus imperative first that the university know the character of its students, and from this what they want from their education, and second, that it be willing to do its utmost to aid them in the achievement of this education. Because of its conservative nature, the university is often slow to meet changes in the needs of its students. The many factors which influence change in a university —size, bureaucracy, multiplicity of viewpoints, and the availability of money —tend to make change a very deliberate and slow-working thing. For this reason, especially in a time so aptly described by change and its manifestations, the university is quite often in need of reform or redirection to bring its goals and objectives in line with those of its students. 19