University of Dallas - Crusader Yearbook (Irving, TX)

Page 9 text:

, 25?;qu i??nirn :E. 5,

Page 8 text:

q Wt? WE mnm-q

Page 10 text:

YOu have by this time heard and heard againi-of the f-elicities of a core curriculum and of a liberaleducatioh, and your presence here today indica'tesithat in Some way or the other you have been persuaded. For many of you that means four years of your life and a not incon- siderable expenditure of money. The rhetoric must have indeed been powerfully ipersuasiVe. Let me remind you once morefthen of what has been; said to you as a rec0nfirmatiOn of that enterprise which you have. we hope. chosen wi-thithe most careful delib- eration, It is always good to say something to the ,, troops before the battle begins i. As I was thinkirIg of what to say to yOu, I rummaged through some old UD brochures and catalogues and found this descriptiOn of the University in a letter supposedly sent to entering members of the freshman class: You will find that the school is fifteen minutes by air from - downtoWn Dallas. and that the - property consists of i000 acres of flat hills and rolling plains among the Sierra lrving 7 Mountains, all kept carefully by landscape crews in as bad a state of disrepair as is hu- manly possible . . The purposes of the Curriculumare then Succihctly stated: - l. A mastery of the phllo'r sophical principles which will enable them to use undefina- ., ble terms and to know the es- sence of all Being Uncluding - God' st ' 2 A comprehension of the- ology which will enable them to be social successes at any Hungarian seminary or cone vent in the country. One gets a further idea of the character of the Uhls versity from the description ofbthe academic depart- ments. Here, for instanee. is that of the Departmentof ATI: I l I -, L Located in a quaint gully. i this Department '. . . 'com- 9 - pletely respects the freedom i of the aI'tiSt not toybe an art ist. And here is that of English; I The Department of English . assumes that the student has a certain grasp of formal grammar and is prepared to read 42 works of classical lit- erature in their entirety, in the original. during three specified days in Orientation week All students are re- quired to take 36 lawn of Up- ' per Division English regard- less of maior. l should explain that this letter was written by the -' Senior Class of 1967. and only a deep-dyed UD' er could a possibly have written it. The genuine UD strain shows through: the emphasis on theological truths and philo- , sophical principles. the freedom of the Art Department. : the centrality of the readings in literature to the cur- riculum. and of course the somewhat austere physical I surroundings. I One must add to the above the l967 Senior Classis underStanding of interdisciplinary graduate programs, especially the cane in Agriculture and Literature. staffed by run- away agrarian poets: ' The Agriculture andiLitera- ture'Program is designed to filla need that has arisen due to an aCute shortage of highly articulate Agricultural Human- ists. We believe that the great traditions of Western AgriCul- mm are in danger of being lost to future generations. - And of course one of the most important courses in this program was the Bovine Literary Tradition. 2 it is always easy to satirize academic communities. I because there always seems to be such a great gulf I between that which is said and that which is. between I aspiratiOn aIId actuality. that the enterprise seems to - be ludicrously comic. We all tend to be Don Quixotes In the academic Community, but we also seem to be al- ways acto'mpanied by Sancho Panzas Cortsider, for instance, this place in Texas which, until the invention of the air conditioner, was never : thought to be humanly habitable. When I first saw; the l