University of North Carolina Charlotte - Rogues n Rascals or SiSi Yearbook (Charlotte, NC)

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■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■« gssss:i:::s:srs s ■IHBI SaaiililliBi imaaggHamimaaameagm sib ■H saiissa iiiiii ■■■■■■■ Hi Theme . . . just the utterance of the word sets the cogs and wheels in our minds turning around thoughts of grandiose visual and literal symbols. The 1983-84 Prospector, not by tradition but by impor- tance, is continuing the philosophy of theme. The significance of theme hinges on this time in our lives and in our world when the expression of what some- thing means or is has become such a very necessary and integral part of the human process. An increasingly popular component of this pro- cess, the university years, has come to mean a time of growth and self-centering for those participating in the college experience. It is for this reason that The Book is an explanation of an unusual, gridded. pat- terned, semi-responsible set of years; a type of re- membrance of the years that shape us into various models of persons that are suddenly thrust upon what may be called the real world. As with all epics we must begin at the beginning of the journey, our childhood. As children, we are confined to a small box of reactions and of thoughts. Our responsibilities and cares are so few and far be- tween and of such small scope as to merit no further description. But as we grow and begin to grasp con- cepts greater than ourselves, we realize that the hu- man process is a lot rougher than any thought that floated fleetingly in and out on our fast little neurons. So, of course, we do the only humane thing possible, forget it. We allow our minds and bodies to remain in a shallow, shaded box and sometimes allow the lid to close, thereby shutting off and out utter, and total reality. Then, usually to our overheated dismay, we are forced to come out of our shelters. For a large number of us, this time is usually during our college years. There is the stronger and admitted realization that we have to have some responsibilities and some stands to make. This realization most often occurs to us in the form of disagreeing with a thought of a Professor or. heaven forbid, a friend. But neverthe- less, we do realize this and are taken aback by the idea. So, alas we decide to make a few decisions, usually copping out with small ones but building into larger ones that will soon begin to shape us into the persons we are to become. This step in the process is the grid, the time when we have a horizontally designed, pattern of choices laid out for us: all there is to do is to follow the little squares. Well, at least we have unfolded the box and created a situation. Although there are those who refold the box and crawl back in, but, to avoid the temptation of journeying on another trek, we ' ll for- get those people and hope that their problem is picked up in a later edition. As we now begin movi ng on this grid we erase the lines as they are travelled and soon, or not so soon, another, and the last step in the human process we will discuss, step or phase is reached. After all the back-tracking of lines and re-

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} :i. ?;S y ■ ! » ! working of problems, we finally have cleared all the lines off of our grid. It is at that time that we realize our potential and begin soaring on, through and around our plane. The plane that is us; it is very strange that only after there is nothing there, every- thing is there. This is the ultimate end of the human process, as we know it. For beyond this plane there exists a space that totally relinquishes us from any definition of plane, grid, and or box. It is at this point that the definition of exactly what rea of the process we wish to present in the Prospec- tor is. As stated earlier we are to express the time when we are following a gridded, semi-responsible pattern. So this falls into the step of the college years, with its grid. This is our beginning point for our purposes, and naturally the only topic to touch on first is Student Life. What do students do, what defines their grid or grids. That was the first direction to embark upon in our search for your college experience. The follow- ing pages are filled with vignettes depicting what we hope you remember or feel are components of the grid. From there we followed the winding trail to the real world. It is there that the grid slowly began to disintegrate or reintegrate and the need for a respon- sible, planel person evolved. Because we, as you,