University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

Page 19 text:

of Those answers and can draw on the kind of Christian wisdom that should be the result of an education here. Scheck. The re ' s one thing I wonder about in re- gards to the a ... you will recall that there was con- siderable work done a couple of years ago on an honor system, and that was all brought about by one of several surveys concerning cheating . . . academic cheating at Notre Dame. Now one of the conclusions of one of the groups that studied the thing was that many professors just disregard the whole problem or fail to recognize it, and that the students seem not desirous of putting an honor system into effect, that the professors should en- force honor, but this still doesn ' t seem to be done, and I ' d say the cheating was still fairly prevalent at Notre Dame. What are your views on this? Fr. Hesburgh: Well, I think in colleges, generally, cheating becomes kind of a grey area where you try to beat the system. I don ' t say that this is a good thing or a moral thing - - it ' s completely wrong, but I ' ve always felt that honor system as such must come from the students and the kind of expectations they have of their fellow students. For example here in the Law School the Dean said it was inconceivable to him that a man would give his life over to the promotion of justice and not have a sense of honor. Therefore, he said anybody in the Law School who wanted to take exams on the honor system was perfectly free to do so. The first year only about a third of the students wanted the honor system. This is the first year that all of the students are taking all of their exams on the honor system; so its going to develop, and I ' d like to see the same kwd of development in the under- graduate college at the University. Stall. From the gentlemen at the Law School, one of the biggest changes that we ' ve seen in four years has been University stress and the consequent growth of the graduate school. This falls into line with what some people call Notre. Dame ' s great- ness complex where we feel that we ' ve got to be best or we ' ve got to be great in every phase of education. Now it would seem that perhaps we are sacrificing too much and letting our undergraduate school go when it hasn ' t quite reached its further stage of development and going into graduate school, which some say can never be really good, and I don ' t know what the official feeling would be on this. Fr. Hesburgh: Well, I think the graduate school can be good and should be good and we ' ll never have a great University until we have a great graduate school. I think the ideal is, of course, that having a first-rate graduate school will enable you to attract here really exciting professors who want to do graduate work and work with graduate stu- dents, but they should also come into contact with undergraduate students. I think the task ahead of us is to create a first-rate graduate school that would enrich the undergraduate school. Stalt. Will this mean that the undergraduate school will be sacrificed at least . . . Fr. Hesburgh: . . . not at all. Murph. Father, where will the University get the money to pursue both these courses. It seems that Notre Dame does have the problem of a privately endowed University that we find it is hard to get. Fr. Hesburgh: I am very deeply of the conviction that if you are doing a good thing you will get the money to do it. Now this, of course, is somewhat like a vicious circle, you have to spend some ven- ture capital to get to the height where people be- gin to support you. Bab. On this question of the ever-increasing great- ness of the University ... in the minds of many people brings up the question of big time athletics, particularly of football at Notre Dame. Many people are likely to draw analogies and make com- parisons between the case here and what has happened through athletics in places like Harvard, Yale . . . would you care to comment on how you think football and other athletics will continue to fit in the pattern at the University. Fr. Hesburgh: We want as good a football team as we can have consequent with that ideal of a fine University. I don ' t think the ideals are contradic- tory. I think Notre Dame has grown in spirit and I think football has been a great part of that spirit. My own impression is that people outside of the University are a lot more concerned about football than those in the University. I think we ' re all excited during the days in the fall when we ' re play- CONTINUED 15

Page 18 text:

RECORDING SESSION: Naughton, Stalter, Scheckler. Babbitt, Murphy, Father Hesburgh, C.S.C. ADMINISTRATION What is this ' excellence ' ? The President discusses a problematical present, an optimistic future The following text was removed verbatum and edited for conciseness from an original tape recording made for the DOME on February 20, 1960. Questioning Father Hesburgh, President of the University, were: Bruce Babbitt, Student Body President; James Naughton, Student Body V ice-President; Neil Stalter, Station Manager at WSND; William Scheckler, three year member of the Student Senate; and Kenneth Murphy, Managing Editor of the DOME. 14 Bab. Father, we certainly appreciate the time out of your very busy schedule to be with us for a few mo- ments today. Beginning our question session our ques- tions will be general. In your years as President here, what in your opinion have been the most significant advancements in the Notre Dame community? Fr. Hesburgh: Well Bruce, I think these advancements have been along about four lines. In the first place I think the whole quality of our student body has come up appreciably, it seems to me, both in academic ex- cellence and as far as the kinds of leadership building and responsibility that has been shown by this student body I think has been on a steady rise all through these years. I think our faculty has come up a great deal. For example, during the past ten years we ' ve had 1 12 increase in faculty and 1 16 net increase in Ph.D ' s on the faculty. I think our facilities have gotten better in a very dramatic way, and perhaps more important than that, our programs have all been re-examined, and I believe that our academic progress, especially in the graduate level, is slightly less than superb. Naught. Father, you mentioned that quite a bit of gain has been in this one area of the entering students, they ' ve gotten quite a bit better over these years. What would you say the University is trying to turn out as a graduate -- what sort of a man? Fr. Hesburgh: Well, I would hope we would turn out the kind of man who respects his mind and knows how to use it, who has a burning curiosity to fill the answers to the burdened problems of our age, and who knows how to use his mind as a fine instrument to get some

Page 20 text:

The President: Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. 16 tr a?edyt]