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

Page 11 text:

But it would be inaccurate to characterize what happened to Notre Dame after World War II as a revolution. Rather the change has been evolutionary, noisy to be sure, pre- cipitating new values and molding them in terms of the past. One indication of this is the student body. Although academically far superior to its predecessors, and national in representation, the composition has been consistently white, middle class and Catholic. Despite efforts by the office of admissions, this pattern is un- likely to change in the near future. Another indication is the continuing assumption that quasi-professional football is integral to Notre Dame ' s vitality as an educational institu- tion. While few would question the value of a strong intercollegiate athletic program and none would deny the social benefits a football weekend brings, the place at an academic institution of such a grandiose autumn spectacle is by no means clear. The conflict of past traditions with current academic values is apparent in the election of Ambrose Dudley as president of the alumni association. If Dudley ' s opinions are repre- sentative of most alumni, his overwhelming ignorance of student life, at least at this uni- versity, portends a grave dichotomy between the class of ' 67 and its pre-war predecessors. The process of growth which has characterized Notre Dame since World War II is com- mon to many American educational institutions in both the public and private spheres. And the tension between past and present is not peculiar to this university. Notre Dame, today, despite a slow beginning and continuing conservatism, is vastly different from the institution it was ten years ago. It is physically larger, ten times as wealthy, academically respected, and with the new lay board of trustees, structurally reformed. Today, Notre Dame presents an environment for growth very different than a generation ago while still maintaining, for better or worse, some of the traditions of its past. Student organizations are in large part a measure of institutional excellence on the un- dergraduate level. The diversity and quality of activities invariably reflects the composition of the university which fosters them. Yet the phenomenon of total immersion in extra- curriculars is a new one at Notre Dame, as is the proliferation of campus activities. Ten years ago, there was no CILA, Film Society, Observer, or any of the active political organi- zations like S.D.S. or YAF. TRADITIONS vs. CURRENT ACADEMIC VALUES

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Of the firmly entrenched organizations, some stand out perennially regardless of their effectiveness; their size renders them prominent, or by nature they relate to a great num- ber of students. Among these are student government, the Scholastic and Observer, and to a lesser degree the service groups. Under president Jim Fish, student government became analogous to the hidden god. Precisely what its activities were proved to be unknown to the greatest portion of stu- dents. During his campaign, Fish promised, among other things, to improve student-faculty relations, assist in developing a meaningful hall life, as reflected in the stay hall system, and streamline the administration of student government. Yet stay hall elections, presum- ably pushed by student government, were with one exception across the board failures. Underlying this is the continuing and puzzling contempt undergraduates have of the four year residence system. Further, the mediocrity of Alumni hall caused some to doubt the value of a university-wide stay hall system. The senate continues to be little more than an occasional forum, whose value was ques- tioned by some of its own members. And the concept of the senate as a representative body was shattered by the obvious split between senators and their constituents on the stay hall question. To Fish ' s credit was his firm insistence on the value of the Observer, and stolid defense of its editor ' s right to publish without censorship. This he did in opposition to the admin- istrative vice-president whom he appointed. Fish ' s successful attempt to create a student union reflects his outstanding organizational ability, but the value of the new bureaucracy is not immediately obvious. Perhaps Murphy ' s presidency will justify Fish ' s optimism over this new apparatus of government. No organizations on campus yield more power to mold student opinion than the Scho- lastic and Observer. Under co-editors Anson and Feldhaus, the Observer more often cru- THIS NEW APPARATUS OF STUDENT GOVERNMENT