University of Rhode Island - Renaissance / Grist Yearbook (Kingston, RI)

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Lawn in Front of Davis Hall 1890 Is it true that ‘the academic experience’ is far behind us now? It is likely considered by many that academia is now merely a farce. Yet, on the other hand, it could be alive and well, under disguise. Is there merely ‘ movement ’ on this campus — indeed, ‘movement without progress’? Or are there still intellectuals roaming about, enjoying their classes, visiting their professors, thumbing profusely through journals at the library, sacrificing their sex lives for enlightening evenings with William Faulkner and Freud? When an obscure freshman invades this boundless, bewildering, chaotic excuse for an educational system called URI, the first doctrine he embraces is this: ‘Don’t jump the fences of life, find a way around them. ’ A nd that is the way it goes for almost all four years. You learn the ropes — you play the games. You become an expert con artist, you become a walking tape-recorder, regurgitating facts that later fade into nothingness, until it is all a foggy maze of useless figures and terms, just in time for you to receive your degree — your award for learning nothing, but throwing up everything at the right time and place. The forecast is not all clouds, however. The sun breaks through when one small fact, one good class, one worthwhile professor is recalled. For that minute glimmer of intelligence makes it seem relevant. Let us not forget that our duty towards knowledge depends upon we, the learners, alone. The ultimate value of academics can’t be measured according to the worth of professors and their classes. Students must look to no one but themselves for knowledge. So, take some advice — pick an easy course. — Barry Levin and Ev Short L Toney

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Library 1894