University of Victoria - Tower Yearbook (Victoria, British Columbia Canada)

Page 19 text:

drink coffee and rip up plastic coffee cups. Some people even ate the food. But the big attraction of the food services was the conversation. This was where the beer-hall putsches and Das Kapilals of later years were first talked about: HReally I've never been out with a boy so fast. You know how most of them work just one hand at a time? NVell, heis two hands and Everywhere! Yes, she does have lovely blonde hair, doesn't she? She's getting it all the same color now too. How many students at the University of Victoria? You just count the number of rumours about faculty dismissals and divide by three. You can't tell the player without a pogromf' Status and snobbery were also to be seen at food- service gatherings. S For example, some smoked pipes, others cigars and still others rolled their own cigarettes. Others perversely stressed their virtue by not smoking at all. These differences tended to cut across Iratist-Apathist-Yetcher lines. Indeed, some emaneipated young women took to smoking pipes and cigars. In a few cases, this resulted in the swift and total emancipation of their digestive tracts. Umbrellas were another example of snobbery and - more important - inverse snobbery. The snobbish

Page 18 text:

CAMPUS LIFE '67: The Ira tists, the Apathists and the Yetchers by Robin Jeffrey 1 People who buy annuals do so in order to have 1'5 something to show their grandchildren, something to prove they really were youngg something for posterity, something to savour when the gold has turned to silver and the gorgeous bosom has become a big bust. So, keeping in mind all you people out there in Posterity- Land, let's take a look at what mr it is alleged - was g'Campus Life in 1966-67. ' . .ft , . ,, . . ' sa it nVf HCampus L1fe,t' said one young man of that era, His being iratef' A- L N A K Campus Life,'5 said a young woman of similar vintage is being apathetic? Campus Life? Yetch ! said a third. And perhaps that summed up the political divisions of Campus Life: the Iratists, the Apathists and the Yetchers. The most numerous of the three groups were the .tXpathists, based on a hardcore of education students and comprising the majority of the 3,500 total enrolment. They came, took lecture notes and went home. For them, Uinvolvementi' was going to the SUB for coffee. The second largest group was the Iratists. They were the student politicians tall of whom had read The illalzinlg of the Prc51'1lenlj, the leftists, and the radicals. Involvement was their watchword. They were t'c'onc'erned. They sought universal accessibilityf, a profound and meaningful life experience and talked about Hsorial justice and bourgeois materialismf' Finally, the smallest group was the Yetchers fnot to be ronfust-tl with the l.ec'hers who were much more ntnnt-rousj. Generally third- and fourth-year students, ibm-5 4-xprrsst-cl tontmnpt for lratists, Apathists and lar ultx, talkt-fl about t l'he Piece of Paper, and were intftnt on ugvtting into grad school. ,ka 4 'iff With these divisions outlined, we now can pass on to an examination of some of the Bulwarks of Campus Life. And perhaps the Greatest Bulwark of Them All was the Library. For every student - Iratist, Apathist and Yetcher alike - a visit to the Library was as inevitable and as much to be feared as death itself, although slightly less definitive. Apathists went there to try to study around the peculiar partitioned tables, which were reminiscent of nothing so much as the modesty boards in a girls' shower room. Iratists went there to talk and argue in loud voices, thus annoying the Apathists. And Yetchers went there to scoff at both and use exotic, little-known facilities like the record, xerox, old-book and seminar rooms. Some people even read the books. After the library, in terms of inevitability of use, came the food services in the Student Union Building, Student Services' Centre and Cafeteria. Here, at one time or another, nearly every student stopped to talk,

Page 20 text:

Campus life was using Playboy nudes to dress up dance notices. . among the Apathists and lratists began to carry black umbrellas to shield them on the long, long walk from parking facilities to buildings and to mark them as college menf' Yetchers, on the other hand, refused to carry umbrellas for that very reason. Rather than be identihed with Apathists and lratists, they preferred to be soaked. This, too, was the era of grahtti or wall writing. Perhaps the best appeared on a SUB bulletin board during the dismissal hassle: GOD IS NOT DEAD - the Dean just didnt renew his contract? XVhic.h brings to mind the nuns. There were a lot of them. Or there seemed to be, anyway. Perhaps it was the black habit that made them stand out in any crowd. At any rate, even the rugby team could see them coming and adjust its language accordingly. The nuns were a good influence. Of course, some people didn't like to ask them what denomination they were, but once you got over the hurdle of asking them, things were all right. lf the nuns stood out the most, those who stood out the least were the Science People. They were there all right. The Registrar had their numbers to prove it. But nobody was ever really sure when he'd seen one. They came out in force, however, at Open House, and thats when all doubts about the existence of Science is-.. ..i Jin il1.ii?'e t 112252 People were disspelled. Perhaps to prove their reality, they set up multitudes of exhibits - including a gyrating nude to shock Little Old Ladies. Open House was an interesting experience for students as well as Little Old Ladies. The townspeople came to see what their taxes were being spent on, and many were appalled when they saw students putting their feet on taxpayer-paid-for tables. So what else was Campus Life?,' you ask out there in Posterity-Land. WVell, it was drinking beer and looking at comely young women for comely young men, if you happened to be a comely young woman yourself J. The favourite hangout of affluent students was The Snug in Oak Bay where the cheapest beer wm 50 cents a bottle, but for that 50 cents you got oodles of atmosphere Qphoney, of course, but atmosphere nonethelessj. For the less fortunate, Ingie-burgers were a frequent lunch or dinner substitute. And occasionally the SUB got a liquor licence, and you could combine drinking and opposite-sex-watching. lf you were a girl, living in residence might be part of Campus Life, and if it was, you started to identify with Audrey Hepburn in The Nunfs Story Qwhich was an old movie even in 1967 You also might have come to regard the inevitable, proliferating commissionaires as protectors of your virtue. Everybody else regarded them as a political force, slightly to the right of Adolf Hitler.