Page Two

Ed' oriuls

SCARLET AND BLACK

 

Convocation

Despite the cavernous backdrop
of Darby gym, the buzzing P. A.
ystem and the ringing telephones,

onday’s convocation was an im-

ressive affair. Full dress assem-

Iages of such academic finery us-
ually are.

Yet there was something very
special about this convocation be-
cause it truly marked the begin-
ning of s new regime. Not only
does the faculty have a dynamic
new leader in Dr. Wall, but Presi-
dent Leggett showed that he has
finished his apprenticeship and is
ready to take full command of the
community.

The foundering indecisiveness
of the last two years seems to be
over and Grinnell may now be rea-
dy to resume the position of aca-
demic leadership which President
Ililowen was instrumental in creat-

g.
This does not mean we can rest
on our laurels—quite the contrary.
What Dr. Wall and President Leg-
gett have done is admit the sad
state of our laurels and pronounce
themselves ready to begin restoring
them.

It is now up to the student body

to assert its willingness to take part
in this restoration. Our task is a
large one. It demands diligence and
imagination in pursuing our com-
mon goal of educational excellence.

This general goal can only be
realized through the specific com-
mitments of all members of the
community to the particular tasks
which have befallen them.

We students must commit our-
selves wholeheartedly to the de-
mands of our studies. But beyond
courses and assignments we must
strive to meet the challenges of the
extracurricular world, whether
these challenges be campus poli-
tics, publications, study groups or
even athletics.

These activities should not be
silly campus games—they should
be a vital and relevant part of the
Grinnell education.

With President Leggett, the time
has come for the student body also
to “summon itself to greatness,”
to commit itself to bettering our
corn-fed little oasis in whatever
manner each of us is able. Only in
so doing can Grinnell achieve a
vital place in our own lives and in
the life of the world.

Chicago

This issue of the SM! contains
a special feature on recent civil
rights activities in Chicago. Given
special coverage is last Sunday’s
march into suburban Cicero.

The problem of the urban civil
rights movement is a crucial one
for America’s future. It demands
the attention and involvement of
all citizens. As students we have a
special responsibility to be in-
formed and active in this area.

Whether we choose to agree or
disagree with the philosophy of
the marchers, it is impossible to
deny the evidence of deep-seated
racial hatred which they have re-
vealed.

This liatred must somehow be
overcome before minority groups

can achieve the full equality which
most of us here at Grinnell support.

The marchers have been con-
demned for inciting violence, and
violence has indeed taken place.
But perhaps it is necessary vio-
lence, a kind of childbirth in the
face of a new world. The marchers
have made comfortable northern
suburbanites face up to their own
prejudices and only time will tell
whether these prejudices can now
be overcome.

In the meantime, the problem
cannot be ignored in the hope that
it will magically fade away. It must
be faced and acted upon, The pen-
ally for failure can only be a pl'
feration, not an end, to Watts-like
incidents.

 

Nous Seeks Contributions

TlliS year a new magazine called Nous
will incorporate the Grinnell Review and
extend its nonfiction material to all of
the nonascience departments on campus.

All students are reminded that if1hey
have anything to contribute, whether it
be a piece of creative writing, a woodcut.
an original musical piece, or a human-
llies paper, every contribution will be
given serious consideration. Contributions
may be made to hall representatives or
to the N005 mailbox.

llllillllllllllllllllllilllllllllillllllilllllulll

Letters Policy

The 5&3 invites responsible Student
comment in the form of letters to the
edliur. These letters should be dropped
in the 5&3 Campus mail box (among
the faculty boxes) and should be type-
written. Only signed letters will be ac-
ccpted, though names Will be withheld
from publication upon request.

llillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllmll

illllllilllllillilllilllIIIlllllllllllllllnlllllillllilllllllillillillllliillllliilillllllllllliIIillllIIllll

Scarlet and Black

GRINNELL COLLEGE
Grinnell. low

a
(«of

do
6

q? a

A weekly newspaper published each may or in.
q0|l€g€ year by [he Grinnell Committee on Student Yuba
iiwions. Represented vol mlonal .dvemsinx by N»
tionn Adverusinl Servlce,

ind, College Publisher:

G’ v, Represenuuve, 13 East soul sum. New York, 22. my.

\‘Sccond clus postage paid oi Grinne
mo $5.00 per school ym. ism plid lublcflpllons.

mass
Iicnm; EDrmn ,. .
nusmrss MANAGER _..
Cory EDITOR

seams surron
ASSISTANT To THE some
sun:

low: Subscription

. n-mla rum
. sum Wlll
Martha nerkey

sm- cmv
Amie ranci-

, Bruce uni-mm, Mike Delole, chimes Dmchock,

my; Néumun, mama Samehov, Kllhy Shea, Jeremy Wilson,
John Wilson. Nell Fischer. Chuck nannnn, no Hale,
lime hrlsh, Plul .vonex. Ann Klrsthner, rnyuu Muddy,

ore: willow.

rnul Nachmnn. Chnrles smith.

John ncksieln, cal-y ciadins, mum norm",
Richard Ramp. Lynne canal, Roxanne Johnson, Gnry Agislm.

Friday September V. I?“

Dan Bucks

The gentle chaos of retuming m
Grinnell — unpacking, welcoming old
friends, learning new faces -— was in<
terrupted in a thought-provoking manner
by the opening convocation. The re-
marks of President Leggelt and Mr.
Wall offered a challenge to the students
and the rest of the college to question
constructively the institutions of {his
community and to contribute to die bet<
tement of the Grinnell experience.

in viewing the empty student chairs in
Darby that evening one could only won-
der whether the students would ade-
quately respond to this invitation to in-
volvement. A critical appraisal of our
student culture would seem to reinforce
die {ear that the remarks of Monday
evening are likely to receive little at-
tention or concern. Grinnell students ap-
pear entwined ln a dismal psychology
that excludes a sense of societal motiva-
[ion and commitment. At the heart of
this psychology is the failure of the ma-
jority of students to engage in a sincere,
liberal, intellectual endeavor. While
there is much energy expended in accu‘
mulating facts and information (or as-
signed materlal, there ls little commit-
ment to the idea of scholary enterprise
63111811 an in the context of I. commu-
nity. A narrow self- orientation has
been substituted {or a critical awareness
of ideas, values, and beliefs; and com-
petition for grades too often replaces a
vigorous, cooperative interchange of
viewpoints. Perhaps most saddening is
the lack of a quality of contemporaneity;
for Grinnell students, in contrast to the
same generation elsewhere, display a re.
luclance to immerse themselves in the
moral and social issues of our time.

The symptoms of the lethargy of the
student community can be distinguished
more easily than can its sources. How-
ever, the causal factors derive, perhaps,
from the dominant influence on students
of the culture outside of Grinnell, from
the nature of our educational system,
and from the inadequacies of student
leadership, broadly defined.

The intellectual baggage that smdenis
bring to Grinnell often contains strong
elemems of competitive individualism,
materialism, and status conscmusncss.
These Values militate against the idci
ol 3 communliy dedicated to learning
for learning's sake and proceeding intel-
lectually as a cooperative enterprise.

Our e culiuual slruclure promo:es a
restrictive sell-Concern by judging intel-

lectual achievement through one com.
posite score — the grade point average.
A cost is levied when intellectual curb
osities lead students too far afield of the
present domain of credits and grades.
Moreover, Gtinncll education proceeds
in a misordered sequence. Knowledge is
imparted early, but the techniques and
attitudes necessary to (he self-acquisi-
tion of knowledge are assimilated late
in the college career. Thus, the ability of
Giinnell’s “apprenticescholars” to teach
themselves and each other —« an ability
essential to a scholarly community —- is
inadequately developed.

Finally, campus organizations and
governments — potentially effective links
between the students and the college —
are often uninspiring, tradition-bound.
and hureaucretically overweight. Their
internal motivating force is more he-
quently a desire for peer group approval
and rec itlon than a sense of societal
respons y for the stale of the com-
munity. OpErating according to Parkin-
son’s law, the organizations perpetuate
themselves in narrow, intricate, and he
elflcient fashion.

Unfortunately. these causes of the
psychology of non—community are prob
ably subject to influence — if they can
be influenced at all — only in the long
run. Such institutions and patterns 0! lie-
havlor change slowly and with difficulty
if attacked from within.

A more immediate impact would den
rive from the compensating iorces of a
rebellion from outside of the present pat-
terns. A rebellion not in the form of pro-
test, but in the form of the establishment
of independent intellectual enterprises.
Research, study, and discussion organ-
ized without regard to their present con-
texts would provide both a motivating
outlet for frustrated curiosities and a
non-restrictive atmosphere in which con-
temporary moral and social dilemmas
could be confronted. Most importantly,
such student activity would constitute a
positive intellectual Contribution to the
community — a contribution that would
be achieved in a cooperative scholarly
fashion and that Wullld force Students to
tench themselves and each other.

Hopellllly, thls college need not pro-
duce only well-trained nlilids but also
individuals who think and act in terms
or values and purposes. With a bit of in-
spiration and independent action, Lllls
year can be more than a dull cadence
of dendlillcs and examinations.

 

invalid Coselullzalols

by PRJ

Tile freshmen this year strike me as
not necessarily extraordinary, rather
somolhing out at the ordinary. My first
impression, which i got by just sitting
in the forum grill and trying to observe
something, was or 24 year old girls, 15
year old boys, and more beards of every
kind than I’ve ever seen before, at least
at Grinnell. Oi course all of the beards
weren’t freshmen, It’s getting difficult to
tell [he dilierence between ii freshman
and a beatnik.

I understand that the beatnik cycle
has made a full revolution and is start-
ing again; but 1 saw quite a few Langan
freshmen playing football Sunday, and
it makes me wonder whether creeping
hippiness will strike again. 1 heard
of them talking about their experiences
with Zen, or what they thought was Zen
— I guess they were trying to beard the
lion's den. Even though not “intellectlh
a1" yet, they seem to be intellectually
inclined. One freshman girl asked me
about North Campus nnti-intellectualism
and I answered that the freshmen aren’t
snti~intellectual, just uneducated. She
didn’t hear me.

The freshman girls — God! You just

have [0 watch Lhe bland summer expres-

siolls of the returned npperclassmcn lllS~
appear when they thumb through the
freshman handbook. The Oui—Cffli‘dinarb
ness isn’t only in mi but in number,
£00. What the adminislralion Couldn’t do
with freshman halls the admissions did
» freshman halls and \ipperclass town.

Realizing that this is the class of 1970
really gets me. i keep thinking that
that’s 10 or 15 years from now. It makes
me wonder how many will get no
farther than Viet Nam or how many will
settle for a Bachelor of Abortion rather
than Arts. I wonder how many think
that all or us really do live in a yellow
submarine.

tillllilllililllllilliillllllllllllllllilllllulllllllllllllilllliiwiimullllllllll' ll

PARENTS
and

SUBSCRIBERS

This is your complimentary issue of
the 5&3. If you wish to receive all of
our regular issues. please see the sub-
scription information on page flirel.

WillllillulillilllilllilllllllilllllliilllllIilii!illlwmliwuiiiimlimlllnmilllullu