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SCARLET AND BLACK

Friday. November 2i. IVA?

 

} State of the College

Cont. from Page 1

action which must accompany it. But the
Executive Council of the Faculty and
the Academic Standing Committee are
showing signs ol vigorous assertiveness
and l intend to encourage them.

Superior Education

I spoke of superior teachers, superior
students, and superior education, as
though the word “superior" was an ab-
solute. It is not, of course; but what I
mean by a superior teacher is someone
who believes that his discipline provides
a vehicle for educating both himself and
his students, who continues to aspire to
know more than he does now, who be-
lieves that students are worth his best
preparation, who has a sense of obliga-
tion to his status as a professional man,
who has a realized or developing com-
mitment to this kind of institution, and
who has an ability to reflect all these
characteristics to his students so that,
though they may not like him personally,
they take him seriously and believe in
him as a practitioner of the discipline he
represents. Whether he writes articles
and books is somewhat baide the point.
a matter of personal drive and taste;
whether he reads to enrich himself and
thus the dimension of his preparation is
not. His views about society are also be
side the point, thus provided he does not
substitute them for the practice of his
discipline. On this matter I do not wish
to be misunderstood, N0 instructor in
times like these can escape responding
with a personal point of view to the con-
cemed idealism or honest confusion of
his students with what is happening in
the world. That response, which comes
by way of illustration and personal com-
ment, cannot be neatly separated from
his subject matter in class discussion or
lectures or conferences. It is the nature
of Grinnell teachers and students to arti-
culate their social consciences, to make
themselves relevant to their age. But a
Grinnell teacher is, first of all a profes
sional, a teacher in a discipline, not a
full time singer of a social gospel, and
in the consideration of his own integrity,
he needs to face these hard facts.

What I mean by a superior student is
someone whose high school record indi-
cates that he is a competent learner,
who brings enough energy and modesty
to the job of learning to be educable, and
who can accept the frustrations and hos-
tilities involved in the student-teacher re-
lationship without getting the emotional
bends and crying out that the college is
cruel or thoughtless. I do not wish to say
that student complaints are always
wrong. i have no doubt that there is
some damnably dull teaching going on
in this place; that students are some-
times getting short-changed by overly
casual preparation on the part of teacha
ers, or by a teacher’s inability to re-
spond with any excitement to the real
richness of his subject matter, or by his
failure to connect it with some meaning
to other disciplines so that his students
get at least a first glimpse at what “no
eral studies" are really all about. I am
also aware that some courses remain in
the schedule simply because they appeal
to cataloguing instincts. when students
apply the word “irrelevant” to these
sorts of miseries, we ought to listen to
their complaints seriously. But if a stu-
dent means by “irrelevant” some no-
tion that a course ought primarily to
make him tecl right about his feelings,
then I don’t even know how to talk With
him, except to say, with honest sorrow,
that the question is really not whether
the college is relevant to him but wheth-
er he is relevant to the college.

Well Trained and Committed

The question of what is meant by a
superior education in an undergraduate
institution like this one is answered chief—
ly by bringing superior teachers and
students together and letting them have
a go at one another. chiefly, but not
solely. Curricular management does
have a part to play, provided it rests on
two assumptions: first, on the nature of

faculty competence available; and, sec-
and, on a system to control the memo
fessional biases of individual disciplines.
The first assumption is probably obvi-
ous, though I can give you a few in
stances from our newer ventures and
changed Circumstances. Urban Studies
and Religious Studies appear to be going
concerns because they are competently
staffed. Our Comparative Literature Pro-
gram seems to me to offer great pro-
mise because we happen to have on hand
a group of well-trained and committed
young men eager to try their hand at it.
If our Department of Russian Language
and Literature is successful, it will be
because Mr. Whelan and Mr. 'Magee,
with some lateral assistance from Mr.
Guroff and Mr. Kulawiec, make it so.
We cannot order any of these good things
to be done, nor can we create them
simply by drawing up handsome curri~
cular chariots. We have to have the
horses first, or at least simultaneously,
and then we can provide the administra-
tive and moral encouragement to make
them go.

Accountability

My second assumption, that of con
trolling the preprolessional biases oi
individual disciplines, is more compli-
cated. There is something to be said
for not controlling it. For one thing,
an individual discipline which does not
consist of people with strong professional
pride and energy is not worth much to
begin with. For another, the liberal arts
general educalion concept has always
been in trouble with those of its prac-
titioners who in tryilig to teach every-
thing end up teaching nothing. For still
another, graduate school faculties, in
spite of the public prattling of their deans
to the contrary, still like to see strong
pre-professional courses of study in the
transcripts of their baccalaureate appli—
cants. A college such as this one, with a
strongly professionally oriented faculty
and a substantial number of students
bound for graduate or professional school
might survive a long time by simply
turning the decisions for educational po-
licy over to individual departments. The
result would be a narrow but quite
likely, in such terms, a superior educa
tion. But such a definition of "superior"
is not the double virtues, at least po-
tentially, of both generalist and special-
ist; and this means that a system of
checksrand-balances to keep matters in
equilibrium has to be allowed to funcr
tion. This system functions here in the
recommendations of the divisional edu-
cational policy committees, in the care
ful considerations of the Executive
Council about both personnel appoint-
ments and course changes, and in the
total faculty discussion and debate about
graduation requirements. This total fa-
culty review, though sometimes wearir
some, is perhaps the most crucial ele-
ment in the system. It rests on my con-
viction, which is sometimes shaken but
never wholly dislodged, that the wisdom
of the total faculty in educational mats
ters affecting the basic direction of the
College is sounder than that of an indi~
vidual department or divismn. It seems
to me that the Worley amendment to the
Executive Council’s motion to abolish
the comprehensive examination require
ment is a Case in point. Individual disci-
plines know, or ought to know, how to
devise the most effective ways to exam-
ine their students, But they ought to
be required to justify the pedagogy of
these devices to representatives of the
whole college. This kind of accountability
gives the College the opportunity to
keep its educational policy decisions in
equilibrium. For even if that equilibrium
is fretful and constantly assailable, we
can always have at hand the ways and
means to readjust it.

A good many questions are implied in
my remarks, and knowing this faculty
and student body, I do not doubt that
questions will be raised. And so they
should be. Whatever changes in detail or
flexibilities may be wise or necessary
at its edges, my central position is that
our concern for professionalism in our
teachers, for academic orientation in our

students, and for purpose and control
in our educational policy has to repre-
sent our first priority and obligation
and has to have first call on our ener-
gies.
Emotional Climate

Our second priority and call on our
energies must go to improving the emo-
tional climate of this environment. In so
far as the climate is a result ol phy-
sical improvcrr nts, I think we are
better off than we were. The residence
halls are more comfortable, the renovar
ticn of ARI-l is progressing ahead of
schedule, the removal of the old combi-
nation service-and-heating plant has im-
proved the landscape, Other improve»
ments are on their way, though one has
to discount the fact that half-finished
improvements often look worse than no
improvements at all. By September 1 of
next year we hope to have a remodeled
bookstore, and hopeiully some signifi-
cant improvements in landscaping on
the central campus. You are aware by
this time, and perhaps even amused,
by my iinickiness about the physical
looks of the place. Though some of this
iiniclnness is just plain psypchopathic
tidincss, most of it comes from my
belief that education has a better chance
in pleasant and attractive surroundings.

in so far as the emotional climate is
the result of lhe way people act and be-
have toward one another. we are better
on in some ways and worse oil in oth-
ers. The change in the pattern of resi-
dence hall living and the incorporation
of the resident advisory system repre-
sent, it seems to me, quite promising
improvements, at least when I compare
the present situation with the one that
existed previously. But the improvements
are only promising, not fully realized, or
even really tested, and we need to de-
vote some of our energies to working
with resident advisers and appropriate
student groups on systematic appraisals
of what is Working and what isn’t and
why. In all these appraisals of the resi-
dence hall system, and indeed in all Of
the faculty‘s appraisals and reapprais~
ills of the way students live and behave
on this campus, you need to be aware
of two things, First, the faculty has not
only the right but the obligation to con-
cern itself with the out—of—class life of
students, because the quality of that life
has a direct bearing on the academic
movement of this institution. Second,
the student deans, Mrs. Low and Mr,
Kimbo, have a right to know how you
are managing your concern, which
means you ought to talk with them- be-
fore assuming they are wrong or mis
guided or il‘ informed. They may be,
as all administrators are at times; but
it is sometimes the peculiar quality of
this faculty to compound college prob
lems by discussing them with everyone
first but the faculty committee chair
man and the administrators concerned.
The result frustrates answers and solu-
tions by piling them over with heaps of
rumors, second guesses, and confused
half-truths.

Liberal Campus

That was a somewhat ill-humored re~
mark, which you will either understand
completely or not at all, but it is not
truly a digression. In a small way it
lifts the edge on one of the major
problems regarding the emotional cli-
mate on this campus. This problem, to
oversimplify it, is how we can manage
on this campus to protect faculty and
student criticism and dissent and at the
same time to prevent egregious rudeness
and confrontations. To say it another
way, l think we may well be lacing the
task of defining the line between what
we, as a community of faculty and stu-
dents, want to protect as the essential
quality of a free and open campus and
what we cannot, as the same community,
tolerate or accommodate without giving
the place away. i do not want to be
an alarmist about this matter. From
many points of view, criticism and dis-
sent at Grinnell, whether directed at
the College or at the society outside,
have been managed with constructive
idealism and civilized style. The efforts
of the Black Students and the Moro-

torium group are two recent cases in
point. From some other points of view,
criticism and dissent at Grinnell, what
ever the motivation, have ranged from
the illrmannercd exhibitionist to the dis-
ruptive. So far this faculty, the deans
and I, as well as most of the student
body, have been very accommodating. it
is the nature of most members of a coir
legiate community to be patient, calmly
persuasive, perhaps even excessively tol-
erant. These qualities are reinforced by
the Grinnell tradition, which believes
that a liberal campus and a generally
permissive attitude, provide the best
kind oi environment tor developing the
proper combination oi toughmindedness
and sensitivuy in its undergraduates. I
do not want this situation to change, so
that we end up with either a tyranny
of the majority or a tyranny of the mic
nOrity.

The guidelines necessary to define
the distinctions between an Open liberal
campus and o disorderly one are very
difficult to enunciate. But I am aware
that it is the president’s job to do it
and a few weeks ago I read to this
faculty a draft of my thoughts on this
matter and then discussed them with the
Faculty Executive Council, which re
sponded favorably. But I am also aware
that such an enunciation of guidelines
has to be presented and has to argue it-
sell so persuasively that faculty and
students, or at least the greatest number
of them. will see the enunciation as
obviously sensible and timely. The
statement in question is now being re
vised and will be forthcoming shortly.
In the meantime, you can be reminded
that almost no policy position of a pres-
ident in a iacultyoriented institution
like this one will have its intended ef-
fect on the community unless you stand
by it. in a very real sense, not only
the academic direction but also the aca
demic and non-academic order of this
College rests in both your hands and
mine. The way by which we work to-
gether, talk over our differences ration-
ally, and above all, discharge our teach-
ing and other proiessional obligations is
the basic style that supports or weak-
ens the whole character of this Col
lege. With students as sensitive and in-
telligent as ours, our real if unexpressed
commitment is transparently clear and
immediately becomes our basic instruc-
tional process. Over the last generation
the exercise of our commitment has
been managed in such a style, and
with such a clear recognition of our own
accountability, that the trustees have
delegated through and with the presi—
dent of the College the real internal
governance of this institution. That dele-
gation is a conscious act of faith. not a
legal or fixed absolute, and we must
continue to earn it.

Faculty and President Acting Together

I suspect I‘ve said enough. at least for
this meeting, but I do want to tell you
that I intend to make much more fre-
quent reports and statements to this far
culty than I have in the past. Given the
pressures of the time we clearly need
now more centers of reference and focal
points for discussion. My remarks on the
emotional climate of our environment
are clearly incomplete. There is much
more to be carefully thought out and
said about this matter. One aspect of it,
for instance looms on the immediate
horizon. This is the forthcoming position
paper of the students on college governe
since. It will require our immediate at-
tention. for I am sure that you agree
with me that We Should not let things
go by default or should play the friend-
ly game of psuedo-negotintion without
first taking a good hard look at what is
clear and what isn’t, what makes sense
and what doesn’t, what is workable and
what isn't, and what is negotiable and
what isn‘t. I do not mean to prejudge
what has not yet been oiiicially pre-
sented. I mean only that we are going to
face that position paper and resolve
our response to it in concert, behaving in
brief as both students on the one hand,
and trustees on the other hand, expect
us to: that is, asa faculty and-president
acting together,