Newspapers / North Carolina Wesleyan University … / Sept. 20, 1968, edition 1 / Page 2
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SEPT. 20, 1968 PAGb 2 '0 ACULTY DRUM By ■ Sim Wilde This is a good article, but not because of its style or its author or be cause it is well-written. It is good because of its content and because the college student who takes it to heart can find his college years most profitable and enjoyable and can avoid a great waste of his time, his tal ent, and his parents’ mon ey. Most students come to college with three basic needs. Above all else is the need to organize them selves - their time and energy - into a productive pattern or direction. The greatest enemy of the freshman is time since for the first time in his life he will have too much of it. Before college.most of his time in school, at homs or in social activi ties, has been supervised in some way. At college, his attendance in class (about fifteen to twenty hours weekly) is the only time when he will be closely watched. The rest of the week is his to do with as he chooses - to study or to play, to visit the library or to go to the movies, to read or to sleep. As a result of this newly found free time, too many students are un able to organize them selves, and the result is that time, talent, and pre cious potential are wasted. Another need is for the emotional maturity to make sound decisions. Here again students have had few opportunities to make decisions for which they must accept full re sponsibility. Even such small tasks as taking care of their own laundry or buying their own tooth paste have always been left to others. So often, those who come to col lege have never been al lowed to make independ ent judgments and have no basis of any kind for decision-making on their own. These decisions which will be required of the college student range from major significance to minor importance: whether to clean up one’s room or not, to get up and go to class or sleep, to go out for the basketball team or the dramatics club or both, to study or sleep or go to the movies or drink beer or go home, to be a doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief. Finally , the college student needs an under standing of what the aca demic process is all a- bout - of what it takes to succeed as a learner.Re cently, in an interview with a student, the au thor asked him if the work at college was harder or easier than he had ex pected, His reply was; ^Tt’s hard enough, all right, but there is no way of describing the differ ence in what I expected and what things here are really like,” His plight is typical. He was not at all pre pared for the true nature of learning and inquiry and study. Those who come to college need to know that learning is not easy, that an open mind and a willingness to ac cept new ideas (or at least think about them) is essential, that under standing and education can come only to those who deliberately seek them out. Unfortunately, there is n’t much the college can do to assure that its stu dents have these good qualities - the ability to organize themselves, the emotional maturity to make decisions, and an understanding of the aca demic process - before they come to college. There are demands the good college will make which help to develop these qualities after the student arrives, and the entering freshman will ei ther come to terms with these demands or he will THE DECREE come to grief inl)ne way or another: he doesn t pass his courses, he gets into trouble and is su spended, or, worse per haps, he loses all inter est in college and wants nothing to do with it. What are these de mands the good college will place on its students. First and foremost will be the expectation that a student will behave as a mature adult who will ac cept the responsibility personally for his own conduct and behavior,for his own success or fail ure. The college will pro vide all the assistance and direction it can, but it will not supervise ev ery move or spy to see that the student is going to bed on time or attend ing classes or keeping the right company. This is not to say that the college will have no rules or supervision. It will have a limited num ber of rules, most of which have been arrived at by the cooperative effort of students, faculty and ad ministrative officer. They are rarely oppressive or unreasonable and are us ually under constant re view. They have been established to provide the best possible circumstan ces in which students, fa culty, and staff in a col lege community can op erate with any degree of sanity. A good college will see to it that nothing about a student’s life or learning is above question, that there are no sacred cows free from criticism, and that creaky thinking pro cesses are in a constant state of ferment. In or der to deal with this cir cumstance, the student must fight back. He must read, he must study, he must organize and re organize his own ideas and, above all else, he must think. No doubt there are many students who graduate from college without doing all this, and who simply manage to meet the minimal re quirements of the instruc tors, But they miss the greatest opportunity they a COMMENTARY by Catherine Simpson Question: What is a Mus- kie? Answer: The same thing as an Agnew only fluffier. It cannot be taken ser iously. One must have the courage to laugh, because to take it seriously means frustration, disgust, and fear. One cannot even do one’s own small part in helping to nominate the candidate of one’s choice with any hope of success, because the nomination of a candidate is determined by a select few of the best (ie, most adept in the art of corruption) player of the Great A- merican Game. One hasn’t even the power to help c'lect convention dele gates in many cases, as delegates are chosen by the party kings of the stales. Is it possible that the conventions reflected even the majority will of the |)artiesV 1 can remember being taught throughout my years in secondary schools that though the U- nited States has a large population and though it seems as if one person has not much power, it is, nevertheless, his duty and privilege to vote, that his vote is his voice in the administration of his na tion’s governmento But the individual’s vote, at least as a means of choosing between policies and atti tudes, has certainly been devalued in this election year by the conventions’ choices. How am 1 to voice my opinion? I am provid ed with a solution to the problem: don’t vote, peo ple say; protest by with holding your voice. Very fine and good, 1 think, ex cept that I want to be heard, because though 1 really want none of the three candidates to have control of my nation, yet there are two running RESPOI^SIBILITY OFGOVERMUENT" The responsibility of any elected official is to his me general act and think in SrSfof loyalty to and unity with the ruling body to which terms or loy > ^ ^^e ultimate loyalty and con- of an elecS^^^^^ of any integrity must be to Aose who elected him. Thus a U.S. Senator will m ience work to bring improvements physical, gTanciarand teVTto Ms state, be Iteycn to the detrl- tinanciai, dn & not that such improvements Svei? h“m ?«£et but simply that the building o, a tl.e°"conLle“tous elected officials of the Student body would work to achieve those goals desired ^^fthlsfuTenS desire their student government to ob tain for them more freedom, it is logical to expect the students’ Senate to pass, as a reasonable minimum, resolutions and regulations increasing student responsi- bUi?y and freedom; if the students desire a greater wolce and involvement in college affairs, a good student government would work by petitions pressure, and the frading of favors, for more actual power m the de cision- making of the college organization; and if, perhaps perversely, the students desire more pro tection in that freedom and involvement in college af fairs then it is reasonable to expect that student govern ment* would back strongly the office of the Public De fender giving short shrift to its painful duty of pun- ishment and prosecution, a duty foisted off onto it. It would be no great evil were this student govern ment policy finally to give the students more dominance in the shaping of college laws and policies; it would, perhaps, even be an indication of a greater measure of democracy at work among us„ whom I simply do not trust, whom it really frightens me to think of as President, and by with holding my vote I am ex panding their chances of winning the election. So I think to myself that there is one major issue with which I do not agree, but there are numerous not- so-vital issues on which the candidates do not a- gree, so I conclude by ig noring the existence of the principal issue, (with a secret hope that somehow my candidate will resolve it properly), and vote for the one whose opinion and record most express that in which I believe. will probably ever have to become dynamic, aggres sive, and alert persons. A good college will de mand study, will demand reading, will demand thinking, and if the student will not, the good col lege will ultimately elim inate him to make room for those who will. In the third place, the good college allows an at mosphere where there is a high degree of experi mentation. It must be so if there is to be learning and progress and im provement in a student’s life. If a student is to find himself, is to estab lish a sound and mean ingful identity, he needs an exposure to many types of experiences. He needs the freedom to experiment and fail, if necessary. Oc casionally, this experi mentation gets him into trouble. But this is a part of the process of learn ing; exploration, exper imentation, discovery, sometimes failure. The good college allows the student to develop to the fullest of his potential in a framework of limit ed and reasonable re strictions, Wesleyan College will treat its students as young adults and will expect them to act accordingly. Wesleyan College will insist that its students accept full and unquali fied responsibility for The DECREE proudly announces a change to weekly publication through the medium of Lawrence Newspapers, Inc., of Garner, N, C. their own conduct and ac tion. In short, Wesleyan Col lege believes its students should have the freedom to make decisions, to de velop their own attitudes, and to determine their own courses of action. But it will also demand that students be responsible to themselves andthecol- lege community. This the key phrase: freedom with responsibility. Freedom, and the privileges that go with it, yes, but with it comes a strict accounta bility for the results. The only education really worth having is a self-education - one which an individual gets for him self. Wesleyan College will provide all the in gredients necessary for this self-education. But that is as far as it can go. What happens from :here on is up to the stu dent Aniiiit Ambrose Rising vocal star A- manda Ambrose will ap pear in concert October 29. Song, humor, and soul add life to her own ori ginal blend of music,She sings to please many moods. Blues, rock,and gospel, ballads, and jazz are rendered in her ori ginal style. Amanda s deeply personal commun ication with her audience gives her wide appeal- “Speak low, if you speak love.” -Shakespeare Official Student Newspaper of North Carolina Wesleyan College EDITOR........ Ed Smith BUSINESS MANAGER... Tom Mowbray ADS MANAGER,... .....John Hinnant CIRCULATION MANAGER Jim Price OFFICE MANAGER ..Julie Robinson EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Keith Feelemyer PHOTOGRAPHER Baxter Smith Business Address; Box 3146, Wesleyan College, Rocky Mount, N. C.
North Carolina Wesleyan University Student Newspaper
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Sept. 20, 1968, edition 1
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