Newspapers / Fayetteville State University Student … / May 12, 1971, edition 1 / Page 5
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AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION: A BRITISH CRITIQUE The gravest current threat to American higher edu cation is the breakdown of coasensus on academic goals, in the view of Sir Eric Ashby, master of Clare College, Cambridge University. In an essay for the Carnegie Comin.'ssion on Higher Education, Sir Eric warns that the repression of freedom of tJiought is a likely result of continued campus controversy over functions. “To say there is no consensus on the goals of higher education in the United States is understate ment,” he writes in ANY PERSON, ANY STUDY (McGraw-Hill Book Company, $4.95). “Ther^ is dan gerous discord.” Faculty and students who support the supremacy of reason are caught between the New Left’s repudia tion of the moral code of liber-ilism and bigoted fundamentalist interpretation of the code by the Right, he asserts. Ame.'dcan UAiversities are peculiarly vulnerable when there is no agreement as to ±eir goals, rights, and responsibilities, having involved themselves more intimately in serving society than their counr.ex'parts elsewhere. Sir Eric believes chat they have assumed more functions than they have the strength to dis charge. The task that has suffered most, he says, is their prime one: the teaching of undergraduates. He also finds them too big for cohesiveness and hence difficult to govern effectively. If they keep going the way they are headed, he warns, the year 2000 may find U. S. higher learn ing afflicted with “brontosaurian cumbrousness and a surfeit of mediocrity.” Planners may be helpless to change the course on which higher education is set in America, “though it may, indeed probably will, be changed by the forces of society,” Should it remain on its present course," however, he foresees these consequences: 1) Universal access by the year 2000, with an esti mated enrollment of about 16 million students in some form of higher education. 2) One in six of these students (if colleges in the year 2000 are no more attractive to youth than they are today) attending unwillingly; and at least half of them dropping out. 3) This “semi-drafted army” of students will be taught by about 900,000 members of a profession whose prime duty is to teach “but whose teaching load is apt to be inversely proportional to their dis tinction, and whose distinction is measured by the possession of a Ph.D. and the continued publication of what are deemed original contributions to knowl edge.” 4) Unless some unforeseen factor climates it, “a streak of frustrated aspiration will run through the whole system.” Two-year colleges will strive to do para-academic work, four-year colleges will itch to set up graduate programs. And, at the pinnacle, a few world famous institutions will be committed to the costly obligation of preserving their supremacy. But Sir Eric says that higher education may not remain on its present course. He sees three other possibilities; 1) A moratorium on expansion, by replacing the socio-economic barriers with barriers of merit and motivation. If this happened, massive funds might be put into raising the level of secondary education (con tinued either at school or in community colleges). High schools might be the terminus of full-time edu cation, “except for those who need, or want, to go to college for some clear purpose.” 2) Another outcome, favored by the New Left, might be a successful disruption of the system “and its replacement by something quite different (what nobody knows).” 3) A final outcome might be “to identify the dan gerous features in this sombre prognosis and to eliminate these systematically by slow evolutionary change. (The radicals forget that this is the way they evolved from the apes.)” A partial moratorium on expansion along current lines may come from the students themselves, sug gests Sir Eric. “A growing number of students resent tfie postponement of ‘adult responsibility, rights, and prerogatives.’ They do not wish to be initiated into a society whose values they do not respect. They do not wish to be given a professional training \\4iich equips them (as some put it) to be 'exploited’ by industry or government.’ One way to change the pattern, he adds, would be to spread out higher education through the working life of citizens. In ANY PERSON, ANY STUDY, Sir Eric comments briefly on the entire gamut of higher education in the U. S. The Smokies The Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina take their name from the blue haze that clings to their slopes. The mountains contain 26 species of orchids and more species of trees than are found in Europe. MOMENTS OF TRUTH David L. Silverman in vented his first game at the age of seven in order to arouse his grand father’s waning interest following a prolonged los ing streak at casino. Since that time Silverman’s passion for games and puzzles has been consum ing. It culminates today with the publication of a fascinating book: YOUR MOVE — A TREASURY OF 100 DECISION PRO BLEMS DESIGNED TO CHALLENGE YOUR IN SIGHT. (McGraw -Hill, $5.95). "The objective of this book is to entertain,” the author indicates. “Any instruction you derive from it is unintended.” The book succeeds ad mirably, at least in fail ing to provide a shred of Instruction. The first part of the volume, illustrated by Don C. Oka, consists of 80 game problems with the solutions printed on the reverse side — the author hates to thumb through a puzzle book in quest of a solution, with the risk of inadvertently reading the solution to a problem not yet attempt ed. For example: “Driving in unfamiliar territory, you stop to get directions at a large house with a fenced-in lawn. Absent - minded- ly you neglect a sign at the gate which says BE WARE OF DOG. You are half way to the house when you suddenly see a vicious - looking Dob erman Pinscher streak ing toward you with teeth bared. You have neither weapon nor protective clothing such as a jacket with which to defend your self. And you haven’t a chance of getting back to the gate in time. Your move I” (Appropriately, this situation occurs in a sec tion titled, “Life Games.”) The second part of the book contains 20 unsolved games — a mine of in triguing research pro blems Slat serious game sters may find even more entertaining than the solved problems. The problems, in both sections, involve chal lenging “moment of truth” decisions in games of chance, games of skill, games conventional, un conventional, serious or bizarre. (Continued on page 11) Honors - Awards given Fayetteville State University held its an nual Honor and Awards Day, Friday April 30th in Seabrook Auditorium. Students always look forward to the pre sentation of these awards to outstanding stu dents. One outstanding feature of this year’s program was the presentation of sorority and fraternity awards by members of these respective organizations. Customarily, the Academic Dean always presented these awards. This year a special citation was pre sented to Dean Richard Fields to an out standing athlete who also excelled scholas tically. Members of the Awards Committee were: (Continued on page 10) THE VOICE...MAY 12, 1971...PAGE 5 ... Nabokov ... (Continued from page 4) hardly exceeded the number ot poems 1 wrote in En glish, ” Nabokov writes in his introduction. His earliest poetic style — “one of passionate and commonplace love verse” — is not represented in these pages, and was followed by a period of rebellion against the political regime which had overwhelmed his native land. As an emigre’, he sought to recap ture and crystallize the sights and sounds, moods and feelings of the Russia which was no more. Then came “a period lasting another decade or so during which I set myself to illustrate the principle of making a short poem contain a plot and tell a story....; and finally, in the late thirties, and especially in the following decades, a sudden liberation from self- imposed shacWes, resulting both in a sparser output and in a belatedly discovered robust style. Selecting poems for this volume proved less difficult than trans lating them.’ A proponent of rigid fidelity in the transposition of Russian verse into a different language, Nabokov confronted a dilemma when it came to his own works: “Treating a text in that way is an honest and de lightful procedure, when the text is a recognized masterpiece, whose every detail must be faithfully rendered in English. But what about englishing one’s own verse, written half a century or a quarter of a century ago? One has to fight a vague embarrass ment; one cannot help squirming and wincing; one feels rather like a potentate swearing allegiance to his own self or a conscientious priest blessing his own bathwater. On the other hand, if one contemplates, for one wild moment, the possibility of paraphrasing and improving one’s old verse, a horrid sense of falsification makes one scamper back and cling like a baby ape to rugged fidelity. ’ Nabokov’s solution: wherever rhyme, “or its shadow,” offered itself it was welcomed gratefully; but “I have never twisted the tail of a line for the sake of consonance; and the original measure has not been kept if readjustments of sense had to be made for its sake.” The poems written in America, and previously pub lished in THE NEW YORKER, are of a lighter vein, “owing, no doubt, to their lacking that inner verbal association with old perplexities and constant worry of thought which marks poems written in one’s mother tongue, with exile keeping up its parallel murmur and a never-resolved childhood plucking at one’s rustiest chords.” The inclusion of chess problems, for which Nabo kov “refuses to apologize,” brings forth a poetic explanation on his part: “Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity. The composing of those ivory-and-ebony riddles is a com paratively rare gift and an extravagantly sterile oc cupation; but then all art is inutile, and difinely so, if compared to a number of more popular human en deavors... The present collection of a few problems composed recently forms an adequate corollary to my later verse.” Imported from France, Hand Made Espadrilles Casual rope-soled shoes (rubber re-enforced heel and toe) with canvas tops and stitched toe re-enforcement. Available in 16 brilliant colon: Navy, Brown, Dark Red, Purple, Bright Red, Violet, Turquoise, Jade Green, Pale Blue, Sand, Pink, Bright Yellow, Maize, Orange, White and Black. Classic $5 ppd. For men and women Rope embroidered, Pollita ' with slightly thicker sole. $6 ppd. (Ladies* sizes only) Men’s sizes 8-12 Ladies’ sizes 5-9 If unsure of correct size, send us an outline of your bare foot. 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Fayetteville State University Student Newspaper
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May 12, 1971, edition 1
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