Guilfordian—:
Page 6
(61 Editorials
"I'W PRO® TO STMtt> WWVOU tti M WHS WWCft TO PRTOCT UFfcJ"
"We're part of one another"
As this edition of the Guilfor
dian receives you the Nuclear
Arms Awareness Group finishes
its efforts with Nuclear Arms
Awareness week, a week plum
full of activities designed to 'raise
consciousness' in the campus
community about the nuclear
issue. At the time of this writing
Day Two of the week is finished
and the mid-week reviews of
NAAG organizers are mixed.
Lois Haas, recently bestowed
with officers' duties following the
resignation tendered by NAAG
week organizer Laura Davis,
feels she'd like to pull her hair out
things are so amuck at the
helm. And on campus generally.
NAAG week, as maybe the group
have i anticipated, would
have been more successful, said
Haas, if it had been planned
around Serendipity. The warmer
weather and warmer student
spirits (for whatever reasons),
might have prompted, continued
Haas, greater student participa
tion. I would agree that, yes, mid
terms approach and the colder
weather makes for limited con
versations and more in-dorm
reflection, and that these things
do definitely put a damper on stu
dent interest. But I seriously
question whether NAAG week
would be more successful if run
contemporaneous with Serendipi
ty.
Activities on campus sponsored
by, say, NAAG, the Women's
Center, the Quaker Concerns
Club, AACS, or, up until this year,
'The Piper'; that is, by the
smaller organizations on cam
pus, are poorly attended. These
groups do, however, serve an im
portant function. They represent
a minority of students who hold
convictions that when vocalized
contribute to a student's
educational experience. They
give small minorities of students
on campus a voice. The granting
of a charter and appropriation of
funds to groups like NAAG em-
February 22, 1985
powers these groups: that is,
validates feelings which might
not be shared for lack of a place
to share them or language to ar
ticulate them or the confidence to
identify them. This means to say
that when NAAG organizes a
week of activities to raise con
sciousness, whether or not the ef
forts of the group are little
responded to or loudly applauded
is of less import than the feelings
which prompt NAAG to sponsor
the event in the first place.
Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza
(and please, no relation to the
clothes designer), a feminist
theologian, argues in her in
troduction to In Memory of Her,
that in order to develop a feminist
theology the history of women in
early Christian times must be
'found out,' and understood in
relation to that historical docu
ment of the period which neatly
excludes women, the Bible.
Fiorenza draws on the ideas of
Gustavo Gutierrez, who con
nected the will to rebellion of op
pressed peoples to a history the
oppressed could have written,
and of Judy Chicago, who wrote
'our heritage is our power' con
cerning woman's coming into her
own.
You may be asking, why this in
tellectual disgression (?) It
seems to me there is a connection
between what Fiorenza, Gutier
rez and Chicago are saying and
what groups like NAAG, AACS,
the Women's Center, the Quaker
Concerns Club, and 'The Piper'
are doing. What the former are
saying and the latter are doing is
painting a larger picture. And
this is the irony of leadership run
amuck and important activities
being poorly attended: that the
smaller groups seems always to
point to some larger picture. Two
new groups have been formed on
campus this year, the
History/Political Science Club
and the Sociology/Anthropology
club: two more organizations
destined to remain small because
their existence fulfills a need felt
by only a handful of students.
Isn't small membership a moot
question; a budget for either of
these groups a moot question?
The groups, like all the other
small organizations on campus
do have an impact.
To illustrate this consider that
in the US it is not the government
which educates people about the
nuclear issue, but concerned
citizen coalitions which have
formed their own communication
networks. When the proud in
vestor in CBS stock argues that
he/she is informed about the
government stance on ar
maments or Central America,
consider his or her information
comes from a government ad
dress to something a handful of
concerned citizens have voiced.
And what does all of this rambl
ing mean? No call to responsibili
ty: but a call to recognize what
seems a valid sense of irony in
my mind. Further, for Lois and
all like her to keep the hairs on
her head intact.
"By Tracey Clark"
§jl
Hi!
Ready to ride
By Hans Kipfelfresser
The pink oxford cloth shirt with
the Add-a-beads and the top
siders was droning into the swea
ty microphone: "And remember,
these were the best days of our
lives." "What a bunch of crap!" I
remember thinking, even back
then. I had not yet experienced
college but I knew it was bound to
outstrip my high school ex
periences by far. Those end-of
year speeches in suburban
.bourgeois high schools always
were a waste of time anyway.
The New World awaiting me
then was Guilford College. Thir
teeneth grade, you know, always
signals a better social life. Look
at the facts of the on-campus
situation: here you are, miles
from home, free to date
whomever and whenever you
want and to stay out until the
cows come home if you like.
Room and board are taken for
granted. Girls (or guys, as the
case may be) abound and com
mitments are easy. If you're
lucky you have a car and un peu
dinero in the bank from your
summer job. Gee, that's
paradise!
There is of course an academic
side to this paradise as well.
What better wilderness in which
to wander than a library!
Classwork often spurs students
on to private investigations. Dus
ty used bookstores hold secret
charms for some.
Academic loads can be lighten
ed to provide more intellectual
free time or increased to give
more direction and incentive. In
short, variety and freedom come
easy at college.
But certainly the rarified,
pristine social and intellectual
climax community of college is
not "the real world." Life has no
Student Union setting up dances;
Wednesdays aren't free in the
workaday world. Serendipities
"out there" really are hap
penstance, and bosses, drill
sergeants, and gods are not in
terested in how hard Johnny
(Smlfortiian
Editors-in-Chief Tracey Clark, Don Kaplan
Assit. Editor-in-Chief Moira Taylor
Features Editor Julie Yindra
Editorials Editor John Cox
Sports Editor Doug Drotman
Art Editor Jessica Liebow
Layout Editor Jennifer LaFleur
Business Director Pete Spaulding
Advertising Manager Clay Tyson
Staff Holly Hobbs, Charles
Kline, Dave Owens, Doc Roberts,
Iris Velvin, Martha Clark, Kenneth
Goldwasser, Debbie Fry, Hans Kipfelfresser,
Stephen Spaulding, Lois Haas, Kerry
Carol Nieukirk, McKay, Ken Tagious, and
Megan Trend, Tom Risser
Boy Elroy
The Gvilfordian reserves the right to edit all articles, letter and
artwork for taste, veracity, and length. The deaUne for copy is
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Material may be left on the office door u -tairs Founders, or mail
ed to Box 17717. The opinions expresses y the staff are their own
and not necessarily those of the paper o> jf Guilford College.
tries —they want results. Life's a
raw dawg, ouddy!
Hence adults are always warn
ing us not to get complacent or
over-idealistic in our ivory
towers. But I have other reasons
for debunking the college/ideal
myth. I have had a vision of the
next life, of another New World.
Application of what I have
learned—mostly methods at this
point—will be the consummate
virtue of my education. I want to
be productive; I want to create
some tangible non-academic pro
ducts, to fulfill some non
academic goals. My learning pro
cesses will never cease, but hey, I
want a job!
I am also itching to exist on my
own power. Struggling to survive
and socialize in the absence of
those college givens will itself be
no fun, but when I'm spending my
own money I will be steering the
boat, however small it may be.
And it will be nice "out there"
when people have to swallow
more of the consequences of their
actions and inactions. As every
campus organization leader
knows, no "just desserts" are
dished out when apathetic club
members let you down. Rendez
vous and social liasions are easily
broken and commitments easily
forgotten in college. But in the
real world out of the buffer zone
you pay for your mistakes.
Working 8 hours a day takes
away a large chunk of time, but it
does lend structure to my days, I
have found. When I go home for
break I try to get a job—part
time will do—to avoid drowning
in idleness. Weekends suffice for
that. And that is why I have aban
doned the "sleep-till noon"
Weltanschauung and take morn
ing classes: get up, get going, get
done, change horses, and ride off
in another direction!
Yeah, I'm looking forward to
dismounting from the ivory
tower; I don't belong in academe.
I want to get my hands dirty. In
sular life doesn't fulfill me,
because Bufferin bottles get stuf
fy after a while.