February 1979 - CROSSROADS - Page 5
BABBS HOST MECK ALUMS
The home of Jim (’59) and
Mary Lou Babb was the site for
the beginning of a memorable
evening for the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg alumni. A buffet
dinner was served for the
alumni and their spouses. Over
seventy Abbey supporters
enjoyed a delicious meal and a
few cocktails.
The group then boarded the
double-decker “WBT Fun Bus”
which transported them to the
Wheeler Center for the Abbey ,
basketball game against
Altantic Christian College.
During half time a reception
was held in the hospitality
room. Several administrators
and faculty met with the
alumni, many of whom had not
visited the Abbey in some time.
Several Gaston County alumni
also entered the reception to
remind their Charlotte-
Mecklenburg rivals about the
basketball game between the
two groups (see separate
story).
During the second half of the
basketball game, the Charlotte-
Mecklenburg alumni group
demonstrated their choral
talent. Led by Rick Guicheteau
and Ted Hawley, several “old”
Abbey cheers puzzled the young
BAC cheerleaders. When Larry
Hartsell and Frank Zinke began
their rendition of the cheers of
yesterday, the BAC
cheerleaders decided to join
with the group.
Following the game won by
BAC (see sports), the group
boarded the “WBT Fun Bus”
for the trip back to Charlotte.
Many thanks to Jim Babb and
his family for their hospitality.
A “tip of the hat” to the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg alumni
officers, Tom Amann, Rich
Vitola, Rick Guicheteau, Tibbs
Harris, and Bob Healy for a well
planned event, and a thank you
to the alumni and friends who
made the evening one to
remember.
1
V
Several of the Alumni enjoy the delicious buffet served by Babbs.
DR. GILBERT J. FARLEY
44
Dr. Gilbert J. Farley, an
alumnus of the class of 1940 and
a professor of business ad
ministration at Belmont Abbey
College, was the speaker at the
Jan. 24 meeting of the Belmont
Rotary Club. His subject
most fittingly, was “Thirty
Years of Teaching.” Dr. Farley
will retire from the Abbey in
May of this year, indeed after
thirty years of teaching.
Following are selected ex
cerpts from his talk.
“My teaching career began in
1948 at Sts. Peter and Paul High
School in Miami, Florida. In
1952, I came to the Abbey to
establish the department
Business Administration as the
College entered a four-year
degree granting program. In
1956, a leave of absence was
granted to begin work on my
doctorate at the University of
Miami in a joint program with
Indiana University. I taught at
the University of Miami with
Thirty Years of
of Dr. Gilbert J. Farley (’40)
the exception of my year of
residence at Indiana Univer
sity, where I was granted the
Ed. D. in 1961. Continuing to
teach at Miami, I remained
there until 1966 when I returned
to the Abbey, my original Alma
Mater.
“Decade by decade I have
seen a marked change in the
kinds of students in our
colleges. During the decade of
the 50’s they were generally
veterans with a. serious per
ception of their education-not
always the brightest students,
but the most industrious and
most successful in the business
world later. Then came the 60’s
with the draft evaders, not too
serious and a group of
somewhat mediocre workers-
more difficult to work with than
their predecessors. Finally we
have the decade of the 70’s, a
freedom-seeking, love-seeking
group, most of whom are not
serious at all in their pursuit of
an education-just a degree.
However, I am eternally thank
ful for the roughly 20 percent
who were serious and made my
vocation such a joy.
“In my last five years at the
University of Miami, I
developed and directed a
I program for junior college
teachers. How did I guide them
and teach them to be good
teachers? First, and foremost,
you must be fair - avoid
prejudice, which is most dif
ficult at times. Then and
equally important, you must
have a real love for your
students, love to spread
knowledge and love your
discipline. This, of course,
presupposes that you have a
real love of God and yourself!
“How then can we describe
the role of the teacher?
Primarily, we can help the
students develop intellectually,
personally, and morally. All
this can best be done by
example.
“The greatest problem in
teaching today? In my ex
perience and judgment, it is the
lack of discipline in all areas of
campus life. This, I believe
often begins in the home and the
elementary and secondary
schools. And it is seen not only
on the campus, but on the high
ways and in personal
relationships off campus. What
can the teacher do? Always
with the admonition to exercise
justice tempered with charity,
to discipline yourself and your
students in your classroom
relationships.
“How do we teach for the
future? By teaching the use of
intelligence, developing a
breadth of knowledge-an
awareness of being renaissance
people, using leisure time
properly, and getting along with
people. The simplest answer is
to develop real love in your
students.”
Many alumni have sat in Dr.
Farley’s classes in his seven
teen years of teaching at this
College, and they are quick to
agree that he does, indeed,
“develop real .love in (his)
students.” The Abbey is losing
a gem.
Escaping Materialism’s Blinkers
A dozen or so years ago, while the monks of Belmont Abbey were
having the interior of their church renovated, someone suggested
that the large rock that had lain half buried in the grounds there for
years should be dug up and fashioned into a Baptismal font.
This was done and the rock now stands in the church and makes a
very handsome Baptismal font. Affixed to the font is a plaque that
reads; “Upon this rock men once were sold into slavery. Now upon
this rock, through the waters of Baptism, men become free children
of God.” The wording of this plaque refers to the fascinating fact
that over a hundred years ago, {X’ior to the monks’ coming here, their
land had been the Caldwell Plantation, and the large rock had once
been a slave block.
The inscription on the Baptismal font reminds us that Christianity
properly understood has much to do with freedom ; freedom from the
slavery of sin, freedom from prejudice and intolerance, freedom too
from that narrowness of mind so common today which restricts
reality to only those things we can reach with our senses.
Christianity frees the mind from this narrow vi^ and, to use
Shakespeare’s words, reminds the modems that “there are more
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your
philosophy.”
Shakespeare’s admonition is difficult for us in the modem age to
Fr. John P. Bradley, author of
"Escaping Materialism’s
Blinkers,” is currently writing
a series of articles for The
Charlotte News, of which this
one is a part.
take. Proud of all our marvelous scientific and technological
achievements we have tended to think that we know it all, that if we
do not know it or cannot reach it with our scientific or technological
tools then it does not exist. This materialism, our modern
philosophy, has, however, been receiving some powerful jolts
recently.
We are beginning to see that the great achievements of science and
technology, while often beneficial, can also exact a fearful price. We
are discovering also that the sheer material betterment of a society
does not make people happy and contented. A recent study by a W'est
German scholar. Professor Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, for instance,
shows that although material living conditions had improved
enormously in West Germany between 1962 - 1972, people were less
satisfied in 1972 than they were in 1%2.
Perhaps some day we will learn, as the Southern novelist Flannery
O’Conner put it, that “life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery
to be endured.” We must and should, of course, always strive to
improve mankind’s material living condition. But we must always
remember that we human beings are more than a sophisticated
bottle of chemicals. We have a spiritual dimension tiiat we moderns
too often overlook.