Til
SAL6MIT6
Volume LXII
Numbers
November 2,1979
5ervinq
the Salem colleqc communitq since 1920
u
TH€ fUTUR€ Of TH€ P/IST
»»
people has asked us
* "'e arrived how we first
^ of Salem up there in
''•ylvania and what brought
***• 1 have to discount one
Supposedly we were out
* drive pondering our de-
0 «nd just as we looked up,
*»w in a flash the word
surrounded with little
' of smoke alongside the
"**y. Allegedly we mistook
^®oard for a divine vision.
^ truth U that we
* followed almost the same
' M the first Moravian
^ who came here to
^’oria from Pennsylvania some
years ago. Now in any
movement of large
^ of people, you have to
^ dial there’ll 1» some who
the
Word late. Our family
*^er been on time for a trip,
this case we are really
^ of the stragglers. We’re
^e finally made it.
I*® past summer and fall has
”*'ed a spate of publicity
** the perils of the future
private colleges. NEWS-
^ proclaimed in banner
that “Small Is Perilous.’’
'’wn Winston-Salem journal
insightful cover story
editorial about the coming
in National and North
''®ta School enrollments.
■ "Ptlmists seem to be saying
* 200 of the present 1,500
*i'*odent colleges will fail;
f’^ifflists see 200 as making
the year 2000. Similar
^ have appeared about the
*t**cts for private secondary
comparable to the
^ fy. Bringing all this home
had 700 students and an 8 million
dollar endowment. Today it has
110 students, and less than 3
million dollars of the endowment
is left. In its turmoil and
courageous struggle, Wilson
shows us much about life in these
times, and the depths of commit
ment that a college can inspire
in those who love it. _
The tren3sTn"population are
but one of many factors shapi^
the dismal decade that is said
to lie ahead for the small college.
Mass higher education has be
come the norm of society. In
the mind’s eye of legislators and
government policy makers, the
large university serves as the
silent model for all programs and
regulatkos. Thoee regulations now
come with backbreaking fre
quency for all of higher education,
and they largely ignore the spe^
circumstances at small in
stitutions. It’s Hterally impossible
to have staff specUlists and
administrative offices for handi
capped regulations, occupational
health and safety requiremente,
wngp and hour laws, energy
programs, retirement laws,
affirmative action, and various
financial audits. This is pre
cisely what the regulations pre
suppose and what large univer-
sities have had to develop. The
These factors and foriies are of a contract. We probe at the throughout Salem Academy and
at work in many ways beyond depths of human experience and College are no mere accidents,
their and visible push at the edges of human They rise from the roots of our
impact Among other things, and potential. We make silent promises hUtory. The intimacy of the
peAaps most important of all, to one another about human campus repeats itself m bonds of
they are casting up new images fulfillment that no contract could an enduring Salem closeness,
of education. They are offering ever fathom and no mere consumer Steal a quiet and pensive moment
a different way of portraying could ever understand. to walk across the square. You
the relationship between the Where then do we belong in will feel that continuity with the
student and the school or college. thU emerging world? Do we go past, and will learn how memory
An image is less precise but with the flow and bend with the deepens our present and prepares
more powerful than a concept, trend? Do we out regulate the omfut^. ....
It lodg» in the imagination and regulators to be safe? Do we go To be a community is bo*
controls expectotions and as- into debt to hire a sharp-eyed a gift and an achievement. It
sumptions. These in turn define compliance staff? Do we replace » a possibility ^t few o^r
soecific policies and liberal education with vocational schools and coU^ in this
procedures. The newer images training and try to triple our bloated bureaucratk age can hve
have overshadowed earlier ones enrollment? Do we go Co-Ed so nchly and deeply as can we.
such as those which saw the and seek our salvation in football? Ours is a distmctive opportunity
student primarily as a member In my view we should do to overctme the yawning gap
of a large collegial family; or, none of these. Rather we should between the dorm room and the
which portrayed the student as find our future in our past. We classroom, between learning a^
essentiaUy a scholar in a com- should build our hopes on our living. Community provides the
munity of scholars. I submit that memories. And we should try ever chance for ideas to spill over mto
the prevailing new image is that of more to be and to become what the lounge, for faculty and staff
a student as a consumer with we are. We must have the self- members to be engagd m a give
preferences operating in a market confidence to affirm our unique- and take that reaches after hours
place On this view of things, ness and to relishbur distinctive- and beyond the four walls of a
^ucation U a consumer service ness. Salem is special. We must budding. This happens at Salem
like any other. The payment of above all aspire to be and to do and I^ strongly support its
a lee gives the purchaser the what other schools, colleges and happening even more.
^ Vengeance for us at Salem
Ae stories about Wilson
in Pennsylvania. Wilson,
'"ttd and strong women's
lor over 100 years an-
in February that it was
*** ^ doors. After a traumatic
' ^ttle, a judge ruled WITH
of alumnae that the
** must keep those doors
'■ Eight years ago Wilson
The future seems dismal in
other regards, too, in ways that
especially touch our past at
Salem. Vocationalism augurs to
be with us lor a long time,
based as it is on structural
factors in the economy. Liberal
education appears ever more as
an elegant luxury-fine to have,
but later, please, when there s
time, not now, thank you. Co
education, too, is the unspoken
expectation, fostering n
stereotype that women’s schTOls
and colleges are quaint and dainty
relics. Add to the list the high
cost of tuition in a period of
unprecedented inflation and our
litany of woe begins to sound
like a dirge.
right to a certain set of services, universities cannot.
Failing that, I take my money
and go elsewhere. Schools and
colleges have been brought to
court by students over grading
polides, junk courses, false claims
about programs, inaccurate
catalogue information, and es
calating tuition increases. As with
Salem is special
Our closeness as a community
is not simply an end in itself.
Warm feelings are nice, but not
enough. Ultimately, we prize
community because in it arise
the fullest possibilities for
education. The intellect never
reaches maturity without the
The MorriU FamUy
personal and educational and pro- the Wachovia Mosem aad the
fessional responsibility. We need other exhibit bniMiiip, and the
to become acutely conscious of Moravian Archives. We have
the values we embody and trans- done much with this rich
mit through our common life, proximity, BUT we can do far
calatmg rairion Ours U a special community of commiunent of the whole ^rson
any defective product so pre- living memory. We are the to basic values. ItouglM Heath
sumably with educarion"there enbodiment of an unbroken convincingly describes the nexus
should be a money-back historical community of faith and between moral and intellectual
guarantee clearly printed on the learning. The Moravians who development:
built Salem fashioned and'left “Finally, and more compelling.
The rather startling con- to us more than a place of simple the maturing of certain values
elusion for us is that these many beauty. They were drawn together is so intrinsically a part of m-
forees seem to be creating a world by bonds of human community, tellectual development that the
in which Salem Academy and inspired by visions of true failure to develop one limits the
College do not fit. We sharply brotherhood and sisterhood, and growth of the other. Intellectual
contradict every single trend, sustained in their life together activity requires values such as
Even consumerism is acceptable through education, worship and honesty, objectivity, openne^ to
to us only as a protest, and work. We now live in this com- alternatives, flexibility, humility,
surely not as a viaon d education’s munity as the literal and direct ^spect for dissentii^ views and so
best possibilities. It is a heirs of those compelling ideals, on. Associated with intellectual
wretched ultimate image lor The relationships of mutual care activity is an ethic about what
education. Our aims go far be- and affection, of kindness and is appropriate intelkxmial activity,
yond the minimal requirements sensitivityv that are unmistakable A person who fabricates or dis-
This can happen if we learn
the habit of putting critical
questions to ourselves as a basis
for self-awareness and mutual
more.
As if Old Salem were not
enough vre happen to be lilBated
in one of the South's eenlers of
We shall excel. Then
we shall not count our
past as a long golden
age, but as a prelude
for the best of Salem
which lies ahead.
^Back View
Knowledge
of
Photos courtesy Salem
News Bureau
torts information, consciously
ignores contradictory data,
plagiarizes the work of others,
and interprets information to fit
some purpose other than truth
loses the trust and respect of
others. A liberal education must
educate for the ethic of truth if
it is not to produce intellectual
psychopaths.”
We at Salem can make personal
integrity a centerpiece in
education because we place it
at the heart of our life to
gether. Unlike many other schools
and colleges, the honor code
at Salem is alive. It must
remain so because integrity is
inseparable from knowledge.
I propose, then, that we take
a bold step. We should, all of us,
make the cajy.nnd nurture of
community a primary part of our
affirmation. How do we as faculty art and enhure and
and staff members and students Within a small stone's dirow
and as president really treat one are the Monvian Music
another? Do we set high ex- Foundation, Winston-Snlem State
pectations, or are we satisfied University and Ae North
with less than our best? Do we Carolina Sdiool at dw Arts,
offer and insist on mutual respect. Downtown soon will be hnstling
or do we deny it to others and with new artisde fife under the
shrink from it ourselves? Do we leadership of the arts conadl and
interrogate rumors and get to the the School rf the Aits. In a
facts, or do we let them run slightly wider arc are Wake Forest
free? Do we meet adversity with University, SECCA—The South
courage, or with self-pity? Do we Eastern Center for contemporary
criticize in order to build, or to art, and the museum of American
tear down? Do we affirm people painting at Reynolda House. Add
and even show affection when we all this to the special and
have the chance, or do we let historic strengths of our school
the occasion slip away? No one of music, and there are dasding
can build our common life except opportunities all around us for
we ourselves—each of us. Our past the study d music, art, drama
lives in us and can inspire us. and history. Our emerging dis-
But the future of community is tinctiveness shows itself in the
our distinctive opportunity and special projects and internships
obligation. students have pursued in these
It takes little imagination to places and in our new program
see other unique ways in which in arts management. Agam, we
the past is our future. I believe have done mudi but we can do
strongly in the logic of the much more. Consider the
obvious. The Academy and the possibilities for ^lecial courses
college happen to be part and and programs, such as in our
parcel of one of America’s finest proposal for Piedmont studies,
and most authentic historical that bring these rich resources
restorations. Old Salem is a in people and places into our
splendid and extraordinary curriculum in direct and in
achievement. More than the novative ways. Consider, too, the
exquisite charm of its buildings, simple fact that Old Salem, and
Old Salem is an educational in- Mesda, and SECCA and Reynolda
stitution. We are surrounded on House already irffer dozens ‘of ’
every street corner by museums, museum courses, workshops and
There is Mesda-the museum programs and have excellent
of early southern decorative arts, professional staffs. The lo^ of
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