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MARCH 29, 1976
THE TWIG
PAGE 3
College celebrated annual Founder’s Day tradition
Founders’ Week em
phasized Meredith’s history in
three morning assemblies.
Featured speakers were Dr.
Mary Lynch Johnson, college
.historian, Miss Mary Bland
Josey, director of admissions,
and Miss Jenny Lancaster, a
1971 graduate.
Speakers in Monday and
Wednesday convocations
spoke on Meredith’s religious
heritage, the continuing at
mosphere of freedom, and the
quality of experiences which
make a Meredith education
different from that of other
colleges.
In the Founders’ Day
service on Friday, Mr.
Elizabeth Davis Reid gave
tribute to Oliver Larkin
Stringfield, one of the
college’s early and most ef
fective fundraisers.
Mr. Reid spoke of
Stringfield’s desire to
establish an education for
women which would make life
“a little finer than culture, a
little rarer than competence,
and a little nobler toan suc-
know where our education is
leading us.
He commented that he
liked Founder’s day events
because they “cause us to
measure the vitality and
relevance of our own com
mitments by examining them
against the noble causes of the
founders.”
“Students get ready for
the future,” he said, “under
‘compelling circumstances’
and also by following an in-
nervoice.”
“Education is lifelong,”
Bondurant said, “and goals
can only be achieved im
perfectly at any time.”
“But a liberal education
helps you know where you are
and where you are going, and
gives you enthusiasm for the
job ahead,” Bondurant
concluded.
Maggie Odell
and Debbie Doss
Scholars analyze death and dying
“Excellence is not
competitive,” he said. “It is a
response to that internal
truth.”
“Students sometimes get
sidetracked by the ‘lorelei’
always present,” Bondurant
continued.
Meredith Christian
Association Spring Forums
featured a panel discussion on
death and its implications for
the living. Dr. Clayton
Stalnaker, a professor of
philosophy and religion at
North Carolina State
University and an expert on
death and dying, was the
keynote speaker. Meredith
professors Jack Huber, Allen
Page, and Sally Page were
panel members.
Dr. Stalnaker
cess.
William L. Bondurant,
executive director of the Mary
Reynolds Babcock Foun
dation and himself a graduate
of a church related liberal arts
college, spoke of the need to
Students prepare
themselves for the future by
developing skills and attitudes
to think, to communicate, and
to choose among values.
“In choosing values,”
Bondurant said, “the dif
ficulty begins when one must
choose between competing
values.” He believes that a
liberal education helps a
person to discern between the
complexities of life so well
that life soon reflects a sim
plicity of values.
Dr. Stalnaker prefaced
his remarks on death by
saying that this is the first
century in which human
existence has been a problem.
“The problem of knowing
ourselves stems from the
culture we live in,” Stalnaker
said.
Stalnaker proposed to
retrieve human existence by
examining death.
“Death is ‘unbelievably
ambiguous,’ ” Stalnaker said,
“because of the double
response it always elicits:
People experience the
polarities of fear and
curiosity, avoidance and
preoccupation, and denial and
acceptance.”
Stalnaker said, “If we
could face death authen-
tically-and we need to know
what that means-and its
radical significance, it would
throw new meaning on life.”
Stalnaker explained that
while it was easy to define
inauthentic existence as it
appears in America, it was
difficult to know what
authentic existence was, other
than retrieving the in
dividuality that is lost in rows
of split level houses with
basketball hoops at the end of
every driveway.
possible meaning for human
existence.
“For Adler,” Huber said,
“all of life was a becoming, a
growth, almost denying death.
Freud, on the other hand,
spoke of the wish for death, a
deadly yearning expressed in
the ‘deadly litSe games’ we
play.”
Jung, in contrast to
Freud, saw life as a
development and growth, said
Huber, and accepted death as
part of the growth process.
Dr. Sally Page
Life is an infinite range of
possibilities which must
develop, he concluded.
Dr. Jack Huber
Dr. Huber, Chairman of
the psychology department,
contributed the ideas of
Freud, Adler, and Jung to the
explanation of death and its
Stunt 1976
Seniors led by Stunt Chairwoman Deborah Roebuck took 1st
place, Betsy Porter brough the juniors to a second place finish.
Nancy Abies and Karen Keith chaired the freshman Stunt and
Kathy Morganand Susan Fishel were Sophomore chairwomen.
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Dr. Sally Page spoke of
the ways death was treated in
literature. The first was the
portrayal of actual death.
“In this first instance,”
Dr. Page said, “the artist
trusts to life experience to
give death meaning.”
The second instance of
death was the spiritual death
as it is described in twentieth
century works by such artists
as Franz Kafka and James
Joyce. Always in this kind of
work, said Dr. Page, emp
tiness and decay are
described.
The third kind of death is
related to creativity. “When
the artist opens himself to
creativity, loses sense of
self and becomes one with
nature,” Page said.
“This loss of self is a kind
of death which enables many
artists to affirm that death is
hot an end but a step in a
growth process,” Dr. Page
said.
Dr. Allen Page
Juniors “Christi^her Columbo Discovers America”
“I Wonder Where the Sophomores Is.”
Dr. Allen Page concluded
the panel discussion witii a
discussion of the religious
traditions surrounding death.
“We haven’t been willing
to confront reality of death,
said Dr. Page, so we have
been concerned with what
comes after.”
“While the Hebrews
haven’t always believed in life
after death, Christians have
inherited a tradition of life
beyond death with a system of
rewards and punishments,”
Dr. Page said.
Dr. Page suggested that
considering the cultural
situation we are in, “we have
to consider the possibUity of
death being the end in a more
direct way than religious
traditions have done in order
to confront the meanings of
our present existence.
Maggie Odell
1st Prize winning Senior “It all Comes out in the End.'
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