College then and now

With students moving into McCook this week in anticipation of college classes starting on Monday, I think a look at how colleges have transitioned over the years is pretty appropriate.

I loved college. I graduated high school at 17 in 1963 and three months later was on my way to rush week at the University of Arkansas by myself. I took no family members with me, although my family was more dear to me than anyone else in the world, because I was ready to strike out on my own, find my own identity and become my own man. And what an experience it was.

The first year was a whirlwind of dates, activities, classes, athletics and I hardly had the chance to decide what I wanted to do next. This was a complete reversal from the life I had lived in Atkins, Arkansas for the first 17 years of my life. Atkins was a town of 1,391 people with one movie theater, one café, one grocery store, one barber shop, one newspaper and no street lights. It was a town where everyone knew everyone, which meant that everyone also knew what everybody else was doing. Young people discovered quickly that we couldn’t get away with anything in Atkins because someone was always watching. It was a version of the book “It Takes a Village” because everyone felt obliged to look out not only for their own kids but for other kids too. I got spanked as often at my friends’ house as I did at home.

Obviously, the university wasn’t like this at all. The biggest difference was, except for a couple of guys from my hometown who went to the University with me and my fraternity brothers, I didn’t know anybody and nobody knew me. That meant I could do whatever I wanted to do without getting into trouble with my family for the first time in my life so that’s what I did. I neglected classwork far too often in exchange for a good time until I got my first semester grades, saw that improvement was due immediately, and started taking my academics seriously.

Students in college then were an eclectic bunch, just as they have been every year. They came from all kinds of social, economic, racial, and political backgrounds. All kinds of views, perspectives and idea were expressed and, if not accepted, at least tolerated.

It was a free speech environment where students would stand on cardboard boxes during the lunch hour and rant about their favorite or least favorite subject while other listened attentively, listened amusingly, or didn’t listen at all. This tradition was most likely taken from the more famous Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, in London, England but it was done for the same purpose. A few years later at the University of Oklahoma, I heard speeches on campus from Stokely Carmichael, a prominent member of the Black Panthers, Jerry Rubin, a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society and Angela Davis, a fiery defender of black rights who was also a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. These three and others like them were troublemakers in our society because they all three advocated the overthrow of the government as it was in the late 1960s. But still they were given a forum to speak at and students had the option of either hearing them or ignoring them.

Flash forward to University life in 2017. Now major colleges and universities are establishing safe zones where students can go and not be exposed to any kind of information that might threaten their current, norms, values, or morals. Instead of being taught to listen to all sides and then make a decision, they’re now being taught to latch onto one side and don’t listen to anything else.

I went to the University of Arkansas by myself in 1963 because I wanted to become my own person but young people don’t seem to crave that anymore and want to be shielded, protected and taken care of. There’s even a University of Georgia professor who is allowing students to choose their own grades to relieve their stress. He wrote in his syllabus that “If you feel unduly stressed by a grade, email the instructor with what grade you think is appropriate and it will be so changed,” so the PhD business instructor tells all his students.

He adds in the syllabus that any student who does not like the group dynamics (what’s going on and the interaction between individuals) of a meeting may get up and leave. (The Week Magazine, August 18-August 15, 2017)

So that’s what we’re teaching our kids in colleges and universities today. Not so much community colleges because they’re more grounded and in touch with the local community but certainly the larger colleges and universities are falling for this hook, line, and sinker. They’re banning speakers who might offend the sensibilities of a listener, they’re providing safe zones where students don’t have to listen to anything that makes them uncomfortable and some professors are even allowing students to choose their own grades and leave group discussions if their find their grades or their discussions too stressful.

I don’t know where this will eventually lead us but I’m pretty sure it’s not in the right direction. Invention and discovery have been the hallmarks of societies that are always changing and evolving and this attitude towards our young is certain to bring about the opposite of that!