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Show November 8, 18S5 Page 3 Forum George PeffsoEnSfles NoEafcradMoinial Floyd George, former AS WC treasurer, personified the challenge that traditional and students face when they become involved with campus activities while trying to hold down a e job e and a class load. Treasurer in the fall of 1984. His relative While such a schedule may be familiar to some students at Westminster, George is notable because of his unending contributions to ASWC. His resignation will leave student government with the challenge of finding someone as dedicated and talented to replace him. government operated and, most importantly, the way student leaders thought non-traditio- extra-curricul- ar bookkeeping nightmare that had never been attempted by previous treasurers. The result was a surplus in ASWC and its organizations funds last year that enabled student government and student publications to purchase two microcomputers and several typewriters. Other procedures that George began have brought about more organized ways for student organizations to work with the colleges accounting department While less noticeable, Georges input as a student in student government, an area predominantly filled with only traditional students, has been equally important. Not just for the different perspective that he unfamiliarity with student government and student status proved to be great benefits for ASWC. non-traditio- full-tim- full-tim- George first became involved with student government as a member of the Judiciary. He left this position to fill the vacated office of Lessonn To by Jonathan Yardley Editors Note: This column was reprinted with permission from the March 18, 1985 issue of The Washington Post Copyright 1985 In all the hullabaloo about higher education that of late has stirred up so much emotion, one detail seems to have gone largely unremarked. He brought about change in the way student In previous years, student government had neglected to carefully monitor organizations' spending. The result was overspending by many groups at the cost of others, George initiated a program to monitor organizations' spending and make it easier for each group to keep track of what they had spent. It seems like a simple and obvious idea, but it was actually a The principal subjects of discussion have been the countrys large colleges and universities, especially those of the publicly supported variety that have expanded so extravagantly in the years since World War II. There has been, by contrast, relatively little discussion of the countrys small colleges, yet they have a good deal to say to us about the matters at hand. This thought crossed my mind during the Panos-Schmi- tt col--leg- es first Not only that, but they are offered an educathat is stripped of much of the frivolity so widespread elsewhere. No doubt the small colleges have managed to come up with their full share of courses catering to either the laziness of students or the vanity of professors, but there simply is not room in them for the unchecked proliferation of academic busywork. Thus the English departments actually teach literature, and attempt to imbue in their students some appreciation for and understanding of it; at many of the big schools, by contrast, the English departments are turning into assembly lines for the manufacture of academic critics for few of whom, cruelly enough, there will be teaching jobs in academia the only jobs for which they have been trained since the professors who taught them have tenured the market all to themselves. In the liberal arts, at least, the small colleges seem considerably more connected to the worlds realities than are the large ones; there is little room in them for departments or programs that do not suit the actual needs of their students. At Mount St Marys, for example, there is a writing program, but it is hardly what anyone having an acquaintance with writing programs elsewhere would be led to expect. Yes, it is possible to write short stories and poetry at Mount St. Marys and have them read by a member of the staff, but creative tion while classes are in session during the fall semester. 1985. by the Associated Students of Westminster College. 1840 South 1300 East, Salt Lake City, Utah 84105. John Dahmen Editor-in-Chi- Karin Jaffie Managing Editor and Production Supervisor Sports Editor Danny Thiros Photo Director. Dave Pinnick Mike Moser Account Executive Trent A Ivey, Tammy Armantrout, Dave Bresnahan, Kristine Campbell, Sharon Cook, Dana Tumpowaky Armen Dilanchian, Bill Godwin, Debra Harris, Karen Holmes, Joe Stewart-Mas- Faculty Advisor , though hardly as much as I would have liked, at Albion College in Michigan and Mount St Marys College in Maryland. Both are private schools with enrollments of about 1,700: both were founded under church affiliation but no longer impose rigid religious requirements on their students; both charge tuition and fees that though reasonable by comparison with the Ivy League, would be forbidding to many prospective students; both are located in attractive but rather rural and isolated settings. Both, in other words, are atypical of the colleges and universities in which most American students find themselves, and no attempt will be made here to suggest that they provide, for most students, a realistic alternative to larger and less expensive institutions. But to the visitor who has been immersed in the problems of e higher education, they provide a refreshing and instructive contrast Where the large schools seem more and more preoccupied with perpetuating the professoriate and its various support systems, the small ones actually seem to be concentrating on giving their students something that passes for an educa- The fourth deals with the entire section "Until this fall semester began, her son, Kyle, wa3 a regular in her classes. I was shocked to read this section. My son has never attended a class with me. I pay a woman handsomely to care for my son while I work. I feel it is unprofessional and inappropriate to bring a child to a marketing class not to mention physically impossible to teach a class while caring for a child. Many students and colleagues have commented to me that they had never seen Kyle at work with me, and therefore, found the article inaccurate. Thank you for the opportunity to clear up tion. these inaccuracies. In some, if not all, respects, the best thing about small colleges i3 that they are small. Low Sincerely enrollments and tight budgets discourage, if A. Nancy not prohibit, the expansion of departments Asst Professor-Marketin- g beyond the number of professors needed to teach the required and elective courses. What this means is that professors are expected to devote themselves to the classroom and its inhabitants rather than to the careerist projects through which reputations too often are ' made in the larger, ostensibly more prestigious institutions. It is neither simplification nor sentimentalization to say that at the small more often than not the students come The Forum of West m inn ter College of Salt Lake City will be published and distributed Layout Assistants past couple of weeks as I spent some time, big-tim- Sir. Thank you for the recent article that appeared in The Forum featuring me. However, the article contained several inaccuracies that need clarification. The first is the fact that the article stated I entered the M.B.A. program at the U. of U. in 1979. 1 graduated in 1979. The second deals with the fact that the article stated I began my Ph.D. work at Virginia Tech. It should have read the U. of Arizona. The third deals with proposed marketing courses. The article stated computer courses in Marketing Research and Statistics may be available spring semester. Marketing research has been taught since 1981. The article should have stated computer applications may be introduced into marketing research this spring semester. Reporters al added to running ASWC, but also because he showed that students could become involved with student government, organizations and activities. While working as the Forum movie critic, George could always be counted on to meet the deadline he was given and to write more than just rough outlines of a few movies. But there are costs associated with being as dedicated and involved as George has been. For George, it was his health. The Forum staff wishes him the best of luck in everything that he sets out to do. al The Forum Staff Be Foumd In Small Colleges letters to the editor Professor Clarifies Inaccuracies CHiaMeinige Kristine Campbell, Bill Godwin,, Joe Stewart-Mash- , Mike Moser Dr.RayOwnbey Editorial Policy The Forum welcomes letters from students and other readers. Submissions must be signed and include the authors phone number (phone numbers will be used only to verify the authenticity of letters) and avoid the use of profanity and libel. Lengths may not exceed three typed, double-space- d pages with lines 50 character spaces wide. Deliver letters directly to the Forum office in the basement of Shaw Center (under the door if necessary) by 3 p.m. on Friday one week before the date of publication, or mail them to the Forum office. Opinions expressed on the Forum editorial page are those of the writers and are not to be construed as the opinions of the Associated Students of Westminster College or of the college administration, faculty or staff. writing is not the programs preoccupation. Rather, it exists to train students in the clear expository writing that will almost certainly be expected of them in whatever careers they choose to pursue. No major in writing is offered; writing is viewed, as it should be, as a neces- sary corollary to a major in the arts and sciences, rather than an academic end in and of itself. The small colleges simply arent in the business of producing critics for whom there are no academic feather beds or writers who will go forever unpublished. If nothing else, economic realities force them to design and constantly to redesign curricula to which their students will respond positively. In small colleges, if student demand for a specific course or even a specific major withers away, then the course or major will be discontinued. This causes unpleasant disruptions, needless to say, and it has caused some legal action over the right of colleges to dismiss tenured professors, but it keeps the colleges on their toes. This coming to terms with reality does have its pitfalls, chief among which is the temptation to offer trendy courses of study while abandoning traditional ones. Thus some of the small eollegeshave rushed eagerly into instruction in the use of computers and other technological marvels, perceiving this as a way to attract students. Such policies may prove, in and pound-foolisthe long run, penny-wis- e But there is little evidence that many of these schools are abandoning the core curriculum in order to suit the passing fancy; they seem committed to offering strong education, both basic and rounded, as their primary attraction. They are not perfect, of course, and the admission had best be made: The principal trouble with small colleges is that, well, they are small. In the specific instances of Albion and Mount St. Marys, campus life may well be full and free; but it is often the case that small colleges turn so obsessively inward that the atmosphere becomes positively incestuous. A small college is a very small world, and the tendency for it to become utterly preoccupied with itself is exceedingly difficult to resist. The results can be most disagreeable: bitter rivalries among the faculty that invariably descend from the professional to the personal, divisions within the student body among cliques and coteries of various persuasions, fierce resentment against administrators who must make the hard decisions the aforementioned economic realities dictate. Small may be beautiful, but it can be ugly as well. That, though, is not the point; responsible people at small colleges are fully aware of their potential shortcomings, which is why, among other things, many teachers and administrators live a healthy distance from the campuses where they work. The point, rather, is that in some important respects the small colleges seem more connected with the real business of education than the larger ones, too many of which have gotten too big for their own not to mention their students good. As the country tries to figure out what has gone wrong with higher education and how it can be fixed, the example these colleges set deserves closer attention than it has thus far gotten. h. es |