Student Responsibility to a Changing World

By Professor John F. Ramsey, Department of History, University of Alabama

An address given at Student Leaders Retreat, Ann Jordan Lodge, October 27, 1962

It was Howard Mumford Jones who once remarked that American universities were never a criticism, but an echo of the contemporary scene. At the present time, the echoes that strike the university campus are full of sound and fury. All over the world, massive change, coming with unprecedented rapidity, are forcing even old and conservative societies to react with innovations that are unfamiliar and often distasteful to them. In opposing such changes, conservatives can call to their support not only the arguments that logic and expediency may suggest, but also emotional responses that, however irrational, derive from deep-seated urges and needs in the human psyche. Even in the United States which enjoys one of the oldest forms of government now in existence the old order is changing and traditional values seem threatened. Some of our reactions to these changes cannot make us, as responsible citizens, feel very proud. Within recent weeks, we have seen a nearby campus torn by riots and filled with hate, citizens have fired on their own flag and their own forces of law and order, and we have been treated to the shocking spectacle of a high-ranking army officer inciting citizens to an armed insurrection. These distressing events remind us, in the ominous words of an anonymous but oft quoted phrase, that “it is later than you think.”

Values of course reflect the changes going on around us, but no society can long exist without some sort of standards which recognize personal and public integrity, a respect for humanity and a willingness to accept responsibilities for the common good. A certain degree of moral relativism may be the proper tool for the anthropologist studying another society, and toleration of the behavior of others is certainly the mark of a civilized man. But when all standards seem to be crumbling before expediency and success-at-any-price, we are clearly headed toward Hobbes’ state of nature in which the life of man is, as he put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Western man seems to be breaking the unity of his personality, which the Greeks considered to be the mark of true man and citizen, into a series of compartments some labeled principles and others labeled actions and never the twain shall meet. So long as the various compartments are kept carefully separate, and the contents do not spill into each other, the individual can be happy and remain ignorant of the fact that he is not a whole or real man, but a kind of filing cabinet. But sooner or later the divided personality cannot maintain itself in the rigors of a rapidly changing world and under some heavy pressure from without the individual discovers he has nothing within himself that will stand up under fire and so he collapses.

As a teacher, I believe that our educational system, for all its faults, is one of our main hopes in the struggle against the forces of anarchy and disintegration, and our advance toward a better society. You, as university students, and I, as a university professor, are bound to be in the front lines of the conflict as the colleges and universities of this nation represent the front lines of the educational system. This is why it is extremely important for all of us who make up the community of teachers and students which is a university to concentrate on the main show, on the real mission of the university, and not be diverted by the various sideshows, no matter how attractive they may be. A pleasant anecdote about Woodrow Wilson underscores the essential point here:

Woodrow Wilson, when President of Princeton, remarked that the side shows had over-shadowed the main tent; whereas an alumnus is said to have complained that the President had turned that dear old college into a damned educational institution.

Footnote: Williamson, E. G. Student Personnel Services in Colleges and Universities, p. 451.

What I wish to do is to discuss frankly and openly what the university does, as its main contribution to our times, and what we, as the university community, can do ourselves to make it a better and more effective University of Alabama.

A university performs three major functions: it engages in research and makes this research available to interested persons or institutions; it provides the training necessary for a career in the professions and the business world; and it starts the student on his career in the acquiring of those graces of mind and spirit which will enable him to live both with himself and society in a happy and useful manner; in short, it starts him on his education, and prepares him for citizenship.

In this last area, the burdens on education in general and universities in particular are greater than ever before. In times past, three powerful forces helped train the individual and form his character: the family, the church, and the school. Today, the first two are considerably weakened. With more and more members of the family working and with the rearing of the younger children to a considerable degree in the hands of the “sitter” while father and mother struggle to meet the monthly payments on the Chevrolet or the new house, the home increasingly resembles a dormitory where the inmates occasionally meet at meals or share a convenient bathroom. As far as the churches are concerned, the mid-twentieth century is not a deeply religious age, and that church influence tends to be more social than spiritual in character. In this situation, the schools are expected to do for the individual much of what was previously accomplished in the home and in the Sunday-school. It is a hard saying, but I suspect a true one that in a good many instances, the classroom is the only place where the individual will learn anything about morality, ethics, personal integrity and the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. It goes without saying that as the responsibilities of the schools increase, student responsibilities keep pace with them. A great deal is already expected of you, and more will be demanded as the century wears on. While the subject of student responsibilities can be made as deep or as shallow as the speaker desires, it seems to me that any speculation on this topic should stress three kinds of relationships: 1) the student’s responsibility to himself; 2) to his country, and 3) to his university.

The student owes it to himself to develop his capacities and capabilities to the highest degree possible. This means not only the acquiring of facts and skills usually assumed under the word “education,” but even more the care and concern of those spiritual values that Socrates believed would come with knowledge. In short a student owes it to his own self respect to be satisfied with nothing less than those graces of mind, body, and manners that are the badge of a free and enlightened spirit.

To our country, especially since it is a democracy, the student has a responsibility to practice the duties of citizenship, not merely to learn what they are, but to practice them in the student society which is a microcosm of the national society. He must become the kind of person described by Wesley P Lloyd: (Here’s another quote, no footnote for this one) To contribute substantially to our government, our homes, our churches, our schools, or our economic system, each individual need be partially self-propelled…. He will not be the second-class volunteer who enlists in any cause to avoid being drafted, but the first-class volunteer who finds new and creative ways to serve others and himself. In all communities we may find those whose loyalties to their families, their friends, their church and their country are shown through free and unpressured service. They work without desperation and often without disappointment. They are easily and naturally, not desperately motivated, for the cause in which they serve is their cause, self-chosen and genuine—chosen not as an escape from something worse, but representing a positive side of living, a kind of dividend.

Lastly, the student’s obligation to his university is to assist in carrying out its three great functions of research, professional training, and general education. Merely to state this is to indicate that we have already come a long way from what the early twentieth century considered the student’s function to be. The great Hispano-American philosopher Santayana, reminiscing about his youth at Harvard has some witty remarks to say about faculty-student relations at the beginning of the century. The young had their ways, which on principle were to be fostered and respected; and one of their instincts was to associate only with those of their own age and caliber. The young were simply young and the old simply old, as among peasants. Teachers and pupils seemed animals of different species, useful and well disposed toward each other, like and cow and a milkmaid; periodic contributions could pass between them, but not conversation.

(Footnote: Santayana, George, Character and Opinion in the United States, pp. 52-53.)

That the student should be nothing more than an obedient and passive recipient of faculty instruction strikes us today as an impossibly narrow concept. Or that a university administration should regard its police powers as the main aspect of its student relationships. We have come to realize that close student-administration and student-faculty relations are not only valuable in training the future citizens of the democracy but as an end in themselves yield real solutions to problems that frequently cannot be successfully met by unilateral action on the part of administration or faculty. To explore and if possible widen this area will be the concern of the remainder of this paper. First of all, I think the student should accept a responsibility to his own organizations. Those that have no purpose except publicity, or personal glorification can be ignored. But those that will help the student to increase his capabilities render real services to other students as well as to faculty and administration deserve his enthusiastic support and should be made as effective as possible. While there are doubtless others, I can think of three that must be strong if the university is to have healthy and informed student life; they are the student government, the student paper, and student honor societies.

I imagine that the history of student government throughout the United States is approximately comparable to the history of student government at the University of Alabama. In my early days here, I scarcely knew that student government existed. As a then young member of the faculty, our paths did not cross at any point. As far as I could tell, student government existed for student government, and the choice plums of office went to a select few, while the majority of students went their own ways. All this we thought would be changed after World War II and returning G. I.’s, now more thoughtful and mature, would swap away the pettiness and selfishness, and produce a bright, new system. But nothing like this happened. The G. I.’s returned with enthusiasm to their old ruts and student government continued as before. But it is undeniable, I think, that during the fifties and early sixties chances have taken place partly due, I suspect, to the dim international situation, and pressing domestic problems. Students are much more aware of their responsibilities and student government, certainly as of 1962, is much more responsible. This meeting is a case in point. On this campus, student government (in this case the student court) shares with the university administration a considerable part of the disciplinary process. I think that this sort of cooperation should, and will expand in other areas to the mutual benefits of both parties. A case in point is the very grave situation which the University will shortly face when the first Negro student appears on the campus. Undoubtedly the university authorities will do all in their power to prepare the student body for this unprecedented situation. Whatever it does will be much more effective if undertaken in close coordination with student organizations, supported by student leaders. According to Thomas Buckley writing in the October 1`st issue of the New York Times on the Oxford, Mississippi riots, “It is also believed that almost until the first rocks were thrown, the students might have been controlled had their leaders been put before them.”

(Footnote 4. The New York Times, Sunday, October 21, 1962, p. 65)

Needless to say, this situation imposes a grave responsibility on student organizations and student leaders to show the judgment, maturity, and self-discipline that the crisis calls for.

Another important function of the student government is to provide a means of communication, going in both directions, between student thinking, and student values and those of any university administration. I am not trying to pass judgment on any system of values at the moment, but I am saying that exchange of information is the first step toward mutual understanding. Here the importance of the student paper cannot be over-emphasized. It can serve as a means of communication, an instrument of education, and a way of bringing the student body into contact with the great issues of the day. It must also be free: it cannot become merely a sounding board for faculty-administration opinions, nor should it lend itself to futile and childish criticisms of the administration. Nor can it let itself become absorbed in campus politics, or social events to the exclusion of everything else. But it should be an organ where the best and most responsible thinking among the student body should be available to all readers.

Student honor societies frequently exhibit the best and worst aspects of student life. Some seem to exist only for the purposes of the annual initiation, and the initiation fee. Others exist mainly for their own entertainment, and some seem to serve their membership mainly in the field of newspaper publicity. There is probably nothing seriously wrong with this sort of thing except the waste of the student’s capital, but it does seem that honor societies could do a great deal more for their members and for the University. As a matter of fact, a good many do. The Jasons' gift of $500 to the Artist-Lecture Committee, establishing an annual Jasons’ Lectureship was a wonderful idea, and one that will benefit the entire University. Phi Alpha Theta, the historical honorary fraternity, sponsors an annual book sale which enables them to give annual awards to outstanding students in history classes and purchase sets and special works for the library. A rather unusual organization has existed for years at the University of California. This is the Order of the Golden Bear which chooses its membership from the Senior class on the basis of leadership, character and scholarship; the membership usually represents the highest type of student leadership and an invitation from golden Bear is usually considered the culminating honor in a student’s career. The members take a special obligation to serve the University of California in later life and since many of them become leaders in the state in various walks of life, they constitute a powerful body that the University can call upon at need. The University makes a real effort to keep in close touch with some 3,000 or so members of the Order, and this cooperation has been highly effective on numerous occasions.

If I were to say that students have a responsibility for the well-being of the faculty this would probably provoke a smile, and in my mind I can easily hear someone muttering “it’s their business to look after us.” Where problems of faculty research are concerned, it is clear that the two groups have little enough in common on the undergraduate level. But in the classroom, of course, they are constantly in close and intimate contact. It has always seemed to me that a very friendly and healthy relationship has prevailed on this campus ever since I have been here between the faculty and the student body. Still, mere surface politeness and a pleasant smile is not enough. I can conceive of a better mutual understanding between students and faculty that would be beneficial to all concerned. For example, both groups are vitally concerned with the quality of teaching that goes on here. The proposed student evaluation of teaching strikes me as an excellent idea although it treads on rather delicate ground and must be handled with a great deal of tact; still I cannot believe that it represents a danger to the established order, and I suspect we could all learn a great deal from it. If the Crimson & White can maintain the intelligence and objectivity displayed in the analysis of the English Department in a recent issue, this will be of the greatest help to departments as well as individual faculty members. This article actually won the approval of a good many members of the department being analyzed - high praise as most of you will realize.

It seems to me, however, that it should be possible to go a little farther. Surely it should be possible for some student organization to sponsor additional roundtable or panel type discussions between faculty and students in which both sides might air some of their mutual problems and seek ways to remove obstacles to better learning and scholarship. Some of you could probably expiate on the “absent-minded professor;” a type that is much more common than usually realized. Frankly, I have some valuable comments on the absent-minded student. A faculty and student-body might find common ground for cooperation in an effort to improve the University Library – an institution extremely important to both. I do not for a moment suggest that students should take over the classroom, or that there be faculty candidates at the next SGA elections. I do say that a good deal more might be done to initiate as the diplomats say “exploratory conversations” at different levels. It might even be possible to learn that the quality of being a damn fool is not the exclusive property of one side or the other.

I have almost concluded, but there is one more point I should like to make. I would like to see every university very much a part of the wide, wide world which lies around about. This is really a joint responsibility of the three major parts of the scholarly community: administration, faculty and student-body. In this time of all times, the dangers of isolation can be particularly tragic. The following quotation is self explanatory: Virtually all 4,633 white students at the University of Mississippi exist in an isolation more profound than that which they impose on the one Negro student, James H. Meredith. … To an almost incredible degree, many faculty members believe, most of the students are uninformed and little interested in events and opinions in the rest of the nation and the world. … The major bar to even partial acceptance of Mr. Meredith is the absence of any tradition of dissent on the campus or any rallying point of liberal thought. This reflects a state in which, with minor exceptions, the range of political and social opinion is from Y to Z.

(Footnote 5: Ibid.)

Fortunately, this does not describe the situation at the University of Alabama, but we cannot afford to be complacent. The currents of opinion, questions of world interest, the debate on controversial issues – all these aspects of the winds of freedom must be kept blowing through our campus and on our student. What we need are more student-arranged discussions like the one taking place tomorrow night on out campus, more distinguished speakers of the sort that the Jasons’ Lectureship will bring to us. We need closer intercourse between our own students and foreign students, and between our own people and transfer students from other parts of the nation. Some of this is going on, of course; you have asked me to speak of student responsibilities one of them I would say is to further these contacts in every way possible. In addition we need to find some way to get our students to take advantage of the many cultural activities the University offers them in the way of foreign films, artists, and lectures. Last of all in this category, a literary magazine which discusses new ideas of broad import can also be a factor in breaking down the barriers of provincialism and isolation. Now that we have gotten rid of the tradition of the Rammer-Jammer, once rated the worst college humor magazine in the United States, this is something that the Mahout in spite of its unpronounceable name, can do for us.

To conclude, we are striving to develop the good man, and the good citizen, and we believe that without the one, you cannot have the other. In the greatest example of democratic life that history affords, Periclean Athens, they necessarily one and the same. For a brief moment in history, if we may believe Thucydides, the Athenians achieved one of the goals toward which all democracies must work: namely: the successful handling of public affairs by private citizens in an atmosphere of freedom: Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters. … For (We regard) him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious, but useless. … and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all….In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas; while I doubt if the world can produce a man, who where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility as is the Athenian.

(Footnote 6: Thucydides, Peleponnesian War, pp. 105-106, Modern Library Edition)

If we, as Americans have not fully achieved this still it is a noble goal to strive for and one that I command to all of us. Here at the University of Alabama, if we do our part as students, teachers and administration, we can take a notable step towards its fulfillment.