editorially speaking A New Class of Freshmen During this month approximately 1.5 million American 18 year-olds will begin their college careers. Consistent with the wish of the American people, colleges and universities will endeavor to educate further and to intellectually fortify an unprece dented number of new students. The task, always formidable, is complicated further a t this t i e by a variety of factors including the knowledge explosion, the shortage of competent faculty and adequate facilities, the controversial and confusing political and social issues of our day. We are told that this new class of freshmen is part of what has been called the concerned generationa group which in its nineteenth year is perhaps more aware of the major problems confronting the world than any previous generation at a comparable age. We hear that these are young people whose customs and attitudes, frequently strange to our generation, presumably stem in part from the frustration born of unfulfilled desire to contribute significantly to the solutions to some of these problems. Most of these youngsters come to college hoping to find there the tools and ideas needed to forge a better world. For some a better world means a larger income, a higher social status, a more responsible station than their parents enjoyed. For others it means improved human understanding, enriched by empathy for all men. For more than many believe, it means enhanced opportunity for creativity as in the development of new knowledge, the generation of prolific ideas, the creation of more moving expression. Only a relatively few students see a better world as one which owes them a living. For nearly all, this better world is intrinsic, attainable, worthy of a strong personal kffort. I n college most students, consciously or unconsciously, expect to direct this effort toward acquiring a richer background of exploitable knowledge, a more sound but viable basis for judgment, and a deeper sensitivity to the needs and desires of people. The first and possibly greatest challenge for all students probably will consist of adjusting to what will appear to them a leadership vacuum. Having had their study carefully directed in much of their schooling to date and having learned to depend upon and to be successful in this kind of learning environment, they very likely will find themselves, during their early weeks in college, wel! motivated but without intimate guidance and ready assistance from teachers-a service they took for granted in high school. As essential as this careful
guidance in precollege instruction may be, it is a t least equally essential that the college student learn to nork much more independently. While the struggle to make this transition may engender anxiety and insecurity, the student who is successful here may find the remainder of his college work continuingly demanding but masterable. Perhaps the most exciting adventure for many nex students will be the realization that college offers the opportunity to work on the growing edge of new knowledgea position from which each may discover for himself what the universe is, what man is, why he is, and what he lives by. No doubt these students will learn as all of us who preceded them in this quest have learned that, while such discoveries never will he complete, the search always is worth the enlightenment it provides. If participation in discovery is his most exciting adventure in college, interaction with the faculty is the new student's best remembered experience. Instructors are regarded by freshmen with a reverence that surpasses even that accorded the rock-and-roll group. An instructor may be effective or ineffective as a teacher, reasonable or unreasonable in his demands, truculent or accommodating in his personal relations, and, unless he becomes outright abusive, students ail1 hold him in awe and respect him because "he really knows the material." They may complain about his ineffectiveness or apparent unfairness but they will strive to meet his standards, revel in his eccentricities, defend him against all enemies. Instructors should realize that with such a strong polarization teaching becomes relatively easy but that disillusion can accompany neglect. Instructors also should appreciate that if contemporary history has any meaning, it tells us that the students in our classes today can and probably will change the world. Perhaps it is not too trite to suggest that all of the exciting new knowledge, all the important new research, all the great new ideas developed by our generation and those that preceded us have neither lasting meaning nor real significance unless the young people of today and tomorrow can appreciate them enough to use them in discovering and building the better world for which they search. To this new class of freshmen and to their instructors we extend our best wishes for success in their most important work. WTL Volume 44, Number 9, September 1967
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