Great
Expectations

This will be one or those prescntatioiis in
\\|llcll the introduction may be longer than the
body, or to put it another way, in which the
invocation may be longer than the sermon.
Let me. accordingly, makettie iii-st olwhal
will probably be many personal comments
A college president tias to know something
about the whole operation at the college . nd
something about the mood oi all its con. i—
tuencies. young and old, inside and outside
the campus, trom how high school juniors
are given iniormation about tiie college to how
90 year—old alumni ieel about it. By the kind»
est philosophic deiinition, he is a generalist.
More accurately, he knows very little about
everything, and thus he depends chieily on
other people to give him neccssary detailed
intormation. Some at these people tell him the
truth, some don’t. To put it more charitably,
some people tell him the truth and some
people only think they are telling him the
truth

is a result, a college president tails into
the unattractive habit or listening not somuch
to what people say as making analyses about
why they are saying it He even practices on
himself; and he worries about becoming a
ntitldlesaged academic llamlet who never gets
to the last act, which is to say, he believes he
gets rather good at delineating problems he
has heard about but quite poor about resolve
iiig them because ot his tear that the resolu-
tion may not work or, it it does, may create
a whole set oi worse problenis some college
presidents, ol course, walk around with more
solutions than they have problems ior, but
they are usually beginners or charming
maniacs or Just a week or two trom rellre»
ment, and they usually end up as beads or
educational consulting institutes tar removed
trim the etiects oi what they say and do,
All oi this is an oblique way or saying that
college presidents who are seriously well-
intentioned and proioundly in love with their
own institutions. and this is most or tiiem,
are very uneasy, almost timid, about pros
posing derinite courses oi action ior tutiire

’A college president worries
about becoming a middle-
aged Hamlet who never gets
to the last act ’

solutions oi present problems They want to
be sure they have isolated and deiined prob
lems correctly, that simultaneously they are
able to propose a series ot structures or
procedures that will involve representative

groups oi appropriate constituencies so that
when the iinal solution is implemented it will
have a broad base at support Given these
times, when the pendiilniii ttiat marks social
and educational movements seems always to
be swinging to the tar right or the iar lett
and never passing ttirough the quiet center,
the job oi separating real problems irom what
are symptoms or deeper problems or merely
eccentric not tlashes is doubly diiiicult And
given this particular institution, where the
discussion oi problems and rumors ol probe
leins tends to be maintained at the highest
psychodrainatic level, the job is triply difflr
cult. Grinnell is lull oi sensitive and articus
late people, neither complacent nor self»
admiring This is a iact, and this is good; but
it is not to say that the sound oi a normal,
triistiul, and quiet breath would notbe pleasant
too, at least now and then

So much ior the invocation. Let me tell you
now what i am going to say and what I am not
going to say, I shall describe our educational
and related internal problems as they seem to
me to aiiect [acuity and students together and
thus condition the short and long—range ens
vironment oi this place I have not asked the
Executive Council or ttie SGA Cabinet, past
or present, or the deans or the trustees or the
alumni hoard about wiiettier I am accurate or
even understandably misguided. To use the
vernacular, I am not cosopted, nor am itry—
mg to co-opt anybody else I shall not talk
about buildings or development or alumni
relationships, or even money, except to say
in passing that the absence oi the latter con-
tinues to plague us, though in less terrilying
dimensions than previously. Dean Walkeriias
a limp hand on our pocketbook and he is strong
and mean enough to keep it there, opening it
only long enough to let Mr. AVison and his
colleagues replenish it occasionally

Furthermore, I shall not talk about solutions
to the problems ldescribe lam here today
only to open the door, hopeiiil that when I'm
tiiroiigii you will sort yourselves into appro-
priate groups as the days go by; and. iirst,
come to some conclusions as to whether I’ve
been talking about problems or merely symp—
toms oi problems, or wlletllerl’ve omitted tiie
essential problems and bit only the incidental
ones, or whether I've been clear about whatl
did say, or even oh-wellrlet’s-gossllrunder-
astreeswalting-f0rsspringsto-make-uSrfeel-
better. Whatever the case, I have the comiort
oi the statement or one oi l-larvard's early
presidents, President liolvoke, who is I'epbrr
ted to have said on his deathbed, "ltd man
wishes to be humbled and mortiiied let him
become a college pl‘esltlcnt."

To be more serious, what I would like oh-
Viously to happen iirst is some campus-wide
discussion (in which i hope to have a part) oi
what i still have to say here. And, then, when
these discussions tiave reached a locus or
appear to be coming to a center, the devising
oi structures and procedures, which is to say
the setting at appropriate persons to work, to
reach toward Viable solutions. The structures
will have‘Io include, among other groups, the
departinentadl EPC's, both iaciilty and stur
debt, the college sub-committee on Educar
tioiiiil Policy: the Executive Cuncil, and ap
propriate SGA student committees; the deans
and [, and perhaps even iinallya Commission
oi Faculty and Students on Educational Policy
I hope it will also be possible to include some
at the trustees, not only so that they can be

Informed but also because, as affectionate and
Committed Outsiders, their advice wlll havea
high degree oi Objectivity How long all this
will take is only an estimate, but we ought to
start at once and keep accelerating. Ii we
make some progress this month and next, and
it it seems appropriate, I will ask Dean Wal-
ker to Set some people to walk on fztctrfllltling
and Consultation over the Summer, so that
when the tall term arrives we can continue
with a good head oi steam and perhaps even
have a iew promising solutions on the way
before l972 is gone 1 think we are all tired

‘Grz'nnell is full of tensitz've
and articultlte people, neither
comﬁlacent n01" self-admiring. ’

bi waiting ior pieces or things to sort them
selves into patterns and drill into resolutionsp
oi emergencies and crises caused by the
irustratlons of mistaken 0r misunderstood
assumptions. We need to unpbllute the air.
agree on goals at least enough to put us all
ill the same Context, and then bring them to
pass, The iuture, to be rhetorical. is now.

I believe the essential problem of this place,
the one that almost all our bther problems
are suhsdlvisions of, is the problem of Our
differing expectations of whztt Grilmell is or
is not and should or should not be. These
diitering expectations exist among the iaculty
itself, among the students themselves, ber
tween Students and faculty members, and
between some parts of these groups and the
deans and me. In one Sense, the intensity of
the diiterence in expectations is strange,
Grinnell is a Small, independent, residential,
undergraduate, liberal arts college, cums
nlitted now and tomorrow, as it has been
since its beginning, to promoting the general
interests oi education and to qualilying selec-
ted young men Emil women for the dliierent
prolesslons and the honorable discharge Of
the various duties of life. In the broadest
terms this statement oi purpose (which I
lifted in part from the Ol'lglnal Articles of
Incorporation) Ought to be a Central point for
everyone here :tt Gi'innell to refer his in-
lelIlual expectations to. But it isn’t, It isn’t
because the individual words that make up
the general statement oi purpose are appar-
ently too sweetly abstract, too broadly intere
pretable, to resolve any specilic argument

The \lords Small, independent, residential,
liberal arts are all relative. meaningful only
when they are put lll a concrete context; and
words like promoting, oualiiying highly
Selective, and honorable Sound like the can-
died rhetoric oi college catalog statements,
All oi these terms can be inteipreted by at-
most anyone to iustiiy not only his own exs
pectntibns but also his complaints about why
they are not being met more quickly and more
iully

 

