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Truth or
Dare

The proposal for an honors
program that narrowly passed the
Curriculum Committee last spring
Will be considered by the entire
faculty in their meeting-on
November 1 The current system
allows each department to
recommend ior graduation with
honors “those senior majors who
have Clearly distinguished
themselves Within their major field
of study.” The minimum all~
College requirement is that the
Student must, on the basis of seven
semesters oi college work, have a
3.4 gradepoint average in the
major field 'and a Cumulative
grade-point average oi 3.2.
Departments may establish fur
ther criteria.

The most significant changes in
the proposed honors program are
requirements that each honors
major shall include: 1)
specification of work Within the
major department which may, but
need not. be different from the
requirements for a non-honors
major, 2) specification of some
work outsidethe department which

by Ruth Montgomery

shall usually be in the range oi 16 to
23 credits of collegealevel work; 3)
some form of senior work on which
the student will be Subject to
examination with at least one
faculty examiner irom outside the
department.

In addition to the honors
proposal the iaculty received the
Curriculum Committee minority
report stating the objections oi
those who voted against the
proposal. It is my view that these
objections are significant and
merit the rejection of the proposal.

A primary purpose ot the new
proposal is to establish a uniform
program for the granting of
degrees with honors. It is hoped
that by making requirements more
specific, the quantity of Work
necessary ior a degree with honors
would be uniform among the
various departments. As the
minority report points out,
however, there is nothing to in
dicate that this would be the case.
The work required by a depart»
ment could be a senior thesis after
extensive independent work, a

 

 

donors Orogtom Diocuoozd

comprehensive exam, or a
creative project.There is no way to
insure that equivalent work is
done.

The specification of work outside
the department amounts to a
departmental judgment of what
the best major program ought to
entail. I don't believe that this is a
judgment that can be made on
other than an individual basis. For
example, study in the history
department would be very ap-
propriate for economics students
interested in economic history, but
the student wishing to pursue
environmental economics would be
well advised to do work in the
biology and chemistry depart-
ments An honors program as
proposed would put too narrow oi
limits on the definition of a “good"
major program,

I ieel that the honors proposal
would add nothing to the quality oi
a Grinnell education and would
detract irom its spirit and
meaning, I hope that the faculty
will turn down the proposal in its
November I Vote.

The Oorodioe phenomenon

by Pat Edmunds

An interviewer affiliated with
public radio out of Grand Forks
North Dakota asked a fellow whd
writes country and western lyrics
irom Kentucky, “How does
geography affect who you are‘7”
This question brings to mind a
series of conversations my friend
Marian and I had several Winters
ago about The Paradise
Phenomenon.

Marian, recently graduated with
a BA in English irom a famous,
small liberal arts college in Vera

imam, was working as a file Clerk in

C

the local'YWCA and living at home
with her parents. And 1 was then a
dropout, and unemployed, and
living in an apartment with big
windows twelve miles from the
place where I was born,

In our discussions we were
trying to fathom the powerful
attraction and awtul magnetism
that held us and dragged us back
againstour will to spend the rest of
our days on Cape Cod. “Once sand
gets in your shoes,” the natives tell
the summer iolk, “You may never
get away." But for those oi us born
there, the spell is almost in-
surmountable: you see, sand iiows

go our veins.

I

Food of

by Dave McConnell‘
Students having special requests
from the Food Service should
notify the Director‘s Office at
extension 593 at least one Week in
advance. Equipment, for example,

can be checked out at Quad with a,

ten dollar deposit.

Food Service shorts. , We have
received a good recipe for making
yogurt, As soon as our culture
starter arrives. we will attempt to

’ mass produce yogurt.

All that Winter Marian and I
chided ourselves about our lack of
motivation to get away from this
place where we had grown. And as
we looked around, we noted that
most of our classmates, and cer-
tainly all those who had been born
there.still held tightly to the spit of
sand, surrounded by water and
connected to the mainland by two
great steel bridges. Some, like
Marian and me, had been away;
but like us, too, sooner or later they
all would come back,

One evening we concluded that
we had been born in paradise, and
so our urge to move on was nothing
short oi pure blasphemy.
Moreover, we reminded ourselves
that Kant had never ventured more
than a few miles from his bir-
thplace. And so Marian and I
stayed on through the summer and
the fall and the next winter.

“On a clear day, you can see
Spain." That’s a bit of folklore that
we had both learned as children
and would later repeat to the
summer visitors toward whom we
were always much obliged to act as
native guides, being wise in the
ways oi our wordly geography. We
always knew, of Course, that we
Could wander down to the shore

Grinnell

Meal hours during break for
Monday through Friday will be as
follows: Breakfast 3:30 to 9:30
a.m, Lunch 11:30 a.m, to 12:30
pm, and Dinner 5:00 to 6:00 pm.
The weekend schedule will remain
the same. Quad will close after
lunch on Saturday and reopen
Sunday evening, October 31,
Coffee will be provided in the
Forum, Monday through Friday

 

during Bleak, by the Forum desk,
at a nominal Cost.

\ c
Swoop down to

DANISH MAID BAKERY

AND BUY A

BAT COOKY

V

 

and gaze out across the ocean to
perceive no bit oi firmament other
than the home ground on which we
stood, For as far as we could see.
we lived on the absolute edge of
human possibility.

i drove a prospective to the
airport last weekend and related to
him how I had grown to love Iowa.
“This looks like home now," I said
“We have hills like these, but they
are sand dunes, And we have
clumps oi trees like these, but they
are pines And we have hay like
this, but it is beach grass,” I said.
And we have farmhouses like those
way otiin the distance, except they
are trawlers, I thought this to
myself, lest I not be allowed to
guide visitors anymore. i kept to
myself, too. the thought that we
will have windapowered pumps like
those, except they will be oil rigs.

Well, Marian’s planted in
Philadelphia now, and I haven’t
been home for a long time and will
not go back and stay. Though on
cold windy days like these are, now
that the leaves are gone, I look
north from Cowles 3rd to the
horizon for the breakers of Nausct
and listen to the roar of the ocean
resounding.

Eyes Examined
Phone 236-7502

JENSEN
OPTOMETRISTS

Earl J. Jensen, 0.0.
Clark J. Jensen, 0.D.

Across from Post Office
Closed Thursday p.m.
and Sat. p.m.

Point of view

Oh The Qood

by Bob Aldrich

This Friday, I am going to throw
some clothes, two pipes, Hegel,
and anything else that catches my
iancy into my backpack and hit the
road home. Home. Hitching homc
is always a minor adventureithe
last time I had to hitch home from
Grinncll was during spring break.
and I got caught in a blizzard. The
temperature dropped it degrees
by the time I got to I-80; by the
time I ivas in Mason City, the truck
I was in could only go 45 mph
because of the headwind, and
every so oiten i would see a car
sprawled sideways in the ditch.
The snow blew across the highway
like a hose when you shake it, and
standing on the road With an
outstretched arm was like being a
scarecrow, with une's stuiiing
falling out from the wind,

After all that, it was ans
ticlimactic to come home, walking
in the house like I did when I was in
the fourth grade, “hi Mom I’m
home ” None of that oh my our
boys home irom college stuii at
my house But three breaks a year}
in the tall, winter and spring, I go
home, atleast for a little while, and
ior a short time get to watch
somebody live a normal life. There
is nothing especially sentimental
about it—no special dinner or long
lost friends or even a faithful
Roveributit is home all the same,
even though I am independent oi
my iamily And the point is, I
guess, that none of that makes any
difference. Whether we like it or
not,.there is always a home to go
It)

i never quite know what to do
except wander around and ask
questions, anticipating and getting
the answers I expect, it all part oi a
ritual, The neighborhood kids still
play iootball on the street twe live
on a deadend), and they will still
be that peculiar combination of
friendly and obnoxious at the same
time. The cat, if he is not asleep,
will walk up, lie down, rollover and
wait until his stomach is scratched,
and then get up and ignore me for
the rest of the week.

After the preliminaries, there
are the inevitable encounters with
neighbors, friends and relatives
(my how you've grown) that
always leave me feeling a little
melancholy but good nonetheless.
Whatever I do, I cannot escape it,

 

anymore than i can escape myself
or my past. As much as I am aware
of the difference between my
parents and myself, we remain
tied together by our blood. They
both grew up ior most of their lives
in Minneapolis, and in doing so
formed roots, I too have had that
privilege, and ieel a tie to the
land: Minnesota will always be my
home,

But why write about all this?

Roots. I must confess. as old-
fashioned and syrupy as it comes
off, to a deep belief in the value of
having roots and ties, a place that
one can call home, We have lost it
in part because We are modern,
and modern means new, and in
part because we have to keep
moving, trying to beat time,
working against it instead of
working with it. So it is that
“home” is a value that we have
devalued, or, if not devalued, let
slip until it is no longer a real part
of our lives.

Unlike roots, which take lime,
homes are created. formed inside
of ourselves, The more flexible of
us “always seem at home,“
comfortable wherever we are, It is
easy too, to call home wherever
one staysihence the syndrome of
going back home aitcr break. But
that home is not the same as the
real one, the one that will remain
there whether I like it or not. It
does remain up to us to appreciate
it, though, to try to recover some of
its inherent and perhaps lost
worth.

As I said, this all comes off as
sounding a bit syrupy. Still, I look
iorward to setting ioot on the road.

It may be Cloudy, as it often is in
the midwest, with a wind from the
west or the north. The semis barrel
down the interstate, and if
the wind is right, create a slip-
stream that about blows you over.
Fifty miles or so later, I730 Con-
nects with I-as, and the ramp is a
long slope. Above the beginning oi
the ramp hangs a big green sign
that says in white block letters
Minneapolis, with an arrow by it.
You walk up the ramp, stick out
your thumb and stand in the
middle of the Wind and the gray
until someone stops to pick you up,
It is always easier to wait, though,
when there is someplace to go to.

The ultimate dark beer is in town and on lap.

[18
as

digit 933‘

BEER

Ask for it at your favorite drinking

and

Pill] Club, Inc.

Open 9:30-1:00

Monday-Friday

9 establishments.

A Table Down
at Muury’s?

Why Not?

Maury's lounge
919 Main

Formerly Wayne’s
- Steakhouse

 

