by Jim Alt

Well, my four years are up and like it
or not, the powers that be are throwing
me out. I hear they are doing the same to
a lot of people.

The feelings of regret and relief about
leaving, and or tear and hope tor the fu-
ture, exist in varying proportions in us
all. Some are mainly sorry to leave and
apprehensive or their tutures, others are
mainly glad to leave and expect the future
to be better,

Personally, I am optimistic about the fu-
ture but a little sorry that I have to leaVe
here to get there. Hopefully resigned, you
might say.

Whether it has been good or bad, each
of us has had a personal Grinnell experi»
ence. For four years our identities and‘
our lives were entangled in this institu-
tion's web of ideas and people, Each of us
was touched by a different set of ideas
and a diiterent group oi people, but we
have been part of the same web.

’ Without (as you will observe) becoming
sentimental, I would like to reminisce
brieﬂy about my own time at Grinnell,
The experiences are personal; I hope,
though, that some strike a common chord.

My stay started inauspiciously, As a frr
eshman l was assigned to a Norris double,
and within my iirst three days here i
managed to flunk the college’s writing and
speaking tests.

I conscienciously set out to meet gradua—
tion requirements, sweating through such
esoterlca as Latin (which actually was kind

of fun) as well as that universal favorite,

Humanities. I still have my first three»
page Human ‘ies paper around somewhere;
it has fifty—three corrections. it ieels good
to have outlasted the prof who read it.
Second semester of my freshman year
was probably my most exciting time at
Grinnell. That was the spring of the B&G
strike, when we all played hideeand-seek
with the toilet paper. That was a good
hitchhiking spring, too, until i woke up one
my Monday morning in the Davis County
Iowa) calaboose. Try getting out of THERE
ometime.
And that was the spring of Cambodia and
Kent State and Jackson State, a spring
ii horror in this country as well as abroad.
he college community has never been so
gitated as it was then, and even with the
terspective of three years I feel the epi-
'ode more than I understand it
Sophomore year, not surprismgly, started
nauspiciously, That was the fall when I
iscovered the truth which states that ro-
ances by mail with high school sweet-
carts are generally not compatible with
ontinuing happiness, sanity, or respect
.r reality, Breaking up, as they say, was
am to do.
I had the consolation of living in a Smith
riple with two swell roommates, one of
them was editing the $513 and the other
I whom hoarded chocolate chip cookies,
'worked on the paper with the editor and
e both stole cookies from our roommate,
ho iinally started working on the paper
imseli; so he could keep an eye on us, i
ave always suspected.
The major event oi sophomore year was
.eeting my “significant other”; she, too,
as working on this miserable rag. (it is
ant to tell, but people do WORK on the

Our buddlng romance was nearly nipped,
ough, when i convinced her one week
at she, rather than I, should drive copy
the printer's in Montezuma. So SHE
as driving when a tire blew and Rick Mce
loweli's (remember him?) car ceased to
xist.
. y iriend survived, although she putaiine
mp on her head As far as i can tell it
d not aiiect her mind much one way or
e other; still, I ieel a little badly about
e whole thing. The editor, as i recall,

by Anne Walter

i still have the dress i wore on "arrival”
day my freshman yeai‘ua blue dotted swiss
so classic that it would still be considered
“in style”, It was hot and threatened rain
all day. l remember recalling with a tinge
of panic a note in the student handbook
about umbrellas w i didn't have one and
realized then that even my stubborn dis—
belief was no challenge to the whims of
midwestern weather.

The weather and the power oi my dis-
beliefs may not have changed at all in 4
years but even the long-time Grinnellians
might admit that this year's class oi stUr

was delighted with the great copy the acci-
dent provided,

Second semester of that year I also
completed my last required course. That
was, you might recall, the same semester
that requirements were abolished. i began
to understand why people wash their cars
when they want it to rain.

Junior year started, with boring repetir
tion, inauspiciously. l iinally got a single
room As in Cowles. That had its advantages,
though; about halfway through first semester
my cockroaches started looking [or abetter
neighborhood.

That was the year that I may have set a
college record of sorts by taking an incom-
plete in independent projects both semesters
,. with the same proi. He was justifiably
put out with me the second time, and i
will always admire his insight and candor,
and commend it to other prois, in pegging
me as a “lazy slob”.

Ironically, that was the same semester
that “academic pressure" was the campus
issue, In light of my successive incompletes
I felt that I had avoided the problem rather
well; and so that was one debate in which
i did not take part.

Junior year, too, i started giving tours to
high school students who were considering
coming here. i met some interesting people
and some funny people and some people
whom I would rather forget. Pruspectlves’
questions, though, made me trytostraighten
out my thoughts about Grinnell and about
my own experiences here.

Senior year -- well, i have already writ-
ten a lot about this year. It has been spent
trying to draw together my thoughts or the
last four years and trying to iigure out
what to do next year.

That, really. is part of what these col-
umns turned out to be about. I do not
know whether I understand too little or too
much, but I DO know the paralysis that
hits me every time I sit down to write.
It seems that the longer I think about a
question, the less easy becomes its ans-
wer. i wonder whether i have a bad case
of minderot, or a good case of education.

Well, it seems like I should come up with
a moderately profound, moderately nostal-
gic ending ior all this, But proiundity is not
my strong suit, and nostalgia demands a
measure at years which I do not have.

So it must suiiice simply to say that, ior
me, Grinnell has been more good than bad,
more iund than drudgery, though there has
been some of each. As I leave I take with
me some good friendships and some good
thoughts. Everyone, i think, should be so
lucky.

Phoiod by Ken Winokur

by Irma McClaurin

Sitting here and trying to evaluate four
years at Grinnell in between working on my
Senior Thesis and exams is difficult, tosay
the least, What can one say about the Grin-
nell experience except that it has been just
that, an experience.

isolation is the key word whenever i
think of Grinnell. There is a tendency
towards apathy and ego tripping that comes
irom being so isolated, the latter because
people here tend to place an emphasis upon
being different, 50 one has a community
of students trying to outdo each other by
being unique, This is unfortunate because
the student leaves this environment many
times without placing his liie in pei‘specr
tive.

Due to the recent interest in race rela»
tions on campus, I’m sure there is prob-
ably the unconscious question, “well, how
does a black woman view this place?”
My perspective is purely mine and is not
intended to reflect the attitudes of the
rest of the black populace here.

I feel the need for Such clarification be
cause of It tendency I have found in four
years among students and proiessors to
generalize about black students and their
positions on white campuses Though weare
different from the mass of black people
because we are in college, our experiences
within the mainstream of the black come
munity cannot and will not be negated.
Life at Grinnell is merely an interlude
in our lives,

i
Eh: Starlet ahb 181mb

ship to it should be such that we as Grinnell
dents in spanning the transition of one dis—
tinct era on college campuses to another
has undergone relatively dramatic changes,
For much oi our time here we(collectively)
have been in the doldrums so-torspeak.
The promises and hopetul actions oi our
early college career have not resulted in
Nirvana and it has taken time to adjust
suiiiciently to this disappointment in order
to begin working again.

We entered Grinnell in the heyday of
student activism, SDS and Student power
were everyday words and the most glam-
orous political people were those whose
politics reached to the extreme left. This
awesome upswmg of radicalism produced
such student leaders as Tom Thomas who
were to become legends in their own time.
Many of us immediatelygthink of the drar
matic political actions of that ear, the
EtizG strike and the closing of the school
after Kent State. (i wonder how many or
us realized that the first annual Grinnell
Relays, 5 May 1973, marked the anniver~
sary of this latter event?) it was this same
spirit that led to substantial changes in
the government and academic structure
on the college campus itseli.

During the spring and fall or 1970 faculty
meetins were first opened to students,
academic requirements were abolished and
the current Committee A and EPC struc-
tures were designed and implementeditcae
demic freedom and student power were the
issues then and in many ways these same
issues present themselves today but with
a peculiar slant of their own.

In many ways we Could consider these
past years the ”abolishment era”»we
abolished the dress code for sit»down
dinner, then we abolished the Student Sens
ate, we iormaily abolished “hours”, and
more significantly we abolished require-
ments and, lately, credit/fail.

This year we have seen independent study
receive a more delimiting deiinition, oii—
campus study programs will have a more
thorough going over before-the-fact, and
practicum credit limitations are stronger
aiter haying been loosened earlier in our
career. There is obviously a new trend
in abolishments that definitely at first
glance seems to be directly opposite to
that established earlier in our careers
here.

What events have led to this change in
the nature of the academic actions taken
at the college? Last year the major issue
was academic pressure. It blossomed forth
in the middle oi November like an ugly
flower in one of those famous Herrick
Chapel meetings.

The why’s of this event have been analye
zed many times; they vary trom individual
to individual, However, one thing was very
clear--Grinnell students and faculty were
not Satisfied with the nature of the acar
demic endeavors. In many ways, Iper-
ceive the recent changes to be a response
to this event, We students and faculty
are concerned about the quality of our
educational endeavors.

From my perspective, it seems we need
both direction (Hence, the cry ior stronger
academic and career advising) and flexibil-
ity. Grinnell's academic program should
be molded in a way that a large variety
oi modes or study are really available
to a student, that an individual’s program
be limited only in the sense that breadth

l have found two strange diseases per-
meating this campus, called “liberalism"
and “racism,” The symptoms of the for-
mer manifest itself in professors and stu—
dents patronizing black students and cause

(ommlntomni '73

is achieved, and that a student develop
a sense ot purpose, a reason ior being,
during his or her iour years at 6C,

The other. big question right now is student
power in academic decision making. Today,
students sit and vote on departmental EPC’S
Fifty percent or the membership on the
Subcommittee of the Executive Council on
Educational Policies is student

The college is currently committed to a
formal system ior obtaining studentopiuion
to be used in all contract decisions, Yet,
many students do not realize the potency
of this power, maybe slmplybecause strucv
tured power such as this goes on without
the need ior outside agitation, Many students
also ieel that this is only quasi power as
the ultimate deCIsiuns do lie in the hands
of some other body without student Votes
,..the iaculty, the executive council, occ-
asionally the administration, the Trustees,

I do not know who should have the power
in an ultimate sense, However, my experr
iences here suggest to me that it is neceSr
sary to derive means oieomingtodecisions
such that those who participate in the deg
cision believe that their opinions are under
stood and given full consideration.

Other questions, such as that ultimate
horrible of students having decisive power
in Contract decisions are much messier
and deserve serious thought irom everyone
involved. In all such deliberations it seems
imperative that Students and faculty alike
can keep before them their reasons for being
at a place like this ope in the first place.

In an early statement in the college cat-
alog there is a phrase that implies we shall
learn to foresee the consequences oi our
actions and accept responsibility for them.
My actions in student government have
helped lead us to the point we are at now.
I hope that other students will help carry
on from here.

ing problems to the black student and
themselves when they find that their own
integrity has been sacriticed, The symp-
toms Of the latter, racism, are a series
of usually uniustiiiabie oppressive attitudes
that make the black student involved work
harder for a lower grade in order to come
pensiite for the liberalism the professor
ieels his colleagues are engaged in,

I find both attitudes distressing for I
have no desire to go into anacademicworld
unprepared because of some benevolent
professor attempting to salve his con-
science. Neither do I Wish to have the
scars oi inadequacy stamped upon mv ego
by some inconsequential racist professor.

I believe the r sponsibiiity oi predominr
antly white institutions to black people
are at this time ambiguous and undefined.
There will have to be certain compromises
made by both groups, perhaps involving
their values, standards or goals

I have found Grinnell challenging academ-
ically, but lnSDfﬂl‘ as creativity is concern-
ed 1 have found it lacking. Any abilities
oi mine that were responsible ior my ac»
ceptance into graduate school were in no
way nourished by the creative atmosphere
on |his campus 1 must. however. give a
few professors credit ior individually uk-
ing personal lime to hclprliie develop .is
1! Wm ei‘ and as 4 person.

i am quite ready to leave this environ-
ment and its experience for a new and dif-
ferent situation. I feel that the years here
were well spent. but they .ire past and i
must move on

 

