et me tell you what ithink the Words mean.
all means enough students [0 fill our resir
lice halls, our project and cooperative
uses, and the lEOrodd spaces that appear
exist in private houseS or apartments Otis
-cnmpus Allowing for the [act Iliui to [ill
another relative term, that means 1250
dents, which is roughly what we have this
air. Small, as distinct ll‘onl very small, also
ezlns sufficient numbers 0i academically
le sutdents to provide a student body that
pelully will contain enough diiierent tem-
ranieiits and interests to allow for some
riety Small also presupposes that there
11 be enough lacuity around to provide
iirses oi instruction to satisty those stll-

in a tinancial sense, the
rd small, as distinct irom too small, must
o mean that income student tuition has to
ovide enough lunds to support, substantially
Iugh not wholly, sullicient faculty and other
sts ot instruction. The word small, 357
rdingly, has both an educational and physi—
1 meaning; and uiltll the two aspects are
ught into tocus, any talk ol this college
ing to 1500 students is an interesting but
pothetlcal exercise,
_ow the word independent is usually the sort
set the soul arstirring: ll‘eerstandlng,
holden to no one, gate—hell ‘ you-dent
'eril. The truth is it means simply that we
- a charitable institution with our tnnding
pending almost wholly on three things.
dowment income, student tuition ,and the
its ol people who like us and want“, u survive.
he of these by itseliis enough to make ends
act, and this tact explains why we have a
innell Magazine, wellestaited public iniurr
tioii, alumni, development, and admissions
ices, and lurther why l am out or town so
on on errands designed to persuade perr
ns that crinnell is as good or better or at

s e need to unpollute the

'1‘, agree on goals- and then
‘ing them to pan. ’

lst much sanel‘ than different accounts oi
r image indicate, independent, thereioi‘e,
)dns we live chietly on the good will and
rcitul instincts of people (and 1 Include
dents) who believe that what we are doing
an educational institution is Ci necessarv
tribution to the general weltare. To say
another way. it means that.the Gi'lnnell
gree has to represent. it not a unique at
ist a special achievement, in which being
py while getting it is secondary to the
tistaction 0i earning it This hardantlsome—
es not so pleasant tact has to condition
r discussion 0i our expectations of a suite
9 educational policy.

we appear to have a common understanding
of What We mean. Residential is distinct li‘oln
oii—canipusetransielit, and it means that sttlr
dents, 01' most of them, live in dormitories
or in houses either on or near the campus,
ill hopes that such a cllcunlslance will Create
a student society that becomes not only me
telleclually responsive to the classroom but
also intellectually anti emotionally responsive
to the whole environment at the college. ii
this hope is realized then the Campus Iakeson
a total education style tllat what we call the
streetcar college or university can never
have The problem, however, is notwhatresi-
dentiai means; it is how to make the term work
so that the out—olrclass life becomes genu~
inely supportive or the academic progiamand
not merely a campus hotel and restaurant
operation Unfortunately we don't know any
way to make it work with continuous efiec»
tiveness Faculty want the administration to
manage the ollt—of»class liie 0i students so
that it is intellectually stimulating and ma-
ttirely quiet, administrators want it pleasant
and orderly, and students want it managed
like the Ritz, but on 5300 it day

The result is we all keep running into one
another, and experimenting, and Coping day-
byrday, and hoping that when we solve one
problem two more won’t appear to take its
place For lnstance, when i came here in
1965 we had north and south segregated ci’iin-
puses, on the north campus particularly we
had {i strong fraternal system with all its
potential Virtues ,_ group identity and spirit
and strong peer glonp discipline We also
had the real disadvantages oilhe systcm .,
gangrmallstiip, peer group cruelty, and noise
and breakage almost beyond measure. Every-
thing considered. the system was less good
than bad, and i worked to Change it. Now “9
have another kind or residential organization,
open and tree, and probably healthier, lthilik,
than the previous one but almost totally der
pendent on the uiliizibility and variable sense
oi responsibility ot students and on the non»
directive counselling eiiorts at our deans of
students and resultant advisers.

In spite of their good individual eitorts, how-
ever, our residential system is essentially a
nonrsystem. and it won’t do in the long run
There is not enough variety in it: the halls
appear to me to have the same flat level oi
sameness, Without slliiicient individual marks
to identity to distinguish one from the other
Many students who are searching for such
marks or identity have apparently thrown up
their hands and are asking for proyect houses
or cooperative houses. One can be sympather
tie with such desires, but satislying them
does not solve our residence hall problem,
Where most of our students must live because
01 the Simple iilct that we have more halls
than We have available houses, indeed, the
number oi living~andrhoal‘d—options now on
the hooks is raising logistical management
problems that would frustrate the trained
staiil 01 Conrad ililton. And the momentary
solution of individual or small group llgonies
does not really speak to the overall probe
lein or how we get more variety and more
educational spirit ill the residence halls
The major thi'llst for improvement has to
come from students themselves. They are on
record as saying that they could manage the
halls without arbitrary regulations handed
down from the deans of students and me.
Because the iaculty is understandably pre»

occupied with class preparation, teaching,
and academic advising, the other burden oi
proposing a residential system is theretore
on you students. You have your sca commite
tees, your Committee A structures, and you
have almost constant access to me ears and
advice oi many intciesled laculty and the
deans and me

I come no\\‘ to that part oi the general
statement ot the purpose of the college which
uses the term undergraduate. Until a row
years ago it was almost universally under
stood that undergraduate meant not only
treshmen, sophomores, Juniors, and seniors,
but also 2 semesters for each and a selnese
ters or a lull [our years, most oi it spent in
the same institution The argument, and it is
not a loolish argument per se, is that edue
cation is a cumulative thing, that continuing

'---tlye Grimm]! degree In: to

reprexeﬂt, ifnot a unique at
least a special acbievemeﬂt-n’

lamiliarity with the environment ola partir
culnr institution makes it easier tor the stur
dent to concentrate on his studies, to know
his protessors better, and to minimize the
upsetting adplstments that are part or com
ing and going to diitei-ent places. Atany rate,
one way oranother, the tradition ollour ycars'
residence as the central detinttion at an un-
dergraduate became the received standard,
especially in the small residential college

We are now no longer so sure, The evidence
is that many students want and can complete
their undergraduate education by working
steadily tor three years, that many others
want to break up their undergraduate years
with ball years or lull years oi absence in
traveling, or in work, or in oil-campus study
programs that may not carry the standard
{ull semester credltrhours The urge to
mobility among the young, their disenchantr
ment with the prospect or being absorbed
immediately at age 21 into an Establishment
where the options are not nearly so great
as they were a dozen years ago, theii actual
delight in being made to adiust to dilierent
places and dillerent people and their conse-
oiicnt boredom with one environment month
after month ., all these (actors, and others,
make it imperative that we look at our pre-
conceptions ol the standard chronology ol
undergraduate education to see it we are not
really riding a dead horse.

When “6 look at these preconceptions. howr
ever, we must resist the tempation to give
too much attention lirst to the details ol our
academic calendar. that is, at the way we
divide things into beginnings and endings,
into mid-semester and semester breaks, and
at our system or categorizing courses into
hours and credits Educators have tried tor
years to manipulate the Georgian Calendar in
hopes that some academic good will come out

 

