"The Era of the Shrug"

The Undergraduate ChairFollowing is the text of the addressgiven by Samuel P. Bell '61, president ofthe Undergraduate Council, at the exercises opening the new academic year.

FOR a number of years student apathy on the Dartmouth campus has been a topic of discussion and a good subject for strongly worded speeches. Also for as many years as I have known Dartmouth College, those who bore the official titles of "student leaders" have been faced with the problem of disinterested, non-participating and apathetic student bodies. These same student leaders have attempted to create artificial issues which would stir student concern, but they met with little lasting success. In the last few years particularly most student organizations have suffered from lack of manpower and insufficient student interest.

Now you are witness to a new year - a new group of undergraduates bearing the dubious title of "student leaders." This new group is faced as before with student apathy. It is my opinion, however, that if disinterest and lack of student participation in extracurricular activities on the campus were the only problems that existed at Dartmouth and if this apathy ended there - we would have little to worry about. But this indifference does not stop with a few minor organizational problems. Instead, this unconcern spreads into every phase of a Dartmouth man's existence. Campus apathy is only a small manifestation of a much greater problem.

The problem I am speaking of is simply a total lack of awareness and an absence of sensitivity which prevents the great majority of Dartmouth undergraduates from seeing any more than (as a recent popular song puts it) their "own little corner of the world."

I have recently returned from the annual Congress of the National Student Association, an organization composed of some 390 colleges and universities, whose main purpose is to speak for the students of America on domestic and international issues. It is pathetic and it is dangerous to let the small group that heads this organization speak for you, but they have no alternative since the voice of Dartmouth remains relatively small. Seeing the position that this organization, the N.S.A., took on so many issues and believing that on every issue large numbers of Dartmouth students were being misrepresented, I stood before the assembled delegates and stated what I thought at the time was Dartmouth's stand. I said that the men of Dartmouth do not need to have this organization speak for them and speak incorrectly. We at Dartmouth, I said, are individuals with sensitive minds who have thought through the issues and have committed ourselves as individuals to some one position. Having done this, Dartmouth men will associate themselves with organizations and concern groups that express their individual opinions and will fight for what they believe.

As I look back on this statement I realize that it was rashly said and untrue. We at Dartmouth are no different from students all over the nation, for we are unaware of what is going on beyond our own petty struggle for security, This unawareness can not be translated into intelligent action.

One Dartmouth undergraduate has called this period in history the "era of the shrug." This is the time when we feel that problems are too great to consider and to solve, so we ignore them or maybe we say let George take care of it. But as it was pointed out time and again at the recent Dartmouth Medical Convocation, George can not do it - the problems of today must be of intimate concern to us all.

It has been said many times and in many ways that our main purpose here is one of intellectual pursuit or learning. This is true! However, learningmeans more than the mere absorptionof subject matter in the classroom. There must also be a relationship clearly drawn and a transferral effected between academic knowledge and the realities of our environment. If this isnot done the classroom experience atDartmouth is a wasted experience.

A friend of mine recently stated that he would rather a man be cold or hot, than to be lukewarm. So many of us prefer this comfortable lukewarm position. We lack a real and vital commitment to any idea or ideal. Even to say selfishly that we are committed to ourselves can be a contradictory statement, when on the Dartmouth campus so much lack of responsibility and absence of self-respect is apparent.

Earlier I mentioned that Dartmouth is not unique in the unconcerned, noncommitted position that its undergraduates maintain. However, this does not offer us, or should not offer us, any consolation, for the potential of this institution and its student body is far greater than average. A minister recently commenting on this potential claimed that if Dartmouth made a concentrated effort to direct its graduates into fields of service that desperately need men of Dartmouth caliber, rather than continually preparing them for the more lucrative and secure vocations, this college would have made a great contribution to humanity.

You men of the Class of 1964 are just now at the outset of a four-year experience that offers infinite possibilities for development. For the most part you will determine as individuals the course you will take. You can be as so many classes before you, with only a few committed men with a selfless desire for service, or you can be the Dartmouth Wheelock, Webster, and Tucker.

For the freshmen the responsibility of awareness should be easier than for the three upper classes which have already demonstrated a tendency to lean the other way, however much can still be done.

In hopes that I will not lose sight of the reality of our situation here at Dartmouth and be guilty of advocating naive idealism, I have listed six specific points on which, I believe, we should act to attempt to realize our potential.

1. Continue to work for academic excellence and concentrate on more than course grades. This is our initial purpose here at Dartmouth.

2. Continue the learning process outside the classroom. Discuss, read, argue, question, and then make decisions. Form ideas!

3. Make full use of the knowledge that can be gained from intellectual and mature contact with other members of the Dartmouth community. This includes our international students and the faculty. A common fallacy in Dartmouth publicity is the statement that student-faculty relationships are numerous and close. In general, very few students have the advantage of intimate relationships with faculty members and many students do not attempt to create and cultivate these friendships. There is practically no student-faculty dining and far too little out-of-class discussion. In this area students, due to their own inaction, are missing a great deal. I might add that this situation is not entirely the fault of the students.

4. Be aware of issues of campus, national and international scope. Read, study, and discuss these issues. Join concern groups or form them, if they do not exist, to express your ideas. Make use of the Young Republican and Young Democrat organizations and other clubs of this nature. Be active in politics. Write letters to government officials. Senator Russell of Georgia pointed out the significance of student correspondence during the recent consideration of the National Defense Education Act. He stated that he had received no letters at all from students and would have welcomed student opinion and, in fact, needed to know the views of students in determining his stand.

5. As for the National Student Association which I mentioned earlier, I would like to see ten to fifteen aware and excited Dartmouth men attend next year's N.S.A. Congress and lend their intelligence to remolding the ideas of the "student voice."

6. Concerning campus affairs, undergraduates have many requests. We want increased privileges in dormitories and fraternities, changes in administrative policy, and improvements in certain phases of the academic process. These requests could be legitimately made if, first, students assumed the responsibility that merited these added privileges and changes and, secondly, if we organized our thoughts into workable plans and presented them through the student government organization. The use of student government means also the support of the work that it is trying to do.

In summary, we as students have responsibility to ourselves and to our ideas. This is a selfless and not a selfish responsibility. This is a call to committed action and not to the passive, self-satisfied, secure attitude of "let George do it." Historically students have led revolutions. And in our day we have seen students believe so strongly for a cause that they have given their lives to see it realized. The danger we face is the danger of the shrug. I hope we can overcome this danger here at Dartmouth.