Valedictory Address

“Valedictorian Speech” (May 1968): 1-14. (UA Case 68, Box 2)

To open the proceedings I would like to recite some of the words of a song which is, I feel, appropriate to our gathering this evening. The song was written in the early 1950’s by a man sufficiently familiar with the academic world, albeit the American one, to speak with considerable authority. This man has, during our stay at university, re-emerged as a social commentator with, I feel, no rival in the field of effective, satiric song. Now that you are all desperately trying to guess the identity of my mystery personality - - - he is Tom Lehrer, currently, I believe, associated with the mathematics department at M.I.T. and my nomination for the office of Guru of the North American world. The first part of the song, entitled “Bright College Days”, goes like this.

“Bright college days
I carefree days that fly,
To thee we sing
With our glasses raised on high.
Let’s drink a toast
As each of us recalls,
Ivy covered Professors
In ivy covered halls.”

To date, all suggestions of planting ivy around the buildings and thus giving them that serene, academic look we all long for have been met with the argument that the ivy has a tendency to break up the concrete between the bricks and thus leads to the disintegration of the buildings. In view of this fact, may I humbly suggest that ivy be planted around all the buildings with precisely this end in mind.

The reason behind reading selections from a song such as “Bright College Days”, a caustic look at all that college has come to mean in a derogatory sense, is to point out the fact that the song is not just a figment of Mr. Lehrer’s - --- what makes it so effective is that most, if not all, of the aspects of college life as depicted in the song are very common today. And I maintain that if you can sum up your four years here in the words of this song, then you have wasted four years of your life, and about $8,500 of somebody’s money. To continue :

“Here’s to parties we tossed
To the games that we lost
We will claim that we wont them some day.
To the girls young and sweet,
To the spacious back seat
Of our room-mate’s beat up Chevrolet.
To the beer and Benzedrine,
To the way that the Dean
Tried so hard to be pals with us all.
To excuses we fibbed,
To the papers we cribbed
From the genius who lived down the hall.”

I find these words all too familiar. Granted, these are all a part of college experience and no one will deny it. But how much a part of it are they? I think that you will have to agree that they have played a considerably higher role in our college careers than they deserve. We have all spent four years, the Engineers and Foresters five, undergoing the process of higher or post-secondary education. If this is all the sum total of our experience at U.N.B., it’s a rather dismal one, and it make our collective future seem rather gloomy when one hears of the roles we are being called upon to fulfill.

The period during which we have been receiving our post-secondary education, or at least the period during which we have attended college, has been on of a very strong and sometimes violent upheaval in nearly all the aspects of life as we know them. For years our generation has been known as the post-war baby boom, and during the course of our collective education we have caused trouble at every stage, the biggest problem being the sheer weight of numbers which we imposed on the North American educational systems. This has forced certain reappraisals in teaching techniques, all of them working on the principle of increasing the ratio of students per teacher, hopefully without an equivalent loss of quality. With very limited exceptions, all the changes that were made; streaming classes, improved teaching aids, more advanced textbooks; all these were catch up measures, measures that were made necessary by the inability of the education systems of the day to handle the student education needs.

The point of this is that education has not been working ahead for its problems, but rather, it has been reacting to crises and then working with remedial measures to get back to a position of equilibrium. There are universities where this is not the case, but these are very much the exception and not the rule.

University administrations tend to be conservative (in a small “c” sense of course) in their nature. Responsibility and handling of money tend to have their effect on people. Being conservative, they are slow to bring about change and very often when they do so, it is only because of pressure exerted on them by others; namely the money granting governments, the Faculty or the student body. This, along with the perennial shortage of money, is one of the basic facts of present-day, university life. As has been the case all along, our generation has stained the education- all systems to their breaking point, forcing changes that other-wise would have taken much longer to bring about.

What has been happening during out years at university has been the slow and very painful realization on the part of universities in North America, both in the United States and Canada, that the established systems of education were inadequate, first, their ability to handle the enormous numbers of students now attending university, and second, in the quality of education that these students were, and are, receiving. The standard system of increasing the number of students per teach has been carried to its logical conclusion, the result being the enormous classes, especially among introductory courses, that are the all too common fact of today’s large universities. A class of 1,200 sounds like, and often is, an educator’s nightmare, necessitated by the squeeze between the lack of money and the obligation to educate as many students as possible.

The result of this system of large classes and larger administrative problems, necessitating a far more efficient and, inevitably, less human organization, has been growing dissatisfaction on the part of the students. As an example of the efficient machinery of our modern universities failing to work correctly, there is the case at U.C.L.A. this year where the registrar’s office assigned 850 students to a Biology section intended to hold 150. Students are now demanding changes, as opposed to suggesting them, because they feel, and the record of administrative change, rather negligible as it is, bears this out, that there is not other way to get results with any appreciable speed.

Speed is a factor that must be understood is one is to appreciate the actions of university students today. The average university student has an academic life-span of four years. In contrast, some people say that university administrators don’t retire at all; they just get filed away in the wrong drawer. In the eyes of the student the administration is a permanent, long established body. By the very nature of their organization and on the basis of part experience in negotiating with governments and other bodies with equally permanent life-spans, university administrations tend to take their own, and everybody else’s, time ----- ask any faculty member! Students don’t have that much time - - - and they aren’t always so idealistic as to be satisfied with letting to see and enjoy the results of their actions while still at college. This emphasis on speed (not to be confused with the S.T.P. variety) is one of the major characteristics of today’s university student and is one of the major characteristics of today’s university student and is one of the major sources of friction between student and administration.

As a result of the events of the last four years, starting on the Berkley campus and continuing today in Paris and recently at Columbia University in New York, there has been added to the facts of money problems and overcrowding, a new fact of the academic life; from the student comes a demand for and an expectation of, change. Change in the administrative processes of the university.

Change in the organization of the curriculum, and change in the all-important relationships between student, faculty and administration. I am not about to bring down the findings of a student Royal Commission of the functioning of the University of New Brunswick, although the project has seemed appealing to a number of students in the past and may some day become an actuality. What I am saying is that the powers-the-be in this university as well as in most others, namely the administration, must be willing, beyond all previous limits, to consider proposals for change, proposals not coming only from within the administration itself, but from the Faculty and the students as well. It must admit the fact that both of these bodies are capable of making suggestions for change that are at once constructive and pertinent. The university can no longer consider the student as being completely ignorant of its operations and difficulties, and hence of no value as a critical body. Recognition, on the past of the university administration, of the students as a collective, competently critical force worth listening to is now as essential to the smooth operations of the university as an efficient administration.

An article in the Montreal Star (Feb. 24/68) contained the following comment and suggestions concerning the roles of the student in the operations of the university.

“Our universities should be planning not only for physical growth but should also be searching for the means of producing more mature and responsible citizens. This might be facilitated if the student role were made a more responsible one. For example, students should actively participate in areas where they are directly affected: disciplinary rules, student services such as athletics, health, financial assistance, cafeteria and bookstore - - - but also in less obvious areas such as curriculum revisions and even the planning of future construction and total university expansion ….”

The author continues on ; “While the question of university government ill still be of paramount importance, there are indications that mundane issues such as good served in the cafeteria and the bookstore profits will be replaced by academically oriented issues. Demands of pedagogical reforms will affect such areas as admission standards, the grading system, promotion from one class to another, and indeed, faculty competence.

Much can be done right now to prevent revolt on campus, if the students are given some realistic prerogatives and serious obligations in the decision-making process by which the university plans for its own growth and develops its relationship to the community at large.”

These words came from the text of an address to the Board of Trade Associates given by Dr. John Smola, Vice-President (Administration and Finance) of Sir George Williams University in Montreal.

Without this recognition, students become frustrated and start doing things that administrations don’t like; things like picketing, sitting-in, and, as shown all too clearly at Columbia, closing down the university. University administrators are not very happy with the events at Columbia and I am inclined to think they are quite justified. What the students at Columbia have done is to call the collective administrative bluff - - - which they did by closing down five buildings and showing North American students just how easily it can be done. The students at Columbia made demands that had been at one time suggestions and then criticisms, both of them ignored by the administration. The result shocked and frightened millions of people, mostly over 25, and delighted millions of others, mostly under 25. The tragic and regrettable actions of the administration in clearing the buildings by force only points up the very characteristic inflexibility of the Columbia administration, one of the important areas in which it is representative of university administrations everywhere. The resorting to force was, and is, symbolic of an inability to talk, and the blame for this must fall on both sides.

The University of New Brunswick is not Columbia University; there are not 25,000 students here - - thank God - - there is no Harlem ghetto across Windsor St. But there are problems, questions of authority, rules which might be changed. There are enough potential issues on this campus to cause trouble given the right circumstances. I am certainly not making predictions, giving dire warnings of things to come, or trying to threaten anyone, Far from it! I very readily admit that many student proposals are impractical, often ridiculous in their disregard for the facts of the situation. But unless the facts are recognized by the administration, the facts of student ability and desire to participate in the functioning of their university at levels other than they of the classroom, there could be a lot of trouble which, in my opinion, would only lead to increased bitterness on the part of the students and increased intransigence on the part of the administration. A lack of flexibility will not protect the administration’s position - - - at Columbia they made some of the important concessions demanded by the students and still earned a bad reputation. Students can be generous both in criticism and acclaim. The question of open rooms in the residence system and the decision by a joint committee of the students and Board of Governors to open rooms on Friday and Saturday nights was one of the first examples on this campus of successful co-operation between these two bodies and was widely accepted and praised by the students. There is no reason why this co-operation cannot continue. Student demands will continue to get closer to more sacred policies and tensions may grow, but they must and can be kept under control. But because of the basic situation with all the power concentrated on one side, the burden for proving good will and credibility falls on the University administration.

Recommendations for change in the University have been made during the past year by the Bailey Commission on the future of the University, and if it is no Carter Commission, some of its suggestions must appear as radical as those concerning the tax structure of our country. This report was not intended for wide distribution, being limited chiefly to Administration and Faculty with certain student leaders having copies made available. The vast majority of the student body knows nothing of its recommendations and I venture to suggest that a considerable number don’t know that it exists! Our class has been exposed to four years of increasing involvement on the part of students in a wide range of activities, all of them having in common the fact that they are not what used to be considered student activities; questions of politics, foreign policy, peace movements and especially concern with our own education have become increasingly important and will continue to do so. In mentioning these activities I am not trying to, nor do I wish to, discredit the more traditional aspects of the university life. I’ve watched my friends playing football and hockey and recently with great success, basketball, and I’ve been proud of them and the University they represent. But at the same time, these activities must not begin to share some of the prominence and place in the mosaic of university life with the new forms of student actions. There must be a correct emphasis on both sides. The new activities I speak of concern for education and world affairs, mark the end of isolation of university students from the world they live in. They mark a new desire on the part of the students to enter into and participate in the affairs of the world before they leave university, before they receive the rubber stamp of acceptability at the end of their last year. Students today have an opportunity to take part in life as it will affect them for the rest of their lives, or they can wait until graduation and start learning the rules of the game then.

To quote Vice-President of Sir George Williams once more: “Indeed, any student who has been around the campus for four years without once getting excited about the war in Viet Nam or the Arab-Israeli conflict, or Communism in Cuba or in China, or the plight of writers in Russia—excited enough to be profoundly concerned and to make some public protest—any student so dense or just plain selfish that he has not perceived the relationship between his university education and the pressing problem of his society, has undoubtedly been wasting his time.”

These are pretty harsh words but then they are dealing with a very serious fact. If, but the end of your undergraduate university education you cannot see where you stand, something is very wrong somewhere, in the student of the system of education, or both. In the world ahead, we are all going to have to make very fundamental decisions, not about how many cars should be made next year, or whether or not to buy such and such a company—and some of you will find yourselves in such positions—but rather you will have to decide whether you want to make cars, buy companies, write songs or become a cook. You will have to think, which, I am afraid, not too many of us have learned to do here. Many of the professors here are good, very good, and they can think. In the midst of a learned dissertation on some topic in one of the lectures in the course of my four years here, a rather well travelled and slightly battered piece of wisdom was passed on. “If you have learned only how much you don’t know, then it hasn’t been a complete waste.”

In the times ahead some things will be very important. “The parties we tossed, the games that we lost” will be a part of our past, a part that will provide fond memories. Another, and I hope, more significant memory will be that of the student activities that began to gain momentum during our four years at U.N.B. They are here to stay and will continue to develop. Upon leaving this University we are asked to remember it, its traditions, the good old times we had, etc. This is the world of Tom Lehrer’s song which ends on a suitably cynical and pessimistic note:

“Soon we’ll be out
Amid the cold world strife;
Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life!
But as we go our sordid, separate, ways
We shall ne’er forget thee,
Thou golden college days.”

If this is all university has meant, it’s been a terrible and tragic waste of parent’s money and professors’ time. Out in the world, I suggest that we remember this school, but more than that, remember its current students, be interested in and informed about their activities and what they’re thinking. If any of you are ever accorded the “privilege” of sitting on the Board of Governors or perhaps the Alumni Council, remember the students of that day. No university can ever fulfill its proper function if the governing bodies don’t understand the students. If you give money to this school, give it to the students, or give it with stipulations to be used in projects in which students have some say. If you remember this university, remember the students. The administration can take care of itself, and will continue to do so. The students need and will need in the future, support from us in the form of advice, encouragement and, who knows, maybe even money. If you come back to the University, come back when there are students here so that you can see what it is really life. Don’t look at the buildings; we all know now what they’ll look like; talk to the students, find out that they’re doing and then judge the University, not on what the Office of Information says, or on the reports of the Alumni bulletin, but on what has happened here, among the people who are in the life of the University. Even now, you can see how the University looks without students. It’s all very pretty and serene, but it isn’t alive.

Think about these problems and get involved in them, one way or another. We are all going to have to involve ourselves in this world we live in, and university education and this University in particular, are very important aspects of this world, important aspects which we can and must influence, helping to make the changes that will be necessary to meet the new demands of our society.