JUNIATA Summer 1987 college bulletin

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Juniata's First Family

Special Inaugural Edition

Discovering the Connections

Dr. Ernest L. Boyer is president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton, New Jersey, and senior fellow of the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. For five consecutive yean Dr. Boyer has been listed by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top educators in the nation.

INTRODUCTION President Neff, trustees, distinguished delegates, faculty, students

and friends, 1 am deeply honored to be invited to speak at this ex-quisite celebration. Juniata College has committed itself to excellence in learning and in life. There is, on this campus, an excitement and expectation in the air and it is a special jcry for me to be with you today.

In 1972,1 was sitting in my office in Albany, New York. It was a dreary Monday morning in Albany, which is a bit of a redun-dancy, I know. To avoid the pressures of the day, I turned instinc-tively to the stack of third class mail that I kept on the corner of my desk to create the illusion of being very, very busy.

O n top of the heap was the student newspaper from Stanford University. I was struck by the headline which announced that the faculty at Stanford, in a burst of creativity, was re-introducing a required course in western civilization after having abolished all requirements just three years before.

The students at Stanford were mightily offended by the facul-ty's brash act and, in a front page editorial, they declared, and I quote, "A required course at Stanford is an illiberal act." The edi-torial concluded with this blockbuster question: "How dare they impose uniform standards on non-uniform people?"

Frankly, I was at first amused and then startled by that state-ment. I was startled that some of America's most gifted students, after fourteen or more years of formal education, still had not

learned the simple truth that while we are "non-uniform" (if you don't believe it, just glance to the left and to the right and then say a prayer of thanks), this does not mean that we have nothing in common.

• These students had not learned that, while we are all alone, we are also engaged in activities together.

• They had not discovered the fundamental fact that, while we are autonomous human beings with our own aptitudes and in-terests, we are, at the same time, deeply dependent on each other.

This brings me to the central theme of my remarks today. I believe that all worthy goals we pursue in education are best ex-pressed in the simple word "connections."

• Education is to prepare us to live dependent, self-sufficient lives so we can be economically and socially empowered.

• But education is also to help us go beyond our private interests and put our own lives in historical and social and ethical and spiritual perspective.

To put it simply, we discover ourselves as we discover our con-nections. Let me give you four examples to illustrate the point.

First, we are all connected through the exquisite use of sym-bols. Language is our most essential human function. It sets us apart from all other forms of life, the porpoise and the bumblebee notwithstanding. Language is the means by which we exquisitely convey feelings and ideas and define our humanity to others.

Isn't it amazing that children who are one and two and three years of age develop language and yet they have never had a teacher? Little children become powerfully efficient both in the elegance and even in the weaponry of words.

When I was a young boy, they used to say "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

What nonsense. I would usually say it with tears running down my cheeks

thinking all the time, "For goodness' sake, be quiet. I'm in pain." Children learn very early that words are magical and that they are powerful as well.

My grandfather, who lived for 100 years, was a minister. As a boy I heard him preach several times a week, and he often quoted from the Psalms where it reads that man is a little lower than the angels. In my own boyish mind I saw it spatially with God, the angels, and man and woman far below. Now that I am older and grayer and perhaps a bit wiser, I am convinced it wasn't that man and woman were a "little lower" than the angels but, rather, we were higher than the rest—almost divine. And now I am convinced that language is what makes us a little lower than the angels, a little higher than the rest.

Lewis Thomas recently observed that "Childhood is for language." I firmly believe that in our dangerous and interdepen-dent world, with its bellicose communication—in such a world it is urgently important that we learn not just the parts of

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speech—but also that the use of symbols is, in fact, a sacred trust. And that good communication means integrity as well.

Several centuries ago, the Quakers would risk imprisonment and even death because in court they would not "swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God."

The problem was not just that they were against swearing, although they were. The larger problem was the unwillingness of Quakers to swear that they would tell the truth in court with their hands positioned on a Bible, suggesting that outside the courtroom truth might be an option.

After all, wasn't truthfulness something that one should just assume and not something that one would swear to only under oath? Well, that may strain the point a bit, especially if your head is on the block, but there is a larger issue here.

Truth is the obligation we assume when we are empowered with the use of symbols.

Wayne Booth of the University of Chicago has written that all too often our efforts to speak and listen to each other seem to be vicious cycles spiralling downward, but he said we have all ex-perienced moments when the spiral moved upward, when one party's efforts to speak and listen just a little bit better produced a similar response, making it possible to move up the spiral to moments of what he called "genuine understanding."

The truth is, in our world today—and even on the campus— we are often in the thick of things. Our messages are hurried and our listening is vague and often quite opaque.

But living a connected life means integrity in using symbols not just for speech but for listening as well.

We also should remember that we communicate not just ver-bally but nonverbally as well. Recently, I was reading in The New York Times an interview with Victor Weisskopf, the international-ly known physicist, who was talking about the "big bang" theory (which I have never fully understood).

Near the end of the interview Weisskopf said that if you wish to understand the "big bang" theory, you should listen to the works of Haydn.

I was absolutely stunned. I thought The New York Times had dropped a line. To understand the "big bang" theory? You don't get a post-doctorate degree? You go off into a corner and listen to the works of Haydn?

There is in the human species those experiences and ideas and feelings that are so elegant, so transcendent, so profound that the utterances we call words cannot convey them.

They can be transmitted only through the majesty and miracle of music and dance and visual arts.

Shakespeare said, "And thus, our life finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in the stones—and good in everything."

1 am suggesting that the quality of undergraduate education will be shaped in the end by the quality of our communication and that language is not just learning symbols—it is learning clear thinking and integrity as well.

I have a second suggestion to propose. Our connectedness is seen, not only through linguistic engage-

ment with our fellows; it's also discovered through the study of history and the social institutions which introduce us to our own

heritage and to cultures other than our own. As far as we know, the human species is the only living form

that has the capacity to recall the past and anticipate the future. In this age when planned obsolescence seems to make irrele-

vant everything but the moment, it is exceedingly important that students put the human story in perspective.

That is to see yourself in time and space. During the past five years, we, at Carnegie Foundation, have

been studying colleges and schools, and I must tell you that the signs of isolation are enormously disturbing.

About three years ago 40 percent of the community college students surveyed in California could not locate either Iran or El Salvadore on the map.

During our study of the American high school, we discovered that only two states require students to complete a course in non-western studies.

And two years ago in a survey of 5,000 college undergraduates we learned that over 30 percent said they had "nothing in com-mon" with people in underdeveloped countries.

We have nothing in common with other human beings no mat-ter how improverished they may be?

The University of Notre Dame campus minister, William Toohey, wrote recently that the trouble with many campuses is that they indulge in the "nesting instinct" of building protected little communities inside their great and learned walls.

The campus must be a staging ground, not a monastic retreat from the realities of the world.

Several years ago in The Christian Science Monitor, I read about an organization called The International Council on Monuments.

This group had selected 165 places all around the planet Earth that they said were of very special value to mankind.

They included such landmarks as: the pyramids of Egypt the palace of Versailles the city of Cuzco in Peru Persepolis in Iran the Katmandu valley in India the old walls of Jerusalem, just to name a few.

It occurred to me as I read that fascinating story that these priceless treasures might provide a marvelous curriculum for our colleges, our schools.

I asked myself: Would it be possible for all students during their 12 years of formal education to learn about these 165 special places on the planet earth?

Would it be possible for students not just to study those monuments but also to learn about the people and the history and traditions that produced them?

Would it be possible for every student to understand that we have a sacred obligation not to desecrate these monuments and sites that mark so exquisitely the human passage on the planet earth?

Lewis Thomas, chancellor of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said,

"If this century does not slip forever through our fingers, it will be because learning will have directed us away from our splintered dumbness and will have helped us focus on our com-mon goals both nationally and globally as well."

This leads me to one further observation. I believe that as we approach the year 2000, all students should

learn about their connections to the natural world and—through science—begin to understand the ecology of the planet earth.

The simple truth is that all forms of life are inextricably in-terlocked, and yet we remain "woefully ignorant" of the in-terlocking patterns in which we are all imbedded.

W h e n ! was Commissioner of Education, Joan Ganz Cooney, who is the brilliant creator of Sesame Street, came to me one day. She wanted to start a new program in science for junior high school students.

It subsequently was developed and is called "3-2-1 Contact." In doing research for that program and to point out the need, the Children's Television Workshop surveyed junior high school students.

They asked such questions as, "Where does water come from? Over 30 percent of the students said, "The faucet."

They asked, "Where does light come from?" And the students said, "The switch."

Where does garbage go?" "Down the chute." I should explain these were young people in New York City so what can you expect?

But there is a larger point to be made here and it has to do with connections. Do we understand the interrelationship of the forces in the natural world that we inhabit?

Or does our knowledge of force and power and resources go as far as the refrigerator door and the light switch on the wall?

Do we see that we are dependent on each other in the food we eat and the energy we use?

Through a study of science, students should learn that "there are no solitary free-living creatures on the planet Earth and [that] every form of life is dependent on all other forms."

Connection through the miracle of language. Connection through our heritage. Connections also through the ecology of the planet earth—science is absolutely crucial.

This leads me to observation number four. During their collegiate years, students also need to make con-

nections between liberal education and their academic major. Today, on many campuses, the baccalaureate is divided into

two separate worlds. O n the one hand, there are the general education insights which students are eager to get "out of the way" so they can concentrate on their major field of study and be certified for productive work.

Careerism dominates the campus.

Students, when they come to college, want to become competent in a special field. But what they are not being asked to consider is competence to what end.

In the Carnegie Report we conclude that the crisis in undergraduate education is not the focus on careers. After all, education has always been considered useful.

The urge to be busy is imprinted in the genes. Conviction is a pathology. The crisis is not careers. The crisis is that in too many fields, the skills have become the ends, work is not placed in larger context. And the vision of the student has been narrowed.

In the Carnegie Report we suggest that the values professionals bring to their work are every bit as crucial as the work itself. And we conlude that general education and specialized educa-tion should be blended during college just as inevitably as they must be blended during life.

To achieve this end, we say that general education, at least in part, can be achieved in and through an enriched major as students put their specialty in historical and social and ethical perspective.

Eric Ashby wrote that the path to creativity should be "through a man's specialization—not by bypassing it."

A student who can weave his technology into the fabric of society, can claim to have a liberal education.

A student who cannot weave his technology into the fabric of society, cannot claim even to be a good technologist.

Connections must be made. Here I would like to pause to say that to discover the "con-

nectedness of things" we need not only a good curriculum, we need good teaching too.

After all, you can have books and courses and syllabi. But in the end it is the major of the teachers who blends the ideas I have just described.

And I think we do not honor adequately our teachers. Several years ago I couldn't sleep and instead of counting

sheep I counted all the teachers I had had. There were a few nightmares in the bunch, but on balance I was rather pleased.

Then I decided to recall the great teachers who had shaped my life.

I remembered Miss Rice who, the first day of school, said "Good morning, class, today we learn to read."

I ran home that night ten feet tall and whipped a crumpled piece of paper from my pocket. I said to my mother, "Today I learned to read." Miss Rice taught me that language is the center-piece of learning and I find it quite miraculous that fifty years later when I was trying to write a book on high schools, I had a chapter called "The Centrality of Language." But it was Miss Rice, an unknown teacher at Fairview Avenue Elementary School, Dayton, Ohio, who was imposing her convictions on that book. Great teachers live on forever.

I remembered Mr. Whittlinger, a high school history teacher who one day in class said. "Ernest, will you stop by after class to-day." My heart went into cardiac arrest and I had sweaty palms. Teachers don't ask you to stop after class unless something awesome is to be encounted.

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On this day it was both fleeting and enduring. In just fifteen seconds he said, "Ernest, you are doing pretty well in history. You keep this up and you just might be a student." That might sound to you like a put-down, but to me it was a compliment of high order. Suddenly my brain was shaken. "You mean I might be a student?"

That fleeting affirmation lived on and I redefined who I was and what I might become.

1 read a story in the Kansas City Times that tells—a bit whim-sically perhaps—just how important the first years of formal lear-ning really are:

"Most of what 1 really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and hou* to be, 1 learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things 1 learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't youis. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milli are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup—they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if all of us—the whole world-had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes.

And it is still true, no matter hou' old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."

In the Carnegie Report while we affirm research in higher education, we strongly urge that we give greater priority to good teaching too.

This leads to one further observation. For education to be most authentic, students must make con-

nections between what they learn and how they live. During our study of the American high school I became con-

vinced that we have not just a school problem but a youth prob-lem in this nation. As we went from school to school I was troubled that today teenagers can see little connection between the school curriculum and the community beyond.

It's a pathology that too many young people do not under-stand that their altruism and their energy must be directed toward the doing of great good. We are not just receivers but we are givers too.

So in our report "High School," we did a peculiar thing. We proposed a new Carnegie unit. A term of voluntary service, a time when on weekends or in the summer or in evenings students might serve in hospitals or at nursing homes or in art galleries or help teach other kids.

A term of service also seems appropriate for colleges as well.

• As students stop out a year between high school and college • or have internships in the city • or tutor students in surrounding schools

Vachel Lindsay wrote on one occasion that "It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull:

Not that they sow but that they seldom reap Not that they serve but have no God to serve Not that they die but that they die like sheep."

Education means application too. So it is that in the Carnegie Report we return to the themes of

community—time and time again—and we urge that ad-ministrators, faculty and students have a shared vision of what they are trying to accomplish.

We recognize that the modern university is a "culture com-posed of many cultures," And that 30 percent of today's undergraduates are part-time and older students.

Still, we conclude that a college—at its best—must be held together by something more than the planning system or a com-mon grievence over parking.

And without getting sentimental we suggest that the quality of the undergraduate experience must be measured by the spirit of community on campus and by the quality of the Human Interaction—both in the classroom and beyond the campus too. Nearly 40 years ago, Mark Van Doren wrote that:

"The connectiveness of things is what the educator contemplates to the limit of his capacity."

Van Doren concludes by saying that the student who can begin—early in life—to see patterns and to think of things as

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Dr. Ernest Bayer addressing Inaugural congregation.

connected has begun the life of learning.

• connections through the use of symbols—language and the arts—

• connections through history and social intentions—

• connection through science and the historical world—

• connection between the liberal and the useful arts—

• connections between what we learn and how we live.

And this, it seems to me, is at the heart of collegiate education.