Factory, farm, and Usefulness U
"The leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."
- from The College Land Grant Act of 1857, also known as the Morrill Act.
AN APPEALING
PRACTICE of the Puritan culture that migrated to these shores
in the seventeenth century was the naming of
children for sensible virtues and practical aspirations: Capability,
Soberness, Increase. Thus our sobriquet for this theme issue:
Usefulness U.
That higher education should make itself useful,
and should be open to anyone with the ability and will to pursue
it, seems obvious today. It wasn't obvious in 1857, when enabling
legislation for "land-grant" colleges was introduced
by Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont and signed by Abraham Lincoln.
Higher education at that time was a noble enterprise but an elitist one, a city truly high upon its hill. The "educational epidemic," in Morrill's term, that his legislation set in motion was to be the opposite of elitist: It was to be wide open to factory and farm. It was to toss down the barriers in Chancellor David Scott's formulation between rich and poor, between practical and liberal education, between the university and the wider society.
Within a year after Scott arrived on this campus in 1993, we'd heard more about the land-grant idea than in my previous ten years at UMass put together. The chancellor is passionate about an educational pedigree that is less cited and contemplated than it might be.
There are at least two reasons for this neglect, it seems to us: snobbery about cows, and success.
As to the first: Not everyone is tickled by our university's origins as a "cow college." As to the second: not everyone appreciates that the cow colleges of America changed the face of higher education in our country. As is pointed out in Marietta Pritchard's "Root and Branch" on page 20, virtually all modern colleges and universities have evolved in the directions pioneered by the land-grant colleges. The cloistered curriculum has given way to the encompassing one. Outreach and "inreach," the chancellor would add rules.
The profound influence of the land-grant idea is something to be proud of. Even more to be cherished, however, are its distinctive virtues and aspirations egalitarianism, breadth, engagement which we believe to be most potent at the source, on the land-grant campuses and in the people they produce. Every story in this special issue seeks to do credit to the living and singing of these virtues that is the modern UMass and its extended family.
- Patricia Wright
PREDICTABLE BALKANIZATION
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, ORIGINALLY grounded in a liberal spirit of restitution and equality, has, in practice, degenerated into a system of racial and gender spoils, with more and more self-appointed identity groups seeking to define the group they speak for as oppressed victims, in order to attain the exalted status of a favored group under preference rules. The result has been the predictable Balkanization of our society, as competing groups seek favor under rules that grant benefits based on personal characteristics which are an accident of birth. Another result has been the development of a massive "diversity industry" of consulting groups, administrators, and bureaucrats whose function is to fine-tune the mix of racial, gender, and sexual preference in workplaces, student populations, and municipal departments, as well as to raise everyone's consciousness of group differences to a fever pitch.
In truth, our society never was colorblind, and gender discrimination in many professions and academic areas was and continues to be a fact of life. But at least we used to have, as a result of the civil rights revolution, a goal of a colorblind society, and, more recently we have sought to remove barriers to women seeking education and careers in formerly male-dominated areas. We seem to have junked this vision of equal opportunity, as expressed in Martin Luther King's dream of a society where people are judged on the "content of their character, not the color of their skin," for a system which aspires to equal representation, in which individuals are counted, categorized and tallied by what should be their least important characteristics, i.e. their skin color, sex, or sexual orientation.
The tragically high failure rate of minorities admitted under these policies despite being unprepared for the rigors of college study a well-documented phenomenon admitted to in the Spring issue ["Affirming Affirmative Action;" "Lifting as They Climb"] is clear evidence that the concern of the diversity industry is less for the well-being of the individuals involved than for an abstract racial mix, and for the appeasement of racial advocacy groups. I for one am glad to see these corrosive policies go their well-deserved way to the dustbin.
Robert D. Ruplenas '67 '74
Weymouth
IN "ENDS AND MEANS: affirming affirmative action,"
[Exchange, Spring 1999] you make what appear to be conflicting
statements. You indicate most students of color rank in the upper
admissions categories, yet earlier you indicate that only 44
per- cent of them graduate. I do not know what the non-white
prediction rate is elsewhere, nor do I know the non-color prediction
rate, but 44 per cent by all standards is quite bad. It suggests
that too many non-qualified applicants are accepted mainly because
they are non-white, or other minority, persons. The problem here
is that there could well be a tendency to lower the standards
for graduation to accommodate these students to achieve better
results. That would penalize those who are qualified.
Also, the editorial indicated that every effort should be made to find the best qualified non-white applicants: fine and dandy, but I think you are missing the point and real need. What about the rest? Those who are not qualified? I think the real need is to find a solution as to why so many are not qualified and address that issue. Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you've fed him for life. There are no free lunches. Hard work has its rewards, but it loses value when one is "given" the same reward.
Bruce Bowder '65
Mansfield
We confused the issue in "Ends and Means" by failing
to cite graduation rates across the board. As Judson Brown wrote
elsewhere in our spring issue, "56 percent of [minority
students] who entered in the fall of 1992 did not graduate six
years later. The [figure] for non-minority students, though still
troubling, was 43 percent."
"Non-graduation" rates are higher than we would wish for all students, but the 13-point difference between minority and non-minorities was what we were attempting to isolate here. The difference does suggest the university was admitting more underqualified minority students than underqualified non-minority students under its former practices, and that is why those practices should change.
Alumnus Bowder would also find widespread agreement on campus that preparation for college is key, and many here are working to make the campus a progressive force in that regard.
PLEASED BY STONEWALL PROJECT
I WAS DELIGHTED TO read about Ellen DeGeneres's recent visit to campus and to learn about the establishment of the Stonewall Scholarship Fund [Around the Pond, Spring 1999]. UMass has thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered alums, and many of us came out during our college years. I will be forever grateful to the UMass staff members who gave me the safety and freedom to learn who I really was. The Stonewall Scholarship Fund is evidence of the university's continuing commitment to all its students.
Judith A. Greene '76, '92G
Alexandria, Virginia
HOW SOON WE FORGET
I ENJOYED READING UP on the current goings on in student government at UMass ["Government of, by and for the Students," Spring 1999]. Still, a little more digging into the not-too-distant past would have been appreciated for it wasn't too long ago that the students might not have had an SGA at all.
In 1991, petty infighting by student government leaders ground the SGA to a halt and brought about its dissolution. Faculty and administration had to step in and form a committee, to which I was appointed, to design a new structure. We were not entirely successful before my tenure at UMass ended, but the groundwork was laid, and as the article noted, by 1994 SGA had legitimate power given to it by the trustees.
While student apathy pains me, knowing that the SGA is up and running again, stronger than before, is reward enough. I just wish some of my class's contributions wouldn't be so easily forgotten.
James Molesworth '92
New York City
EARLIER AND EARLIER CHAMPS
[RE. "EARLIER CHAMPIONS," Exchange, Spring 1999]: As much credit as Ginny Evans deserves for her work as coach, her 1973 women's gymnastics team did not win UMass's first national championship. In 1873, the Mass Aggie crew won the first regatta of the Rowing Association of American Colleges at Ingleside on the Connecticut River, defeating the "invincible" Harvard crew and a very good Brown crew in record-shattering time. This victory sent shock waves that likely spurred the development of college athletics, particularly football, at small schools like Mass Aggie. While hard to believe today, crew once held center stage in the collegiate sporting world. It may not seem like much, but that victory over 125 years ago was the first UMass national championship.
Doug Fidler '76G
Knoxville, Tennessee
The writer, a retired Air Force captain with a Ph.D. in history, teaches western civilization at Pellissippi State Technical Community College. Readers interested in learning more about the great Mass Aggie/Harvard crew race can refer to his article in March 1977 New England Quarterly.
A MUSICAL CONTENDER
THANK YOU VERY MUCH for the article about Berlin Philharmonic violist Matthew Hunter '83G ["At the front of their chairs," Performing Arts, Spring 1999]. As a graduate of the UMass Music department and as a music educator, I greatly appreciated reading such a musically intelligent piece in a magazine read by people with so many different interests and backgrounds.
Matthew is obviously a talented musician who deserves this tribute. It is equally important that UMass get the recognition it deserves as a competitive music school. This is a reminder that top music students, who might only look to the conservatories of music around Boston and elsewhere, should seriously consider UMass as well.
Deborah Slade Pierce `76
Arlington
NORMAL INVINCIBLE GUY
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, is geographically a long way from Amherst, Massachusetts; but I was reminded how close they can be when my tone-activated pager went off at 12:30 A.M. this morning. Twenty-five-plus years later, I am still being called out of a warm bed to serve the community in which I live. This is the legacy of the University of Massachusetts Volunteer Fire Department and the Amherst Fire Department Student Auxiliary Force.
Ali Crolius' article on the student force ["Normal Invincible Kids," Fall 1998] did a wonderful job covering a piece of my life at UMass that was at least as important as earning my degree. The article mentions that the UMass Volunteer Fire Department evolved into the current UMass student first aid services. This organization also played an important role in my life at UMass, as it gave me a means to earn money for groceries and a limited entertainment budget. It also led, in part, to my current career in fire prevention. This student organization would no longer exist without the support of Don Robinson, who directed the UMass department of environmental health and safety, and Jim MacRostie of the UMass Fine Arts Center. Both of these gentlemen stood by our organization during the mid-seventies, recognizing the value of the services that we provided to the campus.
This was a period of time when the organization's emphasis was moving from fire prevention and first aid to fire prevention and emergency medical services. It was also a time when the powers-that-be in student government felt that our organization did not warrant RSO status. Fortunately, after reorganizing and updating of our by-laws, and changing the name of the organization from the UMass Volunteer Fire Department to the UMass Fire and First Aid Unit, we achieved RSO again status in 1978.
Dwight H. Havens '79
Phoenix, Arizona
