Westhai:npton College Westhampton, the Student and Change,by Mary Sue Terry, President of College Government "Those were the days, my friends. We thought they'd never end ... ," and now it's 1969-the year after three astronauts circled the moon, the Democrats carried Maine, and the University of Richmond football team played in a bowl garne; the year that brought surprises and saw fulfillment. Cities blazed and campuses fermented (Note: all fermentation at WC is off campus). In reaction, this magazine asks: What about Westhampton, the Student, and Change? I shall consider this topic in three stages, beginning first with the question: What about Change? Two problems occur when we consider change with respect to college campuses. First, the word is loaded:
change means excitement to the average college student who, in all immodesty and conceit, declares a oneto-one correlation between change and progress. This is a natural outgrowth of his search for pragmatic realization of idealistic goals. The average adult often expresses the opposite reaction . I seldom go home or visit relatives without being asked my opinion of campus riots and other questionable forms of student expression. I find it hard to defend the generation that "had no excuses" when there exists an obviously mutual misunderstanding of this single word. Arguments fail to clash and become polarized, one party defending change as a manifestation of "conscientious student involvementt the other attacking change as a product of impudent student activism. The preceding is overdrawn but it does remind us of the danger and folly of glibly classifying all members of one generation as "unloving critics" and the other as "uncritical lovers." The word must be used with care lest it become so encumbered with oblique associations that its usage becomes an albatross to the concept itself. The second problem in connection with a discussion of students and change occurs when one asks: What is the average student's reaction to
change? The question is as impossible to answer meaningfully as is the query: What is the average voter's feeling about deficit spending? At Westhampton we have reactionaries and revolutionaries. (Note: Three out of every four Westhampton women were happy on November 6th.) It would be presumptuous of me to try to speak for the majority and foolish of me to attempt to consolidate all views into one. I write this article, then, from my perspective as a Senior and campus leader, and from my own particular political orientation, which is a product, in part, of my personal views toward change. (Hint: It was a bleak Wednesday . .. ) What about Change? There are two changes that have significantly affected student thinking at Westhampton. Both are obvious, their effects subtle, but, in my opinion, no less real. One factor is the increasing prominence of students on the national scene and the other is the expanding nature of the University of Richmond. In considering the impact of each, we are attempting to answer the question: What about the Student? I must preface this part by reassuring you that no catastrophic upheaval has taken place at Westhampton. I can report no unanimous appeal for a revision of certain college regulations or major University policies. I can only report a creeping change in attitude and approach on the part of a significant minority of students who have developed a "self-conscious awareness" of themselves, as individuals and as students of the University, that seeks expression in exciting ways. A distinguished University of Richmond alumnus once spoke, in a different context, of the malaise of "blindness by the familiar." We students at / continued on page 34.
