Some breaks are for having a good time and forgetting the worries and cares of a semester long gone. But other times, like last week, are for just the opposite. I was not trying to forget that this is a school; I was trying to forget that it is anything but.
Let us not be afraid to bring our interests, inclinations, feelings, whims, senses and impulses to the table of discussion, but let us also not fool ourselves into thinking that the pursuit of knowledge stops there.
Do we learn languages to celebrate Mass with people from different cultures or to understand the theological implications of saying “consubstantial” instead of “one in being with?” If it’s the former, require spoken modern languages. If it’s the latter, require language instruction. If it’s both, which I suspect it might be, require both. No matter what, the language requirement must be restructured if it is to be consistent with its own goals.
Though I recognize there are several compelling reasons why a person might bring a laptop to class — they think they take notes better or that it is helpful to Google new terms — I am against using laptops in class because of this idea of “Be here now.”
Eventually, we will be thrown into a world where we must produce to stay afloat, no matter the sector in which we are employed. Hopefully, for our own sanities, we will enter that world not as miniature factories, but as beings ready, willing and able to fully interact with our jobs and our lives.
As an upperclassman myself, I realize how fun it is to be on campus with no commitments. I also understand that it’s important for freshmen to see campus as it is with all of its members, to begin to find their niche within the larger campus community. I think a compromise could be having half of freshman week freshmen-only, and the other half with all classes on campus.
A short while after I was asked to write a piece for this commemorative issue, I visited the 9/11 Memorial Garden tucked into a courtyard of one of the oldest buildings on campus, East Pyne. It was getting dark and I, still unsure of how to discuss that unimaginable event, sat thoughtfully on one of the garden’s benches.
