I attended a handful of institutions of higher learning in my early academic sojourns. As a result, I have received tons of alumni magazines over the years. These come in a variety of formats (many of them now digital!), but they always seem to have the same feel and plot-line: Stories about various faculty members, current students and an alum or two, lists of updates of graduates (organized by year), often a message from the President, and of course the omnipresent opportunities to support ‘your’ institution financially!
Occasionally, there’ll be a surprise.
Years ago, I got such a surprise, when the Winter 94/95 Alumni Magazine for DePauw University (Greencastle, IN) arrived. I was about to toss it when an opinion piece near the end leapt out at me and grabbed my attention. The article – a book excerpt – was written by an alumnus named Richard Peck, and it spoke to me for a couple of reasons.
The article itself was about modern-day censorship in schools. Looking back, it’s as current now as it was then. I don’t want to get too sidetracked here, but a quick synopsis is in order.
The piece pulled no punches as it spoke about censorship both from the fundamentalist right and from the liberal left (with interesting hard-hitting critiques for each!) Primarily, however, the excerpt seemed centered on parents who try to dictate or suppress local educational curriculum. A sample quote: “Censorship [in this area] isn’t about books; it comes from redirected parental fear . . . We’d be much nearer nirvana now if parents respected schools more and feared their own children less.”
Whew! As I say, he pulled no punches. For my own part, I wasn’t sure then how I felt about some of the quotes, indeed the whole article. Certainly the piece was (destined to be?) controversial, and I suspect -I don’t remember- that it drew alumni letters of both praise and criticism in the next issue.
Topic aside, however, that’s exactly the other reason the piece drew my attention! The fact that a potentially provocative piece would appear in this communication with alumni was a refreshing change for me at that time. Certainly, DePauw was not afraid to make us think! [Probably there was an ‘opinions of . .’ disclaimer – I don’t remember.] Unfortunately, there are colleges who wouldn’t come close to allowing anything thought-provoking in their literature, or even more sadly, in their classrooms!
And, when it comes to that, maybe alumni literature is a good barometer of the learning atmosphere on campus. If they’re still encouraging thinking in their alums, you can bet it’s happening on campus as well. Another quote in DePauw’s literature went like this: “Our dedication must always be to ensure that this is a community of learning . . . a community of adaptors not of adopters: a community that learns not only how to assemble knowledge, but also how to understand it.” Certainly DePauw was showing they believed that.
When all was said and done, I remember loving the way that article made me think! It tossed out ideas from a perspective I hadn’t thought of and caused me to examine what I really believed. Because of that, I came to know myself a little bit better. Isn’t that part of what education should be about?
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