1962 June.Pdf

DINGBATS required that we listen to some of the subject matter-electronic music. While one of our borrowed tapes was playing on the office tape DOOHICKIES recorder two students came by to visit. They sat quietly through the traumatic cacophony; from their T WAS OUR INTENTION to start this Baccalaureate address to be most facial expressions it was 0 bvious page of personal comment and appetizing: they were expecting the tape recorder I campus observations by direct "People who stand in my place are to blow up in a tangle of wires, ing a large, barbed dingbat at those expected to expound a set of cliches tubes, and spare parts at any mo who would deny us the freedom to to people who sit in your places. ment. When the music ended, they read the literature of today and of "First, I am expected to tell you just shook their heads: "You can't yesterday for fear that the printed that we have failed in whatever mis twist to that crazy music," one said. page would unleash some latent sion we may have had and that in prurient desires. failing, we throw the torch of some Would these appointed protectors thing or other to you. A DETERMINED MAN armed only also deny us the right to buy an auto , "Second, I am supposed to say that with a telephone and a staunch sense capable of travelling 100 miles per the world lies before you and that of dedication to his job can do much. hour? you will make of it whatever you Take, for example, Donald Judd, Would they impose volsteadian want to. '53U, chairman of the University prohibition on our right to enjoy a "Third, I am expected to deplore School alumni fund campaign for gin and tonic on a warm summer's the present state of mankind and this year. evening? urge you to cure it. During the regular solicitation Would they deny us the choice of "My heart does not lie in pursuing period, Judd and his committee smoking filtered or unfiltered cig any of these themes. It does lie in worked hard and turned in a credit arettes? congratulating you for completing able report. But Judd thought his There are dangers in each of these your work and in wishing you a per division could do better. Beginning when the privileges are abused. We fect life in an imperfect world." in January he took to spending think there is an even greater danger Even the word "baccalaureate" it several evenings a week at the in any attempt to filter what we read. self did not escape Provost Hazlett's University, conducting a one-man telephone solicitation of non-con If Tropic of Cancer is banned cool appraisal. He noted that "ref today, when will the alphabet erence to the entries under the word tributors. stained hatchet cut off Homer, 'baccalaureate' in the Oxford English The result puts one in mind of Chaucer or the Old Testament? And Dictionary and the Dictionary of launching day at Canaveral. When how far off is the censorship of the American English, usually solacing last heard from, the campaign had more than tripled last year's dollar Rochester Review or your daily vqlumes to a student of language, newspaper? have brought me small consolation. value, and the percentage of par This, to us, is the danger in the "From them I learn that as a modi ticipation had catapulted from 27% banning of books. This.is why the fier 'baccalaureate' refers to an ad last year to over 65% in 1962. As we banning of Henry Miller's nihilistic dress, a sermon or a speech delivered said, a man can do extraordinary novel has caused such a furor on to unwilling victims as a final condi things with a telephone. campus. This is why we decided tion of their receiving a bachelor's that this magazine had to take a degree. A FTER THE SHOCKING PURPLE and strong stand on the matter. "I learn that as a noun the word the stark black and white covers on By coincidence, we discovered refers to one who has received a the last two issues of this magazine, that Provost McCrea Hazlett had bachelor's degree or to the bachelor's the lovely woodcut overleaf is a wel chosen academic freedom as the sub degree itself. come respite. Our appreciation for ject of his Baccalaureate address. We "Before me, however, sit not only this work of art goes to Hideo Ka present his remarks starting on the many almost bachelors, but also wanami. On returning to Japan after page opposite. We believe this to be many almost masters and almost a year on the River Campus doing one of the most important articles doctors. research in English, he asked a fellow ever to appear in the 24 years of the "To call this a baccalaureate exer member of the faculty at the Univer Rochester Review. cise is to misname it. sity of Kansai to do the woodcut If the human hunger for knowl "To call it a baccalaureate-master from photographs. The artist's name edge finds nourishment in academic ate-doctorate exercise is to over is 1chiro Tanaka (pen name: Seizan, freedom, the old chestnuts served to whelm it." or Holy Mountain) and he has won captive audiences in traditional Bac numerous prizes for his woodcuts as calaureate addresses provide few THE WRITING of the article titled well as his paintings, sculptures and cerebral calories. We found Dr. Haz Boing (pronounced as having one calligraphy, according to Dr. Kawa lett's introductory remarks to his syllable) that appears on page 15 nami. 2 A LIVELY ISSUE ON CAMPUS this spring has been the restricted to use only in the library by students and faculty, subject of academic freedom, boiling up over the request from and its sale by the University bookstore suspended. The two the Monroe County District Attorney that all county libraries other local colleges which also had library copies of the book and bookstores remove from their shelves Henry Miller's hotly adopted a similar stand. controversial novel, Tropic of Cancer. The novel had been The matter was brought temporarily to rest when the Dis listed along with 74 other publications in an indictment against trict Attorney decided not to take action against the university two Rochester newsstand operators, alleging the sale of por libraries, saying that he did not wish to cloud a court test of nography. the book's legality by bringing in the issue of academic free The University's response was immediate. Asserting that dom. The original case against the newsstand dealers is still students and scholars should be free to read whatever their awaiting a legal decision. consciences dictate, Provost McCrea Hazlett announced that Although the subsequent discussion of the actions of the the University library would retain the book «unless it is finally University and the District Attorney has since become more determined by the courts that this book is inappropriate for temperate than tropical, there remains a continuing exchange anyone to read." To keep the issue purely a matter of aca of views on the nature and importance of academic freedom. demic freedom, the book remained, as it had been all along, Following are Provost Hazlett's. ACAI)EMIC F EDOM? by McCrea Hazlett HERE ARE MANY WAYS of defining academic to conclude. It is his freedom to pursue whatever freedom. It can be defined in itself, or by intellectual game seems to him worth catching" by T comparison with the civil freedoms, or by whatever means seem to him appropriate. With respect analysis of its opponents. A full definition demands, to the teacher it is his freedom to provide his students I believe, some attention to all of these. with whatever material is appropriate to their study and to help them to follow a procedure similar to his in First, the thing in itself. developing questions, hypotheses, and conclusions. Academic freedom is described by one author, With respect to the student, it is his freedom to study Robert M. MacIver in Academic Freedom in Our Time, by means similar to or different from the methods used as "the freedom of the scholar within the institution by his teacher. Academic freedom is vested in members devoted to scholarship." This refers to the freedom of of the academic community and provides them with the i�dividual within the school, the college, the the freedom necessary to exercise their proper academic university, to teach and to study. In respect to the functions. Academic freedom is, as are all freedoms, faculty member it is a doctrine which says that he must a form of responsibility. The scholar, the teacher, be free in his own field of specialization to pose for the student, accept, when they are given the privilege himself problems, to collect the materials necessary for of academic freedom, the obligation to pursue their the solution of those problems, to hypothesize, and intellectual endeavors seriously, honestly and thoroughly. 3 Academic freedom is not the freedom to conclude those who are frightened by the prospect of a thought without proof, to expound irresponsibly, or which they do not now hold, of a fact which will to exercise the arts of the charlatan. disturb their systems of belief; in short, those who A second way of defining academic freedom is by prefer to see mankind as he is and has been rather than contrasting it with the civil freedoms. The two do not as he will or might be, are the enemies of quarrel, but they are not the same.

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