The University is here to question ‘Why’
Why are you here?
Why have you come from Portland and
Paisley, Langlois and Lake Oswego,
Sacramento and Singapore to the
University?
Are you here to meet people? You
shall.
Are you here to enhance your
employability? You may.
Are you here to seek factual
knowledge? There is plenty available.
These are all worthwhile goals, but are
any of you here, in these days of quan
tification, because you wonder? How
many of you wonder at the presence of
stars, of starfish? The late American
writer-anthropologist Loren Eiseley once
stood on a beach at dawn, hurling mori
bund starfish into the sea, rescuing a few
Commentary
living things from their airy grave.
This was his way of raging against the
dying of the light, of giving something
back to the world that had nurtured him.
He wrote of the ‘’inner galaxy," that part
of each of us that defines our humanity,
that allows our minds to reach in a mo
ment’s abstraction clear acro.s the
breadth of human knowledge.
The scope of human minds — your
minds — released to imagine, perceive,
speculate and conclude is more than
galactic, it is universal.
At the heart of the university ex
perience is the need and opportunity to
question. Former University Pres.
William Boyd asked us to hold all truth
tenative, and suggested that the occa
sional incivility of those who question
was an acceptable price to pay for the
freedoms our society provides.
If you question no one during your
time here and merely accept what you
hear, your B.A. will signify little but
Bachelor of Absorption. You will have
fallen into the pattern about which the
late Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda
warned with the words “now I question
no one, but I know less every day.”
I invite you to instead shun the bland
crowd and live, like Neruda, "so much
that they will have to forget me for
cibly.” Pursue your learning with vigor
and enthusiasm, and do not fear to
wander where no one has lighted the
way. The University has provided an
adequate set of signposts and guidelines,
but the learning process and its results
are largely up to you.
This university offers a splendid
panorama of human experience, a
panoply of things to learn and see, do
and be, from which only the greatest
dullard could emerge untouched. Your
college years can set the tone for the rest
of your life.
Will you be an automaton who always
says “yes” and never “why,” or will
you dare to take the road less traveled,
the long winding trail under the sky; to
make the “commitment to a tough, em
battled life,” as E.L. Doctrow described
the fate of modem individualists?
For many of you, the answer is moot,
the question unasked. Instinctive
drones, you will do what is expected of
you and be happy in your own way. For
those who remain, as you arrive at this
great university you may already suspect
that the simple pleasures of your peers
will be denied you.
You have already started on the long
trail; your minds register the branches
that others do not see, your hearts the
choices others need not make.
For you who will understand, then,
here are the words of Richard Hersh,
University vice president for research. In
an article in “Inquiry,” the University’s
research periodical, he reminded us that
especially in this age of expanding
technology there is a need for people
with a “sense of the major human ques
tions of value,” and that technology can
never ‘‘duplicate the process of
imagination.”
He called also for an awareness that we
as humans have an “infinite capacity for
creativity,” and that “technology must
serve this human spirit.” Whether to
turn your creative energy to causes exter
nal to your formal studies, to raise “less
corn and more hell,” as American
Populist leader Mary Elizabeth Lease ad
vised farmers, or to spend your im
aginative capital in your studies is not
critical.
What you must do is live your college
years, these unique years, as fully as
possible in your own special way.
Whether you study stars or starfish,
remember not only the “what” but the
“why.” If the answer is that we do not
know why, then perhaps you have found
a small comer of the puzzle of creation in
which to contribute to the pool of human
knowledge, or over which to speculate
by a campfire.
Perhaps as a professor 40 years from
now you will stand like Eiseley on a far
shoreline with a student and say to her
“we do not know why,” knowing that
she will carry on that quintessential
human quest: the search for knowledge,
for beginnings and endings, for love and
satisfaction, for a future better than the
past not only in tangible accomplish
ment and technological advances but in
humanistic attributes.
The long trail is not easy, up so close
to the sky. You’ll be alone much of the
time, and when you turn to share your
wonder, you may address only the wind.
When those times come, look back, far
along the trail, and it will be there,
Oregon, the Emerald City in the rain, to
lend you strength as you remember: “we
do not know why.” Your time here is not
the beginning, for you have already
begun.
Enjoy your yearn at Oregon, and in
your mind, as you stay up with a friend
to watch the sunrise, let the words of Jac
ques Brel dance:
If we only had love, then tomorrow will
dawn,
And the days of our years will rise on
that mom,
Then with nothing at all but the little we
are
We’ll have conquered all time, all space,
the sun and the stars.
By Alan Contreras
btate universities, colleges provide varied curricula
By Mike Suns
Of (be Emerald
If anyone needs proof that
things change with time, they
need look no further than to ex
amine the changes within the
Oregon state system of higher
education.
The University was establish
ed by the Legislature in 1872 as
the state University and center
of studies in the liberal arts.
Four years earlier, the
Legislature accepted a federal
land grant for agricultural
education and designated a Cor
vallis private school as Oregon
Agricultural College.
Today, the University and
Oregon State University anchor
the state’s eight-school system
of higher education. Like the
University and OSU, most of
the system schools were found
ed for specific academic
purposes.
Those original purposes have
remained as major parts of each
school’s academic life. But
Oregon’s state colleges and
universities have expanded
from their original key fields of
study to meet changing times
and needs in Oregon.
The University remains
Oregon’s premier liberal arts
centered institution, with
several nationally acclaimed
professional schools added
since it opened for instruction
in 1876. The state’s law school
is located on the Eugene cam
pus. Schools of architecture and
allied arts, journalism, and
music are also located at the
University.
In 1973, the University
schools of medicine, dentistry
and nursing {all located in
Portland) were consolidated in
to one autonomous unit: the
University of Oregon Health
Sciences Center. The 1981
Legislature re-named the in
stitution the Oregon Health
Sciences University, thus fur
ther asserting the institution’s
autonomy.
OSU is still known in many
circles as Oregon’s “farm” col
lege. However, OSU’s mission
goes beyond farming to embrace
many of the natural sciences.
OSU offers programs in
engineering, forestry, geology,
pharmacy and home
economics. Teacher training in
the sciences is a key part of
OSU’s school of education.
Both OSU and the University
offer teacher training, but in the
early years of the state higher
education system the two
Continued on Page 22
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