This Side of the Mountain

Abstract

THIS SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN George Brosi In June, my wife, Connie, and I traveled to California for Commencement at Stanford University. It was a thrill to attend both the main ceremonies at Stanford Stadium and the Biological Sciences program on campus. There, Paul Ehrlich, the only professor who didn't wear a cap and gown, "hooded" our son, Berry, recognizing him as a PhD. Then Ehrlich made a quick exit back to his office. At the stadium, the Commencement Address was delivered by Dana Gioia, since 2003 the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, whose last poetry book, Interrogations at Noon, won the National Book Award. Gioia, who was Berry's professor for a poetry class when he was an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, delivered a memorable address. His main point was that our society has given a diminishing prominence to the arts in recent decades. One of the strong points of his remarks was that he placed the blame on all segments ofsociety, including his own. What can be done? Like Dana Gioia, I believe we all bear a significant responsibility. How proud I am that Berea College is one of the few undergraduate institutions in America to sponsor a literarary quarterly and that the Director of the Appalachian Center here, Chad Berry, has made it possible forAppahchian Heritage to bring a featured author to the campus four times a year, so that the power of our magazine is made more personal and brought closer to home for the Berea community. One of the best recent examples of individual effort to highlight the arts was the work that Neva Hamilton and others in the St. Paul, Virginia, area did to include a literary reading in the schedule for the Clinch River Days in their home town early this June. We all need to support political leaders who support the arts, and all of us need to be alert to opportunities not only to attend, but to fund and even to create literary events that enliven and elevate our culture. ...