Working with the Modern Student

Abstract

In the last half decade a wave of disruptive incidents has swept across the nation and has profoundly shaken the equilibrium normally associated with our colleges and universities. The disruption by a few has tended to mask the larger concerns of the many that higher education and the community it does and must serve must change. To some extent the resultant changes have been evolutionary. There has been a steady acceleration of student participation in campus decision making. New curricula and innovations of all kinds have come about because faculty and administratorsas well as students-have encouraged them. To a lesser extent the violence on the campus has highlighted and hurried new changes, some desirable and some undesirable. As a result, we stand today in a changing educational environment and those who are responsible for honors programs must plan in the full awareness of the situation on the college campus today. I should like to describe the environment of student and general unrest and attempt to give some wholly unqualified advice about planning. Since my work as vice-president for student affairs has brought me into direct contact with both students and nonstudents on the campus and with the public as well, I should say at the outset that I have been much concerned with the level of public misunderstanding regarding the current state of campus unrest.