"Enough and to spare"

"ENOUGH AND TO SPARE"

by

Dr. Chester M. Alter

Chancellor Emeritus, University of Denver

An Address

Given at Commencement Exercises Colorado State University

Fort Collins, Colorado

11 _{Enough and to Spare}11

An address given at the Commencement Exercises at Colorado State University

Fort Collins, Colorado August 25, 1967

by

Dr. Chester M. Alter

Chancellor Emeritus, University of Denver

President Morgan, Trustees, Faculty, Members of the Graduating Class and Friends:

It is a pleasure to participate in these commencement

exercises largely because for fourteen years I have been a constant

witness and admirer of this university. The dynamic leadership

provided by President Morgan and his associates over an unusually

long period of time (you must realize that he has survived his position

longer than any of the current college and university presidents in

Colorado) has been a source of inspiration to all of us who have been

his colleagues. The growth and expanding service of Colorado State

University should be a source of pride to every citizen of

It was forty-four years ago that I left a farm in Indiana to

quote "go to college. 11 _{I so well recall one of our neighbors -- I}

thought him a very wise man -- said to me just prior to my leaving

on what I anticipated would be an exciting and hopefully worthwhile

undertaking, "Chester, I don't know why you are going to college.

We have enough college graduates already and some to spare. 11

But I didn't follow his implied advice and four years later,

now forty years ago, I attended my first college commencement and

became one of the ll6, 701 that year who received an academic degree.

This year there will be nearly three quarters of a million degrees

granted by over two thousand American colleges and universities,

and you are a part of this much larger group.

During these forty years I estimate that I have personally

be worse in the mind of my erstwhile neighbor who thought there

were already enough college graduates and some to spare, I have

personally signed either as a dean or as chancellor over thirty

thousand diplomas. I hope he is not listening from his present

vantage point. But he can finally rest in peace as far as I am

con-cerned because now I have retired and will never confer another

degree or sign another diploma.

But one interesting thing about college degrees and diplomas:

They are granted in large numbers but never rescinded. They are

received by the widest possible variety of people who go to the four

corners of the earth and participate in all kinds of living and work.

They develop a wide divergency of ideas and philosophies, but did

you ever hear of a degree being returned. When you hear the

Presi-dent this afternoon say something the equivalent of "By virtue of

degree of Colorado State University, "he will be performing an

irrevocable act. I had the experience once of a disgruntled and very

vocal alumnus writing back his extreme dissatisfaction with his Alma

Mater, saying that he no longer wanted to be considered an alumnus and

he wanted his name removed from the list of graduates. I responded

that I had reviewed the laws of the state, the charter and by-laws of

the University, and found that, although I had the authority of

confer-ring degrees I had not been granted the authority to rescind them,

much, as in his case, I should like to accommodate his desire.

So today you and I, by our participation in this academic

ceremony, are becoming a permanent part of this university and as

such a part of a great and growing enterprise which we call higher

education or at least institutionalized higher education. Permit me,

if you will, to isolate some of the threads which make up the fabric

In my office at the University of Denver hung an ancient

Chinese ceremonial brocade tapestry, a gift of one of our Trustees

to the University, and an object of great beauty. It is woven of

threads of silk and paper, fibers of varied lengths and colors.

By his skillful work the unknown creator of this tapestry created

something of great use, something of great beauty, something of

great permanence. The long fibers of this fabric gave it strength

and have held together this creation down through the decades and

centuries. The nature of the fiber, silk and paper, determined its

texture, its warmth, its flexibility. The weaver's choice of colors

of the threads produced within the fabric a design, a pattern for the

whole piece.

If one carefully examines this ancient oriental brocade, he

one time it was cut into smaller squares and rectangles and these

units later sewn back together though not in their original order so

that the overall design has been changed. One notices that the

original colors have undergone internal chemical reaction with a

resultant mellowing of some of their original brightness. Some of

these changes have taken place slowly, unnoticed by any single

generation of its long line of owners or admirers. But one can see

also evidences of sudden change through accident, neglect, or

catas-trophe. A hole, a tear, a burn, perhaps the result of a thoughtless

or a careless act, or anger, or strife or war. But one sees as well

the result of someone' s earnest effort to repair and to correct these

faults, to restore the tapestry• s damaged strands.

But I, who have had the daily privilege of looking across my

desk at this piece of art, am aware principally that it is here, and

that it is good that it is here. Because it was created and because

its creation was to good purpose, because it was made of strong

threads, each endowed with qualities which have endured, because

down through the centuries someone has always cared enough for it

to preserve it and to pass it on, it is with us today. We can say that

it has achieved permanence.

So too it is with the process of learning, and so too it is

with institutions of learning and with our educational system. In

every civilized land and nation, where institutions of learning were

among the first establishments created, we find them now, rivaled

only by places of worship as the oldest institutions in every community.

Founded with great purpose and for good cause, created with built-in

strength of structure, held together with the long fibers of learning

fads, changing curricula, traditions, and methods, endowed with

significant design and pattern, our colleges and universities

remain--serving, growing, respected, supported-- in the world, as in

Colo-rado, among the oldest institutions in existence. They are likely

to remain forever so.

To be sure, if we look at our system of higher education as

it was created in America and as it exists today, we see, just as we

can see in the oriental fabric on my office wall, evidence of change.

We can see faults and flaws. We can see the results of slowly

changing educational philosophies. We can see evidence that some

elements have been cut out, laid aside, and then replaced. We can

see in the fabric we call our American educational system the results

of war and the threats of war, of ideological fashions and fads. We

pressures, of dogmas, of power thrusts. We can see the imprints

and scars of statism, of regionism, of nationalism, of commercialism,

of racism, of extreme denominationalism. It is not hard to see in

one place the burns of McCarthyism, and in another the threat of

communism. In the pattern of higher education we can now see there

has been a change from individualism to organizationalism, from

liberalism to vocationalism and perhaps, now, a trend back again.

But in spite of, or perhaps in part because of, these changes,

these attacks, these perils, our colleges and universities are here

today, filled with young men and young women in unprecedented numbers

seeking something they believe to be of value. We may not really

know what that something is and we certainly are not all agreed on

what it should be, but we call it education.

been woven into the fabric we call American higher education, those

threads that have established the pattern and have contributed to its

permanence. Let us try to differentiate between those long fibers

which have given strength and continue to give strength to the fabric

itself, and those short fibers which, woven into the surface and more

visible, are less permanent in time. Lending color and warmth and

often acceptability at any given time, it is these short and decorative

fibers which also give rise to most of the comments of higher

educa-tion' s current critics. If we do not distinguish between these threads,

we may spoil the whole cloth when we intend only to mod1fy its appearance.

First, there is the thread of learning.

If the mind of man had not given him the capacity and the

desire to learn, we would have no need for our highly developed

of childhood and youth is the time best suited for major devotion to

learning. Our physical bodies, given proper and sufficient

nourish-ment, develop into maturity with little guidance except by the forces

of nature. But our minds, our intellects, cannot be left to natural

forces if we expect maximum growth, development, and maturity.

Learning must be stimulated and guided either by ourselves or by

others. The creation of an environment where this process of

learn-ing can effectively take place is one of the objectives of our colleges

and universities. This is why they are called institutions of learning.

This is a long thread in the fabric. It has given strength to this

enterprise.

Here is another long thread, the thread of freedom of thought.

Although many of our institutions of higher learning were founded,

social and economic conflicts were prevalent, when political,

reli-gious and philosophical differences were pitted against each other,

when the founders as individuals must have held strong and divergent

opinions in regard to the then current areas of thought, it is

interest-ing that they built into the fabric of educational institutions a maximum

of freedom to learn, freedom to search, freedom to think, freedom

for individuals to live and grow toward maturity.

Another long thread of strength which has consistently been

a part of the fabric of higher education may be called the thread of

devo-tion. The founders of colleges and universities were devoted to the

cause of education. Their successors have equally devoted themselves

with time, energy, resources, and thought to the welfare and service

of their institution. With equal devotion, teachers, administrators,

and learning through their unstinted service. The public, devoted

to this enterprise, has steadily and increasingly added strength to

the fabric. The devotion of thousands of students and alumni has

been a source of satisfaction to those who would examine the texture

of American higher education.

Devotion to a good cause has a way of lifting individuals from

the level of the ordinary to the realm of the extraordinary. Higher

education in America has been one of the good causes with which

extraordinary men and women have identified themselves and to

which they have devoted their interest and their labor. So it is

that a long and strong thread of devotion has contributed to the

permanence of our fabric of higher education.

Now let us look at some of the shorter surface threads which

perhaps are subject to more rapid change but which in any period

single institution give to the fabric its characteristic pattern, its

warmth, and vitality, it serviceableness and its appeal.

As we look forward to the century ahead we must think in

terms of some of these fibers which we might label faculties,

facili-ties, curricula, nature of student body, and financial support. There

will be changes in all of these major operational areas. It will

require good judgment, as inevitable changes are made in these

designs, to be sure that the results will not impair the permanency

of the structure, will not convert a fine fabric into a piece of shoddy.

Mistakes will be made, and corrections and repairs will be required

in these operational areas.

This is a time when the super abundance of problems and

challenges faces our total educational system. Certainly we can say

15

We must give continued attention to maintaining the quality

of our faculty. In the period ahead when the competition for

out-standing teachers and scholars will surely increase, it would be

easy for any institution to fall behind. Nothing would more quickly

produce mediocrity or shoddiness in an institution of higher learning

than to permit a degeneration in faculty.

Our good friend, Dr. Louis Benezet, former President of

Colorado College, said recently that a high school senior looking for

a college could not really be expected to evaluate the relative quality

of the faculties of a group of colleges. He can be expected to

evaluate the quality of their buildings and facilities. Perhaps one

of the current fads and passing emphases of current American higher

education has been the amount of money spent on buildings. At any

program in history. But this pattern in education is not much

different from that being exhibited in our private lives, or in business

and industry.

The organization of courses of study into the various curricula

offered by a university establishes the pattern of formal education

for that institution. With the growing range of knowledge available,

combined with the ·increasing demands of the many vocations and

professions, the planning of curricula has become increasingly

difficult. Invention of new courses that should be offered seems to

be a favorite activity of teachers, while the prevention of the

prolifera-tion of courses threatens to become the chief job of academic deans.

The demand for training in specific vocational skills has been an

added burden assumed in recent years by educational institutions.

With an increase in factory classrooms and provisions for so-called

reversal of this trend in our colleges and universities. Every

univer-sity must be acutely aware that it cannot afford to try to do everything

that every other institution does. It must not expand its offerings

beyond the scope of that which it can do well. On the other hand,

there are certain basic and fundamental disciplines which we must

not neglect nor fail to make an important part of the educational

experience of every university graduate. I am thankful for the

attention being given to this problem by the faculties of many of our

colleges and universities.

Another strand of the fabric which must be carefully examined

is that of the changing character of the student body. At a time when

the proportion of college age population entering our nation• s colleges

and universities is rapidly increasing, it is easy to understand that

education-- variations in economic status, in objectives, in

interests, in motivations, and in intellectual capacity. All of these

factors will make an impact upon the nature of the student body in

various kinds of institutions.

The thoughtful design of the kind of student body a college or

university wants is a current challenge to our thinking. Perhaps we

have passed the time when every institution can afford to be all things to all people. But the University must select its students on solid

and justifiable grounds.

Now there are a hundred, a thousand, other threads of higher education that could be and are on occasion picked up, looked at,

evaluated, or criticized. Let's mention a few: education's proper

role in meeting the nation's manpower needs; the role of the university

19

education1 _{s proper role in national defense; the relative values of}

method and content in the education of teachers; the status of the

foreign languages; the place of religion in higher education; the role

of research; the purpose of student organizations; the problem of

the married student; the place of manners and morals in our colleges;

the proper role of athletics in institutions of higher learning; federal

aid to education, and the growing use of the campus as a place of

social action, reform, and revolt. There are many more.

I have tried to identify in the fabric of higher education three

necessary long threads of permanence: the thread of learning, the

thread of freedom, the thread of devotion. I have examined four

of the fibers of more current importance to the pattern of higher

education: faculty, facilities, curricula, and the nature of the student

body. But these are words enough and to spare about higher education

the challenge is how we as individuals and as a part of our great

society are going to bring the fruits of our investment of time and

resources in education to bear on the even greater challenges of

mankind in the future. And here, too, may each of you 1967 Univer

-sity graduates find enough and to spare.