COLLEGE AVENUE: The College That Time Forgot
Pontuso, James F.
"COLLEGE AVENUE JAMES F PONTUSO The College That Time Forgot READ WITH WONDER AND ALARM stories such as John Zmirak's "V-Day, Indeed!" in February's American Spectator about the...
...without studying trendy materials...
...In my Western Culture 101 class, students read the Bible, Homer's Iliad, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Aristophanes' Clouds, Plato's Apology, Aristotle's Politics (book one), Plutarch's Lives of Alcibiades and Caesar, and St...
...But, there is nothing wrong with worry-ing about a career...
...There are different ways to approach the "truth...
...Students are required to take core courses, including two sciences, a math class, another science or math class, two years of a language, literature, philosophy and/or religion, fine arts, and two social science courses, along with passing a rhetoric (writing) proficiency exam...
...One to change the bulb and three to expound on how much better the old one was...
...It debated gay marriage ten years ago...
...The best thing about Hampden-Sydney is its curriculum...
...Occasionally faculty members grumble when the society takes up a controversial issue, such JAMES F P O N T U S O as whether feminism is killing free speech, but no faculty member has tried to stop a debate...
...Despite my incredulity, I am secretly jealous because I have so little to complain about...
...C O L L E G E A V E N U E JAMES F P O N T U S O The College That Time Forgot READ WITH WONDER AND ALARM stories such as John Zmirak's "V-Day, Indeed...
...Founded in 1775, Hampden-Sydney is the tenth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States...
...We have a debating society that was created in honor of George Washington—while he was alive...
...in February's American Spectator about the degradation of the academy...
...The issue of how best to use money entails facing the question of what a good life is...
...We do so in order to give them a sense of wonder, prepare them to lead more interesting and satisfying lives, get them ready for the comedies and tragedies that will surely engulf their later years, and establish a longing in their souls for what is true, just, and beautiful...
...The inquiry into how to lead a fulfilling and worthy life is much more challenging than knowing how to make money...
...It takes discussion seriously and disputes all topics...
...For 230 years the college has maintained an old-fashioned liberal arts curriculum and a dedica50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2005 tion to undergraduate education...
...it makes them more thoughtful...
...Teaching the liberal arts today is not much different from what it was in the time of Socrates...
...James Madison and Patrick Henry were early board members...
...But traditional liberal arts curriculums recognize something that the contemporary politically correct academics fail to appreciate...
...SEPTEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 51...
...In 21 years I have never proctored an exam...
...Some younger faculty present the "latest" ideas, but generally in a sober and thought-provoking way...
...Advocates of politically correct education argue that the traditional liberal arts represent little more than Eurocentric cultural hegemony...
...The school that time forgot is Hampden-Sydney College located appropriately in Farmville, Virginia—actually in a "suburb" of Farmville...
...and what college professor can be happy unless he is complaining...
...such as what is justice, courage, honor, duty, evil, friendship, and love...
...In reality many young people do not even know life's questions or even that there are questions...
...There is a three-semester requirement in Western Culture, a sequence that combines history and great books...
...Rather the problem arises because many young people are certain that they know the answers to all of life's most important questions...
...James P. Pontuso is chair ofthe Department ofPolitical Science at Hampden-Sydney College...
...My first instance of cheating occurred in 2004 (plagiarism off that modern learning "device," the Internet...
...Where I teach none of these out-rages against learning exist...
...After all, we all need to eat...
...At the college that time forgot, we are still at that task...
...The job of a liberal arts education is to show young people that their aspirations are not fully true or comprehensive...
...The standing joke claims that it takes four Hampden-Sydney men to change a light bulb...
...For them social inequity is the only truth and equality the only goal...
...Their dedication to tradition makes them feel an even greater responsibility for their behavior...
...Why so many requirements...
...Most students who come to Hampden-Sydney are decent young men who take pride in being honor-able...
...There are good things about teaching at a traditional school...
...The problem is not that young people think only of their careers...
...Yet it is the PC crowd who think that they know the answers to all the important questions...
...After all, some fashionable stuff is actually interesting...
...JAMPDEN-SYDNEY HAS NO TRENDY departments...
...Although Hampden-Sydney students are among the most conservative in the country, the young man defending gay marriage was so persuasive (arguing against some-thing he believed) that students voted him winner of the debate...
...I share a sense of outrage with those devoted to the true liberal arts...
...Life is complex, multifarious, and difficult to fathom...
...After all, we all need to eat...
...They are certain that a good job, lots of money, a good-looking companion, a few drinks, and a bit of fun are what life is all about...
...My liberal friends around the country often complain that students are too interested in money and career...
...Of course, it is impossible for contemporary graduate students to finish a Ph.D...
...Strict enforcement is not the reason that the Honor Code is successful...
...I really have no sordid tales to share with my distraught colleagues from other schools about the horrors of politically correct higher education...
...Despite what the anti-Western culture enthusiasts insist, studying the traditional liberal arts does not make students more conservative (or more liberal...
...Augustine's Confessions...
...The goal is to show people who do not know—that they do not know...
...I am aware that feminist studies, trans-gender consciousness, victimization narratives, literary criticism, and the deconstruction of the great texts of Western civilization are all the rage at the nation's colleges and universities...
...The Honor Code is administered by students who often mete out sentences for lying, cheating, and stealing more draconian than either the faculty or administration would...
...Everyone takes books and ideas seriously...
...But, there is nothing wrong with worrying about a career...
...The school is such a relic that it remains all male, though it hardly seems so on weekends...
...Mathematics provides a model of what certainty is, sciences give us away of comprehending the true causes of things, languages allow us to glimpse into the way different national groups understand the "truth," history offers a perspective on the grand scope of human endeavor, and the great books present reflections of the greatest minds turning their attention to the most important human questions...
...Actually, it is more important to know how to spend money than to know how to make it...
...Vaclav Havel claims to be a post-modern thinker and he is interesting...
...Hampden-Sydney loves tradition...
...My liberal friends around the country often complain that students are too interested in money and career...
...Moreover, most students sensibly want to have nice families and nice homes in which to live with their families, and that takes money...
...I feel a bit left behind, like an elder Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone (1990)—or perhaps more accurately as if I were an inhabitant in The Land That Time Forgot (1975), a movie based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's novel where scientists discover dinosaurs and prehistoric people living on a lost island...
Vol. 38 • September 2005 • No. 7
