Note that last PLSC 655, indicating that it is cross-listed for the graduate department -- usually that just means it is open to grads, and maybe there is one or two in the class... but this class is maybe 70% PhD students, 10% Masters, and the last sliver, a few undergrads... (!). So I am working very hard on the paper to be up to the standard, so to speak. Scary! There were more undergrads at first but many fell away...

Darden is a brilliant professor / scholar with a good sense of humor, and the class is great fun, but the paper is both fairly long [20-25 pages] and, by necessity, hugely research-intensive. It's almost like a one-semester senior essay, except, I'm not a senior and not doing it for credit as such. (Remember, I'm trying to do a year-long). Matters are complicated by particular difficulties in the China case, and of course a perpetual scarcity of data...

My paper is about nationalism / the development of national identity in China seen through the lens of the Manchurian Incident, addressing Manchuria under Japanese occupation 1931-1936 and also focusing on student protest and uprisings elsewhere. The case for exploring variables which affect rates of resistance in Manchukuo (the Japanese-created puppet state) is made difficult by sparse data, so I am more exploring the phenomena of why so much more widespread protest seems to be found elsewhere. More on the paper later; maybe I'll post it in full if I'm happy with it. (Do people want to read my papers? I am never sure, and always worried they may come back to haunt me, so I have tended not to share my academic work here.)

I have three other finals next week, and another paper too. (This and another paper due Monday; Chinese finals Weds; Tech World + Blacks & the Law on Thursday). Bummer. But, I'll survive.

Readers: do you have finals? Hanging in there? Kudos to the use of my blog to procrastinate, if you are doing so.

]]> http://www.samjackson.org/college/2010/04/29/yale-final-papers-and-exams-spring-2010/feed/ 2 http://www.samjackson.org/college/2010/04/07/writing-my-senior-essay-step-1/ http://www.samjackson.org/college/2010/04/07/writing-my-senior-essay-step-1/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:33:15 +0000 Sam Jackson http://www.samjackson.org/college/?p=687 It is the spring of my junior year, which means it's time to start thinking about senior essays! Importantly, now is the time we decide if we want to write a year long senior essay or not - in political science, at least. Some other majors have mandatory year-long essays, and some have none at all.

I am looking to write a year-long essay, which entails a year's work and will culminate this time next year in a ~60+ page treatise on a topic of my choosing. My advisor strongly urged me to only consider a year-long essay if I had a true existential need to do so, and a great passion for the subject which would allow me to maintain some enthusiasm for the work over the course of the year. I think that that is the case.

What is it that I am so interested in writing about? Well, as I report in my personal statements and narratives, and on my e-resume, I'm interested in combining the powers of technology and politics to do good. Therefore, I was hoping to pursue this kind of combination in a more philosophical setting, and develop a useful and interesting intellectual framework for myself. Something about progress and technology. This brings into play many questions of modernization theory, the relationship between technology and democracy, the Enlightenment theory of progress, and a lot more.

But, that's a very broad topic! So I was told to pick something more narrow: either a philosophical inquiry on the nature of progress and technological determinism / modernization, or something which went more directly to the relationship between technology, democracy / politics, and perhaps even involving a case study of a particular country like China or Iran.

Right now I'm leaning towards the former, but really can't decide, and have to make up my mind soon, at least for where I'm starting from! However, for an idea about the political-philosophical motivations that are behind my goal here, see below, in my initial proposal. I also considered looking into projects about Cyber-nationalism in China and other things related to the internet. A friend is looking to work with Net Neutrality rockstar Elizabeth Stark, which is also cool.

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Exploring divergent narratives of modernity | on the relationship of technology and human progress

progress, n.

1. 1. Progression or advancement through a process, a sequence of events, a period of time, etc.; movement towards an outcome or conclusion.
2. 2. spec. Advancement to a further or higher stage, or to further or higher stages successively; growth; development, usually to a better state or condition; improvement; an instance of this.

What is ‘progress,’ who or what seeks to advance it, and why? What are its ends, and is it a worthy means to achieve them, or do our ideas of progress need revision or wholesale renewal? These are some problems that I hope to articulate in the course of this senior essay. Specifically, the question of ‘human progress’ will be addressed in conjunction with the concern of technological development / advancement, specifically in the modern era and modern.

Essential elements of this investigation will likely include an extensive evaluation of claims for the specific relevance of technology in the development of socioeconomic superstructures; the question of historicity is equally important.  Is technology tool or invisible taskmaster, or worse still, an irrelevant distraction? After examining whether ‘progress’ is conceptually useful and/or plausibly real, or merely an illusion perpetuated by a system of self-interested and/or deluded agents, technology’s role in the process by which progress occurs must be established.

How does it alter and mediate modes of relation and existence; does it alienate and atomize, offer unifying capabilities, or both? Limited case studies may inform this question. Ultimately, the goal is to identify not only the relationship between progress and technology, but to anticipate and explain ways in which it could be leveraged normatively in the context of human relations – in the political sphere.  Alternately, what can be justified in the name of progress?

Noteworthy criticisms of our modernity, hyper-saturated with technology, attempt to draw a distinction between its self-perpetuating and ever-expanding qualities and its requisite advantages to humans and humanity. A quintessential case is made in evaluating the past two centuries: industrialization brings opportunities and creates ‘wealth’ but also brings new forms of oppression and slavery; the same nitrates which make fertilizer possible, are also used to make bombs and high explosives; the nuclear energy that lights our homes and sends probes in deep, dark space bears with it the seeds of unfathomable destruction. Is progress still progress when every new advance in social good is accompanied by new ways to kill, destroy, or control? Furthermore, in the 21^st century, is that paradigm of technological advancement finally broken?

Finally, the intention of this inquiry is to draw from the historical-political past to evaluate the present and future. Progress, in a social sense referring to self-actualized societal improvements in the human condition, (economic progress, contingent upon scientific progress) has been the backdrop of Western political thought since the Enlightenment. In abstraction, what is the function of this progress-as-‘idea of progress,’ and does it have a possible goal or, indeed, true direction? Most fundamentally, what are the implications for the political sphere of an assertive and self-propelling technological revolution?

Is technologically derived progress possible, and is it to be loved or feared? Is human liberty compatible with the future, and to what degree does technology threaten to shift from tool to master? Are the self-wrought chains of technological dependence consistent with progress?

Follow all the posts in this series by looking for the tag “a semester returned.”

A modified version of this piece originally appeared in the Yale Herald, February 26, 2010, titled "So much food, but so little community."

If you want to learn about a place, watch its people eat. At Yale, the magical camaraderie said to characterize the residential college system is manifest best in the college dining halls. At Peking University, mealtimes are no less illustrative of the often quite different dynamic which underlies student life for China's most elite students.

Consider a 'day in the life' of an average student at PKU, compared with Yale. Here, we'll consider breakfast: At Yale, you roll out of bed and are able to eat breakfast as you please, with only a slight hiccup in the half-hour between breakfast and lunch; your experience is one of groggy leisure marked by free copies of New York Times and Cross Campus.

In China? You must bravely arise early decide what you want to try to eat (and quickly). Your options are many: unlike those hapless students in New Haven, you have hot breakfasts to choose from without needing to go to Commons! Unfortunately, also unlike Yale, you have to be sure to get up early to try to get this food, because many of the dining halls close around 830am and don't reopen until lunchtime.

Worse, this foreshortened time means that you have to fight swarming crowds of other students for the privilege of ordering food: after opening at 6am, the tastiest breakfast treats are usually gone by 730 at the dining hall nearest our dorm, for example. But, don't get discouraged just yet. You have so much to choose from! You can have red-bean filled buns, soups, noodles, whatever your heart desires, as long as it's Chinese and still available, and as long as you don't need to try to find two seats next to each other to breakfast with a friend!

Not interested in the shi tang chaos? Try one of the abundant carts on the streets or a smaller shop. Here you can get a tasty Taiwanese-style breakfast pancake fried to perfection, or fresh-steamed baozi filled with cabbage or meats. Mission accomplished.

Good work. You've made it through breakfast, and all for about 75 cents - if you weren't too stressed by the ordeal, you're certainly looking smug compared with that Yalie and his 10 dollar swipe for a bagel and tea, even if he does have relative peace and tranquility. You go to class, where - lucky you! - you decide to stop at one of the snackeries conveniented located in your classroom building and buy some bread and candy to make it through lecture. You then fill up your tea-bottle from one of the hot water dispensers outside the classroom.

The abundance of choices may dull your mind to the dangers of this system. Busy though we are at Yale, we take for granted that our academic schedules allot almost all an hour or more to eat. In China, if one had time at all between classes, it's generally under 30 minutes.

Asked how to deal with this inconvenient conflict, Chinese students I polled suggested most frequently 'not eating' as their solution.

Because students are forced to keep such eccentric schedules,  because the dining halls are so painfully unaccommodating to so many, and because labor is so extremely cheap, there are a fantastic variety of wonderful options that would make zero economic sense to offer in New Haven! You can get spicy-boiled-vegetables and noodles on a stick up till about 11pm on campus; from 6-12, you can get spicy grill-fried meats, tofu, and other delights, or go to the fruit stand and buy all oranges, melons, and tomatoes; after those on-campus shops close, you can head outside the gates to get delicious chuan'r, kebabs fresh cooked for you. The 24 hour McDonalds will deliver to the dorm for about a dollar.

What does this story say about the institutional objectives and mores at Beida? As Yalies, our biggest point of confusion was why no one complained more. With tables bolted to the floor and unable to seat more than 4 people around them, mealtimes often feel like a return to middle school, without the recess.  People do, in fact, complain - in small doses and almost always in mediated, monitored contexts. And even if the uncaring policies of the school created hassles for students, people still try to eat together, cramming several miniature hot-pots onto their tables and catching up.

At Yale in Chinese 140 right now we're taught how important family meal time is in Chinese culture.  University dining differs greatly from home habits anywhere, but the sheer number of people eating alone in a rush offered a vivid demonstration of the ways Beida - intentionally or otherwise - isolated its students within a built world of schoolwork and other time obligations. Beida is a source of great scholarship, but where student life is concerned, it remains rigorously managed and controlled just like grade school. Mealtimes manifest a philosophy wherein individual student needs are rendered subordinate to the greater group.

Thanks for reading, and please join in by posting any questions you have here in the comments, or anything you’d really like to hear about for future columns / posts. I'm open to suggestions!

Original Publication: January 29, 2010, in the Yale Herald.

Time spent abroad reveals volumes about the world left behind. I had the pleasure and privilege to study in the Peking University-Yale Joint Program last semester, and my experience both defied expectations and eludes easy explanation. In this column, I will share some of those reflections formed abroad and narrate the everyday rediscoveries in a life newly reunited with Yale.

I’d like to talk about one of the first unique features I noticed at Beida, the school I attended in China. It’s a feature that Yale lacks in a very quantifiable way: animal camaraderie. Yale is lacking in the four-legged friends department, while China’s flagship university has a surfeit of semi-domesticated animals that roam its grounds. Never have I met so many different cats in so little time: big cats, small cats, feral cats, and more recombination still. Outside of campus, I would meet felines in temples, restaurants, and alleys; on campus, they roamed the grounds, as fearlessly and assuredly as any of the students. One cat liked to sit by the window and listen to East Asian demography lectures; another occupied special turf next to a noodle shop. I learned to recognize these different cats by their territory and their habits­—the same was true for dogs, though they were fewer in number.

At Yale, however, our visible animal life appears to center around rodents. During my freshman year, devious squirrels plotted a grand invasion of several Bingham rooms and managed several reconnaissance forays before students rebuffed their advances. Though obnoxious, these Old Campus squirrels are key contributors to the inter-species dialogue here at Yale, and we welcome their presence as a check to impressions of overwhelming urban sterility. Recently passed New Haven ordinances now allow enterprising residents to raise chickens, but I have yet to see any campus examples thus far.

While I was in China, there was one cat in particular that, through charm and good looks, stole the hearts of all who met her. She was called Xiao Huang （小黄）meaning “little yellow,” and she proudly wore her golden-orange coat every day as she and her on-again-off-again boyfriend Xiao Bai, （小白） “little white,” lazed about their turf outside our Chinese class every day. While some of the semi-homeless animals at Beida suffered and begged for the attentions of motivated bystanders, Xiao Huang knew how to work the system to her advantage. The little minx and her beau were fed every day by staff at the building they frequented, and in return they offered their adorable services—usually in the form of purring—as a pick-me-up to anyone who had just bombed a Chinese test. I was a frequent patron.

But there were also the animal-welfare situations that left me at a loss for action. One such recurring experience would pass at night on busy streets: As I walked, I’d spot a small crowd forming, bottlenecking the sidewalk with interested bystanders. Getting closer, the crowd would thin and reveal a man or men in nondescript parkas, vending merchandise from a cardboard box at their feet. Only when it’s too late to escape without heartbreak does the occasion’s interest become clear: puppies for sale. Of course, in Shanghai one could buy live ducks a block outside our downtown hotel. I was discouraged from doing so, perhaps, by the startling variety of other animals—alive or otherwise—available for purchase there. But its being commonplace didn’t erase its impact.

Xiao Huang’s sad story came together in bits and pieces as I learned more about her. She lived outside one of the foreign student’s dorm, and she had originally been rescued by a foreigner, but left behind when that woman’s stay in China was up. Those strays outside Beida appear to manage with their feline wits, but for every Xiao Huang being taken care of, there are a dozen more that struggle. The more helpful comparison between Yale and Beida comes when considering the relevance these cats have for Chinese students. One official club devotes its time creating shelters for—and feeding—the hungry cats on campus: Plenty of people want to help. What do we have at Yale?

I wish there were fewer cats lounging in Beida’s bamboo groves. As Beijing’s winter took a bite, I saw so many suffering—kittens shivering and groups of cats huddled together for warmth. Like so many ephemeral observations about China, closer analysis revealed a more complex problem. I bought catnip and lamb kebabs for my feline friends, but I learned that just because they speak Chinese doesn’t mean Chinese cats like spicy food. I also recognized that it was human feeding of these cats which allowed so many to survive on campus.

What does it mean to surround ourselves with animals? It’s important because it helps to ground us. I appreciated the increased presence of animals not just for the daily dose of adorable cat behaviors, but simply because nature in this active embodiment captures the attention and reminds passersby that no matter what color the sky is, how much homework you have, or what personal struggle you face, nature still exists all around. When you watch animals play, the exigencies of student life fade away like magic.

I couldn’t take Xiao Huang back to Yale, so how can that wonderful appearance of the wild be recaptured? The answer starts with you, readers: If your Master or Dean doesn’t have a pet, start a petition to insist on real-life college mascots. If professors at Harvard can graze cows, why not a real life Trum-bull?）

How would you summarize Electrical Engineering 201 01 for a fellow student? Would you recommend Electrical Engineering 201 to another student? Why or why not?

Stay away. This course will cause you nothing but misery. You'll spend hours on end slaving away in a lab, using software called "Xilinx" that's prohibitively buggy. It's so buggy that I doubt I can convey, in this short paragraph, an accurate impression of how poor it is. Maybe I can describe it by analogy. Imagine a sculpting course that requires you to chisel replicas of ancient masterpieces at the middle of a frozen pond during spring thaw. The ice is just barely thick enough to support the weight of you and the marble block for a few minutes at a time, but it keeps cracking and your work keeps falling through. Diligently, you begin again each time this happens, but you know it's just going to happen again in ten minutes. There is no hope. There is no escape. There is only anguish.

That being said, the course is overall rated as pretty interesting, but that software doesn't sound like too much fun. The lab, however, does seem to have some serious problems, not least the software program referenced above.

Shopping continues, for better or for worse...

Photo from Flickr user Dexell1827

It's Thanksgiving time of year, and I'm not sure that exactly that will mean here in Beijing. This is the first time that I have been away from home for Thanksgiving (!) and I certainly am missing all the proper accoutrements of Thanksgiving. What matters most about Thanksgiving to me, of course, is not the food or any particular thing -- what matters is, of course, the company. While my peers here at the Yale-PKU program are very nice, it's not the same as being at home with my family. I miss cooking all day and then having a nice dinner, loyal dog at my feet to dispose of extra brisket and turkey and make sure nothing that falls to the floor goes to waste.

Of course, Thanksgiving in real life is never as rosy as its made out to be in certain movies - conflicts among relatives, problems with turkeys, canned cranberry sauce, and who knows what else can go wrong. But the essential tradition remains, and it's a good one. It is interesting here in China to try to explain Thanksgiving - or as one roommate called it, "The Thanksgiving Festival" - to people who have no connection to it. The modern construction of Thanksgiving is closely tied to efforts to form a collective national American identity and so Thanksgiving definitely has a resonance to it beyond any single home.

Aside from the football games and tacky decorations, Thanksgiving has remained (to me) remarkable immune from the marketing and rubbish that spoils so many otherwise perfectly good holidays. Some people in some places do go overboard - deep fried turducken, anyone (chicken stuffed into a duck into a turkey)? As someone from Massachusetts (birthplace of Thanksgiving!) I am happy to tell people more about the history of Thanksgiving, and I try to explain matters without ruining things. Obviously, the original story of Thanksgiving has a lot of myth associated with it which was invented much later, and much is unknown. Not everything about the image of the Pilgrims as plucky pioneers out to build a new world is perfectly accurate; for example, few remember the fact that Plymouth was built on top of an original Native American site which was only just recently before their arrival wiped out by European-originated plague. Still, that shouldn't stop us from appreciating the history.

This afternoon we are going to go to some hotel in Beijing, alongside Stanford and no doubt many other expats here from Beida and other places in the city. The food should be pretty good, but I can only hope to capture some of the sense of home and community that I would have back in Boston at this time of year. I'm thankful for the chance to be here in Beijing, but I wish most of all I could be back at home right now to be with my family on Thanksgiving, perhaps the best family-related holiday in the American pantheon. To celebrate, last night I made some very delicious banana bread in our toaster oven here. I might not be well positioned to bake a pumpkin pie (oh but that I was!) but I'll do what I can to try to capture the holiday spirit.

I wish I could be at home, making spiced apple cider and sitting by the fire with my dog while my family and relatives cook up a storm, but since I can't I'll have to settle for sending warm wishes to everyone celebrating back in North America or wherever else they may be.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Sam

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Photo from Flickr user Dexell1827 - check out the page for more great golden retriever photos!

A Freshwater Marsh / Lake in Tengchong, Yunnan Province, China

Yunnan Province (云南, "South of the clouds"), located in southwest China, is home to some of the middle kingdom's most beautiful sights and scenery. The Yalies of the Fall 2009 Yale-PKU program had the pleasure to take a 5 day trip to southern Yunnan before our classes started and roommates moved in (Sept 6-10). For those of you who have been angry at me for not uploading photos, be happy! Your fortunes have changed with this post : ) This will be mostly a photo-travelogue, with my commentary.

First, some more background about Yunnan. Many of the "most beautiful" traditional sights are located in northwest Yunnan - Lijiang, with Tiger Leaping Gorge; Dali, with Erhai Hu; Shangri-La with, well, Shangi-La... etc. When we found out that we weren't going to go to any of these sites, a lot of us familiar with them were rather crestfallen... and may still are, at least a little bit. However, we still had a really great time in Tengchong county and Ruili City, which were rather less 'touristy' than the northwest would have been. The question remains as to whether or not those places are touristy for good reasons! but all the same, it was worthwhile to have had a nice trip together, even if we would have wanted to plan it a little bit differently. With no more complaints and without further ado, some more photos and stories!

hot springs in the rain!

The photo at the top of this post is from a lake that we visited in Tengchong; while in Tengchong, we also climbed a few dormant volcanoes and visited some very lovely villages, perhaps dubiously authentic, but "charmful" all the same! I am sorry I don't have more photos of myself, but other people were taking photos of me, and maybe I can get my hands on those. These are mostly of the scenery or other people!

Tengchong - and much of southern Yunnan - is a volcanic hotspot of sorts. All the mountains you were were formed from volcanic activity, and this resulted in - what else? - hot springs! We got to visit a really pretty hot springs park, and a few of our own stayed afterwards to go into the hot springs themselves (indoors, with snacks, etc). Meanwhile, the rest of us went to go relax, and then we went out again in the evening for dinner and massages from local deaf masseurs. Not quite like Zatoichi, but still nice - especially for 20 RMB!

At the hot springs, our guide informed us excitedly about the new development of a "five star hotel!!!" -- indeed, everywhere we looked in Yunnan, it seemed, 'five star' hotels were being put up. Nearby we were also able to see the work currently in progress on what is to be the "largest golf course in China" which - of course! - would be the site of at least a few new "five star hotel."

This obsession with official accreditation extended in some cases to the most bizarre of places. For instance, I can tell you with the official authority of the Chinese People's Scenic Sites Rating Committee (paraphrased) that the above hot springs are a "four star" tourist attraction. Perhaps the most hilarious example of this practice came in a village we visited later on, in Ruili (the village is pictured below, near the Banyan tree). There, the villagers themselves got together to rate each other's homes on a variety of different criteria, from cleanliness to filial piety... yes, really! Anyway, moving on.

This is what the road to Ruili looks like out your window

After two lovely days in Tengchong, we set out for Ruili, in even-more-southern Yunnan. With our guide and driver, we set out along the historic road to Burma, tracing much of the same routes that the "southern silk road" once took. Driving through the mountain switchbacks was, frankly, extremely terrifying. Our driver saved our lives many times, no doubt.

The roads were not themselves so much a problem as were our fellow travelers on the roads. (This is a general rule of thumb for travel conditions in China, it seems)

sadly, the most beautiful and dramatic images were often too deadly to take, and our program director didn't let us stop at the best safe pull-outs

Scooters were not a serious worry - in an accident or collision, we'd survive handily. Instead, on this narrow and twisting two-lane road through the high mountain passes, extremely slow moving "trucks" -- actually truck bodies matches with extremely weak tractor or motorcycle engines mounted naked in front of the drivers -- were heavily loaded with volcanic rocks for the stone carving operations further back down the mountains. Given these and other kinds of slow moving vehicles - local farmers and pedestrians entering from secret off-roads into even more sinuous and dangerous village mountain roads - on a truly horrifying number of occasions we were faced with two oncoming vehicles bearing down on us in each lane.

On one side, the jungle and mountain. On the other, thousands of feet off the mountainside through steep rice paddies to the valleys below. Every time, people were able to maneuver successfully, and I'm alive here to write this story... but very, very scary.  Luckily, I didn't have to drive, so when not preoccupied with our impending deaths, I was able to snap photos like the ones you can see above.

And then, we made it to Ruili - alive! Oh, how happy we were.

Ruili was, until quite recently, a very exciting travel destination for foreigners who were looking for heroin, prostitutes, danger and excitement on the Burmese border. Why is Ruili City a boomtown of such illicit trades? Simply look across the Ruili river to find your answer: Burma. Yes, we went to the Burmese border. In fact, we drove along one section of the border where there were simply some weak low fencing and on the other side, Burmese farmers. For a brief background reading on how Ruili and other boomtowns are growing because of the surging trade with the junta  -  China is Burma's 2nd largest trading partner - check out this piece from PBS Frontline - Burma: The Chinese Connection. Brief relevant sections quoted below:

Along the Burmese frontier, Chinese boomtowns are sprouting up, bankrolled in large part by the trade in narcotics, jade and timber from Burma. One such town is Ruili, just over the river from the Jie Gao Free Trade Zone.

I first visited Ruili four years ago. Back then, the construction boom brought a volatile mix of men, cash, drugs and sex. China's first AIDS cases were discovered here in the early 1980s.

These days the atmosphere in Ruili is less frenetic. It feels like a town that is finally settling into its self, after going through a spasm of growth. The thousands of Chinese construction workers, who'd come for the building boom, have left. Many of the Burmese prostitutes who flocked here during the boom are also gone.

"In the past, you could see men and women shooting heroin openly in the streets," a longtime Ruili resident tells me. "But today, Ruili is much cleaner, more modern."

But the town has not fully shaken its sleazy reputation. Heroin trade has decreased slightly, but amphetamines -- another Burmese export -- are flooding the streets along the China-Burma border. There are still dozens of brothels, advertising both Burmese and Chinese women.

So yes, Yale / PKU brought us to one corner of the Golden Triangle, Southeast Asia's main opium production zone. Ruili was a little bit gritty, and we were careful going out - the night market was full of Burmese children who sneak over to beg, for example - but it was still an interesting experience. While here, the "Southeast Asia" feel was stronger than ever, even though it was obviously with a Chinese element. One reason we came to Yunnan was because it is full of so many minority groups - and so many which are just found in Yunnan. Here in Ruili, we got to meet local schoolchildren from different minority groups as well as Han Chinese, and visited some minority villages and other local sites.

manual exposure: why I love my Pana FX-500!

At right, you can see one of the many places we were able to visit around Ruili (aside from our numerous excursions to heroin-filled brothels, of course). This was a truly lovely park / wildlife area. We picked up a second guide in Ruili, and she told us that the area was sacred to the local Buddhists, and that therefore for a long time no one would go into it to hunt, log, etc - thus, it was in pristine condition! This definitely seemed to be the case, at least to a certain degree. There was a really nice trail that went to a waterfall there, and this is a photo taken along the way. This area also had some hot springs, which fed into proper "pools" in which local people were just swimming, washing clothes, etc.

The forest was said to be good for your health because of the very high levels of oxygen because of all the foliage there - this was basically rainforest, or so it seemed. Though the day was very sunny when we started, under all the tree cover it still stayed pretty cool, despite the heat of the local climate.

There were giant, old trees - reminiscent of the redwoods and sequoias of the American West, even, although more subtropical / tropical. I have more photos of everything that will be uploaded to... Facebook, I suppose? So look for them there. : )

The next day, we were set to go visit a local village school, and then a corresponding local village. While at first I hadn't been particularly excited about the village or the children, thinking it would be a pretty tacky and inauthentic experience, I was pretty pleasantly surprised.

The kids were all really, really nice - they were very excited to get to meet us, and it was nice to have little kids who really wanted to play with us and who rarely if ever got to meet foreigners.

Obviously, all of them would imagine Yale as being less exciting than a Chinese university, but I still harbor some hope that maybe one of them will be inspired and end up coming to Yale some 10-15 years from now. We sat in on a couple different classes, and then got to play with them outside. Many were shy at first, but it was interesting to get to see them learn and to see the school.

The picture on the right shows the kids in their English class, which was the only one that I could really follow along with - my Chinese is definitely nowhere near 4th grade level, which I believe is the year the students in the yellow outfits were. In any event, I could communicate passably with some of the younger children about basic concepts, but couldn't understand their playground songs, etc.

Outside, during their recess, we got to play with the kids - each class getting a few "big brothers" and "big sisters" (i.e., Yalies). At first, we played their games, which were delightfully violent or dangerous, the kind of things that PTAs have tried to outlaw in the United States like Red Rover, etc. We also played duck-duck-goose, and when I lost I had to stand in the center of the circle and sing a song - but I didn't know the "you just lost duck-duck-goose" song in Chinese, so I sang part of the U.S. National Anthem instead... to the great delight and laughter of all the Chinese (and Yalies in earshot, as well). At right is a photo of one of my fellow Yalies, Monica Lu (Morse, '11) with a variety of friendly little schoolkids. The red scarves indicate that they are on the "honor roll" so to speak, and are especially diligent / hard-working, etc. We left around lunchtime, and so did the students - they go home for lunch, if they live close, and then come back for more classes later.

In the background you might be able to see some rubble; it was just littered around the schoolyard, which was a bit worrying, but it turns out to be positive: they are building new classrooms etc and it's just part of the construction process. The facilities were all things considered quite nice: they had nicer overhead projectors and equipment in some cases than what I had had in elementary school, even if the facilities were anything but fancy. The school had recently gotten a good infusion of funds for their expansion / renovation, so they were on pretty solid footing. Apparently they also had a program in place to teach Burmese children, too. Some of the kids whose clothes look different are from different minority groups,  but it's not always obvious; most of the differences in outfits are just those who are wearing 'uniforms' for different grades.

Rice laid out to... dry? A common scene everywhere we went around Ruili - Rice, Corn, and Tobacco were the main crops we saw grown - also some chilis!

After we also had our lunch, and emergency ice cream to combat the heat (remember, we're on the Burmese border, but not at altitude anymore), we headed off to this nearby 'minority village.' There are several interesting stories to tell here, though I had few photos to go along, but I'll try to give a sense of what it was like.

First, we were met by a local woman who was head of the women's committee of this village and four others. This was actually a very important post, since - or the claim was made - that this and the other villages were part of a minority group which was in fact matriarchal, where the women have indentured servant husbands for several years until they have "earned their keep" and can move upstairs into the bedroom of the house, for example.

Afterwards we weren't quite sure how much of the story we were told was entirely true, but it seemed quite believeable. In Chinese fashion, this woman - 10 year party member! - was not eager to really show off the squalid conditions of the village-village, instead touring us her house and suggesting another nicer section to visit. After talking with her and hearing the story of the village (translated by our program director) she offered us a large selection of jewelry to purchase, supposedly made from local materials in a local factory constructed by the Chinese Communist Party for the villagers - the proceeds were meant to support the village and their Buddhist temples. After hearing the very well told story of their history and culture, we of course all leapt to buy trinkets; southern Yunnan is an important site of China's jade trade, but the items were mostly metals. Still, we left about 2000 RMB (~300 USD) poorer, collectively, and richer by an unknown number of bracelets and earrings.

Now, with a short drive an an additional walk, we came to another, nicer part of the village - or a nearby village, it's hard to tell - as pictured above. Some of the old style houses were still around - woven bamboo walls, etc - some were newer buildings of brick, and some were a combination of both. The classic house here in this area is to have a mostly empty lower section of the house for entertaining guests and storing your animals when need arises; upstairs is where the family lives and keeps their nice possessions, etc.

Our objective was the Buddhist temple of the area, since a very large Buddha had been built over many years. I took photos, but it wasn't especially exciting - what drew my attention was another absolutely fabulous Banyan tree. This picture is taken from very far away and doesn't really convey the full scale of the tree; we had stopped at some Banyan groves earlier, and this was much bigger than any others.

Now, I later learned that this particular tree - of a species significant to Buddhists and Hindus alike - was probably sacred and significant to the local people, especially given its close proximity to the giant Buddha (taller than the tree, perhaps?) just 100 feet away. Still, my first thought when I saw such a beautiful tree was to worship it in my own way - by getting up on top of it and experiencing its age and majesty first hand. I didn't know that was wrong until I started getting yelled at, but still...!

Banyan trees are a kind of ficus - often called stranglers for the way they sometimes start by growing around existing trees - which drop down roots which then grow into larger trunks which can end up as large as real trees themselves.

These trees can grow to be hundreds of years old, and cover huge amounts of territory because of the way they can extend laterally - the first picture above shows just how "wide" this collection of trunks can become. Very impressive trees!

Afterwards, we went into the adjacent temple, which mostly merits mention because - like so many other places in China - it had a very cute cat posing in a very photogenic way.

After this, we went back to the hotel, had some food at an interesting Burmese-themed kitschy restaurant (which was fun, if tacky - Cameron got married off to a local woman, as well!). At night throughout the trip, we all became friendlier and closer by playing lots and lots of Mafia together. The next day, we drove to the airport, flew back to Kunming (capital of Yunnan Province) and from there back to Beijing. With that, I'll end this travelogue!

This has gotten to be very long (almost 3000 words) so thank you for reading till the end, if you really did, and I hope you enjoyed the stories and photos. I had a great time getting to know lots of nice new people who are now my good friends in the program, and it was very cool to get to see Yunnan as well. We had many interesting experiences which were not recounted here and maybe I will write about them randomly some other time. Until then - thanks for reading!

If you want to see a gallery of all the photos used in the post, click the "read more" link below.

Gallery of photos used in this post

Yes, Virginia, there are blue skies in Beijing... sometimes.

你 好 from Beijing! I have been here in China since the start of September, and this week classes finally got started here at Beida (Peking University), a week behind Yale's schedule. So far my experience in the Peking University-Yale Joint Undergraduate Program has been quite good, though China has a lot to take in. This is the first of an ongoing series of letters / updates I'm going to do my best to issue regularly while I am here for the semester.

What have we done so far?

• Arrived September 1
• Settled in and explored Beijing, going on several sight-seeing trips
• From Sept 6-10 we went on a trip to Yunnan Province, which was very interesting - more on that soon!
• Classes started September 14
• Currently experiencing life here in Beijing and China!

In this post, I'm going to talk about why I'm here in China, and share some first impressions. More detailed posts to come on the other points above as well as some of what is mentioned here.

Let me just first give a brief overview of why I'm here, since I never really elaborated on it before. I have always wanted to study abroad, although the country of choice has historically been France - hence the 7 years of French, etc. However, after I had completed my language requirements with an L5 French course at Yale, I decided to take Chinese. I wasn't sure at the time (last fall) whether or not I would end up studying in China, but Yale offers a lot more resources for study in East Asia than it does for Western Europe, unfortunately.

For Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, you have options like the Light Fellowship for fully-paid intensive language study available to you. I would have ideally been studying here in China this semester on a Light fellowship; unfortunately, you have to be starting 4th Semester or higher Chinese to study in a Light-approved program during the year. I didn't want to go on a summer program and sacrifice the season to 80-characters-a-night of Chinese homework, among other reasons, so that option was out. Still, there was the Yale-PKU program, which I applied to and decided to go on last spring.

I still haven't answered the questions "Why China, why now?" The reasons are straightforward: Why China? I feel very certain that the China-US bilateral relationship will be the most important one of any two nations in the coming century. No other two countries have as much combined power to effect change in the world - for good or ill. I therefore feel I have essentially a moral imperative to better understand China and its people, culture, and trajectory, because whatever course I choose to take in my life, I'm sure China will overlap to at least some degree. As for the latter question - what better time than the present?

Now, onto my (first) first impressions!

The very first thing I noticed, and the thing that I continue to notice the most, has to do with pollution and air quality. But, this topic merits its own post, so I'm going to leave it aside for now. For the moment, let me just say that while I am becoming a little bit used to it, the perpetual haze serves as a continuing reminder of what sacrifices have been made for the sake of "modernization." So, aside from that:

China is a lot less exotic - at first brush - than I had imagined. No immediate, overwhelming culture shock - not like going to Texas or Las Vegas, for example ; ) ! In all seriousness, though, although China is a very 'different' place from my familiar America, my expectations have been in line with what I've experienced, generally speaking. In places where I have been 'surprised' it has been at how accessible Beijing has been to me, with just 1 year's worth of Chinese study. No doubt, a lot of work from the Olympics 2008 buildup has paid off for me in this regard, with the subways helpfully having both English announcements and Pinyin / English station names, since I don't always know all the station title characters! (For a look at the current subway system, and how fast new additions are expected to be brought online, check out this map - dashed lines are subway lines under construction or planning).

Modern China is aptly described as a country undergoing immense changes, and in this regard there are everywhere great contradictions and idiosyncrasies. Wandering around Beijing one can be successfully lulled into thinking China is really well developed, leaping forward into the future. The truer picture of the city - as microcosm of China - is often just concealed behind thin walls, secret alleys and courtyard houses and markets hidden away out of sight. The hustle and bustle of modern construction draws much attention, but can't always distract from old and beautiful buildings several stories shorter, paint peeling and fading after decades of neglect. Other times, though, it's possible to get away from this same hustle and bustle and appreciate the thousands of years of history which lead up to today's China. There are many sites in wonderful condition. Tragically, for every great historical site - in either good or poor condition - there seems to be some complementary "10 times more beautiful and wondeful" palace or temple which was inevitably destroyed by Westerners in the 19th century or Chinese in the 20th. Many, however, have been rebuilt.

Weiming Lake, peking university - from wikimedia

This complicated situation is very obvious at our school here, Peking University, known in China as Beida, short for "Beijing Da Xue" (Beijing University, 北京大学). Beida was created from a combination of other campuses, some of which were once royal gardens; many of its buildings are old, historic, and very beautiful. Others are new modern classroom and science buildings which would not look out of place on many an American college campus or office complex. Of the former category, many have seen interior renovations, but cry out for help maintaining their facades; others are just in desperate need of repairs, period.

As far as facilities and infrastructure is concerned, it's clear we're not at Yale anymore. Some of the dorms here do not have any showering facilities, and students may have to walk 5-15 minutes outside to go take a shower, because the plumbing simply isn't in place. In this regard, our program has its own showers indoors - a real luxury : ). To be fair, a lot of what we see here is merely reminiscent of the kind of expansionary construction seen at college campuses in times which had both a combination of bad architectural taste and financial distress - Wesleyan until recently, anyone? Though, to be fair to our Middletown neighbor, what I'm describing here is really a whole different category. I'll take some pictures soon.

All in all, despite my well-known proclivities for highly vocal complaining, I don't have very much to really say at this time. I'm in a good "frame of expectations" right now, so while I am definitely appreciating Yale more! I'm able to have a good time here, too. Things are not perfect, but they're good enough. As time goes on, maybe this will wear thin and I'll start to get more frustrated, but on the whole things are quite OK. The myriad disadvantages and inconveniences in daily life here are small prices to pay for the chance to get to live in China and experience it first-hand, with Chinese roommates, as opposed to the isolated "international island" that all other schools experience in their study-abroad programs here with Beida. One of our professors, a Chinese graduate of Yale Law School now teaching us at PKU, told a funny joke at the opening ceremony: "PKU is my mother school, and Yale is my father, and now they have had a beautiful child, the PKU-Yale Joint Program! However, as you may know, China has a very famous one-child policy, ensuring that it remains a very unique program..."

Our Chinese roommates are all very nice, thoughtful and open to creative exchange, and I am really enjoying getting to understand China better through them and my time here. You learn a hundred times more from a month here than you could just trying to read about the place - or at least, you learn different, on-the-ground knowledge and understanding. Experiences from everyday life build on one another into a real appreciation and understanding, it seems.

China can't be reduced to a stereotype or a single two-dimensional picture. I don't expect to really "get" China after just 4 months here, but I hope to have a better grasp of the place than I did before I came, and that much seems certain.

More updates to come!

From:  Richard Levin and Peter Salovey

We write to apprise you of the University’s financial condition as we continue to work through the effects of the economic downturn.  We have been greatly impressed with the response of the Yale community.  Rather than wait to reduce expenditures until the current fiscal year began on July 1, many units achieved significant savings in the first half of this calendar year. Budget reductions were achieved with a spirit of cooperation and common purpose.

We explained in our messages to the community last December and February that we did not want to overreact to the downturn in financial markets by making reductions that might later prove unnecessary if markets recovered quickly.  Thus, the budget reductions we undertook eliminated most, but not all, of the deficits previously forecast for the years ahead. These forecasts assumed that the June 30, 2009, value of our endowment would be $17 billion.  Although the publicly traded portion of our endowment declined no further in value between December and June 30, we continued to incur losses in the value of our illiquid investments in private equity and real estate.  The precise final results for the 2008-09 fiscal year are still being compiled and will be announced later this month, but it is clear that we will report a June 30 value of the endowment of approximately $16 billion.  Only a small fraction of our endowment is invested in publicly traded securities, so the recent stock market rebound has not had a substantial effect on that number.  The bulk of our endowment remains invested in illiquid assets, which have not begun to recover their value.

Because we did not make a full adjustment to the initial decline in our endowment and because it has declined further since last December, we are now projecting a general appropriations deficit in the range of $150 million each year from 2010-11 through 2013-14.  Thanks to the work undertaken last year, these deficits are only half as large as the projections we faced last December, but they are still substantial and will require further budget adjustments.

Units of the University heavily dependent on endowment income will be especially affected. Because our spending rule spreads the impact of dramatic changes in the market value over time, the endowment payout for the current academic year declined only 6.7% from last year’s level.  But the payout will decline by approximately an additional 13% in 2010-11 and remain at that level for the next several years.  This estimate reflects our assumption that the endowment will remain flat during the current year and begin to grow after June 30, 2010, at the rate we have historically used in our budget modeling.

We will provide full details of the budget adjustments required for 2010-11 later in the year, but we want to alert you to the fact that another round of reductions will be necessary.  We also want to describe some of the actions we are undertaking now; other measures, still under consideration, will be outlined later.  We will not retreat from our important commitments to financial aid in Yale College and the Graduate School.  But with the exception of financial aid, no area of expenditure will be immune from close scrutiny.

As you know, construction projects that were already underway last December are being carried forward to completion.  Apart from the renovation of Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges, urgently needed maintenance projects such as Harkness Tower, and essential cost-saving utilities projects, no major construction will proceed until funding is available from donor support or financial markets recover.  We have secured donor support to continue the design of the new residential colleges and to undertake site clearance, the first phase of which will occur this fall.  We also have secured full funding from donors for completing the renovation of the Yale University Art Gallery.  All other projects remain on hold.

Progress toward other important University priorities will be slowed as well. We will continue to recruit faculty to develop exciting new programs on the West Campus, because outstanding laboratory facilities are in place.  But we have set a pace that will trim our originally planned expenditures by more than 25% in the years immediately ahead.  We are also curbing our expenditure on the redesign and implementation of new administrative systems (the YaleNext project), by reducing the use of outside consultants, narrowing the scope, and slowing the pace of implementation.

Faculty recruitment will continue, but at a significantly reduced pace in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, where more than 50 ladder faculty have been added over the past four years (an 8% increase) and about 100 ladder faculty members have been added over the past decade (a 17% increase).  As we move forward, we believe it would be imprudent to reduce the size of the faculty, only to increase it again to accommodate increased undergraduate enrollment when the new colleges open.  Some authorized searches and all new requests for searches to fill vacancies will be scrutinized carefully, however, and many will be deferred for a year or two.

Last winter we asked units to reduce both their staff and non-salary expenditures by 7.5% for the 2009-10 academic year, and we signaled that a further 5% reduction in non-salary expenditures would be called for in 2010-11.  To accelerate our movement toward budget balance, we are now asking units to achieve this additional 5% reduction in non-salary expenses during the current year.  We are counting on faculty, department managers, and others who control resources to curb nonessential expenditures on travel, entertainment, equipment, and supplies to the extent needed to achieve this target.

We are truly grateful for the support and cooperation that we have received in making these difficult adjustments.  We know that we can count on you in the year ahead to make tough choices among competing priorities, to identify non-essential activities that can be curtailed, and to seek ways to work across departmental lines to lower costs. We are attempting to negotiate these trying times without compromising the University’s commitment to maintaining the extraordinary quality and reputation of our teaching and research. Even as we defer some of our most important long-term investments, we will keep in focus our goals of maintaining the strength of Yale’s superb faculty, student body, and staff, and improving for everyone the experience of working in a community that contributes so much to the well-being of our city, the nation, and the world.

Here is a link to the online exhibit, and here you can reach my particular section of the exhibit. It was a very short final writing assignment, but it was difficult to write so concisely and to try to capture all the themes and ideas that I wanted to express. I am happy to finally get to check it out with everything in place, and hope you enjoy it too.

Here is the blurb that Prof. Zaremby wrote for the exhibit, reproduced below:

According to the late Edward Shils, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, intellectuals are those members of society “with an unusual sensitivity to the sacred, an uncommon reflectiveness about the nature of the universe and the rules which govern their society.” In this position, intellectuals occupy a position apart from society, working as scholars, writers, philosophers, and social critics. Given their role studying and criticizing society, intellectuals need to balance the need to maintain a critical distance from politics with their desire to influence political life. Some intellectuals attempt to have an impact on society through their writings. Others work as educators in institutions of higher education. Others choose to enter public service. In addition to the value that intellectual engagement might offer to the political world, the decision to enter politics encourages intellectuals to consider their responsibility to society, scholarship, and the intellectual class itself.

The students who curated this exhibit chose topics that reveal the tensions that confront intellectuals in their engagement with society. Students used the holdings of the Department of Manuscripts and Archives at the Yale University Library to illustrate the forms of engagement that intellectuals have attempted, as well as the responses to such engagement from both the intellectual and political worlds. The richness of the collection allowed students to explore a wide array of topics relating to political expertise, higher education, and the role of science and philosophy in society.In each case, the students reveal what lies at the intersection of intellectual life and political action—conflict, risk, and the potential for creative flourishing.

This exhibit is the final project for “The Intellectual in Politics,” a political science and humanities seminar taught by Justin Zaremby. In the course, students discussed authors ranging from Plato and Martin Heidegger to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walter Lippmann in an attempt to understand the relationship between intellectual life and political life. Students attempted to define the needs and goals of the intellectual class, whether intellectuals serve as advisors, teachers, or social critics.

It was a fun class and I really enjoyed getting to work with the archival collections. There is just a huge, amazing treasure trove of papers, photographs, and much more available to students.I had a really hard time choosing a final subject, but I just enjoyed getting to explore the personal notes and letters of important and famous people. It's a very special opportunity that I hope more Yale students take advantage of -- I had gone to the Archives before out of curiosity to do some research into Yale's history just for fun, and you don't need to go for class. It's just at the library, so there is no excuse not to go!

I would especially appreciate it if you many lurking readers who have been reading my blog at one or another time during your application process - to Yale or elsewhere - came forward and said hello. If you got into Yale and have more questions, please comment or e-mail me -- one wonderful reader just did, and will get an adoring mention in an upcoming post as a prize. Whether you are Emma Watson or just some other person who was accepted, I am happy to answer questions.

And, just because you didn't get into the college of your choice, be it Yale or somewhere else, please don't log off and stop reading - I really appreciate more voices in the conversation about college admissions in general, so please stay and share your thoughts, experiences, and feelings.

[See also what I wrote last year, essentially the same but with a quote from another Yale '11]

> Elizabeth wrote:
> Hi Sam
>
> I took my daughter to visit Yale and she loved it. My husband has some
> issues with Yale and I don't know quite what to believe. He knows two recent
> grads who insist that New Haven is a serious crime haven and getting worse. Is
> it?

I'm glad your daughter liked Yale - it's a great place! - and I hope she saw New Haven as offering the potential for a good college experience. Then-president Kingman Brewster Jr. said, some 40 years ago, that the problems of New Haven were an advantage for Yale because they promoted community and cohesiveness, which may have been true - today, things are much better both for Yale, New Haven, and the town-gown relations.

So, on to your principal question: the safety of New Haven, or lack thereof. If we're looking at New Haven in terms of crime statistics, you'll find it is not so much worse than many other places with well-regarded schools; I'm from the Boston area and would go to Harvard Square ever since I was young with my friends, and there are certainly fewer panhandlers and homeless people around during the day; at night, while Harvard Square felt safer, my Harvard friends receive just as many unsettling crime notices in their inboxes as we do (for one particular comparison which I can speak to from personal experience). New Haven has some risks to it, but it is a very safe place as look as people keep their heads about them.For that matter, while many of my female friends make it a common habit to walk alone in bad places late at night, they have not had any unfortunate incidents - this isn't to say that none exist, but just to emphasize that your daughter is not going to be seen on the nightly news if just once she goes alone for a falafel pick-me-up at 2 am or to visit a friend on the other side of campus.

While there have been a few unfortunate higher profile incidents at Yale in the two years that I have been here, for the most part incidents involving students occur on the far periphery of campus -- graduate students living farther away and the like. Central campus is well protected, well lit, and generally quite safe at all hours. This isn't Penn, where gangs of children were robbing people in broad daylight. What's more, our lovely ivory tower environment offers another layer of protection; while it's not exactly perfect protection, the gated courtyards in which we live our lives really insulate us from any of the city's jagged edges. What's more, the University does offer extensive shuttle se rvices both on schedule and on-call; in addition, security is available to act as escorts to take students from point A to point B safely. (This is what tour guides no doubt told you; for students unwilling to wait long enough for these resources to make their way to them in the event of non-emergencies, walking may be the only immediate option).

That said, can bad things happen, and do they?  Of course - but, as I mentioned at the start, general misconceptions about the true dangers of New Haven aside (overstated and outdated) there are good restaurants, there are nice places to go, but there is not *too* much. I would personally be happier in a busier place, but there is something to be said for the fact that everyone cannot so easily melt away from campus after class, as they do in New York City -- although many people, including myself, go to NYC often. In any case, I'm not sure what other issues your husband has with Yale -- is it just to do with supposed crime problems? Let me know if I can answer any more of your questions, and if you need help finding raw numbers about the safety of Yale, I can try to find the FBI-required reporting statistics for you (flawed though they may be, New Haven's violent crime numbers are generally on the decline, and segmented geographically are really not so bad).

Thanks again for reading and for asking questions, I really appreciate it!

Addendum: Thanks to a Yale senior friend from the New Haven area who, in discussing the safety of New Haven, mentioned the humorous nickname [largely in jest] which I had never heard before, 'pistol-wavin'-new-haven.' Again, not representative.

Our final project for this class will be to create an online exhibit around five different documents, so I will definitely share it when I'm done.Everywhere you look, there are amazing things to find - you can request the personal notes and documents of people from important people hundreds of years since left to the history books, or zoom in to chronicle the personal diaries and thoughts of noted government figures and other intellectuals. It's really just like a time machine, except with more paperwork to fill out.

At the moment, I am in Sterling Library reading through some of the records associated with the presidency of Kingman Brewster, my personal favorite Yale president. While there is too much to type altogether, I am going to share one piece that I really like that I just read. It makes me sad to think that in 1965, it was a *problem* that students were not motivated by money. How different were the problems facing educators in 1965? Read on to find out:

This is text of a speech of President Kingman Brewster, Jr. before the American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., October 8, 1965

"If the ends don't justify the means, what does?"

Boredom is not a newcomer in the halls of academe. But there is a mounting impatience and if we admit it, a new and unpleasant aroma of scorn among some student groups --impatience with education, scorn for educators.

Of course faculties are, and always should be heavily populated by people who are dedicated to the proposition that the search for truth is an end in itself. I am not one of those who buy the notion that the only worthy end of thought is action. Thought and learning, like experience and beauty can be ends in themselves. Not the least part of our job is to awaken a capacity for this enjoyment in the oncoming generations so that theirs may be delight in living as well as doing.

But the tragedy of the highly motivated impatient young activist is that he runs the serious risk of disqualifying himself from true usefulness by being too impatient to arm himself with the intellectual equipment required for the solution of the problems of war and poverty and indignity. You and I have seen too many among our students of high promise squander their talent for a lifetime of constructive work at a high level for the cheaper and transient satisfaction of throwing himself on some immediate barricade in the name of "involvement." Posturing in the name of a good cause is too often the substitute for thorough thought or the patient doggedness it takes to build something.

Because we assume our own faith in education perhaps we have not preached it well enough. We have left it to the economists and the politicians to translate teh value of education into earning power and let it go at that. A generation whose brightest minds are unsatisfied with the dollar as the measure of success cannot be expected to find relevance in such appeals.

One of the new responsibilities for our old generation of educators is to remind the most highly motivated among the oncoming generation that there is no shortcut to the intellectual capacity which is now required to be useful in this ever shrinking ever complicating world. The chance to make a constructive difference in the lives of others, not the full dinner pail, is the highest reward of a higher education. If impatient anti-intellectualism of the radical left is not to seduce many of our best brains away from true usefulness; we and our faculties have to resassert again and again that emotional oversimplification of the world's problems is not the paper to their solution.

But let me return to my text. What of the ends? If they don't justify the means, what does?

Far more fundamental, far more pervasive than the impatience of the anti-intellectual activist, is the uneasy feeling that society is a structure of power without purpose, education's capacities have no convincing objectives; life serves no end larger than itself. "Fat City" is an image with more meaning than is the "Great Society."

Disengagement bordering on indifference is a far greater threat to a world on the verge of nuclear anarchy and riddled with urban indeceny than is the shrill cry of protest sometimes bent more on exhibitionism and destruction than on construction. The pressures which flatten a capacity for both moral outrage and a constructive conscience are awfully great in our time. Some are old, some are intensified, soome are new.

Privilege, including the privilege of the best in education, has always run the dual risk of courting smugness on the one hand and defensiveness on the other. Neither self satisfaction nor sheepishness are very rich soil for morally motivated action.

Insensitivity is not a peculiarly modern trait. However, to the ranks of the philistine is now joined that intellect whose critical and analytical capacity is so refined that he becomes paralyzed by doubt. Doubt is rarely consciously cruel, but it can be just as callous if it paralyzes moral purpose.

The new allies of moral indifference are specialization and organization which tend to mean that most people are responsible for one a part of hte life around them; very ery few see o feel responsibility whole.

And too many of those who do, feel so beholden to so many constituencies than the value of achieving consensus rises much higher than the value of expressing conviction.

So, Mr. Chairman, I come to the second responsibility of the old generation of educators, faculty and administrators alike. It is not new, it is just harder to shoulder in an increasingly specialized, organized, if you will dependentized, world. We all have a responsibility not to let the sword of our own conviction fall to the ground. Not because we are wiser or less fallible than those who have no audience, but because our preceptorial position puts the responsibility on us not to become faceless men incapable of expressing personal conscientous conviction. Not to pelase the activists, but to stem the tendencies to moral disengagement, teacher and dean and president must cure the misimpression that we approve of all we would permit or oppose all we would not espouse. To cultivate a weasel worded tolerance in the name of objectivity is to fail the duty as preceptor to set an example of moral and intellectual courage. It could only confirm the allegation that ours is an apparatus of means without ends.

But the quest of the young for a more satisfactory purpose is our quest too.

Our world and our country as well as all of us individually are in quest of ourselves.

For survival the world must find a pattern of order which permits revolutionary change, and yet forbids resort to the weapons of total frightfulness.

For survival the nation must find a pattern for society which promises dignity and decency in urban work and life.

For survival each of us individually must find a pattern for life which gives purpose to effort and satisfaction deeper than animal existence.

So my final injunction to our clan of the old generation of educators is closer to my text. Let us never forget that the university is the last best hope for the discovery and articulation of ends which will justify the means --not only the means of education but the means of society and of life itself. Imparting information, deepening knowledge, training skill, enlarging intellectual capacity generally are our clearly visible tasks. Because it is at the core, perhaps it is less visible; it is the struggle for a system of values which will renew purpose.

I can do no better than to draw upon the articulate faith of my predecessor; "If we cannot say we know that liberal education is the surest source of the qualities of mind and spirit of which we now, at this moment in our history, stand most in need, you can say you believe that it is, and I shall say I agree with you. Never has the future of our civilization depended as much as it does now upon our capacity to grow in intellectual and moral stature, and therefore upon the kind of education most conducive to that growth. The times call for boldness and innovation. Might not the boldest thing we could do, the greatest educational innovation of all, be to life the bushel under which we have been hiding the light of liberal education and reveal its true power to its posessors?"

And that, ladies and gentlemen readers of my blog, is why I really wish Kingman Brewster, Jr., Yale '41, University President 1963-1977, was still around. I feel like I did my part today by entering into the global internet-consciousness new information which previously had been locked up in a series of mimeographed copies on long rows of shelves in Hamden, CT.

Thoughts? Dear readers, I know you are there, my tracking robots tell me so, so why not comment? I respond very diligently, and who knows, we might even all have a nice discussion if you write and share your thoughts. It might even encourage me to blog more.