Outlook (December 10, 1957)
Specialize, Organize, Criticize!
Page two of today’s paper carries a comment by the Assistant Dean of Men. Mr. DeMarr decries the situation on campus not as apathy, but as a lack of organization. This may be true. Perhaps we are not organized. Viewing the situation as a whole, I believe the trouble is that we are not specializing. In this day and age this is an inexcusable fault. You can approach any student on campus and get his comments on a dozen or more things that he feels are deplorable. Think of what a blast he could make if he were to specialize on one thing.
Specialization is not the complete answer to this, which brings us back to Mr. DeMarr’s comments on organization. This is the answer. Specialize and arganize. Select the thing that you are most interested in complaining about, and then go out and find a few others who have complaints about the same subject. Go one step further; institute a system whereby committees or clubs could be organized which would concentrate on just one situation.
A typical list of clubs could include such ones as: the We Find Conditions In The Dining Hall Deplorable Because Club; or The Daydodger’s Discussion Group On Why We Think Parking Facilities Are Unfair To Us; or, on another tangent, the We Feel That Student Publications Are Miserable Because Committee. (This latter group could be subdivided into two segments, one on the Diamondback, and one on the Old Line, which would meet once a week on different nights, with a yearly seminar on the Terrapin, to be held the first night after its disbursement.)
The above are not all the possibilities, and you don’t even have to limit yourselves to the major interests on campus. After organized, this program could be expanded to include conditions encountered in only one college. Even more specialized than this, you could eventually segregate groups discussing conditions encountered only by Pre-Vets, Pre-Meds, Accountants, Engineers, etc.
I ask you, why should you be a poor old jack of all trades and master of none? Twenty opinions are better than one, and you could always get a report from the other groups that you might have a cursory interest in. You can rest assured that these people will be able to answer any question, and better define any ill-feeling that you might have as to any other facet of student life in a manner that you could be proud of.
When I think of this magnificent plan, which I am sure must have entered my mind through some divine guidance, I am overcome by emotion. Think of the new vistas that can be exploited on the collegiate horizons. What cannot this new method of critical analysis accomplish? Shame on you, Mr. Shulman. The answer lies not in the abusement of feminity, but here, under our fingertips, and it is not until now that we have become aware of it.
Criticism is the answer, but not disorganized criticism. Organized criticism, specialized criticism is what we need. Band together, bring some form to this formless mass. Be proud to say, I am a “Dining Hall” man, or I am an “Infirmary” man. I leave you now, in complete confidence that my plan will not fall into some musty corner to rot and fall apart. I shall sleep tonight in utter assurance that this is the answer, the key, the panacaea. This shall lead us from the brink of despair upon which we are now teetering, and shall carry us to the greatest heights attainable in the collegiate sphere.
