ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300072
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SAL CHOUDHURY
DAY ONE. They start arriving one at a time ... young faces with inexhaustible energy. A middle-aged couple helps their son unload his belongings. The 10-year-old sister joins in with smaller articles; she senses an obscure pride and expectation not unlike the cabin boy handing over the battle plans to Adm. Nelson at Trafalgar. In this instance, it is a skateboard.
He is going to college. The father unburdens his mind with a sigh of relief as he empties the car. Now their son has a better opportunity in life than they did. A better education, a college degree that will open the doors to a better livelihood. The closing of a plant, perhaps, will not threaten the very core of his existence any longer. The mother looks at their young daughter with warm tenderness. Next time, they will have to bring her. Time passes so without mercy.
Computers and television sets, loudspeakers that could be mistaken for small closets, and once, some years ago, a cockatoo in a cage, cover the sidewalk. The seriously mature ones bring their coffee makers. For the citizen to be, somewhere in that pile of footlockers and roller blades hides a rosebud.
Some religions and cultures prefer to celebrate the entrance to adulthood with solemn ceremonies. The trepidation of the heart imbued with great expectations and unknown apprehensions of entering adulthood permeates this fall campus. Perhaps there is a parallel: the trepidation of the heart when an astronaut walks over the bridge into the capsule.
The responsible ones bring their toolboxes, the wealthy their skis. But that is not the point. Soon the urgency of something much more important will erase all these differences without making them the same. Yes, they will read some difficult books and learn some difficult ideas. But still, that is not the point.
They come wearing arcane T-shirts heralding Whitesnake, and Guns and Roses. These are not the omens of insurrection but overt guises to conceal innocence. They never are the indicators of a lack of thought or intelligence. In some way, the older generation on campus basks in the reflected innocence of the young. But, regrettably, this innocence will have to be traded off for maturity.
Before long they will start to talk to each other. The ones from Alabama will speak differently from the ones from Montana. Some never swam in the Mississippi; others never saw snow. To some, eating snail, even if you call it by its French name, is just not done; to others, banana and peanut butter together make no sense.
The Asian who learned English will have to relearn it again. He is soon embarrassed to recall why so many people had puzzled expressions when he spelled out his last name with the letter "zed"; now it is a "zee." No longer is a paper written about something, it is written on something: That's odd - for so long he wrote on the paper about something. Neither escargot, nor banana and peanut butter, will do. The Asian student will crave the aroma of cilantro, and the European some good bread. But before long, pizza-taco-sandwich and beer will become the common currency.
Is the university going to erase all these differences and make conforming "college boys" and "college girls" of all of them? Not at all! Within the regularities of the common ground lies hidden the unique opportunity for each student to excel in a manner without equal.
The university does not intend to make all equal in their respective abilities. Initially it offers a common but extensive intellectual environment. In the beginning, all the students will buy the same books, go to the same classes. This must be so. The specific calling of a single individual may only be discovered when the broad general possibilities are presented to the student body as a whole. Individual capabilities emerge slowly over time when the opportunities are presented; it may not be predetermined.
The university is an undivided singularity in its existence, but its mission is not so. The mission of the university is to inspirit in an individual a peerless excellence, to unlock the unique gift possessed by each one and unequaled by others. Nowhere in the world is someone splitting the atom within the audible distance of someone practicing the flute. The opportunity of the atom or the flute must present itself to the student.
They may come with differing personalities; but each leaves with a distinctive intellectual and human ability. And thus they are intelligent enough to know that a unity among fellow citizens is not brought about by unanimity of thought. That is the portent of expectations and apprehensions we see in the youthful faces every fall.
But we are slightly ahead of our story. Let us go back to Day One. It is evening now. His parents and the little sister are long gone. In the tiny dormitory room he can hear the echo of other students lugging their gear up and down the hall. The dining room will not be open for a few more days. He grabs his windbreaker and walks down to find a place to eat. In the distance he can hear the discordant din and see the reflected light above Main Street.
A cloudless sky domes Earth. Ursa Major continues its endless revolutions around the North Star. Cold wind blows the fallen leaves over the sidewalk; their dry sound sends a shivering chill down his back. The twisting leaves hold a never-ending argument with every nook and cranny. He puts his hands inside the pockets of the windbreaker to ward off the chilly wind.
Perhaps he will meet someone from Montana; tonight he is lonely.
Sal Choudhury is an associate professor of architecture at Virginia Tech.
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