Text of speech delivered by Malcolm Moos at the UND Spring Commencement on June 2, 1968. Moos was the president of the University of Minnesota from 1967-1974. He entitled his remarks:  From Dollars to Grades in the Chase for Learning

Moos, Malcolm

English

UND Scholarly Commons (University of North Dakota)

University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons UND Commencement Programs Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections 6-2-1968 "From Dollars to Grades in the Chase for Learning" by Malcolm Moos, Spring Commencement: June 2, 1968 Malcolm Moos Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/und-commencement-programs Recommended Citation Malcolm Moos. ""From Dollars to Grades in the Chase for Learning" by Malcolm Moos, Spring Commencement: June 2, 1968" (1968). UND Commencement Programs. 164. https://commons.und.edu/und-commencement-programs/164 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in UND Commencement Programs by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact und.commons@library.und.edu. • Commencement Address by Dr. Malcolm C. Moos, president of · the University of Minnesota, on Sunday, June 2, 1968, at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota • • ' I • I • MALCOLM CHARLES Moos Citation June 2, 1968 • • Educator, author, political scientist, consultant to Presidents, you have assumed the highest office at the University of Minnesota at a time when that great institution begins her second century. You bring to that high office a new concept of service compatible with scholarship, a new sense of com-mitment to the common good. You envision a communiversity beyond whose walls emanate a greater vision for more effective human community. Confident that yours will be a brilliant achievement in the enrichment of knowledge for the welfare of humanity, the University of North Dakota is proud to confer upon you the Degree of Doctor of Laws. ' I -__ HE commenceme11t acldress a an orname11tal capstone to a collegiate career is expected to compact the wisdo1n of the ages # within the compass of twenty n1inutes. It i11-variabl y fails on the first of these aims and always does on the second, much to the grief of parents, students, and faculties. Since by training I alll a political scientist a term that today seems to have lost half of its title and all of its dignity I hope you will forgive me if I begin by recalling an experience that well illustrates the shards and tatters of most efforts at a commencement address. Once when I was just a boy n1y Father took me to a political rally 011 a day when. I wa11tecl to go fisl1i11g with my Uncle Bill. The speaker talked for a11 l1our and a half on tI1e differences between a Democrat a11d a Repub-lican and just as he wouncl up the dreadful harangue, the elderly white-haired gentleman on my left leaned forward and tapped a friend in the next row. ''I forgot 1ny darn hearing aid," he shouted. ''What did he talk about?'' ''I don't know," yelled back his friend. ''He didn't say." 3 • Today it is just thirty-two years since I was graduated from college. If we look ahead at the thirty-two storm-swept years that lie ahead of you, when the year two thousand will be reached and you will hopeful! y be in the prime of your careers, what will the future bring? What should it bring? And, more importantly, are we beginning to do what ought to be done to deserve the future we would like to see a future with dazzling advances in the biomedical field, a stable soci-al system, cities of distinctive architecture free from urban blight, and a world at peace with the sorrows of war permanently consignell to the scrolls of history ? Time, as the celebrated philosopher-theo-logian Augustine reminds us, is a three-fold present: the present as we experience it, the past as present memory, and the future as present expectation. Of one tnatter we can be fairly certain as we contemplate the brink of doubt .and confusion that surrounds us: Noth-ing seen1s to set ourselves and our contempor-aries further apart from earlier epochs and societies than the significance we asc.ribe to the future. More and more our thinking seek out a forward-referri11g loop. We must co11-centrate on long-range forecasting and the need to plan wisely today in order to keep critical options open for the society of to-morrow. In education we are faced with the problem of educational giantism and the need to dis-mantle assembly line educational systems. Fourteen per cent of our youth went to college when I was graduated; today 45 per cent are 4 I -enrolled and every indicator suggests that the entire nation is becoming one large classroom. But it is not entirely numbers, not funding, not the vast complexities of adn1i11istering our institutions of higher learning that lie at tl1e heart of our concern, but rather a matter that is central to the domain of the mind and the spirit. The twin dangers I submit are that~ first, we still tend to enthrone the man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing; that we ·till produce the ' ' i11-strt1cted '' man, 11ot the educatecl man. We grind people through our 1nills; we ''instruct'' but do not educate in the broadest sense. Second, we all criticize Horatio Alger for • spending his life chasing dollars, and we like to believe· that we have evolved past tl1e crass materialism of the buccaneering days that worshiped the dollar. But we have come to embrace a new cult and a deadly one at that: An educational system that exalts the chasing of grades. It is a system not designed to measure the intellectual growth potential of men and women, but a means of providing a kind of cosmetic record for tl1e ''instructed'' man. · Do not 1I1isunderstan 1. Like Lor 1 Bal-four, ''I am more or less incliffere11t whe11 being praised, 11ot altogether u11l1appy when being abused, but I lllust confess dow11right uneasy when being explained." My criticism is not of the student for chasing grades; the criticism must be directed at the systetn where the rewards and incentives make the chasing of grades a national educational steeplechase. Admission to professional schools, to grad-uate schools to the leading institutions of 5 • higher learning, are all so tight! y tied to grades that the student has no choice but to confortn. Essentially the student is tyrannized by the system and lives out his collegiate life in an academic environment of fear that hangs over hitn like a deadly tnist. It is a system that neither taxes the elasticity of the tnind nor promotes a code of educational ethics that ought to enable the entire system of higher learning. That it lingers on from generation to generation without serious challenge does great disservice both to our Republic of learn-ing our universities and colleges and our learning Republic. · HEN a friend of Inine was introduced to Brancusi, the noted sculptor, and told him he was a writer, Brancusi said quickly: ''I've never cared for the tnediurn. You can't see it from every side." In short, this is the nub of the problem as we seek to educate a truly socially literate people and find solu-tions to our own problems at honie, as well as tl1ose naggi11g sorrows througl1out the world that l1as brought America to a new brink of terors. If anytl1ing is certain in tl1is u11certain world it is that botl1 at home and abroad we will have to walk increasingly in a corridor of confrontations. They n1ay be campus confron-tations as, young people have begun to ques-tion authority in the person of dads, university presidents, bishops, and popes; encounters in tnayors' offices, or protracted negotiations that seek to build stone by stone · settlements to Illilitary conflict. In such a climate it is well 6 • • I C I I to recall that historically, this nation has IT1ani-fested · a tolerance toward violent expressions of opposition that has both amazed and con-fused tnany foreign observers. At times con-duct has gone -right to the edge of sedition. As we tilt over immensely con1plex and combustible issues, it becomes ever tnore important that we fall back upon the steady-ing traditions of our society the time-hollored, tested, true traditions of the open society the right to speak unmuzzled. It is this principle that President Starcher has up-held and for which tl1is university stands the taller. Criticism may abound from the stout defense of · free expression, but fortunate is the community to have such a defender. Sotne of you · may recall the brilliant French writer and flyer, Saint Exupery, who, in 1944, flew fron1 Southern France on a war tnission never to return. Later, at the dedication of a monu-rnent to him, an Aillerican adtnirer said to Saint Exupery's widow: ''In all of France you • can never find enough stones to build monu-ments to your dead heroes." "Well," she sighed, "there will · always be plenty to tl1row at them while tl1ey're still alive." As you take leave today and as we co11-template wl1ere we 1nay meet agai11 011 tl1e home diamond, an ageing Moos woulcl re-rnind you that in one respect your careers will stand in marked contrast to those which have gone be£ ore you: as we tnove f rotn an earning to a learning society, education will be a continuous part of your life. In a sense, your education will be somewhat comparable to a driver's license or passport that has to be 7 • • I I renewed periodically. It will. be a better world because your generation has the talents to help us ascend the upper, difficult slopes of the summits. The climb will be a long one, but you have the gifts to stay the course: a strong sense of our history and respect for it, a strong vision of )'Our mission and, tnost im~-portant, a measured optirnis01 for the destiny of this Republic. Anc_i, tnost notably of all, it may well be and I believe it 111ust be your generation that will build the structures for permanent peace. When I was just leavi11g college, the distinguished editor of the Chicago Daily News and author of Young Captain Sam Grant told me of a dialogue he once had with his eight-year-old daughter as they were driving through Southern Illinois. As they passed a national guard encalllpment th~ • young girl asked lier Dad who · all the -Inen were. He explained they were soldiers. ''What for·?'' she asked. ''They're being .trained . to fight wars," he answered. ''What are wars?'' she persisted. Her father then explained tl1at when two societies are unable to solve their disputes they go to war. Not to be put off, she waited a spell, then finally said quietly, ''Da(ldy, wl1at happer1s if neither side shows up?'' Graduates of the class of 1968, I salute yotJ. and wish you well for the exciting journey that lies ahead. You should be about your work. • • 8 ' ' • ' I DR. MALCOLM M. Moos Inaugurated May 9th as the 10th president of the University of Minnesota, Dr. Moos received the Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of Cali-fornia in 1942, and from then until 1961 was a political science professo1· at John Hopkins University. In the political field, Dr. Moos has served as the Chairman of the Maryland Republican State Central Com-mittee, and speechwriter for both President Eisenhower and Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton. In 1964, Dr. Moos joined the Ford Foundation, and two years later was named director of the Office of Government and Law of the foundation. As an author and co-author, the university president has written ''Dwight D. Eisenhower," a children's book; «'Hats in the Ring," with Stephen Hess, and ' 'The Campus and the State," with Francis Rourke. 9 .. • • • • • 

From Dollars to Grades in the Chase for Learning  by Malcolm Moos, Spring Commencement: June 2, 1968

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From Dollars to Grades in the Chase for Learning by Malcolm Moos, Spring Commencement: June 2, 1968

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