Keep It Simple
By: Wight Martindale
The other day, three students in my Economics class told me they were robbed in their fraternity the previous evening. They all missed class because they had to file police reports and get their lives back together.
I read in the Brown and White that a student claimed she was sexually assaulted, and then recanted.
Soon enough, I suspect, we will get our first report of a binge drinker being hauled into the emergency room at St. Luke’s for treatment.
All this is very disturbing. None of it should happen, but it does. Some people are thoughtless; some people are just plain bad.
At the same time, every day of school has been sunny and beautiful.
My freshman students are as enthusiastic and bright as any I have ever taught.
I saw a student writing assistant, part of Greg Skutches’ Writing Across the Curriculum program, meeting with younger students in the library, patiently helping them through their first theme.
The professors I hang around with at lunch seem pumped up about their classes. I see Rosemary Mundhenk, who has been teaching serious students serious literature for decades here at Lehigh, scribbling last minute notes before her first class on David Copperfield, one of the great works of the human imagination.
I frequently run into Paul Brockman, our most distinguished newly minted Joseph and Amy Perella Professor of Finance, zooming around campus, anxiously preparing his first course for Lehigh undergraduates.
When I asked him if he had been to the Linderman Library, he said he had. “Nice building,” I said. “That’s the most elegant academic building I have seen on any campus,” he replied.
A year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the greatest financial crash since the Depression, the stock market is recovering nicely. While Yale and Harvard reported endowment losses of about 30 percent, Lehigh has been doing relatively well. I would guess that we are down less than 10 percent from our highs. Not bad, all things considered.
All this blizzard of conflicting activity puts me in the advice-giving mood.
Here goes.
First, there is always plenty to be cheerful about.
But to enjoy the good times, we must all battle to keep life simple.
Lehigh is far too willing to admit all the pressures and temptations of the outside world into what should be a refreshing, less complicated college experience. We have too much competition, too many clubs and affinity groups (they do not unite the campus, they fragment it), too many outside speakers (a shameful waste of money), and too many noble causes and diversions. Avoid them all. Avoid the speakers (they are usually blowhards anyway), don’t join the clubs, and don’t worry about saving the planet, or curing cancer, or eliminating poverty—at least not yet. And stay away from television.
Here is some advice on the subject from the great Yale intellectual, Harold Bloom: “Do not attempt to improve your neighbor or your neighborhood by what or how you read. Self-improvement is a large enough project for mind and spirit.” That’s an understatement. Think about it.
Make friends, do your homework, and if you have an interest—sports, or singing, or journalism, or something like that—do it. But avoid the rest. The classroom experience should be the centerpiece of your college life. Only in the classroom can you get your money’s worth here—if your teachers are no good, study with others who are. Classes should not be boring. The great teachers are what most old-timers remember about college. Don’t make class work an afterthought, and don’t accept mediocrity easily.
Finally, behave yourself. Be reasonable.
On that subject, here’s a thought from Satchel Paige, an uneducated, itinerate pitcher, now proudly ensconced the Baseball Hall of Fame. Satchel didn’t know much about Yale, but he knew thing or two about the sportin’ life. “Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society” he cautioned. “The social ramble ain’t restful.”
So there. Class dismissed.
