Thursday, April 22, 1993
Aging, research,
multiculturalism
Last of the spring lectures
by Gary Johnson
News Editor
Dr. Judith Sugar, a research
fellow at Borun Center for
Gerontological Research at
UCLA and associate professor of
psychology at Colorado State
University, Colorado Springs,
Colorado, discussed "Everything
You Always Wanted to Know
About Memory and Aging but
Forgot to Ask" last Thursday,
April 15.
The lecture, sponsored by Psi
Chi, the national honor society
for psychology students, was a
presentation of the Humanities
and Social Sciences Spring
Speaker Series.
Sugar dealt with the "myths of
memory and aging" and how
"stereotyping has seriously
affected the elderly."
She presented studies which
have shown that age really has
nothing to do with age, citing
logs kept by a college student and
a senior citizen, showing almost
identical occurrences of
forgetfulness, including type and
frequency.
She also pointed out that we
have "memories" and not "a
memory."
She attacked the basic
assumptions that society has
towards her topic. First, "the
idea that everyone has a set
memory capacity at birth is
false." Second, the ideal "perfect
memory," one in which very
little or nothing is forgotten,
would be a horrible existence.
Sugar described a certain case
wherein the subject was
tormented by normal
conversation; virtually every
word spoken to him would relate
to a certain memory he retained
and he would not be able to
concentrate.
The final Provost's Lecture
Series speaker was Dr. Chester
Wolford, associate professor of
business and English. He spoke
on "Teaching, Research, and
TQM", which was originally
scheduled for March 15, but was
postponed due to snow.
Wolford stressed that "the
academic disciplines have rejected
wholesale the pursuit of
excellence." He discussed his
opinion that the entire idea of the
University is now dead and gone.
"The mind is not the center of the
University anymore--the belly
is."
Wolford talked about how
America wants better teaching
because that would make it "feel
better in its bowels"--not for the
sake of better teaching.
The University now satisfies
the appetites and not the mind. It
will give the students what the
students want.
He summed up that we must
return to the good old-fashioned
lectures, to inquire within, to use
inner logic, such as Buddha,
Confucius, and Socrates.
He categorized Total Quality
Management (TQM) and
Continuous Quality
Improvement (CQI) are, again,
merely tools to satisfy the belly
of America. He said, "how many
of us wake up in the morning,
look in the mirror, and say, 'Let's
see how much worse I can do
News
************************** *
4( Walattliair trw ttakkg *
* *
*
4( Cloudy with 30 percent chance of morning snowshowers. The high *
4( will be in the low 40s. *
* *
t Szlatratail irvractmtt *
ik *
*
* Friday through Sunday: Continued cloudy and cool on Friday. The *
* high will be 45 to 55 degrees; the low 25 to 35. Partly sunny on *
* Saturday with the high of 55 to 60 degrees and the low in the 30s. *
4( Cloudy on Sunday with a chance of showers. The high will be 55*
.9( to 65;
,the low 35 to 45. *
c************************** *
Commu 001 is a good class
for students of all semesters.
Find out what everybody is screaming about!
and
today?' It's obvious that we want
to do better."
He said that Japan is successful
not because of corporatism and
TQI, but because they try to be
better people through their work,
thus making their work better
through them. In such a way,
there is no way that the work can
decline.
"We must respect our ancestors
by teaching our subsequent
generations so that quality
becomes a way of life, not just a
slogan."
Wolford is author of several
books about author Stephen
Crane, the college text Business
Communication, and other
publications.
The final presentation of the
Humanities and Social Sciences
Speaker Series took place last
night. Dr. Paul Lauter, the Allan
K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith
Professor of Literature at Trinity
College, spoke on
"Multiculturalism and the
Canonical Tradition," focusing
on the fact that the Canonical
tradition includes few minority or
women writers.
Lauter spoke of his own
experiences, saying that even
though he had an excellent
education attending Yale and the
University of Indiana among
others, he had little contact with
minority or women writers.
He also attacked the idea that
"one must be x to understand x."
Lauter stressed that cultural
difference is a fact built by
society which is not inherent in
the different cultures.
Ever Get A Pal Smashed!
He wondered why the United
States didn't focus more on the
multiculturalism aspect of
society, since the country is and
has been from the start a
multiculturalistic society.
Lauter is the founder of
Feminist Press, the first and
largest publisher dedicated to
resurrecting lost works by
women and minority writers.
A4)O CONGRATULATES ITS MIN
NU BROTHERS!!!
CHRIS BUKOWSKI RACHAEL QUINET
BILL DRIVER LUKE RAKER
ROB FARQUHAR MICHELLE REPMAN
JOE 14X11 JAMES RUHLMAN
MIKE KRONER PAT SEWAK
PAM LEINS JASON STUPKA
GEORGE LEGENZOFF ROB TRAYERS
He is most famous for his
work as the editor of the Heath
Antho.ogy of American
Literature, the first major college
text to include significant
numbers of women and minority
writers. The two-voume set was
the source of so much
controversy that Heath publishes
a regular newsletter to discuss the
issues it raises.
Page 5