Date:         Mon, 02 Sep 96 07:30:42 EDT
From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Organization: Central Michigan University
Subject:      The First Day of Class: Autumn's Harvest
To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY <SOCGRAD@CSF.COLORADO.EDU>
Message-Id:   <960902.081333.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
The first day of the Fall Semester has/is always a natureal high.  As
student and as professor, I enter the class fully aware of its promise
and the new friendships it inevitably brings.

Yet as one goes on and gets on in academia, the promise fails and the
light fades for some.  I don't want that for you.  I've seen so many
faculty dim and fade; lose interest and for a few, turn into a bother
and a bore.  I don't want that for you.  So, in praise and protection
of that precious moment of beginning, I give you WH Auden who, with
his sharp tongue and ascerbic wit, made comment upon those academics
who fail their students and the great trust of the office they serve.

In passing, Auden turns his sniddity upon students as well; students
who do not treasure the oceans of knowledge offered them...who take
the easy way, cut corners and close themselves off from the greatest
voyages of the mind.

So read the following fragments from his much longer, UNDER WHICH LYRE,
with the rare good humor vested in it but not the bitterness which
erodes both the mind and spirit also found there.

   UNDER WHICH LYRE...
   [Fragments from...]

Professors back from secret missions
resume their proper erudition
    though some regret it;
They liked their consultancies a lot,
They met the biggest shot and do not
    let you forget it.

Brutal like Olympic Games,
fought with smiles and corporate names,
    but less dramatic,
this dialectic strife between
the students and the university gods
    is twice and mean
    and more fanatic.

But jealous of our god of dreams
his better work in secret schemes
  to rule the New World Order,
Unable to invent the Lyre to charm
  the Pacific Rim
he creates with simulated fire
  lectures which praise but him.

And when he occupies a college
Truth is replaced by Useful Knowledge;
   He pays particular
attention to business needs
public relations, sports and
   other empty deeds.

Postmodernists declare
that they are in complete despair
   but keep on writing.

Lone scholars such as you and me
   sniping from the pages of our
   learned periodical,
   our facts defend;
like intellectual marines
landing on magazines,
   capture truths methodical.

Philosophers melt away like fog
after they create their decalogue
   which runs as follows:

Thou shalt not do as the Dean so pleases
thou shalt not write thy doctor's theses
     on education.
Thou shalt not worship projects commercial
     nor bow before the administration.

Thou shalt not construct questionnaires
or quizzes upon world affairs,
     nor with complacence
take any test.  Thou shall not sit
with statisticians nor commit
     a social science.

Thou shalt not be on friendly terms
with guys in advertizing firms,
     nor speak with such
as read the bible for its prose,
nor above all, make love with those
     who grab too much.

Thou shalt live within thy means
and forgo credit cards of golds and greens.
     If thou must chose
between the chances, choose the odd;
read Critical Sociology
     and trust in God.


[Postscript...Auden wrote his version of the poem above at Harvard
in 1946...right after scholars were returning to university after
running the war and working in Washington...

I have reworked it a bit to better fit 1996...but have been true
to the truths and tasks Auden set for himself...making mock of
those who are too much in the world; too partisan with those
proud in power.  I don't want that for you or for your students.

                                      Have a Good Semester,

Next week I will begin the 3rd                          TR Young
year of mini-lectures.  I will
report on the new critical
edges I saw in the Stone/Couch
Symposium in Nottingham, and later,
in New York Meetings of ASA.