UMUC - European Division - Mason G Daly - AF Education Conference: Tradition and Modernity - April 12 1966 - Toul Air Base

Europe;Hoffmann, RosemaryToul Air Base Dr. Mason G. Daly AF Education Conference Director, European Division 12 April 1966 University of Maryland UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND -Tradition and Modernity ­ The title as announced here in the program is not my own. It came to me in the mail from USAFE. Although I suppose a title can be a loaded, even a dangerous thing, it is a relief not to have to dream one up. And there is a challenge involved going at it this way , for the speech which follows a title should be related to it without undue strain. Now when I first got the speech assignment and the title I thought it seemed hardly fair that the USC and Boston representatives, who are given the same amount of time, were not also given a title with such seeming implications and connotations, were not given something that structured their presentations as mine seems to be structured. But I thought about the title and decided it was as good as any and probably better than anything I could come up with. The real challenge remains – to discover what I am supposed to talk about and make it relate. I could have asked, I suppose, but that hardly seemed sporting. Certainly it was sporting of USAFE to give me a title and then let me hook my own speech to it. If I had asked what it all meant I might have been told, and then the whole sporting arraignment would have collapsed. Maryland, then, Tradition and Modernity, is my jumping off point. Let’s just see how sporting the exercise is. Like USAFe and USAFI, the U of Md has been around long enough to come up with a few traditions. USAFI predates USAFE by quite a few years, but Maryland reaches back its cow college and land-grant days, and that’s long enough to collect a few barnacles of tradition, a few crusts of conservatism. . And although barnacles and crusts can shine in the right light, they do, from time to time, need brining to light, sometimes scraping in public. Even Maryland in Europe has been characterized as having a middle-aged spread and a conservative stance. Either quality may be taken to mean we have too much tradition or too many anxieties or too little imagination. It may only be that Maryland’s fall-guy in Europe is the real middle-aged factor, ever more angular and crusty in his stance, with some spread showing here in the area of the middle years. He takes some comfort in knowing that if he is Mr. Maryland in this gathering, in this Europe, Mr. USAFE, and Mr. USAFI, Jr., also present, have been around a long time too, and, like him, are showing signs of a slightly rearranged distribution of weight and or hair line. Larry Gates and Joe Elam move their headquarters far too often to let any barnacles form; Doug Beakes moves much too fast to worry about middle age, is far too harassed by changing regulations and changing budgets to assume anything like a static stance. I do not envy Joe his musical headquarters (he’s an expert on how to lift a filled filing cabinet), but I do often envy Doug Beakes his energy, his determination, and his sense of conviction. The creative ad-ministrator has been described as “a man of curiosity and discontent, with unlimited enthusiasm for his job. He is restless, intense, strongly mo-tivated, He creates an atmosphere of excitement and urgency among his associates. He is open-minded and listens to new ideas. He is unorthodox and questions conventional ideas.” If that description of a creative administrator fits anyone present, middle-aged or not, I suggest that it fits Mr. USAFE best of all. Mr. USAFE, in his last USAFE-wide conference, quoted Admiral Rickover – another questioner of the orthodox, the conventional, the traditional – to the effect that “at different stages in history, different kinds of education are needed. Education either advances or retreats, and it will retreat if it stands still. For these reasons,” says Rickover and Mr. USAFE, “education must continually be kept under close scrutiny to insure that it will always produce the kind of people needed at a given moment in time.” We can all say amen to that, amen to this impulse to scrutinize our current programs and plan others that are more in harmony with the times. You see, the first Beatitude according to Beakes is one with which we all fully agree: Blessed is the outfit that fears not innovation and change. Although Mr. USAFE and Mr. Maryland have recently been stalled in communi-cation reference language teaching by the complexities and cross-currents of their separate outfits, they have had no real conflict in principle, they are beleaguered by many of the same uncertainties, and they believe in the same beatitudes. I ran into an article the other day in the Phi Delta Kappan magazine, written by a wag from the U of Illinois who made good sense and good humor in discussing some Beatitudes for Beleaguered Bigwigs, some worthy declarations of assaulted persons of consequence. I believe some of his beatitudes can be varied to apply here and I will, of course, introduce several of my own. In the jargon of Biblical beatitudes, the first for today reads; “Blessed is the outfit which relies both on compasses and anchors in fulfilling its purpose.” Compasses are for going places; anchors are for staying places. It takes a cool outfit to live through the emergencies we all experience here – being deGaulled, Vietnamed out of funds an students, bomb-dropped in to excessive dropouts, that sort of thing. It takes a steady eye on the compass and a quick hand on the anchor chain to live amidst the excitement and turmoil and pedagogical testing and probing into new techniques and new materials and new teaching devices and new directives. To drag the anchor now and then may be the true mark of dynamic leadership. It is better to have the anchor at the ready then to settle for any port in the storm. Dynamic leadership calls for deliberation with caution are certainly as it calls for action with decision and promptness. It is just at this old middle-0aged outfit can some times suffer from too much caution, can seem to deliberate forever, can seem to fail to act at all. Is it the anchor, then, for tradition, the compass for modernity? Maybe. Lord knows that’s abstract, but it sounds like we are at least still afloat around here, even in our present stormy seas. “Blessed is the outfit which has a good oracle.” Great outfits of the ancient past had it easy. When faced with emergencies, like deGaulle, they were not absolutely at a loss. If Alexander the Great, for example, wanted to know whether a chariot charge or a charge of shielded footmen was the best approach to a battle, he merely consulted the oracle. Today we rarely seem to have consultant help of such high calibre. When our university officials turn to us about next year’s budget, the size of next year’s faculty, to what oracle do we turn? Well, Doug Beakes is an oracle of some real repute, and there are one to two others in Europe to whom we can turn. They in turn, I guess, turn to higher oracles, like Karacik and Quick and Zeff, and finally it is oracle right up to the great McNamara and the Great LBJ and the Great Society, and God knows that outfit needs cracular help. I’d like to see the innards of the freshly killed sheep they must be digging around in just now – like the men of old – seeking some hint about better results in Vietnam and better results with l’gènèral. They may claim to be stirring the innards of some scientific computer, but surely they are desperate enough by now to be using more primitive methods too. I know I am. When I think that the new GI bill is almost upon us, that it is already being cinched into one of the most complex of bureaucracies, the VA, which has had 150 years or more to tangle up its procedures, I am ready to settle for the quick reading of the innards of a humble chicken. Do you realize we Marylanders haven’t even had a chance to compound and complicate our already myriad registra-tion forms; and you haven’t had time to put another column on the quarterly report. We had indeed better try to sight together over the rim of the unknown in education in Europe, whatever oracular means the Gods happen to grant us. “Blessed is the outfit whose communication is clear and cogent.” It is not true that the greatest gap in existence is the one between two minds, a gap which only successful communication can close There are times when the greatest gap in existence is right between these two ears, but that is hereditary an can go unnoticed, especially if you keep your mouth shut. But the basis of communication is, I guess, speech, gesture, writing, language, and, to be sure, the temperament or temper revealed through it all. It is also that which is not said at all, either because of the hereditary gap or because of censorship or because the oracle didn’t provide a reading that could be articulated. Communication can be obfuscated (and that word itself will wreck communication), can be obscured by a lack of knowledge. Lacking enough facts, we usually give out infor-mation, ask and answer questions with something less than clarity and cogency. In today’s dictionary one finds, “dramamine: relieves seasick-ness.” Years ago before a cure was known dictionaries took a page or two to cover the subject inadequately. The best, most memorable Supreme Court decisions are apt to be the simplest: “A drunken man is as much entitled to a safe street as a sober one – and much more in need of it.” This account of a busy administration’s message to his wife upon arrival home after a hard day of letters and reports and directives is communication gone haywire: Herewith my hat and coat. Please file them for future reference Has dinner been finalized? Good. Please hold it in abeyance until further advised. An associate has furnished me with the formula for a revolutionary kind of long, cool one with the request that I research it and report my findings at the earliest opportunity. Therefore, this project requires my immediate attention However, should you require my presence to discuss any [urgent] problems, feel free to contact me. I will be in executive session in the basement. Be assured that I will alert you before completion of my undertaking so that you will have ample time to bring your efforts to a successful conclusion, after which I will be happy to attend the regular meeting with you at table. Yes, communication between a man and wife can break down. When it isn’t restored it can result in long-term unhappiness and sleepless nights in twin beds. Communication among these agencies in Europe which are ful-filling the somewhat distinct, always vital, and inevitably interlocking and complicated education requirements of Americans stations abroad, should be as maximum as possible, and, to be sure, as friendly as frequent as possible-for surely one important beatitude, which needs no illustration, is: “Blessed is the grand lit.” And another is: “Blessed is the outfit which listens with big ears and a big open mind.” And another is: “Blessed is the outfit which shrinks not in hot water.” The US Geological Survey report that the earth is just about the same size now that it was 200,000,000 years ago surely explodes the theory that everything shrinks in hot water. Just as surely the good traditions and philosophies of good education do not have to shrink in the hot water of exploding populations and exploding knowledge, do not have to shrink in the hot water of political chaos and hot war and hot controversy. Certainly another beatitude is: “Blessed is the outfit which nurtures as a fragile violet its sense of humor.” Because humor is philosophy. The two, as pointed out by Will Durant, are intrinsically related. Each is the essence of the other. The stuffed scholar, the stuffed administrator, if he lacks humor probably lacks philosophy. Pope took a jab at the stuffed ones with a satirical couplet: The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head. My head is by no means loaded with learned lumber, but I find it hard to be playful in these times, in our present circumstance, and so do most of you. If humor is the freedom flag of the human mind, the flag is too often – in me – at half mast, if on the pole at all. To see the headlines about NATO and curtailments, to dwell in the limbo of uncertainties about next year, next registration, next TDY patch, next week, tomorrow, makes it hard to be philosophical if humor is part of philosophy. But then, God Himself must have been somewhat of a humorist – else why the duck-billed platypus? Else why the education advisor? Else why the Maryland administrator? And that leads to a far out and fairly useless beatitude: “Blessed is the outfit which understand the works of Mother Nature.” As we have just noted, Mother Nature has created some odd ones, including the duck-billed platypus and, sitting here, this hybrid, or throwback, or – I like to think – this brand new, important breed of educator. Us. We may be middle-aged, some of us, but in the evolutionary pattern perhaps this breed of education cat, or platypus, or whatever we are, may be rather new and a little promising. We are sometimes reminded in military circles, even in civilian personnel circles, that we are neither fish nor fowl. The albatross, an odd bird, is said to have the widest wing-spread of all birds in relation to body size. Thus it can fly on and on. It occurs to me that many administrators here have large wingspreads in relation to body size, enabling us to sever on and on. Because the sloth, another odd creature, spends most of its time upside down, its fur lies in the opposite direction to that of other animals, toward its back instead of down from it. So when the torrential rains come, the moisture merely drops off instead of soaking in. If we do not live in an upside down position, at least some of us have learned, haven’t we, to survive veritable deluges. And I have still another nature note under this beatitude – How to capture a porcupine: Wait until you can catch one out in the open; then, watching out for his slapping tail, rush in quickly and pop a large wash tub over him. This gives you something to sit on while you figure out your next move! I said that beatitude was far out, and there really isn’t anywhere to go with it. It is merely descriptive and philosophically loaded, of course, with good humor. Now let me pass to two more beatitudes before I quit this scriptural pattern. “Blessed is the outfit which knows when to throw down the gauntlet.” and, “Blessed is the outfit which knows when to pick it up.” These outfits, and I am speaking mainly about USAFE and Maryland now, are blessed with having to work together, with having to share the grand lit. Whether a gauntlet is, in fact, a mailed fist or a gloved and – or just a figure of speech – it has a good purpose in any good relationship, although it may not belong in bed. Most of our existence together we have bedded down rather tidily. We’ve handled our gauntlets, however mailed, well enough. Indeed, we have worked hand in glove, and we still work hand in glove. The fact that the gauntlet was tossed down concerning graduate study in USAFE (and likewise in USAREUR) and that we fumbled in picking it up, has not been in the least damaging to our joint morale or our joint purpose. We have probably never served Air Force personnel and their dependents and their civilian affiliates more or better than since that particular gauntlet was picked up by someone else. I doubt that confrontation and its results really show us to be transfixed in one point in time by crusty tradition. I think it only showed that in taking up the gauntlet we did not find the right formula for action. Our compass was functioning alright, but our anchor chain was too long, Our history credits us with enough good sailing to be forgiven for this. There have not been many gauntlets we have failed to pick up, and I doubt if there will be many in the future. We have made it possible for USAFE to lead the Air Force world in the non-terminal TDY program, if we are, as we seem to be, temporarily stalled in the language element of that TDY program – because the gauntlet is being flung about over a misunderstanding about materials and over a two-way breakdown of communication – we still see more TDY challenges arising in physics and in mathematics. In addition to the now historic 14 language TDYs, we have had TDYs in history and business and automatic data processing, and we have seen the system work for the lone student who TDYs to reach other subjects to finish a degree, quite outside the TDY institutes we jointly sponsor. If any outfit 0 and I certainly include USAFE in the judgment has spent more time, energy, adrenalin, and money in updating (modernizing, if you will) its philosophy of teaching language (and math), show me the outfit. Good heavens, in absolute defiance of fate and the great, Charles, we held a French faculty institute in the heartland of deGaulle last week. The results of this time and adrenalin and money are, we assert, already evident, and in step with the best academic and Air Force goals. If it is tradition which causes us to move ahead with deliberate speed in this field, if it is tradition which makes up insist on the very best available in materials (and none has yet found the ultimate in language teaching materials or methods), if it is tradition which makes us insist that those materials be tried out by us in our circumstance of teaching, if it is tradition which makes us insist that those materials be avail-able and used on our pedagogical terms, then tradition it is. If there are barnacles on that tradition, they look pretty good when help up to the light. If that gauntlet was tossed to us, we most emphatically picked it up. Together USAFE and Maryland have for 17 years managed to intellectually stimulate tens of thousands of air men and officers in their gathering in of credits and degrees. If we have lagged here and there in becoming modern, our sense of tradition has kept the academic fabric of what we are doing whole and untarnished. If our credits are blessed in all temples of learning, it is because we strive to accommodate tradition and modernity. The accommodation is sometimes painful and prolonged, but it is there, it is going on. Like most schools, for instance, we are slow in finding this means to develop non-lab science teaching, presuming – as many of us do – that there is an important place for that kind of science teaching in a university program. But we have now brought Geology successfully into this program, and together we will find what else can be done. Obviously there is a crying need for a sound course in the history and philosophy of science, but in this age of fracturing specializations where on earth would one find the teacher. This immediately suggests the camera and several canned teacher experts on a reel, I guess. Our powers of accommodation have managed to increase our offering in the humanities rather dramatically in the last few years, enriching what had been a too-social-science-centered curriculum. Our modernizing with the times and the realities of a changing world and changing student body has resulted in the phasing out of the old degree program designed for upgrading old Air Force officers. It is no longer needed and no longer valid for the younger student body we have now, a student body which will duck a terminal-sounding degree, even though there is abundant evidence that no degree is really terminal for an intelligent and determined adult. It may not be modern, but it is a present need, and we have continued to assist hundreds each year to get those magic, teaching-certifying Education credits, even though we are not one of the two universities who can take overseas personnel to graduate degree in Education. Because we have your invaluable and always uncalculated and essentially unrewarded assistance in councelling and registering students, especially because we have the budgeting genius of Doug Beakes and the logistical genius of Marshall Boarman at USAFE level, in absolute resistance to modernity and modern trends, we are managing to hold tuition charges down for at least another year, Yet we are managing if only just to compete for teaching talent in the States and we have raised part-time teaches’ salaries 35% in four years. With something of a modern stance we have encouraged the campus to send Dr. Aylward at the invitation of USAFE to this conference to see if we have yet another gauntlet to pick up reference credit courses via television. We may have a useful modern idea to share with you reference a tiresome traditional problem of teaching freshman English. Certainly that course continues to be the despair of freshman (especially adult freshman), of colleges everywhere, and it is our shared despair wherever Maryland is over here. I will ask that the last few minutes of the 30 allowed to me be given to our English Supervisor, Dr. Bob Speckhard, who never despairs. He wills suggest this new approach and, since it has to do with programmed learning, it is modern enough; since it has to do with grammar, it is yet traditional. And after Dr. Speckhard you hear from Dr. Beyer about our joint struggle with the modern math. Pascal once characterized man as “a chimera,” “a novelty,” “a chaos,” and “a contradiction.” The University of Maryland in Europe, even in middle-age, is still something of a chimera, a novelty, a chaos, and a contradiction. It is a simple, yet complex arrangement, it is a study in consistency and in contrasts. About it you have all been both op-timistic and pessimistic; you have found it enlightened