I'm forgetting the number of that one
that I quote in the book, and I do
tend to like the ones that are very daffy
and have a lot of fantasies of persecution in them.
But as with time, I have a problem with numbers.
Let me say something that's sort of in the back of my mind,
I'll make it explicit.
I'm talking about culture.
The culture of the University is something we need to attend to,
and probably more of us here can do something about that.
This is not my personal vanity.
I'm not talking about me, though,
I'm afraid that you will think I am.
It's too bad that there's no undergraduates here.
So much that happens--
OK, three.
OK, raise your hand-- four, five, six.
There are six undergraduates here.
Seven, eight, whatever.
I think in the culture of the campus--
we are somewhat infiltrated by the culture
at large, when we should be a little bit more different.
We should be something else.
And the kids need, and I know there
are men and women-- they're not just children,
but to some extent, undergraduates are children.
It's an infantilizing experience to be an undergraduate.
You're subject to rewards and punishments in the forms
of grades and so forth.
And in many ways, especially the 17
and 18-year-old undergraduates are kids.
They are children.
And it's the responsibility of the grown ups in the community
to tell the children, this belongs to you.
This is for you too.
And I think the children tend to think classes are for them.
Their won-- sports programs-- for some of them are for them.
Their own favorite cultural things of their generation,
whatever the music or the video or the TV is, is for them.
And if there's a concert on the campus,
it's not for them, or dance.
The classes are their job.
This is not their job or their business.
And somebody told me today that teacher, Janice Dewey.
Janice Dewey tells her students, you
must go to the Poetry Center.
I am telling you--
my authority-- I don't know how she--
I don't know what she--
there's award-- she just tells them, I am--
I'm in charge here, and I am telling you--
she doesn't need to say she's in charge.
I presume she's a good teacher, her authority is evident.
She says, I want you to go to the Poetry Center
and look around, or go to the Poetry
Center-- have a specific assignment, come back
with a one page or two page that you've written about something
you saw there-- a magazine, or a book,
or a photograph, or something that you saw there.
It's not just the University's job to teach the classes
and to bring in the things.
It's also the job to tell the kids,
this is your chance to do this stuff.
This is part of what goes on here,
and that is a cultural matter too.
That is a cultural matter, and I apologize to the seven or eight
undergraduates here, but you just
seem so wise and mature that I didn't identify you.