Universities

A topic brought up in my Cultural Anthropology class today was the differing definition of “culture” over the last two centuries or so. In the time of Newman’s statements, “culture” was a verb; a word meant to mean growth, such as one might cultivate a crop of corn, or what have you. Today, this same definition still stands, but only if you are a member of Horticulture Club or manage a greenhouse on your property; not a word the average college student uses. “Culture” these days means, to quote my Anthropology professor, Dr. Suzanne Seriff, “the system of values and meanings about the nature of experience that are shared by a people and passed on from one generation to another.” Both definitions can apply to our university experience. The stereotype among college students is that the university described by Newman was stuffy and stuck-up;

rather unlike the view of most undergrads of UT, which is a known party school and home to many different campus organizations and communities.

Peter T. Flawn cited Newman, “[he] argued brilliantly that the university exists for one purpose—the culture of the intellect” (306). This quote represents the agricultural definition; that minds are meant to be grown and matured, and are ready to be pruned (graduate) only after a certain amount of knowledge has been attained after much hard work. But, our own Texas Congress member President Mirabeau B. Lamar says that, “If we desire to establish a Republican Government upon a broad and permanent basis, it will become our duty to adopt a comprehensive and well regulated system of mental and moral culture (304). This emphasizes not only the importance of academics in universities, but also the moral well-being of the students as well as unification and community in society as a whole; the shared “nature of experience” by today’s “culture” definition.

Another response I had to the reading was about the urbanization of universities. I see this as a product of our continued urbanization in the country and around the world. In waiting for a friend, I wandered through the main building, which shows pictures of UT back in the early days, when there were few buildings, large patches of grass, and tiny trees around the “six pack”. These days, we have the “south lawn” and the “battle oaks”, but what else remains of nature on this campus? Waller Creek is horribly polluted, especially after the oil spill last week, and the few trees we do have are well manicured and as stiff and academic as the walls around us in newer buildings such as the Seay building and the PCL. Newman recounts the Proctor of the German nation’s mourning the loss of beauty of the University of Paris, “ ‘Whither shall the youthful student now betake himself, what relief will he find for his eyes, wearied with intense reading, now that the pleasant stream is taken from him’” (315)? I only wonder how long it will be before we lose even the last bit of nature we see on this campus to advertising, business, or concrete monuments and statues of heroes of old.