STUDY OF AN

Abstract

When I first decided to make Old Westbury the subject of my senior thesis, I was confronted with a wide variety of interesting events to study. Such crises as the 50/50 issue, the call for co‐ed dorms, required courses, and the call for student power, interest me very much, and beg for analysis. However, any thorough attempt at analyzing these specific issues always arrived at the same point eventually. They all had their roots in the high expectation level of the student body. That students at a bold new experimental college should have high expectations is not surprising; that these expectations, which were created by that college, are by and large unsatisfiable, is surprising. Given the mix of great expectations and unsuspected restraints on satisfying them, crisis was inevitable. I now feel that to study any of the crises as a separate entity would be a serious mistake. Medical doctors are told during their training to be cautious about treating symptoms, lest the relief brought about by such treatment cause the real problem to go unchecked. This paper is an attempt to see the separate crises in perspective, as symptoms of a fundamental flaw in the organism. Professor Larry Resnik, one of the College's earliest planners, presently a member of the faculty, urged me to state as a "given" that "Old Westbury was 'obviously' intended to be 'experimental' within the context of the state system". He suggested the appropriate question to research would be; "Given the limitations on experimentation inherent in being part of the state system, what could we have experimented with that we did not?" After considering this carefully, I am forced to conclude that this was not so "obvious" to many of the early planners, or the first students. His question is an interesting one, and at this point appropriate for investigation. But, it misses the fact that the full burden o restraint under which this college functions is still not accurately perceived by many students and faculty. The "given" still is not "taken". Until the magnitude of these restraints is fully understood, Old Westbury College will remain a flawed creature which cannot help but cause a form of violence on itself and its members, as it tragically stumbles on. I am grateful to all those who spent their time discussing aspects of this paper with: me. The, perspective I have gained on events is largely due to those people. In the same breath, I must thank those same people for providing me with the education I came here seeking. It is with an ironic smile that I concede that the flawed creature I am attempting to dissect gave me a' good, perhaps even experimental, education. It is partly because I believe the opportunity for such an education is vanishing, that I write this paper.