I started college at a small, private school. It was far from my first choice, but the university I really wanted to attend never sent me an acceptance letter so I thought I’d better grab the one school that did. It was a disappointment but I had already learned life is full of those.
I later learned our high school counselor had sent a complete transcript only to that small college because she had a brother who taught history there. None of the other schools to which I had applied had received a transcript so they obviously couldn’t accept me.
The small college had a decent humanities program but a very haphazard science curriculum and only minimal facilities. My main benefit during my time there came from doing a radio program. I did it to get over a speech impediment, but I got to interview people like John Ciardi and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who came there to speak. That was amazing.
I transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madison as soon as I could. At the time, the land grant universities were still a bargain. Out-of-state tuition was only $500, which I could earn in less than a month working summers in a wire mill, and the science facilities were heavenly. There were real laboratories and real equipment, and they weren’t scattered in odd places around campus.
The experience gave me an appreciation for the difficulties faced by small colleges that try to do a professional job teaching science. Too often, they don’t invest in decent facilities so they attract burned-out professors who teach 30-year-old science or bitter young guys, who don’t want to be there and make you feel like you don’t want to be there either.
That’s why I was impressed and delighted to see that North Central College is willing to make the commitment that’s required to achieve excellence in the teaching of the sciences. Obviously, that requires superior professors but, unlike many disciplines, it requires superior facilities as well. Most of the sciences are hands-on. Most of the humanities are not.
And I’m willing to believe that, for a school the size of North Central, their new 125,000-square-foot Science Center, with its 18 teaching labs and 16 research labs, was a commitment and a half. I think it shows not only imagination but an uncommon determination to do the kind of teaching that many colleges promise to do but for a variety of reasons never actually accomplish.
I was also happy to see that they included 19 gathering areas in the building. Few people understand how collaborative science is. Most have a romantic idea of the scientist off by himself or herself, deep in thought, awaiting the next stroke of brilliance. Well, I have known some of the best scientists in the world, and they’re constantly sharing ideas and learning from each other.
It’s just too bad we’re still so committed to what one of my professors called the flush toilet theory of education. You load up the young and what they’ve learned is supposed to last them the rest of their lives. That’s ridiculous and outdated.
Trained scientists learn to renew their education throughout their lives, but there are millions of unemployed or underemployed individuals who would profit enormously from only a minimal amount of technical education. There are at least a million jobs waiting to be filled if only adult education would make the same kind of commitment as North Central did.
Anyway, I would again like to compliment North Central on what I’m sure was a Herculean effort and hope that next fall, when the laboratories are ready, they let interested folks take a brief tour of the facility. I’m sure it will be impressive, and I’m also sure I’ll be there.
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