TRINITY N ews'/ettet COLLEGE A PUBLICATION OF TRINITY COLLEGE WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE March, 1979
No.13
FROM THE WARDEN, DR. EVAN L. BURGE:
For the past two years I have reported, with some surprise, on the increasing demand for places in College. This year has been no exception. As well as a steadily increasing number of applications from all parts of the State and a wide variety of schools, we were faced with a special problem. Out of 225 residents last year, 165 chose to remain in residence. I think that this is the largest such umber in the history of the College. bile rejoicing at our popularity I did not find it easy to be confronted with 160 applicants for only 65 places. In the end the problem was partially solved by using small Cowan bedrooms as single bedstudies. The intending residents were warned in advance, and I am glad to report that every one of them decided that membership of Trinity was more important than lots of room. The year has got off to a buoyant start. The spirit of enthusiasm and participation is as high as it has ever been, and this year's Freshers' Welcome Dinner was the most exuberant in current College memory. Last year I was given the honour • f giving the Graduation Address at a ceremony where several Trinity members graduated. Among other things, I spoke of the increasing level of anxiety among students, and of its effects. For many, this begins with the H.S.C. and wondering whether or not one's quota-score will be high enough. At University, there is the anxiety of continuous assessment (sometimes, I fear, with long unsettling delays before the student knows whether his or her work is acceptable or not); and the fear of failure, which for some would entail the loss of the tertiary allowances. More and more there is the anxiety of finding a job after graduation. Two effects of this anxiety are these: First, our students are working harder than ever before. Compared with students I have seen in the great American Universities, they are not yet working as hard as they could be. I have never seen our library crammed full with diligent
The Clarke Building — with a few leaves of the Oak.
students and faculty members at 11 o'clock on a Sunday night, as I have in Princeton. For this I am thankful. Having studied at Oxford and Princeton, as well as Queensland, I feel that our Australian Universities do very well by world standards, even if our graduates, by and large, do not have the detailed technical competence over their material that their harderworking American counterparts do. In Oxford, and no doubt the same applies to Cambridge, we had far more leisure, and were encouraged to think more about rather less. Mastery of content just for its own sake was of little import compared with training in the art of thinking — weighing conflict-
ing evidence, forming one's own conclusions, and then having to justify these conclusions in the presence of a distinguished scholar. So our students are working harder — well and good — but I hope that in Trinity we shall resist the temptation to glorify slogging for its own sake, and will continue to encourage our students to take time to think for themselves, to communicate their thoughts directly and effectively, and always to be open to the possibility that they might be wrong. Our task is a searching for truth through discussion and criticism. I am deeply ashamed when I read that a person with unpopular views is not given a fair hearing on a University campus.