Cheerleaders and Class Leaders

School spirit up

-grades down?

The side shows are so numerous,so diverting,-so important, if youwill-that they have swallowed upthe circus, and those who performin the main tent (the professors)must often whistle for their audi­ences, discouraged and humiliated

So Woodrow Wilson describedthe "collegiate way of life" andits effect on the serious businessof education at the time he waspresident of Princeton. Other edu­cators, including Robert Hutchins,have been more caustic. Some edu­cators, however, also includingcollege presidents, have sung thepraise of the "well-rounded" man,and pointed out darkly that college"is more than a mind factory."School spirit, like other forms ofpatriotism, may develop manygood qualities of mind and heart,but does it also support the uni­versity's intellectual goals, or doesit undermine them?

Social scientists tend to reactlike other professors to "schoolspirit" - that is, usually withexasperation. But social scientistscan also study the question and,within the limits of the study,come up with reasonably reliableanswers. Robert Wenkert andAssociate Professor of SociologyHanan C. Selvin, both of the Uni­versity of California at Berkeley,have published the results of sucha study based on questionnairesfilled out by 894 students on theBerkeley campus.

The Loyal SpiritSchool spirit they define as in­

dicating loyalty to the school andparticipating in extra - curricularactivities. How do you test whohas it? The students were askedif they agree with the statementthat "more efforts should be made

to increase the school spmt onthe Berkeley campus." The as­sumption was that those agreeingwith this statement had moreschool spirit than those disagree­ing. Twenty-nine percent agreedstrongly, 49 percent agreed moder­ately, 16 percent disagreed moder­ately, and 6 percent disagreedstrongly. Those in favor of in­creasing school spirit, therefore,outnumbered those opposed almostfour to one.

These then are the base groups-those who were in favor ofincreasing school spirit and there­fore presumably had it; and thosewho were not, and presumablydid not.

Those with school spmt, ofcourse, went to football games toroot for the team in overwhelmingnumbers-about 90 percent; andinterest in team sports was, as in

Should you tell ...John Cumming write in their bookClosed Ranks: "Mental illness, itseems, is a condition which af­flicts people who must go to amental institution, but until theygo almost anything they do isnormal." Erving Goffman, sociol­ogist at the University of Cali­fornia at Berkeley, notes in hisbook Asylums: "Case records inmental hospitals are just now com­ing to be exploited to show the in­credible amount of trouble a per­son may cause for himself andothers before anyone begins to

30

think about him psychiatrically,let alone take psychiatric actionagainst him." Once he goes, how­ever, he has been labeled mental­ly "disturbed," and he passes be­pond the pale of willing social ac­ceptance.

Guilty if CaughtIn short, like the boy with his

hand in the cookie jar, the mental­ly ill are guilty only if found out.1£ they or their families seek pro­fessional help, they will be re­jected by acquaintances and neigh­bors. What this can mean for peo­ple who must decide whether to

seek help - perhaps desperatelyneeded - is obvious. •

SEE: Derek L. Phillips, "Rejection as

a Consequence of Seeking Help

for Mental Disorders," American

Sociological Review, December,

1963.

Erving Goffman, Asylums, Anchor

Books, Doubleday & Company,

1961.

Elaine and John Cumming, ClosedRanks, Harvard University Press,1957.

Trans-action

the days of the raccoon coat andthe hip flask, a prime indicator ofwho had the faith. But 50 percentof even the strongest non-support­ers went to the games too, if onlyfor entertainment.

Perhaps a greater contrast oc­curred in concern about studentgovernment, in which two-thirdsof the "strong supporters" ofschool spirit were "greatly" or"moderately" in t ere s ted, whileonly 23 percent of the "moderatenon-supporters" and a mere 16percent of the "strong non-sup­porters" were so interested. Twiceas many non-supporters preferredthe editorials to the sports pageof the student paper; with the sup­porters it was about equal.

Root for the TeamThe authors conclude, however,

that school spirit is not best reovealed by surveys, but by watch­ing the emotions on occasions de­voted to it, such as pep rallies andfootball games, in which "themystique of school spirit resemblesthe fervent emotions which binda patriot to his country," and "thecolors of the school and the imageof the 'enemy' (Stanford) areimbued with a 'sacred' character."True, there were some sour non­supporters who came perhaps be­cause they liked to watch football,or some such reason-but numer­ically, and vocally, they were notsignificant.

School spirit was concentratedin the organized groups; dorms

having almost as much as thetraditional centers in fraternitiesand sororities. Least concernedwere the married students who, asthe authors remark, were "com­mitted to a different social sys­tem," and were, in any event,"outside the dating system."

Interestingly enough, all groupsspend about equal proportions oftheir time in study, and, therefore,accept the formal standards of theuniversity. Nevertheless, in actualacademic performance, there wasa difference.

Actual failure (below C inBerkeley) was about the same inall groups. Among those whopassed, however, there was a gapbetween the strong supporters,with a large number who barelypassed with the "gentlemanly C,"and the strong non-supporters, whohad a high percentage of A stu­dents. These differences were con­fined to the extremes; those whowere only moderately for oragainst school spirit sailed alongclosely together and this blurs thepicture.

Will school spirit harm a stu­dent's academic record? Accord­ing to Wenkert and Selvin, hewill study about as much-or atleast about as long. He does notseem to stand any greater risk offailing. And the effect on hisgrades should probably be not toogreat-unless he overdoes it. Eventhere, school spirit itself mightnot be at fault.

Apart from grades, what aboutthe quality of education a studentreceives? Can he think for himself,will he continue to read and de­velop, has he broken loose fromthe old prejudices and parochial­isms?

Can He Think for HimselfHere the gap between support­

ers and non- supporters begins towiden considerably. The moststriking example is in their atti­tude toward the support of civilliberties for non-conformist groups,in which only "25 percent of thestrong supporters were in generalagreement with the provisions ofthe Bill of Rights, as comparedwith 62 percent of the strongopponents."

Similarly - though the differ­ences were not so great-the sup­porters of school spirit were lesslikely to be interested in nationaland world affairs, to have spentmuch time with friends and col­

leagues discussing them, or to bein the habit of reading much aboutthem. The fervid participants incampus politics are, therefore, ap­parently much less interested inpolitics on the grand scale or othernational issues, than those whotend to look down their noses atcampus involvement-or say they

do. •

SEE: Robert Wenkert and Hanan C.Selvin, "School Spirit in the Con­text of a Liberal Education,"Social Problems, Fall, 1962.

A NOTE TO EDITORS

Trans-action

TRANS·ACTION articles may be reproduced without prior written

permission by newspapers, magazines, and journals if a copy of

the re-publication is sent to TRANS-ACTION. Credit must be

given: "reprinted from TRANS.ACTION, a publication of the

Community Leadership Project, Washington University, St. Louis,

Mo." Content may not be used in books or anthologies withoutprior written permission from TRANS-ACTION.

31