Student Complacency
John L. Atkins III discusses student complacency in campus engagement.
Interview on 2011-06-14 00:00:00 -0400
Transcript
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You sometimes wonder about complacency,
00:00:04.732
and I don't mean complacency on the name change but just complacency on what students can do and how students can be involved in helping set direction and set policy.
00:00:16.529
Again you've got to remember the setting. This was pre-. Campus protests weren't known in the early '60s.
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Campus protests came later. There weren't student representatives on the board of trustees or whatever.
00:00:32.640
Dean Stewart told me one day, he said, "You know we spend the first two years trying to kind of help you figure out what you're doing and the next two years nobody listens to you, but then you're gone."
00:00:45.674
And he didn't mean it to be as flippant as I just said it but he just, you know, there's this constant churn and so you can only stay connected with the students for so long and then they move on.
00:00:56.930
So there was a certain complacency. I worried sometimes if that was a part of the DNA at NC State at that time versus some other campuses.
00:01:08.352
I don't know if I'm right or wrong.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.
