such an the sraduates of my high school class, who have [ound nothing
but dead ends, and have returned after many years of absence from
school to initiate a post-secondary education and thus open the doors

of opportunity for themselves.

It is these people for which the College serves its greatest
funetion: providing education to the cormunity at large. The young
and pibitious student, my idealized Valedictorian, would probably
find another way to achieve his or her goals, but to us, the not-so-
typical or the less privileged, the community college is a vital
part of our lives and must not be allowed to decline, but must
further expand to envelop an even greater proportion of the community
whieh it serves. There ere those who feel community colleges should
become vocational or technical centres and eliminate academic studies,
there are even those who go so far as to believe that the academic
arts serve no useful purpose and should be struck from the college
calendar. However, they are the people who have never understood
the beauty of Milton or Shakespeare, the finer points of Marx's
theories, or the consequences of every major arms race throughout
history. After all science and technolosy could ve-y easily render
humanity a valueless commodity without the tempering influence of :
civilized behaviour which is what the Academic Arts foster in all |

who explore them.

Tn conelusion, I must take this opportunity to thank some of
the people who have been very helpful over the past Five years.
The professors who always had that extra five minutes to solve a
problem point me in the right direction or just give me an extra

boost of confidence; my mother who led with her own example by

2 ee
————————

co rr CGE “ty
| DOUGLAS COLLEU 4

|