Excerpted from the Class of 68 Chronicles 25th Reunion
Welcome
So often we don't or have no need to remember our own past.
On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of our graduation from Campion, we thought it
would be good to have a document that made
a little easier to remember our time at Campion. Dave Haase and I, with the assistance of many, have worked to make a record of those times and the way of life that we knew as students at
Campion.
In putting this together, we made a lot of convenient choices but tried to give a real flavor of our then lives and
experience as the Class of 1968.
There is an obvious flow to this document: pre-Campion days, one school year followed by the next, changing academic and disciplinary conditions as our class rose from lowly frosh to mighty seniors.
Looking back on it,
I think we can say that we knew the old and the new Campion. We hope that the chronology
shows enough of both.
Maybe the most curious thing about the old Campion is that when we arrived at Campion on September 2, 1964,
the way of life we entered upon, difficult though it
was, seemed like a practical extension of the home and school
life we had known up to that point.
In the beginning, we were effectively cloistered in what was some kind of pre-modern environment. From sophomore year on, things began to change on campus (not that much, really): academic reform, arts programs, less censorship, new liturgies...more openness. And there was Viet-Nam, the implementation of Vatican II, and a social and
political awakening that was occurring because of the civil rights movement.
By the time we were seniors, we were looking beyond the quadrangle, the Palladium, Ma's and the Bluffs. The world
was changing in ways that still make 68 a year to reckon with, and we knew it.
Throughout those times, we were growing up.
Those were remarkably difficult and changing times both inside and outside Campion. We got a first rate education
while at Campion. We were on the cusp of change at Campion. Those are the things I learned from putting this
chronology together.
I don't think that the sum of those years comes down to the dichotomy of the Class of 1969 taking a shot at us in
the last Ette, or the idea that we would have been great if we hadn't been non-commital...as Bob Smith's graduation speech might read to some. Those were just the obvious records that we have of our last few weeks at school.
Those documents are interesting to compare, but it
is a much more open question.
It seems that an awful lot was expected of us by ourselves, by the faculty and staff, and by our parents. Life at school
was like living in a fishbowl. My personal view: we were probably more self-protective...steeling ourselves for what
was to come, than we were cool or non-commital.
About all I can say is that along the way we learned to do our own time at Campion. That's the real story. This document is just the compilers' version of some of the background to that story. You'll find out, as we did, that the
more you talk about those days, the more you'll remember your own time at Campion.
Putting this chronology together has been quite a trip. We hope you enjoy it.