College asks students to power down, contemplate

Associated Press ^ | Dec 24, 2009 | ALAN SCHER ZAGIER

[decimon]

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Dianne Lynch wanted to give the students of Stephens College a break from the constant digital communication that pervades their generation. So she asked them to put their phones and computers away and revive the 176-year-old school's dormant tradition of vespers services.

On a bitterly cold December night, with the start of final exams just hours away, about 75 of Stephens' 766 undergraduates grudgingly piled their cell phones into collection baskets and filed into the school's candlelit chapel, where they did little but sit, silently. For an hour, not an iPod ear bud could be seen. There were no fingers flying on tiny computer keyboards, no chats with unseen intimates.

[whitedog57]

How “collective” of them.

That’s it. Try to get them to ignore the horrible reach of the Communist masters in Washington DC.

[decimon]

How “collective” of them.

Hadn't thought of it that way. Doesn't seem any more collectivist than the sort of church service it continues or replaces.

[Iowa Granny]

As a former “Susie”, from back in the day when Vespers was required: I spent my time comtemplating how seriously WRONG some of the drivel was that I was enduring in one of their classrooms. An opportunity that only a few of my former h.s. classmates had when they ventured out in the world in the mid ‘60s.

Looking back, I see nothing collective about it. Rather I recall that it was valuable time, used to reinforce the core values I’d been taught at home.

[fightinJAG]

I think there’s a lot of good that can come out of the backlash against constant external communication.

[gwilhelm56]

I’ve worked with Dean Lynch.. when she was Head of the Communications School at Ithaca College.

Nice lady, and never let politics get in the way (most of the time)... yet.. her students (remember we’re talking about Television, Radio and Film Students)make up the bulk of the membership of the College Republican Club.

So there IS HOPE... and I’ll cut Dean Lynch a little slack.

[decimon]

I think there’s a lot of good that can come out of the backlash against constant external communication.

Yup. Lots of chatter and little thought.

[Cedar]

“Lots of chatter and little thought.”

What a great way to define it. How true.

[DannyTN]

This article seems hostile to vespers.

It’s like the author is trying to both call it a stupid idea and to paint it as non-religious.

First it says the students did it “grudgingly” but the services were voluntary.

It claims that vespers has been dormant. I seriously doubt that.

Then it says that vespers is more spiritual than religious, and then it says it’s about teaching women to be self-reliant.

I suspect that if anything was done grudgingly, it was actually that they weren’t being trusted to turn the cell phones off the service. I agree that part was stupid.