On Giddy Happiness

J.D. Phillips

Saint Mary's College of California

September 27, 1996

Thank you Dr. Hynes.

Congratulations to the Dean's List students and to their family and friends whose encouragement and support no doubt played prominent roles in their academic success. And condolences to all of you who were foolish enough not to leave before the speeches began!

Last week, I was lucky enough to attend a panel discussion for faculty, entitled "Our Asian students and how they learn." Now, I don't know if we ever figured out how, in fact, Asian students learn, or even if it's different from the way say, Latino and Latina students, or white students, or black students, learn. But I did learn quite a bit from the four thoughtful students on the panel. For instance, I learned that all of them feel socially isolated, to varying degrees, from the "typical" student here at Saint Mary's. They feel isolated for various reasons, but none more central, all four agreed, than the fact that they are serious students and the "typical" student is not. I wonder if it would be much of a stretch to assume that many of the Dean's List students here today are serious students who, as such, also feel, in some sense, this social isolation?

If I may be bold, I'd like to say, that in a certain—admittedly, perhaps quite limited—sense, these students are not "happy" (think of it as happy in quotes).

As I chewed on all of this while walking back to my office after the panel discussion, I passed a bulletin board in the Arcade. Posted on this board, was a clipping from a recent issue of US News and World Report trumpeting the results of a recent survey that claimed that St.Mary's students are giddily happy. In fact, our students—think of our mythical "typical" student—rank among the happiest students in the country. I think we made the top 20  (out of over 6000 colleges in this country)!

Hmm. Our serious students are not "happy" (remember your quotes) because they feel socially isolated from our typical students, who are deliriously happy.

This past summer, during a break from a session at a faculty seminar retreat at the Brothers' camp up in the Sierras, a colleague and I continued, over drinks, our dinner conversation about the difference between social facts and individual facts. She maintained that the notion of "individual fact" was merely a self-delusion. Interested, but confused, I asked her to explain. I mean, it seems to me, that my hunger, say, looking at the buffet table right now, is an individual fact. Gently and generously she demurred, "J.D., I want to strangle you!" which seemed to me like a very individual fact! Well, it turns out she didn't strangle me. And I'm still thinking about social facts.

And I think now that maybe the "happiness"—remember your quotes—of the "typical" Saint Mary's student is a social fact. And the very individual unhappiness of the serious students' distance from this social fact is itself a social fact. Which leaves the individual notion—the fact—of happiness, if you will, apparently unresolved. I congratulate you, the serious students, on your attempts to resolve it. . . Thank you. I hope there's still some food left at the buffet table.