Art once eulogized the late Harry Cargas, another beloved Webster professor, a "small 'd' democrat." In fact, he could have been describing himself. For Art, organizing support for Guatemalan human rights activists or speaking out about unfair treatment of students, staff or other faculty were all part of the same mission.

Our friend and colleague was as much part of the fabric of Webster University as the classrooms, books, Frisbee on the lawns, or Spring flowers at Commencement time. He was simply a presence that helped define the character of our lives in the institution. At nearly every faculty or university committee meeting there would come that moment when Art would lean back, elbows propped over adjoining chairs, and begin to speak — deliberately at first, then with increasing tempo and passion — to pick apart the logic of some proposal or argument. Notice — Art picked apart arguments, not people.

Human rights activism and teaching grew out of Art's own family background, his Jewish roots in Eastern Europe. In the 1980s, Art immersed himself in working in solidarity with the people of Central America through the St. Louis Latin America Solidarity Committee. This, in turn led to specialized concern about Guatemala and the inspiration to create Webster's highly successful human rights curriculum, which was the first such program in this country to offer a B.A. in International Human Rights. Art once reported that he "reads and thinks about every horror reported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and just about everything written about the New York Knicks. Each is a relief from the other." When Art was asked how he could persist in activism given the litany of human rights horrors in the news or the seeming impermeable nature of politics in the United States, he had a simple answer: "We can't let the bastards win."

I think some of Art's own words are a good way of summarizing his approach to education. In 1972, as Webster was debating whether to require majors and general education requirements, Art wrote the following, excerpted from The Broadside, the College newspaper at the time.

"In 1892 James Naismith invented basketball. He hung two peach baskets from the balcony of a gymnasium, flipped a ball to a group of waiting men, and said: 'play.' That was enough to determine the nature of the game; it had a logic of its own. First, you take the bottoms out of the baskets so you don't have to climb up to the balcony whenever someone scores. Next you put restraints on the defense, penalizing infractions with free throws, to enable the spectator to distinguish the ensuing action from simple brawling. Then you introduce artificial means of moving the ball, dribbling and passing, to balance the restraints on the defense and making scoring more difficult. I could go on and on.

I want to maintain that colleges as we know them, granting certain key assumptions, likewise have an inherent logic; that we should not simultaneously grant these assumptions; and that we suffer for having done so."

Art went on to defend the idea of a major but then suggested that many of the "rules" for playing the degree game at college were less logical than Naismith's rules for his game. Art then presented, instead of "rules," goals for undergraduate education:

1. The ability to articulate a moderately complex position.
2. The ability to master a moderately complex text.
3. The ability to write, say 10 pages, on some subject in clear and coherent fashion.
4. The ability in some area to evaluate conclusions as reasonable or not, in light of available evidence.
5. The ability, in some area, to dig up evidence.

"I think all of these are testable," he concluded. I'm sure Art would be taken aback to find he had perhaps outlined "learning objectives" for what we now call "assessment."

Art Sandler was a patient, kind, tireless, warm, and funny educator and activist. ("Patient"? You have to understand what it means to root for the Knicks). The bastard that eventually claims us all has taken Art from us. We can best remember him by keeping foremost in our minds that when comes to torture, oppression — even just unfairness, "We can't let the bastards win."

Dan Hellinger

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