‘

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E

,

 

COLLEGE NEWS

 

‘Vol. LIN, No. 7

BRYN MAWR, PA.

- FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1967

© Trustees of Bryn Mawr College, 1967

25 Cents |

 

Festival of The Black Arts
Needs Financial Support

A festival of the black arts at
Bryn Mawr and Haverford is being
planned by Lois Portnoy and Jackie
Williams for the first weekend in
January, just before the réading
period, However, expected funds
from the political science depart-
ment to finance the weekend have

- recently fallen through.

-The purpose of the weekend,
according to Jackie Williams, is
to create a total involvement among

 

photo by Marian Scheuer...

Jackie Williams has done most

of the planning for the Black -

Arts Festival next January.
Bryn Mawr and Haverford students
in the contribution of black poets,
musicians, artists dancers, and
photographers, and in the black
movement for economic cultural,
social, and political equality,

In order to pay the costs of

the festival, which will amount to
about $2500, its planners consid-
ered charging admission, How-
ever, Bryn Mawr has a policy of
charging only for college functions,
such as class shows, Miss McBride
informed them, It wouldhave been
possible to hold the festival at
Haverford, but they would still have
-to-ask-an-admission-price, -

It was finally decided to try and
raise the money be setting up a pa-
tron system, whereby individuals
would give $10 or ‘more toward
the weekend, sending checks care
of the COLLEGE NEWS,

., The idea of afestival of the black
arts sprang from the political
science comp conference this year,
which is centered around the con-
cept of black power as a revolu-
tion,
two months of discussion ‘‘onwhat
black power means and on our in-
volvement in it,” Jackie said,

The black arts are related to the
black power struggle in being very
angry arts, she explained. The
black artists consider themselves
as spokesmen for something; their
work communicates their commit-
ment to the black man,

Artists such as Leroi Jones, the

drama group from Howard Univer- ~

sity, Julian Bond, and Sun Ra (an
avant-garde jazz band) have been
invited to Bryn Mawr for the fes-
_tival,

If students can be more than
spectators to the black movement,
if they can open their minds toa
new kind of music or poetry or
way of thinking or person, the
weekend will be a success, said
Jackie, :

Barbara Elk to Chair
°67 Bryn Mawr SAC.

The Bryn Mawr Social Action
Committee elected Barbara Elk
chairman, Monday night, Oct. 30.
She will succeed Kathy Murphey.
Jean Canaday, Karen Detamore,
Sally Dimschultz and Barbara Sin-
del were appointed secretaries of
the organization.

Plans »were discussed for a
possible merger with the Haver-
ford Social Action Committee. It
was finally decided that the two
organizations will have a joint
meeting once a month, The first
of these will be held Wednesday,
Nov. 29, at 7:30 p.m. in Sharp-
less at Haverford. Business which
arises between meetings will be
done through committees and the

individual organizations,

Several projects were discussed

-including a day of national resis-

tance to the draft on December
4. Glen Nixon, Haverford SAC
chairman, plans to mobilize Bryn
Mawr and Haverford students to
close down the Philadelphia in-
duction center. This will be the
main topic of discussion at the
joint meeting Nov. 29.

Other projects mentioned were
continyation of the anti-draft leaf-
letting in the area; collecting sig-
natures for the Bryn Mawr Draft
Resistance Statement now posted
on dorm bulletin boards, area
draft counseling; and the Newark
Community School.

 

The weekend will culminate ,

     

Bell maids, maids and porters are an often-

‘ignored part of the Bryn Mawr community. Yet

as students, we live in the same buildings with
most of them and see them more often than some
of our professors and certainly more often than
most of the administrators.

But how much do we know about them? Not

much. Perhaps the first factafreshmanrealizes .

is that they are all black. The contrast is
striking: a lily-white faculty, secretarial and ad-
ministrative. staff and then an all-black staff of
maids and porters. It promotes a ‘‘plantation”’
atmosphere which is patronizing, stifling and
uncomfortable.

Beginning from two admittedly superficial ob-
servations -- the fact that they are not unionized
and that some seem to depend heavily on student
cast-off clothing for their dependents -- the
NEWS did some investigating into the living
conditions of the college’s 100 maids and porters.

We went to see Mr. Paul Klug, comptroller
and business manager of the college, about
wages and pay scales of the employees. He was
dumbfounded that students were interested. The
mainstream of his comments dealt with ‘I wear
a certain hat and you wear a certain hat,” the
assumption being that we all have roles to
play, and worrying about the employees’ con-
ditions is not the proper role of the students. He
stated that he would be jeopardizing a confiden-
tial trust to give us any information at all. He
refused to give us an average salary, aminimum
salary (beyond assuring us that they all made at
least’ the minimum wage set by the federal

|... government), the highest salary or the number of
‘salary levels. He also refused. to verify any

figures we brought him from the employees
themselves.

Next, we went to Miss Sarah Wright, director
of halls. She flatly stated that it was college
policy not to give out any figures at all. We had
thought that some figures ought to be public in-
formation, such as a starting salary that would
be mentioned in a want-ad, for instance. This
secrecy is interesting when compared to the
relative openness of faculty salaries. The Ameri-
can Association of University Professors has a
ranking of faculty salaries at colleges and uni-
versities throughout the country, and average
salaries are published in the ‘‘AAUP Bulletin.’’

Receiving the impression that the college was
not interested in having employees’ salaries a
topic of community discussion, we turned to the
employees themselves. Our figures are difficult
to interpret, and we invite the college to inter-

| pret them for us. We do not have enough know-

ledge or information at this time to juggle with
witholding tax, social security, amounts deducted
for board and room and pensions. Therefore, we
can just print raw figures. One bell maid in one
of the larger dorms has worked for the college
since 1938. She works seven days a week, six
and a half hours a day. She gets a pay check of
$156.70 each month. She has to take part-time
jobs to support her sick husband at home.
A bell maid in one of the smaller dorms said

Attention Must Be Paid

 

that she makes $85.31 every two weeks for 70
hours of work. She reports that she was promised
a $10 a month raise last spring, butthat she has
never gotten it. A regular maid ina smaller dorm
said that she makes $82’ every two weeks.

Seventy-five per cent of the employees live on
campus, according to Miss Wright. We are not
sure if ‘this is the number who actually live on
campus, or the number who are charged for a
room and meals on campus. Several of the em-
ployees have said that they have homes and
families off-campus and- would like-to bring—a
sandwich from home or go home to eat and who
have no need for a room, but the college insists
on feeding them and then charging them for it.

Miss Wright described the living situation of
the employees as ‘‘fine living.’’ We agree thatit
is not as bad as living inaHarlem tenement, but
we doubt the validity of ‘‘fine living.’’ For one
thing, the rooms need more light, especially in
the older dorms. The walls of some need
painting. The plumbing is old. Some'live on the

top floors, and being as oldas many of them are,
they would never make it out of the dorm safely

in a fire. Others live in the basement, where it
is either freezing cold or boiling hot. In Erdman,
there is a mens’ wing and a womens’ wing and a
married couple do not even share a room.

We would like to open a dialogue within the
college community about the adequacy, let alone
the ‘fineness’? of the kind of living that can be
enjoyed on $156.70 a month. Bryn Mawr College
employees are part of the 30 million invisible
American poor. This is not a pleasant situation.
What can be done about it?

“The college should be a major innovating force
in the fight to improve the lives of black Ameri-
cans who have been ignored for so long. One
program was put into practice last spring which
is a step in the right direction. The college insti-
tuted a promotion-from-within policy, giving
some. employees added responsibility and bene-
fits. This is an improvement, butitisa long way
from a final solution, One possibility is taking
the initiative in training people for jobs oncam-
pus. Ford and other corporations have vigorous
in-training programs for employees who would
not otherwise be qualified for the jobs available.
Why couldn’t the college do this? Interest in this
kind of program has been expressed by the Rev-
erend Leon Sullivan in Philadelphia,We have been
told that he offered to help the college arrange
such a training program last year. Next week, the
NEWS hopes to have further information on sucha
program.

We recognize that this is a sensitive area -- the
college is under financial pressure as it is, and
we do not want to see anyone fired. At present
though, it is evident that the college is not taking
many positive steps to provide a decent, digni-
fied human life for its maids and porters. The
promotions-from-within program is a step, but
it is a small one. An imaginative discussion
followed by vigorous action should now be con-
ducted by those people who are capable of
changing this disturbing situation.

‘Bryn Mawr Bowls Over U of C °'

 

A Symposium on Schoolteaching --

“bringing to interested undergraduates a picture of
teacher-training possibilities through a
sampling of alumnae experience’’

Saturday, November 4th, in Goodhart

10:00 A.M. - 1:00 P.M. Demonstration by Sara Park
Scattergood °36 of a unit she has
developed to help weak readers.

_ Also 6 other alumn
Followed by concurrent discussion groups in the
Common and Music Rooms, lead by Mrs. Marshall
ae and Shipley’s headmistress, Isota Epes.
Everyone invited to come to all or part.

Speakers. .

 

 

 

   

On Nationwide TV Quiz Show

Bryn Mawr won on Col-
lege Bow! last weekend by
a score of 230-70. This
week they meet the Univer-
sity of Notre Dame (showing

’ time in Philadelphia, 1:30

Sunday). The following ac-
count was written by a NEWS
staff member who is also
one of two alternates to the
team. ci

There is great subtlety in the

: transportation arrangements made

by General Electric for College
Bowl contestants, The corporation

‘supposes, quite rightly, that the

team in the blush of bon voyages

mx

and of its own untried self-con-

fidence will want to ride with the
select few, in aparlor car, Coming
back, though, G.E, sends them with
the masses, knowing that either

they will be so heady with vic--

tory that they won’t know or care
how they ride, or so submerged
in depression that they will want
to be faceless members of a crowd,

The Bryn Mawr parlor car last
week was decidely singular. Dur-
ing the trek to the end of the
tracks in the Philadelphia station

_c77 far from, the steps, so that
you appreciate the upholstery ---

commuters tried valiantly to make
us turn back. ‘Only parlor cars
up there, girls, Coaches at the

 

ence, Ultimately we loaded car
743 with our eight selves, atten-
dant baggage, and Robin Johnson’s
complete traveling sound stage,
and, to the mild dismay of the
other passengers, launced into one
of Coach Patten’s grueling scrim-
mages, this one intra-mural, We
reached Newark during a listing of
the Central American capitals,
After a lengthy wait for a cab
in the shadow of the new Madison
Square Garden, we went to the
Warwick Hotel,...This establish-
ment can boast among its clientele
the Beatles, a staggering number of
scholastic dilletantes, and myriad -
conventioneers, ‘ :
(Continued on page 3)