SWARTHMORE
August 1985

lthough I have given away a large
, percentage of my income to some of
L the worthiest institutions in Ame
including Swarthmore, I wonder
whether I would have don
so had the tax law b
different. It is tern
wrap myself iiLfhe nag of
"M
ifflty and cry:
od citizen I wou

■

ut I doubt it
ames A. Michener 29

See page 8 fo r Michener on
tax reform and charitable giving

Class L ook s Back 25 Years After - When they were undergraduates,
Sputnik, James Dean, Jack Kerouac, hula hoops, and sit-ins made news.
Since then, the Beatles, Vietnam, assassinations, moon landings, women’s
rights, Watergate, and terrorism have dominated the headlines. A full quarter of
a very tortuous century has passed since the Class of ’60 left Swarthmore.
During the past twenty-five years, many members of the class were caught up in these
events—some more visibly than others. In 1977, for instance, Charles Ruff, the fourth and
final Watergate special prosecutor, wrapped up that investigation. The same year, actress
Lynn Milgrim starred on Broadway opposite Tom Courtney in Simon Gray’s hit play
“Otherwise Engaged,” directed by Harold Pinter. Milgrim stunned critics and theatregoers
(Continued on next page)

25 Years After

A Class Looks Back

(Continuedfrom preceding page)

alike by appearing topless during one
scene in the play. Meanwhile, on the
West Coast classmate David Bancroft
successfully prosecuted newspaper
heiress Patty Hearst for her role in a
bank robbery staged by her kidnap­
pers, the Symbionese Liberation
Army. While the life of every mem­

.V
I

Do you have a
favorite Swarthmorerelated anecdote?

v

.

■

“Just a few weeks after arriving at Swarth­
more for my freshman year, I noticed that
static on my radio correlated with my
roommate’s washing his hands in our bath­
room. Although it was evening, we called
my physics professor, who then came to the
dorm and helped us explore the phenomenon
scientifically for a couple of hours. We
finally deduced that there was a corroded
pipe connection in the basement acting as a
battery—making the drain pipe a different
voltage from the cold water pipe. The sink
stopper intermittently was shorting them to
produce the static radio interference.”
—John Goodman
“Harold March, in the French Depart­
ment, taught a course called ‘History of
Ideas.’ It dealt with such unfashionable
topics as mysticism, spiritualism, ESP,
Carl Jung, lots of anti-rational and nonrational correctives to then pervasive
trends. I was glad that little Swarthmore
in 1957 was big enough and flexible
enough to contain that.”
“Hedley Rhys’s brilliant wit and per­
ception lured many a student into the
discipline of art history. I recall his de­
scription of Rockefeller Center as ‘a modern
day Stonehenge—dedicated to the gods of
materialism.’ ”

ber of the Class of ’60 may not have
made headlines, each certainly has
developed a unique perspective on
Swarthmore since leaving campus.
On the occasion of their 25th
Reunion, we asked members of the
Class of ’60 to reconsider their
Swarthmore years in light of twenty-

five years of experience. We asked
four questions intended to encourage
reflection about life at and after
Swarthmore. Selected answers to
each are presented below. Roughly
half of those who responded to our
questionnaire chose to identify them­
selves.

Pierson’s [’34] Urban and Social Problems
course in which we reviewed literature and
visited reality in Philadelphia (prisons, South
Philly, etc.), and then compared the two. It
set a major philosophical tenet for me: See it
first hand, make personal visits.”

rison Wright!) wrote cryptic comments
all over my midterm exam. I stopped in
during office hours to ask him to decipher
them; he said, ‘It doesn’t say anything—I
just wanted to pay you back!’ ”
— Paul Frishkoff

“Once Professor Gilbert stopped sud­
denly in mid-lecture, stared into the comer
of the classroom (in Trotter basement),
and exclaimed, ‘My God! Look at those
termites!’ ”

“As Honors exams approached and I
increasingly succumbed to the mass hysteria,
I went to [Professor] Roland Pennock [’27]
to shed a few tears. He looked at me thought­
fully for a minute, then dialed his wife Helen
and said, ‘Sue Willis needs to have a ride in
the country.’ In a few minutes she was there,
and we did just that. We drove around
Chester and Delaware counties for about
two hours, looking at the spring flowers and
trees and talking about anything but Swarth­
more. Somehow, that always symbolized so
much about Swarthmore and what makes it
unique to me.”
— Susan Willis Ruff

“There was always a lot of sympathy for
drinking and sex, but you couldn’t cheat [on
tests]. Cheating was unthinkable—a crime
against the intellect. I once witnessed the
expulsion of a cheater from a final exam—a
memorable event. Everybody was upset
about it for days. How could anybody have
done such a terrible thing as to cheat?”
—Judith Fetterley
“Recently married, my husband and I
started to move into Mary Lyon 3. The
apartment was a pigsty, with eggshells
and dried yolk in the bathtub. My rage
impelled me to complain to Dean [Susan]
Cobbs, who happened to be handy. She
listened, clucked her tongue sympathet­
ically, then told me to stop complaining
and get down to work to make the place
our own. Click! Swarthmore generally
emphasized making things better locally
and in the world, without letting blame­
placing get in the way. What wonderful
advice!”

“Evenings at Andy’s.”
—Larison F. Helm

“Dr. [Gilbert] Haight, of the Chemistry
Department, inviting the rather frightened
members of his intro course to his home after
lab every week—helping to relieve our
occasional homesickness.”
—Jeanette Strasser Falk

“Even though I was not in Honors, the
Honors impact was strong. I took Frank

“My handwriting was (and is) legendarily awful. A young history prof (Har­

2

“One of my favorite memories is of
playing boogie and blues on the Parrish
Parlor piano after dinner and having
Peter (P.D.Q. Bach) Schickele join in on
the mouthpiece of a bassoon—or another
time when he appeared carrying a string
bass.”
“Most of my best memories deal with Gil
Haight, Professor of Chemistry. Who can
forget his ‘Christmas lecture’? But I also
remember a stern discipline, deep humility,
and some very sage advice: ‘Learn here what
you must learn from profs, at blackboards,
or in labs; learn in front of the fireplace what
can wait for a lifetime of learning.’ ”
—Jay Anderson
“A local attorney called recently to
inquire as to how I felt about Swarth­
more, because his daughter had just been
accepted. His question brought back fond
memories of my college years and I found
myself using superlative after superlative
to describe Swarthmore.” — Gerald Batt
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

“About twenty years after I graduated,
the Swarthmore Alumni College came to
Athens, Greece, and I saw Helen North and
Martin Ostwald, my old [Classics] profes­
sors. I remember my daughter, a student at
the University of Athens, being astounded at
the warmth and interest which she sensed
these wonderful people still felt for their old
student—qualities which her own profes­
sors, who were teaching her at that tim e,'
never evidenced toward her.”
—Anita Cooper Tsamakis
“Many thought that what got us in here
was ‘geographic distribution’ or ‘Swarthmore parents’ or ‘Quaker background.’ (I
thought it was because I was a decent
weightlifter.) But there was less seren­
dipity than we might have thought in the
selection process. We all came through
Gilmore Stott and Susan Cobbs, who
both had uncanny insight into the combi­
nation of decency and excellence that
typifies the Swarthmore student.”
— Ronald Walter

Knowing what you
know now, would you
go to Swarthmore if you
were in high school again
(in the mid-1950s)?
# X

^

°

“Although I am very proud to have
graduated from Swarthmore, I am not so
sure it was the best place for social/personal
growth for me. I probably would have been
better off at a school that balanced the
academics with the ‘social.’ ”
—Judith Nordblom Alger

“Yes, definitely, but I had no idea what
it was like before arriving. (I was the last
student ever to come across country on a
train—boy, was I green!)”
—Larison F. Helm
“Swarthmore is more awesome retro­
spectively. If I knew then what I know now,
I would have thought I didn’t belong—I
wasn’t intellectual enough.”
“I still don’t know—I need another
twenty-five years to think about that
one.”
—Ronald Walter
“After suffering as a hated over-achiever
in a rural high school full of ’49 Mercurys
and letter sweaters, Swarthmore was a
warm kitchen filled with potential friends
and mind food. The only reason I wouldn’t
go to Swarthmore all over again would be
that I wouldn’t be able to believe there was
such a place.”
—Gordon Adams
“Absolutely! The freedom and the chal­
lenge of the Honors program, the serious
academic hard work without invidious
interpersonal comparisons, the genuine
and unforced egalitarianism of the cam­
pus, and the genuine sense of community
—which seems to exist even to the 25th
Reunion and beyond—all make Swarth­
more the only place to go to school.”
—John W. Harbeson
[Editor’s note: In addition to the responses
above, there were nineteen “Yes”—some
unequivocal, some with reservations—four
“No,” and one “Maybe.”]

.J

V.

What, if anything,
have you done since
leaving Swarthmore that
your roommate then
would never
have predicted?
^
^

“Yes, because of the combination of
high academic standards, ‘Quakerish’ val­
ues, and the atmosphere and population
of the place, which made it possible to be
*
close friends with fine people. These •
features are not commonly found in later
life. Having lived them at Swarthmore
“ 1) Helped cook dinner over an open fire
was a unique life experience.”
for 200 women, some topless; 2) Had a
“No, I would keep my summer job as a conversation with the Episcopal bishop of
roofer’s apprentice until I saved enough New York.”
money to buy a motorcycle and then I
“I [now] weigh more than 116 pounds,
would head for Venice West.”
and I carried an A average through
—Jim Perkins graduate school!”
AUGUST 1985

“Probably almost everything I’ve done
would have been hard to predict: being
divorced twice, living with an artist, be­
coming a serious painter myself, developing
an interest in ‘alternative’ philosophy—even
the way I earn a living, which is in the world
of large computers, and where I live, which
is in England!”
—Patricia Price Paxson
“Run a consulting firm of seventeen
people in a major metropolitan East Coast
area; not finish a Ph.D.; lecture to 155
people who paid to hear me.”
—Sara Bolyard Chase
“I have made a new life for myself in a
small city in a very different new country,
and have children whose native language is
not English. Classmates have told me that
this last fact was what they found most
astonishing about my life since Swarth­
more.”
—Anita Cooper Tsamakis
“Settle in the state of Kentucky and
become a newborn-disease specialist.”
—Roger J. Shott
“I started teaching the violin. (I had been
an art history major.)” —Aiko Okada Sato
“Ride a bicycle across the U.S. in
1976.”
—Jay Anderson
“Become a member of the Board of
Managers of Swarthmore College.”
—Ann Brownell Sloane
“My life has been relatively predict­
able.”
“I became a mail-order minister for the
< purpose of performing weddings (at no
charge) for friends and friends of friends.
Spent a week at a naturist resort in Yugo­
slavia. Became, recently, an avid devotee of
workouts at Nautilus.” —Paul Frishkoff
“Got my act together—he thought I
could never do that.”
“My roommates were all capable of 360
degrees prediction—nothing could surprise
them.”
“We female students all said we would
‘do something with our lives’ before bury­
ing ourselves in marriage and child-rais­
ing. In fact, three-fourths of my female
friends were married within a year or two
of graduating. Most of us, however, did
not bury ourselves in family, but either
continued to work, or developed new
careers later on—I did both. Though I
aspired to an intellectual life, I secretly
desired to have a family, very much—
3

which I could not admit while at Swarthmore!”
“A career in the U.S. Navy.”
—Larison F. Helm
“Picketed with Operation Breadbasket
in 1978 and went to Poor People’s Camp
in D.C. in 1968.1 have been very active in
the civil rights movement. She’d be sur­
prised because I voted Republican then—
now I vote Democratic. The Peace Corps,
not Swarthmore, ‘radicalized’ me.”
—Judith Nordblom Alger
“Became a lawyer, ‘worse’ yet, a federal
prosecutor. And equally outrageous, a (rec­
reational) mountaineer.”
“I have turned my own expectations
about the plant world inside out. All
through high school I avoided any study
of biology because of my parents’ pre­
occupation with botany and entomology.
To my surprise I have fallen into their rut
of flower growing, vegetable gardening,
and vegetable eating, and gone beyond
into using and growing medicinal and
culinary herbs. A favorite walk in the
woods reflects those thousands of hours I
spent listening to my parents naming the
trees and shrubs in mysterious Latin.”
—Gordon Adams
“Became able to sleep through a little bit
of noise.”
“Became a radical lesbian feminist.”
—Judith Fetterley
“I don’t think my roommate or, for that
matter I myself, would ever have guessed
that I would wind up being a specialist on
politics and development in Africa, unless of
course my roommate had some wacky
dreams he never told me about!”
—John W. Harbeson

If you had been
one of the speakers at
Commencement this year,
what would you have
told the members of
the Class of ’85?
“Be proud of your achievements but don’t
expect others to be awed. Also, keep and
continually develop your sense of humor.
Again Peter Schickele comes to mind: a
4

serious musician and composer whose sense
of fun produced that masterpiece of musicological research, the discovery of P.D.Q.
Bach.”
—Joan Bond Sax
“Learn to analyze and solve problems
—it is your only hope for dealing suc­
cessfully with a changing future. Also be
serendipitous—always on the lookout for
what you weren’t looking for—as it will
enrich your life and enlarge your oppor­
tunities.”
—John Goodman
“A current T-shirt quips about the Swarth­
more experience, ‘Guilt Without Sex.’ A
parallel experience is often ‘Achievement
Without Self-esteem.’ Don’t fall into that
syndrome. You have achieved.”
—Ronald Walter
“Strict adherence to personal principles
and goals is to be admired; however,
reasonable or practical adaptability is the
fuel of progress and accomplishment.”
—Roger J. Shott
“Don’t grow old too fast; dream dreams
and have vision, for ‘where there is no vision,
the people perish.’ ”
—Jay Anderson
“Always get in the water over your
head and learn to be a survivor. Maintain
a youthful attitude toward challenge and
change, a spirit of adventure. Be forward
looking.”
“Pm not sure that it’s commencement
material, but I think it’s true that classmates
whom you barely knew as undergraduates
(and even Swarthmoreans from other gen­
erations) can and will become very close
friends as the years go by. You have shared
so much, having gone through the Swarth­
more pressure cooker together, that you
come to feel as though many of your
classmates are siblings.”
—Susan Willis Ruff
“All inquiry is about redefining ques­
tions. Most ‘bottom-line’ questions look
simple, such as: Who are you? What do
you want? Where is home? Who is your
family? [But these] questions never get
completely answered. . . in this lifetime.”
—Paul Frishkoff
“To value their liberal arts education. In a
time of economic uncertainty, they may
wonder what good a Swarthmore education
will do them—it won’t find them a job—but
they will come to realize over the years what
an enriching and valuable experience Swarth­
more was to them.”
“Our own commencement speaker (an
astronomer named Schwartzschild, I be­
lieve), glancing about the platform at the

assembled elderly worthies, said, ‘Live for
what you will want to remember when
we are all dead and you are very old.’ ”
“The good things come to an end, and so,
hopefully, do the bad. See your life in
phases. If you keep your mind, imagination,
and body fit, you can plan for and have an
increasing sense of being prepared for the
opportunities and challenges each phase
presents. It’s an exciting world out here.”
—Ann Brownell Sloane
“I would talk about the masculine
nature of the education I received at
Swarthmore and the damage that did to
me, personally and intellectually. I would
describe how masculine values informed
Swarthmore as an institution and I would
call upon students to undertake a radical
feminization of the College and of its idea
of education.”
—Judith Fetterley
“Not to think of Swarthmore as the only
place that gives a good education or of
intellectuals as having some superior wis­
dom. You need to get out among all kinds of
people and learn to communicate with
them—that’s what I feel is the mark of an
educated person.”
—Judith Nordblom Alger
“I’d remind them that people regularly
live their lives in fear of losing things as
insubstantial as the boundary lines around
the United States; that we are all one,
those of us who went to Swarthmore and
even those who didn’t; and that to save
ourselves we must make it our most
intimate business to save all beings.”
—Jim Perkins
“That every experience they have had at
Swarthmore will be useful to them in often
unexpected ways when they face the future,
and that as time goes by, they will treasure
the Swarthmore experience more and more.”
“There is nothing so important in to­
day’s world, or seemingly so rare, as the
capacity and inclination to ask awkward
questions, put one’s finger on unexamined
assumptions about ourselves and the
world in which we live, and truly examine
a problem from many different perspec­
tives. Nothing makes life more amusing,
significant, and exciting than the cultiva­
tion of an irrepressibly curious mind. No
human community is more rewarding and
enduring than that of those individuals
attracted to each other by common fas­
cination with the life of the mind and
shared commitment to the human libera­
tion that makes such pursuits possible.”
—John W. Harbeson
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Still Studious After Four Years Here

Marya Verhave

Roberta Wue
Roberta Wue majored in art history. She
hopes to do research or curatorial work fo r
an art museum.
Summer reading lists are a fine thing. I
habitually make up mine toward the end of
the semester. This is when suddenly every
book, except the ones on my syllabi, seem
exciting and un-putdownable. These lists,
however, like resolutions to run five miles a
day, are soon thrown out the window and I
settle for the usual assortment of trash that
doesn’t ask for intellectual commitment. My
newest list is a hodgepodge of books that I
have intended to read for years, including'
those I never read for certain courses.
Whether academic dedication or normal
vegetative processes will prevail is another
matter.
* Pulling out that old copy of Judge Cardozo’s The Nature o f the Judicial Process
from a poli sci course taken three years ago
seems just too dreary, and The Republic is
really inappropriate for holiday reading, but
I do mean to re-skim Eliot’s Middlemarch,
so I can get more than just a sense of plot.
This book is for those of you who are as fond
of the comma-splice sentence as I am.
Having graduated with a degree in art
history, I plan to reread also George Kubler’s
The Shape o f Time, a dense little book on
“Time and the Object.” Another necessary
tome is Other Criteria, by Leo Steinberg, in
which I hope the author will approach
twentieth-century art with his usual amusing
AUGUST 1985

iconoclasm. A book I am halfway through
now is Madlyn Millner Kahr’s Velazquez:
The A rt o f Painting, a good social approach
to the Spanish Baroque artist.
Other books that I have frequently re­
minded myself to read include Carol Gilligan’s [’58] In a Different Voice, which
treats two areas I know little about: feminism
and psychology. One book that I swear
every summer I will finish is The Tale o f
Genji by Lady Murasaki; it is comparable to
medieval Japanese Remembrance o f Things
Past (if not in quite so many volumes).
Along the same lines is The Story o f the
Stone, the great eighteenth-century Chinese
classic by Cao Xuequin. The best translation
of the fantastic rise and ruin of the Bao
family of Nanking is David Hawke’s fivevolume version put out by Penguin Books.
Certainly one could do worse than to spend
the summer reflecting on Oriental aesthetics.
Finally, the book I do read every summer is
Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman War­
rior, ostensibly about a childhood spent in a
Stockton, Calif., laundry, but appropriately
enough really about the stories we tell
ourselves.

Marya Verhave majored in biology. She will
study veterinary medicine at Cornell Univer­
sity this fall.
The following is a list of books that I have
read recently and recommend highly as
good summer (winter, spring, or fall) read­
ing. Ragtime, by E. L. Doctorow, a novel set
in America at the beginning of this century,
is about three families whose lives become
intertwined with such people as J. P. Mor­
gan, Sigmund Freud, and Emma Gold­
man—to name a few.
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, a haunting novel
about a future society, is a powerful in­
dictment of the regimentation, conformity,
and depersonalization of the indivdual. The
precursor to 1984, We is a far more fright­
ening and unnerving condemnation of total­
itarianism.
One Hundred Years o f Solitude, by Ga­
briel Garcia Marquez, is the story of the rise
and fall, birth and death of the mythical
Latin American town of Macondo through
the history of the Buendia family.
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey’s book, A
Woman o f Independent Means, is the story
of a woman’s growth to maturity and
independence at the turn of the century, as
told through her letters.
The Name o f the Rose, by Umberto Eco,
is a wonderful murder mystery set in an

The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0279-9138),
of which this is volume LXXXII, number 6, ispublished
in September, October, November, January, April, and
August by Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
19081. Second class postage paid at Swarthmore, PA,
and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address
changes to Swarthmore College Bulletin, Swarthmore,
PA 19081.

5

Italian abbey in the Middle Ages. The
detective who unravels the mystery is a
Franciscan monk, Brother William of Baskerville, who is a medieval version of Sherlock
Holmes. As Brother William discovers, the
most interesting things occur in the abbey at
night!
Marion Zimmer Bradley retells the Ar­
thurian legends through the eyes of the
women in a beautifully written account, The
Mists o f A valon. Morgain le Fay and Guine­
vere take on a life, depth, and personality of
their own.
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is one of
the best novels I have read in a long time; it is
gripping and powerful, with a hero (Celie)
whom I grew to love and truly admire. It is
one of those books that you should read, if
you haven’t already done so.
Two of my favorite books, which I plan to
reread this summer, are Pride and Prejudice,
by Jane Austen, and My Antonia, by Willa
Cather. I also plan to read Never Cry Wolf,
by the naturalist Farley Mowat, a true story
of the author’s experience living among a
pack of wild wolves.
Finally, I plan to reread A ll Creatures
Great and Small, by James Herriot, for
inspiration before heading off to Cornell
Veterinary School this fall.

Pierre Bonenberger
Pierre Bonenberger majored in economics.
He expects to attend graduate school in
business administration in France or the
U.S.
The books I have read recently include two
excellent French history novels in six and
five volumes respectively: LesRoisM andits,
by Maurice Druan, which relates the events
accompanying the succession of three of
Philippe IV’s sons to the throne and the
outbreak of The Hundred Years War. For­
tune de France, by Robert Merle, is about
the wars between Catholics and Huguenots
in sixteenth-century France.
6

Charles Reiss
Charles Reiss majored in mathematics. He
plans to work fo r a moving company this
summer.
One of my favorite books, which I would
recommend to anyone, is Confessions o f
Felix Krull, Confidence Man, by Thomas
Mann. It is a great story with some hilarious
episodes, and it’s a lot lighter than other
works by Mann. Another great book which
I read recently is Dickens’ Bleak House.
People who have had to read it for a course
can hardly believe anyone would work
through this 800-page monster for pleasure,
but if you have no deadlines to meet, you
can take your time and enjoy it.
This summer I plan to read more Dickens,
maybe The Old Curiosity Shop. From what
I’ve heard of Quilp, one of the characters, I’d
say he is not unlike certain of my friends. I
also want to read something by Dostoyevsky
{The Brothers Karamazov), since everybody
in the Dostoyevsky seminar this spring was
always talking about what a madman he
was.
Other authors I’d like to read are Mark
Twain, George Eliot, and Walter Scott.
There are also a few Conan [the Barbarian]
adventures I have to check out.

To continue on that track, I intend to read
this summer Henri III, by Philippe Erlanger,
an apology for the French king by a man
who shared his affectional preferences. And
to round out my history reading from the
other side of the channel, I want to read
Winston Churchill’s History o f the English
Speaking Peoples. I am told it is well
written.
On a different track, I have just finished
Ian Fleming’s Live and Let Die (courtesy of
Adam Reeves ’85). I only have two Bonds to
go now. I also tried refreshing my reading list
with a biography of Mozart, by Alfred
Einstein. Quite boring, to be perfectly frank.
Now that school is over, I think I will
develop a taste for all the books I should
have read during college. These include:
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens (class
discussion of an unread Dickens novel tends
to be limited), the autobiography of John
Stuart Mill, and some philosophical works I
intend to read or reread, by Plato, Hume,
and Descartes. Finally, I now am reading a
book presented to me be my father, entitled
The Share Economy: Conquering Stagfla­
tion, by Martin L. Weitzman, an economics
professor at MIT. After all, economics was
my major.

Marian Evans
Marian Evans majored in biology and was
vice president o f the College Gospel Choir.
She hopes to study medicine.
General Reading:
Race First, a biography of Marcus Gar­
vey, by Tony Martin.
You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down,
by Alice Walker.
Good Night Willie Lee, I ’ll See You in the
Morning, by Alice Walker.
Brothers and Keepers, by John Wideman.
A Question o f Power, by Bessie Head.
Maru, by Bessie Head.
No Longer at Ease, by Chinua Achebe.
The Easter Parade, by Richard Yates.
Disturbing the Peace, by Richard Yates.
My Old Sweetheart, by Susanna Moore.
A Fanatic Heart, by Edna O’Brien.
Money, by Martin Amis.
Dreams o f Roses and Fire, by Eyvind
Johnson
The Girls in the Gang, by Anne Camp­
bell.
Jubiaba, by Jorge Amado.
Sea o f Death, by Jorge Amado.
Places in the World a Woman Could
Walk, by Janet Kauffman.
A Good School, by Richard Yates.
Young Hearts Crying, by Richard Yates.
Tough Guys D on’t Dance, by Norman
Mailer.
Political:
The Origins o f the Civil Rights Move­
ment, by Aldon D. Morris.
M aking Something o f Ourselves, by Rich­
ard M. Merelman.
Blacks and Social Justice, by Bernard R.
Boxill.
We M ake Freedom: Women in South
Africa Speak, by Beata Lipman.
From Little Rock to Boston: The History
o f School Desegregation, by George R.
Metcalf.
Mainstreaming Outsiders: The Produc­
tion o f Black Professionals, by James E.
Blackwell.
The Myth o f Black Progress, by Alphonso
Pinkney.
Minority Report, by Leslie W. Dunbar.
God So Loved the Third World, by
Thomas Hanks.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Margarida Ferreira
Margarida Ferreira majored in political
science. She has applied fo r a Fulbright
Scholarship to study comparative politics in
Portugal.
The following books offer a varied range of
reading materials and are generally available.
For children (and acquaintances of Andrea
Packard ’85, my roommate for two years),
The Evil Wizard makes a good read. Andrea
wrote and had this story published by
Bantam last year. It’s one of the “chooseyour-own-adventure” series which allows
the reader to decide what paths should be
pursued by the actors in the story. Andrea
will be writing another book this summer,
also to be published by Bantam, which will
be available in a few months.
This summer- I plan to read Carolyn
Chute’s book The Beans o f Egypt, Maine. I
believe this is a bestseller, so there should be
no trouble finding it. The plot has to do with
poverty and perseverance in rural Maine.
Then I’ll tackle Dick Francis’ Proof. If you
haven’t read Francis yet, and you like crisply
written, fast-moving thrillers, I recommend
him to you. Francis used to be a jockey for
Great Britain’s Queen Mother, later became
a journalist, and then a writer. Horse racing
is a common theme of his books, which are
well written.
Two other books I’ve been meaning to
read are Carol Gilligan’s [’58] In a Different
Voice and Umberto Eco’s The Name o f the
Rose. Eco’s work combines the best of both
worlds: historiography and suspense. I’ve
been told it makes a fascinating read, so grab
a copy and take it to the beach with you.
Gilligan’s book, as you probably know, has
to do with the different moral structures
employed by women and men. Despite its
tremendous popularity, In a Different Voice
does not seem to have completely convinced
the more traditional elements of the educa­
tional establishment. Buy a copy and see for
yourself.
^

AUGUST 1985

One last book I want to note is a work I
saw reviewed in Time magazine, of all
places. Adventures in a M ud Hut by Nigel
Barley is an essential read for anyone inter­
ested in anthropology or comedy. Barley
tries to recreate a Margaret Mead experiment
with the Dowayo village in the Cameroon,
and, while he is accepted into the tribe, he is
regarded by that tribe as a harmless idiot. He
refuses to take off his white skin at night and
remains “stubbornly convinced that chame­
leons are not poisonous but cobras are.”
Additional problems with a language that
contains four tones make this book a study
in miscommunication.

Stanislavsky. This is my token book on
theatre, because my friends expect it of me.
Stanislavsky is a very people-oriented author,
whom I trust mainly because he spent years
doing before he started writing and theo­
rizing. This work details the kinds of things
which happen in good rehearsals, and where
they come from.
Collected Short Stories, by Robert Graves.
This author creates rich, eerie atmospheres,
typical of the time of Virginia Woolf, Wil­
liam Faulkner, and Ford Madox Ford. “The
Shout” is the most subtly haunting story ever
written; most of these stories are actually
quite funny. One of the most effective
bedtime tranquilizers in my life has been
reading a few pages of well-written enter­
tainment—it is in the spirit that I commend
Graves to you.

Benjamin Backus
Benjamin Backus majored in mathematics.
He will study research psychology at the
University o f Pennsylvania in the fall.
I’ll be traveling in Asia this summer, so I
asked Professors Don Swearer and Steve
Piker for reading suggestions. Among them:
Walpola Rahula’s What the Buddah Taught,
Robert Lester’s Theravada Buddhism in
Southeast Asia\ and Asian Medical Systems:
A Comparative Study, edited by Charles
Leslie.
I’ve also been “samplurusing” delectable
“snatchles” of Alice in Wonderland, and
hope to find time soon for Douglas HofMike Frontczak
stadter’s new collection of essays, MetaM ike Frontczak majored in sociology/ magical Themas: Questing fo r the Essence
anthropology and English literature with a o f M ind and Pattern. Finally, Harold McGee
concentration in theatre.
has written On Food and Cooking: The
Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin. Science and Lore o f the Kitchen, just in time
The white author assumed the appearance for us graduated types who must begin
of a black man in New Orleans around cooking on our own.
1960, to see how he himself fe lt and if a
change in his skin color would alter others’
treatment of him. It did. I consider myself an
imperfect judge of this book, being white
myself; but whatever else it is, I know that
skimming it last summer shook up my own
well-intentioned patience with racism. Any­
one who believes that he or she has come to
terms with prejudice might want to glance
through this.
The Baha’i Faith: Emergence o f a Global
World Religion, by W. Hatcher and D.
Martin. I’ve not yet seen this book, but it is
available everywhere, being the first com­
mercially published work on the Baha’i
Faith. The title suggests to me a focus on
how Baha’is plan to bring the world together,
which has always been a favorite topic of
mine. Someone better do it, anyway.
PHOTOS BY RENÉE WHITHAM
Building a Character, by Constantin
7

axing charitable
giving would
undermine our
worthiest institutions
In September, Pulitzer
Prize-winning novelist
James A. Michener ’29
donated $2 million to
his alma mater.
In June, Michener
told alumni he doubted
he would have done so
under certain provisions
of the President’s
tax reform proposal.
By James A. Michener ’29
It would be difficult to find an American
citizen more interested than I am in the
Reagan administration’s proposed revisions
in the tax code. Because I earn my living in a
variety of ways and from a variety of
countries, my own income tax form runs for
forty-eight pages. Although I graduated
from one of America’s better colleges, with
more than passing grades, I could not hope
to make out my own tax return; the thing has
become so voluminous and so intricate that I
am totally incapable of understanding it. So
I am in support of the President’s effort, with
the help of good congressmen in the House
and Senate, to bring some sense into this
system.
However, I am deeply concerned about
proposals—first presented in the Treasury
Department plan now called Treasury I, and
then presented, with modifications, by the
President himself—to limit deductions for
charitable donations. Although the Pres­

ident’s plan has dropped two disturbing
proposals made in Treasury I, his proposed
tax revisions would lead to the loss of
billions of dollars for nonprofit organizations.
I hope that no retreat will be made on
deductions for charitable purposes. I think
that provision, which was worked out in the
early days of our tax system to encourage
tax-paying citizens to contribute to worthy
institutions, is one of the most admirable
things our nation has done. It accounts for
the wonderful hospitals we have, the
churches that serve our society, the social
agencies, the great work in medicine, art
museums, symphony orchestras, and espe­
cially for the great colleges and universities
which this nation provides in such prolifera­
tion, and with such admirable results. Our
nation and our society would be immea­
surably poorer without these institutions
which lend it grace and meaning. Anything
which imperils them endangers us all.
There are, I think, three important facts
which must be kept in mind in thinking
about the tax system that our nation has
devised. First, it always costs the donor
something to make the contribution. If he
did not make the contribution and kept all
the money for himself, and paid normal tax
upon it, he would always have more money
for himself than otherwise. Selfish consid­
erations would dictate that he give nothing,
but the interests of society prod him to give.
By its present tax policy, the government
helps by making the loss less onerous than it
1otherwise would be.
The President’s tax plan, however, would
make the loss more onerous, for both the
small giver and the large. The plan would
restrict charitable deductions to those per­
sons who itemize. But under this plan, only
20 percent of all taxpayers will fit into that
category. Other proposed changes, such as
subjecting gifts of appreciated property to a
stiff minimum tax, will also discourage
giving.
Second, the contributions we make are a
form of taxation, and for the government,
the end result is neutral. For if the private
individual did not make his contribution, it
is assumed that the government would have
to do so. Nobody in this system gets some­
thing for nothing. Everybody gains because
of this prudent provision of the law.
Third, the contribution to an institution
like Swarthmore College should, therefore,
be seen as a tax which the donor has the
privilege of applying to those desirable social
ends which he or she elects to support. The
government does lose a certain amount of
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

control, but it was decided long ago that the pick up these admirable social agencies
well-being of the institutions thus privileged which we would have abandoned. I do not,
was worthy of national support. I have often for example, see the state legislatures of
thought that the perpetuation of these insti­ America or the Congress in Washington
tutions has made the United States an funding a college like Swarthmore, or
enviable nation. So if the government yields Oberlin, or Amherst, or Penn. They would
a little in control, it gains a great, great deal not do it.
in the quality of life which it is sponsoring.
After waiting in vain for two or three
Although I have given away a large years, I would finally have concluded that
percentage of my income to some of the since the government had played me false
worthiest institutions in America, including and was not keeping these great institutions
Swarthmore, I wonder whether I would alive, I would have to. But I also suppose
have done so had the tax law been different. that the contributions would diminish in
It is tempting to wrap myself in the flag of size, and effectiveness, and that schools of
superior morality and cry: “As a good citizen this caliber would begin to retreat and
I would have done it under any circum­ decline.
stances.” But I doubt it.
No person can predict how he or she will
I do believe that, at the denial of deduc­ react to a hypothetical situation, and I seem
tions for charitable giving, in a pique I would to be somewhat more mercurial than most,
have said, at first, “All right, if that’s the way but as I ponder this question I do believe that
the government wants to run it, take the if government alters the ground rules, I will
money.” But I would have also said: “Okay, pay my increased taxes dutifully as in the
if you’re changing the ground rules, now/ow
past, but I will lose all impetus to contribute
support Swarthmore College, you support additionally on the side. And if we all do
the art museums, you support the symphony this, in response to a new tax code, I fear that
orchestras, you support the hospital that’s many good things will not be done. And I
doing advanced research.” And that is about will lament the passing of a system which
as mean a conclusion as a human being can accomplished so much that was fine.
make. But I am sorry to confess to you that I
would have made it, and I suspect that many The above essay was excerpted from a
speech by Jam es A. M ichener ’29 at
of you would have made it.
Now the terrible part about that decision Swarthmore on Alumni Day, June 8, 1985,
is that I am pretty sure I would have waited following his acceptance o f the Joseph B.
in vain and silence for the government to Shane Alumni Service Award.

Doris Hays Fenton ’20 and James A. Michener ’29
AUGUST 1985

Liberal arts decline
is not gain
for technology
By James A. Michener ’29
When I served on the board supervising the
United States Information Agency, I fre­
quently met with young businessmen from
foreign countries who were visiting the
United States to learn the secrets of our
successes. Invariably they wanted to visit the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology to
fathom our scientific mastery, Detroit to see
how we manufactured automobiles, or Sili­
con Valley in California to find out how we
handled the most recent computer advances.
I always told them: “All industrial nations
have secrets like those. Which ones a nation
has depends on what it’s concentrated on. If
you want to understand the real secret o£
American success go to Charlottesville, Vir­
ginia, and study what Thomas Jefferson
believed. Go to Yale University and study its
philosophy department. Or to Harvard to
see what it’s doing in literature and history.”
And always I added: “Study the way we
separate the powers of government into an
executive, a legislative, and a judicial seg­
ment. The United States has become great
not because of things but because of ideas.”
I could never persuade them to follow this
advice, because they were convinced that we
must have had some arcane trick in man­
agement or some brilliant, undisclosed sys­
tem of manufacturing. They could not be­
lieve that it was the idea of America that
triggered its power.
Of course, we did have technical secrets,
but where did they come from? Only from
minds trained in the great principles that
have governed man since the days of Greece
and Persia. From reflection, the weighing of
evidence, the willingness to grapple with
new ideas, the adherence over the millenia,
and an attitude toward the future. We call
such knowledge the liberal arts, for they are
the accumulation of all that man knows
about himself and the working of his society.
The noble pathway to an understanding of
life has always been through a study of the
liberal arts, and a society which is deficient
in either its teaching or study of these arts
will find itself deficient in a great deal else.
Now as soon as I have said this—and it is
an immutable cornerstone of my beliefs
about life—I must confess that in today’s
9

marketplace it is difficult for young people
with only a college education in the liberal
arts to find immediate employment. A
degree in English, world literature, history,
philosophy, or the principles of art seems to
promise nothing, and students are under­
standably reluctant to gamble their career in
such troubled waters. Enrollment for degrees
in the liberal arts has been declining precipi­
tously.
If I were a young man today, I would
have reason to be apprehensive. Recently I
was speaking in a small college and chanced
to study the bulletin board, where I saw
seven or eight announcements that em­
ployers from industry would shortly be
visiting the school to conduct interviews
with technicians, engineers, physicists, and
business majors. Not one visitor sought
interviews with young women or men with
liberal arts training.
I asked the dean of instruction: “If you
had a vacancy tomorrow in either English or
history, how many qualified applicants
would you have?” and he groaned: “Several
hundred.” The story is the same throughout
America. The liberal arts are in trouble, and
at times they seem doomed.
But are they? Not at all. I can say flatly
that throughout history the decisions which
govern the world have been made, to an
overwhelming degree, by persons trained in
the liberal arts. Obviously that had to be true
when there was no formal science, but it is
equally true today. I have been privileged to
serve on numerous governmental boards in
which decisions of some gravity had to be
made. I have served also in quasi-legislative
bodies. And I participated in various organ­
izations influencing national policy, and in
all these bodies the men and women who
made the major contribution tended to be in
their fifties and graduates of colleges and
universities which stressed the liberal arts.
True, there were occasional medical doc­
tors or practicing scientists, and their con­
tributions were outstanding, but the great
bulk of the work was done by liberal arts
majors, and the leadership came almost
always from them.
Why this enormous reliance of all societies
in all times on the men and women trained
to think, on people conversant with the great
sweep of history, or mature persons who
have weighed and judged values? Because it
is upon those activities that a society builds
its firmest foundations. Because any society
in danger of falling behind or making
basically wrong choices looks to people of
sagacity for the safeguarding of its principles.
10

It is then that the value of a liberal arts
training manifests itself.

Management of ideas
A cynic, hearing me argue thus, replied:
“Sure, liberal arts majors fill the seats of
Congress, and the courts, and the governor’s
mansions, and the other places where talk is
pre-eminent, because scientists are doing the
work which counts and cannot be bothered.”
There is some truth to this, but another way
of expressing it is this: Scientists are so busy
manipulating things, and doing it with won­
derful imagination, that they leave the man­
agement of ideas to the philosophers. And in
the long run, it is the successful management
of ideas that determines the success or failure
of societies.
If what I say is correct, what should be the
strategem of a young person who wants to
make the most of his or her life? I have
thought about this a great deal and have
worked out an answer which also becomes a
life pattern: If you graduate in liberal arts,
you will have a difficult time between the
ages of 22 and 45, when nobody seems to
want you. Your responsibility in those years
will be to hang on, by your fingernails if
necessary. But if you survive, and good
people do, you will find that from age 45 to
the end of your life you will be increasingly
valuable to society, for you will be running
it. It will be you, and people like you, who
will be editing the great newspapers, operat­
ing the television stations, directing the
banks, guiding the universities, and espe­
cially sitting in the higher seats of govern­
ment. It’s always been that way. It always
will be.

managerial ranks with only masters of sci­
ence and business administration they get
wooden leadership in the great strategies of
business. They need also bright young people
trained in the permanent values of mankind,
for without them leadership cannot seem to
react properly to the swift changes that are
upon it. Even the most scientific of the firms
are now looking for good liberal arts grad­
uates, because they know they need them.
So without qualification I advise young
people: If you are inclined toward a career
which requires certification and internship
like medicine or law, get right to work. But if
you have an aptitude in the liberal arts, have
the courage to take such a degree, because it
can be the pathway to a most constructive
life. Providing, always, you can survive the
tough years.

Invaluable to society

It is strange that I should be making this
defense of the liberal arts, because in recent
years I have been working with concen­
tration in the fields of science. Geography,
geology, astronomy, and archaeology have
dominated my writing. Extended service
with NASA has kept me at the heart of
scientific advances in aviation and astro­
physics. My spare time has been spent trying
to unravel the secrets of genetics, and I have
stated repeatedly that if I were a beginning
writer with the instincts I had when I was
young, I would specialize in genetic en­
gineering and its meaning for mankind.
I am powerfully addicted to science and
have been honored by some half-dozen
scientific associations for the work I have
done in popularizing their work, and my
Subtle change in hiring
future plans call for me to continue this
concentration.
Furthermore, I see a subtle change right
It is against such a background of respect
now in the hiring policies of major firms.
They are discovering that if they fill their for science that I plead with young scholars
to consider the utility of the liberal arts. For
if one can graduate well, with a real mastery
of the historical experience of mankind, and
if one can manage somehow to survive the
difficult years 22-45, one will find thereafter
that he or she is invaluable to society in
general and to our republic in particular. For
men and women cannot govern themselves,
they cannot make right choices, except
through the time-honored process of know­
ing what has been tried in the past and what
ought to be done in the future. Such knowl­
edge does not come about by accident; it
comes only from study.

“The liberal arts
are in trouble,
and at times
they seem doomed.
But are they?
Not a t all. 1

Copyright ©1984, The Atlanta Journal &
Constitution.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Garnet tennis team
takes national title
By Leisha Shaffer
No one could accuse Eugene Lang ’38,
chairman of the Board of Managers, of
overstatement when he told graduating sen­
iors, “You have helped transmute the meek
Swarthmore lion into a raging carnivore of
the athletic jungle.” Garnet teams put
Swarthmore in the national spotlight this
spring with a national championship, a
national playoff berth, a national qualifier,
and national rankings.
Both the men’s tennis team and its doubles
team of Jeff Krieger ’86 and Shep Davidson
’86 won national championships. The base­
ball team found itself for the first time ever in
the national playoffs. Distance runner Kirk
Swenson ’86 set new College and conference
records and qualified for the NCAA Divi­
sion III national track and field meet. And
the men’s lacrosse team took its third MAC
title in four years and finished the season
ranked tenth nationally in Division III.
Baseball (27-6) It was a dream season
for Coach Ernie Prudente. The seventeenyear diamond mentor watched his team
All-Americans Shep Davidson ’86 (right) and Jeff Kreiger
’86 led Swarthmore to its thirdNCAA Division III national
title in nine years. Photo by tennis coach Michael Mullan.

Baseball and lacrosse teams earn national rankings
make a dramatic turnaround as it pounded
out the best record in the College’s 95 years
of baseball and gained it’s first NCAA
playoff berth. Six starting seniors led this
year’s team to a 27-6 record and a sweep of
the MAC Southeast Division after posting a
2-14 record (0-10 in MAC play) in their
freshmen year.
The Garnet sluggers, who finished with a
.356 team batting average and 116 stolen
bases, built winning streaks of ten and
twelve games, including five MAC doubleheader sweeps, en route to clinching their
first MAC Southeast title. The team suffered
its first of only three Division III defeats in
the MAC Southern Division championship
by dropping a 7-9 decision to Moravian
College.
The Garnet’s 26-4 record, which kept the
team in the Division III Top Twenty for the
entire season, was good enough also for an
NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional playoff berth.
The Garnet dropped the first game of the
double-elimination tournament to eventual
regional champion Montclair State College
by an 11-2 margin. The Garnet stormed
back the following day to take a 4-3 decision
against Methodist College (N.C.) and then
fell 5-2 in a heartbreaking come-frombehind victory by Ramapo State College
(N.J.), the defending NCAA Division III
champions.
Individual team members fared well in
post-season honors, with six players named
to the All-MAC teams and two selected for
the Mid-Atlantic regional team. Senior sen­
sation Eddie Greene grabbed the most glory.
He was named conference MVP, selected
for the regional team, and awarded firstteam All-MAC honors as both a righthanded pitcher and an outfielder. Joe
D ’Angelo ’86 came away with double
honors as the league’s best left-handed pitch­
er and designated hitter. Shortstop Mark
Handwerger ’85, who joined Greene on the
regional team, completed the first-team hon­
ors, while first baseman Bob Klein ’85,
second baseman Chris Nolan ’85, and
catcher John Schaefer ’86 all received
second-team honors. And the awe-struck
Ernie Prudente? —he was named Coach of
the Year, naturally.
Golf (5-11) Although the golf team was
the only spring team that did not post a
winning record, a mere record is not indica­
tive of the team’s marked improvement. The
addition of talented freshmen—Alf Du Puy,
12

Logan Snow, and Danny Prillaman—lifted
the team from last year’s disappointing 1-11
record and 21st-place conference finish to
this year’s 5-11 mark and 13th-place MAC
finish.
Among this season’s eleven losses were
several matches which were decided by five
or fewer strokes. The entire scoring corps of
the team returns next year and hopes to
continue its ascent.
Men’s Lacrosse (11-3) Perennial win­
ners, the Garnet laxers did not disappoint
their fans this year as they posted an 11-3
record, won their fourth consecutive MAC
East Division title, and claimed their third
MAC crown in the past four years. After a

Eddie Greene slugs his
way into pro baseball
On Monday, June 3, Eddie Greene
received his degree in psychology. On
Tuesday, June 4, he received a phone call
from the Milwaukee Brewers telling him
he’d been drafted into professional base­
ball. Five days later he was on a plane to
Helena, Montana, where he joined other
rookies for the summer league.
Greene, who compiled an 8 -3 record
with a 3.71 ERA as a pitcher last season,
made first team all-MAC and was named
the MAC’s Most Valuable Player. Also a
star in football, he received honors as a
defensive back—and “feelers” for pro
football from the Dallas Cowboys and
USFL’s Denver Gold.
After finishing the summer of play,
Greene will begin a Ph.D. program in
counseling psychology at Howard Uni­
versity, where, he says, “their flexible
program will allow me to go to school in
the fall and play ball in the spring.”

slow 1-2 start, the laxers shifted to high gear
and won ten of their last eleven games,
including a 14-10 victory over Gettysburg in
the MAC Championships. The team finished
the season ranked tenth in Division III and
fell just shy of repeating last year’s NCAA
playoff appearance.
Outgoing coach Jim Noyes and the grad­
uating seniors won 42 of 53 games during
the tenure of the senior class. They led the
way also in post-season honors. Defenseman
Hans Hurdle ’85 was selected to the Division
III All-America third team for the second
straight year and represented Swarthmore in
the annual North-South game, which fea­
tures the best seniors from Divisions I and
III. Hurdle was honored also as conference
MVP and joined defenseman John Hiros
’85, attackman Jerry Hood ’86, midfielder
Marty Welsh ’86, and goalie Pat Carney ’86
on the MAC All-Star team. Hood and
Welsh, who led the team in scoring with 54
and 40 points respectively, and Carney, who
posted a .715 save percentage in the net, will
anchor next year’s squad, which hopes to
continue the “Little Quaker lacrosse dy­
nasty.”
Women’s Lacrosse (9-7) After losing
most of their starters to graduation last year,
the women laxers viewed this year as a
rebuilding season. Although they lacked
playing experience, the team’s talent and
hard work nearly gained them a repeat of
last year’s USWLA playoff berth. Many
teams would hope for that kind of success in
a strong year!
The rookie squad took its knocks in the
beginning of the season as it dropped a 10-13
overtime decision to Glassboro and followed
with a 2-14 lesson from eventual national
champion Trenton State. But the young
laxers took heed of the adage, “Bend, but
don’t break,” and rallied to win nine of their
last fourteen games, including big wins over
Army (7-5), Haverford (8-7), and Johns
Hopkins (6-5).
The squad’s scoring leaders—Sue Swearer
’87 (49 points), Amory Hunnewell ’87 (36
points), and Martha James ’86 (30 points)
—helped ease the transition for first-year
goalie Kelly Werhane ’87, who showed
dramatic improvement throughout the sea­
son. Swearer and Hunnewell joined Polly
Neff’87 on the Philadelphia AIAW Division
II All-Star team. Hunnewell and Neff then
teamed with Heather Duncan ’87 on the
Brine Regional All-Star team to complete
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

the post-season honors.
Softball (11-7) The softball team turned
the corner four years ago and continued its
winning ways this year with an 11-7 record
and its first PAIAW championship. The
team also played its first season as a member
of the MAC and finished second in the
Southeast division with a 7-3 record.
The team, which set numerous College
statistical records last year, revamped the
marks for the team batting average (.284)
and fielding average (.922) this season. The
record that will be tough to top, however, is
the one set by- pitcher Kim Mullin ’87.
Mullin was the “Iron Lady” of the team as
she pitched seventeen complete games in her
eighteen starts and notched a 1.94 ERA in
120 innings of work. In two of those
seventeen games, Mullin did what no other
pitcher before her had done—she allowed
no hits. Mullin’s sparkling work from the
mound was complemented by big hitting
from Annie Fetter ’88 (.448), Sue Levine ’85
(.333), and Jennifer Truscott ’88 (.333). Co­
captain Liz Stevenson ’86 received post­
season honors as the 1984 PAIAW Division
III Player of the Year.
Men’s Tennis (15-10) They did “it” in
1977, tied for “it” in 1981, and this year they
brought “it” home once again. The “it” in
this case is the NCAA Division III National
Tennis Championship and they did “it” in
dramatic fashion.
Faced with a schedule of strong Division I
and III teams, they knocked off three top
ranked teams, including Redlands (Calif.),
the defending national champs. Their per­
formance was duly noticed. A few weeks
later the team was ranked second and Jeff
Krieger ’86 and Shep Davidson ’86 were
ranked as the #1 and #2 singles players in the
nation.
After winning its twelfth consecutive
MAC title, the team traveled to Lexington,
Va., for the NCAA national tennis tourna­
ment. The squad handed Washington & Lee
and St. Thomas (Minn.) 6-3 losses to ad­
vance to the finals. The opponent was topranked Kalamazoo and the match was a
cliffhanger. The teams were tied at 3-3 after
the singles when rain began to wash out the
doubles matches. After they traveled thirtyfive miles to play on indoor courts, two of
the doubles matches were quickly decided,
leaving the match tied at four. Swarthmore’s
only remaining players were the second
doubles team of Eric Prothero ’85 and Rick
AUGUST 1985

Vanden Bergh ’85, who had not won a
match in the tournament. Finally, at 10 p.m.,
Prothero and Vanden Bergh eked out a
tiebreaker and won the match and the
championship by scores of 3-6, 6-4, 7-6.
In the individual competition which fol­
lowed, Krieger and Davidson won the
doubles championship and earned AllAmerican honors. Davidson fell just shy of
completing a Garnet “triple crown,” finish­
ing second in the singles competition.
David Sobel ’87, who also was named an
All-American, and Vivek Varma ’88 exem­
plified the promise of another championship
next year. Both remained undefeated through­
out the team competition.
Women’s Tennis (15-9) The women
racketeers expanded their schedule this sea­
son and hoped to rival the men and receive
an invitation to the NCAA tournament.
Although the team defeated five Division I
squads, two Division II teams, and won
eight of eleven Division III matches, the
NCAA did not extend an invitation to the
national tournament. This was especially
frustrating because the team’s three Division
III losses came at the hands of two teams
who were in the national tournament—
Franklin and Marshall and Trenton State.
F&M, the team to which the Garnet dropped
two decisions, was a pesky rival this year, as
they eliminated Swarthmore from an MAC

championship berth as well. The racketeers
finished second in the MAC Southeast,
behind F&M, who went on to win the
conference title and finish third in the
NCAA tournament.
The team will lose seniors Yvonne Esselen
and Kris Parris, but Alice Esselen ’86 and
Julie Marcus ’87 will return to pace the
racketeers next season in their try for a
tournament berth.
Men’s Track and Field (4-3) Kirk
Swenson ’86 headlined the men’s track
season with his stellar performance in the
3000-meter steeplechase event. Swenson
won the event at the MAC championships,
setting both a conference and a College
record in the process. At a regional meet a
week later, he qualified for the Division III
Nationals, held in Granville, Ohio. Swenson
did not place but hopes to be a front runner
in next year’s competition.
The track team finished eighth in the
MAC Championships. They were paced by
Swenson’s gold-medal performance and the
1600-meter relay team of Alex Porter ’88,
Bruce Abernethy ’85, Dan Brandt ’85, and
Keith Corpus ’86, which set a College record
with its time of 3:24.3. Dave Landes ’85
collected medals in the field events with
third place in the long jump and fourth in the
triple jump.
Women’s Track and Field (7-4) While
setting eight College records this season, the
women’s track team savored a longer-lasting
victory. The women’s team has been
accorded official varsity status, with admin­
istrative funding pending for next year.
The women proved that they are worth
their keep this year through outstanding
individual performances and an eighth-place
finish at the MAC championship meet.
Ramona O’Halloran ’86 earned a silver
medal in the triple jump and College records
were set by Sarah Shirk ’87 in the 800
meters and the 1600-meter-relay team of
Jenneane Jansen ’88, Ellen Walsh ’87,
Shirk, and O’Halloran.
The most impressive display of talent
came at the Johns Hopkins meet. Junior
dynamo O’Halloran won five individual
events, helped win two relays, and set
College records in the long jump, triple
jump, and 100-meter events—all in one day!
Despite this frenetic scoring spree, the meet
was decided by the mile relay team,
anchored by O’Halloran, which gave the
Garnet a 67-66 upset victory.
13

“Movers and shakers of ’85” graduate under sunny skies
off-topic, bathtub racing, and, mirabile dictu,
at intercollegiate athletics.
“But perhaps most impressive” Fraser
continued, “you have developed and dem­
onstrated an abiding concern for others, a
commitment to put your skills to work for
the benefit of those less advantaged, here and
around the world. This commitment can be
seen in your focus on issues of women and of
Blacks, in your work in the Chester Intern­
ship Program, in your examination of issues
of nuclear weapons and your thoughtful
concern with the political and social issues in
Central America and South Africa.. ..
“The College is proud of your commit­
ment, has learned much from your teaching,
and is inspired to follow your example.”
President Fraser presented honorary de­
grees to pioneering feminist psychologist
Carol Gilligan ’58, an associate professor in
Harvard’s Graduate School of Education;
artist Leon Golub, a painter known for his
harsh depiction of politically motivated
violence; nuclear arms control activist
Jeremy Stone ’57, director of the Federation
of American Scientists; and economist and
former vice president of Provident National
Bank Richard Willis ’33, an active member
of the Board of Managers for nearly twentythree years. The following are excerpts from
their charges to the graduating class.

“Swarthmore will never be the same.”
So said Board of Managers Chairman
Eugene Lang ’38 of the impact made by the
301 seniors in the Class o f’85. With the sun
shining (after rain dampened ceremonies for
the previous two years) on the College’s
113th Commencement, Lang added:
“No one in our modern history has helped
unleash more elements of profound change
to our College than you, the Class of ’85.
“You have participated in our Develop­
ment Planning effort to prepare Swarthmore’s master plan for the year 2000. You
have stimulated and become part of the
complex process of changing Swarthmore’s
curriculum. You have impelled all of us to
come to grips with ethical issues affecting
human rights and social justice at home and
abroad.
“And, finally, you have presided over the
housebreaking of a new Chairman of the
Board and a new President.”
Adding to the tribute to the graduates,
President David Fraser said: “ You have
sharpened your intellectual skills by parry­
ing with the faculty, the Dean, and me—we
have the wounds to prove it. You have
learned to be resilient in accommodating to
international unrest, local fire, the closing
and opening of a fraternity, and the greatest
of challenges—a change in the academic

calendar. You have demonstrated a certain
extracurricular panache that has made
Swarthmore an uncharacteristically joyful
place. In addition to choral singing, orches­
tral playing, drama, and dance, you have
excelled at such unlikely activities as a form
of debate that was as often off-center as

Buried in a sea o f leis from seniors, President
Fraser dispensed diplomas with his usual aplomb.

Newly graduated engineering students discarded their traditional mortarboards in favor o f headgear
more closely befitting their. . . e r . . . u m . . . profession.

PHOTOS BY STEVEN GOLDBLATT ’67

“Life is just a soft shoe, pink champagne, and
dancin’ ” was the musical coda to senior class
speaker Joe Walker’s reflections on Truth at
Swarthmore. “We are, ” he said, “no longerfools
who rush in as we were four years ago but sages
who are about to take a very brisk walk. ”

14

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Leon Golub
“One problem that concerns me today is
the control of ideas, the contrasting, conflict­
ing attitudes towards all sorts of social,
political, and aesthetic issues. We don’t
know to what extent information comes
through to us in most instances. We live in
what is generally recognized as a free society.
No society is 100 percent free with respect to
the information that’s made available to it.
We know all about how information is
repressed in various kinds of ways by
governmental bodies and individuals and
corporations. Our society is presumably
much freer than most. While some societies
might have a 20 percent information flow, I
would think we might have a 65-75 percent
information flow.
“But there are all these forces which are
struggling to control how information is
used. One of your jobs, whether in the arts or
any other type of career, is to keep the
channels open.”

“In 1985, when the presence of nuclear
weapons makes it possible to imagine how
the Italian lakes could become a polar
region, the question is how has your educa­
tion prepared you to think about the prob­
lems of aggression and the place of repro­
duction within the framework of human life.
You are well aware of the limits of old ways
of resolving conflicts between nations as
well as the limits of old ways of structuring
the relationship between women and men.
Searching for the new ways of thinking that
Einstein saw as necessary to survival in a
nuclear age, we all live together at this time
in an age of improvisation. The need for
improvisation will become most apparent if
you seek to combine work and family and
come up against external structures of work
and internal structures of expectation that
seemingly will not yield. But to take on this
challenge is to address a problem that has
public as well as private dimensions: the
need to integrate two spheres that formerly
have been kept separate, by bringing together
their two governing images, the images of
citizen and of parent.”

Richard B. Willis ’33

Carol Friedman Gilligan ’58
“In 1929 Freud said that education did
not prepare young people for the part that
sexuality would play in their lives or for the
aggressiveness of which they would become
the object. It was, he said, like sending
people off on a polar expedition, dressed in
summer clothing, and with maps of the
Italian lakes.
AUGUST 1985

“Advice is best given by example. Let me
give you one. Three years ago the Swarthmore Presidential Search Committee was
interviewing a promising young aspirant
when a committee member rather brashly
said, ‘What makes you so confident that you
can successfully make the jump from medi­
cine to college president?’
“He replied with characteristic, goodhumored assurance, ‘Why not? I have had a
liberal arts education like the one at Swarthmore. I can have more than one career. I can
have a third after I leave Swarthmore,
possibly a fourth.’ He didn’t mention the
hereafter but the potential is obvious.
“So my advice is to take full advantage of
your liberal arts education and grow in
different directions. David Fraser has done
so, so can you.”

Jeremy J. Stone ’57
“So much for the strategic commercial,
what of the Charges to the student body
distilled from 28 years of my so-called
experience?
“First, because you have measured your­
selves against each other for four formative
years, you Swarthmore students will have a
tendency to set your sights too low, relative
to the outside world.
“The Charge is: If and when you belatedly
decide that your goals will not, in the end,
satisfy you, elevate your goals and change
your course.
“Second, like all students, you will tend to
see yourselves in established career patterns:
doctor, lawyer, economist, teacher, etc. But
the real fun in life may well be found in the
cracks between professions—in doing some­
thing different and, indeed, the competition
there may be less severe.
“The Charge is: When in doubt, consider
trying something new.
“Third, Swarthmore students are espe­
cially well equipped to try to solve the
world’s problems because they combine
idealism with pragmatism—enough idealism
to know what ought to be done and enough
pragmatism to figure out some “crazy like a
fox” scheme to attempt to achieve the goal.
“The Charge is: Don’t overlook the pos­
sibility that you have the equipment to make
a difference in some socially important
struggle.
“Fourth and finally, you are hereby
charged to feel free to disregard all previous
charges of mine or others. After this expen­
sive education, you should be ready to trust
yourself. Indeed, you can be right when all
previous injunctions are not. No charge can
encompass the moral complexity of human
life. Character is the only hope. And for that
there is no charge.”

THE COLLEGE

Stevens, Michener receive first
Shane Alumni Service Awards

Flanking Terry Shane, widow o f former College Vice President Joseph B. Shane ’25, are Alumni
Service Award winners Diana Judd Stevens ’63 and James A. Michener ’29. Also on hand at the
presentation during Collection on Alumni Weekend were Shane’s son Larry ’56, a former vice
chairman o f the Board o f Managers, and his wife, Martha Porter Shane ’57.
16

Diana Judd Stevens ’63 and James A.
Michener ’29 became the first recipients of
the Joseph B. Shane Alumni Service Award
on June 8.
Presented by the Alumni Association, the
award will be given annually during Alumni
Weekend to an alumna or alumnus who,
over an extended period of time, has “con­
tributed significantly to the well-being and
health of the College.”
The award is named in honor of the late
Joseph B. Shane ’25, who served as vicepresident of public relations, alumni rela­
tions, and development, and professor of
education at the College from 1950 until his
retirement in 1972. He died two years later.
In presenting the new award, Alumni
Association Vice President Elinor Meyer
Haupt ’55 said: “Many of you knew Joe
Shane—a big, warm smile, hand outstretched
in greeting, a funny story to tell. [He was]
Mr. Swarthmore to many alumni. To name
in his honor a new award for service to the
College seemed the most natural thing in the
world.”
Stevens, a program specialist for the
Delaware Region National Conference of
Christians and Jews STRIVE youth pro­
grams, served for three years as secretary of
the Alumni Association and two years as
vice-president. She has served as class secre­
tary for nearly twenty years and has twice
been chair of reunions for her class. She has
served also on the Nominating Committee
of the Alumni Association.
In 1978, responding to a need expressed
by the Admissions Office, she began to
organize parties in the homes of alumni for
prospective students and their parents. Seven
years and ninety parties later, she is still at it.
This year, she organized seventeen parties in
fourteen states, from California to the East
Coast.
About James Michener, Haupt said: “Jim
Michener has used his fame and forture to
help tell the world, as he travels around it,
about the fine education students can receive
at Swarthmore. Swarthmore may still not be
a household word but through his efforts
many more people have knowledge of it and
respect for it.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

“One recent example of his one-man
public relations effort is the gift he made to
the College last September. Two million
dollars, unrestricted, will come in handy, of
course, but the manner of the giving—the
words that accompanied the gift—enhanced
its value beyond measure.”
The Alumni Council invites alumni to
recommend recipients for the 1986 Shane
Award. Please send your suggestions and
supporting information to Sally Warren,
president of the Alumni Association, in care
of the Alumni Office, Swarthmore College,
Swarthmore, PA 19081.

Eugene Lang honored with
Distinguished Service
Award in Trusteeship
Eugene M. Lang ’38, chairman of the Board
of Managers, was one of two trustees singled
out this spring from the nation’s 40,000
college and university trustees as exempli­
fying the finest standards of volunteer trus­
teeship) in higher education.
Lang, along with Eleanor Spiegel, a
trustee of Thomas A. Edison College in
Trenton, N.J., was honored with a Distin­
guished Service Award (DSA) in Trusteeship
presented in April by the Association of
Governing Boards of Universities and Col­
leges (AGB).
He has served on the College’s Board of
Managers since 1970 and has been chairman
for the last three years. Recently he founded
a new volunteer organization, the Confer­
ence of Board Chairmen of small, indepen­
dent, liberal arts colleges.
Having attended Swarthmore on a fulltuition scholarship, Lang has given unstintingly of his time and resources to aid the
College ever since. He spearheaded the
1978-81 capital funds campaign, which
raised $36 million.
A generous donor himself, he has given
the College more than $8 million for the
Lang Music Building, five faculty fellow­
ships, a visiting professorship to bring distin­
guished social activists to the campus, and
Eugene M. Lang scholarships to support
four entering freshmen each year. The schol­
arship includes a $5,000 stipend for an
internship, research, or community action
project to benefit society. One such stipend
has led to the continuing student-run organi­
zation in nearby Chester to help renovate
abandoned homes to sell, at cost, to needy
inner-city residents.
First given in 1980, the DSA is presented
each year by the AGB to honor the outstand­
ing dedication of trustees at both public and
independent colleges and universities.
AUGUST 1985

Eugene M. Lang ’38

Faculty strengthens course
distribution requirements in
revamping College curriculum
Concern that the easing of college cur­
riculum requirements during the 1960s and
’70s has encouraged some students to choose
courses with little more care than they might
bring to supermarket shopping has prompt­
ed many colleges to institute or revert to
“core curriculum” requirements aimed at
ensuring that their students get well balanced
undergraduate educations. Curricular reviews
are underway at 58 percent of the colleges
and universities recently surveyed by the
American Council on Education, while an
additional 29 percent reported they had
completed curriculum reviews within the
past five years. The Council found that a
majority of schools now have core cur­
riculum requirements.
Over the past year, the Swarthmore
faculty began re-evaluating its own cur­
riculum. Yet, when the deliberations on the
first two years of the curriculum were over
and the final vote was taken in May, what
emerged was not a core curriculum, but a
reaffirmation and strengthening of the Col­
lege’s current, more flexible, course distri­
bution requirements.
“I’d say we’re certainly not following the
current trend to a core curriculum,” said
Constance Cain Hungerford, associate pro­
fessor of art and a member of the College’s
Council on Educational Policy, “and yet we
were very concerned to strengthen the means
by which our curricular goals are met in the
first two years.”

Swarthmore’s new curriculum requires
students to take three courses in each of the
three divisions of the college. The three
divisions include: the Humanities (art, clas­
sics, English literature, modern languages
and literatures, music, philosophy, and re­
ligion), the Natural Sciences and Engineering
(astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering,
mathematics, physics), and the Social Sci' ences (economics, education, history, lin­
guistics, poitical science, psychology, sociology/anthropology). Of the three courses
required in each division, at least two must
be taken in different departments. Also, at
least two of the three must be chosen from
among what will be designated as “primary
distribution” courses.
These new courses must conform to a set
of criteria established by the faculty. They
will be restricted to twenty-five students or
will have small laboratories or sections, and
will emphasize the development of students’
reading, writing, analytical, and argumen­
tative skills within the framework of the
discipline. The courses are intended also to
promote critical engagement with the activ­
ities of the discipline and develop an appre­
ciation for the discipline within a broader
system of knowledge. Lastly, the courses are
required to address the discipline in such a
way that both those students who continue
in the field and those who do not can profit
substantially from taking them.
“We are trying to develop courses that are
not just introductions to a discipline, but also
self-reflective,” Provost James England ex­
plained. “Right now*a lot of courses require
additional work in the discipline before their
objective is attained. Primary distribution
courses are intended to stand alone and be of
benefit to potential majors as well as those
who do not plan to continue in the field.”
The faculty hopes that primary distri­
bution course requirements will prove a
satisfactory compromise between a set core
curriculum and the freestyle course choices
allowed by some general education pro­
grams.
“Like those schools instituting a core, we
are focusing much more attention on what
we think those distribution requirements are
supposed to accomplish,” Hungerford ex­
plained. “And while we’re not prescribing
specific subjects, we are indicating what
kinds of learning we think should be going
on in those courses__ We’re not, then,
saying that we think all Swarthmore students
should have a specific body of knowledge,
but that we want certain kinds of learning,
and certain conscious exposure to disciplines
to go on as a foundation for students to build
on later.”
(continued on next page)

17

During the faculty meetings where changes
in the curriculum were considered, the idea
of a core curriculum was discussed. Though
it was attractive to some faculty members,
the faculty as a whole found it difficult to
agree upon what courses should constitute a
core.
“We don’t see this as a sweeping, radical
change,” Hungerford observed. “This is
really working with the way we have been
structuring the first two years all along and
simply trying to be sure that the goals of
those requirements are met more satisfac­
torily.”
Provost England hopes that the new
curriculum will provide “a framework for
faculty members to apply more creativity to
their teaching.” The new program, for in­
stance, encourages the creation of teamtaught, interdepartmental courses that meet
the criteria set for primary distribution
courses.
Some interdisciplinary and team-taught
courses already have been offered at Swarthmore. “Primate Behavior” drew on biology,
anthropology, and sociology to address the
issue of social behavior in relation to habitat
or population stress. “Patterns of Expla­
nation,” a course team-taught by faculty
from three disciplines, focused on religion
and science as differing patterns of meaning
compared across cultures and history. Such
courses, however, have been difficult to
maintain.
“There’s been a perception that inter­
departmental courses were feasible, but not
encouraged,” Hungerford explained. “In the
new curriculum they are identified as some­
thing that is desirable, instead of being
considered just an interesting variation. The
institutional incentives are much stronger
now.”
While the primary distribution require­
ments will encourage faculty to devise many
new courses, about half of the courses
needed are in the present curriculum. These
will meet the basic criteria for primary
distribution courses with few changes.
— Renée Whitham

the agreement, which has been in the works
for more than two years.
Under the terms of the agreement, which
is set up for a four-year trial period, Swarth­
more and Nankai will each send one student
or young faculty member a year to study or
do research in the other country. These
terms may be amended to allow two persons
to study for two years or for a number to
attend for just one-half year. Each school
will pay all expenses for the visiting scholars.
A relatively small (6,000 students) uni­
versity, Nankai has long held a reputation as
one of the top three or four universities in the
People’s Republic of China. Like Swarth­
more, it has a liberal arts orientation, offering
an education in humanities and natural
sciences.
According to Kenneth Luk, assistant pro­
fessor of Chinese and an instigator of the
exchange agreement, the students from Nan­
kai will benefit from the greater freedom in
course selection and specialization within a
particular field which is characteristic of
American colleges.
“The Chinese government,” he said, “will
not be restricting what they may study here.
It will be limited only by what each individ­
ual thinks will be best to take back to his
own university.” Although science and tech­
nology are the most popular fields of study,
Luk notes that Chinese exchange students
“have shown an increasing interest in Amer­
ican studies.”
Jerome Wood, a professor of history at
Swarthmore who helped negotiate the ex­

change agreement while in Nankai last year
under a Fulbright Fellowship, agrees.
“There’s no limit to the fields that someone
on this program can study,” he said, citing as
an example a Chinese student whom he
taught in Nankai who will be at Swarthmore
in the fall to initiate the exchange. The
student, Yu Mao Chun, has a particular
interest in Afro-American history, and has
already been approved as a special candi­
date for a master’s degree in history at
Swarthmore.
Because of restrictions by the Chinese
government, only graduate students and
faculty members will be allowed to study at
Swarthmore.

Business vice president
among staff appointments
Loren Hart, a member of a New York
investment banking firm, has been named
vice president for business and finance and
treasurer of the College, effective Sept. 15.
Other new administrative appointments
include Thomas Francis as director of career
planning and placement and Cigus Vanni
’72 as assistant dean for new student affairs.
In announcing Hart’s appointment, Pres­
ident David Fraser said: “We are very
fortunate to find such a talented and experi­
enced person as Loren to serve as vice
president. The responsibilities of the position
are so broad and yet the nuances of financial

Swarthmore to exchange
students, faculty with
China’s Nankai University
Swarthmore has become the only small
liberal arts college in the United States to
initiate a student exchange program with
Nankai University in China.
A six-person delegation from Nankai,
including the university’s vice president,
dean of academic affairs, and director of the
library, came to the College May 31 to sign
18

President David Fraser and Fan Enpang, vice president at Nankai University, sign an agreement for
the exchange o f one student or faculty member each year during a four-year trial period.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

management and planning so sophisticated
that very few people have the technical skills
for the job. Loren, however, in addition to
these skills, has a deep appreciation of the
values and importance of fine liberal arts
colleges and a zest for working with people.”
Hart graduated from Grinnell College in
three years and was elected to Phi Beta
Kappa. He then attended Columbia Law
School as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar,
specializing in international law and trade.
After practicing law with firms in Minne­
apolis and New York, he received an M.B.A.
from Harvard in 1981. He then joined
Kidder, Peabody and Co., a New York
investment banking firm, where he set up
and directed a unit that underwrites financ­
ings for institutions of higher education.
Francis, who began his duties at the
College July lJ was previously associate
director of the Career Development Center
at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, where
he also was assistant director and coordi­
nator for placement. A graduate of Kalama­
zoo College, he also holds an M.A. in
counseling and personnel from Western
Michigan University. Francis’ wife, Diane
Kennedy, is a 1973 Swarthmore graduate.
Also effective July 1 was the appointment
of Vanni, who has been in private practice as
a school, individual, and family psychologist.
He previously had been a lecturer in the
College’s Education Program and has been
working with a consortium of non-public
schools in testing and assessment in Camden,
N. J., as well as being an on-call psychologist
for the Child Abuse Prevention Effort in
Philadelphia.

Gertrude Smith Wister wins
Scott Horticultural Award
Horticulturist Gertrude Smith Wister was
chosen the 1985 recipient of the College’s
Arthur Hoyt Scott Garden and Horticultural
Award. The award, consisting of a gold
medal and $1,000, is given to an individual
who has made an outstanding contribution
to the science and art of gardening, and who
has helped create and develop a wider public
interest in the field. It is one of the top two
horticultural awards in the country.
Assistant director of the Scott Horticul­
tural Foundation for thirteen years, Wister
held the same position at the John J. Tyler
Arboretum in Lima, Pa. Her husband, the
late Dr. John C. Wister (Hon. ’42), was the
first director of the Scott Foundation and the
Tyler Arboretum.
The N ew York Times, in an article an­
nouncing the award, said: “She communi­
cates the feeling of someone who would
AUGUST 1985

rather be showing a student the differences
between two types of daffodils than accept­
ing gold medals and listening to laudatory
speeches. During the rhododendron season
when a recent visitor called the Wister
garden ‘a tribute to your talents,’ she replied,
‘The talent is in the genes of the plants.’ ”
Gertrude Wister edited the Bulletin of the
National Council of State Garden Clubs and
the Yearbook of the American Daffodil
Society for many years. She is the author of
H ardy Garden Bulbs and numerous pub­
lished articles.
In addition to the Scott Foundation
Award, she has received three of gardening’s
most prestigious honors: the Distinguished
Achievement Award of the Pennsylvania
Horticultural Society, the Thomas Roland
Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society, and the Gold Medal of the American
Rhododendron Society.

College publications win
gold and silver awards
Throwing modesty out the window, your
editors are pleased to announce three awards
in the annual Council for Advancement and
Support of Education (CASE) recognition
program.
The Swarthm ore College Bulletin was
awarded a gold medal as one of the top five
college magazines in the country. The judges
expressed particular admiration for Swarthmore’s “relative irreverence.” The Bulletin
also won a silver medal in a separate
category for “excellence in periodical writ­
ing.”
Another gold medal went to the G arnet
Letter , in the newsletter category, placing it
among the top ten college newsletters.
The CASE recognition program each year
draws thousands of entries in fifty categories
in all areas of institutional advancement.

Board of Managers decides
not to join appeal over
Blue Route construction
The Board of Managers at its May 4 meeting
decided not to join the appeal against a U.S.
District Court ruling that the Blue Route
may be completed.
“Issues affecting the community and the
College have been fully ventilated,” said
Board Chairman Eugene M. Lang ’38.
“While we wish the judicial decision had
been more supportive of the College’s posi­
tion, we feel that it would be most construc­
tive to all if the community and local

business interests in particular joined the
College in continuing the strong effort to
ensure that the actions and decisions of
PennDOT minimize the adverse effects of
the Blue Route on the College environment.”
On March 15, U.S. District Court Judge
Donald VanArtsdalen ruled that the long
contested highway may be completed. His
decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by
attorneys for seven groups, including the
College, who argued that two federal envi­
ronmental studies failed to examine fully all
of the possible alternatives to the Blue Route
construction.
In April several groups opposed to the
Blue Route filed an appeal to VanArtsdalen’s
decision and have been granted by the court
a motion to expedite that appeal.

Music and Dance Festival
moves to a fall schedule
After three years of presenting a summer
program, the Swarthmore Music and Dance
Festival will shift to Sept. 11129. And, in a
further departure from previous years, all
events will be free to anyone who wishes to
attend.
Focusing on contemporary American mu­
sic and dance, the Festival will feature a
number of eminent performers who also will
serve as artists in residence during rehearsals
before their weekend concerts.
Among performers scheduled are: Benita
Valente, soprano; the Concerto Soloists of
Philadelphia; the Merce Cunningham Dance
Company; the Penn Contemporary Players
with Philadelphia area singers and Freda
Herseth, mezzo from the Stuttgart Opera;
violinist Geoffrey Michaels, who will play
all six Bach solo sonatas; and the Dance
Theatre of Kathleen Quinlan and Thomas
Leff. James Freeman, chairman of the De­
partment of Music, will be musical director
and conductor.
There also will be two public seminars on
special topics. The first will explore the
obligation of composers and performers to
each other and to their audiences. Invited
speakers will include some of the area’s
foremost composers and performers.
The second will focus on career decisions
for young musicians. Swarthmore graduates
who have gone on to various careers in
music will discuss the opportunities and the
problems that face young musicians today.
The seminar will be moderated by Professor
Peter Gram Swing.
For a complete schedule and further infor­
mation contact the Department of Music,
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
19081 or phone 215-447-7233.
19

espite showers on Saturday, June 8,
that forced the Alumni Day ’85
parade indoors onto the track in the
Lamb-Miller Field House, alumni and their
children appeared to enjoy themselves
nearly as much as Ed Mahler ’50 (left),
who orchestrated the procession from a
m* A My
reviewing stand. Skies cleared later and
encouraged varied athletic and aesthetic
pursuits, including an open reading by
alumni (below) of Schubert’s “Mass in G.”

D

By«

Photography by Steven Goldblatt ’67 and Deng Jeng Lee

Swarthmore
In this issue:
1 A Class Looks Back— 25 years after
5 Still Studious After Four Years Here

Page 5: The summer reading
plans o f several graduating
seniors suggest they are still
studious after fo u r years here.

8 Taxing charitable giving would
undermine our worthiest institutions

By James A. Michener ’29
11 Game, Set, Match, Title!

By Leisha Shaffer
14 The College
20 Class Notes—Alumni Days ’85 edition
Editor:
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Managing Editor:
Larry L. Elveru
Assistant Managing Editor:
Kate Downing
Class Notes Editor:
Kathryn Bassett ’35
Copy Editor:
Ann D. Geer
Designer: Bob Wood
Cover: In September, James A. Michener
’29 donated $2 million to his alma mater. In
June, Michener told alumni he doubts he
would have done so under certain pro­
visions of the Reagan administration’s tax
reform proposal. Photo by Deng Jeng Lee.

Page 11: Recap o f a
rousing Garnet spring
sports season.

Page 8: James A. Michener ’29
filed a forty-eight page income
tax form last year. He supports
reform, but not taxes on
charitable giving.

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Page 1: The icons o f their era
may have faded, but members o f
the Class o f ’60 retain vivid
memories o f Swarthmore in the
late 1950s.

Page 20: Alum ni Days ’8 5—
A little rain fell, but that
didn’t dull reunion smiles.