V U r * w l JL I m ¡^L k b n Bnwjâu x < v Jfl i ¿■LJPIb y M STRANGE DAYS: SWARTHMORE a n d THE s S A C ^ V o te s Ä S s i- s r s C«*»W.. >Betiti*1 .od ***“ '!: -o * «® *N î f c í * * W * J| jh TTb^B c ir ia l re T ^ - kK *** * , yoÚt4‘ I^ e e t»n 9 >— P < > v \ s ‘< O n S S to tt S e x JT .fFMRS com í ^ P f0 f - % 9 ** « the '^celled i? K ///1 g8 k g j j | Dean’s Dean Disembarks ollowing a career at F the College that has spanned five decades, Dean of Admis­ sions Robert A. Barr Jr. ’56 is leaving that posi­ tion at the end of this academic year. Barr joined the staff in 1957 to help formalize the admis­ sions process under Pres­ ident Courtney Smith and later became dean of men. Between 1970 and 1977, he worked in the administrations of Chatham and Dickinson colleges, returning to Swarthmore in 1977 as admissions dean. At a reception in Barr’s honor held May 6, President Alfred H. Bloom pointed to some remarkable statistics about Barr’s tenure: From 1978 (when record keeping began) through the spring of 1994, “he has directed the processing and review of 45,855 applications and helped shape entering classes totaling 5,674 stu­ dents.” After a sabbatical Barr will return to the College next year to undertake special proj­ ects in alumni relations and development. SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN • M AY 1994 4 Blood, Ink, and Tears “Some deaths continue to haunt newsmen throughout their lives, ” writes Malcolm Browne 52, who in 1964 won a Pulitzer Prize for his general news coverage in Vietnam while working for the Associated Press. “For me five o f them stand out. ” By Malcolm W. Browne ’52 8 Strange Days The Vietnam War, student movements, assassinations, psychedelic drugs, political upheavals, the tragic death o f President Courtney Smith— members o f the Class o f 1969 talk about the events and ideas that left them changed forever. By Jeffrey Lott Editor: Jeffrey Lott Associate Editor: Rebecca Aim Assistant Editor: Kate Downing Class Notes Editor: Nancy Lehman ’87 Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner Designer: Bob Wood Editor Emerita: Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 14 The Challenge of Change Swarthmore s ninth president, Courtney Smith, believed that he needed to be engaged as a constructive critic o f student activism. But he knew early in the 1960s that a new— and for him disturbing— style o f confrontation was emerging. By Darwin H. Stapleton ’69 and Donna H. Stapleton 20 Something Happened The founder o f the first U.S. rock magazine, Crawdaddy!, muses on what made the music o f the late ’60s unique. “Rock albums were heard as a progression, not just in aesthetic quality but in a process o f expanding consciousness, growing self-awareness. ” Associate Vice President for External Affairs Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59 By Paul Williams ’69 Cover: Collage by Bob Wood. Photography by Steven Goldblatt ’67. Artifacts from the collections of the Friends Historical Library and of the middle-aged members of the editorial staff. 72 A Day in the Life As 1965 began members o f Swarthmore’s Class o f 1969 were completing their applications to college. American deaths in the Vietnam War numbered just 356. In Our Back Pages we follow the class through the next four years o f peace marches, draft resistance, civil rights movements— and some lighter moments. P r in t e d in U .S .A o n R e c y c l e d P a p e r The Sw arthm ore C ollege B ulletin (IS S N 0888-2126), o f w hich this is volum e XCI, num ber 5, is published in Septem ber, Decem ber, January, February, May, and August by Sw arthm ore College, 500 Col­ lege A venue, Sw arthm ore PA 190811397. Telephone (6 1 0 ) 328-8401. E -m ail jlottl@ cc.sw a rth m ore.ed u . Second class postage p a id a t Sw arthm ore PA and additional m a ilin g offices. P erm it No. 0530-620. Postm aster: Send address changes to Sw arthm ore C ollege Bul­ letin, 500 C ollege Avenue, Sw arthm ore PA 19081-1397. -Jit"! ul U-Y C it fim J tiilM-T T-gJiiiP •••lifliTotl 2 24 31 32 40 66 Letters The College Alumni Digest Class Notes Deaths Recent Books by Alumni ita -L_E T,T Diversity— or Hypocrisy and Ignorance? s history linear? Perhaps it is over the long haul, but as far as it exists in our individual memories, I don’t think so. Our lives are like loopy scribbles; they spiral forward, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a headlong rush. But in our minds we are con­ stantly circling back, gathering thoughts and images, testing feel­ ings against facts, remembering events large and small. We need our past. We feed it back into our current selves, and it helps us I make sense of our lives. Reunions and anniversaries are good times to make a giant loop back, to share with old friends the gathering of yesterdays that define us today. The 25th reunion of the Class of 1969 seemed to us an especially important moment for such reflection. Their college years were tumultuous ones, not only for them personally but for Swarthmore and the nation. Everyone who lived through those strange days was affected by them, but those who came of age then were especially touched by history. Our two big projects this spring have been this issue of the Bulletin and a new book called A Singular Time, A Singular Place. The book, to be published June 1, is about Swarthmore and what’s known around our office as “The War Years.” By this we’ve come to mean the classes of the 1940s whose young adulthood was defined and changed by World War II. The book is a collection of transcripts from a special Alumni College and War Years Reunion that was held for them in June 1992. They spent three days spiraling back a half century, filling a book with profound observations and tender reminiscences about their gen­ eration and their war. (See page 44 for details about the book.) This issue of the Bulletin is about another set of war years. It’s become commonplace to view World War II and the Vietnam War as very different experiences— usually “the good war” and “the bad war.” (As if there could be such a thing as a good war.) Yet having edited this magazine and worked on that book, I am more struck by the similarities than the differences. Both generations grew up in times of great conflict and change. What happened to the kids who went to college in the early 1940s somehow parallels what happened to those who matriculated in the late 1960s. Their worlds were turned upside down, at least for a while. They— and the College— were forever changed by the experience. —,LL. PARLOR I TALK I 2 for] not To the Editor: not The misguided members of the Swarthmore Conservative Union bee (SCU) claim that they are opposed me to grouping individuals into cateYei gories such as race and class, but anc Vijay Toke ’96 dismisses Rigoberta ■ len Menchu as a “Marxist-Leninist les- , tra< bian.” Despite his stated goal of fad unity, it appears that Mr. Toke to i believes that certain categories of car people should be excluded. pro The SCU members’ hypocrisy is ^ can equalled only by their ignorance, i da; The SCU’s newspaper is called tun Common Sense, borrowing from Hue Thomas Paine, the leading radical Nat of his day. The SCU members Ma would do well to rdad Paine’s Mo famous pamphlet. Alice Stillman rep ’96, who professes strong religious tha beliefs, may also wish to peruse giv< Paine’s The Age o f Reason. I To! I favor greater diversity at Swarthmore, but diversity should not be confused with hypocrisy and ignorance. Col DAN FEINBERG ’83 to Oakland, Calif. • To I Iw< Conservative Views Not Bui Unsafe on Campus see To the Editor: ing] I think your recent article on the the Swarthmore Conservative Union abc misses the essential problem with my the SCU’s argument that they feel Yoi unsafe to voice conservative views the on campus. Their indictment of I I our college rests on the assumpYoi tion that the College is a liberal ass bastion. I propose that the College oth is much more middle-of-the-road gan than anyone (the SCU or the liberac< als) wants to admit. to t The Conservative Union argues son that since its members feel the i vat: campus is more liberal than they To are, the College is inherently leftan; wing. That’s as ludicrous as my inte saying the college is full of rightme; wing conservatives because I feel is a my political views are to the left of j the majority of students and faculenc ty members. Granted, Swarthtre< more’s student body is probably j plei more liberal than the American i tior public at large, but not trementhe dously so. If conservatives want to S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN Mt IT E R S i ed eat rta 5s- of /is e. :al i }us : Id form a club, fine, but they should not blame the rest of campus for not espousing their views. Though the curriculum has been expanded a bit, it has by no means changed on a large scale, Yes, feminism, deconstructionism, and multiculturalism are all prevaP lent on this campus, but so are the | traditional parts of the canon. In fact, most of these “isms” are used to get a fresh view on the old canon. Classes such as English Professor Peter Schmidt’s Ameri1 can Prose, which compares three | classic works of American litera­ ture—Moby Dick, Walden, and Huck Finn— with works by current Native American authors— Leslie Marmon Silko, William Least Heat Moon, and David Seals— better represent the new developments than the alarmist descriptions given by Matthew Schenk, Vijay 1 Toke, and crew. EUGENE SONN ’95 Swarthmore,Pa. College Needs Commitment ’83 to Intellectual Diversity alif. I To the Editor: i I was mentioned in the February Bulletin as the signer of a letter seeking alumni support for “mean­ ingful diversity” on campus. Since e there’s been some controversy n about this letter, I’d like to clarify ith my motives in cooperating with :el Young America’s Foundation and iws the SCU. Based on the experience of the )- , Young America’s Foundation in assisting conservative students at ege other colleges, YAF was willing to d gamble that Swarthmore alumni of eracertain age would be responsive to our appeals. I hoped that even les some alumni who are not conserI vative could support our efforts. :y , To the extent that Swarthmore is tan academic institution and an intellectual community, the most tmeaningful diversity we can seek :el is a diversity of ideas, t of As a student, I certainly experi:ulenced a deficiency in this area. I treasured the opportunity to supy | plement my Swarthmore educaI tion with the resources offered by the Intercollegiate Studies Insti0 Please turn to page 30 "THE REVOLUTION W ILL NOT BE TELE­ VISE D ,” from a recording by Gil Scott- Heron, the African American poet/songwriter, took on new meaning for Jason Dougal ’96 when he heard it in the film Berkeley in the Sixties, shown to a class on that decade. “It means you have to go out and join the protest, You can’t hope someone else will do something. You’re not going to see it on TV. You hâve to be there.” Students studied the history and activism of the 1960s in the course The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, taught by Meta Mendel-Reyes, assistant professor of political science, and M arjorie Mur­ phy, associate professor of history. Th e p ro fes so rs worked from the premise of “the promise of the ’60s,” the idea that individuals and grass-roots movements make a difference. “Young people are part of a tradition of mak­ ing the future better through activism, even if on a day-today basis it ’s hard to see change,” says Mendel-Reyes. Ben Stern ’96 learned of the promise’s successes and perversions. “W hile not all goals during the ’60s w ere fu lly re a lize d ,” Stern con-; eludes, “activism did make a difference. Movements today have come out of those in the ’60s, particularly, Ï think, the environmental and gay rights movements. Just because the promise of the ’60s was lost, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t valid.” Joanne Weill-Greenberg ’96 noted that the u rgency to change circum stances has evolved since the ’60s. “T o­ day, being an activist is more of a com­ munity service type thing,” says WeillG reenberg, w ho is an es co rt fo r Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia. “You do it when it’s convenient and fits your schedule.” Films, Dougal says, prompted some of the most interesting discussions. The class saw Easy Rider, Woodstock, and Super fly, but the docum entary Berkeley in the Sixties elicited the most rewarding conversations. “After the movie I spent hours talk­ ing with others who were in the class. Because we have so much homework here, we wondered how they managed to do all that protesting and still study. Did th ey bring th eir books to the protests? W e w ondered w here that activism went. What is our generation about?” Keelyn Bradley ’95 has taken an interest in fashions of the decade. He’s doing research on how hair in the black community is an indicator of the con­ sciousness of the comm unity. The class sh ow ed him how the natural styles of African Americans during the ’60s were an indication of change in cul­ tural aesthetics and a move toward lib­ eration. He also says that the hippies of the time adopted the fash­ ions of N ative Am ericans w ith beads, fringes, m oc­ casins, and ankle bracelets. “Young people were embrac­ ing the Native American cul­ ture as the m ost back-tonature way of living, like they wanted to be, but they did not contribute to the move­ ment for N ative Am erican rights,” says Bradley. Many of the leaders of the ’60s are now only historical images to these students, m ost of whom w ere born between 1972 and 1976. Dou­ gal is fascinated by Malcolm X: “He was willing to give up his life for something greater. He knew he would be assas­ sinated, but that didn’t stop him. I try to imagine that self­ lessness.” Weill-Greenberg says she would have liked to m eet ea rly Southern civ il rights leaders “I would want to know how they were able to w ork fo r change when their lives were threatened. Today it’s safer,” she says. Bradley, the current presi­ dent of the Swarthmore AfroAmerican Student Society, has been able to go one step further. He has spo­ ken to some of the most recognized black leaders of the ’60s, including political activist Stokely Carmichael, educator Toni Cade Bambara, and poet Nikki Giovanni, who is expected to speak on campus in the fall. Bradley is cu rren tly in con tact with p olitical activist Angela Davis to arrange a cam­ pus visit. “It’s important to pay homage to those dead and alive who were the spirit of the ’60s,” says Bradley. “But it’s also important to interrogate them and develop a learned perspective of your own by listening.” — Audree Penner Blood Ink. and Tears A Pulitzer Prize-w inning war correspondent recalls days o f death in Vietnam. By Malcolm W. Browne ’52 don’t think many journalists take pleasure from human suffering, but since this is a personal chron­ icle, I h a ve to adm it to having sometimes profited from others’ pain. It wasn’t intentional, but that doesn't help. Journalists inadvertently influ­ ence events they cover, and although th e e ffe c ts a re so m e tim e s fo r the good, they can also be tragic. Either way, when death is the outcome, psy­ chic scars remain. After a while the flood of death the average newsman witnesses begins to numb the senses and feelings. But some deaths continue to haunt news­ men throughout their lives, and for me five of them stand out. One of my ghosts was an aged Buddhist monk. The other four were simple merchants who faced a firing squad for trying to profit from war. Many people, includ­ ing journalists, profit from war; but some are unlucky enough to pay with their lives. History treated the five deaths I’m speaking of in very different ways. The sp ecta cu lar self-im m olation of the B u d d h ist m onk m ad e h e a d lin es , helped to bring down a government, ch an ged th e c o u rse o f a w ar, and found a place in history books. The deaths o f the four m erchants, w ho died as victims of an anti-black mar­ ket ca m p a ign (th a t w as g e n e ra lly applauded by the press), w ere mere footnotes in a day of news. They were forgotten by most people before the blood was dry, but I haven’t forgotten them. In the summer of 1963, Saigon was in turmoil, and events w ere m oving tow a rd a crisis that w ou ld change I both the United States and Vietnam (not to mention my personal life). The picturesque rush-hour crowds began to include clusters of angry monks, conspicuous in th eir saffron robes and c a rry in g fla g s and b a n n ers instead of their begging bowls. D esp ite w h at P re s id e n t John F. Kennedy and his advisers w ere say­ ing, the war against the Viet Cong that summer was going badly, and far from “ w in n in g h earts and m in d s ,” th e Am erican w ar effort was alienating growing numbers of Vietnamese. An occupying army is never popular, and by 1963 Am erican m ilitary men and civilian advisers w ith plentiful sup­ plies of the dollars sought by local bar girls were becoming ubiquitous. Mid­ dle-class Vietnamese, including many who had initially welcomed the co van my— the American advisers— began to feel as Britons had during World War II: that the Americans were “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” Many Vietnam ese held President N go Dinh Diem respon sible for the Am erican invasion, and his popular support, such as it was, eroded. Diem, like President Kennedy, was a Catholic and the scion of a large and influential family. Shrewdly, the lead­ ers of South Vietnam’s normally easy­ going Buddhist community (as well as the V iet Cong) spotted a chance to exploit the unpopular American con­ nection— including its Catholic associ­ ations— as a chink in the Ngo govern­ ment’s armor. The crisis came because of a flag. On May 8, the ceremonial birthday of the Buddha, marchers in the cen­ tral Vietnam ese city of Hue tried to display the five-colored Buddhist flag in defiance of a governm ent order. C en tral V ietn a m w as ru led as a satrapy by one of President Diem’s brothers, Ngo Dinh Can— an authori­ tarian Catholic hated by Buddhists, human rights activists, and a lot of other people, and he cracked down hard. W hen the Hue m archers took to the streets with their Buddhist flags, police and troops attacked, and eight of the demonstrators were killed and severed dozen injured. Overnight the w o rd of th e B uddhist m artyrdom spread b y w ord of mouth, and the revolt soon reached Saigon. The significance of that summer’s events is still hotly debated, especial­ ly by present or former American offi­ cials, journalists, and m ilitary men. Some of these people were mere chil­ dren in 1963, but so enduring are the issues brought to a head that summer that later generations have debated them as veh em en tly as if they had actually been in Vietnam in 1963. S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN b n V j< e a a Malcolm Browne 52 took this famous photograph on June 11, 1963. He was the only Western reporter to witness the suicide of Buddhist monk Thick Quang Due, an event that helped bring down the government ofNgo Dinh Diem. four main pagodas I was w atchin g came to trust me, although I made no pretense of sharing their religious or political beliefs. It was this trust that made me the sole foreign journalist to w itness a fie ry su icide that w ould shock the world. s I made the rounds of the pago­ das, I picked up a lot of interest­ ing news, as w ell as som e delicious v e g e ta r ia n m eals s e r v e d to th e monks. Despite the growing tension in th e stre e ts , th e tem p le s th em ­ selves, esp ecia lly the Xa-Loi head­ quarters pagoda, were restful places; the monotonous chanting, the chim­ ing of brass prayer gongs, the odor of burning joss, and the stifling tropical heat could reduce even a visitor to an unwilling trance. In the early stages of the uprising, Buddhist demonstrators had gathered by stealth, arriving at dem onstration sites from separate directions in buses, cyclos (tricycle p edicab s), and blue-and-cream Re­ nault “ Quatre Chevaux” taxis. Th e police w ere nearly always taken by surprise by such exercises, but even­ tually they ceased to care, convinced that the demonstrations were having no impact on the general populace. Foreign newsmen lost interest com ­ pletely. I was an exception, convinced that the monks w ou ld even tu ally make good their suicide threat. And when Thich Due Nghiep telephoned a few dozen foreign correspondents on the night of June 10 to say there would be an important event at a small pagoda the follow ing morning, I alone took him at his word. M y Vietnam ese colleague Ha Van Tran and I set out b efore dawn on June 11, but despite our early start, the pagoda was already packed with yellow-robed monks and gray-robed Buddhist nuns. One of the latter has­ tened to serve us tea, tears streaming down her face. The spokesman, Thich Due Nghiep, spotted us and scurried o v er to w hisper a w arning that w e sh o u ld b y no m eans le a v e until events had run their course. A I s a m’s orists, t of •wn As an o v e r w o r k e d 32 -year-old bureau chief of the Associated Press, I regarded the Buddhist uprising merel y as an important story, not a cause, j Wire services do not tolerate agenda journalism , and I w h o le h e a r te d ly embraced the depersonalized, factual : to | approach of wire service news coverigs, age. ght The 1963 Buddhist story was mostind l y my personal beat, because I had the already lived in Vietnam for a couple om | of years and I knew something of the the country’s s o ciety and politics. M y own feel for Vietnam led me to believe sr’s j horror show w as at hand, and the sweat started from my brow as I cocked my camera. Dffien. hilthe ner ted lad ETIN A may 1994 th at th e B u d dh ist r e v o lt w o u ld become a national revolution. But this feeling was not shared by other for­ eign newsmen at the time, so I was on my own when I interviewed monks at the pagodas w here the fom ent cen­ tered. Many of the monks were barely literate sons of farming families who had spent th eir en tire lives in the cloistered pagodas, chanting, meditat­ ing, and p e rfo rm in g such ro u tin e ecclesiastical chores as begging for rice. But other monks had come to the p a g o d a s as a du lts a fte r le a v in g ca reers in business or the p ro fe s ­ sions, and these holy men were politi­ c a lly s o p h is tic a te d , d e s p ite th e ir shaved heads and show of piety. A fair number of the latter group had been educated abroad. An activist monk named Thich Quang Lien, for instance, w ho was particularly dis­ tru sted b y A m erican officia ls, had been a student at Yale. In time som e of the monks at the 5 Ip A s th e y step p e d away from him, I saw T h ic h Q uang Due strike a m atch in his lap and le t it fall. In sta n tly, he was enveloped in a column o f sm ok y, y e llo w flam e. As the breeze w h ip p e d th e flam es from his face I could see that although his eyes w ere closed his features w ere contort­ ed w ith a go n y. But throughout his ordeal, he n e v e r u tte re d a sound or changed his position, even as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. A horri­ fied m oan ro se from th e c r o w d , and the ra g g e d ch a n tin g of so m e o f th e monks w as in te rru p te d by scream s and cries of anguish. T w o monks unfurled a large cloth ban n er re a d in g (in The AP office in Saigon, 1963. Left to right are photographer Horst Faas, reporters Peter Arnett and Don Huth, and Malcolm Browne ’52. Faas, Arnett, and Browne each won Pulitzer Prizes in the next few years. The air in the little temple was suf­ fo c a tin g ly h ot and th ick w ith joss sm ok e, but th e a tm o s p h e re w as charged with tension. The monks and nuns seemed to be pouring their souls into the chanting— a steady, monoton­ ic drone whose cadence quickened a little every few repetitions. A half hour passed, and then, at a signal from the leaders, the entire assembly fell silent and m oved into the street to form a colum n of m archers. A t th eir head was an old Austin sedan occupied by five monks. As w e walked along, a white police jeep approached, not to interfere but to lead the way and clear traffic ahead of the m archers; so b o red had the govern m en t b e co m e that Buddhist marches and gatherings at that point were treated as a traffic nuisance. But when w e reached the intersec­ tion of tw o main streets, Phan Dinh Phung and Le Van Duyet, the car and marchers halted and form ed a circle 6 blocking all approaches. Three monks emerged from the car, one of them old and feeble, the other two, both young, helping to support him as he walked to the center of the intersection. A horror show was at hand, I realized, and the sweat started from my brow as I cocked my camera. he tw o y o u n g m onks p la c e d a square cushion on the pavement and helped the old man, Thich Quang Due, to settle himself in the lotus posi­ tion. The two assisting monks lugged a large plastic gasoline can from the car, and then, rather hastily, th ey sloshed the pink fluid over the seated monk, soaking his face, body, robes, and cushion. T hen Ky cracked I f the whip, he wanted the world to know. Som e horrifying photos recorded the results. English): a b u d d h is t p r ie s t bu rns fo r B U D D H IST D EM A N D S. As the minutes passed, police vehi­ cles con verged on the awful scene and a fire truck pulled up to extin­ guish the pyre. But to prevent it from intervening, several monks prostrat­ ed themselves under its wheels and hung on, while the driver vainly blast­ ed his horn to get them to move. Numb with shock, I shot roll after roll of film, focusing and adjusting exposures mechanically and uncon­ sciously, almost as an athlete chews gum to relieve stress. Trying hard not to perceive what I was witnessing, I found m yself thinking: “T h e sun is bright and the subject is self-illumi­ nated, so f 16 at 125th of a second should be right.” But I couldn’t close out the smell. After about 10 minutes, the flames subsided and Thich Quang Due pitched over, tw itched convul­ sively, and was still. Concealed up to that moment, a w o o d e n c o ffin m a te r ia liz e d from som ew here and the monks tried to jam the body into it. But Thich Quang Due’s limbs had been roasted to rigid­ ity, and he could not be bent enough to fit in the casket. As the procession S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN moved off toward Xa-Loi Pagoda, his blackened arms protruded from the coffin, one of them still smoking. A lot of things happened after that. My photographs w ere published all over th e w o rld , and the B uddhist leaders displayed them to goad the Vietnamese masses to revolt. Even today in comm unist Saigon, one of my photographs remains affixed to the car that carried Thich Quang Due to his death— a car now revered as a sacred relic. Henry Cabot Lodge, who had just been nam ed U.S. a m b a s sa d o r to Saigon, w as in W a sh in gton at the time. When Lodge went to the Oval Office for his instructions, he told me later, he saw one of my immolation pictures on P r e s id e n t K e n n e d y ’ s desk. “W e ’re g o in g to h a ve to do something about that regim e,” JFK remarked. Th e sum m er becam e ev er m ore violent; hundreds w ere arrested and some w e re killed. Finally, at JFK’s command, American officials signaled to leaders of the South Vietnam ese armed forces that a coup against the Ngo fam ily w ould be acceptable to Washington. On N o v e m b e r 1 Diem w as du ly overthrown and slain, and an era of military rule began in South Vietnam, which, aside from a brief interval of civilian adm inistration, ended only when Hanoi’s tanks smashed through the gate ou tside Saigon’s Doc Lap Palace on May 1,1975. A few months after Thich Quang Due’s death I was called to The Hague to r e c e iv e th e 1963 W o r ld P re ss Photo Award from Prince Bernhard, and the fo llo w in g year, I shared a Pulitzer P rize (w ith D avid Halberstam), not for my photograph but for general news co vera ge of Vietnam. Partly on the strength of that prize, I began g e ttin g so m e te m p tin g jo b offers, and I accepted the one from ABC-TV. A book I wrote about the war was selling briskly, and m y career bloomed. So I can hardly deny having profit­ ed from the horrible death of a harm­ less old monk. But I have sorrow ed these many years for Thich Quang Due, as w e ll as o th e rs fo r w h o s e deaths I may bear some responsibili­ ty, including four Chinese war profi­ teers. MAY 1994 hroughout the Vietnam War, one of the themes on which news agen­ c ie s and r e p o r te r s c o n tin u o u s ly harped was the pervasive corruption o f the Saigon govern m en t and the black market it tolerated. Many of us b elieved that no governm ent could “win the hearts and minds” of a peo­ p le if th e p e o p le w e r e c o n s ta n tly gouged by racketeers, profiteers, and shakedowns. Stung by such reporting, Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, the officer who seized power as the nation’s pre­ mier in 1965, decided to crack down on profiteering by Saigon business­ men. Ky was not a man known for restraint; an avowed admirer of Hitler, the flamboyant pilot quickly drifted into the role of a despot. W hen he c ra ck ed th e w h ip , he w a n ted th e world to know what he had done, and some horrifying photographs record­ ed the results. One o f th es e p ic tu re s w as o f a street-corner execution carried out in 1968 by Ky’s police chief and interior minister, Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan. When an alleged Viet Cong prisoner was led up to him, he simply drew his revolver and blew the man’s brains out. Th e A P ’s Eddy Adam s was on hand, and his p h o to g ra p h o f th e T atrocity won him a Pulitzer Prize. But long before that incident, Ky had closed down all the Vietnameselanguage new spapers and issued a series of harsh decrees that mandated the death penalty for anyone convict­ ed of war profiteering. Convictions were not slow in com­ ing, and soldiers quickly erected sand­ bag walls and w ooden stakes on the National Railw ay Building sidew alk facing Saigon’s main market square. A few nights after the stakes went up, I was roused from my bed to observe their use. It was about three in the morning when I arrived, and although the night w as a lm o st sp en t, th e m u ggy air seemed as oppressive as it had at sun­ set. In the darkness the four stakes w e re b rig h tly ligh ted b y the head­ lights of several jeeps parked in front of them. The glare of the execution site contrasted starkly with the sub­ dued and peaceful kerosene lamps m arking hu ndreds of little m arket stalls. People were up early, but not to sell food. On one side of the stakes, a fire truck stood parked, and on the other, four w ood en coffins w ere lined up. Behind a cordon facing this tableau Please turn to page 70 Another image that drove home the violence in Vietnam is Eddy Adams’ photo of Gen. Nguyen Loan executing a suspected Viet Cong guerrilla on a Saigon street, Feb. 1, 1968. 7 The Class o f 1969 looks back on its happy, sad, scary, beautiful time o f change. By Jeffrey Lott ic drugs, the debates over parietals hey came from the four corners and the College’s “sex rule,” the for­ and scattered to the four winds, passing eight semesters togeth­ mation of the Swarthmore Afro-Ameri­ can Students Society (SASS) and the er in a crucible of events and ideas, emerging “educated,” changed forev­ crisis of January 1969— the SASS occu­ pation of the Admissions Office, the er by their experience. It might be the story of any Swarthmore class, of any demands, the shocking death of Presi­ dent Courtney Smith. class at any college, but for the Class But history isn’t the same as mem­ of 1969 the metamorphosis was more than personal. The College was chang­ ory, and m em ory is a curious thing. The late ’60s were strange days, days ing to o . T h e w h o le c o u n try w as out o f a n oth er life. R em em b erin g changing. The key events of the era are part them now, 25 years later, is like trying of America’s and Swarthmore’s histo­ to drink water with your hands. You can’t hold onto it, except maybe a few ry: th e V ietn a m W ar, th e stu den t sips, but your hands get wet, and as m ovem ents, the assassinations and political upheavals of 1968, psychedel­ the water evaporates you feel some­ T thing. The interviews on these pages aren’t so much about water as they are about evaporation, about what was— and is— felt. Thanks go to Darwin Stapleton, Michael Schudson, and class secre­ tary Susan Tripp Snider, who helped me select the interview ees. I asked them to suggest a cross section of classmates, not just those who were highly visib le at the tim e (though I talked w ith som e o f th ose to o ). In doing these interviews, I found that the experience of the ’60s wasn’t just the experience of hippies or student activists. It was e v e ry o n e ’s happy, sad, scary, beautiful time of change. The Unspoken Became Spoken David Hilgers Joan Glass Hilgers ou h ave to get a pictu re of me c o m in g to S w a r th m o r e ,” says Austin lawyer David Hilgers in his soft Texas drawl. “I was right off the farm. I had never seen anyone like these fel­ lows in my whole life.” He had arrived early from Texas for preseason foot­ ball and he was in shock. “ Our big fam ily trip had been to Colorado, and here w ere these sophis­ ticated New York guys who had gone to Exeter and Andover. I had a very difficult time the first year and nearly transferred to the University of Texas. I think the fraternity is what saved me. I was able to fit in at DU and at least feel a bit comfortable.” David’s wife-to-be, Joan Glass, felt little of this freshm an d is co m fo rt. C om in g fro m a p r iv a te s c h o o l in Southern C alifornia, she liked her Y Joan Glass Hilgers and David Hilgers in their 1965 Cygnet photos and today. ro o m m a te, e n jo y e d h er cla ss es , played sports, settled in happily. “I really enjoyed it,” she smiles. But w here you started in the ’60s wasn’t necessarily w here you ended up. “By the tim e I graduated,” says David of his own metamorphosis, “my circle of friends had expanded expo­ nentially. My affiliations had changed dramatically. I started out with frater­ nity friends as my only support and en ded up w ith a much w id er specS W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN trum of friends with diverse political and social views.” Joan says she ch an ged too, but “probably not as much as I wanted to. I grew up some and learned a lot from friends about different approaches to life. It was incredibly broadening.” Both David and Joan saw a big gen­ eration gap, but not the ordinary gulf between th em selves and their par­ ents. Rather it was the abrupt change in the lives of young people between 1967 and 1969. Joan’s boyfriend grad­ uated in 1967, and she says “it became almost im possible to explain to him how much things changed those last two years. Our whole world view had shifted.” The College shifted too, almost off its gray stone foundations. “When we came to Swarthmore,” recalls David, “drinking was to ta lly forb id d en on campus. W om en cou ld be in y ou r dorm fo r tw o hou rs on S atu rday evenings, w ith the d o o r op en and everyone’s feet on the floor. By the time we left, people were living togeth­ er in the dorms. N obody enforced the rules. Drinking was ignored and the drug revolution hit. And w e had ma­ tured politically with the assassina­ tions of 1968, the Chicago convention, the Nixon-Humphrey-Wallace election, and of co u rse th e black stu d en ts’ takeover of the Admissions Office.” “It was as if blacks w ere invisible the first two years,” adds Joan, who is a fifth grade teacher in a poor innercity Austin public school. “But then the things that had been unspoken became spoken. “The ’ 60s taught us to qu estion authority. It was a big revelation that the grown-up establishm ent did n ’t quite know what it was doing. And to this day when som eone in authority says something, som eone from our generation is lik ely to say, ‘W ait a minute. L et’s take a second look at this.’” “But now,” says David, “w e’re total­ ly cynical. W e thought w e had a lot of power, but when Johnson quit w e got Nixon. I don’t call that radical reform. Afterward w e had W atergate. N ow you get Whitewater and w e’re looking for the flaw in every person.” Joan disagrees. She’s m ore posi­ tive: “T h e r e ’s this thread of social responsibility from Swarthmore that’s probably not even unique to the ’60s, and it says that w e ow e som ething MAY 1994 back to the community. The College encouraged that in me and I value it very much.” David allows this and adds, “Our gen eration has felt im portan t ev er since. W e felt different, more thought­ ful, more enlightened, and w e believed w e had struggled harder. It had an ennobling impact on our self-esteem as a g en e ra tio n , and r ig h tfu lly o r wrongfully, it made us feel special.” Fire andFaith Marilyn Allman Maye he was the Calhoun S c h o o l’s 1965 v a le d ic to r ia n , and sh e walked off the stage with an armful of awards. But afterward, when all the hugs and congratulations w ere finished, she and her family got on the subway and went home to Har­ lem. The next tim e she saw those girls was at their 20th reunion. Marilyn Allman M aye struggles w ith b itte rn e s s to th is day. N o t toward anyone in particular. The girls at Calhoun had been nice enough, and the young black woman had bought into the idea of the m elting pot, of “one nation, indivisible.” But som e­ how the choices available to her were not the same as for her classmates. After six years on scholarship at the exclusive N ew Y ork private school, her only real friends w ere in her fami­ ly, her church, and her community. She d e cid ed on Sw arthm ore b e­ cause she thought its Quaker heritage might be a saving grace, but even that turned out to be disappointing. “The Quakers had this great abolitionist tra­ dition and a reputation for fairness, morality, unpretentiousness, for being liberal— almost radical,” says Maye. “But m y experien ce of Swarthm ore was that the Quakers w eren ’t much different from the status quo. Th ey didn’t seem to have that abolitionist fervor anymore.” As a committed Christian who had gone to a predominantly Jewish high sch ool, M aye says she “ could g ive anyone a run for their money in a reli­ giou s d iscu ssion , but p o litic a lly I hadn’t a clue.” Her political awaken­ ing at Swarthmore came swiftly— not in her classes but through an aware­ ness of class. “Th e w ork fo rc e on campus was alm ost all A frican A m erican ,” says S M a ye. “ M any w e r e m id d le-a ge d , overqualified for their jobs, people of substance in their community. But at Swarthmore they w ere called by their first names, and every one of them was su pervised b y a w hite. A t the same time, there were no black facul­ ty members. W e were being prepared in this very elite style and we had no ro le m odels for w hat w e m ight be when w e got out. When I first arrived on campus, the lady who deemed the dorm was the person I felt closest to, yet she had no standing at the Col­ lege. N o b o d y knew anything about her other than her first name. “Then, one by one, w e found out from our room m ates that they had been asked how they felt about hav­ ing a room m ate of color. It was al­ most like a plantation. There was this paternalistic overtone. It was subtle and calm, very benign and polite. “The formation of the Swarthmore A fro -A m e ric a n Stu d ents S o c ie ty (SASS) in late 1966 really caused an uproar. The whites felt that there was no problem and questioned w hy we needed an organization of our own. W e re w e b e in g s e p a ra tis t? T h e y didn’t understand it at all, and really, w e didn’t fully either. W e w ere just livin g it— the isolation w e felt was 9 very intense, and the support we gave one another was essential. W e just did what we had to do.” After Swarthmore, Maye earned an M.A.T. from Harvard and an M.A. in mathematical statistics from Colum­ bia. She taught math for 16 years, first in New York City public schools and then at the C ity U n iversity of N ew York. In the mid-1980s she quit teach­ ing and recycled herself as a comput­ er specialist. Today she’s an assistant comm issioner of computer and data communication for New York City, a position she considers to be hard up against the glass ceiling. Maye sharply questions the notion that ed u cation and hard w ork can transcend race and class in America: “I went to an elite independent school, an elite co llege, and elite graduate schools. But I came out in substantial­ ly the sam e social class in w hich I started. You go in rich and dumb and can com e out rich and dumb— or you go in poor and brilliant and can come out p retty much the same. Th e de­ grees alone don’t guarantee access to higher social classes. “That’s been a rude awakening but a liberating one too. All this talk about the angry black m iddle class— well, that’s one side of me. There’s another sid e that c h o o s e s to retain clo se, active ties to the community in which I grew up. In my career, I’m the person who made it to the glass ceiling and wonders what happened. The people I went to school with, the people who got low er grades than I, th ey’re five rungs ahead. W hat did th ey know? You don’t get your first job on the fast track through qualifications and de­ grees and documents. It’s how you are id en tified and w h o you know. Y ou take m ore risks and ex ercise m ore option s w hen th e re ’s m oney in the bank, in h erited assets, or a fam ily business to fall back on in slow times. Sometimes this realization is very diffi­ cult to deal with. Sometimes it moti­ vates me to defy the odds.” Is she still an angry black radical from the ’60s? “No,” says Maye with a laugh, “that’s not how I see myself.” She says her strong faith in God, the support of her family, and her basic lo v e for p e o p le m itigate the b itter­ ness. “My faith gives me the optimism I need to keep struggling for justice. You can’t make it any other way.” 10 to sc Still Some Things to Do sh W( Lindsay Richards indsay Richards was something of an oddity at Swarthmore; she was from the Deep South. For her, getting to Swarthmore “was like landing at an oasis in the d esert— to be w ith all those other young people who were all bright and less conventional. It was very exciting and liberating, and for the first few months I felt younger than I had felt before. People would take off their shoes and walk on the grass and swing on the swing. Where I was from you w ore nylons and white gloves and you kept your shoes on.” Her liberation wasn’t merely social, either. Richards had learned in Au­ burn, Ala., that being an intellectual “makes you sort of a misfit in a small­ town culture.” Though her parents w ere against segregation and she had been involved in some small but sig­ nificant interracial projects during high school, college was still a pretty heady experience. She recalls a revelation she had while researching a sociology paper freshman year: “I learned that most poor people don’t participate in the dem ocratic process. It so upset my image of American dem ocracy that I stayed in the library for days trying to find out more about it. It sounds so innocent now, given how jaded w e became in the next few years.” Liberation led to alienation, both fro m h er p a ren ts and from “ th e track.” On her visits home, she would have screaming fights with her moth­ er over the Vietnam War. (Her mother had m arched at Selma with Martin Luther King but had an enorm ous allegiance to President Johnson and his war.) “Our arguments were really so m eth in g,” says Richards, “ and I would usually leave early. There was a lot of distance between me and my family.” After graduation, Richards also put som e distance between herself and Swarthmore. “I felt out of the system, against the establishm ent, m ostly because of the war. I couldn’t identify with the people who ran things, with the tracks that you would normally be on. It never occurred to me to go “b up w< L W( pc se id' sii to rie go nr en ha A “I felt out o f the system, against the establishment, mostly because of the war.” to graduate school, to look for a job commensurate with m y training and ability.” She and Len Nakamura ’69 headed for California on an odyssey of what she calls “ countercultural explora­ tio n ,” and though she returned to Philadelphia a year later, Swarthmore and the ca reer track rem ained far away. “The thought of setting foot on cam pus gave m e a stom achache,” says Richards, w ho drifted around, trying elem entary sch ool teaching, looking for “some way to plug in my energy.” “A book did it for me, a book about health care in China before and after the revolu tion . I said to myself, ‘I could do that,’ and I applied to medi­ cal s c h o o l.” N o w an obstetrician/ g y n e c o lo g is t in M issou la , Mont., Richards says she is finally happy, with a job she loves, plenty of money, a w onderful family, a hom e in par­ adise. But she still has a cause. She does abortions. In Montana. W here they burn d o w n w o m e n ’ s c lin ic s and threaten doctors on the phone in the middle of the night. W here most doc­ tors w on’t do abortions because it’s S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN Cl F fai Tl fa gr fri su th m; th (fi su rh m, ar lai be go th vii es pe “T re se cb cc S? Sv tn ra ‘n MA. too much trouble. Lindsay Richards som etim es w o n d e rs w h e th e r she should w ea r a b u lle tp ro o f v e s t to work. “It’s not easy,” she says quietly, “but I’d feel like a fake if I didn’t stand up to this. There’s a residue of what we w ere like as you n g p eo p le . W e were off the wall and wacko in certain parts o f it, but c o n c e iv in g o f ou r­ selves— and this is a v e r y Quaker idea— as having an individual respon­ sibility to act in the world according to our light, even if w e h ave to be ridiculed or shunned— well, for me it goes back to my childhood, to Alaba­ ma. You can’t just float along, just enjoy. There are still some things you have to do.” Moral Imperatives Clinton Etheridge hil Ochs’ song “When I’m Gone” helped Clinton Etheridge make a fateful decision in the spring of 1968. The late Sam Shepherd ’68, a founding father and ch airm an o f SASS, was graduating. S h ep h erd w a n ted his friend and room m ate, Etheridge, to succeed him as SASS chairman, but the shy, so ft-s p o k e n e n g in e e rin g major was ambivalent, agonizing over the decision. Shepherd used “W hen I’m G one” (from P h il Ochs in C oncert) to p er­ suade E th erid ge. T h e song, w hich rhapsodizes on the im p ortan ce of making your contribution while you are “here,” has two lines that particu­ larly hit home with Etheridge: “W on’t be asked to do m y share when I’m gone” and “Can’t add m y name into the fight when I’m gone.” “I heard that song and became con­ vinced of the obvious— that I couldn’t escape m y duty, m y responsibility, perhaps my destiny,” he remembers. “That con cept of m oral insight and responsibility, I have discovered, is something d e e p ly ingrain ed in m y character, particularly when the issue concerns the black race.” He became SASS ch airm an and h e lp e d take Swarthmore College through the most transforming few weeks in its history. By all accounts, Etheridge was no radical or militant. “I dislike the labels radical,’ ‘activist,’ and ‘militant.’ In P our own small way, SASS and I w ere trying to do at Swarthmore what Mar­ tin L u th er K in g had d o n e on th e national level, to use creative tension and nonviolent direct action to make the com m u nity co n fron t its latent moral inconsistencies. Dr. King was striving to make the American Dream as relevant and meaningful to black A m ericans as to w h ite Am ericans; SASS was trying to make Swarthmore as relevant and meaningful to black students as to white. “W hen I cam e to Sw arthm ore in 1965, blacks w e re in v is ib le ,” says Etheridge, using the Ralph Ellison Invisible Man metaphor. “I am invisi­ ble,” w rote Ellison, “sim ply because people refuse to see me.... W hen they approach me they see only my sur­ roundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination— indeed everything and anything except me.” “Black students w ere invisible at Swarthm ore in those days because there were so few of us, and because it was assumed that w e w ere ‘ju st’ S w a rth m o rea n s— a lb e it s w a rth y Swarthmoreans,” says Etheridge. “The only times we w eren’t invisible w ere when w e sat togeth er in the dining hall or when our all-black touch foot­ ball team, the Black Grand Arm y of the Crum, w ent undefeated for the season, even beating the DU team that had some real football players on it. “SASS and the crisis helped to bring about an im m ediate paradigm shift concerning black students. A ll of a sudden we were no longer invisible. “In the ’60s, the College was a so­ cial organism ripe for reform and self­ ren e w a l, th ou gh v e r y fe w p e o p le seemed to know it at the time— Presi­ den t C o u rtn e y Sm ith in c lu d ed . I admired Courtney Smith greatly when I was student, and I still do, but I don’t think he was able to adapt very well to the moral imperative of the ’60s.” To Etheridge the fundamental mor- “SASS and the crisis helped bring about an immediate paradigm shift concerning black students. All o f a sudden we were no longer invisible. ” A al im perative was to ask, as Martin Luther King did, about the essential nature of American society’s relation to black people, to ask whether Ameri­ can so ciety was reform able or irre­ deemable, moral or racist. SASS force­ fully posed these questions to Court­ ney Smith and the students and facul­ ty of Swarthmore College. In struggling to answer them, the College learned and grew and evolved, and so did Etheridge: “The crisis of 1969 was w h ere m y real education cam e fro m at S w a rth m o re. I w as forced to stretch myself, to grow in ways that I would not otherwise have grown during my college years. There w ere times when I had to dig down deep inside myself and pull out things I didn’t know I possessed. It was the biggest challenge of my life and, next to witnessing the births of my three children, the most sublime experience of my life.” Etheridge later served in the Peace C orps in Gam bia, W est A frica . He earned an M.B.A. from Stanford Busi­ ness School, did corp orate banking for severa l years, and is to d a y the senior project manager for a minorityowned construction company in Oak­ land, Calif. He is involved in local poli­ tics, m in ority business issues, and ch u rch affairs. But th e a c tiv ity o f which Etheridge is most proud is his s c o u tm a s te r d u ties in B o y S cou t Troop 409 in Oakland. “W e’re starting to produce some black Eagle Scouts now ,” says Etheridge, “w hich is the best way for a 46-year-old man like me to change the world.” ■KM LINDA RUSSELL MAY 1994 11 ■ *%had the feeling I was in a foreign 3 0 countryA 7f|| Straight ^ Taylor Cope aylor Cope grew up in Huntington, Indiana, w here he knew and shared many of th e sam e va lu es w ith fo rm e r V ic e President Dan Quayle. A three-sport athlete and “A ” student in high school, he follow ed his father and uncle to Swarthmore. In 1965, he says, he was “open-minded, clean-cut, enthusias­ tic— a good friend and a Republicanto-be.” In the nonsexual parlance of the time, Taylor Cope was “straight.” He still is. But though C ope is a politically conservative cardiologist in Flossmoor, 111., just south of Chicago, it’s not as if the ’60s passed him by. He was there too, experiencing those strange days in his own way. He rem em bers coming to Swarth­ m ore from the M idwest: “I had the feeling I was in a foreign country. The look of everything was different, peo­ ple’s accents w ere different, even the telep h on e poles looked different to me. And the kids— in high school girls dressed up e v e ry day w ith hairdos and matched outfits. Going from that to S w a rth m o re w as a d ra m a tic change. M y father [Stanton E. Cope ’42] was grossed out by it all. “ But w e b ro a d e n e d as w e w en t along. I had been fo r G old w ater in 1964, and m y p o litic s n e ver rea lly changed, but I think I developed a fair­ er view of the world. I learned that my view s w ere not necessarily good for everybody.” T 12 President Courtney Smith’s death in January 1969 affected him deeply. “He always looked like he stepped out of the Brooks Brothers window, and everything he said just rolled off his tongue as though he had been work­ ing on it for months. He used to come to our games and into the locker room to pat us on the back. It seemed that he was much too big and important to be hanging around with the likes of us. “I was awfully sad when he died. I sort of felt like he’d been sacrificed because at the tim e I didn’t under­ stand the nature of the conflict. I thought the minority was bul­ ly in g th e m a jo rity to g et its way.” D oes he h a v e a d iffe re n t understanding of it now? “Oh, yes. Th ere was a certain des■ fW p eration that things w e re n ’t ■ ■ g o in g w e ll— and that th e y hadn’t been goin g w ell for a jm long time. People were just fed up with it. If I’d had that cultur­ al experience, I w ould have felt the same way.” Still, Cope is concerned about what he sees as “separatism ” on campus and in society today: “I prefer to think of A m erica in the old ‘m elting p o t’ sense. If ‘diversity’ means glorying in major differences that keep us apart, then it’s an evil. Our goal as youthful idealists was to think that there was room in Am erica for everyb od y and that w e would all sort of fit together.” Yet Cope sees the legacy of the ’60s as “clearly positive.... There was a lot of ex p erim en ta tio n . Th ou gh som e were ruined by it, many went through that p e rio d o f g rea t change, trie d many parts of it, and kept what they thought was good.” For him, the experience helped him to be a “tolerant person, a good listen­ er who cares about the underdog. It taught me to think through difficult problem s and to get to the heart of them . It’s g o o d to remember what that was really all about.” “I ’ve always been interested in seeing what goes on behind doors that have been closed to me. I Making History Marilyn Holifield arilyn Holifield has been making history since she was a teenager, but she says she doesn’t usually see her many struggles and accomplish­ ments as historic. “I have always felt that I was just passing through life and these w ere just the things that were happening,” she claims. Some “things”: In 1963, at 15, Holi­ field was one of three African Ameri­ cans to desegregate Leon County High School in her hometown of Tallahas­ see, Fla. “Teenagers,” she remembers, “think they are invincible. They can do daring things and not even under­ stand why. I don’t think I really under­ stood the danger and the tensions that w ere swirling around me then.” By 1965 she “couldn’t wait to get as far away from Tallahassee as possi­ b le.” Her destination, Swarthmore, was a p la ce she had n e ver visited before enrolling, but Holifield helped make history there as well, participat­ ing in the founding of SASS in late 1966 and sitting in at the Admissions Office during the crisis of 1969. SASS, she says, “was our quest for identity, for an appropriate role, and for recognition. Even with its reputa­ tion as being liberal and broad and flexible, Swarthmore had fallen into the American trap of not acknowledg­ ing the intellectual existence of other mm iH lM I I 1 9 1 S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN cultures, es p e cia lly A frican A m eri­ cans. There was no sense of the influ­ ence of Africans on history and cul­ ture and p o litic s w o rld w id e . Even many blacks until that time had been insulated from this perspective.” For most blacks and many whites at Swarthmore, SASS changed all that. And in the process it changed the bal­ ance of power at the College. “The is­ sue was a cco m m od atin g stu d en ts’ desires to participate in decisions that were traditionally reserved for presi­ dents and provosts and faculty mem­ bers,” says Holifield. “N ow it’s not a big d eal to su g g est that stu d en ts should have a signature on policies or issues that shape the heart and soul of the College. That, I think, is a won­ derful legacy of SASS.” A fte r S w a rth m o re, sh e w en t straight to Harvard Law. In the 1970s she served as a staff attorney for the NAACP Legal D efense Fund and as general co u n sel fo r the N ew Y o rk State Division for Youth. But before long H olifield took up another chal­ lenge— returning to Florida. In 1981 she joined Holland and Knight, one of the state’s largest and m ost presti­ gious law firms. “The idea of a highly trained, highly visib le black fem ale lawyer walking around in Florida cor­ porate circles was, shall I say, uncom­ mon. But I’ve always been interested in seeing what goes on behind doors that have been closed to me. It’s a per­ sonal challenge to go through those doors, to see how you fare.” Holifield has fared well. She moved to Miami in 1984 and became the first black woman partner at Holland and Knight. ( “ P e o p le tell me th at’s his­ toric,” she says modestly.) In 1990 she becam e in v o lv e d in o r g a n iz in g a three-year boycott of Miami hotels, a protest sparked by the snubbing of Nelson Mandela by local elected offi­ cials and the brutal beating of peace­ ful H aitian d e m o n s tra to rs b y th e Miami police. “I didn’t set out to be involved in th is,” asserts H olifield. “We were planning a convention here, and suddenly the meeting decided to take the convention elsew h ere and start a boycott.” The action ended last spring w ith a 20-point a g re em en t between Boycott Miami: Coalition for Progress and Hispanic and Anglo busi­ ness leaders of Miami. One provision has led to plans for the development MAY 1994 o f a b la ck -o w n ed h o te l in M iam i Beach. Speaking of opening doors once c lo s e d , e a r ly th is y e a r H o lifie ld attended her first meeting as a mem­ ber of Swarthm ore’s Board of Man­ agers. “Back in the ’60s,” she says, “it Radicalism and Resentment w ou ld n e ver h ave oc cu rre d to me that I would ever sit on the College’s board. But then I have always felt that there should be no artificial barriers on what a person does.” More history made. And at 45 Marilyn Holifield still has a lot of history ahead of her. 11111111 ¡¡■Hi Barry Wohl la rry W o h l w as a c o m m itte d , 'activist from the first. Influenced by his liberal parents and by Quakers at a summer camp he attended, he had started a chapter of the Student Peace Union at Low er M erion (P a .) High School in 1962. His first peace march came during the O ctober 1962 Cuban M issile C risis, and he jo in e d th e August 1963 civil rights march on W ashin gton. So Sw arth­ m ore seem ed like a natural place to go, and the Swarth­ m o re P o litic a l A c tio n Club w as th e firs t g ro u p W o h l joined as a freshman. “The most important thing fo r m e at S w a rth m o re w as to be among a group of political radicals who were good thinkers, solid people. Our leaders w ere philosophers com­ m itted to n o n vio le n t change, and some of them, like John Braxton [ ’70, w h o w en t to ja il fo r refu s in g th e draft], are models for me even today,” says W oh l, n ow a p e d ia tric ia n in Sheridan, Wyo. Yet Wohl still harbors some resent­ ment toward Swarthmore. For his ap­ plication to medical school in 1971, he asked for letters of recommenda­ tion, and one was placed in his file by a former dean who, says Wohl, “wrote that I had flagrantly violated the rules of the College.” An interviewer at Yale showed it to him and asked him what it was all about. Had he been selling drugs? Wohl, who had graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high honors in psycholo­ gy, says, “I told him, ‘No, but I was sleeping in the dorm with Jane [Elkington Wohl], my now-wife, when she cam e dow n to visit me from N YU .’ B “Our leaders were philosophers committed to nonviolent change. ” T h e in terview er laughed and said, ‘Oh, everyone does that now. No one even bats an eyelash.’ But I almost d id n ’t get into m ed ical sch ool b e­ cause of this letter.” In the fall of 1967, W ohl says, he was a resident assistant in Hallowell and he concluded that sleeping there w ith his girlfriend prob ab ly w asn’t the right thing to be doing. He was also Student Council president and knew he was supposed to be som e­ thing of a role model, so he went to Dean o f M en R o b e rt B arr ’56 and asked to resign his RA position. Barr readily agreed, and W ohl m oved off campus that winter. He and Jane were married in June 1968— “and w e still are,” says Wohl. “I withdrew from my activism then, but during the crisis I came back to becom e sort of a m oderator for the student discussions. It was a v e r y positive experience for me, helping others get their ideas out and form a Please turn to page 71 13 THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE intractable problems in America. How did Courtney Smith form his views? Smith was a product of both a M id w estern u pbringing and an Ivy League education. Educated in public schools in Iowa (where he was born in 1916), he was a champion debater and speaker. He went to Harvard in 1934 on a scholarship, majored in English literature, and then spent a postgradu­ ate y e a r (1 9 3 8 -3 9 ) at O xford as a Rhodes scholar. He returned to Har­ vard as a tutor and teaching fellow and earned a Ph.D. in English litera­ ture in 1944. Then, after a two years of military service, he spent seven years (1946-53) on the English Department faculty at Princeton University, where he also assisted form er Swarthmore president Frank A yd elo tte with the management of the American office of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust. Courtney Smith thus took office at Swarthmore in 1953 with 15 years of training and teaching at three of the leadin g edu cational institutions in A m e rica and B ritain— an excellent preparation for becoming a protector By Darwin H. Stapleton ’69 of Aydelotte’s rigorous education pro­ and Donna H. Stapleton gram established at Swarthmore 30 years earlier. But Smith’s commitment to the life of the mind was tempered uring his presidency of Swarth- by his personal knowledge of some of more College (1953-69), Court­ th e m isfortu n es and in eq u ities of ney C. Smith encountered stu­ m odern A m erican life. In the early dent activism that ranged from 1930s ex­ after his father’s bank failed, Smith and his family experienced first­ p re s s io n s o f d e e p c o n c e rn abou t social and political issues to the time­ hand the scarcities of the Depression. less tensions between students and And du ring his s e r v ic e in the U.S. N avy (1944-46), he saw a far more administrations on college campuses. troubling aspect of m odern society. The framework for Smith’s views on Smith was for nearly tw o years at a student activism was form ed by his partially integrated base at Pensacola, twin beliefs that a college is a place Fla., serving as the officer assigned to “committed to rational processes and resolve cases of racial injustice and orderly procedures” and that “college students have the same rights as all abuse. Confronting the results of both citizens to express their social con­ institutional racism in the Navy and cerns as individuals.” That framework legalized discrimination in the South, Smith left the Navy feeling that racism allowed him to hold a middle ground that the majority of the College’s con­ w as a te r r ib le lesion on American society that was damaging both white stituencies could accept and that was in a c c o rd w ith S w arth m ore tra d i­ and black Americans. When the 37-year-old Smith arrived tions— socially liberal, academ ically in August 1953 to assum e Swarthrigorous, and politically neutral. His m ore’s presidency, he found the Col­ framework was challenged at the end lege also had a strong current of con­ only by the College’s encounter with cern regarding racial and ethnic dis­ the racial lesion that he had years crim ination. A d e ca d e b efore, stubefore recognized as one of the most The crisis o f 1969 was the last o f many encounters with student activism that tested the “rational processes and orderly procedures”advocated by President Courtney Smith. D 14 S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN dents had led the College to end dis­ crimination in adm issions, and the College regularly admitted Jews and had admitted a few African Americans by Smith’s time. In 1951 students had begun a debate about the exclusion­ ary membership policies of the male fraternities on campus. Despite the objections of their national organiza­ tions, Swarthm ore’s fraternities had begun offering m em bership to Jews and blacks just about the time Smith took office. He supported the fraterni­ ties’ efforts to reform their nationals and the d e c is io n s th re e c h a p te rs made to becom e local organizations when that proved impossible. Another student-related issue of the 1950s facing Smith was the chal­ lenge to intellectual freedom on cam­ puses across the nation. In his inaugu­ ral address in October 1953, President Smith spoke out on behalf of “a tradi­ tion of dissent” at colleges and univer­ sities, and later he joined with the stu­ dents and faculty to send a petition to Pennsylvania senators James Duff and Edward Martin calling for the censure of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, infamous for his defamatory attacks on academics for their political viewpoints. Late in the 1950s, Smith assumed national leadership in the fight against the imposition of a loyalty oath on the recipients of National Defense Educa­ tion Act scholarships and fellowships. He worked with the students, faculty, and Board of Managers, he recruited other leaders of higher education to the cause, and eventually he testi­ fied in Congress in the ultimately suc­ cessfu l cam paign to elim in a te the oath. National issues regarding protec­ tion o f the freed o m of sp eech had local parallels. Q uoted in The New York Times as saying that American colleges should “resist intellectual bul­ ly in g and ... fig h t th e p re sen t-d a y trends that seek to control the spirit o f fre e in q u iry on the ca m p u ses,” Smith forthrightly defended student groups that in the 1950s and 1960s invited such controversial speakers to campus as William F. Buckley Jr., Gus Hall, Alger Hiss, and Paul Robeson. A fe w y e a rs la te r, Smith published his v ie w s on o u ts id e To preserve the sp ea k e rs fo r all alum ni to rea d : “ I “spirit of free am con vin ced that inquiry,” Smith our policy of permit­ tin g stu d en ts, on defended student their own initiative groups that and on th e ir ow n a ssu m p tion o f r e ­ invited to campus sp on sib ility, to in­ such controversial vite any speaker in w hom th ey have a speakers as genuine and intelli­ William F. Buckley gent interest is right and prudent.” Jr., Gus Hall, But regarding stu­ dents’ responsibility Alger Hiss, for their own dress and Paul Robeson. and behavior, Smith was far m ore criti­ cal. When he arrived in 1953, he found that he agreed with some members of the Board of Managers who disliked the a ppearan ce o f m any students. Smith enunciated his point of view in the 1950s during several addresses to the students on what he called “man­ ners and morals.” He argued that th e C o lle g e co m m u n ity liv e d “essentially by mutual trust” and that a necessary com po­ nent of that trust was the s tu d e n ts ’ a g re e m e n t to adhere to the standards of behavior and appearance that traditionally governed the College and polite soci­ ety. For Smith, a m eticu­ lous dresser, not the least of these standards was neat clothing, and he called on the men to take on the “burden of a coat and tie.” But the students w ere unresponsive, and a few years later Smith said that he now understood their slovenly appearance as “a patterned expression of confor­ mity.” It is clear that from the beginning of his presidency, Smith believed that he needed to be engaged as a construc­ tive critic of student activism. As the College moved into the 1960s, Smith’s in volvem en t w ith student activism continued to cen­ ter on issues of racial discrimina- ■ wm «¡¡SSI tion, g overn m en t p olicies, and oncampus behavior, but Smith remarked early in the decade that a new— and for him disturbing— style of confronta­ tion was emerging. n the 1962-63 academic year, many S w a rth m o rea n s jo in e d th e civil rights movement by regularly partici­ pating in sit-ins and marches on Mary­ land’s Eastern Shore that were initiat­ ed by the Student Nonviolent Coordi­ nating Committee. In a review of that year, Smith comm ented approvingly on the students’ “continuing ... c o n ce rn fo r civ il rights, with the concern highlighted Suddenly in a w eekly caravan to Cam­ bridge, Md.” But the next year Swarthmore was brought escalation. in the public eye In Novem ber 1963 Swarth­ more students became signifi­ and the press cantly involved in picketing was on campus the Chester schools, joining a m ovem en t dem anding that daily. In this the system give its predomi­ nantly black schools, which whirlwind Smith w ere overcrow ded and dete­ made few public riorating, the same support as those that w ere predomi­ statements n a n tly w h ite . O ne o f the except to plead demonstrations featured civil d is o b e d ie n c e — blockin g an for calm, orderly en tra n ce to a s c h o o l— and debate and res u lted in th e a rrest of a number of Swarthm ore stu­ adherence to the dents. T h e C h ester school Quakerly behavior board ultim ately gave in to of mutual respect some of the demands, but in the meantime student demon­ and careful strators w ere am ong those blamed for vandalism. deliberation. Smith su pported the stu­ dents’ right to demonstrate and to picket but also sup­ p o r te d a s ta te m e n t fro m Swarthm ore’s deans that emphasized (refer­ ring to civil disobedience) that there are “im portant differences between socially responsible procedures and those which are violent, or which tend to lead to violence.” Students respon­ sible for breaking the law, the deans’ statement said, might be subjected to discipline on campus in addition to any action by legal authorities. Stu­ dents and the faculty both vigorously debated this policy, but in the end no I ■ S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN HL students were disciplined and neither the College policy nor the students’ deepening in v o lve m e n t in C hester were changed. By the fall of 1964, student efforts in C hester had b o th m o d e ra te d and expanded. At the first collection that year, Smith could say optim istically that he h o p e d “ ou r c o n s tr u c tiv e efforts can continue: the tutorial proj­ ect, the voter registration efforts, the research work on the actual nature of com m u nity p ro b le m s , [a n d ] th e Sw arth m ore-W ade H ouse sum m er project, which I think was one of the high moments for this college and can serve as a model for many communi­ ties throughout the country.” n the other hand, Smith’s consid­ ered p o sition on a student-led effort to raise consciousness about international racism was firmly nega­ tive. Early in March 1965, the on-campus Swarthmore Political Action Com­ m ittee (S P A C ) w ro te to P re sid e n t Smith asking him to su p p ort th eir request that the C ollege’s Board of Managers order the sale of the Col­ lege’s stock in Chase Manhattan Bank, which had made loans to South Africa. SPAC had identified divestment as a means for protesting South A frica ’s apartheid policies, a position soon secon ded b y th e stu den t cou n cil. Smith took the students’ request seri­ ously and sought expert advice from faculty members familiar with South Africa. He also took advantage of his acquaintance with David Rockefeller, Chase Manhattan board chairman, to ask him about the bank’s rationale for its loans to South Africa. At the April 6 meeting of the Man­ agers, Smith explained the students’ concerns but told the Managers that from the information he had gathered, he was sure that “the symbolic act of selling one corporation’s stock would in the present instance be misleading and unjust. Th e co rp oration w hich has been singled out has a known rep­ utation for positive influence. It is not clear that w ith h o ld in g o f loans to South Africa, on the part of this corpo­ ration or others, would combat the ills of apartheid.” Smith was persuasive, and after a long discussion that one O MAY 1994 m em b e r c h a r a c te r iz e d as “ soulsearching debate,” the Board took no action on divestiture. It was another decade before the Sullivan principles e ffe c tiv e ly set anti-apartheid stan­ dards fo r A m erica n in vestm en t in South Africa and more than 20 years before the Board adopted a com pre­ hensive disvestment policy. While Smith at times set limits on student activism , The P h o e n ix was almost impossible for him to regulate. Smith— the advocate of free debate and inquiry— co op era ted fully with the newspaper and occasionally con­ tributed an essay to it. Still, he was regularly irritated by its outspoken style and administration-bashing. In September 1962 he com plained that The Phoenix had predictable, political­ ly liberal responses to virtu a lly all issues, on or off campus. He asked pointedly, “Has The Phoenix becom e a one-party press?” He also called on the Phoenix editors to better check its facts before making “broad jumps” to new claims and bluntly asserted that if they did not, they were “engaging in a form of violence.” Smith was particu­ larly exercised when The Phoenix crit­ icized him for spending most of his time in “maintaining the image” of the College (which, in reply, Smith said took “no iden tifiable tim e ”) and in fund raising (which Smith said took 5 percent of his time). In Smith’s view The Phoenix's style changed little in res p o n s e to his critiq u e, and fiv e years later he told the alumni that uThe Phoenix has never seemed to me to be worthy of this student body.” His criticism of The Phoenix was a particular example of Smith’s concern about “the spread of ‘doctrinaire’ lib­ eralism” on campus. He told the stu­ dents he w orried that Swarthmore’s dominant liberalism could becom e a “kind of reflex action” that accepted ideas blindly without reflection. “The point is not that Swarthmore is m ov­ ing to the left or to the right,” Smith wrote in his annual report to the Col­ lege. “What I am arguing for is less restricted agendas, more open minds, more dialogue.” Smith’s concern about single-view­ p o in t d iscu ssion s m ay be w h y he never contributed to the overwhelm ­ ingly anti-Vietnam War discussion on campus, although he did try to shape national policy regarding the effect of the Vietnam-era draft on higher edu­ cation and the career paths of stu­ dents. In 1966 Sm ith w r o te to his friend Sen. Joseph Clark of Pennsylva­ nia to offer his opinion that “the coun­ try will be making a serious mistake if no change is made in existing draft legislation as it affects next y e a r s ’ graduate students.” He was d e ep ly c o n c e rn e d abou t th e “ abru p t and severe withdrawal of intellectual tal­ ent” that he envisioned. Smith’s com­ ments about the draft were among the few he made related to the Vietnam War; as a Quaker president at a Quak­ er college, he may have been content to let his position be assumed. t is likely that the most prickly stu­ dent matter Smith dealt with during his p resid en cy was the adm issions process. It was not student participa­ tion in adm issions com m ittees that bothered him, although others in his administration urged him to end that p ra ctice . He th ou gh t the stu dents m ade c o n s tr u c tiv e c o n trib u tio n s . Smith w as m o re c o n c e rn e d abou t defending Swarthmore’s highly selec­ tive admissions process. He gave his personal attention to ensuring that ch an ges in a d m ission s w o u ld not “ [endanger] the standards of our col­ lege or expose accepted candidates to humiliating failures.” Y et it was pre­ cisely the adm issions standards of Swarthmore that brought Smith and the College to its deepest confronta­ tion with student activism. Given the highly segregated and discrim inatory secondary education system in the U nited States in the 1950s and 1960s, Swarthmore’s stan­ dards (which favored not just the aca­ dem ically gifted but also those with extracurricular skills) effectively limit­ ed admissions of African Americans to the few who had grown up in relative­ ly p riv ileg ed circum stances. Smith recognized that problem and in 1961 su ggested that the c o lle g e p ro v id e “ven tu re sch o la rsh ip s” fo r A frican Americans “now outside the pattern of college expectancy.” He suggested that “through a special program of I 17 a result of improved financial support, and 19 w ere enrolled in 1965 after the first full year of the recruitment effort. P re sid e n t Smith d rew little public attention to the Rocke­ feller Foundation grant, ^ " choosing in the fall of 1964 to describe it only Three days before as “ a special scholar­ ship program ” result­ his death, Smith ing fro m th e recent told a student Centennial campaign. He and oth ers in the assembly, “We administration expect­ ed th at m ost o f the have lost African Am erican stu­ something dents could be assimi­ lated into the student precious at body without program­ Swarthmore— m atic e ffo r ts , and Smith believed that the the feeling that stu d en ts b rou g h t in force and through the Rockefeller program did not want disruptiveness to be seen as “special.” are just B ut th e entering African Am erican stu­ not our way.” den ts had co m e to S w a rth m o re in the midst of the rising ex­ pectations of the civil rights move­ ment, and many found that they could n o t— o r ou t o f c o n s c ie n c e would n o t— ca su a lly m eld w ith th e elite white academic culture that Swarth­ m ore rep resen ted. In that environ­ ment many of the African American stu dents rec ru ited to Swarthmore recru itm en t ... [m in o rity stu den ts became activists. could] be shown to have a potential W hat b ecam e the flash point for for rigorous college work.” m in o r ity a d m iss io n s m atters at Swarthm ore was the issuance of an h ree years later the R ockefeller internal College report in the fall of Foundation o ffere d Sw arthm ore 1968 summarizing the results of the and several other small liberal arts colleges $275,000 each to create four- program funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Briefly made available for y e a r p ro g ra m s to ex p a n d A fric a n College-wide review, the analytic char­ A m erica n adm issions th rou gh the a cter o f the rep o rt incensed many kind o f fo c u s e d re c ru itm e n t and increased scholarship aid that Smith African American students. Moreover, it described in detail the recruited stu­ had hoped for. At the time the College dents and the “risk factors” associat­ had on ly 12 blacks en ro lled out of ed with their admission. To some the over 900 students, and six of those report seemed to be an intrusion on w ere Africans. In April 1964 the foundation grant their privacy; to others it gave the image of an administration failing to was awarded and Swarthmore began its new m inorities adm issions p ro ­ comprehend the true needs of African American students. gram. Th e results w ere im m ediate: D uring th e C o lle g e ’ s Christmas nine students w ere enrolled in 1964 as T S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN break in 1968, the Swarthmore AfroAmerican Students’ S ociety (SASS) presented President Smith a series of demands, including that the College recruit and admit more African Ameri­ can students, c re a te su p p ort p r o ­ grams for “risk” students, and hire an African Am erican assistant dean of admissions for minority recruitment. Early in January 1969, Smith (as chair of the faculty meetings) brought the demands to the faculty, but when the faculty did not act immediately, SASS began a sit-in in the Parrish Hall Admissions Office. In response Smith called the faculty into alm ost daily sessions to consider SASS’s demands and College policies, and it began to enact a series of recom m endations and resolutions regarding m inority admissions. The bulk of the white stu­ dents initiated daily mass meetings to hear reports and presentations from both the faculty and SASS and to for­ mulate their own resolutions of sup­ port, compromise, and agreement. Suddenly Swarthm ore was in the public eye, and the press was on cam­ pus daily. In this w h irlw in d Smith made few public statements except to plead for the calm, orderly debate and the adherence to the Quakerly behav­ ior o f m utual re s p e c t and ca refu l deliberation that he had advocated throughout his presidency. Smith attempted to work within the College community, rejecting any plan for outside police action to end the sit-in. W hile he refused to negotiate with SASS on the basis of “demands,” he also made it clear that he thought SASS’s general concerns w ere legiti­ mate and could be considered with deliberate speed. The strain on Smith was substan­ tial. The depth of his personal distress was clear in his remarks to the stu­ dents assem bled in Clothier Hall on January 13 w hen he said that “w e have lo s t s o m e th in g p r e c io u s at Swarthmore— the feeling that force and disruptiveness are just not our way.” On the morning of January 16, 1969, m ore than th re e w eek s into what had becom e known at Swarthmore as “the crisis,” Courtney Smith died in his office of a heart attack. The College’s greatest struggle with stu­ MAY 1994 d en t a c tiv is m w as his last, and although the crisis took some time to be resolved, the Courtney Smith era at Swarthmore had ended. ■ Darwin H. Stapleton ’69 has a Ph.D. in history from the University o f Delaware and has published several books and articles in the history o f science, tech- nology, and education. He is the direc­ tor o f the R ockefeller A rchive Center. D onna H. Stapleton holds a m aster’s degree in the science o f social adminis­ tration from Case Western Reserve Uni­ versity. This article is based on their research for a forthcoming book-length biography o f Courtney C. Smith. ©1994 by the authors. Courtney Sm ith on "The M atrix of Social Ju stice” hat role should Swarthmore College and its students play in bringing about social change in the wider society? During his presidency in the 1950s and 1960s, Courtney Smith faced this question— which is still hotly debated at the College— head on. His faith in the life of the mind, his recognition that education without application to society was without meaning, and his belief in mutual respect shaped and guided his actions as he coped with student activism. Smith effectively encapsulat­ ed his philosophy regarding activism in “The Academic Community and Social Concerns,” an essay he pub­ lished in the December 1965 issue of the Swarthmore College Bulletin. President Smith’s central concern in the essay was to define what he thought was the proper role of institu­ tions of higher education in social change. He began by arguing that a college’s primary function in society is to train the intellect and to provide students and the faculty “an environ­ ment for reasoned and honest explo­ ration.” For Smith that exploration had a direct relationship to the concerns of society at large. A central passage of his essay describes his view of that relationship: “A college’s job, drawing on the contributions of men of intel­ lect and integrity and conscience and good will, is to determine what is social justice, and to help students develop the capacity to determine in subsequent years what is social jus­ tice, and to try to sensitize students to care about social justice, and to produce the leaders who will seek to W secure social justice, and to provide within its own walls an instance of social justice, but not at any moment to be itself a direct instrument for social justice. A college, in short, is the matrix of social justice” [italics his]. Smith went on to determine the coordinates for what he called “the activist spirit” on campus. He argued that the College as a corporate body must act on social and political mat­ ters in its own interests and suggest­ ed that the students had a role in voicing those interests. He also emphasized his expectation that members of the College community would speak out as individual citizens yet would take care in public to distin­ guish their views from those of the College. Finally, Smith considered concrete manifestations of activism itself and stated that “effective social action must be based on reason, and reason must be calm and clear-eyed.” He called for students to do “what the public has a right to expect of Swarth­ more graduates”— to devote time to the study of each issue and to the consideration of the consequences of action. In the latter regard, Smith urged that action occur in the context “not only of the compassion that leads us to champion the interests of the disadvantaged, but the much more difficult compassion for those who are or seem to be the obstacles in the way of progress.” He concluded that in combining intellect and social action, Swarthmore could make “a special contribution to social justice in our time.” — D.H.S. and D.H.S. 19 in Hie 1960s and it wasn't on the news • It w as in the music. ll I want is the truth,” said John Lennon in 1971, waking up from the dream of the 1960s like a man with a serious hang­ over. But truth is elusive. There can be little argument about how extraordinarily central and important music was for so many of us college-age persons in the years 1965-1969. Mere mention of this sub­ ject in mixed company, however (Boomers and non-Boomers), is an invitation to fierce skepticism and intergenerational resentment. The myth of The Sixties has hung like a wet blanket over the heads of every “generation” of rock music fans that’s come of age since 1969: “Ha, ha. There was this really great party and you completely missed it.” “You’ve heard it a good trillion times prior to reading this,” writes 26- A year-old Bart Cameron in 360 Music Magazine, March 1994, “and it’ll be repeated a trillion times later, ‘To­ day’s music lacks the substance and meaning that the music of my genera­ tion had.’ Which is complete and utter h orse-----.” I arrived at Swarthmore in the fall of 1965 with the rest of the Class of ’69, feeding nickels into the juke box at Soms to hear the Young Rascals sing “Good Lovin’.” And I would have graduated with them too, probably to the tune of the Beatles singing “Get Back,” except that I dropped out in 1966 to start a rock and roll magazine. I was consumed by this feeling that “something is happening” and by the idea that the most useful common ref- by Paul W illia m s '6 9 erence point for talking about whatev­ er it was that was happening to us was the music we were listening to. We. There’s a punchline to an old joke in which Tonto says to the Lone Ranger, “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?” and I always hear it in my head when I catch myself talking about what “w e” w ere doing in the 1960s (or ’70s, ’80s, ’90s...). But this word “we,” however false, illusory, or limited, plays an important role in the truth about this mysterious some­ thing that occurred in American (and, to a significant degree, European and Japanese) culture and politics in the 1960s. It is also, I think, the key to the riddle of what made the popular music of the time seem so damned important. The music (Bob Dylan from 1963 to 1966 particularly, the Beatles from S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN 1964 to 1969, the Rolling Stones from 1965 to 1972, Otis Redding, Jimi Hen­ drix, the Grateful Dead, the Who, the Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, the Kinks, the Velvet Under­ ground) was important because as song after song and album after album spoke so profoundly, yea to the point of revelation, about what was going on with me, they also implicitly spoke about what was going on with us. They were in fact the announcement, piped into every dormitory, every crashpad, every apartment, that there was such a thing as “us.” So far what I’m describing is univer­ sal to every generation of music fans. “The golden age of science fiction is 12,” critics and writers and readers of science fiction are fond of pointing out, and in the same manner the gold­ en age of jazz and rap and rock and all other cutting edge musics is 17. Mu­ sic—generally and preferably new (contemporary) music— tends to reach its listeners most profoundly at some brief period in adolescence or young adulthood when they are most alone and most in need, and it ingrati­ ates itself by articulating clearly and forcefully what no one else will ac­ knowledge or admit or even allude to. This is true for every generation and probably every culture. Plato observed that harmony was a gift of the Muses “meant to correct any dis­ cord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul; and rhythm too was given for the same reason, on account of the irregular and graceless ways which prevail among mankind generally, and to help us against them.” Let us make a distinction, then. The Baby Boomers are wrong in their fre­ quent and often condescending com­ plaints that “music isn’t what it used to be.” Young people today have just as much need to assert themselves against the irregular and graceless ways of their Boomer parents as those parents did during their own rites of passage, and the new music that helps them in this process is every bit as imaginative and heart-satisfying and enduring as anything produced by the icons of “classic rock.” I cite albums released in the last 18 months by R.E.M., Liz Phair, Arrested Develop­ ment, Pavement, Nirvana, Belly, Tom MAY 1994 Waits, Counting Crows, Smashing Pumpkins, Dr. Dre, Uncle Tupelo, Zap Mama, and Freedy Johnston as intro­ ductory evidence, and at the same time warn older listeners that if this new stuff on quick listen doesn’t seem to compare with their memories of the great old days, it may be because their need is not what it once was and because they’ve forgotten that even in the golden age it took more than a skeptical “quick listen” to connect with something truly new and revela­ tory. But— and this is the more difficult argument, the more elusive “truth”— something extraordinary did happen in the latter half of the 1960s, a phe­ nomenon that has not been repeated since. And the music we were listen­ ing to played a very central part. Like other generations before and since, w e were awakened by our mu­ sic and received messages from it, and it spoke for us and to us and seemed to encourage us constantly in the direction of social, political, cultur­ al, and personal change. What was unique about that era, as far as I can tell, is the pervasiveness of the illusion o f community that w e created for our­ selves and/or found ourselves within. We came to believe and feel that there was a “w e”— that something was happening. I can’t speak for the artists, but I know that for the listen­ ers the Beatles’ albums and the Stones’ albums and rock albums in general were heard as a progression, not just in aesthetic quality but in a process of expanding consciousness, growing collective self-awareness. This sounds somewhat absurd in hindsight, but I assert that it was true for most listeners experientially, and the point is that it was not about music per se. The music was a con­ duit, information carrier, much more so than newspapers, a very direct and content-rich medium of expression and communication. The content was perceptual, and it had to do with politics, lifestyles, eco­ nomics, sexuality, consciousness (specifically as affected by drug use and other spiritual practices— and yes, for a brief period drug use was as much as anything a spiritual practice). “W e” were rethinking civil rights, hu­ man rights, the war in Vietnam, sexual mores, and the legitimacy of our polit­ ical and economic system and all social systems we found ourselves within, including the university, mar­ riage, parent-child, employer-employ­ ee, citizen-state. The headiness of the What was unique about the 1960s was the pervasive illusion o f community. You didn’t need to drop out of college or attend a rock festival or even a political demonstration to feel a part of the tide of change. The music o f the Beatles (above, in 1968) and Bob Dylan ( opposite, in 1964) helped the “Woodstock Generation” define itself. 21 times was due to the fact that this wasn’t just thought and talk. We marched, blocked the streets, occu­ pied buldings, surrounded the Pen­ tagon, started communes, got arrest­ ed for draft resistance and peddling “obscene” underground newspapers, took powerful psychedelic drugs and experienced genuine terrors and ec­ stasies, and compared notes with oth­ ers who w ere having similar experi­ ences. W e were in a dialogue with the state and the media and the govern­ ment, and they responded to us (hos­ tility is a response). This was also a progression. The subjective (specifi­ cally not objective) large-scale changes in reality that w e’d felt read­ ing history or science fiction novels at a younger age w e now saw taking place around us. When the Beatles sang “I’ve got to admit it’s getting bet­ ter (couldn’t get much w orse)” and the Stones sang “Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name,” we (thought w e) knew exactly what they were talking about. W e felt ourselves caught up in a historical moment. It was very exciting. Of course there was no consensus among “us” as to what was happening. That was what made the universality of the music so important. Music, from the point of view of the mind, is a wonderfully ambiguous (and there­ fore inclusive) medium. Meanwhile, from the point of view of the emo­ tions, its content can be very power­ fully specific. “Light My Fire” by the Doors is a song (with dumb w ords) about a sexu­ al encounter. But it was also on the radio, usually with its long Dionysian instrumental section intact, during the inner city riots ( “Burn, baby, burn!”) of summer 1967, a time that Robert Kennedy called the worst American crisis since the Civil War. That may have been hyperbole, but it is precise­ ly the pervasive mood of hyperbole at the time that I wish to call attention to. Every public event took on a heightened sense of importance. The Tet offensive in Vietnam received dra­ matic television coverage; Lyndon Johnson lost the primary in New Hampshire as a result and then an­ nounced that he wasn’t going to run for re-election. Bob Dylan sang, “Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is get- 22 ting late.” Martin Luther King was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. The Band sang, “Take a load off Annie and you put the load right on me.” The Grateful Dead sang, “You know he had to die.” Strange days had tracked us down. Nineteen sixty-seven was a year of elation, 1968 of depression, 1969 brought a rebirth ( “Oh Happy Day”) climaxing in Woodstock and the springlike sound of the first Crosby Stills & Nash album, fol­ lowed by the anticlimax of Altamont and the Stones’ wonderfully nihilistic Let It Bleed album ( “you better gimme shelter...”) and Jefferson Airplane’s self-consciously revolutionary Volun­ teers. It was not that the music was par­ ticularly political. It is easier to find intelligent political commentary in the rock music of the ’80s and ’90s (though it’s still pretty rare) than in the music of the ’60s. Even Bob Dylan had almost nothing to say about the Vietnam War, for example— his most overtly political songs were about civil rights martyrs, but his real politi­ cal impact was in songs that ex­ pressed his and his listeners’ confu­ sion at and rejection of the social con­ sensus: “It’s Alright, Ma,” “Desolation Row,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Dylan flew the flag of the out­ sider and gave the role more depth and nuance and made it more appeal­ ing than any American voice since Whitman. The alternate reality that Dylan’s songs implied was both more ambiguous and more tangible than Kerouac’s, ahd it ultimately inspired more converts, not that that was nec­ essarily either artist’s intention. You didn’t need to drop out of col­ lege or attend a rock festival or even a political demonstration to feel a part of the great inevitable tide of change that “w e” knew ourselves to be caught up in. Since I did do those things, I can’t say for sure, but my impression is that listening to the music and mak­ ing one’s own connection with it, and being aware that others w ere doing so, was enough to give most people a strong sense of inclusion. In this way the music became, among other things, a kind of correspondence course. You rushed out to buy the new albums in order to get the latest information and teachings, or perhaps to confirm that the latest set of an- UPI/BETTMANN X H E MUSIC BECAME A KIND OF CORRESPONDENCE COURSE. YOU RUSHED OUT TO BUY THE N E W ALBUMS IN ORDER TO GET THE LATEST INFORMATION A N D TEACHINGS, PERHAPS TO CONFIRM THE LATEST SET OF ANSWERS YOU'D WORKED OUT O N YOUR O W N . S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN The Rolling Stones released “( I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”just as the Class of 1969 graduated from high school. Later Jimi Hendrix asked, “Are you experienced?” swers you’d worked out on your own was similar to what the Stones or the Byrds had come up with as they sepa­ rately and almost simultaneously worked on the puzzle. The illusion of community came to an end in May 1970, after the invasion of Cambodia, when students were shot and killed by soldiers during demonstrations on the campuses at Kent State and Jackson State. “Got to get down to it, Soldiers are cutting us down.... How can you run when you know?” Crosby Stills Nash & Young sang on a rush-released single, but no one responded. No revolution. The silence was deafening. The communi­ ty looked around and didn’t see itself anymore. “W e” were scared and tired. Ma y 1994 The long adrenalin rush was over. In the 19th century and for millenia before that, there was no such thing as recorded music. It’s still too soon to talk intelligent­ ly about the impact of this invention. It’s easi­ er to look back and give Gutenberg’s print­ ing press part credit for the Reformation and, ultimately, the advent of the Age of Science. Changes in communication and transportation media have come fast and thick in this century and are still coming. The role played by the growing influence of the broadcast media, particularly television news, on national and global con­ sciousness in the 1960s is more obvi­ ous than and arguably much greater than the role of music. But Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley will never, I think, hold the place of Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon or Bob Dylan in our hearts— and it is in the heart, to a significant degree, that values are formed. “Through song, the unwritten histo­ ry of the people and the laws of the community are taught and main­ tained; the entire physical and spiritu­ al development of the individual is nurtured; the well-being of the group is protected;... news is passed from one group to another.” The quote is from Aboriginal Music by Australian anthropologist Cath Ellis, but it cer­ tainly has application to our own would-be tribes. Rock music during the era roughly defined by the arrival and departure of the Beatles on the U.S. scene (1964-1970) enjoyed a smaller and much more unified audi­ ence than what w e experience today. Most fans were exposed, via Top 40 radio and, later, FM (album) radio, to most of the significant new artists. There were exceptions, but it was nothing like the splintered collection of almost unrelated marketing and radio categories that divide up the rock audiences today. It was possible to imagine, when “Hey Jude” was on top of the charts, that the whole world (an ethnocentric and Eurocentric and ageist concept, but still a potent illu­ sion) was listening to this song this month. This creates a powerful feeling of connection. It was, of course, a somewhat superficial connection, and it is in large part due to this superfi­ ciality that the illusion didn’t last or grow into something more real. But there is also something not at all superficial about listening to “Hey Jude” (or “Peggy Sue” or “When Doves Cry”) and being moved by it and knowing that unseen others are also experiencing these feelings. And I think that is one reason, beyond sim­ ple nostalgia, that so many people have retained their love for the music they heard during the period when they, however vaguely, felt the pres­ ence of some sort of “w e” that seemed to be engaged in a collective process of becoming self-conscious. Beyond illusion, perhaps this is a real process (as Teilhard de Chardin envisioned) that is constantly taking place wheth­ er w e are aware of our participation in it or not. Through the music, through our daily papers and PC modems and fax machines and satellite TV and con­ stant travels on the globe— and also very possibly through organic pro­ cesses that occur as the human popu­ lation steadily, exponentially, increas­ es— something is happening to us. W e don’t know what it is. But the story of our lives is partly the story of this larger adventure that we have momentarily felt ourselves part of. “How often have you been there?” John Lennon and Paul McCartney asked in 1967. “Often enough to know.” Maybe, maybe not. But no one alive on Earth right now has any rea­ son to feel like they missed the party. The truth is, it’s getting wilder all the time. ■ Paul Williams ’69 started Crawdaddy!, the first U.S. rock magazine, in early 1966 shortly before he dropped out o f Swarthmore. He is the author o f 18 books, “only some o f which are about rock and roll. ” In his 1991 autobio­ graphical novel, Heart of Gold, he writes about his Swarthmore days. He recently revived Crawdaddy! A sample copy can be obtained by writing Paul at B ox 231155, Encinitas CA 92023. 23 SCOLLEGE Faculty debates prosposal for revising Honors Program This spring Swarthmore faculty members from all academic departments have been involved in a close scrutiny of the Exter­ nal Examination (Honors) Program. Discussions have centered on what the Hon­ ors Program should do and how it should be revised to most fully meet the needs of the College’s best stu­ dents. “W e’ve been worried by the fact that w e have a pro­ gram we call Honors, but most of our best students aren’t in it,” says Philip Weinstein, professor of En­ glish and chair of the Coun­ cil on Educational Policy (CEP) task force that is leading the discussion. The number of students applying for and being ac­ cepted into the Honors Program has been steadily falling for some time. In the days following the inaugu­ ration of the program in 1922 under the leadership of President Frank Aydelotte, close to half of the junior and senior classes would typically be enrolled in Honors. In the 1960s it was still usual for about 40 percent of seniors to gradu­ ate with Honors, but over the following decade the number fell to about 20 percent. The last few years have seen 15 to 16 percent of the senior class in Hon­ ors, and estimates for next year are even lower. Reasons for the declin­ ing numbers have long been known. For some stu­ dents the structure of the program is unattractive because it does not leave time to explore a wider variety of interests. It can be difficult (or impossible) to study abroad, partici­ pate in community-based learning, or earn teacher certification at the same time as pursuing Honors. Another perennial prob­ lem is that Honors semi­ nars receive no grades. “There was a day when this program was so wellknown that just to be in it would help open the doors for graduate admissions,” says Weinstein. “But lots of our students have decided that they can’t risk an empty transcript during junior and senior year in order to get a bunch of H’s upon graduation— after admissions to graduate schools have taken place.” A related concern is that students and faculty mem­ bers have become less comfortable with giving all the power of evaluation to external examiners at the very end of the process. “Many faculty members believe very strongly that preparing our students to present their knowledge and abilties to a person from outside the College is exactly the right goal,” says Jennie Keith. “But others now feel that there’s so much variety in how peo­ ple approach a discipline that they can’t teach what they believe in and at the same time feel secure that they are preparing their students for an outside examiner.” A number of faculty members believe that the program would not be hurt if they graded “prepara­ tions”— courses and semi­ nars that prepare students for Honors examination— as long as there is addition­ al work evaluated only by external examiners. In re­ cent years some faculty members have been grad­ ing Course students who take seminars, and several have commented that they were surprised to find that giving grades did not have the negative effects on the collegiality of seminars that they had feared. The current Honors Pro­ gram also fails to appeal to several departments be­ cause it seems rigidly bound by a single curricu­ lar structure of six semi­ nars and six written and oral exams. Some depart­ ments, like English, politi­ cal science, history, and economics, have found the structure fits their needs well and thus have had fair­ ly successful programs. But others, like biology, psy­ chology, and sociology/ anthropology, have had trouble working within the system. Finally, in recent years faculty members and stu­ dents have struggled with the elitism inherent in the program. In the original Honors Program, Honors students were completely separated from other stu­ dents for their junior and senior years, which they DENG-JENG LEE Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor o f English Literature Philip Weinstein (center) is chair of the faculty task force that has presented a proposal to revise the Honors Program. Here he teaches an Honors seminar on modern comparative literature in his home. 24 S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN E devoted exclusively to Honors seminars. “I don’t think there was the cultural embarassment, the recog­ nition that you were doing a kind of sheep and goats division of the College,” says Weinstein. “That’s become increasingly op­ pressive.” The current program does not separate Honors students as much as Aydelotte’s did. In 1968 the num­ ber of seminars required of Honors students was low­ ered from eight to six, and in 1987 seminars were opened to Course students. However, a few faculty members feel that Honors is still unjustifiably elitist, while “others believe that there is important educa­ tional value in identifying the work the College wants its best students to do and in ensuring that they have opportunities to do it,” says Keith. Though these problems have been evident for some time, finding a solu­ tion has been difficult. Major revisions of the pro­ gram in 1968,1977, and 1987 have not halted the decline in numbers of stu­ dents. According to Philip Weinstein, that’s because in previous revisions “the assumption has been that Honors is good and that for some probably perverse reason certain departments are hanging back.” This time the faculty task force began by re­ thinking the program from the very beginning. “We said, ‘What should an hon­ ors program do?”’ Jennie Keith says, “and it seemed to us that it should present a model of the best of a Swarthmore education, of the things we want our best students to do.” Weinstein explains the may 1994 C next step: “W e went to all the departments and said, ‘When you are doing what you do best, what format does it take?”’ The answers they received were var­ ied— from seminars to lab­ oratory research, from the­ ses to performances. Based on what they had learned, in March the task force drafted a first propos­ al, which was circulated among faculty members and thoroughly discussed. After hearing the sugges­ tions and concerns of the faculty, the task force revised the proposal and presented it again at the beginning of April. This proposal became the main agenda item for a series of faculty meetings in April and May. Among the elements that were debated are the number of preparations; grading of preparations by Swarthmore faculty mem­ bers; a credit-bearing peri­ od of senior Honors study during which students would prepare for external evaluation by extending, reviewing, and integrating their earlier work; and elim­ ination of Distinction in Course as an alternative pathway to honorifics. If the proposal or a version of it is accepted by the fac­ ulty this semester, the revised program could be available to next year’s sophomores. Despite the difficulties the Honors program has had, the task force is com­ mitted to maintaining it in the spirit in which Aydelotte founded it. “As a col­ lege, w e are what we are because of a 70-year tradi­ tion that Aydelotte pretty much inaugurated,” says Weinstein. “Just passively staying with the program would be a mistake, but E abandoning it would be a worse mistake. I think our best choice by far— and the testimony of graduates G E supports this— is to make it work. Change it in the de­ tails to get back to its essentials.” Local TV crews covered the silent vigil in Parrish Hall when students protested offensive words chalked on Magill Walk. Graffito sparks protest, debate A racist graffito found on a campus sidewalk sparked a silent sit-in that blocked the front entrance to the Ad­ missions Office for about eight hours on April 4. A crowd of about 70 stu­ dents, most of them African Americans, protested what they said was a pattern of hate speech directed at black, gay, and lesbian stu­ dents. Later that afternoon more than 300 students, faculty members, and administrators gathered on Parrish lawn for an hourlong vigil in opposition to bigotry. Sometime on the night of April 1 the words “Fuck Niggers” were chalked on Magill Walk near the train station underpass. Previ­ ously, an anti-gay epithet had been written on the door of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Alliance office. It could not be deter­ mined whether the culprits in either case were Swarth­ more students. President Alfred H. Bloom and Dean of the Col­ lege Ngina Lythcott joined in condemning the graffito as “a personal offense to all members of the Swarth­ more community, express­ ing as it does blatant disre­ gard for the values of re­ spect and interpersonell understanding that are at the heart of the College.” Bloom later told The Phila­ delphia Inquirer, “Clearly w e are not exempt from the kinds of acts that plague our entire society.” Members of the Swarth­ more Afro-American Stu­ dents Society who orga­ nized the Admissions Of­ fice protest carefully avoid­ ed the term “demands” as they issued a set of “goals” for their action. These included the creation of a 25 G “tangible hate speech poli­ cy,” a series of collections to “assess the role of multiculturalism” on campus, and the formation of a com­ mittee with broad powers to investigate and punish “speech, actions, and crimes of a hateful nature.” In the weeks following the incident, a lively debate ensued over the nature of free speech at an academic institution. A public forum on April 12 drew more than 100 students, faculty mem­ bers, and staff members to hear a range of opinions on speech codes and First Amendment rights. Afterward, Dean Lythcott said that despite the real pain caused by hate speech, she continues to be “a strong oppo­ nent” of adjudi­ cating speech unless it threat­ ens physical vio­ lence or is clearly harassing behav­ ior— “such as fight­ ing words that are personal and repeated.” She said she believes “the best response to hate speech is providing comfort to those who have been hurt by it and responding with more speech.” She added that communities that value free expression have “the additional obligation to work to create a climate that makes hate speech less likely to occur.” Bulletin takes CASE bronze The Swarthmore College Bulletin was named one of the nation’s top six college general interest maga­ zines— taking a third-place bronze medal— in the 1994 recognition awards spon­ sored by the Council for the Advancement and Sup­ port of Education. One gold medal, three silver medals, and two bronze medals were award­ ed in the category from a field of 53 entries. CAROLYN STILLWELL '92 Swarthmore builds partnership with local community college Poet, choreographer, and community activist Janice Mirikitani read from and talked about her work March 16 as part of the Col­ lege’s Asian American Awareness Month. As a Sansei ( third genera­ tion Japanese American) survivor o f the World War II internment camps and as an incest survivor, Mirikitani uses her art to raise issues of race and gender, attempting to “break through the silence” to reject stereotypes and create new images of Asian Americans. Her books of poetry and prose Shedding Silence and Awake in the River have both received critical acclaim. 26 The College’s involvement in community and politiceli programs in nearby Ches­ ter took on a new dimen­ sion this semester with the introduction of several new courses addressing issues of urban poverty. Working under a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, faculty members from Swarthmore and the Chester and Media cam­ puses of Delaware County Community College have begun courses in child development and social policy, the literature of oppression, and urban E research. Additional cours­ es are being developed on subjects such as the use of quantitative methods in studying urban poverty, grass-roots movements for urban social change, urban environment and urban renewed, early education, and civic participation, education, and social trans­ formation. The cooperative efforts grew out of talks between College administrators and faculty members and lead­ ers of organizations and institutions in Chester. They seek to increase rele­ vant student involvement in community-defined proj­ ects and, at the same time, to balance theoretical learning in the classroom with elements of urban reality experienced first­ hand. As the program now stands, in each course two professors, one from each of the institutions, teach no more than 24 students from the two schools. Stu­ dents are paired to work together on readings, oral presentations, writing, and preparing for exams. Maurice Eldridge ’61, associate vice president and executive assistant to President Alfred H. Bloom, said the program was start­ ed with “two principal con- New dates for October break Please note that the dates for October break for 1994 have been changed to Oct. 7 (end of last class or seminar) to Oct. 17(8:30 a.m.). The change is to coin­ cide with the fall vaca­ tions of Bryn Mawr and Haverford colleges and the University of Penn­ sylvania. S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN E sidérations in mind: How could the College interact more effectively and sys­ tematically in Chester with a view to making a contri­ bution to long-term change, and how could we bring the study of the reality of urban poverty more ade­ quately into our curricu­ lum?” He added that long­ term goals of the project include involving other area institutions to study “the issues of major con­ cern to residents of Ches­ ter and of U.S. inner cities more generally.” C of various types of liquid crystals and the nature of the transitions that take place as one phase changes into another. Collings taught at Ken­ yon College in Ohio from 1976 until 1990, when he joined the Swarthmore fac­ ulty. He is chair of the De­ partment of Physics and Astronomy. Women’s Resource Center reopens after changes A year ago, the College’s Wom en’s Center was “dys­ functional,” said Katie Bow­ man ’94. “A lot of women— especially women of col­ or— didn’t feel comfortable going there.” The center’s interns re­ signed suddenly last spring after an all-campus women’s meeting revealed wide dis­ satisfaction with the role of the organization. Bowman helped organize a “transi­ tion team” to run the cen­ ter while changes in the governance of the center, including the creation of a board, were discussed. “It took a lot longer than I thought it would,” said Bowman. Several propos­ als w ere floated, and in November 1993 another mass meeting of women students reached agree­ ment on a new board of nine women. A minimum of three board members would be women of color, and at least two were to be what Bowman described as “queer identified.” Physical renovations of the center, which is housed in one of the former frater­ nity lodges, were also under­ taken. When board elec­ tions w ere finally held in March, the W om en’s Re­ source Center was on its way to becoming what new board member Patrice Bone ’96 hopes will be “a place where any woman, or group of women, or even a group dealing with wom­ en’s issues, can walk in, claim a space, and take what they need.” Phoenix “strikes” for cash or credit The editors of The Phoenix suspended publication of the student newspaper at the beginning of the second semester to press for either Codings wins American Physical Society Prize Peter J. Collings, the Morris L. Clothier Professor of Physics, has been awarded the American Physical Soci­ ety Prize to a Faculty Mem­ ber for Research in an Undergraduate Institution. ' Collings was cited for his “excellent experiments on the optical properties of liquid crystals” and for his “skilled direction of under­ graduate students at Ken­ yon and Swarthmore col­ leges, who have been given major responsibilities in carrying out this research.” Internationally known for his work, Collings does research on the structure THE PHOENIX Swarthmore Debate Claims National Championship The Championship Trophy Returns to Campus for the First Time in Seven Years ramirowi Pemeeum. tpafr maschfcrthewii aadanaiyrtsdisbwi oat by Carney and Pptjschroan., wf» threwboti« theaudienceadd .team, fte judges into tearful laughter, Swarthmore earned the National Championship with a9-0 vote of the judges and audience’ ssupport. hew of SwartJwnore's Amps 3. 1 1$ 8 PWtee DehatoSociety competed J t the most MceeafW Nttiwwts as Swarthmore is Again on Top Swwthmows warns competing in white Mallory placedamong the 13% 11% 4% 100% “Scholarships and student aid have grown from 8 percent to 14 percent of the budget between 1970 and 1993. The years since 1985 have been difficult ones for families, as Gordon Smith says. The increase in charges for next year is 4.5 percent, much lower than in prior years. It should be noted that a faculty committee report concluded that during the 1980s administrative staff compen­ sation rose at a lower rate than faculty compensation. This is still true if staff support to the faculty is included on the faculty side o f the ledger. ” And from Douglas Hasbrouck, direc­ tor o f the Annual Fund: “Swarthmore’s classes o f 1983 to 1992 average 42.4 percent participation in annual giving. Amherst’s percentage is 52.3, but Haver­ ford (43.8) and Williams (41.3) are essentially the same as Swarthmore. Bryn Mawr’s participation in that age range is 20.4 percent. ” S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN ALUMNI Recent Sw arthm ore Events Albuquerque, N.M.: Swarthmore Cen­ tennial Professor of English Literature Tom Blackburn, along with his wife, Ann, visited with New Mexico alumni, parents, and friends on April 15. Everyone gathered at the home of Kip ’67 and Roxanne Rensch Allen ’66 to get caught up on what’s happening at Swarthmore today. Baltimore: Parents and their Swarth­ more students kicked off spring break on March 5 with a Saturday afternoon get-together at the home of Sidney and Salam Mir, parents of Sarny ’96. New York: On March 7 Alice Zinnes 77 presented a slide show and talk in conjunction with her current exhibi­ tion of paintings and etchings. John McIntyre ’51, a docent at the Newberger Museum of Art, led a group of alum­ ni, parents, and friends on an April 24 tour of La Frontera, a controversial art exhibit of the Mexico/ U.S. border experience. Washington, D.C.: On April 10 the Washington, D.C., Connection had its annual Orioles outing. A talk by Dick Hall ’53 started off the day, followed by an Orioles vs. Rangers game, at­ tended by 223 alumni, parents, and friends. Dorita Sewell ’65 organized the event. Coolfont: Swarthmore alumni, par­ ents, and friends spent a sunny April weekend at the Coolfont resort in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., hosted by owners Martha and Sam Ashelman ’37. The fourth annual event, with the theme “Health Care Reform: What Should It Accomplish?” was coordi­ nated by Barbara Starfield (Holtzman), M.D. ’54 and Neil A. Holtzman, M.D. ’55. A distinguished group of alumni and faculty members partici­ pated in the discussion, including Thomas Plaut, Ph.D., M.P.H. ’49, David G. Smith, Richter Professor Emeritus of Political Sci­ ence, and Emilie Passow, as­ sistant profes­ sor of English Literature. Garnet Sages at Highland Park The winter get-togeth­ er of the Garnet Sages took place at the Bob Peelle ’39, Ethel Wolf Boyer ’41, and Highland Vincent Boyer 39 Park Club in Lake Wales, Fla., during the first week in February. The foundation for the gathering was four winter resi­ dent Swarthmore alumni, Frank Hutson ’37, Gene Smith McCul­ loch ’42, Robert Wilson ’31, and John W ood ’37. A highlight of the weekend was a luncheon on Friday, Feb. 4, attended by 35 Swarthmoreans and guests. The group included six transients who traveled from other points in Florida. The prize for the earliest graduate went to Betsy Palmenberg Pugh ’29. Paris: Eighteen members of the Paris Con­ nection en­ joyed a wine Philadelphia: tasting on The Philadel­ April 8. Under phia Connec­ Carlton [7 5 ] and Christine Henry greet emeritus the direction tion, together Professor Harrison Wright after his February talk to of a certified with Alumni enologist, par­ Council, hosted the Washington, D.C., Connection on contempo­ rary events in South Africa. ticipants duti­ an event on fully looked, campus on sniffed, and finally drank their way March 19 featuring Christopher through six wines from various wine­ McBride, one of the w orld’s leading making areas of France— Burgundy, experts on white lions. He showed Cotes du Rhone, the Vaucluse, Bor­ slides, discussed the history of the deaux, and the Southwest. The lions, and spoke about his experi­ evening continued with a buffet din­ ences living in South Africa. ner and the opportunity to finish the favorite bottles of wine. South Florida: A reception with Mari­ Future events planned for the Paris lyn Holifield ’69, newly appointed Connection include a sailing trip in member of the Board of Managers, May to one of the small islands off the and Harry Gotwals, Swarthmore’s vice coast of Normandy, a bike trip in the president of alumni, development, summer, a cocktail party for the Alum­ and public relations, was held on ni College Abroad group in August, March 9. Bonnie and David Gold ’75 and social occasions with visiting Col­ hosted the event in their home. lege faculty and staff members. MAY 1994 DIGEST Upcoming Sw arthm ore Events New York: Wine tasting with David Wright ’69 and Don Fujihira ’69 in the late spring. Also coming up: Margaret Helfand ’69 and her team of architects will talk about and show their latest plans for the north campus project. Watch your mail for details. Washington, D.C.: Swarthmore Assis­ tant Professor of Biology Am y Vollmer will visit with area alumni, parents, and friends and talk about her current sabbatical research. And in the Balti­ more area, plan to com e and see the Matisse exhibit on June 26 at the Balti­ more Museum of Art. Philadelphia: On May 27 the Philadel­ phia Connection, together with Swarthmore’s graduating seniors, will travel to Veterans Stadium and cheer on the Phillies when they play the Houston Astros. 31 Battles and Business David Goodman ’83 finds profits and pitfalls in computer software enterprise. r. Goodman is ready now,” says his secre­ tary, calling back a reporter for an interview. David Goodman’s voice is robust, clear, and excited as he talks computerese of “front ends” and “user agents.” His company, Swfte International, Ltd., is “on line” in the computer soft­ ware market and is ranked on Inc. Magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing privately held companies for the third year in a row. Goodman ’83 started Growth for Swfte has come Swfte in June 1983 with “like fruit on a tree, ” says Swarthmore friends Bill DetDavid Goodman ’83. One of tering ’84 and Bob Packer ’83, Swfte’s newest products on who have since sold their the market is The Big One, a interest in the company. His comprehensive seismic simu­ current national sales manag­ lation o f the Los Angeles er is Marty Piombo ’84. basin earthquakes. As president and chief executive officer, Goodman has seen his company’s for­ Gettysburg game was re­ tune rise rapidly in the mar­ leased to stores in March. ketplace battle—and it is a Swfte, which originally computer simulation of a real stood for Software for To­ battle that is putting Swfte on day’s Environment, was the front lines. When Ken started as a font software Burns’ Civil War series for company. The company still PBS first aired in 1991, it produces font collections, caught the attention of Good­ including the award-winning man and his company. In­ Typecase. Other software spired by the program, the programs are for Bicycle company’s software design­ playing cards, Workman Pub­ ers created a historically cor­ lishing quiz cards, and The rect simulation/edutainment New York Times crossword puzzle. With headquarters in game that faithfully recreates Hockessin, Del., and offices the battle of Gettysburg. The and sales throughout the game also gives players the United States and world, the opportunity to change histo­ ry using variables such as company’s 1993 fiscal sales were just over $7 million. terrain, mindset of the unit However, the rise of his commanders, stamina of the troops, and ammunition. At independent company has not come without a price. He nearly the same time, the has been introduced to the movie Gettysburg, produced world of big business law­ by entertainment magnate suits that can strip a person Ted Turner’s company, was of energy and focus. released in theaters, thereby Says Goodman: “Business generating more public inter­ is not a friendly thing; it’s not est. The timing of the two about honor. Capitalism has brought Swfte and Turner Interactive together. The out­ a dark edge that makes it dif­ ficult sometimes to move for­ come is a CD-ROM that com­ ward in an environment that bines game simulation, changes rapidly without voiceover, and actual film making missteps and trusting clips from the movie. The M 62 the wrong people. Relation­ ships are what drive busi­ ness, and relationships have a way of coming and going at hyper-speed. It’s challenging, particularly for an indepen­ dent.” Goodman says that what has helped him survive in the corporate jungle is his Swarthmore education. “At Swarthmore I wasn’t coming in as a top person in my class. It was challenging. It’s definitely a no-gloves en­ vironment. The bare knuck­ les fighting there prepared me well for challenges of the business world today. People I talk with in financial circles look at me funny when I say Swarthmore because they think of Swarthmoreans as carrot-crunching socialists who sit around discussing Freud. The outside world’s perception of Swarthmore College is that it’s an erudite, backwater institution with a few good engineers. “I think no matter what the discipline, it’s really a place to learn how to learn. It probably took me almost 10 years to realize what I had in a Swarthmore education. You have to step back and interpret it. It was a humbling experience.” Goodman’s years at Swarthmore were an aca­ demic walkabout. “I was a wanderer. I took a cross-section of classes,” says the art history graduate. “There were several times when [art history professor] Kaori Kitao looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing with this course load.’ But she gritted her teeth and let me do it.” His choices included digital logic, Gothic architecture, calculus, and engineering classes. His interest in those classes paid off when Good­ man started his software business. The Philadelphia Business Journal ranked his company as one of the Top 100 private companies in the Philadelphia area for 1990, 1991, and 1993. For the future, Goodman has some plans and some worries. One of his compa­ ny’s newest projects is in conjunction with MCI to pro­ duce The Wire, an electronic mail interface for MCI’s mes­ saging service, a competitor to the popular Internet. Another area the compa­ ny will focus on is contentbased media. There’s a rush between Hollywood and Sili­ con Valley and independents such as Swfte to get involved with films and books, as Swfte did with Gettysburg. But in the software busi­ ness, the margin for error is stripped away by the consoli­ dation of the market. Good­ man expects to continue col­ laboration with several me­ dia giants in creating multimedia software. But he be­ lieves these companies will want to play with Swfte for only a certain amount of time before they buy or merge with his company. He hopes Swfte has enough propri­ etary technology to keep that from happening. If it does happen, he hopes to keep at least a portion of Swfte inde­ pendent. Goodman says his biggest surprise since starting Swfte has been the personality the company has taken on. “Swfte has a life force and a personality all its own,” he says. “I had not expected that. I thought it would be abstract, but it’s very alive independent from me.” He was told recently that the reason Swfte received the Workman Publishing con­ tract was because of its apple-pie image. Never, he says, in his wildest dreams would he have characterized the company that way. He sees his multimillion dollar business’s image as very... Bohemian. —Audree Penner S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN Recent Books by Alumni We welcome review copies of books by alumni. The books are donated to the Swarthmoreana section o f McCabe Library after they have been noted for this column. summer at the beach sud­ denly full of satisfying sur­ prises when a silver kite and an answer to a message sent in a green bottle enter his life. Carl Abbott ’66, The Metro­ politan Frontier: Cities in the Modem American West, Uni­ versity of Arizona Press, 1993. This survey of urban experience in 19 U.S. West­ ern states, moving from eco­ nomic change to social and political response, examines the initial boom of the 1940s, the process of change in the following decades, and the ultimate impact of Western cities on their environments, on the regional character, and on national identity. Joseph Cary ’51, Three Mod­ em Italian Poets: Saba, Unga­ retti, Montale, University of Chicago Press, 1993. Focus­ ing on the works of Italian poets Umberto Saba, Giuseppe Ungaretti, and Eugenio Montale, this book facilitates the understanding of their poetry and presents biographical portraits of these giants of literary mod­ ernism. A Ghost in Trieste, University of Chicago Press, 1993. Part travel diary, part guidebook, part literary his­ tory, this book explores the Adriatic port city through the works of poet Umberto Saba and novelists Italo Svevo and James Joyce in the early part of this century. William H. Armstrong ’54, Edward Parmelee Smith: A Friend to God’s Poor, Univer­ sity of Georgia Press, 1993. Smith, a Congregational min­ ister from New England, was a leading light in forming an evangelical response to the Civil War and Reconstruc­ tion. This biography traces strands of American church history: the reform move­ ment, the assistance the churches gave to President Grant’s Indian Policy, and the movement to bring the gospel to Africa. Fredeiicka (Nolde) Berger ’54, The Green Bottle and the Silver Kite, Greenwillow Books, 1993. In this novel for young readers, 10-year-old Phil finds his unpromising band, Nathan. She finished an M.A. in religious studies at Brown and spent last year working for the ACLU in Boston. Kevin Hall writes: “I’ve left my position as the executive director of Teach for America in LA to teach fourth grade at Roosevelt Elementary School in Compton, Calif. I am fulfill­ ing a dream and teaching and learning from 35 special stu­ dents in an under-resourced 66 Russell P. Leslie and Kathryn M. Conway ’76, The Lighting Pattern Book for Homes, Lighting Research Center, 1993. The continuing evolu­ tion of lighting and energy conservation is now entering everyone’s home. This book gives the homeowner practi­ cal designs to help see well and save money, details on energy-efficient lamps, lumi­ naires, and controls, and plans for installing quality lighting in every room. Gerald Epstein ’73, Julie Gra­ ham, and Jessica Nembhard school. It’s hard to verbalize how fortunate all of us are to have a Swarthmore education, but I see it in my students’ eyes each day.” Joan Cargill serves as the New York editor of Premiere Movie Magazine of the UK and New Woman Magazine of Aus­ tralia. After completing her fourth year of the clinical psy­ chology program at Boston College, Kunya Des Jardins is doing an internship through (eds.), Creating a New World Economy: Forces o f Change and Plans for Action, Temple University Press, 1993. This reader of 23 essays by ac­ tivist economists describes how the global economy works. Analyses include such complex topics as interna­ tional debt, Keynesianism, trade policy, immigration, and the drug trade. Clark Kerr ’32, Troubled Times for American Higher Education: The 1990s and Beyond, State University of New York Press, 1994. This study examines emerging problems influencing the near future of higher educa­ tion, including the quality of undergraduate education, ethics, the racial crisis, and competition for recognition and resources among the nation’s research universi­ ties. Howard N. Rabinowitz ’64, Race, Ethnicity, and Urbaniza­ tion, University of Missouri Press, 1994. This series of essays introduces readers to recent developments in the fields of race relations, eth­ nicity, and urban history, including assessments of the nature of black leadership, the origins of segregation, the expansion of urban histo­ ry to include the South and the West, and the writing of ethnic history. Jeffrey Ruda ’69, Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and Work with a Complete Catalogue, Harry N. the Tufts U. School of Medicine/Boston Veterans Admin­ istration Hospital Consortium. Rebecca Mison completed an M.A. at the U. of Pa. and is now teaching social studies at George Washington High School in Northeast Philadel­ phia. Noël Bisson is “quite happy,” although she can’t wait to be through school. She is working toward a Ph.D. in musicology at Harvard. Ken Abrams Inc., 1993. A mixture of text and a catalog of works, this biography traces the life and art of the great pioneer of the psychological naturalism of the early Renaissance. Peggy (Bebié) Thomson ’43, Siggy’s Spaghetti Works, Tam­ bourine Books, 1993. A guid­ ed tour of the workings of a spaghetti factory highlights this fully illustrated chil­ dren’s book, which also includes bits of pasta history. Richard Wolfson ’69, Nuclear Choices: A Citizen’s Guide to Nuclear Technology, The MIT Press, 1993. This book up­ dates treatments of both nuclear power and nuclear weapons issues through the collapse of the Soviet Union. Topics include the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties and a shift in emphasis from the bilateral nuclear confronta­ tion of the Cold War era to the renewed threat of nucle­ ar proliferation throughout the world. John Wright ’62, Traveling the High Way Home: Ralph Stanley and the World of Tra­ ditional Bluegrass Music, Uni­ versity of Illinois Press, 1993. This portrait of one of the most revered figures of bluegrass music is a mixture of oral history from Stanley’s co-workers, friends, promot­ ers, and others and an evalu­ ation of his more than 40year career with his Clinch Mountain Boys. Harris is also continuing his graduate school work, study­ ing parasite molecular biology at Yale. A so lost somewhere in graduate school, Kir Talmage writes: “Hoping to grad­ uate this grad school thing next June. No idea what next, but I haven’t panicked yet.” Hanne Weedon is working and going to school at Penn. She’s very involved in the campus employee organiza­ tion and in community/neighS W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN BLOOD AND TEARS Continued from page 7 w ere a few hundred gaping street ven­ dors, soldiers, journalists, and other spectators. At the appointed hour, an ambulance arrived, backed up to the stakes, and unloaded the four con­ demned men. Since all the prisoners w ere ethnic Chinese, Ky and his advis­ ers expected little popular objection. M a n y V ie tn a m e s e d e te s te d th e wealthy Chinese businessmen living in their midst. The four firing squads, each with fiv e so ld iers arm ed w ith A m erican carbines, stepped into place, and the p ris o n ers w e re tied to th e stakes. Three were pinioned with their hands tied behind the stakes, but the fourth, a recent convert to Christianity, had asked that his hands be left free so th at he c o u ld d ie w ith his palm s together in prayer. The executioners obliged him. T h e squad leader barked a com ­ mand, the carbine bolts clattered, and in the brief silence that follow ed w e could hear the Christian praying loud­ ly, his blindfolded face raised toward heaven. Then cam e the com m and, and w h en th e 20 c a rb in e s fir e d a r a g g e d v o lle y , th r e e o f th e m en instantly slumped from their bindings and w e r e still. But th e born-again C hristian rem ain ed alive, h o rrib ly chanting a hymn. His hands, torn and shattered b y bullets, had evid en tly deflected the volley, leaving his heart beating. A fte r an in term in able pause the squad commander, his vo ice hoarse with annoyance, ordered his men to our firin g squads, arm ed w ith A m erican carbines, stepped into place. Th e prisoners w e re tied to th e stakes. F fire another volley. This time the pris­ oner slumped, but w e could still hear him trying to sing as blood foam ed from his mouth. Finally, the squad le a d e r d re w his .45 c a lib e r p isto l, chambered a cartridge, and shot the merchant through the head. The executioners exchanged some w h isp ered co n versa tion , and then their leader barked a command and marched them away. The ambulance cre w cut dow n the bodies, h eaved them into the coffins, and carted them off. T h e fire truck h osed aw ay the blood, and the crowd drifted away. I had seen many people die, includ­ ing som e w ho w ere executed, but I ex p erie n ce d an u nw onted w a v e of hatred that morning— hatred not only for Ky and his firing squads but for all o th e r c o ld -b lo o d e d ex ecu tio n ers . Th ere’s something about the slaying o f a h elpless creatu re— a man at a stake or a bull in the Madrid ring— that brings me to a vengeful fury. T h a t m o rn in g I a lso h a ted the smooth American diplomats, the State D epartm ent and W h ite House, and everyon e else w ho had connived at placing Ky in power. And yes, I hated journalists too— reporters, including myself, w ho had contributed to this horror by goading a childish dictator into ordering a bloodbath. Fortunately, rage passes. No jour­ nalist can indulge in rage at others or in self-hatred without losing the bal­ ance n e ed e d to p ly his tra d e. But there are some deaths reporters can­ not forget. The best that can be said is that such deaths season us and make us think tw ice before w riting some­ thing that m ay lea ve b lo o d on our hands. ■ M alcolm W. Browne 52 is senior writer in the science news department o f The New York Times. This article is excerp­ ted from his 1993 a u tob iogra p h y , M u dd y B oots and Red Socks, pub­ lished by Tim es Books, a division of Random House. Text and photographs are re p rin te d by p e rm is s io n o f the author. Help make history in England and France this summer Alumni College Abroad July 30 to August 14 e among the first to take the new Eurostar train through the Chunnel from London to Paris. Tour the beaches of Normandy as the world commemorates the 50th anniversary of the historic Allied landing. Discover the gentle pleasures of country villages and provincial towns, the charm of the Cotswolds (which inspired some Swarthmore architec­ ture), and the lyrical beauty of Mont-Saint-Michel. Tom Blackburn, Centennial Professor of English Literature, and his British-born wife, Ann, will lead the Swarthmore Alumni College Abroad to southern England and northwestern France in a summer of milestones. Veteran travelers to Europe and first-timers alike will share unique experiences on this delightful trip. You’ll have the advantage of Tom ’s impressive scholarship when you attend a Shakespeare production at Stratford, and Ann will offer personal recollections of the Battle of Britain. For further information please call Barb Lee at 1-800-825-2900 today. B 70 S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN ' nly STRANGE DAYS ajj Continued from page 13 rs. ing t a cohesive approach to the crisis.” He rem em bers SASS as “not ve ry radical. But the adm inistration felt that whatever their demands, this was not the way they talked to students. I don’t think Courtney Smith show ed the leadership he might have if he had said, ‘I’m going to walk in there, sit down, and stay with them until we can work this out.”’ Swarthm ore, he says, “firm ed up my commitment to a lifelong sense of ethics and fairness and taught me to strive for a life grounded in principle, The ed u cation al ex p erie n ce o f the Honors Program was the best I could have im agined because the p ro fes­ sor’s jo b was not to test us but to teach us. Every day, as I try to counsel and treat kids, I think of my Swarthmore experience.” he ate nd at :ed ing his tor uror >alJut an1is ike ne>ur clear that if I went there, I w ouldn’t have to spend another minute on that normal act.” Now the only member of her class who is a college president (of Scripps College in Claremont, Calif.), Bekavac looks back in wonder at the innocent Swarthmore of 1965: “There w ere peo­ ple in plaid skirts and button-down shirts who thought life (and parties) w ou ld contin ue as a m ore intense form of high school. There w ere semi­ radicals w ho saw Sw arthm ore as a sort of Sorbonne-on-the-Crum. And there w ere clueless M idw esterners like me [from Clairton, Pa., near Pitts­ burgh] who just wanted to get it right. T h in g s w e r e so s tra ig h t th at th e thought of cutting a class was some­ thing I couldn’t really get m y mind around.” Change came fast in 1966-67. “Mari­ juana became pretty widespread. LSD hit that spring. The fury over the war picked up speed, and by the spring of sophom ore year the counterculture The Long Scream 'ter he Nancy Bekavac rpliyi jfr. of )hs he TIN [ ^ % e o p le fro m h er cla ss seem to associate Nancy Bekavac with the GE C ollege Bow l, that quiz show for brainy c o lle g e kids w h ere she and th ree o th e r S w a rth m o rea n s t r i­ umphed in late January 1969, just when it seemed that the College itself would drown in conflict and grief. “I didn’t want to do it,” she asserts. “It was embarrassing to have all that trivial knowledge. I was trying very hard to be an intellectual, but I knew reams of bad poet­ ry and all the Big Ten fight songs.” Professor of Philoso­ phy (a n d C o lle g e B ow l “c o a c h ”) C h a rles R aff had twisted her arm by offering to forgive a paper on Decartes if she tried out. Bekavac hated Descartes. During high school Bekavac says she “spent an enorm ous amount of en ergy a p p ea rin g norm al, b ein g a cheerleader, doing the yearbook. But it wasn’t a very successful act. I had no interest in going to Penn State and being Sally C oed. I had heard that truly smart and slightly weird people went to Swarthmore, and it was pretty MAY 1994 year with such fondness.' And / said, ‘No. Not this year....'” was pretty much everywhere.” She remembers going to Philadel­ phia to review two art shows for The Phoenix. Andrew Wyeth had a big ret­ rospective, and Andy Warhol was all the rage. That same day she watched Bob Eaton ’65 publicly returning his draft card on the steps of the Philadel­ phia post office. “That p retty much summed it up— Wyeth, Warhol, and a draft protest,” says Bekavac. “ By the tim e w e got to the total trauma of 1968, everything was blow­ ing up. I just remember it as one long scream — King, Kennedy, the Dem o­ cra tic co n ve n tio n , th e e le c tio n o f Nixon, the sit-in. That last semester, w e w ere a benum bed sen ior class. After College Bowl, my mother said to me, ‘You’re going to look back on this year with such fondness.’ And I said, ‘No. Not this year. I’m not going to look on this year with anything but relief that I’m out of here.’” For B ekavac, “ out o f h e r e ” w as quite literal. She used her Watson Fel­ lo w s h ip to take a trip arou n d th e w o r ld that w o u ld h a ve m ade Ken Kesey’s head spin: Holland, England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Russia. Th en Germ any, Y u g osla via , Italy, Greece, Israel, and Iran. Hooked a ride from Tehran to N ew Delhi. Saw Nepal. Spent two months in Vietnam. Then, near exhaustion, near insanity, she started law school at Yale. “Didn’t anybody notice that I w as c r a z y ? ” sh e r e c e n tly asked former law school class­ mate Robert Reich. “Yeah,” hie replied, “but how w ere w e to know that you w ere ever any­ thing but crazy?” Nancy Bekavac shoves one final memory across the table: S o m e tim e in January 1969, w h ile the A dm issions O ffice was being occupied by mem­ bers of SASS, she ran into Pres­ ident Courtney Smith in front of the library. “He had on a tweed jacket and hat, and there was this little piece of dirt on his face, just b elow his eye. In s tin c tiv e ly , I r e a c h e d up and brushed it away. I was im m ediately surprised and horrified at myself. He told me how proud he was of how we w e re doin g on C ollege B ow l, and I rem em ber saying that he should be proud of what the black students and other students w ere doing as well. He co ck e d his head and said q u ietly , ‘Thank you for tellin g me. I’ll think about that.’ ” ■ 71 A Day in the Life As 1965 began, total U.S. deaths in Vietnam w ere just 356 after four years’ involvement in the war. President Lyn­ don Johnson was preparing to send federal troops to protect civil rights marchers at Selma, Ala., and The Sound o f Music was up for the Acade­ my Award for Best Picture. In June Johnson and U.N. Secretary General U Thant received honorary degrees from Swarthmore College. That sum­ mer 80,000 fresh troops arrived in Vietnam, the Watts riots killed 35, and Bob Dylan had a hit single with “Like a Rolling Stone.” This chronology fol­ lows the Class of 1969— and the coun­ try— through the next four years. September The Class of 1969— 150 men and 141 women— arrives at Swarthmore. Nineteen are said to be members of minority groups. October President Johnson has a gall bladder operation and shows the nation his scar. • Dean of Women Bar­ bara Pearson Lange ’31 asks a W o­ men’s Student Government Associa­ tion (WSGA) meeting on curfews, “What do you do after 12:00 on cam­ pus if all the buildings are closed?” November A two-day blackout para­ lyzes the Eastern United States • More than 100 delegates attend a regional conference of the Students for a Democratic Society in Bond. • “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by the Supremes tops the charts. December The Beatles release “Day Tripper.” • Phoenix headline: “Off Campus Living Desirable; Permission, Pad Hard T o Get.” January The Selective Service System announces that student deferments will henceforth be contingent upon class rank and the results of a stan­ dardized test to be given by the gov­ ernment. February Acting independently of the WSGA, Dean Lange abolishes curfews for senior women and extends junior 72 curfews to 3:00 a.m. • Student Council passes a resolution recommending the abolition of WSGA because they w ere not consulted. March The Pentagon reveals that Negroes, who are 11 percent of the population, comprise 21 percent of combat deaths in Vietnam. • In the Heat o f the Night wins Best Picture. • The Blues Project performs at the first Swarthmore Rock Festival. April President Johnson proposes a bill to end racial discrimination in housing. • B-52 bombers raid North Vietnam for the first time. May Johnson warns against “Nervous Nellies” in a speech attack­ ing critics of his O cc war policies. O June The United Q g States now has < 285,000 “Nervous Nellies” Vietnam. • John­ son escalates the air war against North Vietnam, bombing Hanoi for the first time. • James Meredith is shot and wounded as he marches for civil rights in Mississippi. July Medicare goes into effect. • Race riots flare up in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Omaha, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Jacksonville. • “Hot town, summer in the city,” sing the Lovin’ Spoonful. August Charles Whitman shoots 44, killing 14, from atop a University of Texas building. • The Pentagon issues the highest monthly draft call since the Korean War— 46,200. • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is stoned by angry whites during a march in Chicago. September The Class of 1969 returns to Swarthmore as sophomores. • President Courtney Smith appoints a Commission on Educational Policy (CEP) to study the College’s academic program. • The College’s “sex rule” is codified to read: “The College does not condone premarital sexual rela­ tions ... and would regard a breach of this standard as subjecting the stu­ dent to suspension or expulsion.” October President Johnson visits Vietnam as troop strength reaches 331,000. • A Phoenix editorial advo­ cates the legalization of marijuana. November Forty Swarthmore stu­ dents are among 600 marchers in a Philadelphia protest against the war. December Thirty-six black students meet to form the Swarthmore AfroAmerican Students Society (SASS), the first formal campus organization of minority students. • The Beach Boys sing “Good Vibrations.” January Three astronauts are killed in a launch-pad fire in the first Apollo spacecraft. • Phoenix headline: “Blue Route Is Scheduled for Completion in 1971.” (It opened in December 1991.) February President Johnson calls for passage of a Civil Rights Act. • SASS receives a charter from Student Coun­ cil and launches a black awareness week called “Seven Days of Soul.” • soldiersAirplane in The Jefferson and Tim Buckley headline the second annual Swarthmore Rock Festival. March American combat deaths reach a one-week record of 274. • Stu­ dent Council writes President Smith, urging the hiring of Negroes for facul­ ty and administrative positions, say­ ing, “In general at Swarthmore, stu­ dents see Negroes only in positions of manual labor.” “Greatest purveyor o f violence ...” April Martin Luther King Jr. calls the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the w orld” and urges draft resistance. May Police fire on black student demonstrators in Jackson, Miss., killing one and wounding two. • The appointment of African sociologist Asmarom Legesse, Swarthmore’s first black faculty member, is announced. June The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. • War erupts , between Israel and Syria, Jordan, and f the United Arab Republic. • President S W A R TH M O R E COLLEGE BULLETIN Johnson meets Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin in Glassboro, N.J. • Aretha Franklin demands “Respect.” July Five days of rioting leave 43 dead in Detroit. Violence spreads to a dozen other cities. • The Doors sing, “Light My Fire.” August President Johnson asks for a 10 percent income tax surcharge to finance “guns and butter.” • “All You Need Is Love,” say the Beatles. September Junior year begins for the Class of 1969. • McCabe Library and Dana and Hallowell dormitories open. • President Smith kicks off discussion of the CEP report, calling 1967-68 a “year of decision.” Mobilization at the Pentagon October Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black to sit on the Supreme Court. • More than 200 Swarthmoreans join in the National Mobilization to End the War. November President Smith asks Stu­ dent Council to cancel the Hamburg Show because the script exhibits “questionable taste.” The show is rewritten to star King Arthur instead of Jesus. • The Defense Department announces the organization of 125 National Guard riot control units. December Classes are suspended for “Superweek,” a College-wide discus­ sion of curricular and student life reforms. • Christian Barnard performs the first human heart transplant in Capetown, South Africa. January The Kerner Commission says America is heading for “two societies, separate and unequal.” • The Viet Cong hit 30 cities in the Tet offensive. February Student Council president Barry Wohl ’69 proposes “total dorm autonomy.” • The Graduate plays at the movies. M AY 1994 M arch S en ator Eugene McCarthy polls 42 percent of th e v o t e in th e N ew H a m p sh ire primary. • Robert K e n n e d y en te rs the race and Lyn­ don Johnson drops 42 Percent out. • The late Otis R edd in g’s “Sittin’ on th e D ock o f th e B a y ” to p s th e charts. April Martin Luther King Jr. is assassi­ nated in Memphis, Tenn. • The faculty votes to change Honors from eight required seminars to six. • Students take over two buildings at Columbia University. May Students and workers riot across France. • The first formal peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam open in Paris. June Robert Kennedy is assassinated after winning the California primary. • The American death toll in Vietnam nears 28,000. July Starvation caused by civil war kills 6,000 people per day in Biafra. • Pope Paul VI condemns all artificial methods of birth control. August The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia. • Riots sweep Chica­ go as the Democrats nominate Hubert Humphrey for president. September The Class of 1969 returns for its senior year. • The Mexican Army seizes and closes the National University after weeks of student protest. • President Courtney Smith announces that he will resign in June 1969. • The Beatles sing, “Hey Jude.” October SASS leaders question why only eight blacks are in the freshman class. Dean of Admissions Frederick Hargadon presents the results of a controversial study of “Negro admis­ sions.” • Richard Nixon announces that he has a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. • Jimi Hendrix sings, “All Along the Watchtower.” November President Johnson an­ nounces a Vietnam bombing halt four days before Richard Nixon is elected president. • SASS members meet with the Admissions Committee and attack the “integrationist ethic” of the Col­ lege. • Student Council votes to back g ® | < SASS’s demands for more “risk” stu­ dents and a black dean in the Admis­ sions Office. December Three Americans becom e the first men to fly around the moon, • U.S. deaths in Vietnam reach 30,000. • The faculty athletics committee rescinds the rule that Swarthmore’s male athletes must have short hair and clean-shaven faces. • Marvin Gaye sings, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” January SASS members issue an ulti­ matum and four days later occupy the Admissions Office. • The faculty meets in almost continuous session. • In the midst of the crisis, President Courtney Smith dies. • Swarthmore mourns and the crisis seems to dissi­ pate. February Four Swarthmore students win the GE College Bowl quiz show. • Acting President Edward Cratsley ini­ tiates a study of decisionmaking at the College. • Student protests sweep the country. “Many of these kids are sick— paranoid,” says psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim. March SASS criticizes the lack of progress on its demands and asks to be represented at faculty meetings. • Barbara Lange resigns as dean of women. April Police clear 300 student demon­ strators from University Hall at Har­ vard. • Swarthmore’s faculty passes “dorm autonomy,” but the changes are rejected by the Board of Man­ agers. • American deaths in Vietnam surpass the Korean War. May Robert Cross is appointed presi­ dent of Swarthmore. • The Admis­ sions Office announces that 21 blacks will enter in September. June President Nixon announces that 25,000 American troops will leave Vietnam, calling it “Vietnamization” of the war. • The Beatles sing, “Get Back,” as the Class of 1969 graduates. Sou rces: The W orld A lm anac and B ook o f Facts, 1966-70; The Ph oen ix; The B illb oa rd B ook o f Top 40 Hits; R ock and R o ll: The 100 B est Singles, b y Pau l W illia m s ’69. C o m p ile d b y K a te D o w n ­ in g and J e ffre y Lott. f MM [ H e fte s M V *> |H K p iy v '£ Sii&VKiiS « ■ 1 J B i r A