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College news, November 5, 1965
Bryn Mawr College student newspaper. Merged with Haverford News, News (Bryn Mawr College); Published weekly (except holidays) during academic year.
Bryn Mawr College (creator)
1965-11-05
serial
Weekly
6 pages
digitized microfilm
North and Central America--United States--Pennsylvania--Montgomery--Bryn Mawr
Vol. 52, No. 06
College news (Bryn Mawr College : 1914)--
https://tripod.brynmawr.edu/permalink/01TRI_INST/26mktb/alma991001620579...
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation.
BMC-News-vol52-no6
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ee
The College
Vol. Li, No. 6
BRYN MAWR, PA.
November 5, 1965 25 Cents
© Trustees of Bryn Mawr College, 1965
25 Coals:
89% of Bryn Mawr ‘Unprepared’
Says ‘Family Circle’ Book List
According to **Family Circle’?
magazine’s standards, 89% of Bryn
Mawr’s students don’t really be-
long in college.
In the October 22 issue of the
New York Times a full-page .ad
flourished the words: ‘If your
child hasn’t read at least 20 of
these books, ‘Family Circle’ says
he’s not ready for college.”’
The COLLEGE .NEWS took the
cue and polled the campus: this
week. with the magazine’s rather
arbitrary list of 55 books. The
survey suggested that an un-
fortunate number of Bryn
Mawrters have suffered an
intellectual deficiency in their col-
lege preparatory years: very
obviously their mothers did not
subscribe to the knowledgable
‘Family Circle’? magazine.
The implications of the poll,
for the edification and delight of
the campus, are as follows:
89% of the student body doesn’t .
belong here now, and 93% shouldn’t
have been admitted in the first
place, That is, of the 11% who
have read more than 20 of the
designated books, only 7% read
them prior to college. :
The average Bryn Mawrter read
13 1/2 of ‘Family Circle’s’’
choices, and before college en-
trance the average would have
been 11, intimatingthat Bryn Mawr
people were a little better than
half-prepared for college.
23% of the poll sheets
listed nine or fewer of the books
had been read. An economics major
read only one. Surprisingly enough,
political. science and English
majors had the highest representa-
tion in the low group, and science
majors were at.a minimum.
Among the 11% who read more
than 20, one Mawrter responded
with 40, English, history and po-
jlitical science majors, in that
order, ranked highest. Again,
science majors were at a
¥
OF COURSE, HERE AT BRYN MAWR WE REQUIRE TWENTY-ONE < +
minimum,
These results, of course, are
hardly to be taken seriously. The
“NEWS conducted the survey with
its usual farce-sightedness, and
the statistics were compiled from
only 354 responses, which just
goes to show how half-prepared the
student body is, »
But “Family Circle,’ struggling
to hold its own in. the literary
circle with ‘‘Saturday Review’’
and ‘Atlantic Monthly,’”? has un-
knowingly challenged this institu-
tion’s intellectual background.
Bryn Mawr’s comments in re-
taliation:
Why didn’t the list include any
Shakespeare, any drama, any
poetry other than epic, or any
of the Bible?
If the list was trying to test
Vietnam War Problem Shown
From Pacifists’
A truly pacifistic viewpoint was
presented: by Mrs. Howard Scho-
mer at the Wednesday night Al-
liance lecture, She said the situa-
tion in Vietnam is now beyond a
discussion of who is right and
who is to blame; the only consid-
eration is to stop the war. Al-
though the lecture was primarily
concerned with what she had seen
and heard during one week in July
when she was in Vietnam, she also
presented what was, to her, the
key problem in the US domes-
tic handling of the situation.
Peace workers, she said, must
attempt to form a positive rela-
tionship with the government. They
must present workable plans in-
stead of continual negative and
unconstructive criticism. A source
of this kind of criticism was ex-
emplified by a student in the au-
dience who, with facts, figures and
quotations, informed Mrs, ‘Scho-
mer of, among other things, atro-
cities committed by US Marines
and lies told by the USIA,
This lively discussion, however,
was extemporaneous and followed
Mrs. Schomer’s first hand report
on Vietnam, She was there with
13 other peace workers and clergy-
Point of View
men (she is with the Chicago branch
of the Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom),
talking to intellectuals, priestsand |
anyone else they could find, She
came back feeling that boththe war
and the Communist infiltrationitis
trying to prevent are equally bad.
She said that, in one conversa-
tion, a statement was made by a
Buddhist priest which “‘still haunts
me.”’ He said, ‘*When people don’t
know their own destiny and think
they can do. nothing about shaping
it, it’s painful,’
The war is hurting the people.
To a large degree, it is a power
struggle, she said, between the US
and Communism. Since so many
people view it in only these terms,
the human element is forgotten and
ultimately will be destroyed.
She also made several factual
points which were not unknown to
most of the audience. One, that an
immediate ceasing of the bombing
would be about the most effective
thing the US could do to stop the
war. And two, that the Viet Cong,
in any negotiations, must be con-
sidered as the National Liberation
Front and not merely as a tool
of the Communist North.
8
depth of reading (‘‘Notes from
the Underground’’ instead of
“Crime and Punishment,’’ or
“Benito Cereno’’ instead of ‘Moby
Dick’’), why then did it include
**Lord Jim’? instead of ‘*Victory’’
and ‘*Of Human Bondage”? instead
of ‘Cakes and Ale???
Why so many Greek writers and
no Roman? Why represent all Ger-
man literature with Mann’s
**Joseph Tetralogy?’’ and so on.
**Family Circle’? has convinced
one resigned Bryn Mawrter that
she’s really prepared for eighth
grade. What, indeed, is ‘*Family
Circle’”’ prepared for?
Just wait, Next week we’re poll-
ing the faculty. N.H.
Personal Phones for Erdman
Okayed at Undergrad Meeting
Monday night’s undergrad meet-
ing revealed that students in Erd-
man are now permitted to have
personal telephones in_ their
rooms, since the dorm is already
wired for them,
If technical details can be worked
out by the telephone company,
probably within two weeks, per-
sonal telephones may be installed
in other dormitories.
Popie Johns, Undergrad Presi-
dent, presented the terms under
which students may. have phones.
There will be an initial deposit of
$50, which will be returned to the
student at the end of the school
year. In addition, she must pay a
$6 installation charge. In dormi-
tories whose rooms lack jacks
there will be an extra fee of $9.
Only Erdman rooms are at present
equipped with jacks.
Once this initial outlay has F2en
met, she will be charged a flat
rate of $6.30 per month which will
cover 50 message units. Calls can
be made to eight exchanges includ-
ing MIdway, LAwrence, MOhawk,
GReenwood, MUrray, TRinity, and
IVyridge. 5
The costis probably too steep for
an individual student to have a
phone. A group however, could get
together and split the costs.
In dormitories, notably Erdman,
where it is virtually impossible to
use “the free phone, und where the
incoming lines are almost always °
busy, individual phones are a fea-
sible solution to the communica-
tions problem.
The regular bell system in the
halls will, of course, continue. The
phones to be installed are purely
personal,
Undergrad plans to issue a
registry of students with tele-
phones on campus, Girls who
plan to have phones in their rooms
should give their names to Sarah
Weekend Meal Program
Planned With Havertord
The existing meal exchange pro-
gram which allows Bryn Mawr
students to eat lunch on weekdays
at Haverford and Haverford men
, at Bryn Mawr may soon include
mealexchanges for dates for Fri-
day supper, Saturday lunch and Sat-
urday supper also. Not only would
the addition tothe program permit
couples to eat together on week-
ends, but it would eliminate
problems which have resulted from
the present system as well, In-
equalities -due to, the fact that
more Haverford men take ad-
vantage of the weekday lunch ex-
changes than do Bryn Mavr girls
would under the new program be
balanced,
If the new program is approved,
it will go into effect within the
next two weeks.
Following is the procedure out-
lined for the proposed weekend
meal exchanges: On the Wednesday
preceding the weekend on which he
and his date would like to eat
together, a Haverford man will
apply for an exchange for Friday
or Saturday.dinner or Saturday
lunch, On the application, he may
indicate at which school he would.
prefer. to. eat. Of all those who
apply, a number of couples suf-
ficient to balance the number of
Bryn Mawr’s losses on weekday
lunches will be assigned to eat at
Haverford. Balancing the Bryn
Mawr losses will not be accom-
plished on a one lunch for one
Haverford weekend meal basis,
however.. The schools must ‘first
agree on a conversion coefficient;
that is, they must set up a standard
whereby X lunches will equal Y
suppers.
Of the couples remaining after
Bryn Mawr’s lunch losses, have
been balanced, half will eat at
Haverford and half at Bryn Mawr.
After the number of couples which
will eat at each school has been
determined, students involved will
be issued printed meal tickets good
only for the meal stampedonthem.
If one student should change his
plans so that he will not need his
ticket, however, that same ticket
may be used by some other couple.
Under such a procedure, the
meal exchange system would con-
tinuously balance inequalities in
the weekday lunch program and any
that should occur on the weekends.
The meal exchange co-ordinator
will’eliminate any deviations in the
weekend program. by including
them in the equation for the follow-
ing week. :
Matthews, Rhoads North, If several
girls will be using the same
telephone, each should be regis-
tered.
Whether or not the service works
depends upon student cooperation.
‘¢Students must pay their bills on
time,’’ commented Popie Johns,
‘sor else the phones will be elim-
inated.’’
In other developments at Monday
night’s meeting, Exchange Com-
mittee Chairman Kitty Taylor
requested funds for a possible ex-
change with Antioch College during
Thanksgiving Vacation, Xnyone in-
terested in going on such an ex-
change should get in touch with
either Kitty Taylor in Denbigh or
Tatty Gresham in Wyndham,
Hungry students who want anal-
.ternative, to the food offered by
the dorms or the Inn are remind-
ed that a free kitchen is provided
on the second floor of the College
Inn in which they can practice their
culinary talents with complete
abandon,
The meeting closed with a dis-
cussion and vote on the Undergrad
Eminent Speaker, Out of seventeen
suggestions, six were chosen, The
first choice was Richard Hofstad-
ter, followed in order by James
Reston, John Cage, Jacques Bar-
zun, James Rorimer, and Margaret
Doubler,
Committee Seeks
Calendar Change,
Asks Reading Pd.
The possibility of having a
“reading period’? before mid-year
exams w4s the topic of conversa-
tion at the open curriculum com-
. mittee meeting last Tuesday night.
Such a period between classes
and exams, many felt, would give
the student time to tie together
all the material of the course and
to see all its parts in perspective.
This would in turn make the exam
more valuable to the student,
Others felt unsatisfied by the
one-day pre-exam recapitulation
of enough facts or argument pro-
gressions to be able to ‘‘write an
essay’”’ on any of several sections
instead of having time to develop
themes and interrelated content
inherent in the course. Another
pointed out that she often missed
the organization put into a course
simply because she did not have
enough time at the end to see it
thematically in full perspective.
A reading period in January,
furthermore, would eliminate the
so-called *‘lame duck’? period be-
tween Christmas yacation and
exams. It would probably mean
beginning a week earlier in the
fall, with classes ending before
Christmas vacation, and reading
period and exams following im-
mediately thereafter, It was also
hoped that more time would be
allowed for Intersession.
The idea of having special topic,
paper, or discussion groups during
this time was also discussed.
Several felt they would like to
have extra time to read books of
interest related to their courses,
or related to a chosen topic. It
was generally’ agreed, however, |
“that a pre-exam period would be
most preferably used to get full
benefit from the courses, —
1