Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1981-03-01

Swarthmore College Bullettij
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March, 19Ì

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“Behind us are thefearsome voyage and the slow
ascent up the lonely rock scourged by Atlantic
storms, habitable only by birds and seals. Ahead
o f u s .. .isa livingfragment o f the sixth century.
We have walked back in time, out o f our own
mundane earth into the world o f the Irish saints”

ist lay over the North Atlan­ green whirlpools in the wake of the
tic near Bray Head, County breakers. Our solid little boat was
Kerry, in the southwest of picked up and tossed like an empty snail
Ireland, a remnant of the shell. For a few minutes we wallowed,
rainstorm that had flattened the
water no
a headway at all. The motor
making
few minutes before. The wind had driven took hold and we slowly crawled out of
it off and now it lay to the south, a dark the riptide.
cushion of cloud hiding the horizon.
The open ocean was no better. Near
Near shore the ocean was flat under the shore the waves were short and choppy.
thinning fog. In the north the great Out in the swell they were relentless,
massif of Brandon Mountain hulked rhythmic combers far bigger than our
over the Dingle Peninsula, its unseen boat. We would climb a steep green hill
summits wrapped, as they always were and poise at the top, shuddering, the
even on the fairest days, in moving screw out of water. Our pilot cut the
clouds. Over the ocean the sun broke motor so we wouldn’t dive to the
through and the water began to shine. It bottom, and we careened down the
looked like a lake.
other side, to pitch and rock uncon­
The boat picked us up at the bridge trollably in the trough. There was barely
over Portmagee Channel between Va­ time to gun the motor to meet the next
lencia Island and the mainland of the wave, which wasn’t always directly in
Iveragh Peninsula. It was a thirty-two- front but might be coming at us from
foot fishing boat fitted out to take a the side, roughened by the gusty west
dozen or so passengers on short expe­ wind.
ditions, with benches along the sides
We couldn’t see where we were going
and a cabin forward.
nor where we had come from. Every­
For a short way beyond the bridge the where we looked there was only water,
channel was protected; green fields rose above us, beside us, before us, behind
to mild rocky heights. But when we us, at every pitch but level. Out of the
came out of the lee, the wind off the corners of our eyes we glimpsed uncon­
open ocean hit us. Waves came from cerned birds: kittiwakes playing with
every direction as conflicting tides and the wind and puffins beating low across
currents crossed at the meeting place of the wave tops. Sometimes there was a
inlet and ocean. The water that had seal, head high, staring curiously before
been a gray monotone from afar was a submerging in its element, while we
surge of flying white spray and thick unqualified humans clung to the rails,

M

2

numb to the water breaking over us, one
identifiable thought in our minds—
beyond the unvoiced fear that this was
our last journey—“we have to come
back the same way!”
Suddenly, dead ahead, appeared a
tall rock of spires and castellated walls,
covered with gannets—perching, nest­
ing, landing, taking off, diving. It was
the island of Little Skellig, inhabited
entirely and only by gannets, 20,000
nesting pairs, the second largest colony
in the world, their home for possibly the
past thousand years.
As we came under its sheltering peak
the boat steadied enough so we could
see, a mile or so beyond, the sharp dark
triangle of Great Skellig, also called
Skellig Michael, 714 feet high, which
had been home to a few of Ireland’s
wandering monks even longer ago than
the arrival of the gannets.
They had come across the same eight
and a half miles of ocean in their
curraghs, wooden-frame, hide-covered
boats that bobbed lightly as thistledown
over the waves. On the last part of the
journey, between the two rocks, the
water was no less rough, but they must
have felt a somewhat startled elation, as
did we, at seeing their awesome destina­
tion. The sun was so bright now that we
could not look at the sea, and the
shadowed island was a formidable
silhouette without detail, piercing the
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Left: Beehive huts o f the monastic village on Skellig Michael. On the previous pages, similar
structures are visible, with Little Skellig and the Iveragh Peninsula in the background.

light sky. As we neared we could see
waves breaking, scattering their spray
far up on bare and shining rock. We
looked in wonder at the vertical slab of
the wall, thinking of those ancient
voyagers. No harbor was visible until all
at once we came around a corner and
were in it, a small straight-walled inlet
protected on three sides from open
ocean. A cement dock was built into one
corner, and a paved walkway cut from
the sheer rock led out of sight away
from it. Before the walkway was built
no one could have climbed from here.
The hand-hewn steps made by the
monks ascended, we learned, from
another landing place on the north side,
a triangular cove open to the sea, where
today boats can land possibly four days
in a year. But for several hundred years
they had brought their little vessels into
that exposed corner, where they had to
haul them up on the sharp rocks above
reach of the waves. They came with the
few supplies they could carry in their
curraghs, to an island open at every
point to wind and rain, where only small
hardy plants can take root in rock
crevices and no animals but sea birds
and rabbits can find sanctuary in
weather-eroded fissures in the sheer
walls.
They did not come here to escape.
They left their quiet lives within the
sheltering walls of their monasteries to
set forth with positive hope over the
savage ocean, ill-equipped, unworldly,
caring not what hardships they would
meet at the end of the voyage. They
came for love.
Today the narrow road from the
harbor ascends part way up, curling
around Skellig Michael’s perpendicular
south side, to end at a lighthouse on the
southwestern tip. About halfway along
the road the stairway of the monks
appears, rising uncompromisingly
straight up toward the rounded dome of
the eastern peak: six hundred steps
crudely cut in the rock face, of differing
widths and not always level. The monks’
tools must have been other rocks, and
they must have worked fast. Summer
off the coast of southwestern Ireland is
notably cool and rainy, but winter is
almost insupportable. Never does the
wind out there cease long enough for the
ocean’s turbulent swell to subside.
Winter gales drive the waves thirty feet
up on the lee side of the island, and up to
two hundred on the south where the full
MARCH, 1981

force of the North Atlantic hits. No­
where on the rock is there so much as a
cave for refuge, nor is there a level place
anywhere near sea level that is wide
enough for building. If they came in
April, when the storms diminish, they
had to complete their stairway to the
island’s only practicable terrace, 550
feet up, and build their houses, all
within the four summer months of
comparative calm. Because when Sep­
tember came, with its equinoctial
tempests, the monks could neither live
there without shelter nor could they
depart.
The flight of steps is not continuous.
The slope moderates here and there,
and a precarious layer of soil has had a
chance to form. In these places, a few
yards wide, the steps cease and we walk
over pillows of sea pink and big soft
clumps of sea campion, those hardy
colonizers whose roots twine together in
tangled mats, catching their own dead
foliage and making of it their own soil.
The monks took advantage of a few of
these slanting terraces, erecting stone
crosses where those who came later
could stop and worship, or just catch
their breath and look at the birds. One
of these monuments is still there, a
pitted stone worn almost shapeless by
time and weather, rising stark out of the
flowers at the threshold of the cliff, the
sea fierce beyond it.
A few steps beyond the cross, lichens
and mosses have invaded a section of
rock already eroded by wind and rain,
and the spongy surface is honeycombed
with puffin burrows. This oasis gives
token that in summer, at least, the
monks would not have gone hungry.
Besides the puffins, which are easy to
get at, the cliffs are home to hundreds of
other nesting sea birds: Kittiwakes,
fulmars, razorbills, and guillemots lay

hey left their quiet lives
. . . to set forth with
positive hope over the
savage ocean, ill-equipped,
unworldly, caring not what
hardships they would meet
. . . They came for love.

T

their eggs and raise their young in clefts
and on ledges high above the sea. The
monks could have kept a few goats, the
only domestic animal unfussy enough
about its diet to live on the rock’s scanty
pickings. Some of the wild plants are
edible, and the monks could have grown
a few herbs. In the sixth century, when it
is probable that the first voyagers ar­
rived, the climate was warmer than it is
today. There could not have been much
more soil, because there is simply no
place for it; everything slips downward,
and only in a few places can a plant take
root for long enough to provide its own
habitat. But the summers then were not
quite so short nor the winters so unkind.
Fish and the few birds, such as gulls,
that wintered over, would have seen
them through the crudest months.
The last few yards of the climb are in a
tunnel under a retaining wall, built in
modern times to protect the monastery
site from the depredations of burrowing
rabbits, relative newcomers. We climb
upward through dripping darkness.
Behind us are the fearsome voyage and
the slow ascent up the lonely rock
scourged by Atlantic storms, habitable
only by birds and seals. Ahead of us, as
we come out of the tunnel into the mild
sunlight, is a living fragment of the sixth
century. We have walked back in time,
out of our own mundane earth into the
world of the Irish saints.
The pitch of Skellig Michael at this
place, between 550 and 600 feet above
the ocean, levels off in a series of
narrow, uneven terraces before it
mounts the last steep fifty feet of the
peak, out of sight on the rounded hill­
side. Six little beehive-shaped stone
huts, a slightly larger stone oratory with
a barrel-vault roof, and the roofless
walls of a small church are clustered
here at varying levels, some nestled
close against the swell of the hill, some
poised at the very edge, only a low drystone wall between them and the breath­
taking cliff. Between them are winding
walks lined with flat stones. A widening
of the central walk into a miniature plaza
is occupied by leaning tombstones, their
inscriptions obliterated. In its own
green square beyond them is a stele,
probably originally a cross; its cross­
piece two blunted knobs, the weathered
carving on its face blending with lichens
to form a design of geometric abstrac­
tions. It stands alone, tall as a man and
somewhat resembling one, as if an
3

anchorite had been forgotten there and
still stands lost in contemplation of
Little Skellig rising out of the sea,
framed by the curving walls of two
beehive huts.
he buildings and walls are
constructed of flat stones,
without mortar. Each hut
has a hole in the top, origi­
nally closed off by a rock slab.
quarters they offer small latitude. The
highest, which is thought to have had
two stories, is sixteen feet; the lowest is
about nine, the walls from three to six
feet thick and the square interior floor
space hardly big enough for a man to lie
down in. They have no windows, and
the doors are only about four feet high.
They must have been cold in winter and
damp all year round. But the people
who dared the ocean waves to find their
peace on this rock had no interest in
comfort. On the contrary, their disre­
gard for the everyday usages of ease was
the very core of their spiritual vitality.
Austerity not only pleased them, it was
necessary to them.
And the rough life had compensa­
tions. Asceticism gave an intensified
response to the smell of flowers, the
texture of stone, the feel of rain or sun
or wind, the flight of birds. When they
came out of their dark cells, their spirits
must have lifted to heights rarefied
beyond our experience. The ground
they knelt on was of springy moss with
flowers growing in it. Beyond the low
stone walls the sea was blue, lavender,
silver, and green in broad uneven
patches, and appeared from this height
flat as a pond. The morning clouds
looked like white Skelligs, and the
penitents could almost talk to the
fulmars and puffins flying to feed their
rock-bound young. As they watched the
sun rise, a curtain of rain might fly over
the sea from the west, bright steel with
the sun’s low rays on it, to pass over­
head in a few minutes leaving a rainbow
and the clover-like scent of wet sea pink.
In such a setting the simple prayers to
God might have been tinged with an
almost pagan pantheism.
It is not known positively when the
first voyagers arrived, nor who they
were. The style of the buildings goes
back to the sixth century and beyond, to
the pre-Christian dwellings on which
the first Christian structures were
modeled. Although the earliest churches
and dwellings were usually built of

T

4

wood or of wickerwork daubed with
mud, on Skellig Michael the builders
would have had to use the only material
at hand. The settlement survived at least
four attacks by Norse raiders in the
ninth century. The monks evidently
turned the other cheek, because, ac­
cording to tradition, in the tenth
century one of Skellig Michael’s holy
hermits converted Olaf Trygvasson, the
fierce Viking who became Norway’s
and combatively, Christian ruler.
Asfirst,
living
The last monks left in the twelfth cen­
tury, when life had grown soft, to settle
in the village of Ballinskelligs nearby on
the mainland coast.
Through all the years the name of
only one monk has survived. That is
Etgall, an anchorite who was apparently
living there alone when Vikings arrived
in 823 looking for treasure. The poor
little island monastery, that could
barely support six or seven ascetics,
would hardly have run to the silver
chalices and jewel-studded shrines that
provided the freebooters with such easy
pickings in the mainland monasteries.
In anger, or perhaps in hopes of getting
a ransom, the raiders took Etgall, who
died while their prisoner, say the annals,
of starvation. The implication is clear:
The stark rigors of Skellig Michael held
no dangers for Etgall, but when he
could no longer hear the cries of sea
birds and the crash of waves, or taste the
salty wind of his island retreat, he
grieved until death rescued him.
In no other connection is Etgall
mentioned. He was not a saint whose
feast day is on the calendar; history
records no heathens converted by him,
no miracles performed, no poetry
written, no manuscripts illuminated. He
might have done all these things. Ire­
land’s legion of holy men and women,
the luminous quality of whose piety,
learning, and imagination inspirited the
western world for more than six
hundred years, from the sixth to the
twelfth centuries, were most of them
anonymous. Even many of the saints
whose names still shine over the
dimness of the centuries are probably
composite personalities. Legend has
blurred their outlines until they have
become as large and brightly unreal as
the pagan heroes they superseded.
Yet their accomplishments were very
real. The intricate art of their illum­
inated manuscripts is still as brilliant as
when it was first set to parchment. Their
poetry makes the heart sing today.
Greek and Roman literature and lore,

as well as the authentic voice of their
own Celtic ancestors transcribed by
them from oral tradition, are ours to
study now because these cloistered
monks reached into a receding past,
rescued the vanishing knowledge and
gave it back to the world. In a darkened
and barbaric Europe, Irish priests and
scholars kept alive the light that had
burned for Greek philosophers, Roman
colonizers, early Christian martyrs. By
the time dawn came to Europe again
with the early Renaissance, Ireland’s
day was over. The Norse raiders and the
Anglo-Norman conquerors between
them extinguished that bright torch.
Though Ireland owed the extraordi­
nary literary, artistic, and scholarly
flowering of this age to her inspired
clerics, they were only secondarily
artists and poets, teachers, missionaries,
and humanists. Their first purpose was
the same that brought them to Skellig
Michael: to achieve a state of grace.
It is hard for us today to understand
the rationale behind this imperative
yearning of the early Christian mind.
What made them take their little open
boats out into the Atlantic, to the
Faeroes, to Iceland, possibly to Amer­
ica, looking for a land that had been
promised in a dream? What made them
starve themselves and live without sleep
until the world around them was full of
strangeness and the wind in the leaves
became the wing beats of angels? Why
did they leave their comfortable mon­
asteries to wander friendless and
defenseless in the lands of barbarians?
We can find out by looking into the
past, where their roots were, and exam­
ining the subsequent world that they
themselves created. For however enig­
matic are their motivations to us, it is
clear that the Irish saints made some­
thing new on earth. It was that we had
felt when we stepped back in time high
on Skellig Michael. The little monastic
village was part of a world that came out
of a vision. Behind the vision were the
men and women who saw it, and it is in
their lives that we must look for its pris­
tine freshness, its radiant imagination,
above all its shining spirituality.
This article has been adaptedfrom Katharine
Scherman’s forthcoming book, The Flower­
ing of Ireland: Saints, Scholars, and Kings,
to be published in June, 1981. Reprinted by
permission o f Little, Brown and Company,
Inc., Boston. ©1981.

The trip to Skellig Michael is an option­
alfeature o f the 1981 Swarthmore Alumni
College. See back cover for details.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

COLLEGIATE
GOVERNANCE
Is it Organized Anarchy?
By John W. Nason, Hon. ’53

The eighth president o f Swarthmore analyzes the disintegra­
tion o f the traditional model
ofgovernance and postulates
modifications pertinent to the
decade o f the eighties.
A

s I return to campus after many
years, I am acutely conscious
of how much better a job I
1
m might have done forty years
ago if I had known in 1940 all I know
now about college administration, con­
scious also of the problems which face
this and other colleges in the decade of
the eighties.
My topic—“Collegiate Governance:
Is It Organized Anarchy?”—is not
unique to Swarthmore. It points to
problems endemic in current higher
education. The title is taken from a
book by two scholars named Michael
D. Cohen and James G. March, entitled
Leadership and Ambiguity: The Ameri­
can College President. The book was
commissioned by Clark Kerr ’32, mem­
ber of the Board of Managers, for many
years chairman of the Carnegie Com­
mission on Higher Education, and one
of the most distinguished figures in
higher education today.
Cohen and March characterize col­
lege governance as “organized anarchy,”
describing the condition as one in which
(1) goals are uncertain and changing,
(2) technology is unclear, (3) the centers
of authority and power are shifting. In
their own words:
“These properties are not limited to
educational institutions; but they are
MARCH, 1981

particularly conspicuous there. The
American college or university is a
prototypic organized anarchy. It does
not know what it is doing. Its goals are
either vague or in dispute. Its technology
is familiar but not understood. Its major
participants wander in and out of the
organization. These factors do not
make a university a bad organization or
a disorganized one; but they do make it
a problem to describe, understand, and
lead.”
Two or three years ago, when I was
doing field work for a book on the selec­
tion of college presidents, I made a visit
to a reasonably distinguished New
England college which was noted for the
obstreperous character of its faculty.
They had had a very difficult time
selecting their new president, and I was
interested in the reasons for their diffi­
culties. The chairman of the search com­
mittee, a faculty member, confessed
finally: “You know, Mr. Nason, I’m not
sure that this college is really governable.”
History, of course, indicates that
most of our colleges have been govern­
able. Cohen and March suggest that
they are, to a greater or lesser extent,
but in different ways from the earlier
pattern. I believe that they still are
governable, and I want to discuss some
of the necessary conditions for effective
governance.
Let me begin by talking about the
evolution of academic governance—in
an oversimplified scenario. Back in the
nineteenth century, when Swarthmore
and most of the private colleges in this
country were founded—most of them,
like Swarthmore, by religious groups
that were concerned to protect what at
Swarthmore was described as “a guarded

education for children of the Society of
Friends”—the trustees who set them up
and gave the first money to get them
going were deeply concerned about the
character of the colleges and what went
on in them. They were apt to take a very
direct hand in the management—much
too direct for Dorie or me or Frank
Aydelotte or anybody else in this par­
ticular century. They believed in what
the colleges stood for; they believed in
certain purposes and certain goals; and
they were concerned to make sure that
these were achieved.
For the last quarter of the nineteenth
century and extending through the first
quarter of the twentieth, we witnessed
the era of the great college and univer­
sity presidents—an analogue to the era
of the great captains of industry who
dominated the growing enterprises that
developed in the latter part of the nine­
teenth century and flourished in the
twentieth. Eliot and Lowell at Harvard,
Harper at Chicago, Gilman at Johns
Hopkins, Butler at Columbia, Aydelotte
at Swarthmore.
In 1915 the American Association of
University Professors was founded. Be­
ginning at about that time and partly as
a result, college and university faculty
assumed more and more control of the
administration or at least of the policies
The Swarthmore College Bulletin (USPS
530-620), of which this Volume LXXVIII,
number 4, is published in September,
November, December, March, May, and
August by Swarthmore College, Swarth­
more, PA 19081. Second-class postage paid
at Swarthmore, PA 19081 and additional
mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address
changes to Swarthmore College Bulletin,
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5

5. Much that happens in colleges and
universities is now the subject of litiga­
tion. At one time students who broke
official college rules were dismissed,
and that was the end of the matter.
Today such episodes not infrequently
result in law suits, and the courts, not
college officials, determine whether or
not a student should be reinstated.
Faculty members on term appointments
onsider the changing condi­ will sometimes institute protracted legal
tions which brought this proceedings on grounds of discrimina­
about. These will be familiar tion if not reappointed or granted
to all of you, but let me tick tenure. The targets of such suits are
administration and the trustees.
them off as the factors whichthe
created
6. Throughout our society there has
this change:
1.
An explosion in enrollment oc­ been a decline in respect for authority.
curred at the end of World War II, when This is true for ministers of the gospel,
the veterans swamped our colleges and politicians, and successful businessmen,
universities, and we decided that many as well as for college presidents, provosts,
more high school graduates could profit and deans. It represents a profound
from a college education than had ever cultural shift in the contemporary out­
been considered before in our society. look. Let us hope this phase will pass.
We had some two million college and For the present, however, the exercise
university students before the stampede. of authority tends to be viewed with
suspicion.
We have 11 Zi million today.
2.
They were a new breed of students. These factors have created a com­
Many of them, instead of being children pletely different climate in which to
of families whose mothers and fathers operate a college or a university, and, as
had gone to college, were children of a result, we have the disintegration of
families no member of which had ever what might be called the traditional
been near a college or a university. They model of college or university govern­
didn’t know what to expect; they didn’t ance. In that model students were at the
know how to behave;' they wanted bottom of the pyramid. They were
things colleges weren’t particularly well relatively docile and respectful of
prepared to provide. They made new authority; they viewed membership in
demands; they lowered the standards of the college community as a privilege;
performance; they created a kind of they thought that the faculty knew more
consumerism in higher education which than they did about the subjects taught
and about the subjects which ought to
we’re wrestling with today.
3.
They viewed higher education not be taught. In the traditional model,
as a privilege but as a right. If you were faculty members knew what they
to take a poll today and ask people in wanted to teach and why. Today as
the United States, “Is post-secondary faculty we are no longer as clear as we
education a right or a privilege?” you once were on any one of these points.
would get an almost universal answer We tend to be more interested in our
that it is a right. But if you asked people individual disciplines than in the total
associated with Swarthmore, “Have educational program of the institution.
students a right to come to Swarth­ We find ourselves caught up in the con­
more?” the answer would be, “No, it is a flict between the amount of time and
privilege. Individuals must qualify in energy we will give to teaching and the
various ways. There is no inalienable time and energy that go into research.
The presidents and deans, the viceright to come to this institution.” It is
quite clear, however, that there are state presidents and provosts, are no longer
institutions which the citizens of that the figures of authority which they
state consider they do have an inalien­ once were. Instead they have become
able right to attend. Open admissions is crisis managers, mediators, negotiators,
labor arbitrators.
the descriptive term.
4.
The turbulence of the sixties created At one time trustees were remote and
an interesting and exciting time on august figures who devoted themselves
college campuses, but it was in many to giving and raising money, to review­
ways a disastrous period as well. There ing the budget, to supervising invest­
are still deep scars at many institutions ments, to hiring (and firing, if necessary)
the president. Beyond that they were
from what happened in the sixties.

which guided the administration of
higher education. Then came World
War II. In the postwar period, we have
seen a swing of the pendulum back to
the point where trustees are once again
playing a more influential role in the
affairs of colleges and universities in this
country.

C

6

largely content to endorse what the
president and faculty recommended in
terms of policies for the college.
Except in a few places that pattern no
longer exists. More of it remains at
Swarthmore than at many others, but
even here you can detect a certain
ragged fringe around the edges of the
description of the model which I have
been giving you.
My thesis is that trustees, because of
the nature of the current situation, will
have to play a more important role in
decisions on operations and policies
than they have played since the middle
of the nineteenth century. Only in this
way can the future of our colleges and
universities be assured. In addition to
all the responsibilities characteristic of
the traditional model—and the Swarth­
more Board of Managers fulfills them
superlatively well—they must, for ex­
ample, also define the mission of the
college. It is not their job to draft the
mission, but to insist that the president,
the faculty, the alumni, and others co­
operate in writing a statement which
they can either endorse or modify.
Furthermore, they must select a pres­
ident who can speak to and serve the
particular needs of the institution. This
may call for an educational leader, or
somebody who can heal wounds of dis­
sension, or somebody who is a good
fund raiser, or a salesman who can
recruit students.
Beyond that, the trustees must see to
it that the president does what he or she
is selected to do and must provide every
possible assistance and encouragement
in getting it done. All presidents need to
be supported, encouraged, and—if need
be—comforted by the board. This is
probably the most important job for
any board of trustees or managers to
undertake. To do it, they need to under­
stand the educational policies, the edu­
cational programs, and the educational
problems of the institution.
It used to be said that trustees should
deal with finances and with buildings
and grounds, but stay out of educational
issues. How can trustees deal with the
budget, with fund-raising, with what is
the heart of the operational significance
of an educational institution without
knowing what that institution is really
trying to achieve and in what direction
the college should go? What choices,
among the incompatible options that
are offered, should be selected? How
does the program relate to the financial
resources of the institution? How can
the changing demands of society be
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

John W. Nason, Hon. ’53
Mr;

ffonji>’1^46;tô 10ÿ;-pêjfi^éâ'J»:^ e | ; ■
Æ^ropusdàst Qcjfcbef' sfe host and jkihci’; |

as president 1
>.®tt6|$5 3A
1%2'j. a-ftd:kier Cpliege^| féé 2-VJ.970).* Ùq,’hà"s been a. ■
trM.ste^ pi thé Hazèn ànd DanfPrth
Foundations-, the United Negro College’
Fund,,; Vassa’r College, and Phillips,
ï È’xéteÇÂcaderny; In the last, deçàde, he ,
has condueted several studies for the- :
Association pf Governing Boards and
the.Counçil On Foundations, resulting in
the publication-of The. Future o f Trustee­
ships, Trustées & the Future o f Founda­
tions, Presidential Search: a Guide to.
the Process o f Selecting and Appointing
College and University Presidents', and
Presidential Assessment: A Challenge to
College and University Leadership. (The
advisory committees for the last two
studies included Clark Kerr ’32, former
president of the University of California,
James A. Perkins.’34, former vice presi­
dent of Swarthmore and former
president of Cornell University, and
Richard W. Lyman ’47, former presi­
dent of Stanford University and
currently president of the Rockefeller
Foundation.)

MARCH, 1981

meshed with the educational programs
of the college?
This, I know, is heresy in many edu­
cational circles, but I think it is a heresy
which we shall have to make into a new
orthodoxy. I am not suggesting that the
Managers of Swarthmore College should
decide on the courses to be taught, e.g.,
in economics. But whether there should
be a Department of Economics is a
Managers’ problem. Should Swarth­
more continue its engineering program?
Since it is the only small liberal arts
college in the United States with a fullscale engineering program, does this
really make sense? Should it be given
up? .Should it be strengthened? These
are not questions which the faculty
alone or alumni alone should decide,
though they ought to have a very
important voice in the decisions. In the
end, it must be a Board decision.
To fulfill its proper role the board
must also look at its own operations and
performance—an exercise in which the
Swarthmore Board has recently been
engaged. It is interesting to note how
easy it is for all of us who have served as
trustees of one institution or another to
follow in certain patterns or grooves of
behavior because they are there. Instead
we should be asking ourselves: “Are we
really spending our time in an intelligent
way? Are we asking ourselves the right
questions? Are we devoting ourselves to
the right issues? Do we meet as long as
we need to or as often as we need to, or
could we meet less frequently for longer
periods and be more effective? Do we
have the best mix of people on the
Board? Do we have the best organiza­
tion in terms of committees?” These are
all questions which governing boards
need to ask and ought to be asking
themselves as part of the total pattern of
governance.
What I am pleading for is your under­
standing and tolerance of the fact that
Swarthmore, along with other colleges,
is going through a kind of sea change in
its total governance. This involves a dif­
ferent attitude not only about the role
of the president and the administrative
officers and the contribution of the
faculty, but also about the responsi­
bilities of the governing board. It is an
exciting time. It is a confusing and
sometimes disturbing time. But I have
enormous confidence that with all the
tradition and all the resources of this
College, Swarthmore will be able to set
an example for other institutions of the
way governance should be handled.

Abandoning the privacy of their
studios, five sculptors adopted Swarthmore’s campus as their workshop
during an adventuresome site sculp­
ture program last October. Funded by
a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts and the Department of
Art, sculptors Charles Fahlen, Michael
Morrill, Jody Pinto, Charles Simonds,
and Jeffrey Simpson were invited to
the College to participate in an experi­
ment which combined working and
teaching. During their brief visits, the
five artists offered a series of lectures
held in the classroom and at the site.
“The artists we have brought to the campus are more influenced by
technological construction over the past 100 years than by more
traditional sculptural techniques,” states Assistant Professor Michael
Knutson. “Following the example set by Picasso in the first half of the
century, these artists have adopted modern methods of construction:
fabricating with sheet metal, welding, casting forms in concrete, con­
structing with lumber, and bricklaying.”
Upon arrival on campus, the five artists hiked around the grounds
in search of appropriate sites for their sculptures. Pinto, Morrill, and
Simpson were all drawn to Crum Meadow, a space rich with texture,
color, planes, and angles. Simonds tucked his piece away in the corner
of a second-story windowsill outside the Tarble Student Center, while
Fahlen chose a more open space in the pine grove near the foot of
Magill Walk.
The movement to bring site sculpture to Swarthmore began last
spring when Canadian sculptor George Trakas spent several weeks
teaching and working at Swarthmore. His work, entitled “Lorraine
Station,” a platform of wood and steel playfully described by the
Phoenix as “a jungle gym for serious, intellectual grown-ups,” has
since become a popular meeting place among students.
Members of the Art Department (including Chair T. Kaori Kitao,
Michael Knutson, Kit-Yin Tieng Snyder, and Brian Meunier) selected
artists whose works represent the architectonic and minimalist trends
in contemporary sculpture. The works produced resemble corridors,
bridges, ground plans, and architectural fragments. Challenging
traditional concept of sculpture as movable monument, these sculp­
tures were created to be observed and experienced in the specific en­
vironments selected by the artists. They play with the mind and the eye.

Perched on a ladder outside Tarble Student Center, Charles
Simonds constructs a fragile adobe city (above), the remnant
o f an imaginary civilization that he calls The Little People.
During the past ten years, Simonds has created the entire
evolution o f this Tolkienesque culture and built similar tiny
townscapes around the world.
A fter hauling lumber and wading in the Crum (top left) to
construct her bridge (left), Jody Pinto relaxes with students and
discusses her work (opposite page). Her forty-eight-foot-long
pier straddles the fine line between art and utilitarian object as
it stretches sensuously toward a dark split rock on the far shore.

MARCH, 1981

9

Cement mixers and heavy-duty cranes become
sculpting tools when Charles Fahlen (center
above) sets a pre-fabricated concrete column into
afreshly poured concrete slab. After allowing the
concrete to set fo r three weeks, he unearthed his
creation and tipped it, suggesting the work o f
some capricious natural disaster.

Working with implied space and simple materials,
Michael Morrill imbeds untreated wooden
boards into shallow trenches dug with the help o f
interested students (left and center). The parallel
broken lines extendfrom a bend in Crum Creek
to the train trestle. Echoing that vertical
structure, the wooden segments suggest both vertical
and horizontal planes cutting across Crum Meadow.
Jeffrey Simpson experiences his own creation
(opposite page) as he walks through his work
welded in Papazian Hall and erected in Crum
Meadow along a well-traveled path. The thin
steel rods form a succession o f doorways
connected by light-reflecting copper wires, creat­
ing a sense o f both containment and openness.

orticai
idow.

In Pursuit of
F SKINNER
A psychologist collaborates with two philosophers
to refute Skinnerian behavioral theories and to
suggest, from this analysis, how people
should be educated at Swarthmore.

By Barry Schwartz

for fifteen years I have been
pursuing B. F. Skinner. It be­
gan when I was an under­
graduate. I read Science and
Human Behavior1—a book in
Skinner proposes to account for all
human behavior with a few, simple
principles derived from laboratory
studies with animals—and to use this
account to replace our intuitive concep­
tion of ourselves and of human nature. I
found the book appalling. I was unwill­
ing to give up my belief in human free­
dom, responsibility, and intelligence.
But the book was also challenging, the
arguments against Skinner’s views were
not at all clear. So I decided to study the
Skinnerian program and come to know
it well, so that I would be able to criti­
cize it. I want in this article to share
some of the results of my studies with
you—studies done in part in an enlight­
ening and ongoing collaboration with
Swarthmore professors of philosophy
Hugh Lacey and Richard Schuldenfrei.
This article will take you rapidly
through a number of steps. I will first
present an outline of Skinner’s theory,
which identifies his conception of hu­
man nature, his methods, the principles
which have been developed with his
methods, what he considers to be sup­
porting evidence for those principles
and why. Next, I will discuss some
phenomena which raise doubts about
his general principles, at least severely
limiting their generality. Then I will at­

F

12

tempt to explain Skinner’s successes
and the plausibility of his prescriptions
for human society in a way quite differ­
ent from his own, and to document that
alternative
way of understanding Skin­
which
ner. I will then draw from this particular
case some parallels in the pursuit of so­
cial science generally; and, finally, I will
attempt to suggest some lessons from
this analysis for how people should be
educated here at Swarthmore. So let us
look at Skinner.
Skinner
To begin with, Skinner argues that
what we really want to know about hu­
man nature—what it means to under­
stand human nature—is to identify the
determinants of human action. Skinner
is convinced that the methods of science
can be used to reveal these determin­
ants. But what does the commitment to
a scientific analysis of human action
imply? First, it implies that there are
regularities in the determinants of hu­
man action to be found. Such regulari­
ties are often called laws. Second, it im­
plies a commitment to finding the
causes of human behavior—influences
independent of the behaving person
which are responsible for his or her be­
havior and which have their influence in
a reliable, repeatable way.
Where should we look for such
causes? We are accustomed to looking
inside for the sources of our actions: We
talk about what we desire, what we in­

tend, and what we expect. We accept
responsibility for what we do. This, to
Skinner, is a mistake. For him, the
causes of our behavior are external to
us; they are environmental events which
bear a regular relation to our actions.
Therefore, the Skinnerian view is one
in which behavior is controlled, and
controlled by external events. People
are merely loci on which the action of a
variety of different environmental vari­
ables converges. Freecfom, dignity,
responsibility, morality—these are all
fictions of our Western intellectual heri­
tage. And they are not benign fictions.
They stand in the way of meaningful so­
cial progress by influencing us to reason
with people and change their minds in­
stead of manipulating the environment
and changing their behavior. If Skinner
is right, the implications are enormous.
Virtually all of our social practices and
social institutions are misguided.
How can we know whether he is
right? How can we know that he has
correctly identified the laws of behav­
ior? The answer, for Skinner, is control.
Control is the ultimate criterion for
understanding. Since behavior is con­
trolled, if we correctly identify the con­
trolling variables, we should, by manip­
ulating them, be able to manipulate and
control behavior. Outside the labora­
tory, in the natural environment, this is
difficult. There are too many variables
operating at any given time. So we bring
behavior into the laboratory and manipSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

ulate variables; and if these variables
control behavior, we know we have the
right ones. Moreover, we can look for
principles of behavior by studying ani­
mals (like pigeons) in the laboratory
rather than people. Since people are
only loci, there is nothing about human
behavior that is principally different
from the behavior of animals. We can
develop the basic principles by studying
animals, with the understanding that
human behavior is only more complex.
Then, having done so, we can apply
these basic principles to human social
settings. If they work (that is, control
behavior) in these settings, we have fur­
ther confirmation that we have found
the right principles.

In short, bribes work—very, very well.
And Skinner is telling us how well they
work, how prevalent they are, and how
to get them to work with maximum
effectiveness.

Problems
But there are problems. To illustrate,
two of Skinner’s students, Keller and
Marian Breland, decided to go into the
business of training animals. They set up
displays in which animals did this or
that entertaining thing and got food for
it. They trained a variety of different
species to perform a host of engaging
tasks for the amusement of paying cus­
tomers. In general their enterprise rep­
resented a tour de force for Skinnerian
theory. Again and again, no matter how
bizarre and unnatural the training con­
o much for Skinner’s general ditions, the Brelands succeeded in creat­
description. What are his ing entertaining and well-controlled
principles? What has he dis­ behavioral repertoires. They wrote a
covered? The principle—the paper in 1961, however, which de­
one that is the keystone of thescribed
entire their occasional failures, a
theory—is called the Law of Effect. number of instances in which organisms
What it says, in essence, is that what “misbehaved.”2 What they meant by
determines whether a behavior will misbehavior was that rewards did not
occur in the future is what the conse­ entirely succeed in controlling what the
quences of similar behaviors have been animals did.
in the past. Rewarding or reinforcing
Moreover, these various failures of
past consequences make future occur­ control seemed united by a common
rences of the behavior more likely, while principle. As the Brelands put it:
negative or punishing past conse­
“Here we have animals, after having
quences make them less likely. On this been conditioned to a specific learned
principle, behavior is conceived as a col­ response, gradually drifting into be­
lection of arbitrary means which are haviors that are entirely different from
controlled by their ends or conse­ those which were conditioned. More­
quences. To study in detail how the ar­ over, it can easily be seen that these par­
rangement of ends affects the occur­ ticular behaviors to which the animals
rence of means, one can study pigeons drift are clear-cut examples of instinc­
pecking at lit disks, rats pressing levers, tive behaviors having to do with the
monkeys pulling chains, or dogs jump­ natural food-getting behaviors of the
ing over hurdles, always to produce particular species.”
food or water or to escape or avoid elec­
The Brelands labelled their observa­
tric shock.
tion “instinctive drift”. In their view,
Implicit in these methods is the belief whenever a situation permitted the in­
that principles derived from these sim­ trusion of species-typical behavior pat­
ple settings will be universally applic­ terns, these patterns would occur. In­
able. So just how applicable are these stinctive behaviors would compete with
principles? Well, these principles have the trained behaviors, and as a result,
been used:
animals would substantially reduce the
—to rehabilitate vegetative
frequency with which they obtained
reward.
schizophrenics;
—to increase dramatically the rate
There are a few things to notice about
at which school children (in­
the Brelands’ observations. First, as
cluding college students) do
they pointed out, loss of control over
their work;
behavior was not random; it was a clear
—to control effectively the behav­
reflection of species-typical behavior
ior of prisoners;
patterns. Secondly, these behaviors oc­
—to increase efficiency in the
curred in extraordinarily artificial envi­
work place.
ronments. So dominant were these be­

S

MARCH, 1981

haviors that they occurred under nonoptimal conditions at the cost of food to
hungry organisms. What are we to
make of this? The experimental cham­
ber generally seems to prevent the oc­
currence of behaviors like these; hence
the claim that it reveals universal prin­
ciples. One must wonder, however,
about whether any situation which pre­
vents the occurrence of behaviors as
powerful as these is not fundamentally
distorting our understanding of the
principles of behavior. It seems that if
the conditioning chamber in fact pre­
vents these sorts of species-typical be­
havior patterns, it cannot be telling us
anything very important about the con­
trol of behavior in the natural environ­
ment.
Findings like the Brelands’ led me to
these conclusions:
1. Animals in nature seem to be
dominated by species-typical influ­
ences.
2. When we study behavior in situa­
tions from which these influences are
absent, we may be discovering princi­
ples which are true and important only
in such “biologically neutral” settings.
3. Since no natural settings are “bio­
logically neutral,” we may be learning
very little about the determinants of
behavior under natural conditions.
ut there are problems with
these conclusions. First, Skin­
nerian principles work in hu­
man applications. How are we
to explain this if the principles are not
valid and general? Second, people are
the least biologically determined, least
inflexible of creatures. The kinds of
phenomena which may pose problems
for our analysis of the behavior of
pigeons and rats may be largely irrele­
vant when we turn a Skinnerian eye to
people. If so, the particular limitations
to Skinner’s claims that had been dis­
covered in animals are not likely to be
terribly significant for our understand­
ing of human affairs.

B

Extension to Human Situations
Let us review the position to which we
have come:
1.
The Skinnerian program is to find
laws relating behavior to external vari­
ables, especially contingencies of re­
ward.
2.
We know we have the right vari­
ables if we can control behavior.
13

3. We can’t always control animal
behavior.
4. But we can control human beha­
vior—in a wide range of applications.
This is a peculiar position to be in. It
implies that Skinner may have little to
tell us about the behavior of the animals
he actually studies, but much to tell us
about the behavior of people.
I was led out of this paradox as a re­
sult of collaboration with Hugh Lacey
and Richie Schuldenfrei. In studying
human nature “scientifically,” Skinner­
ians assume that human behavior is
controlled. Then they set up situations
in which they can manipulate all the
variables and thus control it. But sup­
pose that in setting up situations in this
way, one does to people just what Skin­
ner did to animals: One creates situa­
tions in which nothing except the vari­
ables thought to be relevant can possi­
bly exert an influence. If Skinnerians
are eliminating all possible influences
from the situations they study except
the ones they will be manipulating, they
are showing that human behavior can
be controlled by rewards, but not that it
ordinarily is. There is a significant dif­
ference between these two types of
demonstration. The claim that one is
discovering what inevitably is, is a claim
about truth—about the nature of the
world. The claim that one is discovering
what can be is technological. The dis­
covery of what inevitably is avoids
moral arguments about what should be.
The discovery of what can be invites
moral arguments about what should be.
Skinner is firm in his conviction that he
is discovering what inevitably is. He
appeals to precisely this position in
order to dismiss moral arguments
against the use of his principles in ap­
plied human settings. So a great deal
hinges on whether we are learning from
Skinner what can be, or what neces­
sarily is.
The way to respond to such an issue,
which could be raised about any experi­
mental science, is to point to some na­
tural phenomenon which obeys Skin­
nerian laws though Skinnerians have
had little to do with it. And Schulden­
14

frei, Lacey, and I did precisely that: A
natural example of Skinnerian laws can
be found in the factory. Factory work is
a paradigmatic case of the kind of be­
havior, controlled by contingencies of
reward, which Skinner sees as a model
of all behavior. If one reads a little bit of
social history, one finds that early twen­
tieth-century factory work conformed
in exquisite detail to the Skinnerian
model. However, one also finds that
work prior to the development of indus­
trial capitalism did not conform to the
Skinnerian model, at least not clearly
and straightforwardly. Early capitalism
set the stage for the factory, in part, by
turning work into a marketable com­
modity. Efficiency and profit replaced
social and traditional influences as the

ust as Skinnerian
principles capture
the behavior o f pigeons
and rats in laboratory
environments by eliminat­
ing possible biological
influences, they capture
the behavior o f factory
workers because the
factory has eliminated
other influences socio­
cultural rather than
biological.

J

—

principal organizer of the work place.
With the stage thus set, a movement
known as the scientific management
movement, led by Frederick Winslow
Taylor, did the rest.3 Scientific man­
agement used principles which are ex­
actly Skinnerian to gain complete con­
trol of the work of the workers so that it
could be manipulated with precision by
manipulating rates and schedules of
pay. And Taylor did this forty years
before Skinner had trained his first
pigeon, so that by the time Skinnerian
psychology started unfolding, the fac­
tory, as a model of the “natural” phe­
nomenon to be explained, was already
firmly in place. The point of this, of
course, is that the factory, no less than
the Skinner lab or the mental hospital,
represents a successful effort to elimi­
nate all sources of influence on behavior
except those which the managers want
to manipulate. Taylor knew this. He
knew he was an engineer. He was an
avowed enemy of social custom as an in­
fluence on work. He knew he was show­
ing what could be and not what inevi­
tably was. By the time Skinner arrived,
what “could be” was well established,
and for Skinner it was just another, es­
pecially powerful example of the inevi­
table character of human nature.
Lacey, Schuldenfrei, and I have made
this argument in considerably more de­
tail than I have space for now.4 The
summary point is that, just as Skin­
nerian principles capture the behavior
of pigeons and rats in laboratory envi­
ronments by eliminating possible bio­
logical influences, they capture the be­
havior of factory workers because the
factory has eliminated other influences,
in this case socio-cultural rather than
biological. By extension, Skinnerian
principles will succeed in prisons, hospi­
tals, and classrooms by turning those in­
stitutions into analogs of Skinnerian
laboratories, places in which no factors
other than reward contingencies can
have an influence.
Parallels in Politics and Economics
We have seen that the Skinnerian re­
search program, based upon the conSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Skinner: psychologist o f liberalism or repression?
ception of behavior as externally con­
trolled, derives support from situations
and phenomena which have been ex­
plicitly created so that behavior will be
externally controlled. To see this, we
had to consider some of the “facts”
which supported Skinner in an histori­
cal context. Indeed, without consider­
ing the historical context, one might
wonder why anyone would have taken
Skinner and his view of human nature
seriously: It would not have happened
300 years ago, and that it has happened
now is not an accident. We can see the
same ideas dominating other social sci­
ences. I have in mind the major tradi­
tions of the disciplines of political
science and economics. Books by Ro­
berto Unger5 and Karl Polanyi6 have
revealed the same ideas and shortcom­
ings in political theory and economics
as I have been identifying for Skinner.
Moreover, it turns out that misconcep­
tions in all three areas may arise from a
common source. Let us look briefly at
the work of Unger and Polanyi and see
how they fit with our analysis of
Skinner.
Unger’s book is an argument for an
intimate relation between theories of
human nature and theories of society, a
relation which was clear to political
theorists 300 years ago but seems less
clear at present. Unger attempts to iden­
tify the core assumptions about human
nature which underlie liberal political
theory. First, there is the separation of
reason and desire. These are different
categories of thing. Reason is universal,
and we can establish norms which tell us
whether we are using it properly. De­
sires are individual and we cannot be
normative about them: Anything can
properly be an object of desire. We can­
not tell people what they may properly
want, only how they may properly get it.
Second, there is the principle of arbi­
trary, or unlimited, desire. Desires never
stop. We always want something.
Third, there is the principle of analy­
sis—that the whole is equal to the sum
of its parts. Unger tries to show that
these three principles lead to a concep­
tion of society which is individualistic or
MARCH, 1981

atomistic, which views the collective
desires of a person as incoherent aggre­
gations of individual desires, and which
lives by a moral calculus of utilitarian­
ism: the greatest good (with good un­
specified) for the greatest number. He
also tries to identify many of the ills of
modern social life with these assump­
tions and to show that these assump­
tions are unsupportable.
ach of these assumptions is
embodied in Skinner. In Skin­
ner, the separation of reason
and desire is reflected as the
separation of means and ends
ses and rewards). The principle of arbi­
trary desire is reflected as the view that
anything might be a reward, that differ­
ent things will be rewards for different
people, and that we are always in search
of rewards. The principle of analysis is
reflected as the notion of people as
loci for the separate operation of in­
dependent variables, as the attempt to
understand social phenomena in terms
of individual, psychological laws, and
as the attempt to understand individu­
als in terms of component behavioral
processes.
If Unger is right, Skinner is the psy­
chologist of liberalism. If that psy­
chology is suspect, so is the political
theory. I have tried to convince you that
the psychology is suspect. Unger ob­
viously agrees. His solution to the prob­
lems of liberalism lies in a concept of
community: a place of shared values,
and of common striving for the good
which grows out of a culture’s social his­
tory.
Neither Skinnerian psychology nor
liberal political theory has us looking at
our history, looking for community, or
inquiring about value. And in all of
these things they don’t do, they have a
bond with economics. This is the mes­
sage of Karl Polanyi, in a book written
in 1944 to explain the apparent collapse
of Western culture into fascism. Polanyi
says:
“But the peculiarity of the civilization
the collapse of which we have witnessed

E

was precisely that it rested on economic
foundations. Other societies and other
civilizations, too, were limited by the
material conditions of their existence—
this is a common trait of all human life,
indeed, of all life, whether religious or
nonreligious, materialist or spiritualist.
All types of societies are limited by eco­
nomic factors. Nineteenth-century civi­
lization alone was economic in a dif­
ferent and distinctive sense, for it chose
to base itself on a motive only rarely ac­
knowledged as valid in the history of hu­
man societies, and certainly never be­
fore raised to the level of a justification
of action and behavior in everyday life,
namely, gain.
(respon­
“In spite of the chorus of academic in­
cantations so persistent in the nine­
teenth century, gain and profit made on
exchange never before played an im­
portant part in human economy.
“We have good reason to insist on this
point with all the emphasis at our com­
mand. No less a thinker than Adam
Smith suggested that the division of
labor in society was dependent upon the
existence of markets, or, as he put it, up­
on man’s ‘propensity to barter, truck
and exchange one thing for another.’
This phrase was later to yield the con­
cept of the Economic Man. In retrospect
it can be said that no misreading of the
past ever proved more prophetic of the
future. For while up to Adam Smith’s
time that propensity had hardly shown
up on a considerable scale in the life of
any observed community, and had re­
mained, at best, a subordinate feature of
economic life, a hundred years later an
industrial system was in full swing over
the major part of the planet which, prac­
tically and theoretically, implied that
the human race was swayed in all its eco­
nomic activities, if not also in its poli­
tical, intellectual, and spiritual pur­
suits, by that one particular propensity.”
Thus, for Polanyi, Adam Smith’s psy­
chological assumptions about “eco­
nomic man” set the stage for an econom­
ic revolution which made that concep­
tion true. Smith’s conception is exactly
Skinner’s, and as Smith’s ideas contrib­
uted to the emergence of laissez-faire
15

the kinds of analysis of Skinner that
Schuldenfrei and Lacey helped me find
very difficult to apprehend and almost
impossible to seek. As we remain com­
mitted to this conception of human na­
ture, it becomes increasingly difficult to
envision an alternative. For the way we
educate ourselves has an influence on
what we take the proper education to
be. As Unger says:
“One of the criteria for choice among
doctrines of human nature becomes our
moral interest. We are not indifferent to
which of competing views will in fact
turn out to be more true. Our choice of
one view and our commitment to act ac­
Extension to Education at Swarthmore cording to its dictates will affect the
If Skinner is the psychologist of lib­ circumstances for which the view ac­
eral capitalism, if Skinner’s technology counts. This is the sense in which any
represents an extension of the notion of metaphysical or social doctrine has
economic man, with unlimited, unjusti­ something of the character of a self-ful­
fiable, and incoherent desires, into do­ filling prophecy and becomes part of the
mains which had previously been only story it tries to tell. The overt acknowl­
indirectly touched by it, what can this edgement of moral interest that helps
tell us about our own little community, justify the doctrine must in the end be
Swarthmore College? Is Swarthmore an justified by the doctrine itself. The only
individualistic place which views desires escape from this circle lies in accepting
(or ends) as unjustifiable and collective the notion that the theory of human
good as a simple aggregation of individ­ nature must build on a moral vision that
ual goods? We are presently unwilling to partly precedes it but that is constantly
impose upon students, or ourselves, a refined, transformed and vindicated
communal conception of the good—a through the development of the theory.”
So I will end with this question: Is the
core curriculum— which is not just a list
of individual goods (distribution re­ moral vision we want to articulate, re­
quirements). Does Swarthmore accept fine, defend, and build into our social
the split between reason and desire, and educational institutions the one
means and ends? By focusing on disci­ offered by Skinner? If it is not, we have a
plinary education, we certainly are serious responsibility to move the parti­
working to insure the training of reason, cular community to which we all belong
of means. Disciplines teach the tech­ in a direction different from its present
niques for achieving the ends which they one.
seek. But what about the ends them­
selves? The inquiry into ends we leave This article was adapted from a lecture
to chance. We do not examine how such given by Associate Professor Schwartz
ends come to be (by teaching histori­ in the Faculty Lecture Series on campus
cally), we do not examine how the same last spring. Professor Schwartz is chair­
or different ends may be embodied by man of the Department of Psychology.
different disciplines (by teaching across Notes
departments). If human inquiry is 'New York: Free Press, 1953
moving in some direction—if the differ­ 2American Psychologist, 1961, 16, 681-684.
ent disciplines have something essential
in common—it is up to the student to 3Taylor, F. W. Principles o f Scientific Man­
agement. New York: W. W. Norton, 1967.
find it.
What Swarthmore presently offers, it (Originally published in 1911)
seems to me, is not so much a liberal 4Schwartz, B., Schuldenfrei, R. & Lacey, H.
education as the education of liberal­ Behaviorism, 1978, 6, 229-254.
ism. And this reflects a conception of
human nature which is akin to the con­ 5Knowledge and Politics, New York: Free
ception which underlies both Adam Press, 1975.
Smith and B.F. Skinner. It is a concep­ 6The Great Transformation. New York:
tion which people like Unger and Pol­ Rinehart, 1944 (Beacon Press Paperback,
anyi criticize. A commitment to it makes 1957).

capitalism, Skinner’s provide the psy­
chology of laissez-faire capitalism. But
Polanyi’s point is that it is a psychology
which is true because of economic
changes which create people in its own
image. Before the emergence of indus­
trial capitalism, such a psychology
would have been unthinkable.
For Polanyi, what capitalism does is
make a world in which culture must be
reconciled with economy out of one in
which economy is reconciled with cul­
ture. In this new world, and only in this
new world, does Skinnerian psychology
have a home.

16

If you want to talk to Jeanne Gibson
Rollins you have to telephone the
General Store on Monhegan Island in
Maine and leave a message. Jeanne
collects her messages when she does her
shopping, and she can return your call
from the public phone in the store or
from one of the two booths outside.
Mail is delivered to Monhegan by boat
only three times a week.
But Jeanne has adapted to these in­
conveniences and enjoys living year
round on Monhegan, a small island
(winter population: seventy-five) twelve
miles off the coast of Maine. She is the
treasurer of the town. In the summer
months she works as a secretary-recepMARCH, 1981

Winter Days in the Stem
of a Lobster Boat
The job takes her out on treacherous waters and in vicious
weather, but this young alumna rises before the sun and dares to
enjoy her ten-hour-long working days on the M aine seas.
By Jeanne Gibson Rollins ’78

17

tionist at one of the island’s inns; in the
lobster-fishing season (January 1 to
June 25), she works as a sternwoman on
the lobster boat she and her husband
own.
Jeanne spent her childhood sum­
mers around water and has always
loved physical activity and outdoor
work. At Swarthmore she majored in
biology and was a first-class athlete, a
varsity player in hockey, badminton,
and lacrosse—excellent training for her
present life. Work on the boat—tenhour-a-day stints in the coldest and
roughest weather—is extremely stren­
uous and requires tenacity and stamina.
“It is hard, but I really enjoy it,” she
says. “I am sustained, too, by a strong
interest in marine biology. I love to
study birds and all the wild life here.”
How does she spend her time when
not in the boat? “Well, my husband has
three sons, aged 11, 12, and 13, from a
previous marriage; they live with us and
that gives me more than enough to do.
And last fall we built a house. Steve and
I did it all by ourselves. We mixed and
poured all the cement, and even had to
make our own forms.” The house, a
18

y stride is too short and the
gloves are too big. My hands
and feet get cold very quickly
and I need a four-inch wooden
block to help me see out the windshield.
If you saw me walking down the road,
just barely able to see out of my oil­
cloths, you would not identify me as a
big, hardy Maine lobsterman. Rather,
you’d probably pass me off as a back-tonature city slicker overdressed for the
weather. Despite my inappropriate
physical appearance, I spend my winters
as sternwoman on a lobster boat.
My day starts about an hour and a
half before the sun comes up. As Steve
rolls over to get another half hour of
sleep, I crawl out of the warm blankets
and miserably accept the fact that I have
to wake up. Probably what I need at this
time of the day is a cup of hot coffee.
However, fearing the call of nature on
the icy sea with its limited facilities, I
take my misery in utter loneliness.
Nevertheless, when all is squared away,
I can awaken Steve for breakfast. Now
Reprinted with permission from the Decem­ when Steve wakes up, he’s as wide
ber, 1980, issue o/Yankee Magazine. © Yan­ awake as a playful kitten. It is unfor­
tunate that when I bite my lip to protect
kee, Inc., Dublin, New Hampshire.

two-story structure, twenty by thirty
feet, has no running water, electricity,
or telephone service.
The families that remain on Monhegan in the winter are all fishing families.
Like Jeanne, two other young wives on
thè island work alongside their hus­
bands. “When we’re out in the boat,
Steve and I don’t have much oppor­
tunity to talk; and when we do, it is
usually about the demands of the job.”
In the little spare time she has, Jeanne
keeps busy with knitting, embroidery,
reading, baking, and frequently takes
long hikes around the uninhabited parts
of the island. Since settling on Monhegan, she has begun writing seriously,
mainly about nature. “I have discovered
that there is less distraction if you live
without electricity,” she says. “We have
kerosene lamps, and I find that, by their
limited light, I can relax and concentrate.”
The following is Jeanne’s account of a
typical winter day in the stern of the
Rollins boat, “My Three Sons.”

M

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Safety home in Monhegan harbor, Steve and Jeanne Rollins relax
and enjoy the sunset at the close o f a working day.

myself, Steve interprets it as a smile.
Breakfast is inhaled while I’m still
pouring his coffee, which he drinks as he
pulls on his boots. His accelerated pace
helps me to forget the biting cold that
awaits me outside the door. I finish
putting on my six or seven layers of
clothes and then stiffly follow Steve.
The cold always hits me with an unan­
ticipated shock. When there is a fresh
snowfall on the ground I follow Steve’s
path to conserve my own energy.
Down at the beach there are usually
others getting ready to go out. It is still
dark, but the sun will provide some light
and an effort at some heat before long.
If there is a surf at the beach I watch the
different styles of launching the skiffs. It
usually takes careful timing, a push
followed by a quick leap and a scrambl­
ing for the oars. Steve rows while I try to
sit as still as possible among the tubs of
bait. I shiver as I watch our boat, “My
Three Sons,” bobbing heavily on the
mooring, weighted down by the ice and
snow accumulated overnight.
Preparing to go out is just a matter of
setting up the bait tray while Steve
checks the engine for any remote sign of
weakness that could lead to failure. I
blow my nose, fork the bait into the
tray, and then blow my nose again. At
this point I’m glad that we lobster in the
winter: It saves us the odor of hot bait.
Cold, salted bait causes no trouble as
long as the bait was fresh when it was
salted. With the lobster tank full of
water, the plugs in the cull box, and the
irons baited, I usually get a chance to
blow my nose again before we head out.
I watch with terror as Steve grabs at
the safety line on his way to the bow to
drop the mooring. The deck is often
very icy and treacherous. I’ve worried
many times about how I, weighing less
than half of what Steve weighs, could
ever pull his eighth of a ton (dry weight)
from the water and into the boat if he
fell in.
Hauling the traps is a matter of team­
work. Steve gaffs the buoy and puts it
through the hauler while I pull the warp
to the stern of the boat. The warp is a
well-known danger on any lobster boat
and must be kept well out of the way to
prevent anyone’s getting a foot caught
MARCH, 1981

in it when the trap is reset. As the trap
comes aboard I open it, discard the old
bait, rebait it with a fresh bait bag, and
plug the lobsters that Steve has mea­
sured and put into the cull box. In the
winter, lobsters have to be plugged very
quickly and carefully to protect them
from freezing or shedding a claw. The
air is much colder than the water, so we
have to put the lobsters into the tank as
fast as possible.
Plugging a lobster requires a lot of
respect for the animal. You have to be
firm and let him know who’s boss. It
may sound from this description that I
have no trouble plugging lobsters. In
reality, I do have trouble. First of all,
my outstretched hand measures seven
inches from thumb to little finger,
compared to nine inches for Steve. I
cannot physically hold both lobster
claws in one hand. For this reason, I
must design my own style of plugging.
After much trial and error, I have come
up with a fast but awkward method. As
I grab the big claw with my left hand, I
use the back of my right hand to quickly
pin the other claw against the corner of
the cull box. With the lobster plug
already in my right hand, I pull the big
claw over close enough so that I can
plug it. If the plug breaks I mutter a few
unusual words, let the lobster go, and
start all over again. With the big claw
taken care of, there is no problem in
plugging the smaller one. Meanwhile I
have to keep my eye on the other un­
plugged lobsters in the box; they want
to bite me just as badly as does the one
I’m working on. Frequently I’ll be con­
centrating so hard that I won’t notice
Steve sneaking up from behind to grab
me. This sends a chill right up my spine
as I imagine that a lobster has taken
hold from an unprotected direction.
Steve must get great satisfaction from
hearing my screams of terror when he
does this, for each time he surprises me
just as much as the first time he did it.
The difficulty of finding warm, water­
proof gloves makes plugging lobsters
even harder. Winter gloves that are
made for lobstering are sold in only one
size, men’s extra large. That leaves an
extra two inches of hard glove that
won’t allow me to pick up a lobster plug.

I must experiment with different combi­
nations of gloves. I still haven’t come up
with a completely satisfactory arrange­
ment, although I can get by.
We go through the day in this same
way, hauling as many strings of traps as
we can in the daylight hours—150-200
traps. Darkness sets in very early in the
winter, so most of the fishermen try to
make the best of the daylight by staying
out right up until the sun sets. What a
beautiful feeling it is to come around
Green Point, the northern end of
Monhegan Island, and see the sun
setting low in the western sky. In the
pink light of dusk, other fishing boats
also are finishing up the day’s work and
heading for the harbor. There are
always some seals near Eastern Duck
Rock, either peering out of the surf or
propped up against a rock taking in the
last rays of sunlight. The half-forgotten
chill of the morning wind returns as I
busily wash down the deck and bait tray.
As we come around the wharf and into
the harbor, lights can be seen all around
where many of the fourteen fishing
boats are storing their catch. Steve and I
tie up at the mooring and count our
lobsters as we transfer them gently into
the car. My thoughts drift from the sea
to the kitchen; I begin to list the chores
that need to be attended to.
Back on the mooring I closely watch
Steve pulling the mooring chain over
the bow. It is just as easy for him to fall
overboard in the evening as it is in the
morning. With the boat secured for the
evening, we row ashore with that funny
style of rowing that only fishermen use,
stern first. Others are also at the beach,
where everyone lends a hand at pulling
the skiffs up to the fishhouses. From
here, we go off for a drink and a little
socializing with friends. At other times
Steve takes a big stretch and says, “Well,
dear, I think I’ll stop in at the fishhouse
for a few minutes.” I smile, knowing full
well that Steve is going to help finish off
a six-pack or have a touch of rum, and
that supper will sit in the oven until he
gets home. It doesn’t bother me. After I
get my chores done I’ve got plenty of
good books to read and a lot of work
left on my needlepoint. Besides, it feels
“some good” to be going home.
19

TEACHING
PUBLIC POLICY:
IN THE CLASSROOM
AND ON THE JOB
When you take two experts in different subjects, add a room ful
o f bright students with ideas o f their own, and confront
them all with a thorny problem, you are going to have lots
o f discussion, and even a full-blow n argument now and then.
Gus McLeavy ’73
• With the needs of present and future
energy technology in mind, what is the
most efficient way of expending oil
windfall profits on the development of
synthetic fuels?
• Once those means have been deter­
mined, what distribution of funds and
what kinds of programs for synthetic
fuels are politically feasible!
• What groups stand to gain or lose by
each alternative policy decision, and
how and by whom will these decisions
be carried out?
Problems like these, which seem
worthy of cabinet-level consideration,
are standard fare for students in
Swarthmore’s new Public Policy con­
centration.* This concentration enables
undergraduates to combine work in
several departments so that they may
gain critical understanding of, and some
practical competence in, issues of public
policy, including its formulation, imple­
mentation, and evaluation. The depart­
ments centrally concerned with the
concentration are economics, engineer­
ing, and political science, but the pro­
gram is not limited to these disciplines.
The idea of creating an undergrad­
uate concentration in public policy was
conceived by Charles Gilbert, professor
of political science, about a decade ago.
*A concentration is a formal interdisci­
plinary program of study which is recog­
nized as an addition to, or extension of,
a regular major.
20

At that time, the College’s fledgling additional funds which were used to
Center for Social and Policy Studies help make transitional faculty appoint­
was just getting under way. The Center, ments and begin work on the public
closely related to the College computer policy curriculum. In 1977 additional
facility, was designed to integrate funding was secured from the Sloan
appropriate offerings of the social and Foundation which assured continuation
natural sciences, engineering, and of the program until 1982.
In 1979 the College appointed
mathematics, and to give students a
firm base in the practical aspects of Richard Rubiti, associate professor of
governmental and business operations political science and public.policy, to
as well as the traditional theoretical coordinate the program. A graduate of
background. In the early seventies, the Brown University, Rubin spent eight
Center was badly in need of computer years as a business entrepreneur “resur­
equipment which would provide lab­ recting” (as he puts it) a West Virginia
oratory capability for quantitative work textile mill and four years as the director
in the social sciences. It was Gilbert’s of planning and research for a major
contention that, once the necessary public corporation before retiring from
hardware was on hand, it could be put business in 1968 to pursue his graduate
to best advantage through a program of studies. He holds a master’s and a Ph.D.
in political science from Columbia, and
studies in social and policy issues.
The equipment was secured in 1972 he has been teaching since 1973.
Rubin cites several reasons for his
through a College Science Improvement
Grant from the National Science Foun­ enthusiasm about the program. First he
dation. The grant provided also some mentions the high level of interest on the
part of the students involved. “For the
energy seminar last year we had thirtyublic policies are the legislative or seven students sign up—an unheard-of
number for a seminar. We couldn’t
administrative decisions made by
enroll them all, so we made special
government to deal with specific
arrangements to repeat it in the fall.” He
social, economic, or national security
points out also that, although the pro­
problems. The study o f public policy
gram is still relatively new, it is already
involves analysis o f the actual choices,
an enormously popular concentration,
the governmental and non-govern­
with more than twenty students actively
mentalfactors influencing those
concentrating in it.
decisions, and an assessment o f their
A less expected but equally welcome
impact on the problems.
aspect of the program has been tre-

P

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

mendous faculty response. Rubin at­
tributes this in part to faculty interest in
public policy and in part to the oppor­
tunity for professors to teach a course or
courses with colleagues from other dis­
ciplines. “A professor is basically a
specialist in a certain field,” he notes,
“and because of his particular training
and experience, any given professor will
tend to go about solving a problem in a
certain way. When you take two experts
in different areas, such as economics
and political science, for example, add a
roomful of bright students with ideas of
their own, and then confront them all
with a thorny problem, you’re going to
have lots of discussion and even a full­
blown argument now and then. It’s this
creative tension among various ideas,
methods, and proposals which is the
basis for effective analysis of problems
and solid public policy decisions in the
real world.”
Rubin finds that professors are keen
to draw on their experience and exper­
tise as business and government con­
sultants in this process, thus giving the
concentration courses an added dimen­
sion. “A student learns to look at things
from a number of different perspectives.
I think the concentration appeals to
both students and teachers because it
gives them a chance to apply a variety of
analytical techniques to a real situation.”
Last summer seven Swarthmore stu­
dents embarked on the first internships
in public policy. (The internships are an
academic requirement of the concentra­
tion.) Five of them went directly to the
heart of the beast—Washington, D.C.;
one was involved with the San Francisco
Waste Water Program; and one com­
piled a survey of consumer attitudes
about gasoline conservation.
Jane Obee ’81 has an ambitious aca­
demic program. In addition to her con­
centration in public policy, she will
complete a double major in engineering
and political science in the spring. Last
summer she worked in the engineering
firm of DHR, Inc., in the Georgetown
section of Washington, D.C.
Jane was no stranger to Washington
or to the government. Her previous two
summers had been spent working in the
research and development section of the
Department of Defense, and during
spring vacation in 1980 she served as an
extern with the Senate Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources (under
the sponsorship of Dr. Benjamin S.
Cooper ’63). Her efforts were rewarded
recently when a paper she wrote on the
MARCH, 1981

effects of radiation on humans was used
as a part of the testimony in a legislative
session concerning nuclear wastes.
At DHR, which is primarily an alter­
native energy consulting group, her
major responsibility was to work with
the Argonne National Laboratory in
Chicago through the Department of
Energy, studying the feasibility of early
commercialization of the gas turbine
engine for automotive application. She
also gathered data on the impact of
potential standardization of wind
energy conversion systems.
“My work took me all over Washing­
ton—to the Urban Mass Transit Asso­
ciation of the Department of Transpor­
tation, the Department of Energy, the
Bio-Energy Commission, the American
Public Transport Association, to Con­
gress—just to name a few.” She found
also that her prior experience in the
Department of Defense and her work
for Dr. Cooper opened doors which
might otherwise have remained closed
to her.

Professor Richard Rubin, front and center, with the students who worked as Public Policy
interns last summer. Clockwise around Professor Rubin are: Jane Obee ’81, William Sailer
’82, Sharon Roseman ’81, and Lisa King ’81. (Steven K argm an’82 was unable to attend.)
21

Jane is quick to give her professors
high marks for their flexibility. She
mentions that she has been able to sub­
stitute a course in civil engineering as
well as a graduate-level course in the
legal aspects of engineering problems,
both at the University of Pennsylvania,
for two parts of the core curriculum of
the public policy concentration. This,
she feels, is an example of the program’s
ability to respond to a student’s par­
ticular academic interests.
Sharon Roseman ’81 spent the
summer in the Washington Relations
Office of Philip Morris, Inc., “whose
job it is,” she says, “to serve as a liaison
between business and government and
to monitor all bills which could in some
way affect any Philip Morris-owned
corporations.” The energy seminar she
took last spring provided background
which was helpful in her internship.
When her supervisor learned of the
course, he assigned her to cover various
energy-related hearings on Capitol Hill,
including those on solar energy, gas
rationing, and synfuels. “I quickly
realized the value of the energy seminar.
It provided me with the information I
needed to understand what was going
on in Congress. And watching what I’d
learned in class actually being applied
increased my interest. Books can give
you facts, but they don’t show you the
tone of voice which Congressmen and
Senators use to intimidate and pressure
each other in an effort to secure passage
of their bills. In Washington, I’ve been
able to see not only the results of policy,
but also the processes under which
policy is made.”
William B. Sailer ’82 worked as an
intern in the office of Steven B. Hitchner, Jr., ’67, in the criminal division of
the Department of Justice. Hitchner is
the first director of the Office of Policy
and Management Analysis of that
office. Sailer’s work focused on three
projects: a white collar crime sentencing
study, federal government fraud, and
the Southwest Asia heroin smuggling
problem. Sailer, too, has positive feel­
ings about his experiences.
“My internship was educational,
interesting, and enjoyable. Although I
didn’t handle the real “meat” of policy
analysis, I was always kept busy with
work that was challenging and interest­
ing. Also, I learned a lot just by talking
with the people in my office about their
work, the government, and career and
educational opportunities. Although
22

was given independent projects that
required ingenuity and creativity on my
part. I gained a basic understanding of
the issues and obstacles involved in
implementing large-scale urban con­
struction projects, and I got a chance to
see the inner workings of city govern­
ment. What made the job so important
to me was that I learned by direct par­
ticipation. The subtle techniques of
dealing with people effectively, present­
ing ideas convincingly, and working
within a bureaucratic structure towards
a common goal are more easily learned
on a job than in a classroom.”
Steven Kargman ’82 interned in the
office of Senator Edward Kennedy last
summer. In the energy and anti-trust
offices of the Senate Judiciary Com­
mittee, chaired by Kennedy, Steve
worked on a critique of two administra­
tion investigations into last year’s gaso­
line shortages. Finding that the official
reports of those studies were deficient
concerning a number of specific as­
sumptions and conclusions, he helped
draft letters addressing those points to
lumni in positions to provide the attorney general and the secretary of
internships for a Swarthmore energy. He also drafted other legislative
k.student in the public policy correspondence with Senator Kennedy’s
concentration are invited to contact
colleagues, conducted staff analyses of
Associate Professor Richard Rubin in major issues, helped launch a General
the Department of Political Science at Accounting Office investigation, and
the College. Interesting internships are briefed reporters on staff findings.
paramount to the success of this pro­
Like the other interns, Steve was
gram, and they are difficult to find. pleased with his experiences in Wash­
Appointments are typically for two ington. “I enjoyed the judiciary intern­
months during the summer, should ship enormously. It afforded me an
provide adequate financial support for opportunity to work on interesting
the student to be self-sufficient (in some policy issues, to deal with a highcases, subsidy funds from the College powered and dynamic staff.”
may be available), and should, of course,
Concerning the program’s future at
relate to public policy concerns.
Swarthmore, Professor Rubin is enthu­
siastic but cautiously optimistic. “I’m
extremely pleased with the response
A reminder: The public policy concen­ we’ve received from everyone involved
tration internship program should not with the intern project, but I don’t know
be confused with the Extern Program that we want to make long-range plans
offered by the Office of Career Planning on the basis of one year’s experience.
and Placement. The Extern Program Further, although we do have Sloan
gives undergraduates an unpaid taste of Foundation support through 1982, we
one of many occupations during spring cannot be sure that it will be continued,
vacation, while the internship program and we’re undoubtedly going to have to
is an academic requirement for public find additional sources of funding.
policy concentrators.
Stimulating, substantive internships
Alumni who would like to sponsor a also are going to be hard to secure every
student for the week-long spring Extern year, so alumni support in this area will
Program in early March each year are be critical. The public policy concentra­
invited to contact the College’s Office of tion has exceeded what I feel were great
Career Planning and Placement at expectations for a first-year program,
215-447-7352.
but the next two or three years are
crucial to its future.”

I’m not sure I want to do this for the rest
of my life, policy analysis has given me
perspective and analytical capability
that will be useful in any discipline.
Elizabeth King ’81 went to the West
Coast for her field experience. With the
assistance of Carola Sullam ’72, she
joined the staff of the San Francisco
Waste Water Program at the invitation
of the manager of the Government and
Public Affairs Division in the program.
A coalition of engineering firms and
government agencies, the project is
controversial because of the enormous
cost involved in modifying and improv­
ing the city’s sewer systems to reduce
pollution of the Bay and the Pacific
Ocean. Lisa’s duties were oriented
toward public relations, obtaining
citizen support and approval for the
system, and handling some of the
official paperwork.
“The rewards of this internship were
beyond my expectations,” says King. “I

A

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Board o f M anagers elects three new members from the fields o f
education, m edicine, and the law
At its December meeting, the Board of
Managers elected Sara Lawrence Lightfoot ’66 as a new manager and Joann
Bodurtha ’74 and James M. Dolliver’49
as alumni managers.
Sara Lightfoot, a professor at the
Harvard University Graduate School of
Education, replaces Clark Kerr’32, who
has been a member of the Board since
1969 and now assumes the rank of
emeritus manager. Ms. Lightfoot grad­
uated with a B.A. in psychology, com­
pleted her master’s work at the Bank
Street College of Education in New
York, and received her Ph.D. from
Harvard in 1972. She has done research
and worked at the Albert Einstein
School of Medicine and Psychiatry in
New York City; at Harlem Hospital, on
the battered child; and at Letchworth

Village, as a music therapist for severely
disturbed children.
The new Manager served on the
editorial board of the Harvard Educa­
tional Review, was a Fellow of the
Metropolitan Applied Research Center,
a Faculty Fellow of the Radcliffe Insti­
tute, a Research Associate for the
W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for AfroAmerican Research at Harvard, and,
last summer, a Brown Fellow at the
Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies,
attending a seminar on Justice and
Society convened by Supreme Court
Justice Harry Blackman.
Joann Bodurtha was graduated from
Swarthmore College with the Flack
Award (presented at the end of the first
two years to a student who demonstrates
a record of achievement in both aca­

demic and extracurricular activities
while showing leadership potential),
and the Oak Leaf Award, given to the
outstanding woman graduate at Com­
mencement. She held a Lucretia Mott
Fellowship from Swarthmore while
attending Yale University School of
Medicine and was a special research
scholar on a Luce fellowship at the
Nagasaki University School of Medi­
cine in Japan in 1976-77. She received
her M.D. and her Master’s in Public
Health degrees from Yale with honors
in 1979 and began her residency at
Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia the
same year.
Washington State Supreme Court
Justice James M. Dolliver received his
law degree from University of Wash­
ington and has spent most of his career

Sara Lawrence Lightfoot ’66

Joann Bodurtha ’74

James M. Dolliver ’49

MARCH, 1981

23

in government. He was chief assistant to
a United States Representative before
he became administrative assistant to
Governor David J. Evans, a position he
filled with such efficiency that he came
to be known as the “second Governor of
Washington.” He has been a trustee of
the University of Washington Institute
for Environmental Studies, of the
Thurston Youth Services Society, of his
community mental health center, and
of the Nature Conservancy, which he
served as vice-president. He was a
trustee also of the University of Puget
Sound and has been active on the board
of the United Methodist Church.

Swarthmore’s newest gallery:
M cCabe Library
With its rich scarlet carpeting and
rough-textured stone walls, the central
lobby of McCabe Library is an appeal­
ing open space, and one that is visited
daily by a majority of the College com­
munity. From the time the library was
built, many College organizations have
wanted to use this area for displays and
exhibitions but were frustrated by in­
adequate lighting and a lack of any kind
of display case or cabinet.
In 1978, with the aid of a grant from

the William Penn Foundation, the
library was able to install a modern elec­
tronic security system and movable lights
mounted on tracks set in the ceiling, and
purchase a group of handsome display
cases and plexiglass picture frames.
Since then, the library has presented a
continuing series of public exhibitions,
covering a variety of subjects and
literary and other art forms. The Asso­
ciates of the Swarthmore College Li­
braries have sponsored or co-sponsored
several of these, including an exhibition
of works by the British calligrapher Leo
Wyatt, a show of literary portraits by
Sidney Chafetz, netsuke from the per­
sonal collection of Sewell Hodge ’16,
and “American Images,” documentary
photographs from 1935 to 1942, by the
Farm Security Administration.
In most instances, the opening of
each show has featured a lecture by the
author, artist, or collector concerned.
One such was author Don Mitchell ’69,
who described the life he and his wife,
Cheryl Warfield ’71, share on a
Vermont sheep farm, in connection
with an exhibit of the illustrations from
his book, Souls o f Lambs. Constance
Cain Hungerford, assistant professor of
art history, spoke at the opening of an
exhibition entitled “The Art of the

Jewelry, ceramics, and prints on display during a recent exhibition in McCabe Library.
24

Book, France: The Wood Engraving
Revival of the 1830’s and 1840’s.”
In December undergraduate David
Boltson ’82 spoke at McCabe on the
topic of collecting comic art to intro­
duce a display of his own collection of
European and American comic books,
posters, and original works. Boltson,
the first student to exhibit at the library,
is a psychology major, science fiction
enthusiast, and former street magician.
He is knowledgeable about Greek and
Roman myths, is fond of electronic
games (describing himself as the best
“Asteroid” player on campus), and
would like to be a political cartoonist.
His advice on how to become a collector
is simple: “Never throw anything away.”
The first show for 1981 was a visually
stunning multi-media exhibit of work
by four local craftswomen who are the
spouses of present or retired faculty
members: ceramicist Doris Avery,
jewelry maker Barbara Elmore, weaver
Tokiko Kitao, and printmaker Josie
Wright.
Shows now being planned for the
future include an exhibition of manu­
scripts from Covenant by James A.
Michener ’29, political cartoons, and
photographs by D. Bruce Cratsley ’66
and Rockwell Kent.

D avid Boltson ’82 exhibits his comic art.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

The mystery o f D r. Martin’s Pole lima bean:
Swarthmore’s ow n horticultural conundrum
Who developed Dr. Martin’s pole lima
bean? Was it Edward Martin, the
Swarthmore alumnus for whom the bio­
logical laboratory was named? Or did
Harold Martin, a dentist from West
Chester, discover the bean in southern
New Jersey and claim it as his own? We
may never know.
Several Swarthmore alumni support
the Edward Martin Claim. Mary Pat­
terson ’28 sent the Alumni Office an
article from the Philadelphia Bulletin,
which mentioned the Dr. Martin lima,
and Sarah Pratt Brock ’27 believes that
he was “the man who invented the lima
bean.” Dr. J. Allyn Rogers ’15 used to
raise the beans in his garden, and Esther
Baldwin ’09 remembers that they grew
so high that they could be picked from
Dr. Rogers’ second story window.
There is indeed a strain of lima bean
known as “Dr. Martin’s pole lima
bean.” Mary Patterson has seen it
growing in Westtown, and Michael
Hooey raises the bean in Media.
According to Mr. Hooey, the bean is a
cross between the Burpee Pole bean and
another bean; it is larger than the
Burpee bean and has a softer skin than
most limas. Vegetable expert Albert C.
Burrage once said that the bean had
“wonderful, superb . . . exceptionally
large beans of excellent flavor.”
Swarthmore resident Fred Wilson
also grows the Dr. Martin lima, but he
tells a different story about its origins.
He heard that the bean originated with
Harold Martin, a dentist. This Dr.
Martin bought some limas on a trip
home from the shore and was so taken
by them that he began to grow them
himself. Eventually he marketed the
strain that he was growing.
Mary Lou Dutton Wolfe ’46, li­
brarian of the Pennsylvania Horticul­
tural Society, searched the Society’s
records, but could discover nothing
conclusive. The W. Atlee Burpee Com­
pany, Temple University’s Department
of Horticulture, and the Albert Mann
Library at Cornell University could tell
us only what they had heard from John
Gyer, who now sells the seeds for the
elusive bean from Fern Hill Farm in
Clarksboro, New Jersey.
Mr. Gyer is of the Harold Martin
Faction. He writes that Dr. Martin was
a dental surgeon who discovered a spe­

cial lima growing at his Cape May
summer home about fifty years ago. He
passed it on to a Mr. Lucas who sold the
seeds until 1972. The seed was adver­
tised in the Hosea Waterer Catalogue in
1942 and in the Howard French Cata­
logue until French’s closed in 1972. It
then passed to Fern Hill Farm.
However, Mr. Gyer does not exclude
the possibility that Edward Martin had
a role in the bean’s beginnings. He
writes: “From the date you quote for Dr.
Edward Martin’s graduation, we think
that Dr. Harold Martin may have been
his son. We do not know for sure
whether it was Edward or Harold who
first started growing this variety.”
(There are no references to children in
Edward Martin’s file in the College’s
Alumni Records Office.)
The College has no records of Edward
Happy Birthday to Everett H unt
Martin as a developer of limas. He
graduated from Swarthmore in 1878. Homecoming Day on October 18, 1980,
He returned to teach chemistry and was enlivened by aparty to celebrate the
physics for two years before taking his 90th birthday o f Dean Emeritus Everett
M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. L. Hunt. Mr. Hunt taught English
During a long career of teaching and literature at Swarthmore for thirty-four
practicing medicine, Dr. Martin re­ years until his retirement in 1959.
mained close to the College. He served During that time he served also as
on the Board of Managers from 1892 acting dean o f men and as dean o f men
until his death in 1938 and received an (1932-39) and from 1939 as dean o f the
honorary Doctor of Science degree College. Over 150 friends and former
students gathered in the lobby o f Lang
from Swarthmore in 1920.
The biological laboratory was built in Music building to wish Mr. Hunt many
1937. It was the gift of Fred M. Kirby happy returns o f the day, to hear
but named, at his request, in honor of speeches and sing songs in his honor,
his life-long friend, Edward Martin. The and to applaud as he blew out the ninety
Crum-Martin Woods, an area above candles on his cake.
Memorial Bridge on Baltimore Pike
which is now part of Smedley Park, was
D on’t call us. . . .
given to the College by Dr. Martin be­
College Registrar Jane Hooper
cause he knew the College would pre­
Mullins ’50 reminds alumni that
vent further ecological damage to the
federal regulations (and College
creek valley. Dr. John C. Wister, Hon.
policy) require that a written,
’42 and director emeritus of the Scott
signed request be sent to the
Horticultural Foundation, points out
Registrar’s Office before any tran­
that this may reflect a concern with
scripts will be mailed out. Tele­
horticulture, thus supporting the lima
phone requests for transcripts can­
bean claim.
not be accepted under any circum­
Thus far, all research has failed to
stances.
settle satisfactorily the matter of the true
Jane Mullins notes, too, that it
origins of the bean. The Case of the Dr.
would be helpful to her staff if
Martin Pole Lima Bean remains open,
alumni did not wait until the last
perhaps never to be closed.
minute to make their requests.
The charge for transcripts is two
dollars per copy.

25
MARCH, 1981

“A scholarly homecoming”:
President Friend in the
Philippines
Last summer, at the invitation of the
American Embassy and the United
States Information and Communica­
tions Agency, President Theodore
Friend traveled to the Republic of the
Philippines to take part in a seminar
held on the general topic of neo­
colonialism. He was invited chiefly to
discuss “Philippine-American Rela­
tions: Questions of History and the
Future” with three dozen leading young
Filipinos from government, business,
journalism, and the universities.
For Mr. Friend, the journey had nos­
talgic overtones. In 1957-59 and again
in 1967-68 he lived and worked in the
Philippines, first as a Fulbright Fellow
and later as a Guggenheim Foundation
Fellow. His doctoral dissertation for
Yale University had been written on the
politics and strategy of Philippine inde­
pendence. Out of his later researches
and experiences came the book Between
Two Empires which in 1966 won for him
the American Historical Association’s
Bancroft Prize “for the best volume of
the year past on American History,
Diplomacy, and Foreign Relations.”
President Friend also spoke at the
University of the Philippines, at a tech­
nical institute in Batangas Province, at
the Ayala Museum—a private institu­
tion devoted to cultural history—and at
De La Salle University during the
course of a crowded week.
At the conclusion of his visit, the Fund
for the Advancement of Higher Educa-

r

A search
for yesterday

Friends Historical Library honors
Swarthmore reunion classes with a
special exhibit of pictures, banners,
and programs on Alumni Day.
Alumni are asked to search their attics
and files for appropriate items to
enliven this display. It would be
appreciated if pictures could be iden­
tified and sent to the library well in
advance of Alumni Day. Friends His­
torical Library is delighted to display
them and will return them shortly
after Alumni Day, though gifts to the
College archives are welcomed most
A warmly.

26

tion sponsored a special meeting of
sixty leading Filipino educators on the
topic “Higher Education in the Year
2001,” at which Mr. Friend spoke on
American possibilities, projections, and
hopes.
His advocacy of continued “incre­
mental disengagement” of America
from the Philippines helped stimulate
vigorous discussions, Friend said. The
field of Philippine-American relations,
which had relatively few practitioners
twenty-five years ago, now engenders
large conferences on both sides of the
Pacific.
“I was happy to see my book on the
decolonization of the Philippines still in
print and still in use,” Friend reported
on his return. “I was pleased as well to
be heavily scheduled—even over-sched­
uled—by those who remembered me
and wanted to talk about history and
the future of Philippine-American rela­
tions. It was a brief, intensive kind of
scholarly homecoming, and I really
enjoyed it. I am grateful to the U.S.
Embassy and the USICA for providing
the opportunity.”

Thoroughly modern Martin:
An old friend gets a face lift
Slightly obscured in the dust raised by
construction of a new dormitory and a
new swimming pool, renovations to
Martin Biological Laboratory have
been proceeding quietly since the
beginning of last summer.
Least visible, but most important, of
the improvements was the replacement
of the roof. In addition, renovations in­
cluded creation of a new marine biology
laboratory and associated teaching lab
and a new animal behavior office with
research and teaching lab. Several new
offices were constructed and the lan­
guage laboratory was relocated from
the third floor of Hicks. A new fire
alarm system and emergency lighting
were installed along with equipment
hook-ups, partitions, doors, dropped
ceilings, and appropriate furniture.
These renovations constituted Phase
I of the modernization of Martin. Seven
foundations and charitable trusts con­
tributed a total of $238,000 toward this
work. They were: the Surdna Founda­
tion, the Arthur Vining Davis Founda­
tions, the Pew Memorial Trust, the
Merck Company Foundation, the
Albert Beekhuis Foundation, the Alexis
Rosenberg Trust, the Amoco Founda­

A workm an installs a new ceiling as part o f
the m odernization o f M artin laboratories.

tion, and the Helen D. Groome Beatty
Trust.
The College is now seeking approxi­
mately $525,000 to implement Phase II
of the work on Martin, which will in­
clude renovation of the greenhouse and
of the Religion Department offices
(relocated in Martin from Parrish
Annex), completion of the biology
laboratory renovations, improvements
to the large lecture hall, new lighting
and acoustical equipment, and repairs
to corridors and stairs.
Modernization of Martin takes
Swarthmore part way along the road to
updating its facilities and follows the
renovation of Hicks and remodeling of
Papazian (formerly Bartol). A study re­
cently completed by Educational Fa­
cilities Consultants indicates that, in
addition to other planned renovation
projects, a program to complete repairs
on campus alone will cost $6,348,000
over five years.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

In this issue:
1

Skellig Michael
By Katharine Scherman Rosin ’38

5

Collegiate Governance:
Is It Organized Anarchy?
By John W. Nason, Hon. ’53

8

Sites to Behold

12

In Pursuit of B. F. Skinner
By Barry Schwartz

17

Winter Days in the Stern
o f a Lobster Boat
By Jeanne Gibson Rollins ’78

20

Teaching Public Policy:
In the Classroom and on
the Job
By Gus McLeavy ’73

23

The College

27

Class Notes

48

Parrish the Thought

Editor: Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Managing Editor: Nancy Smith
Assistant Editor: Kathryn Bassett ’35
Editorial Assistant: Ann D. Geer
Designer: Bob Wood
Photo credits: Cover, pp. 1-2,
Katharine Scherman Rosin ’38; pp.
8-11, Drew Vaden ’80 (p. 10, bottom
right, Scott Cowger ’82); pp. 17-18,
Carole Allen; pp. 21, 23 (bottom
right), 24-26, Martin Natvig.

Th e Bulletin Board
Aluippi
Weehepd
Jupe 5-6
Alumni Weekend is the time and the
place to sit and have your talk out, to
paraphrase Dr. Johnson’s observation
of London clubs.
When the talk slows, catch a
concert, play a sport, hear a faculty
lecture.
You will receive a complete
schedule and a reservation form in
early April.

F or th e tim e off
y o u r life in Ireland
and th e Islan d
W orld off B ritain
J u n e 8 to J u n e 23
You are invited aboard Swarthmore’s
second private voyage on the yacht
“Argonaut” to fascinating islands of
Britain, remote highlands of Scotland,
and western reaches of Wales, all in
their finest season. From June 8 to
June 15, there will be a Prelude in
Ireland. Professor Helen North has
shaped these itineraries for Swarthmoreans and will accompany the
group.
A few attractive accommodations
are available still in each category.
Write to the Alumni Office for a
brochure.

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There are compelling reasons...
The Program for Swarthmore, a campaign to raise
$30,500,000 by December 31,1981, will likely be
brought to a successful close on June 30, six
months ahead of schedule.
But if the College is to outdistance spiraling
inflation, there are compelling reasons why the
campaign must end ahead in goal too.
Many alumni have fulfilled their commitment to
The Program for Swarthmore. Have you? Alumni
support makes the difference in keeping Swarth­
more in the top rank of America’s liberal arts
institutions.