Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1991-11-01

ctavius “Tave” and Ethel Holland

■

were honored during halftime
of the Fall Weekend football game
in October on Tave’s retirement after 50

years at the College. He joined the
maintenance crew in 1941 and ten years
later became equipment manager in
the Physical Education Department, where
he befriended thousands of Swarthmore
athletes throughout the decades.

SWARTHMORE
COLLEGE BULLETIN • NOVEMBER 1991

2 The Real Game Is Life
At many colleges football is a way o f life for the players. At
Swarthmore it is merely part o f their lives. No big stadium,
no TV contract, no pro scouts here. Come along to last
November’s Swarthmore-Oberlin game and find out more.
Photographs by Jam es Drake

6 It’s Reality Day in the Neighborhood
Sam Newbury ’67 is amused by childrens’ reactions when
they meet the real-life Mr. Rogers on the set o f his show. How
can he be both in the TV studio and on their sets at home?
A s Rogers’ producer, it’s a question Newbury takes seriously.
By Rebecca Aim

10 Legacy of an Oil Spill

Editor:
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Managing Editor:
Jeffrey Lott
Assistant Managing Editor:
Kate Downing
Class Notes and Copy Editors:
Rebecca Aim
Nancy Lehman ’87
Desktop Publishing Assistant:
Audree Penner
Designer:
Bob Wood
Cover: Anne Pacsu Wieland ’56
removes oil from the beach at
Mars Cove on Alaska’s Kenai
Peninsula. Her account of the
aftermath of the Exxon Valdez
oil spill begins on page 10.
Photograph by Doug Loshbaugh.
Printed on Recycled Paper
The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN
0888-2126), o f which this is volume
LXXXIX, number 3, is published in
September, October, November, Febru­
ary, May, and August by Swarthmore
College, 500 College Avenue, Swarth­
more, PA 19081-1397. Second class
postage paid at Swarthmore, PA and
additional mailing offices. Postmaster:
Send address changes to Swarthmore
College Bulletin, 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397.

011 from the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 fouled thousands of
miles o f Alaska coastline. It also changed the lives o f people
who came from across the globe to help with the cleanup.
Anne Pacsu Wieland ’56 is one who won’t forget this disaster.
By Anne Pacsu W ieland ’56

16 AIDS Drugs: Sooner or Later
What the AIDS drug controversy comes down to in the end
is judgment. Dr. Ellen Cooper ’72 says that the FDA is in the
best position to make decisions about the safety and effective­
ness o f new AIDS drugs. Dr. John Whyte ’74 isn’t so sure,
By Jeffrey Lott

22 Theater, Not Therapy
It’s not theater for the blind, it’s Theater By The Blind—a
theater company that presents blind, visually-impaired, and
sighted actors in serious Off-Off-Broadway shows. Ike
Schambelan ’61, who is sighted, directs this innovative troupe.
By Ann Gavin ffolliott ’76

Departments
26
30
34
40
58

The College
Letters
Class Notes
Deaths
Recent Books by Alumni

REAL
GAME
IS
LIFE

There are more than 1,000 colleges and univer­
sities in the United States that play intercolle­
giate football. Some, like Notre Dame, have
big-money contracts with major T V networks.
Others, like Swarthmore, are lucky to have a
game broadcast on tape-delay over the local
cable station. Some offer prospective students
the chance to play before huge audiences, to
catch the eye o f the pro scouts, and— in a few
cases— to receive under-the-table payments.
Swarthmore offers the chance to receive a qual­
ity education and, as long as it doesn’t interfere
with that goal, the opportunity to play competi­
tive small-college football.
In many colleges football is a way o f life for
the players; at Swarthmore it is merely a part o f
their lives. There are .days when the Garnet

I

t was cold and rainy on November 10,
1990, when Swarthmore met Oberlin at
Clothier Field. The crowd was small, but
as one player said, "We don't play foot­
ball for the crowds here. We play it for
ourselves and for the love of the game.”

by Troy Engle
photographs by James Drake

O

berlin scored first on a
long run, then kicked
an extra point. The Garnet
answered with a quick
touchdown scored by
quarterback Chip Chevalier
’93 (#22, above) but failed
in a two-point attempt. The
first quarter ended with
Swarthmore behind 7 -6 .
Neither team scored again
until the clock was running
out. “It was a tremendous­
ly gritty game,” says Coach
Karl Miran, “one of those
days when the elements
really played a role.”

REAL
GAME
IS
LIFE

G

arnet Head Coach Karl Miran
(Middlebury ’77) calls the plays.

4

takes the field with only a skeleton team due
to class or lab conflicts— the coaches and
players make do.
“For our players,” says Head Coach Karl
Miran, “ football is one o f many activities
and priorities in their lives.” And many of
the coaches come from the same background
themselves. Not many college coaching
staffs can boast o f two lawyers among their
ranks, or two coaches who have coached
“ American football” in Europe, or coaches
who are as much at ease discussing literature
as the “wing t ” offense.
But then again, for most Swarthmoreans
football is but an avocation. The real game
is life.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

W

ith just eight seconds
remaining, Jeff Johm
son ’93 kicked a 22-yard
field goal into a driving
rain, winning the game for
Swarthmore, 9 -7 . As he
left the field, muddy, smil­
ing Ed Nangle ’92 (below),
wasn't dreaming of a
career in pro football. The
Academic All-American
offensive guard is headed
for law school. "We hope
to prepare them for life
beyond football,” says
Coach Miran.

It’s Reality Day
in the Neighborhood
On the set of Mr. Rogers’
Neighborhood, the line
between fantasy and
reality is carefully drawn

Upstairs, Sam Newbury ’67, direc­
tor of production for Family Commu­
nications, Rogers’ production compa­
ny, works in a small office filled with
boxes of books and videotapes, field­
ing phone calls, talking to people, and
thinking about what's going on down­
t’s a Friday morning in June, and stairs. “It’s always interesting to see
it’s one of the few weeks that Mis­ young children in the television stu­
ter Rogers’ Neighborhood is taping dio,” he muses, speaking mildly as is
at the building belonging to WQED,his custom. “It’s so confusing for them
Pittsburgh’s public television station. to see a live person, the same charac­
The studio is dow nstairs, a large, ter they see at home—it just doesn’t
high-ceilinged room where the Neigh­ compute at all.” He likes to tell the
borhood of Make-Believe is set up, story of the young boy who met Fred
looking m uch sm aller than y o u ’d Rogers and, after looking him over
im agine it. A few rows of folding carefully, said, “How did you get out?”
chairs have been set up behind the Even after Rogers explained about
cameras and monitors, and 20 or so television, comparing it to a photo­
people, parents and children, gather graph of a real person, the boy
around. Parents excitedly point to couldn’t leave without asking, “But
familiar places, like King Friday XIII’s how will you get back in?”
castle, while the children mostly gape
For Fred Rogers and his staff,
open-mouthed at the scene, disorient­ including Newbury, such a question
ed perhaps by the lights, the cameras, isn’t at all one to ignore or laugh at.
and the surprise of suddenly seeing in It’s part of an important developmen­
front of them the neighborhood that tal step that young children are trying
has always before come to them on to make—to distinguish between
television.
what is recti and what is pretend. And
But when Fred Rogers comes on the people who work on the Neigh­
the scene, the children’s eyes find a borhood try to help children in that
focus, and some stand back shyly struggle, as well as in others, in the
while others come forward, talking programs they make.
volu bly. Rogers speaks gently to
“Television is a very deceptive
those who come forward, some bring­ medium, more so than movies or the­
ing gifts, and even tu ally finds a ater,” Newbury explains. “There aren’t
ch an ce to say a few words to or lights or scenery visible. You don’t go
briefly rest a hand on the ones who through all kinds of special prepara­
hang back. He tries to explain to them tion to view it, as you would if you
how he can be both here in person were going out to see something. You
and on their television sets at home, walk into your own living room, you
but they don’t seem to take it in very turn it on, and bam! there it is. Also,
well; eventually, a producer has to th e re ’s a fair am ount of m aterial
pull him away, telling him that it’s mixed in that is supposed to be real,
tim e to start taping the series of like the news. With television, you’re
shows they’re making this week, all much less sure of what’s real and
about art and creativity.
what’s not.” The intimacy of televi-

I

\
111

i JSn

•\

Ü B

m s

Sam Newbury ’67 is director
of production for Family
Communications in Pittsburgh.
He believes that children can feel
freer in their imaginations when
they are more sure of what’s real
and what’s not.

by Rebecca Aim
photographs by Terry Clark

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

In Mr. Rogers’ "living room” at Pittsburgh’s WQED, Newbury goes
over some last-minute details before taping shows that will air in late November.

*

sion—developed in everything from
its location in the home to its frequent
use of close-up shots—sometimes
makes it difficult for viewers of all
ages to distance themselves from its
“make-believe” world.
Children of 3 or 4, the prime audi­
ence for Mister Rogers’ Neighbor­
hood, are especially vulnerable to
television’s manipulation, since they
aren’t very steady in their under­
standing of make-believe and pretend­
ing to begin with. That’s why Fred
Rogers makes a point of distinguish­
ing the “real” world of his television
hom e from the N eighborhood of
M ake-Believe. Rogers the person
doesn’t communicate at all with the
actors and puppets who live in MakeBelieve, and he uses Trolley to sym­
bolize the transition from his “home”
NOVEMBER 1991

to the pretend kingdom.
And he’s taken his attempt to show
children the difference between fanta­
sy and reality a step further: In one
episode he explains to children that
his show is shot in a studio, not really
in his home. Then he shows them the
program’s usual opening scene of the
neighborhood his house is in—but he
has the camera pull back to show that
what they see on TV is just a smallscale model, not a “real” full-sized
neighborhood. He believes that chil­
dren can feel freer in their imagination
and use the “play” of make-believe
more richly when they are more sure
about what’s real and what’s not.
A related problem for children and
TV, Newbury points out, is that TV,
again unlike movies or theater or even
books, doesn’t have a clear beginning

or end, which makes it hard for chil­
dren to come away from it into the
real world. You turn on the TV in the
middle of a conversation, and you
walk in and out of the room at will.
And the people who program for
TV—including children’s TV—take
advantage of that. There’s not a sec­
ond’s break between the program and
the com mercials, the commercials
and the station ID, and the ID and the
next show. They even hype the next
show over the credits of the previous
one. “They wouldn’t want to give you
any dead space so you could slip
away,” Newbury explains wryly.
“But it should be easy for children
to leave the television set between
programs and to say, ‘That’s enough,
I’m d o n e,”’ Newbury stresses, his
voice rising momentarily in earnest7

If Fred Rogers wants to take his
young viewers to a graham cracker
factory or to meet a skywriter, it’s
up to Newbury to find them.

nqss. “The way the networks take
advantage of children in this way
shouldn’t be allowed, but the net­
w orks’ goal is ju st to keep them
watching, keep those kids’ eyes in
front of the screen”—to sell more
products.
In order to help children move
from the real world to the TV world,
and then to point them back toward
their real world when the show is
over, Rogers always begins his show
by saying hello and ends it by saying
goodbye. Those hellos and goodbyes
may seem simpleminded to adults,
but they give children—and their par­
ents—a chance to say, “Now it’s time
to turn it off.”
Everyone familiar with the show
remembers how it invariably opens,

with Mister Rogers coming into his
house and taking his sweater out of
the closet and changing into the wellknown blue tennis shoes. Why does
he do that? “That’s really to help with
the transitions, which often are hard
for children,” according to Newbury.
“When they have to change what
they’re doing or meet somebody new
or, even more than that, leave some­
body they care about, children need a
familiar routine. It’s like when kids go
to bed—you have to put the pajamas
just here, and the teddy bear goes just
here, and then you have to sit right
there and read the story. It’s all follow­
ing a set pattern, and the pattern
seems to help with the separation of
going to sleep. So all that ritual, just
like the rituals adults have in their
lives, has a real purpose.” Newbury
also compares the shoes-and-sweater
ritual to the routine of going into a
movie theater and settling into your
seat—a way of entering and leaving an
imaginary world that keeps it from
becoming too much of a shock.
As adults who have watched the
show probably know, there’s more to
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood than
those who know it only from child­
hood memories or Eddie Murphy par­
odies might realize. “What Fred does
is out of phase in many ways with
what else is going on in the world,
which makes it easy to make fun of,”
Newbury explains. “But it’s not all on
the surface, which means you have to
spend a little time watching it. You
might not get it right away.”
Newbury has been working with
Fred Rogers for 12 years, finding his
niche in children ’s TV after many
years of involvement in entertain­
m ent—beginning with his time at
Sw arthm ore, when he m ajored in
English in the days before it was pos­
sible to major in theater. To keep up
with his central interest, he became a
member and eventually president of
the Little Theatre Club, advised by
Carol Thom pson Hem ingway ’52,
whom he points to as an important
influence.
His first TV job was at WGBH in
Boston on the studio crew, “setting up
chairs and risers and stapling rugs to
risers.” It wasn’t until he moved on to
Dallas that he started to do the things
that would lead him to producing. He
worked on the film crew for the Dallas
public television program Newsroom
NOVEMBER 1991

with Jim Lehrer, for which he shot
and edited film and did sound for
daily local news segments and for
longer pieces.
After Dallas he came to Pittsburgh,
where he began shooting and editing
for WQED, gradually taking on more
production duties. In Pittsburgh he
began to figure out what he really
wanted to do. “I realized that I liked
seeing a project all the way through
from the very beginning to the very
end and that I seemed to have some
skill at organization, and some sheer
doggedness and cussedness as well,”
he explains. That meant being a pro­
ducer.

or Mr. Rogers,
changing into his
sw eater and tennis
shoes is a com forting
ritual— like tucking a
child into bed w ith a
favorite teddy bear
Through friends Newbury got a job
working for Fred Rogers in 1979 on a
series of interview programs. By 1981
he was producing M ister R ogers’
Neighborhood as well as other Rogers
projects, and in 1989 he became direc­
tor of production for Family Commu­
nications.
What kind of duties does the pro­
ducer of a show like Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood have? “It’s really just
trying to keep everything going and
making sure everything happens
when it’s supposed to ,” Newbury
explain s. “T elevision involves a
trem endous number of p eople—
actors, scenic artists, lighting and
makeup people, plus people for all the
television equipment. Then there’s
the whole relationship with the out­
side distribution system, PBS and the
stations. The producer is the person
who’s in charge of hiring and firing as
needed, scheduling, budgeting, and
putting his two cents worth in about
how things are going.”
Some parts of the job are organiza­
tional, some are creative, and some
are just filling in where needed. When

a large cast of puppets is involved in a
scene, Newbury might be asked to
“lend a hand”—literally. Some of his
duties simply call for ingenuity—when
Rogers writes a script, for example, he
may not have a person or place in
mind for things like a visit to a sky­
writer or a graham cracker factory. It’s
up to Newbury to find them.
Perhaps the most interesting part
of the job is thinking and talking about
children—among other things, how
important it is for them to pretend,
even though it can be confusing for
them. “Both adults and children work
out a lot of things in their heads by
pretending them or running through
them in imagination, testing reactions
to things they can d o ,” Newbury
explains. “Pretending is not only the
basis for creativity, I think it’s a very
important way to grow emotionally.”
So the maikers of Mister Rogers’ Neigh­
borhood put a lot of thought not only
into the rituals the show has devel­
oped to ease transitions from reality
to fantasy, but also into what happens
in the pretend w orlds of M ister
Rogers’ house find the Neighborhood
of Make-Believe. The scripts repeat
and reinforce points that are impor­
tant to a child’s real life. “The same
question is revisited a number of
times during one show ,” Newbury
explains. “Fred will bring it up in the
beginning, and maybe the location
stuff will have something to do with it.
It’ll come up in the Neighborhood of
Make-Believe, and then Fred will come
back and talk about it at the end.” And
each week’s shows make up a unit
that covers aspects of a single topic.
For example, the shows airing dur­
ing Thanksgiving week, all new shows,
are about art and deed explicitly with
imagination. In the Neighborhood of
Make-Believe, all the residents are
making portraits of King Friday XIII,
some looking more like the “real” King
Friday than others. At home Mister
Rogers shows children how to make
play clay, shows them paintings by
P icasso, and takes them to visit a
painter’s studio, a sculptor’s studio,
and a skywriter. Through all the seg­
ments run repeated themes—that art
is imagination and doesn’t have to
look exactly like reality, that different
kinds of art can all be good, that we
get better at art by practicing, and
that “real art comes from the inside of
please turn to page 64
9

Out o f anguish and despair, a challenge to live
more harmoniously in our fragile environment
woke on the morning of March 25, ans, a call for boats to go out and pro­
1989, to Alaska Public Radio Net­ tect fish hatcheries.
work news. There had been an oil
By W ednesday, after answering
spill from a grounded tanker near phones 16 hours a day, ACE, the Sier­
Valdez. A lot of crude oil had already ra Club, Audubon, and Greenpeace—
flowed out. I felt a sting, like an insect among others—decided to set up a
bite. A chill up my spine. The toxin hotline in a vacant office, thereby
began to spread in my awareness, enabling ACE to return to a slight sem­
slowly at first, like the oil. By coinci­ blance of normalcy. We were living on
dence it was Good Friday, the 25th pizza and sandwiches, experiencing a
anniversary of the devastating March tremendous roller coaster of emo­
1964 Alaska earthquake.
tions; during the day we were buoyed
On Sunday I attended the Easter by the offers of help and sympathy,
service at Anchorage Unity Church, only to crash with despair every night.
the Festival of Rebirth and Resurrect The Anchorage Daily News was full of
tion. Everyone was radiant, celebrat­ devastating pictures—oiled murres,
ing. How ironic, I thought. I was in the loons, guillemots, otters, bears, and
initial stages of grief at reports of dead eagles. I would put off listening to the
oiled seabirds. In the afternoon the news until late in the evening, then
wind, which had remained calm in allow myself to fall apart completely.
Valdez Arm for three days, suddenly
I spent all my waking hours at the
rose to 60-70 knots out of the north Oil Spill Volunteer Hotline office.
and started to blow the oil into Prince Dozens of volunteers converged, with
William Sound. A sense of fatalism a few hours or many weeks to offer.
filled me when I heard the news.
New people with broken hearts, com­
Monday morning I decided to go to pelled to answer the call. People told
the Alaska Center for the Environ­ us, even with four phone lines, that
ment (ACE), a place where I had previ­ they had w aited an hour to get
ously volunteered. The phone never through. C allers in tears. Callers
stopped ringing all the time I was angry, feeling trapped. A prisoner in a
there. Amazing. Offers of help from all New Hampshire jail. An employee of
over the world! “I hear they need The New York Times classified depart­
someone to scrub out a boat in Whitti­ ment. A Greenpeace member from
er to transport salmon fry to safety— Spain. A young woman from Toronto
I’ll go.” Another request—oiled ani­ who Weis on her way to Anchorage to
mals needing care in Valdez 300 miles volunteer. An Eastern Airlines pilot
away. More volunteers—“I’ll go, live in from New Jersey, on strike, also on
my car, take water, take a honey buck­ her way. New friends sleeping on my
et, and work. It’s OK.”
carpet en route to Homer or Valdez.
International TV calling for an inter­
Eshamy Bay, the place where my
view, Skyspan, from London. A mad­ former husband, Try Wieland ’56, and
house. TV crews com ing in to the I had spent our honeymoon in 1957,
crowded ACE office. More calls: “We was soon hit by the spreading oil.
need welders’ gloves to handle the When I learned that, I lost my momenotters; they bite through anything
else.” There were calls for veterinari­ by Anne Pacsu Wieland ’56

I

10

tary control in the face of the disaster.
Eshamy has always been my ancestral
home in Alaska. It was for me the
m ost beautiful place on earth.
Because of the three months spent
there, we decided to move back to
Alaska permanently in 1961.
The cadre of friends who had sud­
denly coalesced at the hotline office
shared the grief. We supported one
another. The discovery of all these
loving souls in Anchorage was a huge
solace. Where had we all been? Some
of us left friends and spouses to take
up the challenge and discovered kin­
dred spirits in one another. Some
went to Valdez to help clean oiled sea
otters at the hastily established facili­
ties in the college and high school
gym . They returned as if sh e ll­
shocked.
I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey,
spending all my free tim e in the
woods near our home, focusing on the
life within Stony Brook, under the
rocks, along the banks, summer and
winter. Those years created the basis
for my lifelong interest in the natural
world.
In the meantime I had put down
roots in Alaska. Alaska the pristine.
The place I took for granted when I
was teachin g for the A nch orage
School District. I joined some environ­
mental organizations. But the issues
were often remote from my immediate
world. Like my fellow Alaskans, I spent
my oil revenue dividend each year
from the state. I went to Kauai in win­
ter to see the sun. In recent years I
built a small summer home on the
beach in Homer, a very picturesque
fishing and farming community on
Kachemak Bay.
When the first reports came from
the Institute of Marine Science in FairSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Gull Island (above), a bird rookery
in Kachemak Bay near Homer,
Alaska, is home to tens of thousands
of sea birds. After the Exxon Valdez
spill, wildlife in Prince William Sound
and for hundreds of miles around was
devastated by oil. Only a small
number were saved by the efforts of
rescue workers like Anne Wieland ’56.

NOVEMBER 1991

banks that, due to the prevailing cur­
ever vigilant in their presence.
he odor o f oil was
rents in the Gulf of Alaska, the oil
Unlike other sea mammals, otters
would undoubtedly spread past the
have
no layer of blubber. Their fur is
overwhelming.
outer Kenai P eninsula co ast to
remarkably fine and provides their
Kachemak Bay and on to Kodiak, I was
When we dug through it, sole source of insulation. The fur is
numb. Now the two other places on
kept waterproofed by the animal’s
the planet that I loved best were also we were greeted with
natural oils, which are distributed
in jeopardy: Prince William Sound and
through the extensive grooming pro­
Kachemak Bay, home also to my older nauseating fumes from
cess. This insulation is com pletely
daughter, Leslie, and her husband. All
broken down by exposure to crude
the decomposition
we could do was to wait for the
oil. Removal of the spilled oil as well
inevitable arrival of the thick brown o f clams and worms
as the natural oil renders the. animal
“mousse” and tar balls that covered
vulnerable to hypothermia, so all ani­
that lay entombed
everything in their path.
mals had to be dried extremely thor­
In early May a call came for volun­
oughly. Otter fur got under our glass­
teers at the newly formed sea otter beneath six or seven
es, in our mouths, and up into our
rescue center in Seward. My dog and I inches o f oily beach
nostrils as we blow-dried them each
went, spending a week there. The
for an hour or two. We saved little fur
night I arrived, the first of many otter
balls as souvenirs.
pups was born after m idnight. It with any of the anim als, because
After the animals were completely
appeared to be stillborn. The exhaust­ bonding would make it more difficult dry, they were given another injection
ed volu nteer veterinarian from for them to be reintroduced to the to counteract the anesthetic and were
Anchorage administered mouth-to- wild.
eventually transferred to a rectangu­
m outh resu scitatio n , slaps on its
Nevertheless, we quickly became lar plastic swim tank. Otters are social
hindquarters, and injections, all to no familiar with their anatomy. A large anim als and were often grouped
avail. The frail body the size of a flap of skin and fur under the front together by age and sex. There they
ch ild ’s stuffed toy slumped in his legs is used as a carrying pouch to remained until it was determined that
arm s. Few of the pups survived. assist in transporting their food from they were sufficiently recovered and
Numbly, I returned to the back of my the bottom to the surface of the their fur was beginning to provide nat­
car for some sleep.
water, where the otters swim on their ural insulation once again. Then they
I took shifts of washing and drying backs while dining. There is an area of were transferred to a larger pool, per­
otters, food preparation, and animal coarser fur on the middle of the chest, haps 25 feet in diameter and four feet
husbandry. Everyone wanted to wash used by otters to hold clams, crabs, deep. Sea water was pumped into all
the otters. That involved two to three and other shellfish while the otter hits these tanks directly from Resurrection
hours of repeated soaping and thor­ the prey with a rock or other object to Bay. Ultimately, otters were trans­
ough rinsing while the animal was crack it open. Sea otters are equipped ferred to a floating long-range care
anesthetized. One person held the with impressively large canine teeth facility in the salt water of Jakolof Bay,
otter’s head because it would fre­ and extremely strong jaws. We were part of Kachemak Bay near Homer,
quently recover con ­
until they were released
sciousn ess before the
back into the environ­
cleaning was complete
ment in late A ugust
and require another
Valdez
1989.
injection.
.Anchorage
As the animals recov­
It Wets not possible to
ered, they developed
be in such close contact
voracious appetites and
with the otters without
required feeding five
becom ing com p letely
tim es a day. N othing
cap tivated by them .
was too good for these
These large members of
/ S ? 1 otters. They were given
the w easel fam ily are
anywhere from 1 to 2 V2
perfectly constructed for
pounds of seafood per
their life in the cold
meal. One job of the ani­
waters of the North
mal husbandry shift was
P acific. Their sleek
Homer
to present the food to
shape, strong tail, little
the otters without look­
ears, w hiskers, and
ing them in the eye or
Prince
short stubby nails made
talking to them and
W illiam
it hard for us to abide by
without directly feeding
Mars Cove
the protocol of the res­
Sound
them.
cue center. We were
The cages and fish
100 miles
Kachemak Bay
required to avoid eye
totes had to be kept
contact and not to bond
clean, so another job of

)0

12

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

ANNE WIELAND ’56

the animal husbandry shift was to
remove the excrement and allow fresh
seawater into the totes. Charts on
each animal needed to be updated
every 15 minutes and information on
the otters’ progress recorded, includ­
ing instances of shivering, grooming,
swimming, sleeping, feeding, defecat­
ing, etc. We were generally assigned
10 otters each, so it was a busy shift.
Exxon estimated that each otter that
was saved cost them $83,000. Debates
about the biological significance of
this effort, that saved a few hundred
animals (some of which were unac­
counted for in ocean surveys in 1990),
raged privately and in the media.
Meanwhile, the dead bodies of their
peers that were retrieved but not
saved, over 1,000 in number, along
with more them 30,000 dead birds, rest
frozen in evidence bags until a future
trial date. It is estimated that these
frozen sea otters and birds represent
only a fraction of the total number
that died in the oil spill.
Soon after I returned to Anchorage
from Seward, the word came that, as
predicted and long dreaded, oil was
beginning to hit the beaches of
Kachemak Bay near Homer. I moved
down early for the summer and soon
joined the volunteer force cleaning up
011 from behind my summer cabin.
There were tar balls and oozing globs
distributed about one meter apart
along the high-tide line.
A new con cern confronted us.
What about our eagles? We have a
healthy resident population, but even
a single death due to oiling or inges­
tion of an oiled carcass would be too
many. The discovery of a partially
eaten, completely oiled pigeon guille­
mot beneath our resident eagle nest,
replete with three chicks, was very
disheartening. Mercifully, the eagles
survived this indiscretion. In fact, all
three eaglets fledged later in the sum­
mer. Others, however, were not so for­
tunate; 11 dead oiled eagles were
eventually recovered in the Homer
area.
With the birth of Erika, my first
grandchild, on June 20, 1989, a new
era dawned. Gradually, holding my
beautiful granddaughter, I dared to
focus once again upon the future.
What could I do, as an individual, to
try to change our inordinate depen­
dence on oil and profligate waste? My
younger daughter, Linda, was living in
NOVEMBER 1991

Oxford, England. I wrote to her for
help in locating a new book called The
Green Consumer Guide.
My friends and I had so immersed
ourselves in our various responses to
the spill that much of the time we
blotted out opportunities to reflect
upon what had happened. An entire
state had been jolted to its core. The
w aves lapped outw ard, reaching
around the planet. Alaska is depen­
dent upon the oil industry for 80 per­
cent of its revenues. We do not have a
state tax; instead, the state issues
yearly dividend checks to bona fide
residents. Where could we go from
here? Some of the turmoil manifested
itself in obstinate behavior. There was
the moment the supermarket checker
asked me if I wanted paper or plastic
bags, and I blurted, “Neither.”
“I know,” he said, “trees or oil.” I
appreciated his awareness, one that
seemed to be springing up in many
new quarters.
Meanwhile, yet another opportuni­
ty for volunteer involvement arose. A
group led by Benn Levine and Billy
Day of Homer had persuaded the Alas­
ka Division of State Parks to set aside
a Kachem ak Bay W ilderness Park
beach called Mars Cove, which had
been completely oiled, as an experi­
mental site. Here volunteers could try
out Day’s new invention, a rock wash­
er, in an attempt to clean a beach
without destroying the surviving inter­
tidal life, as the hot-spray method

A tanker loads amid magnificent
surroundings at Valdez, terminus
of the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

used elsewhere appeared to be doing.
Our trip to Mars Cove was a long
one—8 Vi hours by boat. I went on
The Mayflower, a commercial fishing
boat skippered by Rich King. We
slipped past the familiar stretches of
Homer and Kachemak Bay on a foggy
morning in late August. The water was
glassy, and everywhere we were sur­
rounded by shearwaters, puffins, and
gulls as we headed west.
As the fog lifted, we found our­
selves in calm seas rounding Point
Adams and turning east into the Gulf
of Alaska, toward our destination in
Port Dick. The scenery became more
dramatic, with cliffs plunging into the
sea. We stopped to bring aboard a
length of loose boom. It would find a
place in the operation at Mars Cove.
The seas came up, and soon we found
ourselves with water breaking over
the windshield. Rich was intensely
busy reading the loran positions, try­
ing to avoid shoals on one side and
Gore Rock, a notorious navigational
hazard, on the other.
At last we arrived at our destina­
tion and found a colorful tent and tarp
settlement. Disembarking, we waded
through a rainbow-colored sheen,
even as sea lions surfaced farther out
from us. Mountain goats appeared on

More than 1,000 otters, along with 30,000
dead birds, rest frozen in evidence bags

ANNE W IELAND '56

the mountains in the distance. Wildflowers bloomed in profusion near the
camp.
The volunteers, as usual, were from
across the planet. The skiff operators
were two young m echanics from
Switzerland. The cook was a militant
vegetarian jewelrymaker from Hawaii.
There was a cardiology resident from
Georgia who came “to atone for par­
ticipating in the consumer society.”
My main contribution at Mars Cove
was surveying the intertidal zone in
several areas to identify and deter­
mine the abundance of invertebrates
that had survived (or perished) in the
massive oiling that these beaches,
almost 250 miles from the spill zone,
had sustained. I remember finding two
live hermit crabs huddled under a
rock, with perhaps six inches of
unoiled sediment their only buffer
against certain death. The odor of the
oil was overwhelming. It had acted as
an impenetrable seal to the life below
it, so that when we dug through it, we
were greeted with the nauseating
14

Above: A U.S. Fish and Wildlife
official shows dead oiled birds to
marine science campers.
Top right: A technician removes
teeth from a dead otter. They will
provide information about the
animal.
Right: Campers pause near Anne
Wieland’s home in Homer to look
at China Poot Bay. The timber
rights for all of the trees visible
in this photo have been sold for
clear-cut logging.

fumes of hydrogen sulfide, the prod­
uct of the anaerobic decomposition of
the clams, worms, and other organ­
isms that lay entombed beneath the
six or seven inches of oily beach.
I found that participating in physi­
cally cleaning up the oil was a strange­
ly healing process. Morale was high,
even though we were living in quite
primitive surroundings. Our latrine
was a frame built of two-by-fours over

a trench under a tarp with the admo­
nition “Burn T.P. or Die” attached to a
coffee can with matches provided for
that duty. My tent was on a knoll
under the protection of old-growth
spruce trees overlooking incredibly
beautiful and wild Port Dick, one of
the many fjords that penetrate the
south coast of the Kenai Peninsula. A
tarp above my tent shielded it from
the frequent rain.
One evening as I was surveying the
seaweed at the water’s edge, I heard a
low whistle like a breath blown over
the mouth of a soda-pop bottle. It star­
tled me, coming from near my elbow.
There, only a few feet away, was a
large male sea otter. He regarded me
m otionlessly, without evidence of
fear. We stared at each other across
the gulf of separate species, a glance
of perfect understanding. Tears of
recognition ran down my cheeks.

found that the
physical act o f
cleaning up the oil was
a strangely healing
process. Morale was
high, even though we
were living in primitive
surroundings

I

A lthough we were in a rem ote
wilderness area, we were able to hear
the public radio station from Homer.
Five times a day we clustered around
the radios to listen for Bay Bushlines
sent to Mars Cove, promising us ship­
ments of food as soon as the weather

broke. On one sublime evening, an
hour’s variety of versions of Pach­
elbel’s Canon in D was featured. We
were doubly enchanted, as the nights
were now dark enough to see the
vivid aurora borealis.
After 12 days at Mars Cove, the 30minute floatplane ride back to Homer
was not enough to prepare me for the
shock of the colors of civilization seen
from the air: fishing bo ats, cabin
roofs, junk cars, parking lots, and
finally Beluga Lake, where we landed
in Homer. It was hard to part with the
friends with whom I had shared this
experience.
It has been difficult to describe to
anyone not directly affected by the oil
spill what it meant to me and to other
Alaskans. I knew when I returned to
my home in Anchorage in September
that I would never be the same person
please turn to page 63

ANNE WIELAND ’56

Anne Pacsu Wieland ’56 retired from
teaching in 1987 to devote herself full
time to the protection o f Alaska’s fragile
environment and to the transformation
o f “our wasteful lifestyle. ” She is cur­
rently fighting the clear vate holdings within state parkland
near her summer home in Homer. She
is shown above with her granddaughter
Erika.
The volunteer effort at Mars Cove
and other aspects o f the Exxon Valdez
oil spill have been ably documented by
H om er’s Pratt Museum in an exhibit
titled “Darkened Waters: Profile o f an
Oil Spill, ” that will be on display at the
National Museum o f Natural History at
the Smithsonian Institution in Washing­
ton, D .C ., from Decem ber 6, 1991, to
March 31, 1992.
NOVEMBER 1991

15

by Jeffrey Lott

AIDS DRUGS
SOONER
OR LATER
ooner or later your life will be touched by the Cooper stepped aside last winter.
nightmare of AIDS. Sooner or later you will learn
At the time, she told the Wall Street Journal that “the
that a family member, a friend, a teacher, a situation in my current job is untenable.” She had been
lover, a colleague, or a classmate has contracteda the
lightning rod for criticism of the FDA and of her own
disease. And sooner or later that person will die. rigorous approach to the regulation of new drugs. Cit­
There’s even a chance you could become a victim.
ing “stress find burnout,” Cooper asked for a transfer to
More than 120,000 Americans have died of AIDS. another part of the agency.
More than a million are thought to be infected. In 1989
Criticism of the government’s response to AIDS is
the disease became the second leading cause of death nothing new. AIDS activists have long pressured for
among men aged 25-44, surpassing heart disease, can­ more research, more money for education and preven­
cer, and suicide. And almost every expert says the epi­ tion, and faster approval of possible new treatments
demic will get worse before it gets better.
for the disease. The Reagan administration dragged its
But wait. Aren’t we certain that—sooner or later— feet in the first years of the epidemic, they say, because
medical science will conquer AIDS? We’ve beaten other most of the early victims were gay men, and discrimi­
nightmare infectious diseases, haven’t we? There’s no nation against homosexuals led to inaction.
smallpox anymore, hardly any polio. Our kids get
In a Bulletin interview, Ellen Cooper acknowledged
measles shots, diphtheria shots, mumps shots. Surely these criticisms and praised the role that activists have
there will be a vaccine that will prevent people from had in “keeping AIDS at the top of the priority list.” But
getting AIDS. Surely doctors will devise an effective she steadfastly maintained that the FDA has moved—
treatment for those already infected—maybe even a and continues to move—with all prudent speed, given
cure. We have to believe that this will happen—we its statutory mandate to ensure that new drugs are
know it will. The only question is, will it happen soon­ both safe and effective before approving them. “It’s
er—or later?
not widely appreciated that the FDA doesn’t discover
It’s a question that troubles
or test new drugs,” says Cooper.
everyone, but it has especially
“The agency m erely reviews
vexed Dr. Ellen Cooper ’72.
data and proposals submitted
Science and politics
Until last January Cooper was
by a drug’s sponsor, usually a
d irector of the D ivision of
pharmaceutical company. Only
dash
at
the
FDA,
Antiviral Drug Products at the
when a sponsor shows enough
U.S. Food and Drug Adminis­
where Ellen Cooper ’72
laboratory or animal test results
tration—the FDA. She was the
to
justify the risks of human test­
presided over
pivotal person in charge of
ing does the FDA becom e
review ing the testin g and
involved.” It then oversees the
regulating
approval of AIDS drugs—and
design, conduct, and analysis of
she has been both praised and
AIDS drugs at an
the experimental drug’s clinical
excoriated for her crucial role
trials before granting—or deny­
agency under seige
at the agency. After nearly
ing—final approval to market it.
three years in this hot seat,
The pace of drug development,

S

16

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Dr. Ellen Cooper ’72
was the director of
the Division of
Antiviral Drugs at the
U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.

says Cooper, is largely set by the sponsors.
Traditionally clinical trials have followed four
sequential phases, each dependent upon the success­
ful completion of the one before. Phase I studies are
relatively small and are intended to determine the toxi­
city, safe dosage levels, and chemical activity of a drug
in the human body. Phase II studies, usually enrolling a
few hundred patients, are designed to obtain initial evi­
dence of efficacy plus additional safety information. In
Phase III much larger controlled and uncontrolled
studies gather the substantial evidence of efficacy
required to support marketing approval. Successful
drugs are usually approved following Phase III. Finally,
Phase IV studies monitor the use of the drug post­
approval in larger patient populations.
None of this happens overnight, but the FDA does
have limits on the amount of time it can take to act.
The agency is required to decide within 30 days if an
initial application warrants human trials, and it has a
maximum of six months to review a final application
after the Phase III trials. But the trials themselves can
take many months—sometimes years—for a drug’s
sponsor to complete, partly because the FDA has such
rigorous standards and partly because tracking a
drug’s effects can take a long time, especially a drug to
treat a chronic disease like AIDS.
The trouble is, AIDS patients don’t have a lot of
time, and therein lies the root of the controversy sur­
rounding Ellen Cooper and the FDA.
Though her resignation was lamented by a number
of AIDS activists, others contend that the agency is
blindly bureaucratic in its procedures—that it bottles
up promising new treatments while people are dying.
Cooper counters that the FDA has actually responded
quite quickly when presented with good data that
show a drug to be safe and effective. She points to the
approved of the antiviral drug zidovudine (AZT) as an
example of the FDA’s capacity for rapid action.
“The initial application for AZT Phase I trials was
NOVEMBER 1991

17

approved within five working days in June 1985, the It is a debate that Ellen Cooper (who graduated from
first patient was administered the drug in early July, Swarthmore with honors in political science before get­
and by February 1986 a placebo-controlled, multi-cen­ ting her medical degree at Case Western Reserve and a
ter study was underway,” she reported in the journal her master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins) does
Regulatory Affairs. The controlled trials were discontin­ not try to avoid: “Individual rights—‘I want to do what I
ued just seven months later, when it became clear that want to do’ regardless of the implications for others—
there was a significant difference in the death rate that sort of extreme autonomy is the primary reason
betw een the AZT group and the placebo group. that there are laws and government. Uncontrolled or
Patients who were receiving the placebo were immedi­ unregulated autonomy can certainly be hurtful to other
ately offered AZT, and by March 1987 the drug had individuals and to society.
been approved for marketing.
“Take something like motorcycle helmet laws. Some
The whole process took less than two years—fast years ago, certain states repealed their helmet laws
by FDA and industry standards. But was it fast enough? because there were complaints like, ‘So what if I don’t
Cooper thinks so. She worries that rushing through want to wear a helmet? I’m the one who will get hurt
the process any faster would result in bad science, and and I like the feel of the wind in my hair!’ But there are
ultimately would be a disservice to AIDS patients. And expensive and anguishing ramifications for society at
unless adequate data are generated, it might also be large in having a lot of severe head injuries. The same
against the law—the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act— goes for drug development. The expense of supplying
which requires that new drug approvals be supported drugs that aren’t yet proven to be effective—even if
by “substantial evidence of efficacy from adequate and people are willing to take the risks—is quite high. It’s
well-controlled clinical trials.”
not just the dollar amounts, but
“Som etim es it's hard to
the fact that someone has to run
explain this standard,” says
these programs, taking doctors
Should doctors
C ooper. “If people want
and researchers away from tak­
and patients have the
approvals very early in the
ing care of other patients and
drug development process,
from developing other drugs.”
right to choose
they’re talking about a situa­
Whether patients have enough
tion where the controlled tri­
any drug or treatm ent
information to make treatment
als aren’t finished—perhaps
decisions on their own is anoth­
they desire?
not even begun. So to have
er dilemma. Cooper wonders
drugs approved based on that
whether individuals with a lifeIndividual autonomy is
kind of [very prelim inary]
threatening disease can rational­
information, there may need
at the heart of
ly decide whether or not to take
to be an amendment to the
a certain drug, especially one
the AIDS drug debate
law.” Yet even without going
that is still experimental: “These
to Congress for a change in
people are desperate. Health is a
the statute, the FDA has modi­
very em otional thing. M ost
fied its own procedures for regulating drugs to treat patients can’t understand all the information because a
life-threatening diseases.
lot of it is medically based and unavailable to the pub­
In 1987, partly as a result of the AZT experience, the lic. Even the practicing physician can’t possibly be cur­
agency formally adopted new regulations that encour­ rent on all the information about experimental drugs.
age the creation of “expanded access” programs under That’s one instance where the FDA’s regulation and
which sponsors can make experimental drugs much review are very helpful. It’s the one place that can gath­
more widely available to patients for whom no satisfac­ er more information than anyone else about a drug.”
tory alternative therapy exists. Under these programs,
One role of the FDA is to help disseminate this infor­
promising new drugs that pass basic toxicity tests are mation after a drug’s approval, but, more importantly,
made available to eligible patients under carefully writ­ the agency must independently check it for accuracy
ten protocols that add data from clinical experience to before approval is ever granted. “It’s important to
that gained in controlled trials.
understand,” says Cooper, “that the agency is as con­
“AIDS has created an environment where more risk flict-free and unbiased as it can be in reviewing the
taking on the part of decision-makers like me is accept­ data and in making judgm ents. We don’t have a
able,” says Cooper, though she warns of the possible penny’s worth of stock in any company the FDA regu­
negative effects of this change. “It will only take a cou­ lates, and our careers are not influenced by academic
ple of disasters to make things go back the other way. pressure to ‘publish [favorable results] or perish.’”
But if we’re smart and careful, I think we can minimize
She is disturbed by the general distrust of govern­
the risk while maximizing the chance of benefit.”
ment and the feeling by some patients and advocacy
Yet who should decide what risks are acceptable? groups that scientists are more interested in their
Should doctors and patients have a right to choose any experiments than they are in the outcome for people:
drug or treatment they desire?
“When others have more information than you do, a
These questions quickly go beyond medical practice sort of paranoia can develop that they might be doing
to become a moral, ethical, and ultimately political things more in their own interest than in yours.” She
debate about individual autonomy vs. the public good. suspects that a lot of the activism and controversy sur18

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Community-based research challenges
ethical and scientific assumptions
Grass-roots organizations seek a better balance between
'p erfect clinical trials’ and the real-world needs o f people

Dr. John Whyte ’74

r. John Whyte ’74 recalls that
when he was in medical school at
the University of Pennsylvania, termi­
nal cancer patients would readily
participate in experimental drug pro­
tocols. They took it for granted that
even though they might die, data
from the study might help a future
generation.
“It’s different now,” says Whyte of
the AIDS epidemic. “People are not
willing to be just a statistical dot and
hope that someday someone will
benefit.” A researcher and clinician at
Moss Rehabilitation Hospital, where
his practice deals primarily with trau­
matic brain injuries, Whyte is on the
faculty at Temple University School
of Medicine. He is also an AIDS
activist and educator, serving on the
scientific advisory board of Philadel­
phia FIGHT, one of a number of com­
munity-based AIDS research initia­
tives that have sprung up around the
country.
These organizations, which are
run by both lay persons and physi­
cians, design and execute their own
comparative studies and drug trials,
gathering data on a variety of AIDS
treatments and their outcomes.
Whyte explains: “The notion is that
there are far more people infected

D

NOVEMBER 1991

with HIV who are undergoing some
sort of treatment in doctor’s offices
than there are slots in the formal clin­
ical trials. We are trying to reach the
‘general public’ of HIV infected peo­
ple in order to gather more data
about more topics at a faster rate
than the formal trials.”
Whyte would like to see a better
balance between “perfect clinical tri­
als” and the real-world needs of peo­
ple: “A lot of the FDA’s perspective
was shaped by some really bad expe­
riences, like thalidomide [a sleep
medication that, when given to preg­
nant women, caused severe birth
defects in their babies]. It was a drug
that had a relatively minor benefit—
being able to get a good night’s
sleep—but one that had a major
adverse effect. But if you are trying to
treat a horrible thing like AIDS, you
should handle that in a very different
way. You need to look at the immedi­
acy and seriousness of the symptoms
against the likely adverse effects of
the drug.
“One problem is that decisions
about those risks are in the hands of
authority figures. It has not been a
community-based discussion. And
not only is that inappropriate ethical­
ly—because we are not engaging the
people who will take those risks in
the discussion of their values—but it
also isn’t workable scientifically.
When people are desperate they will
lie and be dishonest, and then the
science will fail. If I knew that the
only way I could get to participate in
a drug trial was by being dishonest,
then I might do that.”
Community-based research initia­
tives have conducted a number of
drug trials on their own. Sometimes
they study drugs that are not in
vogue in Western medicine—like
“Compound Q,” an extract from Chi­
nese cucumbers—but more often
they explore new uses for drugs
approved for other uses that might

prove advantageous for AIDS
patients. One of their biggest suc­
cesses was the discovery that the
drug pentamidine, which had been
used to treat PCP (a common, oftenfatal AIDS-related pneumonia), was
also effective as an inhalant to pre­
vent this opportunistic infection.
“The pentamidine trial was a fairly
traditional scientific design,” says
Whyte, “but it was not being pursued
by the scientific establishment. The
FDA and the drug companies weren’t
pushing it, so the community said
let’s do it anyway.” A monthly dose
of aerosol pentamidine is now a stan­
dard prophylactic for AIDS patients.
Community-based groups are also
engaged in something called data
base research. The idea is to gather a
large volume of relatively standard­
ized data about AIDS patients in the
hope that even without a traditional
scientific design, the information can
lead to certain conclusions about
treatments and outcomes. Philadel­
phia FIGHT is hoping to take advan­
tage of the widespread tracking of T-4
cell counts. It has been standard clin­
ical practice to measure these infec­
tion-fighting cells in HIV positive per­
sons taking AZT, and FIGHT would
like to gather data from hundreds of
patient records dating back several
years. The idea is that as patients go
off AZT for whatever reason, or
switch to DDI or other therapies,
changes in T-4 counts may lead to
conclusions about the efficacy of
these treatments.
“It’s an incredibly fascinating and
exciting era,” says Whyte. “Scientists
thought they knew exactly how to do
science. The only issue was to get
other people to agree to do it that
way. Now we’re realizing that it’s not
just a matter of compromising our
science so that people are willing to
participate, but the scientific rules
themselves may not be optimal.”
— JL

19

rounding AIDS is due to “paranoia because of actual
discrimination against homosexuals. It’s been easy for
gay people to think that because society has discrimi­
nated against them in many other areas, naturally it is
going to do ill toward them in drug development.”
Another widely discussed question concerns the
ethics of placebo-controlled clinical trials. Should AIDS
patients be asked to participate in studies where they
might receive a placebo while someone else by chance
gets a drug that may help fight the disease?
Cooper, who asserts that placebo-controlled trials
are generally the fastest way to determine the effective­
ness of a new drug, sees no ethical problem with such
trials if the participants have exhausted all other treat­
ment options or—like many AIDS sufferers—cannot
tolerate the side effects of drugs already available.
“These patients literally have nothing left, and to
enter a placebo-controlled trial studying a new drug is
certainly ethical,” says Cooper, “as long as patients are
not denied other treatments. But still it’s hard emotion­
ally for people to enter a trial knowing they might not
get the new drug. It’s hard emotionally, but I don’t see
it as unethical.”
Yet once there is evidence that an available treat­
ment enhances survival or slows the disease process,
placebo-controlled trials are no longer acceptable to
Cooper, the FDA, or to the scientific community. Other
types of studies must be undertaken to compare the
known effectiveness of one drug, such as AZT, with the
hoped-for effects of an experimental treatment. In what
are called “active control equivalence trials,” patients
are randomized into two or more groups, given differ­
ent drugs, and their progress is followed to determine
whether the new drug is at least as effective as—or
“equivalent” to—the known one.
Active control equivalence trials are still being con­
ducted for a new antiviral drug called dideoxyinosine
(DDI), even though it was approved by the FDA in early

October on the basis of other data. Cooper, in a 1990
article in the Journal o f AIDS, raised a number of con­
cerns about the design of such trials. She wrote that it
was difficult to compare the data from the original AZT
studies to current trials, since new drugs and improved
standards of care have changed the outcom e for
patients today compared to several years ago. She also
noted that this type of trial can covertly encourage
“poor scientific practices” such as erratic compliance
with medication, inconsistent measurements, or poor
diagnostic criteria, arguing that less precision creates
more “noise” in the studies, obscuring rather than
enhancing differences between treatment groups.
Gathering good data on the changing condition of
patients is especially difficult in a chronic disease as
complex as AIDS. The effects of the virus can vary in
different patients, and a variety of indicators are used
to measure the disease’s progress. These include the
appearance of a number of common opportunistic
infections such as PCP, a parasitic pneumonia, or
malignancies such as Kaposi’s sarcoma, which mani­
fests itself in cutaneous lesions. But some researchers
argue that so-called “surrogate markers,” such as
weight loss and blood counts of infection-fighting T-4
cells, are equally important criteria.
In testing new AIDS treatments, improved survival is
the strongest indicator of success, followed by the
absence or remission of opportunistic infections. Yet if
a patient’s T-4 count increases with the use of a drug,
can that drug be deemed successful in fighting AIDS?
Cooper is willing to accept this approach with some
qualifications.
“The ideal marker,” she says, “is one that changes in
response to drug therapy and accurately predicts a
beneficial clinical response. As people get sicker with
AIDS, their T-4 counts go down. Untreated patients
with a count below 200 are at much higher risk for
opportunistic infections than those with higher counts.

W ill AIDS be stopped?

routes of infection—is still in question. It also isn’t
clear whether vaccines can be used as therapies for
those who are already infected with the HIV virus.”

We asked Ellen Cooper:
What did she think were the best
hopes for halting the epidem ic?
Education and Prevention: “We know 99.9 percent of

the ways that it’s spread, but we also know from many
other areas of life and behavior that you can’t get 100
percent compliance [with preventive practices]. Peo­
ple might know intellectually what they ought to be
doing, but with sexual practices or IV drug use, other
desires take over. Yet in terms of controlling the dis­
ease, there’s nothing that comes close to not getting
the virus in the first place.”
A Vaccine: “An effective vaccine is the next best hope,

and scientists are alternately more optimistic and
more pessimistic [about developing one]. It is likely
that some kind of vaccine will be developed to help
prevent the disease, but whether a given vaccine will
be effective for all strains of the disease—or for all
20

Antiviral Drugs: “Right now—and for the foreseeable

future—antiviral drugs buy time. If we can develop
drugs that are more specific in inhibiting the virus but
have less toxicity for the rest of the body, then eventu­
ally you may be able to give drugs for the patient’s life­
time and control the disease just like some other
chronic diseases that are controlled with medications.
But viruses develop resistances to drugs and you have
to switch to other drugs, so it’s not as easy as finding
one nontoxic drug that a patient can tolerate for the
rest of his life.”
A Cure: “You can sort of dream up science fiction ways
to knock every virus out of the body, but there’s no
practical approach right now. Because the virus is in
some cells in a latent state, and because most drugs
act against actively replicating viruses, that’s years to
decades away if ever.”
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

“But it doesn’t necessarily follow that if a drug raises mean what it says, she emphasizes, in that a drug
the T-4 count a bit that it will take longer for that could be promptly withdrawn if it turns out to be
patient to develop such infections. That may be true, unsafe or ineffective, or if required additional studies
but it may also be found that the new T-4 cells don’t are not completed.
There is no question that the AIDS epidemic has
work as well or that higher counts are found in the
bloodstream because the cells are released from other changed the FDA’s role in drug development. AIDS,
parts of the body—not because their absolute number says Cooper, has “pushed the pendulum toward liberal
decision-making as opposed to the cautionary. Undue
is any higher.
“We have very little experience to address this issue caution is one of the things for which the FDA is criti­
because at the present time only one AIDS antiviral cized. People say it’s too cautious in making a judg­
drug [AZT] has completed controlled clinical trials. ment—unless a problem develops, and then it’s too
Therefore, only if there are other positive clinical lax. I suppose the best place for the pendulum is some­
changes—such as weight gain or fewer infections—can where in the middle.”
What the AIDS drug controversy comes down to in
one be reasonably sure that the new drug is having a
the end is judgment. Whose judgment will we trust?
beneficial effect.”
Because politics and AIDS are inextricably linked, Ellen Cooper and the FDA fire proud of their scientific
the question of surrogate markers is not simply a scien­ independence and rigorous analysis of data. Even her
tific one. AIDS activists recently convinced the Centers critics developed a wide respect for her integrity.
for Disease Control to add low T-4 counts to its list of Cooper freely adm its that she becom es deeply
defining signs and symptoms for the disease, even involved in most everything she does, and it hurts her
to hear some of the things that
though this marker is not in
have been said about her. To
itself a disease process. And
Ellen Cooper it is science that
largely because early results
The AIDS epidemic has
should be paramount in mak­
indicated that the drug DDI
pushed the FDA
ing regulatory decisions—the
seems to result in higher T-4
data, not emotionalism or indi­
counts in some patients, the
toward liberal instead
vidual opinion.
FDA was pressured, says Coop­
She is worried that the FDA’s
er, into approving DDI before
of cautionary decisions.
e ffica cy standard is being
well-controlled clinical studies
To Ellen Cooper it is
eroded and that “instead of
had been completed.
judgment
based on objective
DDI is the first new AIDSscience, not opinion,
scientific data it’s becoming
fighting drug to be approved
one person’s opinion against
that should be
since AZT in 1987, and Cooper
an oth er’s. The h istory of
felt that most members of the
paramount
medicine is full of examples
FDA advisory committee who
w here w ell-m eaning, wellreviewed the data in July—she
trained physicians were sure
was not one of them—ended up
concluding, “well, based on the available data I don’t that a certain treatment was effective, that it worked.
like to do this, but I’ll recommend approval because Then, when it was finally subjected to a well-controlled
there seem to be no other options except to let things clinical tried, it was shown too often that it didn’t.
“Hope is a great m otivator of action for both
go on as they are.”
She explains that “because the FDA is legally respon­ patients and physicians, but it must be remembered
sible for making these approval decisions, all the pres­ that the drug development process is directed at trans­
sure of AIDS politics tends finally to come down on it. lating hope into knowledge and known clinical benefit,
When people are desperate for new options, the quan­ with the sober understanding that initial hope, more
often than not, does not withstand the scientific inves­
tity or quality of data becomes kind of irrelevant.”
Cooper would prefer to see some sort of conditional tigative process.”
Ultimately, we know that hope does not cure dis­
approval for urgently needed drugs that have not yet
completed even an expedited development process, eases. Yet we continue to hope that something will
but by law the FDA cannot grant anything short of full stop the AIDS nightmare, that someone will invent a
marketing approval. “There’s a real need for a viable vaccine, a miracle drug, a cure. Sooner or later, we’ll
interm ediate altern ative to full approval v s. no wake up and it will be over. Ellen Cooper hopes the
approval at all,” she says. “Expanded-access programs same hopes, dreams the same dreams, but somehow
were supposed to meet that need, but in practice the her dreams seem more ordered, more rational. One
paperwork involved and the reluctance of third-party step at a time, she says to the incubus. We’ll beat you
payers to reimburse for these programs increases the one step at a time. S k
pressure for early marketing approval.”
Cooper supports in concept legislation now in Ellen Cooper left the FDA in October to become a group
Congress that would allow conditional drug approvals, director in the Institute o f Clinical Medicine at Syntex,
as long as those laws “have some teeth” to ensure that Inc., a pharmaceutical company based in Palo Alto, Calif.
meaningful clinical trials are completed even after a She wants to see what it’s like to direct clinical research
drug is on the market. Conditional approval should from the other side o f the regulatory equation.
NOVEMBER 1991

21

W

hen they first hear about
T heater By The Blind
(TBTB), m any people
assume it’s theater for the blind. The
idea of theater by the blind is unset­
tling at first, and Ike Schambelan ’61, a
25-year theater veteran who founded
the New York-based company in 1979,
recognizes that in addition to the
problems inherent in casting and stag­
ing blind actors in a play, he has to
overcome a basic resistance sighted
people feel to seeing blind actors
onstage.
“People say to themselves, ‘How
can blind people be actors? I don’t
want to watch blind people stumbling
around onstage.’” To combat the prej­
udices and uneasiness of potential
audiences, Schambelan, an energetic
and voluble man with graying hair
and a youthful spring in his step, uses
photographs liberally in the compa­
ny’s advertisements and promotional
material to reassure people that the
experience won’t be uncomfortable.
“A lot of this is unspoken,” says
Schambelan. “One doesn’t tend to talk
about these things too much, so it’s
hard to combat the stigma, since the
stigma is never addressed.”
For the past six seasons, Theater
By The Blind—a company of blind,
visually-im paired, and sighted ac­
tors—has attracted good audiences
for plays from the classic repertory as
well as original works at a number of
Off-Off-Broad way theaters. Schambe­
lan, who is sighted, started the com­
pany after he had directed several
plays for the In Touch Network, a
closed-circuit radio series for the
blind. He thought that although the
radio series brought theater to blind
audiences, it did nothing to open up
the theater to blind performers.
So Schambelan, whose enthusiasm
for his work is infectious, started an
acting class at New Y ork’s Jew ish
Guild for the Blind. Using three blind
actors from his class, Scham belan
asked some sighted actors if they
would be interested in his experi­
ment, and found two who were. This,
his first company, put on a public pro­
duction of Barefoot in the Park at the
Lincoln Center and Donnell Libraries
in 1981.

Jjj

THEATER,
NOT
THERAPY
New York's Theater B y The B lind
seeks to open up acting and
mainstream theater to blind
and visually-im paired performers
by Ann G avin ffo llio tt ’76
ph otographs by Paola Ta glia m o n te

At a playwriting session in his
New York apartment, George
Ashiotis (seated on floor) and
fellow writers work on a script for
Theater By The Blind’s November
production, “Blind as a Bat.” Ike
Schambelan ’61 is director of this
innovativetheater company.

WÊÊÊmm

Of that early production, Schambe­
lan now says with disarming honesty,
“I assum e it was terrible—I d on ’t
know that for a fact. But we did it.”
TBTB has continued to “do it,” and is
now celebrating its 10th anniversary
and seventh season, a considerable
accom plishm en t for any Off-OffBroadway group.
Sch am b elan ’s con n ection with
both the theater and blindness has
deep roots. “Moss Hart said all the­
ater people had a maiden aunt who
took them to the theater when they
were kids,” he recounts. That some­
body in Scham belan’s life was his
grandm other, Lenore Rubin, who
went blind when she was in her sev­
enties (she carefully kept her exact
age a secret) and m oved in with
Schambelan’s family in 1946, when Ike
was 6.
NOVEMBER 1991

In the four years before she died,
“Nana” frequently went to the movies
with him. “We would sit in the back
row, and I would tell her what she
didn’t get from the screen—which
was minimal, I might add. And on
Monday nights I would get into her
bed and we would both listen to the
Lux Radio Hour, which was terribly
glamorous.” Schambelan thinks these
experiences, which associated affec­
tion, theater, and blindness in his
mind, had a great deal to do with why,
when he had the opportunity to work
with blind actors, he took it.
Part of TBTB’s mission is to open
up acting and the mainstream theater
to blind actors. Schambelan is pas­
sionate in his belief that blind actors
should as a matter of course play the
blind roles. They should, in his words,
“be more present in the theater in the
way every ethnic and handicapped
group is becoming more present.” But
he also believes that blind actors
should be given the opportunity to
play sighted roles, since they can
make eye contact and use body lan­
guage as all actors do.
Some people ask him why blind
actors play sighted roles in his pro­
ductions. “Well, what are they sup­
posed to play?” he asks, his voice
becoming high-pitched with exaspera­
tion. “There is one German drama
with blind characters who walk in a
line with their hands on each others’
shoulders. None of them has the guts
to move on his own,” he says, acting it
out. “I’m not going to do that”
The visually-im paired actors in
Schambelan’s company don’t “look”
blind. Just as sighted actors tend to
be more vivid and charismatic than
the average person on the street, the
blind actors in TBTB are more expres­
sive physically than many of their
peers. People in the audience who try
to guess which actors are visually-

impaired and which are sighted fre­
quently get it wrong. And most audi­
ences come away pleased to have
seen all the a cto rs—sighted and
blind—at work.
Schambelan has high artistic goals
for the company, and initially had a
difficult time convincing others that
he could do good theater with visual­
ly-impaired actors. “For five years the
New York State Council on the Arts
asked if it was a therapy group or an
arts group—which was one way of
saying that it wasn’t any good,” he
notes good-humoredly. “Then they
decided it was an arts group, and
began to fund it.”
n Arts Council interviewer this
year asked Schambelan when
he was going to move on from
the standard repertory to do Shakespectre and other serious works of art
that he has often dreamed of directing
in nontraditional productions. (Like
many who studied English Literature
at Swarthmore, Schambelan holds a
particular reverence for the Bard.)
“That was the nicest, but most hurtful
thing anyone could say,” Schambelan
recalls, because it underlines both
how far the company has come and
how far it has to go.
Schambelan told the interviewer
that he will do Shakespeare when he
has enough money to pay actors to
rehearse for seven hours a day, five
days a week, instead of the limited
rehearsal time that they can afford
now. But for the last several years the
com pany has con centrated on
im proving its a cto rs’ basic skills,
using professional voice and move­
ment coaches to lead workshops on a
regular basis—choreographer Laura
Dean will lead a movement workshop
this season—and it has made impres­
sive artistic strides since that early
production of Barefoot in the Park.
Staging plays with blind and visual­
ly-impaired actors is both difficult and
expensive. Schambelan likes to move
the actors around when he directs
plays, and he d oesn ’t change his
method when directing blind actors.
Sets have to be carefully designed to
provide “a sculpted space with welldefined pieces and measurable dis-

A

tances”—the necessary signals to the
actors to let them know where they
are—and they must be sturdy enough
to provide a secure environment for
the actors. Partially-sighted actors
need sharp contrasts in colors to dis­
tinguish locations. Sensitivity to quali­
ties of voice are also of tremendous
importance to blind actors onstage.
They can tell when someone turns
away, and they get their cues as to
character from the qualities of the
voice.
here are few other opportunities
for visually-im paired people
who have aspiration s to go
onstage. Some come to TBTB from a
theater group organized by The Light­
house, a well-established organization
for the blind on New York’s Upper
East Side; others hear about it from
people who have been involved with
the com pany in previous seasons.
Some started as actors before they
became blind. Some just think it might
be fun.
The sighted actors in the company
“tend to be good people,” according
to Schambelan, as well as being good
actors. Last season Schambelan went
to a professional casting agent to cast
sighted actors in his plays because he
thinks the company is good enough to
attract any professional actor. “I’ve
discovered that people want to do the
work—not just because it is ‘good
works,’ but because it is good work.”
He hopes someday to attract stars to
work with the company, and believes
that they will come as the company
gets better and better. Theater By The
Blind has already gained the attention
of several Broadway producers and
other members of the theater commu­
nity, and their response has encour­
aged Schambelan. “They seem to be
saying ‘You still have to deliver the
goods, but if you do, we’ll support
you.’”
During the 1991-92 season, Theater
By The B lin d ’s com pany of eight
actors will put on two productions at
the Theatre Row Theatre on 42nd
Street, the first running from Novem­
ber 15-24 and the second from May
5-17. The November production is
called B lind as a Bat, and includes
four original one-act plays written by
George Ashiotis, the company’s asso­
ciate artistic director, Doug Schading,

T

Jaim e Ituarte, and Ken Stewart, all
writers associated with TBTB who are
blind or visually-impaired. Under the
direction of Scott Klavan, a sighted
actor who has worked with Schambe­
lan since the In Touch Network days,
company members met each week
during the summer and fall to read
the work and comment on it.
At an early September meeting, Kla­
van and Schambelan, the only sighted
members of the group present, read
through drafts of the w orks-in­
progress. The material—both humor­
ous and serious—deals unsentimentally with the experience of being
blind. One play is about some visual­
ly-impaired “do-gooders” who are
feverishly m ounting a cam paign
against cut-out cu rb s, w hich are
favored by people in wheelchairs but
difficult for blind people, who no
longer can tell when they are leaving
the sidewalk and entering the street.
Thus the piece presents two groups
of handicapped people whose inter­
ests set them against one another—a
problem not often recognized by a
majority that lumps all handicapped
people together. Another play about
the publisher of an innovative maga­
zine for blind entrepreneurs express­
es the rage blind people feel when
sighted people are overly solicitous
and do not recognize their ability to
take care of themselves.
he spring production, still to be
decided, will probably be anoth­
er original work, one that
explores space and light on stage and
how it affects blind actors. Schambe­
lan wants to investigate whether there
is a visual style appropriate to the
company, and plans to develop the
piece, in part, in ch ild re n s’ play­
grounds where jungle gyms and slides
define and shape the space. He also
wants to have the set and lighting
designers develop the optimal sets
and lighting for blind actors by testing
the direction and levels of light and
the shapes and colors of sets and
props.
Schambelan characterizes TBTB as
being “about halfway to becoming an

T

People ask Ike Schambelan (left)
why blind actors play sighted roles
in his productions. “What are they
supposed to play?” he replies.

24
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

4)

Blind and visually-impaired
actors find various ways to work
with scripts. George Ashiotis
(left) reads a braille version of
his one-act play while Ray
Moran (below) relies on a
powerful magnifier. Theater By
The Blind uses a professional
casting agency to find its
sighted actors because, says
Schambelan, “people want
to do the work— not just
because it is ‘good works,’ but
because it is good work.”

t j

institution.” Its annual budget has
grown exponentially, going from $600
the first year to a projected $120,000
this season. The financial side of the
enterprise is still an uphill battle,
waged largely by Schambelan himself,
with the help of board members, advi­
sors, and friends. “People really help,
but you are still left with everything to
do,” he says. TBTB has had consider­
able fund-raising success, and has
received grants from federal and state
agencies, private foundations, corpo­
rations, and individuals. But each suc­
cess points the way to Schambelan’s
larger dreams, requiring greater effort
and even more of his time.
The development of any new arts
organization is generally a frustrating
enterprise, with some victories and
NOVEMBER 1991

many disappointments. These organi­
zations frequently succeed by virtue
of the commitment of one leader who,
in spite of help from many interested
people, struggles all day, every day.
Schambelan is that person for Theater
By The Blind. His energy and devotion
have carried it a trem endous dis­
tance, but he is not content to rest on
his laurels. This year, Theater By The
Blind received a request for proposals
from a large foundation that has
launched a program to sponsor eight
theater companies that do work for
nontraditional audiences. But the
foundation requires that the compa­
nies have an annual budget of
$300,000 and two full-time staff.
Schambelan asks plaintively, “How
do you develop to that point if no one

will give you the money to develop to
that p o in t?” Despite his habitual
enthusiasm, he admits that in darker
moments he sometimes loses his con­
nection with why he wanted to do this
in the first place, seeing only the fund­
raising and administrative tasks that
fall on his shoulders. But then the
playwright’s group meets again, his
enthusiasm is rekindled, and he is
drawn back into the thing that so
excited him when he was 6—good
theater. A
A n n Ga vin ffolliott 7 6 is a free-lance
e d ito r in N e w York s p e c ia liz in g in
cookbooks. Sh e says s h e ’s not trying to
be another e. e. cummings. It’s really
her last name. This is her first story for
the Bulletin.

ï

COLLEGE
STEVE GOLDBLATT '67

President Bloom
welcomes the
Class of 1995
First Collection on August 28
provided the forum for
incoming President Alfred H.
Bloom to w elcom e 319
members o f the Class o f
1995 to Swarthmore. Here is
an edited text o f his speech:

It is my great pleasure to
welcome you to Swarth­
more. I am glad that each
of you is here and I look
forward to coming to know
each of you personally. As
you may know, this is in
some sense my second
freshman year at Swarth­
more, so I can particularly
empathize with the uncer­
tainties you may be feeling
about what lies ahead, with
your determination to take
full advantage of the oppor­
tunities awaiting you, and
with your eagerness to get
over the formalities and get
on quickly with the task at
hand.
I thought I might share
with you some of the rea­
sons why I am so excited
about returning to Swarth­
more and so willing to do
my own freshman year
over again.
My reasons are quite
simple. There is no college
I know of that offers a bet­
ter education and, there­
fore, that I would be more
proud to lead. There is no
college whose faculty, staff,
and students are more
engaged with the pursuit of
knowledge, both for its
own sake and for the
impact that it can have on
making the world a better
place. There is no college I
know whose faculty mem­
bers expend more effort
constructing lectures and

P resid en t A I B loom

seminars that reflect the
rigor of their thoughts find
the richness of their imagi­
nations, and no students
who more deeply appreci­
ate those efforts, engage
more fully those thoughts,
and go on more confidently
and enthusiastically to
build upon them on their
own. Swarthmore has a dis­
tinctive place in American
education, and it is stu­
dents like you who enable
it to sustain that distinc­
tion.
Allow me briefly to sug­
gest three strategies that
may help you to make best
use of the College’s
strengths:
First, take full advantage
of the breadth and depth of
the curriculum. Explore
beyond the limits that you
ever thought you would
explore and don’t let linger­
ing biases get in your way.
There is no subject taught
at the College which is not
interesting and which will
not add an important
dimension to your lives.
Take linguistics! Sign up for
math! Learn to predict the
impact that lower interest
rates can have on the eco­
nomic well-being of a soci­
ety. Understand the impact

of the AIDS virus on the
immune system. Feel the
impact that restricting
artistic creation can have
on psychological well­
being. Don’t graduate with­
out being able to articulate
your own educational phi­
losophy in another lan­
guage. And please consider
the magnificent education­
al experience that Honors
provides. Be confident that
you can undertake these
broad and deep explo­
rations. We know you can
succeed in them. That is
why we accepted you.
Second, as part of those
explorations, deliberately
choose to engage other
cultural worlds, not
because they are exotic or
fascinating, but because
the experience will lead
you to see the world differ­
ently, will enable you to
expand and appreciate the
aesthetic dimensions of
life, will introduce you to
new perspectives on the
problems facing our soci­
ety and the world, and will
add important degrees of
complexity to the ways in
which you perceive and
evaluate ethical concerns.
Listen to different voices
both within and outside
our community and devel­
op the personal skills need­
ed to build relationships of
trust and friendship with
people different from your­
selves so that you will be
prepared to enjoy,
embrace, prosper in, and
contribute to the richly
pluralistic world into
which you will graduate.
Finally, don’t be embar­
rassed, but rather be
proud to work hard, to
think of new ideas, to run
with them, to express to
your teachers and friends

the new intellectual con­
nections you have made.
The Swarthmore communi­
ty has the deepest appreci­
ation for the struggles and
accomplishments of the
life of the mind. But at the
same time don’t be embar­
rassed to derive enjoyment
from the play of the mind,
from engaging friends in
intense dialogue, from
crafting a beautiful piece of
prose or pottery, from
knowing that you have
grasped, and internalized
for your own use, the
essence of a course, a sem­
inar, or an idea. And don’t
be embarrassed to relax, to
engage vigorously in athlet­
ics, to work as a Swarth­
more volunteer, to make
expeditions to Philadelphia
restaurants, to spend time
building relationships. You
are here, first and fore­
most, to gain an education,
but if you do not enjoy the
experience, and if you do
not learn on many fronts, if
your education does not
open you up both as an
intellect and as a person,
you will have missed a
great deal of what Swarth­
more has to offer.
I hope and trust that
when you return to Swarth­
more one year from now,
four years from now, and
54 years from now—at
your 50th reunion—that
you will feel the same
sense of joy in reconnect­
ing with the College that
you feel from reconnecting
with a relative, a teacher,
or a friend whose vitality
has made you more alive,
whose confidence in you
has given you greater con­
fidence in yourself, whose
respect for you has
inspired you to pursue
even more assertively what
you think is right, and who
brings back the memory of
four wonderfully exciting
years.

26
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

E
Nationwide search
begun for new dean
A national search for a
dean of the College to
replace Janet Dickerson
was launched last month
with advertisements
placed in educational pub­
lications. Leah Smith is
serving as acting dean.
Appearing in The Chroni­
cle o f Higher Education and
in Black Issues in Higher
Education, the ad, in part,
read: “Swarthmore College
seeks an experienced,
dynamic, and compassion­
ate individual for the posi­
tion of Dean of the College.
Reporting directly to the
President, the Dean has the
major responsibility for
fostering a stimulating and
supportive environment to
advance the educational

E

C

ties of the position and the
criteria to be sought in can­
didates.”
Spock said the deadline
for applications is Decem­
ber 16. If you would like to
apply or would like to pre­
sent a nomination, contact
William T. Spock, Chair,
Dean’s Search Committee,
Swarthmore College, 500
College Avenue, Box 747,
Parrish Hall, Swarthmore,
PA 19081-1397 or phone
(215) 328-8292.
Other members of the
search committee are
Stephanie Hirsch ’92; Tedd
R. Goundie, assistant dean
for new student affairs;
Charles L. James, professor
of English literature; Ellen
B. Magenheim; assistant
professor of economics;
Kathleen K. Siwicki, assis­

mission of the College. By
working with and repre­
senting the interests of a
diverse student body in a
manner that enhances and
sustains a sense of commu­
nity, the Dean ensures a
mutually reinforcing rela­
tionship between the aca­
demic and nonacademic
areas of the College.”
William T. Spock ’51,
vice president for business
and finance and chair of
the dean’s search commit­
tee, has also asked for
nominations and applica­
tions from the Swarthmore
community. “We are very
anxious to have nomina­
tions for candidates who
you feel would fit the needs
described in the ad. We are
also receptive to sugges­
tions on the responsibili­

HARRY KALISH

list Gallery Dedicated...Among celebrants for the Septem ber dedication o f the L ist G allery in the
Eugene M . an d Theresa Lang Perform ing Arts Center w ere (from the left) Peggi B loom , w ife o f President
A lfred B loom , Constance Cain Hungerford, professor o f art history, Vice President Harry Gotw als, and
President B loom . Vera List, a patron o f the arts an d longtim e friend o f Eugene Lang ’38, chairm an
em eritus o f the B oa rd o f M anagers, donated the clim ate Albert. The opening exhibit, featuring R oycroft Arts and Crafts, had its ow n sp ecia l Sw arthm ore twist:
The R oycroft S ch o o l w as founded by Elbert Hubbard, grandfather o f M ary R o elo fs Stott ’40.
NOVEMBER 1991

27

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tant professor of biology;
and Sonali Thakker ’92.

“Fractured Forties”
plan war years reunion
and Alumni College
Alumni from the classes of
1943 through 1949 are plan­
ning a War Years Reunion
and Alumni College June
3-5,1992. Amid seeing old
friends, alumni will look at
the impact of World War II
on the College during these
unique years in Swarthmore’s history. Save these
dates and plan to come
back to renew old friend­
ships and make new ones
as we gather together the
“Fractured Forties” for the
first time in 50 years!

Maralyn Gillespie will
retire in February
In a meeting with her staff
on October 31, Maralyn
Orbison Gillespie ’49, asso­
ciate vice president for
alumni, publications, and
public relations—and an
editor of this magazine
since 1956—announced
that she will retire at the
end of February. She and
her husband, George, will
move to a new home in the
spring, where Gillespie
says she will “focus on our
new garden, work on low­
ering my golf handicap,
and have more time for
travel.”
Vice President Harry
Gotwals praised “the warm
and capable responsive­
ness to alumni that Mara­
lyn has exemplified. She
can be proud of her nation­
ally recognized editorial
leadership of the Bulletin
and of her 37 years of ser­
vice to Swarthmore. Mara­
lyn is irreplaceable, but I
will welcome alumni nomi­
nations for potential candi­
dates to continue the high
standards that she has
established.”

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STEVE GOLDBLATT ’67

began to wane as the next
topic, free speech on cam­
pus, came up in midSeptember. The explo­
ration of speech and com­
munity centered on recent
experiences on other cam­
puses, notably Brown Uni­
versity, and attempted to
give incoming students an
understanding of last
year’s Parrish walls debate
on race and diversity at
Swarthmore [see May 1991
Bulletin]. The goal was to
raise questions about cam­
pus norms concerning
speech find to explore how
unrestrained expression
can sometimes hurt the
sense of community at the
P ro fesso r V in cen t H ardin g talks w ith m em bers o f the C la ss o f 1995 after h is A u gu st 29 sp eech .
College.
A third series of discus­
Class of 1995 tries
confront campus issues.
today’s youth and called
sions in late September on
a new kind of
Nearly 50 volunteers, rang­
for a nation that is “no
the use and abuse of alco­
freshman orientation
ing from Vice President Bill
longer satisfied with Sun­
hol was even more sparse­
Freshman orientation for
Spock ’51 to faculty in
day-school ideas about reli­
ly attended. Dean Smith,
the Class of 1995 took a
more than a dozen aca­
gion and seventh-gradeexpressing disappointment
new turn this fall with the
demic departments to pro­
civics-class ideas about
in the turnout, speculated
institution of a series of
fessional and secretarial
democracy.” Describing
that first-year students had
broad-based discussions
staff members, agreed to
America as “a great work of
rapidly become involved in
around a number of impor­
read Hope and History by
art that we have to play
academic and extracurricu­
tant human relations top­
Vincent Harding (Hon. ’87)
and experiment with—and
lar activities and no longer
ics. As in the past three
and to lead ongoing discus­
sometimes make embar­
had time for the groups,
years, the process began
sion groups of 15-20 firstrassing mistakes with,”
even though many of the
with a book read in com­
year students.
Harding said that “we must
meetings were scheduled
mon by all incoming stu­
Harding’s book, subti­
be mad artists in this soci­
during evening hours. The
dents. It ended, unfortu­
tled Why We Must Share the
ety because we have to
fact that the groups were
nately, with more ques­
Story o f the Movement, is an
create something really
not mandatory also led to
tions than answers about
impassioned call to teach­
new.” Lively discussions of
the decline in attendance,
how to encourage better
ers and students to remem­
the book immediately fol­
said Smith.
dialogue on such topics as
ber and build on the strug­
lowed Harding’s talk and it
A final series of work­
free speech, sexual harass­
gle for the expansion of
seemed as though the ori­
shops, which was to have
ment, and alcohol educa­
American democracy
entation process was off to
focused on issues of diver­
tion. The planned twoknown as “the civil rights
a good start.
sity in society find on cam­
month program started
movement.” Harding, who
In the week that fol­
pus, was postponed until
with high energy and lofty
was Lang Visiting Professor
lowed, groups led by
later in the year by the
ideas but, according to Act­
of Social Change for three
trained upper-class facilita­
Dean’s Office, which is
ing Dean Leah Smith, grad­
semesters during 1985-86
tors explored the issues of
examining ways of improv­
ually drew fewer find fewer
and is currently professor
sexual harassment and
ing the orientation pro­
students to biweekly dis­
of religion and social trans­
acquaintance rape, using a
gram next year. “I was hop­
cussion sessions.
formation at the Iliff School
video produced by Swarth- - ing the groups would hold
This year for the first
of Theology, returned to
more students as a spring­
together better than they
time, members of the facul­
campus on August 29 to
board for the group dis­
did,” said Smith, “but some
ty and staff were drawn
speak to the class.
cussions.
positive results have come
into the orientation pro­
In his lecture he
Though the acquain­
from bringing together fac­
cess in an effort to create a
expressed concern about
tance rape workshops
ulty, staff, and incoming
College-wide approach to
the cynicism and self­
were generally well-attend­
students in a few interest­
helping incoming students
destructive tendencies of
ed, interest in the groups
ing discussions.”
28

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

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noon organ recitals in the
Lang Concert Hall. Begin­
ning in 1966 he took part,
as co-director with Peter
Gram Swing, Daniel Under­
hill Professor Emeritus of
Music, in a series of con­
certs of choral music by
J.S. Bach performed at
Swarthmore, the Church
of the Holy Trinity, and
Congregation Rodeph
Shalom in Philadelphia.
At the College, Smart
gave guest lecture recitals
of organ music and taught
courses in basic piano, key­
board harmony, and score
reading. His teaching style
has been described by Pro­
fessor Swing as “one-onone with no-nonsense rigor
tempered by warmth and
an unfailing secco humor.”
Smart was a graduate
of the Curtis Institute of
Music in Philadelphia,
where he studied piano
with Vladimir Sokoloff,
organ with Alexander
McCurdy, and theory with
George Rochberg and Con­
stant Vauclain. Apart from
his music, he was an ama­
teur astronomer and an
enthusiastic traveler, espe­
cially in the United States
and Europe, where he pur­
sued his love of climbing
church towers.

It’s tough labeling a
Swarthmore alum but....

J. MARTIN NATVIG

Organist Robert
Smart dead at 63
Robert Smart, College
organist, chorus director,
and associate in perfor­
mance died of cancer on
July 11.
A member of the faculty
since 1961, Smart was
known for his Sunday after­
NOVEMBER 1991

Please check your mailing
label on the back cover of
this issue. The College has
converted to new comput­
er software for generating
labels and this is the first
mailing since the conver­
sion. If you see any prob­
lems, please write to the
Alumni and Gift Informa­
tion Systems Office,
Swarthmore College, 500
College Ave., Swarthmore,
PA 19081-1397.
In other user-friendly
news, some creative com­

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puter tinkering now makes
it possible for graduates to
indicate the class they
would like to be associated
with for reunions and
social gatherings. In the
past only the official year
of graduation was able to
be used for mailings. Write
to Alumni and Gift Informa­
tion Systems with informa­
tion or years you’d like
changed.

E
A photograph of Profes­
sor Paul Mangelsdorf ’49
by J. Martin Natvig that
appeared in the November
1990 issue received a silver
medal in the individuell
photographs category of
the CASE Recognition Pro­
gram.
MACARTHUR MCBURNEY ’92

Bulletin honored in
national competition
The Swarthmore College
Bulletin received two
awards for excellence in
the annual national compe­
tition for college magazines
sponsored by CASE, the
Council for Advancement
and Support of Education.
Competing against peri­
odicals from 73 other insti­
tutions, the Bulletin
received a bronze medal,
placing it in the top nine of
all college alumni maga­
zines. Gold medals went to
Arizona State University
College of Business, Dart­
mouth College, and Radcliffe College. Silver medal
winners were Pomona Col­
lege, the University of Pitts­
burgh, find Virginia Poly­
technic Institute. Bronze
medals were awarded to
Evergreen State College,
Macalester College, and
Swarthmore.

Bob Gross joins
Dean’s staff
Robert J. Gross ’62, a for­
mer associate professor of
education at the College,
has returned as associate
dean. He replaces Eva
Travers, who will resume
her duties as head of the
Education Program after a
year’s sabbatical.
Gross left Swarthmore
in 1983, after teaching
introductory education
and adolescence courses
for six years, to serve as
head of the upper school at
the Friends Select School
in Philadelphia. For the
past two years, he has
been a social work intern
at the University of Penn­
sylvania and the Institute
of Pennsylvania Hospital
while completing an M.S.S.
in clinical practice at Bryn
Mawr College. Gross also
holds an M A T . and an Ed.D.
from Harvard University.
In his role as associate
dean, Gross directs aca­
demic advising and sup­
port services, provides
supportive counseling for
students, and advises and
trains student organiza­
tions.
29

T R EISM A N IN TERVIEW
C O N T A IN S “ IN A C C U R A C IE S ”

had taken the standard freshman firstsemester calculus course (Math 5)” is
To the Editor:
a mystery. I personally know three
The interesting interview with Uri majors who took this course. An infor­
Treisman [Lang Visiting Professor of mal poll of the department reveals
Social Change for three semesters] in additional names.
the August issue of the Bulletin con­
Finally, the “problem” of choosing
tains a few inaccuracies that need to between producing “first-rate gradu­
be addressed. Although the following ate students” and attracting a more
quote is taken a little out of context, diverse group to math is not an issue.
Treisman asserts that “After you pass The two are in one sense mutually
your doctoral exams, you are allowed exclusive and in another sense inti­
to ‘do math.’ En route to the doctoral m ately related. A distinguished
exam s, students never know what department must provide a high-level
doing math’ means.” Surely he can’t curriculum for majors, minors, and
be serious in making such an off-the- others. On the other hand, suitable
wall com ment. I dare say that any advanced courses must be accessible
doctoral student who didn’t know to those coming through the introduc­
what “doing m ath” m eant before tory sequence. The issue is not to
standing for the doctoral exams is in choose between attracting a more
the wrong field. “Doing math” is what diverse group and offering high-level
our math courses and honors semi­ advanced courses, but to provide
nars are all about.
enough faculty to do both.
His analogy between math and
DAVID ROSEN
music and art skipped the essential
Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
similarities between the two. “From
day one in art, you can start to do
something using basic skills....” So too M A N Y M ATH M A JO R S
in math, you can add, multiply, etc. T O O K FR ESH M A N C O U R SE
One practices scales repetitively in To the Editor:
music, just as in math one practices
I write to correct an error in the
how, for example, to take a derivative article “Big C atalyst on C am pus,”
or integrals. Among the reasons for (August 1991). That interview records
doing such repetitive things is that Uri Treisman as saying, “We did a
intimately knowing scales means that study of math majors at Swarthmore
when it comes to playing the concer­ over a 10-year period. The faculty was
to, your attention is focused on the astonished to learn that, over that
music and not the technicality of fig­ period, not one student who graduat­
uring out the scale. Just so in doing ed with a degree in math had taken
hard, challenging math problems: You the standard freshman first-semester
can focus on the problem without calculus course (Math 5).” Since I
w orrying about how to take the have taught a number of students in
derivative.
Math 5 who went on to graduate with
The 10-year study of math majors majors in mathematics, I was indeed
at Sw arthm ore that he m entions astonished to read this. I have person­
either used data from another depart­ ally examined the transcripts of all of
ment or a different school. How the our math majors who graduated from
faculty could be “astonished to learn 1982 to 1991 and have found 32 stu­
that, over that period, not one student dents who started their mathematics
who graduated with a degree in math studies at Swarthmore in our stan­
30

dard freshman first-semester calculus
course. In case anyone doubts my fig­
ures, I have a list of their names and
graduating years. I cringe to think
how these graduates must have felt
upon reading this error in the Bulletin.
This figure of 32 represents about
one-fourth of the students who
majored in mathematics during that
10-year period.
Treisman refers to a study done of
math majors at Swarthmore over a 10year period. This self-study has been
supported by a grant from the Charles
A. Dana Foundation and preliminary
results of the study were communicat­
ed orally to the department about a
year ago by Uri Treisman. I have yet
to see any written report of this study
or any document containing the facts
and figures involved. I can only hope
that the formal written report will
more accurately represent the facts
than the false statem ent quoted
above.
HELENE SHAPIRO
Chair, Department of Mathematics
Uri Treisman Replies: M y thanks to
D a v id R osen a nd H elen e Shapiro for
correcting w hat I b e liev e was a m is­
quote in Maralyn G illesp ie’s interview
with me. To set the record straight, m y
exam ination o f data su p p lied by the
C o lle g e adm in istra tion s h o w e d that
roughly one graduating math m ajor in
eight began his or her collegiate math­
taking in first-term calculus (Math 5).
Comments compatible with this finding
appeared in the College’s report to the
D a n a Found ation, w hich g en erou sly
supported the study as w ell as som e
related instructional experimentation. A
recent re-examination o f the data by a
mem ber o f the math department found
e sse n tia lly the nu m bers I h a v e ju s t
reported.
M y p o in t sta n d s. A t S w a rth m o re
introductory calculus is not an effective
route into the major. This fact has spe­
cia l releva n ce to the p roblem o f the
underrepresentation o f certain ethnic
m inority groups in m athem atics a n d
m athem atics-based d isciplines. R e la ­
tiv e ly few m em bers o f th ese groups
enter Swarthmore with sufficient expo­
sure to mathematics to skip the course
in question.
P ro fe sso r R o s e n asserts that “the
issue is not to choose between attract­
ing a more diverse group and offering
high-level advanced courses, but to proSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

vide enough faculty to do both. ” Yes,
we do need enough faculty to do both.
U n fo rtu n a te ly , S w a r th m o r e ’s m ath
departm ent, lik e so m a n y others, is
underfunded. The departmental leader­
sh ip ha s b een u n a b le to obtain the
resources it believes that it needs. In the
face o f this reality, I believe the depart­
m e n t h a s m a d e a c h o ic e . It is this
choice that I am questioning.
Finally, m y comment$ about the dif­
ferences betw een art instruction a nd
math instruction were not intended as a
criticism o f m athem atics teaching at
Swarthmore, but rather as a com m ent
on the general state o f both precolle­
giate and collegiate mathematics peda­
gogy in the United States. Perhaps D a ve
has Swarthmore “myopia, ” a b elief that
the extraordinarily high quality o f math­
em atics teaching prevalent at Swarth­
more is in fact universal. I have seen
too m an y m athem atics graduate stu­
dents in too m any graduate programs
w ho have never read a m athem atics
paper, never played with mathematics
solely for the pleasure o f it, never creat­
ed anything but the solution to routine
homework problems. Swarthmore math
majors, on the other hand, m ake great
graduate students because they have
had the opportunity to work on and cre­
ate m athem atics with talented p eers
under the g u id a n ce o f so p h istica te d
te a ch e rs w h o ca re. T h e y w ill h a v e
e x p e r ie n c e d instruction as high art.
S w a r th m o r e m ath m a jo rs a re the
exception. Their undergraduate experi­
e n c e e n a b le s th em to m a k e an
informed choice about the pursuit o f a
mathematical life.
I enjoyed immeasurably m y time at
Swarthmore and being part o f a depart­
m e n t w h e re fa c u lty m e m b e r s ca re
deeply about their students and about
teaching as an intellectual endeavor. I
d e e p ly a p p r e c ia t e h a v in g h a d the
opportunity to be part o f this dynamic
community.

E M P H A SIS O N ET H N ICIT Y
IS A STEP BACK W ARD

To the Editor:
I was moved to write to you after
reading the following in the article on
Uri Treism an: “The hard part at
Swarthmore is subtle. Because the
number of students of color is small,
and because the institution puts so
much emphasis on ethnicity, these
NOVEMBER 1991

students are forced in their first few
weeks here to deal with their ethnici­
ty—style, personal life, models. We
wanted to provide an environment in
w hich their in te lle c tu a l interests
would be the principal bonding
force.”
Perhaps I misinterpreted the state­
ment about Swarthmore’s attitude
toward its ethnic minority students:
The world seems to be heading back­
ward toward ethnicity and ultrana­
tionalism with all of its attendant prej­
udices and hatreds.
EDGAR M. HOUSEPLAN, M.D. ’49
New York
A M E R IC A N L A B O R N O M A T C H
F O R FO R EIG N W O R K ER S

To the Editor:
My wife is a Swarthmore graduate
[Anne Thompson ’70], and I greatly
enjoy her Bulletin. I write to respond
to the article by Jeffrey Lott, “Labor’s
Pains.”
Few condone abuse of labor rela­
tions by management and govern­
ment agencies (the NLRB being only
one example), but I suggest that the
debate over improved working condi­
tions was not advanced by the narrow
perspective of the article. Mr. Lott
warned us that that it was “not an im­
personal, unbiased story,” but his fer­
vor veiled even more basic problems
of the American labor movement.
One fundamental problem resides
in the early dreams of an international
labor movement.
The early rhetoric of the interna­
tional labor movement came into dis­
repute because it became tainted with
communist sympathy in an era when
such sympathies were excoriated. But
the fact is, the rhetoric of the interna­
tional labor movement has come true
before our very eyes, much to the
delight and benefit of management
and much to the dismay of the unions.
The basic fact of life for American
labor is that it com petes w ithJapanese, French, English, Korean, Brazil­
ian, and Mexican workers—to name
only a few. In many of those countries,
the workers feel incredibly lucky even
to have a job. They work for total ben­
efits less than one-third to one-half of
American workers. I aver also that
often the foreign worker performs bet­
ter work than the typical American
worker.

Only when the American workers
accept the responsibility to attain the
skill, abilities, and concern for quality
of many foreign workers, and realize
that they are com peting with the
lower wages—plus transportation
costs—-of foreign manufacturing, only
then will the well-meaning labor orga­
nizers learn why union membership
has dropped from 34 percent to 17
percent of all nonfarm labor.
Bluntly, American labor is often
overpaid and as often uncommitted to
the service, quality, and improvement
that leads to sales, success, and prof­
it. Those facts are harsh. Nonethe­
less, if accepted as good self-criticism,
they are the beginning of a conversion
to a really competitive spirit.
NELS LARSON
Greenbelt, Md.
U N IO N S H ELPED KILL
A M E R ICA N IN D U STRY

To the Editor:
The article “Labor’s Pains” (August
1991) seemed to gloss over some very
basic issues. There is no need to
enslave the work force in any compa­
ny. Similarly, there is no need for the
labor movement to have the power it
once had and, I hope, never will again.
By fate I ended up on the manage­
ment (and investor) side of the strug­
gle between labor and management.
Looking back it seems that wherever
labor was strong in the 1950s, the
industry is now dead or dying. The
exam ples include coal, steel, rail­
roads, auto, shipping, etc. While man­
agement (and politicians) played a
role in the demise, it is ludicrous to
put the blame solely on them.
Of greater concern now are the
public unions. As they grow, princi­
pally with political pressure and cash
contributions, the nation loses again.
As the article states, the education
unions are getting stronger and
wealthier. It neglects to observe that
our school systems are deteriorating
rapidly. Even Swarthmore—and I rec­
ognize its liberal heritage—has a
responsibility to look at this issue
more evenhandedly.
I agree with the article that we can­
not count the unions out, but I hope
they can becom e a more positive
force for the benefit of all.
J. RICHARD TOMLINSON ’52
Villanova, Pa.
31

A U N IO N FO R
SELF-EM PLO YED W R ITER S

To the Editor:
I was delighted to see the long arti­
cle about unions and the labor move­
ment in the August Bulletin, and want
to take this opportunity to point out
the existence of a union that may be
of interest to the considerable num­
ber of Swarthmoreans who write.
The National Writers Union (NWU),
founded in the early 1980s, is a regis­
tered union of some 3,000 members,
with 11 locals spread across the coun­
try, from Boston and New York to Cal­
ifornia. Its members are mainly free­
lancers and self-employed writers,
journalists, technical writers, and
book authors. It handles grievances
for members, most often involving
nonpayment or underpayment, advis­
es on contracts, enters negotiations
with periodical and book publishers
to ensure fair treatment, keeps a liter­
ary agents database which indicates
agents’ terms and members’ evalua­
tion of agents they have used, and is
working on a book-contract data base
which will indicate current contract
terms. For more information, contact
N ational W riters U nion, 13 A stor
Place, New York, NY 10003.
CHRISTINE AMMER ’52
Lexington, Mass.
O R IG IN S A R T IC LE D EN IES
B IB LIC A L CR EA T IO N

To the Editor:
Y our article “Strewn from the
Stars” (August 1991) brings modern
man no closer to answering the ques­
tion of origin(s) and is really quite in
error in automatically assuming the
universe didn’t happen the way God
said it did.
As a convert from secular human­
ism’s ideas on how we got here, I con­
tinue to marvel at the constant stray­
ing of physics into metaphysics. Are
you aware of the places in your article
where you move totally out of the
realm of true science into specula­
tion? One writer has warned that the
true scien tist should be cautious
because of the limitations of true sci­
ence: “If he does not, he transgresses
and makes a metaphysical leap, turn­
ing science into scientism.”
Your article is really atheistic in its
smug assumption that there certainly
was no personal Creator God any­
32

where involved with regard to our ori­
gin; addressing the atheist, biologist
George Beadle raised the question,
“Whence came the hydrogen?” Beadle
added, “Is it any less awe-inspiring to
conceive of a universe created of
hydrogen with the capacity to evolve
into man, than it is to accept the Cre­
ation of man as man?” You can insert
“Strewn from the S ta rs” into the
appropriate place in the above state­
ment.
You folk who deny the Biblical
account of creation are unconvincing
when you try to establish how person­
ality came from nonpersonality, how
thinking and loving beings came from
nonthinking asteroids, and how a
tightly knit and wondrously intelligi­
ble universe such as ours could suffi­
ciently be explained by a bunch of me­
teors banging into earth so long ago.
Wasn’t it your kind who wrote 500
doctoral dissertations on Piltdown
Man in support of the theory of evolu­
tion after 1913? I say without fear of
contradiction that there is absolutely
no fact of modern true science that
contradicts the Genesis narrative of
creation. I am confident that this is
why creationists have beat the fire
out of evolutionists in recent debates
where only qualified persons on both
sides were allowed to participate.
It would be far more fitting to have
entitled your article “A beginning
without God,” for that’s really what
you are saying. I wonder if you are
comfortable in the fact that the arch­
murderers of the twentieth century
shared, at least, your ideas of origin?
One historian said that while Hitler
seduced Germany, Stalin raped Rus­
sia—both propelled by an atheistic
world view.
Only the Scriptures give an ade­
quate explanation of how the universe
got here, and more im portantly, I
might add, only the Scriptures give
the essential nature of man his origin,
purpose, and DESTINY. Did you real­
ize ever that these three entities lie
outside of the realm of science? Only
the Scriptures tell of a Savior who
came to redeem fallen man by his
death on the Cross.
It was none other than The Lord
Jesus Christ who affirmed that the
Bible is true and that God was able to
express Himself sufficiently as to how
it happened; we seem to have a “headon collision” between you and Jesus

he B ulletin
w e lc o m e s
le tte rs from
readers on the
c o n te n ts of
the m agazine
or issues relat­
ing to the Col­
lege. Letters
must be signed and should be
addressed to Editor, Swarthmore
College Bulletin, 500 College
Avenue, Swarthmore PA 190811397. Letters may be edited for
clarity and space.

T

Christ! Which one of you is correct?
Do you realize the implications of
positionalizing yourself against the
Bible? Do you have any intelligent evi­
dence that Jesus Christ was lying? Do
you have any evidence that He did not
rise bodily from the dead? I have plen­
ty that He did! If He is a liar, then He is
not the Son of God, and He did not
rise from the dead, and therefore
none of us has any hope whatever
beyond the grave!
LEONARD WILLINGER ’58
Associate Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church
Jacksonville, Fla.
DNA D O ES NOT
CO N T A IN A M IN O A C ID S

To the Editor:
I was delighted that the August Bul­
letin cover story described Chris
Chyba’s [’82] work on Earth’s early
organic matter accumulation. As an
evolutionary biologist, I’ve always
been intrigued by how life evolved
from non-life. I’m concerned, though,
that people unfamiliar with biochem­
istry might misconstrue Jeffrey Lott’s
statement, “there are some 20 amino
acids found in DNA, our genetic code”
to mean that amino acids are the
chemical building blocks of DNA. This
is not so. Nucleotides are the building
blocks of DNA, while amino acids are
the building blocks of proteins. DNA is
a nucleic acid which contains the code
for assembling amino acids into pro­
teins. Since DNA is made up of
nucleotides, the discovery of amino
acids in meteorites does not provide a
source for the building blocks of DNA
itself.
Lott correctly points out that some
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

people view the beginning of life as vants who were presumed to be look­
the first occurrence of a chemical cod­ ing after the families below. Guess
ing system including both nucleic who were occupying all those ser­
acids and proteins, whereas others vants’ quarters? Y o u ’re right—the
(myself included) view the identity of Chinese naval officers newly trans­
the molecules as less important than ferred down from Swarthmore.
the properties of self-organization and
They co u ld n ’t have been more
self-replication. Dem onstration of enthusiastic and friendly when they
these properties for a certain set of learned we were from Swarthmore. To
molecules is necessary, but not suffi­ get to their rooms in the attic, they
cient, to establish how, life might have had to use the back stairs and came
originated on Earth. Additionally, the right by our kitchen door on the way
molecules must be compatible with up. So there was plenty of chance for
plausible early Earth conditions. Chris chatter.
and his colleagues are certain ly
My sharpest recollection of them
changing our ideas about what those relates to a spring Saturday when
conditions might have been.
they invited the rest of us to a Chinese
LINDA STATHOPLOS ’82 dinner, w hich they prepared and
Rockville, Md. served using Elbe’s kitchen. They
were busy all day, running up and
Editor's Note: Several other readers, down the back stairs. Somehow they
including Charles Price ’34, Barbara
found everything they needed, and it
Yost Stewart ’54, and D a vid Todd ’38,
all turned out just fine. I think they
ca u g h t ou r error co n ce rn in g a m in o
were still there in early August, when I
acids and DN A. The mistake was ours,
was sent out to the Pacific and Ellie
not Christopher Ch yba ’s. H e pointed it went home to her mother. They made
out when reading a pro o f o f the story,
very, very nice neighbors.
but due to an editorial lapse it was not
ALDEN S. BENNETT ’40
corrected in the version that ultimately
West Chester, Pa.
went to press. The Bulletin regrets the
To the Editor:
error.
The article in the August issue of
the Bulletin about the Chinese Naval
Officers greatly aroused my interest.
C H IN E SE NAVAL UNIT
Meng Han-Chung was my roommate
IN SP IR ES P LEA SA N T M EM O R IES
for several months while I was in the
To the Editor:
Navy V-12 unit at Swarthmore in 1943On a rough Mediterranean Sea one 44. He went home with me on numer­
night in February 1944, I decoded my ous weekends to visit my family and
own orders to report to the Naval we kept in touch—not regularly, but
Academy Post Graduate School, then when we could—until 1963.
at Annapolis, for a year’s course in
When the C hinese officers left
advanced communications. I picked Swarthmore, Meng went to Annapolis.
up Ellie [Eleanor Yearsley Bennett He came to the Swarthm ore-Navy
’44] en route and reported in on baseball game (I was the Swarthmore
March 4. As a lowly student and only catcher) and we saw each other for a
a junior grade lieutenant, I didn’t rate few minutes after the game. In 1945,
quarters on the academy grounds.
after I got my Navy commission, I was
At the end of the academic year, I stationed in Florida and we got
was kept on as an instructor for the together for a short visit in Miami. We
next class. Now, as an instructor and also saw each other later that year in
full lieutenant I did rate quarters, and San Diego, just before Meng took a
they turned out to be very posh lend-lease ship back to China.
indeed.
The next time we met was when
Just off the academy grounds was a my ship visited Shanghai in 1948. We
group of three-story, six-unit apart­ got together for dinner at a hotel, and
ment buildings called Perry Circle. We later I met his mother at her home in
were in H-5, one of the two apart­ Shanghai. In the spring of 1949, as the
ments on the top floor of building H Chinese com m unists approached
—but it wasn't quite the top floor. Shanghai, my ship was sent to
Built in lusher, gentler, kinder times, observe the evacuation of the city.
each building provided an extra room, This gave us a chance to meet briefly
in the attic, for each of the six ser­ in Shanghai, just before Meng and his
NOVEMBER 1991

eldest son left for Taiwan.
We met again in Taiwan several
times in the years to come. Meng visit­
ed the ship I was serving aboard in
1957 when we visited Keelung, Tai­
wan. We spent some time sightseeing
and shopping together. We also met
in 1962 and 1963 in Taipei while I was
involved in planning a joint U.S.-Chinese naval exercise. I was able to visit
him at his home, in restaurants, and
at the U .S. Naval O fficers Club in
Taipei. He invited me to talk to the
English language class he was teach­
ing at the YMCA. It was a very inter­
esting experience. The last time I saw
Meng Han-Chung and his family was
on Chinese New Year in 1963.
In the article you mentioned that
his daughter is living in Santa Clara,
Calif. I had a very enjoyable talk with
her the other day and hope to get to
see Meng and his family again this fall.
DONALD K. YOUNGBLOOD, NV
San Diego, Calif.
E N JO Y E D A U G U ST B U L L E T I N

To the Editor:
I am so thrilled with the August
issue of the B u lletin that I want to
drop you a word of congratulations.
Your articles on “Red Tape Near
Red Square” and “Big Catalyst on
Campus” are first-class. The former
especially rang a bell with me, as I had
many years of dealing with the Soviet
bureaucracy at the United Nations.
Unfortunately, I missed ever meeting
[Oleg] Troyanovsky ’41. Although I
was 20 years in New York, those were
not his years.
And the article “Labor’s Pains” is
one of the best I have ever seen on
this subject. I was pleased to see a
photo of Nanine Meiklejohn ’68; her
father, Ken [’30] and I were the clos­
est of friends for many years, though
this was before she was on the scene.
Thank you again for issuing such
an interesting and excellent publica­
tion.
MYER COHEN ’29
Newtown, Pa.
To the Editor:
I thought the August Bulletin was
the finest I have ever seen. Its dazzling
variety and depth of subject matter,
its beautiful graphics and writing are a
credit to all of you who put it out.
DAVID L. HEWITT ’47
Moylan, Pa.
33

Speaking o f the past
Oral historian Barbara Muller Ornstein ’49
gives added dimension to written documentation
“I was aware that the project had
started, that I would love to par­
ticipate, but that I was hopelessly
overcommitted. Then Olwen
Jones ’43 (now deceased) called
from an open door in the cellar of
the Greenwich [Conn.] Library:
‘Come in and see what we’re up
to.’ ” Thus Barbara Muller Orn­
stein ’49 describes her initiation
17 years ago into the relatively
new field of oral history.
“Ollie and the oral history
office exuded such excitement
that my better judgment suc­
cumbed when she said that surely
I could help for two hours a
week-Sas soon as I completed
the requisite training course.
Since then my association with
the Oral History Project may
have extorted infinitely more
time, but it has been an absolute
joy.”
Ornstein mastered the six-week
training course, which included
“lots of homework, lectures about
history and the responsibilities of
oral history, introduction to a
tape recorder, instruction on the
fine art of interviewing, and
practice interviews.”
The project had begun as the
library’s contribution to celebrat­
ing the national bicentennial in
1976, financed by a private grant
and matching funds. As it was
being organized, the library’s
director insisted that, in addition
to the taped and transcribed inter­
views, the collection must include
books for the library shelves,
something that had never been
part of an oral history program.
Thus, the project’s original goals
were to do 200 interviews on all
aspects of Greenwich’s history
from 1890 to 1970, to transcribe
all but the hopelessly bad ones,
and to publish 20 books.
Ornstein recalls that the obvi­
ous person among the library
volunteers to set up the editing
department had six children.
Ornstein says the job fell to her
because she had only two. She set
up shop “farther back in the cel­
lar in two carrels amid stacks of
old books,” and the area was
promptly dubbed Toad Hall. She
struggled to create an editors’

46

guide that combined general
national oral history practice with
adaptations for the Greenwich
project.
She is now putting a third revi­
sion of the guide—“in 17 years
our language has changed”—onto
the office computer.
Finally, Ornstein assembled a
corps of 18 volunteers and
plunged into the job. Two hours a
week became 30 to 40 as she
supervised the editors, solved the
problems that arose, made up
rules as needed, coordinated with
the rest of the project, and tried
to edit too. At the end of 1976,
20 books had been produced.
Then, instead of going home to
recover from two years of heavy
pressure, the volunteers stayed on
at the library after being asked by
the Friends of Greenwich Library
to remain permanently as one of
the committees that enhance
basic library functions under their
annual budget. Whereas some
committees have five-digit
budgets, oral history gets along on
about $8,000 a year, having long
practiced what Ornstein calls
“scrounging and trading for goods
and services, plus amazing crea­
tivity.” In the ensuing years, the
interview total has reached 500,
the published books 114, and the
number of editors 25.

The books are a balanced
selection from the entire collec­
tion of interviews, with subjects
including town government,
schools, churches, recreation, arts,
villages, and ethnic groups. Each
book includes, in addition to the
text, a photo portrait of the narra­
tor, a thumbnail biography, illus­
trations, and an index. “The tapes
have been indexed too,” says
Ornstein, “and we also have a
cumulative index, both unusual in
the field.”
Six of these books have been
edited by Catherine Hyder Ogden
’67, and Ornstein’s classmate
Jane Morfoot Bentley ’49 is now
working on a major book on con­
servation, combining four inter­
views. Ogden serves also as trea­
surer of the oral history project.
Yet another Swarthmorean in­
volved in Greenwich oral history
is Patricia Cotten Isbrandtsen ’43,
who has served as interviewer,
computer consultant, and office
manager for the project. In fact,
when the project chairman was
once asked for advice on starting
an oral history program for a
Boston suburb, she found herself
suggesting that they see whether
there was a listing of Swarthmore
alumni in the area.
“When I first started with the
project,” muses Ornstein, “oral
history was not accepted by tradi­
tional academic historians, but it
is gradually gaining respect and
proving to be a rich source not
just of what happened, but of how
it happened.”
Ornstein uses the collapse of
the 1-95 bridge over the Mianus
River in Greenwich in 1985 as an
example of the contribution oral
history can make. Five years after
the disaster, the project began in­
terviewing on the assumption that
some objectivity would have been
regained. The 11 narrators in­
clude the first state trooper to
arrive on the scene, the man who
saw the bridge go down from his
boat on the river (in the middle
of the night, he thought that the
bumps against his boat were
human beings; at daybreak he
learned that they were hunks of
meat from a truck that fell into

the river), the governor of Con­
necticut, the leader of a citizens’
committee in the almost-ruined
village through which the high­
way was re-routed, and "the law­
yer who defended the designer of
the bridge.
“The bridge story shows what
oral history cap provide that writ­
ten documentation cannot,” notes
Ornstein. “Personal accounts give
an added dimension to news­
paper articles and police records.
Now two editors are starting the
long process of integrating the
contents of the interviews into a
chronological account of the
disaster and all its aftermath—not
the bare bones of the event, but
the impressions, discoveries, anec­
dotes, and behind-the-scenes
experiences that rarely are written
down.”
One of the books edited by
Ornstein, Tod’s Point, A n O ra l
H istory, is 100 pages of copiously
illustrated excerpts from 70 oral
histories. Willa Baum, director of
the Regional Oral History Office
at the University of California,
Berkeley, in her textbook O ra l
H istory fo r the L o c a l H istorica l
Society describes Tod’s Point as

“skillfully edited to create a stir­
ring personalized story that mir­
rors East Coast society from the
Victorian era through two world
wars, the Great Depression, etc.
. . . all modestly printed and
paperbound. A perfect model for
the local historical society.”
The Greenwich Oral History
Project has attracted wide atten­
tion, and Ornstein and fellow
volunteers spend time hosting
visitors and going on the road to
give workshops and panel pro­
grams about their project to such
groups as the Connecticut and
New York state library associa­
tions and the national Oral
History Association. Ornstein has
attended 13 of the Oral History
“Association’s annual colloquia
and has served on the executive
board of the New England Asso­
ciation for Oral History. Within
the project she has served as an
interviewer and chairman as well
as editor in chief.
^ ^ -M a ra ly n O rbison G illesp ie ’49

SW ARTHMORE C O L LEG E BULLETIN

Can laws stop drunken driving?
H . Laurence Ross ’55 searches for the answer
“My interest lies in knowing
what you can do with law, or,
to put it differently, what law
can do and what it can’t do as
a tool of social engineering.
What kinds of behavior can
law influence and how does it
work? What kinds of behavior
seem resistant to legal con­
trol?” asks sociologist H. Lau­
rence Ross ’55, who for the
past 27 years has been study­
ing laws aimed at eliminating
drunken driving.
The subject is complex
because drunken-driving laws
don’t always seem to have the
effect they are intended to
have. Though the data indi­
cates that nighttime fatalities
drop significantly when a new
law is passed, in most cases
the statistics go back to the
way they were after a time.
“That’s the puzzle I’m trying
to address—why do we have
success, and why doesn’t it
last?” Ross explains. “What
makes sense to me is that the
effect depends upon people’s
perception that they’re going
to be punished with a high de­
gree of certainty. But despite
the threats, and despite the
good-faith effort that may be
made to enforce the threats,
the likelihood that a drinking
driver will be apprehended
and punished has never been
awfully high. You learn about
this from your personal expe­
rience, and so the threat loses
its credibility.”
A credible threat, Ross
believes, can change people’s
behavior, but we can’t just an­
nounce that we’re going to be
tough on drinking and driving
and then not be so. “In that
case people learn that they’re
dealing with paper tigers, and
they go back to doing what
they have done in the past.
We’re not going to have in­
credible success with drinkingand-driving laws unless we
invest an awful lot in control
resources. Then the question
is, is that the kind of society
we want to live in? Do we
want to pay all that money,

NOVEMBER 1991

and do we want to have all
that police intervention?”
As Ross sees it, the drunkendriving problem cannot sim­
ply be legislated away be­
cause, like many social prob­
lems, it has roots that go deep
into our society. “We have a
society that has rendered peo­
ple totally dependent on the
private automobile and a soci­
ety that has embraced the use
of alcohol as a social lubricant
that belongs in virtually all lei­
sure situations. Putting those
two things together, we’ve
built the problem into the
society.”
Ross began studying the
problem of how laws work in
society in the mid-1960s,
when, while an assistant pro­
fessor at New York University,
he spent a year at the Center
for the Study of Law and So­
ciety at the University of Cali­
fornia, Berkeley. After finish­
ing his work there on how
automobile bodily injury
claims were negotiated, he
received grants from the In­
surance Institute for Highway
Safety and the American Bar
Foundation to study the ef­
fects of Britain’s Road Safety
Act of 1967, which was
aimed at stopping drinking
and driving and which was
strikingly effective—for a year
or two. After writing up the
results of that research, he
went to Scandinavia to study
drunken-driving laws there.
The result of that study was
an influential article called
“The Scandinavian Myth,”
which debunked the idea that
mandatory jail sentences
explained Swedish and Nor­
wegian success in reducing
drunken driving.
The subject of drunkendriving laws occupied him for
several more years, until he
felt ready to sum up his find­
ings and move on. “I decided
around the end of the ’70s
that I’d about said what I had
to say and that I didn’t need
any more trips to foreign capi­
tals for this purpose, so I put it

all together in a book called
Deterring the Drinking
Driver. But although I had

written the book to get out of
the field, this was about the
time that Candy Lightner
founded M ADD, so all of a
sudden instead of being out of
the field, I was in it deeper,
and it’s been impossible to get
out of it.”
In 1989 Ross was honored
for his research by the Inter­
national Committee on Alco­
hol, Drugs, and Traffic Safety
when they presented him with
the Widmark Award for life­
time achievement in the study
of drunken driving. He was
the 14th recipient and the first
sociologist to receive the
award. Now a professor at the
University of New Mexico,
he’s received a grant from the
Insurance Institute for High­
way Safety to write another
book, which is expected to
come out in 1992 from Yale
University Press. In this book,
titled Confronting D runk
Driving: Social Policy fo r
Saving Lives, Ross addresses

the question of what we can
do, beyond deterrence, to
alleviate the drunken-driving
problem.
He explains, “There are
two obvious answers. You
could try to get people to
drink less, and the simplest
way of doing that is to make
the stuff more expensive. So
in my book I strongly empha­

size the usefulness of raising
the alcohol tax. Likewise—
and I think far less obviously
in today’s policy—if you get
people out of cars, there will
be less drinking and driving.
One measure that I think has
a chance of producing results
is to offer subsidized taxi ser­
vice so that a person planning
to drink can have an alterna­
tive to the car. The idea is to
try to induce people to leave
the car at home by providing
some reasonable alternative.”
Recalling his student days,
Ross says, “Life at Swarthmore represented in a sense
the kinds of intervention that I
think can work to control
drunken driving. If you don’t
need a car because all your
daily activities can be accom­
plished on foot, you’re not
going to have problems re­
lated to driving. And to the
extent that Swarthmore was
successful as a prohibitionistic
institution—and it was at that
time—you won’t have too
many problems related to
alcohol. So Swarthmore was
doing for us pretty much what
I’m advising.”
In general, Ross believes
that we can’t expect a quick
fix to social problems. “Most
social problems are not sub­
ject to easy resolution and
cure. Like drinking and driv­
ing, they’re just the dark side
of what we otherwise enjoy.”
— Rebecca Aim

49

Seven Outstanding Teachers
From kindergarten to graduate
school, Swarthmore alum ni are
bringing their energy and commit­
ment to excellence in teaching.
Recently, these alum ni teachers
have been recognized fo r their
contributions in the classroom.

Jon Van Til ’61 is one of the first

Joanne Francis ’72 teaches

human relations and European
history at Glen Burnie, Md., Senior
High School and was featured as
one of 78 outstanding school
teachers around the country in the
book I A m a Teacher.

William Yarrow ’73 was named

two recipients of the RutgersCamden College of Arts and
Sciences Creative Teacher Awards.
He is associate professor of urban
studies and community develop­
ment at Rutgers’ Camden, N.J.
campus and author or editor of
six books.

the 1991 Illinois Teacher-Scholar
of the Year by the National
Endowment for the Humanities
and R ea d er’s D ig est. The award
will allow Yarrow, who teaches
literature and language arts at
Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day
School in Chicago, to spend a
year studying English and
American journals.

Teresa Mathews Crayne ’58 was
named Slippery Rock, Pa., School
District’s outstanding elementary
teacher during National Education
Week in 1990. She has taught
kindergarten for 26 years.

Donald C. Jackson ’75 is an

Jane M . Fraser ’71, associate pro­

Thomas Peter Quinn ’76 received

fessor of industrial and systems
engineering at Ohio State Univer­
sity, was one of eight faculty
members to receive Ohio State’s
Alumni Award for Distinguished
Teaching in 1991.

56

assistant professor of history at
Lafayette College. In May students
there presented him with the
Student Government Superior
Teaching Award.

the 1991 Distinguished Teaching
Award from the University of
Washington, where he is asso­
ciate professor in the School of
Fisheries. His specialty is salmon
and trout ecology and behavior.

SW ARTHMORE C O L LEG E BULLETIN

Recent Books by Alumni
We welcome review copies of
books by alumni The books
are donated to the Swarthmoreana section o f McCabe
Library after they have been
notedfor this column.
Bruce Bond ’76, The Anteroom
o f Paradise, Quarterly Review of
Literature Poetry Series, 1991.
This volume is, among other
things, an exploration, in the lan­
guage of poetry, of an assortment
of major modern composers
(such as Schoenberg and Ravel)
as well as a gallery of modern
painters (such as van Gogh and
Matisse). Independence Days,
Woodley Press, 1990. Winner of
the Robert Gross Award, this
book of poetry is informed by the
author’s love for and knowledge
of music.
David M . Bressoud ’71, Second
Year Calculus: From Celestial
Mechanics to Special Relativity,
Springer-Verlag, 1991. This text­
book guides the reader from the
birth of the mechanized view of
the world in Isaac Newton’s
Mathematical Principles o f Natu­
ral Philosophy to the dawn of a
radically new age in Albert Ein­
stein’s special theory of relativity.
Philip Brickner ’50 (ed.), Under
the Safety Net: The Health and
Social Welfare o f the Homeless in
the United States, United Hospital
Fund, 1990. This book, edited by
five professionals in the Depart­
ment of Community Medicine at
St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medi­
cal Center of New York, brings
together the experiences of health
professionals who are on the front
lines providing hands-on care to
the homeless in cities throughout
the country.
W.D. (William) Ehrhart ’73,
In the Shadow o f Vietnam:
Essays, 1977-1991, McFarland &
Company Inc., 1991. Although
this volume of essays touches on
Ehrhart’s experiences in Vietnam,
most of the content deals with
subjects ranging from South
Africa to comptemporary flagburning, reflecting his view of the

58

war’s impact on the world we
live in today.
Ari Eisinger ’82, You Don’t
Understand, Second Mind
Records, 1991. In this his first
album, Eisinger offers his own
renditions of guitar blues and rag­
time from the 1920s and 1930s,
including “Hard Road Blues” and
“Southern Rag.” To order send
$15 per CD , $10 per cassette, and
$1.50 handling to Ari Eisinger,
P.O. Box 507, Lansdowne, PA
19050.
Susan Stanford Friedman ’65,
Penelope’s Web: Gender, Moder­
nity, H.D. ’s Fiction, Cambridge
University Press, 1990. This book
examines the innovative prose of
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), most
widely known as a major mod­
ernist poet, exploring her novels
and essays, texts she suppressed in
her lifetime because of the daring
exploration of her bisexuality and
their radical critique of the social
order of her time.
Patricia Clark Kenschaft ’61
(ed.), Winning Women Into
Mathematics, Mathematical
Association of America, 1991.
Why can’t American women
“do” mathematics? Besides iden­
tifying more than 50 cultural
customs that discourage aspiring
women mathematicians, this
book provides information on
programs that succeed, a bibli­
ography on the issue of women
and mathematics, and more.
Thomas Laqueur ’67, Making
Sex: Body and Genderfrom the
Greeks to Freud, Harvard Uni­
versity Press, 1990. This is a book
about the making and unmaking
of sex over the centuries. It tells
the story of sex in the West from
the ancients to the moderns in an
account of developments in re­
productive anatomy and physi­
ology and the plots into which
sexual organs have been woven
by scientists, political activists,
literary figures, and theorists.
Martin Ernst-Wolfgang Luther
’46, The Compasses of God:
Science and Human Destiny,

Marwolf Publishing, 1991. This
book is an agnostic’s effort to
bridge the gap between what
science teaches and what man
needs most to know, namely, that
he has a home in the universe
and that the forces that created
and nurtured him do, in fact,
have his interests at heart. It is an
exercise in what has come to be
known as natural theology.
Richard Pommer and Christian
F. Otto ’62, Weissenhof 1927
and the Modern Movement in
Architecture, The University of
Chicago Press, 1991. In the sum­
mer of 1927, on the Weissenhof
hillside overlooking Stuttgart, an
exhibition housing settlement
designed by 16 leading architects
of the Modern Movement opened
to the public. This comprehensive
account examines how the proj­
ect took shape and how it be­
came a crucial event in the emer­
gence and reception of modern
architecture.
Nancy L. Roberts ’76, American
Peace Writers, Editors, and
Periodicals: A Dictionary, Green­
wood Press, 1991. This dictionary
provides information on the
writers, editors, and publications
that have carried on a strong
American tradition of peace
advocacy that goes back to colo­
nial times. Some 400 individuals
and more than 200 periodicals
are listed.
Robert Roper ’68, In Caverns
o f Blue Ice, Sierra Club Books,
1991. An authentic flavor of
piountaineering life in the 1940s
and 1950s combines with a fastpaced plot, psychological depth,
and thrilling scenes of adventure
in this novel that follows a young
girl’s coming-of-age in the French
Alps.
Kelvin L. Seifert ’67, Educa­
tional Psychology, Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1991. Covering
cognitive strategies and their
application to classroom teaching,
this textbook is for prospective
teachers of all grade levels, kin­
dergarten through high school.
Kelvin L. Seifert and Robert J.

Hoffnung, Child and Adolescent
Development, Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1991. Geared for
undergraduate students taking a
first course in child or adolescent
development, this text is a com­
prehensive introduction to devel­
opmental psychology from birth
through adolescence.
Susan (Gibsoh) Sharpe ’68,
Waterman’s Boy, Bradbury Press,
1990. In this children’s novel, a
young boy discovers pollution
that threatens his father’s way of
life as a waterman on the Chesa­
peake Bay. Spirit Quest, Brad­
bury Press, 1991. A spirit quest—
a wilderness experience in which
a person’s special spirit is re­
vealed—brings adventure to
young Aaron Singer, who spends
his summer with the Quileute
Indians.
John Oliver Simon ’64, Lord of
the House of Dawn, Bombshelter
Press, 1991. Many of the poems
in this volume were written dur­
ing, or inspired by, the time the
author spent in Latin America.
David Weisburd, Stanton
Wheeler, Elin Waring ’81, and
Nancy Bode, Crimes o f the
Middle Classes: White-Collar
Offenders in the Federal Courts,
Yale University Press, 1991.
White-collar criminals are often
assumed to be wealthy and pow­
erful individuals who receive
lenient treatment from the courts.
This study provides a radically
different portrait: The majority
come from the middle classes and
judges often punish wrongdoers
of higher status more harshly than
less socially privileged criminals.
Winthrop R. Wright ’58, Cafe
Con Leche: Race, Class, and
National Image in Venezuela,
University of Texas Press, 1990.
Despite Venezuelans’ “coffee with
milk” description of the country’s
racial composition—the intermin­
gling of European, African, and
Indian peoples—the author sug­
gests that, contrary to popular
belief, blacks in Venezuela have
not enjoyed the full benefits of
racial democracy.

SW ARTHMORE C O L LEG E BULLETIN

R EA LITY
continued from page 9
people.” They’re sophisticated ideas
for 3- and 4-year-olds.
For Sam Newbury the rewards of
working with Fred Rogers have been
great. One highlight has been recap­
turing some of what was lost in grow­
ing up. “Most of us think back to our
childhood and have lost the sense of
what we were going th ro u g h ,” he
explains. “We have some very selec­
tive memories. I get to sort of indirect­
ly absorb all this information—I can
w atch children grow and becom e
aware of w hat’s going on in their
lives.”

Perhaps most rewarding, though, is
the feedback the show engenders. Letters come to the office from both parents and children that testify to the
success that Family Communications
has in reaching its audience and making a difference in people’s lives. On a
more organized level, Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood last winter sponsored
a project in which children and teachers in day care centers watched the
show for five months and were in turn
watched by trained observers. Preliminary results show that the program
had “statistically significant” effects in
enhancing the children’s social competence and emotional health and
self-concept, while observers noted
that the teachers began to pick up

m â m .. l u

A holiday gift for
your favorite
Swarthmorean

64

i

Rogers’ style of speaking to children—
talking at their level, using their
names, and making eye contact more
frequently.
Family Communications’ work is all
about communication—and Newbury
measures its (and his) success by
how well Rogers’-message gets communicated to others and back again,
“A lot of tim es in té lé v isio n ,” he
explains, “you make programs and
send them over the air and you don’t
hear a thing. They sort of sail into the
ether. This show doesn’t do that. This
show bounces off people and reflects
back quite extraordinary things.” And
that’s what’s most real among all the
fantasies it spins. A

-‘i W S ilM K r; . rrj

Mk lthough the countryside may look circa 1870s, the buildings on this
new lithograph of the Swarthmore campus are up-to-date. Artist
Mark Desman has, however, taken artisticjicense to omit the Blue
Route and a nearby shopping mall. The 16-by-28-inch print was published
on high-quality vellum cover stock in a limited edition of 2,000 copies by
David M. Lockwood ’79. The words “Swarthmore College” appear at the
bottom margin. Order your copy through the Swarthmore College Book­
store, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1397. The price of $125
includes mailing cost, Pennsylvania sales tax, and a 10 percent donation
to the College.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

ALUMNI COUNCIL
he end of the Alumni Collection on well qualified to address the issue of entertained new Council members at
June 4 marked the beginning of diversity, and President Bloom spoke his home for lunch. In the evening
the terms of a new set of officers andwith Council about this topic during the new members joined with the
representatives of the Alumni Coun­ our meeting in October.
entire Council for the regularly sched­
cil. Council perpetually struggles with
The fall meeting also marked the uled program.
questions regarding its purpose for first formal orientation for new Coun­
New chairs of Council committees
existin g. The co n stitu tio n of the cil members and their spouses. The are Lee Smith Ingram ’66, Admissions;
Swarthmore College Alumni Associa­ purpose of the orientation was to G retch en Mann Handw erger ’56,
tion states: “The objects of this Asso­ reacquaint new Council members Career Planning; Ann Baerwald ’60
ciation shall be to promote unity and with the College, to help them gain and Jo h n H arbeson ’60, Social
fellowship among the alqmni and to insight into how Council works, and Responsibility; Alan Symonette ’76,
advance the interests of Swarthmore to allow them to get to know each Student Life; Ginny Mussari Bates ’73,
College.” I believe that statement of other. Orientation, presided over by Connections; and Bonny Cochran ’61,
purpose sum s it up quite n icely. Elinor Meyer Haupt ’55, immediate Shane Award. Bill Jones ’54 chairs the
Alum ni C oun cil can best achieve past president of the Alumni Associa­ new A th letics Com m ittee, and
these rather broad goals by serving tion, began with a dinner on Thurs­ Gretchen Handwerger will chair the
as a forum through which alumni, stu­ day, Oct. 10, hosted by Maralyn Orbi- Long-Range Planning Com m ittee,
dents, faculty, and administration can son Gillespie ’49, associate vice presi­ w hich will be estab lish ed in the
freely exchange interests, beliefs, con­ dent. Several members of the College spring.
cerns, and ideas. Council activities administration attended and spoke
The next two years promise to be
increase alum ni aw areness and briefly about their roles at the Col­ busy ones for the Alumni Council, and
understanding of the College and the lege. On Friday new Council members I shall report on our activities and
problems with which it must cope. spent the day touring the campus, achievements in subsequent issues of
M any C ou n cil m em bers becom e attending classes and seminars, and the alumni Bulletin.
reco n n ected with Sw arthm ore meeting with faculty and administra­
*
Frank James ’57
through their involvement with Coun­ tion. Vice President Harry Gotwals
President, Alumni Association
cil business. Council may also repre­
sent a different perspective from that
of campus constituencies when diffi­
The officers of the Alumni Association and the Alumni Council want to hear from you!
cult issues emerge, such as the con­
Please write to Frank James ’57, President, Swarthmore College Alumni Association,
cerns about the Honors Program that
in care of the Alumni Office, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397.
arose a few years ago.
Good people for Alumni Council candidates: _____________________________
During the next two years, we hope
to further involve undergraduates
with the Alum ni C oun cil and to
acquaint them with various roles they
Good people for Alumni Managers:
can play as alumni to benefit the Col­
lege. In addition they will learn how
they can continue to benefit from
Good people for Nominating Committee:
their association with Swarthmore
after they graduate.
We also plan to increase the num­
ber of recent graduates on Council
I’d like to serve as a resource for the Career Planning and Placement Office:
and hope to achieve greater represen­
Serve as Extern Sponsor
tation of minority groups. The issue
Talk
to students about career opportunities in my field
of diversity has major implications for
□
Provide leads for summer jobs
Swarthmore, colleges and universities
□
Participate in a career panel on campus
throughout the United States, our
My job/career description: ____________________ _ _ __________________________
nation, and the entire world. We have
seen graphic demonstration of both
the advantages and the disadvan­
tages of diversity in Eastern Europe
I wish Alumni Council would do something about:
and the Soviet Union during the past
several m onths. C ouncil plans to
focus on the issue of diversity at
Signed: Name and Class:
Swarthmore at its fall and spring
meetings. Swarthmore is fortunate to
Address: _______
have as its president a man who is

T

Swarthmore Alumni
College Abroad

A v e ry sp e c ia l w ay
to se e the w orld— with
Sw arthm ore a lu m n i
a s y o u r traveling
co m p a n io n s a n d two
facu lty m em bers
a s y o u r g u id es

RHINE-MOSEL
CRUISE
Sept. 11-27,1992

ruise th e fabled R hine and th e beautiful
M o se l Rivers w ith P rofessor C o n sta n ce
Cain H ungerford of th e D epartm ent of Art
and Centenn ial P rofessor Em erita of
C la ssics H elen F. N o rth . Pre- and p o st-excu rsio n s will
explore th e cu lturally-rich cities of Z u rich , Basel,
and A m sterd am . Sw an H ellen ic’s m odern cruise ship,
Rembrandt Van Rijn , carries 90 p assen gers and has
large picture w in d ow s in th e loun ge, dining room ,
and cab in s for e a sy view in g of th e p assin g scenery.

C

Alumni Office, Swarthmore College
500 College Avenue
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397
Please send me details on the Rhine-Mosel Cruise.
Name
Address

Day telephone.

Class