Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1995-11-01

College Bulletin

N ovem ber 1995

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PHOTOS BY DENG-JENG LEE

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arking time ... Part sculpture and

part timepiece, a sundial of
black granite with a bronze gnomon
has been embedded into the “clock”
tower of the new Kohlberg Hall. The
longest piece at the bottom center
marks noon during Eastern Standard
Time (the small marker immediately
to its left notes noon during the
months of daylight saving time).
Designed by Marti Cowan of Margaret
Helfand [’69] Architects, the sundial
will tell time from roughly 8 a.m. to 4
p.m. Like all sundials it naturally tells
local solar time, which in Swarthmore’s location is about 1.4 minutes
behind Eastern Standard Time. The
markers were adjusted to take that
into account.

A mascot for
Swarthmore?
Vote by Dec. 15

See
b a ck c o v e r
fo r details.

sÈÈË

SWARTHMORE

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Swarthmoi

iavontc sweater or crew
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1

COLLEGE BULLETIN • NOVEMBER 1995

Editor: Jeffrey Lott
Assistant Editor: Nancy Lehman ’87
News Editor: Kate Downing
Class Notes Editor: Carol Brevart
Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner
Intern: Amy Diehl ’97
Designer: Bob Wood
Editor Emerita:
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Associate Vice President
for External Affairs:
Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59
Cover. Bobby West with his Cub
Scout photograph, maximum segre­
gation cell block, Texas Death Row,
Huntsville, Tex. Photograph ©1994
by Ken Light. Story on page 18.
Changes of Address:
Send address label along with new
address to: Alumni Records,
Swarthmore College, 50.0 College
Ave., Swarthmore PA 19081-1397.
Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or e-mail
records@ swarthmore.edu.
Contacting Swarthmore College:
College Operator: (610) 328-8000
Admissions: (610) 328-8300
admissions@swarthmore.edu
Alumni Relations: (610) 328-8402
alumni@sweirthmore.edu
Publications: (610) 328-8568
bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Registrar: (610) 328-8297
©1995 Swarthmore College
Printed in U.S.A.
The Swarthmore College Bulletin
(ISSN 0888-2126), o f which this is vol­
ume XCIII, number 2, is published in
September, November, January,
February, May, and August by Swarth­
more College, 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore PA 19081-1397. Second
class postage paid at Swarthmore PA
and additional mailing offices. Permit
No. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send
address changes to Swarthmore Col­
lege Bulletin, 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore PA 19081-1397.

10 A Place Apart
From the “bode”dorm o f the ’60s to the SWIL dorm o f the ’90s,
Mary Lyon has always had its own culture. A sophomore
resident takes us on a tour o f the dormitory and shows why it
is a “place apart. ” With photographs by Steven Goldblatt ’67.

By Sam Schulhofer-Wohl ’98

14 A Near Miss
Maurice Foley’s early struggles at Swarthmore with his own
anger and lack o f academic skills nearly scuttled his career.
But this spring he became the first black and third youngest
judge ever appointed to the United States Tax Court.

By Dana S. Calvo ’92

18 Trapped Under Ice
“If we forever still a human voice, we should first listen to what
it has to say, ”says Julie Biddle Zimmerman ’68. To that end
she solicited poems from death row inmates from every comer
o f the country for a new anthology. Photographs by Ken Light.

By Julie Biddle Zimmerman ’68

64 The Cow That Went to College
It was Halloween, 1929, when a brilliant and legendary prank
was perpetrated on the “fair coeds o f Parrish Second West. ”
Leam the inside story o f how three students, trying to put some
spark back into campus life, pulled off the bovine brouhaha.

By Helen Stabler Grinstead
2
4
26
28
34
52

Letters
Collection
Alumni Digest
Class Notes
Deaths
Recent Books by Alumni

my Diehl looked shaken when she came into my office
the other afternoon. “That picture,” she choked, “the
one at the end of the sto ry ... is it?” Yes, I said, that’s
where they do it, where they strap down the prisoners
and execute them. Amy, a junior who has been our student
intern for the past year, asked if we couldn’t please leave that
picture out of “Trapped Under Ice,” this issue’s cover story. I
said no.
It is a disturbing photograph, and it’s accompanied by equally
disturbing poems—all prefaced by a passionate polemic against
the death penalty by Julie Biddle Zimmerman ’68. Julie, who first
published these death row poems, is a Quaker who feels that by
permitting our government to take human life, we participate in
organized murder.
I agree with her—so strongly that this week I signed a docu­
ment called the Declaration of Life. It says that if I die as the
result of a violent crime, I ask that the person or persons respon­
sible for my killing not be subjected to the death penalty. I direct
that prosecutors, judges, the state governor, and my family
respect my wishes and not allow
my death to be the reason to
take another life.
At Swarthmore we often
invoke Quaker values. The
Our worst criminals
Friends have long opposed capi­
are still
tal punishment because they
human beings.
see something divine in every
person. “Trapped Under Ice”
affirms that our worst criminals—our convicted killers—are still
human beings. They cry, rage, love, and appreciate beauty. They
miss their children, fear death, and sometimes write stunning
poetry. Their crimes should not go unpunished, but, writes Julie
Zimmerman, “If we forever still a human voice, we should first
listen to what it has to say.”
I am weary of the arguments about capital punishment. Does
it deter crime? Is it applied fairly? Is justice really served by eyefor-an-eye sentences? To me, the more important question is
how we value human life In a nation where nearly one in three
young black men is ensnared in the justice system, where the
prison population has jumped almost 200 percent since 1980,
and where we count almost 25,000 homicides every year, it’s
time to explore the reasons that death—be it murder or capital
punishment—has a higher priority than life.
Amy is right; that picture is hard to look at. It’s much too easy
to imagine what happens in that room: the fear, the final
thoughts (a poem perhaps?), the last labored breath. Do we
want our civic surrogates to do this in our name? Not me. I think
Amy’s horror is entirely fitting.

B

PARLOR TALK

—J.L.
2

ûta

L E T T

Forgetful? Hungry? Anxious?
More dream s of Swarthmore ...
To the Editor:
I was astounded to read Shellie
Wilensky Camp’s [’75] letter in the
August Bulletin and learn that I am
not the only graduate to have had
“mailbox” dreams. Though I have
j
yet to have a dream about a class­
room or an exam, those Parrish
boxes have appeared in more than
a few. In some I cannot remember
my combination; in others I have
simply forgotten to check my
:
mail—for an entire semester, no
less!
In my other recurring Swarthmore anxiety dream, I am descending into a cavernous hall in a futile
attempt to find something to eat.
Anyone?
A n n D ic k in s o n ’92
Salt Lake City
B
Peter van de Kamp without
\
Charlie Chaplin? An impostor!
To the Editor:
Historical memory is fickle. That’s
no surprise. But so fickle? And at
Swarthmore?
5
The notice (August Bulletin, p.
10) of the death in May of Peter van
de Kamp at age 93 seems genuine:
the picture looks like the man I
remember (I taught at Swarthmore 1
1967-84), and there was a professor
of that name who measured the
masses and distances of stars.
But there must be hundreds,
even thousands, of Swarthmoreans s
who will believe the man you
*
describe is an impostor, because
you don’t say a word about what
we remember best about the Peter
van de Kamp we knew: the Chaplin
Seminars.
I
Peter owned what was reputed
to be the most nearly complete pri- ^
vate collection of Charlie Chaplin
films in the world. He showed them
regularly (I remember seeing some
in the old Clothier Hall) and accom- i
panied them, with enormous skill i
and gusto, on the piano. These
Chaplin Seminars (only at Swarthmore would they have had such a
name, though it’s true Peter was a
Chaplin authority as well as a fan) M
were the subject of reminiscences
by people who were already middle-aged alumnae/i by the time I
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

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POSTINGS

E R S
joined the faculty, so I know they
had been around a long time.
Peter certainly was a Renais­
sance man, as you note: learned,
witty, inquisitive, a true scholar,
But you left out what many of his
friends would say was the best part,

.
:
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j

P atrick H enry

1

Collegeville, Minn.

1

Gross’ Law provided
just the lift she needed
To the Editor:
: I want to commend you on the out­
standing August 1995 issue of the
Bulletin. The news of the College
and the Alumni Notes were as usual
1interesting. I enjoyed the excellent
:
interviews with authors of chil­
dren’s books, a medical detective,
and an empty nester. I’ve seen
92
straw bale construction here in the
ity
arid Southwest, so I was especially
s interested in attempts by Swarthmoreans to adapt it to rainy Penn­
sylvania.
But my favorite was the one-page
i
article adapted from Bob Gross’s
talk at this year’s Last Collection.
i I’m currently struggling in my own
life with “external expectations of
in
excellence [that have] become
internal demons,” and with the diffi­
culty of achieving a sense of pere 1 spective. Bob’s antidote to internalor
izing the negative and rejecting the
positive spoke directly to my condi­
tion. He provided me just the lift I
needed, a perfectly timed reminder,
is |
Gross’ Law of Personal Assessment
1 bears repeating often, a mantra of
gentle wisdom: “Whenever there is
a discrepancy between the way you
:r
value yourself and the way others
n | value you, always go with the high­
er.”
I
Thanks for the wonderful maga*i- J zine.
J ean B ell ’69

m i
e

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>

|

j

Evergreen, Colo,
Twice moved to tears,
but shame on the Bulletin
To the Editor:
Bob Gross’ essay so affected me at
a gut level that I cried, but then I
realized that I did not understand
the article at all at an intellectual
level. I requested the full text from
Dean Gross, and it moved me to
Please turn to page 60
NOVEMBER 1995

“1 hear from my friends at other
he beveled doors with their alpha­
bet combinations and num bered schools and they’re having fun and
glass windows are a dull bronze that doing fun things,” lamented one young
reveal their hardiness after years of woman after retrieving her mail.
“Sometimes I lose my perspective
openings and closings. But do tted
across the banks of the Parrish Hall here,” replied her friend. “I just tell
mailboxes, a few gleaming gold ones myself I have to put in the time here
stand out, indicating their youth to now and I can do what I want when I
those who care to notice. The constant graduate or in the summer.”
Around 11:30 each weekday morn­
spinning of dials and harsh slams had
taken their toll, and doors had to be ing, the post office is the most crowd­
ed sp o t on ca m p u s—s tric tly SRO
replaced.
Checking the mail is a daily ritual (Standing Room Only or Squatting
Room Only depending on your box
for students—well, most students.
location). Some students
“The guy I share a mail­
have retrieving their mail
box with only checks it
down to a mini-workout.
every three days, so I have
The Swarthmore Squint is
to pull all his stuff out to
for those who don’t want
find my mail and then put
to waste their time actual­
all his stuff back in,” said
ly opening the box; they
one student to a waiting
just peer into the window,
friend, while trying to roll
looking for news from
a stack of papers and mag­
home, letters from friends,
azines back up to fit into
or a n o th e r cam pus an­
the small compartment.
nouncem ent, O thers do
As recent letters to the
th e P arrish Pause. This
Bulletin suggest, the post
involves standing in the
office m ailbox alcoves
hall outside the alcove—
hold a special significance
squatting or on
for alumni.
Checking the sometimes
tiptoes, to peer into the
While visiting campus
box.
recently, Will Saletan ’87,
m ail is a
“No need to go In there,”
gliding his hand across a
daily ritual. the student is likely think­
section of m etal doors,
ing, “le a n see per-fect-ly
said, “When I th in k of
well from h ere if I ju st
community, this is what I
streee-tch a little bit high­
think of. This is where you
er. Nope, nothing in there, knew it.”
met people and made plans.
For another male student, it is time
Indeed, Swarthmore students still
find the alcoves a community space. for finger aerobics. He sings an entire
Talk there is often a carryover from c h o ru s of th e B eatles “Hey Ju d e ”
classroom d iscu ssio n s—“My point before he realizes he has been spin­
was....,” “What I was trying to say....”— ning the dial on the wrong mailbox.
or an opportunity to schedule a meet­ “Hey, no wonder,” he says, still happy
ing with a friend, choose a movie to as he started the second verse on the
see over the weekend, or share the right box.
And if the mailboxes provide a com­
news you received in your box.
“I always tell my father that if he munity space from the outside, the
writes a letter to put a stick of gum in back of the boxes became an involun­
it, but he doesn’t. Yours sends you a tary gathering spot on April Fool’s Day,
watch!" said an envious female student 1994. After receiving numerous com­
plaints of “I can’t open my m a ilb o x ,”?
to a male companion.
The mail often provokes squeals of p o stal em ployees d isco v ered th a t
pranksters had disengaged the springs
delight or angst.
“Oh look,” said a sm iling young on all of the more than 1,300 combina­
woman holding a large envelope. “My tion mechanisms.
Said postal assistant Joe Quinn with
mom forwarded this to me and on the
back she put ‘Hi’ and a bunch of X-s-for a sardonic smile, “They didn’t miss a
one.”
kisses.”
—Audree Penner
Another mailbox conversation was
heavyhearted.

■

3

COLLECTION
SWARTHMORE

TODAY

Carl Wartenburg, dean of admissions,
dies suddenly while on vacation
arl Wartenburg, dean of admissions, died suddenly
of a heart attack in early August while on vacation.
He was 48. Wartenburg joined the staff in 1993 as
director of admissions and became dean last year when
Robert A. Barr Jr. ’56 retired from the post.
Formerly assistant to the president at Princeton, Warten­
burg also worked at the university as a senior admissions
officer and assistant dean of student affairs. He gained a
national reputation for his efforts in widening educational
opportunities for disadvantaged youths and to curb alcohol
abuse among young people.
President Alfred H. Bloom said, “Carl Wartenburg, at the
forefront of efforts to create responsible and inclusive edu­
cational communities, was uniquely effective in bringing
our nation’s high school students, their parents, and coun­
selors to a deeper appreciation of the fundamental values
and purposes of quality education.”
The College is conducting a national search for his
replacement. The search committee, chaired by Provost
Jennie Keith, includes Thompson Bradley, professor of
Russian; Margaret Cohen ’96, Robert J. Gross ’62, associate
dean of the College for academic affairs; Pieter M. Judson
78, assistant professor of history; Tracy Collins Matthews
’89, associate dean of admissions; Daniel Oppenheim ’96;
and Janet C. Talvacchia, associate professor of mathemat­
ics. The period for nominations and applications for the
position closed Oct. 31. The College hopes to fill the posi­
tion by July 1, 1996.

C

E lea n o r S ta b ler Clarke ’18 is d e a d a t 98;
sh e w a s a longtim e F riend a n d n eig h b o r
leanor Stabler Clarke ’18, Hon. 72, a long-time member
of the Board of Managers, died in August. She was 98. A
member of the Board from 1935 to 1971, Mrs. Clarke was
involved with many Society of Friends organizations. In the
1930s she organized an American Friends Service Commit­
tee (AFSC) project to feed children in West Virginia coal­
mining communities. Through the 1960s she headed AFSC
clothing drives, publishing a clothing bulletin and visiting
distribution centers in the United States and Europe.
Mrs. Clarke was an avid family genealogist and kept an
up-to-date record of her parents’ living descendants, who
now number 117.
Surviving her are daughters Cornelia Clarke Schmidt ’46
and Mary Clarke Cook; a son, William A. Clarke Jr. ’49; an
English cousin and “adopted daughter,” Barbara Forrest ’50;
11 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

E

BOB WOOD

4

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

*

Violent protests and drug use aren’t the
only ’60s legacies, says political scientist
merica has selective amnesia about the 1960s, a
skewed memory that emphasizes the threatening
aspects of the decade—violent protests, widespread
drug use, social conflict—while forgetting the high degree
of political participation and other positive legacies. So
writes Meta Mendel-Reyes, assistant professor of political
science, in a new book, Reclaiming Democracy: The Sixties
in Politics and Memory, published in September by Routledge.
“The story we tell ourselves about the ’60s describes
activism in a negative way,” says Mendel-Reyes. “Instead of
remembering things like the enthusiastic young civil rights
workers, we recall only a distorted image of shotgun-wield­
ing Black Panthers, as if that was all the civil rights move­
ment was about.”
Mendel-Reyes’ own life gives her an interesting angle on
the subject. Though too young to have been an active par­
ticipant in the struggles of the ’60s, she was an activist and
labor organizer through much of the next two decades.
After receiving her master’s degree from the University of
California at Berkeley, Mendel-Reyes worked with the Unit­
ed Farm Workers in California from 1974 to 1978, helping
the largely Mexican migrant workers form their first union.
In the ’80s, as a field representative for a service employees
union, she organized secretaries and other government and
nonprofit workers. She returned to graduate studies at
Berkeley in 1988 and received a Ph.D. in 1992.
“The book was a natural outgrowth of my dual experi­
ence as a community activist and as a student of political
theory,” says Mendel-Reyes. “When I returned to Berkeley, I
was struck by how many of the professors, especially the
more conservative ones, seemed to think the ’60s were still
going on, at least those aspects of them they found threat­
ening. It puzzled me because my experience as an activist
was that the Left was clearly in retreat. As I began to think
about the phenomenon more broadly, I began to wonder
why society didn’t have more access to the memories of
mass political participation that had inspired me and so
many other young people to get involved in politics and
support movements for justice.”
To explain the distortion of the 1960s in popular memo­
ry today, Mendel-Reyes uses the old maxim, “History is
written by the winners.” She believes that political power is
concentrated in fewer hands now than it was 30 years ago,
and that those who hold the power are loath to surrender
it. “As power becomes more concentrated, it’s no accident
that those who control much of the mainstream media—
and, therefore, the political discussion—are uninterested in
communicating favorable images from a period when
power was shared more evenly.”
In addition to reminding Americans about the positive
aspects of the ’60s, Mendel-Reyes hopes to demonstrate
that grass-roots political participation is not dead today,
even if it is somewhat less visible. She continues to be
involved in activism herself as a member of the National
Women’s Program Committee of the American Friends Ser­
vice Committee involved in community organizing and edu­
cating in Philadelphia. In addition she teaches a course in

A

NOVEMBER 1995

which students volunteer for local community organiza­
tions, which serves as a departure point for seminar discus­
sions on the practice of democracy.
Many of her students, she says, perceive injustices in
society but feel powerless to do anything about them. “My
own students often start out bored with the ’60s, but many
of them are inspired when they find out that there were
periods in this country when many people, particularly
young people, acted for justice,” Mendel-Reyes says. “I
think we can learn from those periods, learn that there’s a
possibility for a kind of action that we’re now taught is irrel­
evant or impossible. I really wrote this for students and
other young people, not so they can go backward, but so
they can go forward having a solid basis.”
— Tom Krattenmaker

Grass-roots political participation is not dead, says Assistant
Professor of Political Science Meta Mendel-Reyes. She hopes to
inspire her students to learn from the past and act for justice.

5

Isabelle B en n ett C osby ’2 8 Courtyard
A flagstone courtyard with lush plantings will dominate
the central landscape of Kohlberg Hall, now nearing com­
pletion. Named in honor of Isabelle Bennett Cosby ’28 for
her lifetime of loyalty and generosity to the College, the
expanse will feature a partial “reconstruction” of the Par­
rish Annex. Stone walls of both one-story and bench
heights will outline the Annex “footprint,” and vine-covered

wooden pillars will be placed through the courtyard. The
new walkway between Kohlberg and the Eugene M. and
Theresa Lang Performing Arts Center will feature an allée of
cryptomeria evergreens, and stairs that once led to Martin
Hall have been replaced with a gentle slope as part of the
College’s on-going efforts to bring the campus into compli­
ance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Nobel laureate v is its ...
Guatemalan human rights
activist Rigoberta Menchû,
winner of the 1992 Nobel
Peace Prize, visited campus
last month as part of the
Cooper Foundation Series.
After meeting informally with
several student groups, she
spoke on “Mayan People of
Guatemala: Participation,
Reconciliation, and Peace.”
Menchû said that Americans
and others must abandon
perceptions of indigenous
peoples as “backward and
dirty, and we have to change
the perception that change
isn’t possible. Education is
more than being in a class­
room. We have to open our
perspectives.”

Swarthmore was ranked #2 overall—

up from #3 last year—in the “best
national liberal arts colleges” category
of the U.S. News & World Reports 1996
best colleges survey. The College tied
with Williams for second; Amherst was
ranked first. Haverford came in fifth
and Bryn Mawr ninth. For the first
time, the magazine asked college presi­
dents, provosts, and deans of admis­
sions to select 10 schools with “unusu­
al commitments to teaching.” In this
category Swarthmore again ranked
second, this time behind Carieton.
But on the matter of money ... I S

News ranked the College sixth in the
“best college values” listing in a special
section on financing college. Money
magazine, on the other hand, in its
“Your Best College Buys Now” guide
didn’t even place Swarthmore in the
top 100. The College was among the 50
runners-up and labeled “costly but
worth it.”
Coz picks Swat-shirt for pic ... Talk

about high drama. The College had
only a few days to fill a request from
actor Bill Cosby H’95 for four identical
(but out-of-stock) Swarthmore
sweatshirts as part of his wardrobe for
the upcoming movie Jack. Bookstore
personnel were able to special order
the gray shirt—with “Swarthmore Col­
lege” emblazoned around the College
seal—in time for the filming to begin in
September.
DENG-JENG LEE

Over, under, sidew ays, dow n

ut your hand in front of your face, cross your eyes a little, and you’ll
see two hands, one right next to the other. Don the goggles worn by
Ethan Magness ’96 (left) and Ken Williams ’96 and the double image
you see will also be two hands—but this time one on top of the other—as if
your eyes were on top of each other rather than side by side. The seniors are
wearing the headgear as part of an experiment jointly conducted by the Psy­
chology and Mathematics departm ents in an attem pt to achieve visually a
spatial fourth dimension. Explains Magness: “We’re training our eyes and
brains to get used to seeing things with vertical depth so it becomes natural
to us. Then we hope to look at objects and see both horizontal and vertical
depths [in addition to width and length] so the object appears with four
dimensions.” The next step, they say, is to try to develop a way to represent
four-dimensional objects on the two-dimensional computer screen. “If this
works,” says Williams, “it would be the biggest thing to hit visualization in a
long time.”

P

(

...

New College information software

will replace the aging Academic Infor­
mation Management System (AIMS),
The new software, designed by Sys­
tems and Computer Technology of
Malvern, Pa., will include modules for
Alumni/Development, Admissions, Stu­
dent Services, Financial Aid, Finance,
and Human Resources. Initial funding
of $1.1 million has been earmarked for
the project, which is expected to take
four years.
The Scott Arboretum has been award­

ed the highest honor a museum can
receive: accreditation by the American
Association of Museums. Of the nearly
8,500 museums nationwide, only 746
have been accredited.

NOVEMBER 1995
7

DENG-JENG LEE

Talk about blowing off steam ... Finding fellow bagpipers is
easy, says Ross Dickson ’97 (right), who first discovered
soulmate Dave Bradley ’96 when Ross heard him playing
from his dorm room. The two now meet two or three times
a week in the Scott Outdoor Auditorium to practice. Ross

has been playing since the 7th grade, and Dave followed his
father’s interest in the instrument. Both admit that it’s just a
hobby, not a career path. “Heck,” says Dave, “musicians who
play instruments that people like listening to can’t get pay­
ing jobs. Imagine what it’s like for a piper.”

Guns and games: As a respite from war;
this tennis champ honed his winning style
he sounds of bombs and guns surrounded George
Khalaf ’96 when he picked up his first tennis racket.
In his hometown of Beirut, Lebanon, Khalaf learned
to play tennis—and soon it became his escape from the
war going on around him.
“I remember shelling going on,” says Khalaf, who pos­
sesses dual Lebanese/American citizenship. “And whenev­
er there was a brief respite, I would run to the tennis court
with my dad. I think that’s when my attachment to the
game first started.”
It’s remained so strong that this summer, while in Beirut,
Khalaf played for Lebanon’s national team in its Davis Cup
match against Saudi Arabia. In August he played one sin­
gles and one doubles match, winning both of them.
“I was on television and playing for my country,” he
says. “It was a feeling by far different from anything I’ve
experienced playing in high school or college.”
His American career has also had its share of successes.
As a sophomore at the College, he won the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Rolex Tournament, qualifying to play at the
national competition in Oklahoma. Last year he spent a
semester in Grenoble, France, but he’s back as co-captain
of his team this year.
A political science major fluent in three languages, Kha­
laf is uncertain about his plans after graduation or how ten­
nis will fit into his life. “I don’t see [professional competi­
tion] in my future,” he says, “but things can change. I can
play for the rest of my life, whether at the professional or
pickup level.”
—Evelina Shmukler ’97

T

saws.

«

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

we simply made a mistake. “After such knowledge, what
forgiveness?” is more to the point. How can we relearn to
trust the word’s delimited but precious cognitive power
or the past two years I have been struggling to write
when we know its all-too-human deviousness, its liability to
a book on representations of race and gender in the
cultural and political bias?
work of William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. In the
With such questions in mind, I ask what Faulkner and
process I have found myself caught between the Scylla of
Morrison tell us about the limits and powers of one race or
universal humanism (“Race and gender don’t deeply mat­
gender’s words for representing another race or gender.
ter: Great artists see steady and see whole, beyond these
Faulkner accesses his others as others: how else could he
blinders”) and the Charybdis of cultural difference (“Only
see them? The affection that permeates his black portraits
race and gender matter deeply: How can you recognize the
enables and limits those portraits. His work portrays both
resonance of a writer’s work if you have not lived the expe­
the systemic brutalizing of blacks by whites and the baffled
rience underlying that work?”).
love of whites for blacks, their genuine, intermittent, and
The book took shape in my mind as I realized that the
frustrated concern for blacks. The revealing element is
topical currency of the massive list of new books about
here, the white writer’s humane intent inextricable from his
race and gender is in sharp opposition to their readability.
culture’s damaging practice, his incapacity to escape from
Innumerable scholarly works com­
his own history. Faulkner’s limits join
pete for the same tiny readership of
his powers to show us the writer-in­
theory-literate connoisseurs, profes­
culture, not Olympian, but not simply
sionals steeped in the language and
blinded either.
politics of literary criticism. Suddenly
As for Morrison, whites play
my own scholarly history came into a
minor roles in her best work. Al­
new focus.
though whites are everywhere im­
In 1992 I published a book on
plied in her canvas, the traumas and
Faulkner (Faulkner’s Subject: A Cos­
possibilities she explores are black.
mos No One Owns, Cambridge Uni­
She moves through this white “frame”
versity Press). It had taken me all of
in order to center elsewhere, on the
the 1980s to “master” the poststruc­
inexhaustible resources of a living
turalist, ideological, psychoanalytic,
black culture that white writers rarely
and feminist vocabularies I wished to
(or perhaps cannot) acknowledge.
bring to bear on Faulkner’s work. My
I think that both critical stancesaim then was a Faulkner whose nov­
—universal humanism and cultural
els would respond to “cutting edge”
difference— are dead ends. Just as we
questions proposed by the most
(should) have learned that the univer­
sophisticated critics within the acad- g
sal stance ignores systemic inequali­
emy.
ties of racism and sexism, the cultural
But questions of race and gender
In a new book on race and gender in William
difference stance perpetuates these
beset the entire body politic, not just
Faulkner and Toni Morrison, Philip Weinstein
inequalities by invalidating the notion
the academy. Every American thinks,
argues against the notion that literature is
of common ground. In my book I
feels, and encounters race and gen­
“so inexpungeably political as to sabotage any
acknowledge just how extensive the
der in daily ways. Imaginative think­
attempt at aesthetic evaluation. ”
lack of common ground (of fully
ing about these issues is badly need­
shared terms) has become, and I med­
ed, yet the bulk of academic texts
itate on how it may be reconceived.
that address them is written according to norms that refuse
My book’s common vocabulary may seem to imply the
a common audience.
universalist view that race and gender merely get in the
The poststructuralist revolution that Michel Foucault
way of our shared humanity. At the same time its treatment
and Jacques Derrida spearheaded in the late 1960s resulted
of race and gender as cultural categories that shape what
in a devaluation of the word itself. From a variety of per­
we all say, see, and do may seem offensive to common
spectives— ideological, feminist, racial, poststructuralist—
readers, while it will strike my professional readers as con­
the word, whether it be Shakespeare’s or ad copy, was seen
ventional wisdom. I will happily lose a number of the latter
as unavoidably sullied by its cultural and political context.
readers if that is the price for reaching more of the for­
Widespread critical practice assumes that literature is
mer—that liberally educated audience who read this maga­
so inexpungeably political as to sabotage any attempt at
zine and who know something of both Faulkner and Morri­
aesthetic evaluation. This assumption discourages
son. You may know little about contemporary theory, but
attempts to cross cultural boundaries and propose compar­
you know a great deal—both too much and not enough—
ative value assessments. Yet only comparative assessments
about race and gender in America.
that neither repress nor magnify the role of cultural bias
can allow the claim of literary value to emerge as some­
Philip M. Weinstein ’s new book, What Else But Love? The
thing more than partial pleading.
Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison, will be published
Having spent ten years pursuing and then putting into
next year by Columbia University Press. He is Alexander Gris­
practice these current professional norms, I do not »believe
wold Cummins Professor of English Literature.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
Relearning to trust the power of the word

F

NOVEMBER 1995

9

Living in M ary Lyon is like joining a dub. Students there
create their own com m unity—an d h ave fo ra long time.

By Sam Schulhofer-Wohl ’98 • Photographs by Steven Goldblatt ’67

ou don’t know about the green bookbags?” Dana Carroll ’65 is surprised
to learn that I’ve never heard of the
green canvas sacks with drawstring tops
carried in his day by many Swatties—espe­
cially the inhabitants of Mary Lyon, my
home since I came to Swarthmore last year.
I am equally surprised to learn that Carroll, who lived in Mary Lyon all four of his
years at Swarthmore, often rode a motor
scooter between the dorm and the College’s
main campus. “You either rode a motor

Y

scooter with your green bookbag slung over
your shoulder, or walked carrying it like a
hobo’s bag,” he remembers during a tele­
phone interview from his University of Utah
office. “Even though I had a motor scooter,
it was kind of a nuisance to go back and
forth. Your life was focused on libraries and
labs, and ML was mainly for sleep.”
Thirty years later ML’s one-mile distance
from campus can still be something of a nui­
sance. No one’s riding motor scooters,
though. Instead, many of the 100-odd stu­
dents living in Mary Lyon bicycle to campus
and back every day.
“I think if I didn’t have a bike I’d be more
impatient,” says Ingrid Spies ’96, the secondfloor resident assistant (RA). Other stu­
dents, like Rebecca Neff ’97 who lives in a
cavernous double on the first floor, aren’t
impatient at all; they prefer the 15 minute
walk between home and campus. “The walk
in the morning helps me center myself
before class,” Neff says. “And I like walking
home in the afternoon. It gives me that de­
stressing time.”
At night a shuttle bus runs every halfhour between the campus and ML. The ser­
vice exists not so much for convenience but
for safety: Students walking alone from cam­
pus after dark have been attacked by
strangers, most recently in early September.
Mary Leavitt was one o f five buildings o f the Mary
Lyon School, a private school for girls that operat­
ed in Swarthmore from 1913 until 1942. The Col­
lege purchased the buildings in the late 1940s.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

The distance to Mary Lyon sometimes
scares off students who live on the main
campus. “The majority of my friends live on
campus, and they don’t come out and visit
much,” says senior Derek Johnson, an ML
resident for all but one of his years at
Swarthmore. Myrt Westphal, Swarthmore’s
director of residential life, agrees: “People
don’t drop in there like they drop into Willets.”
While some MLers make up for this with
frequent visits to friends elsewhere, many
spend most of their free time at home. “A lot
of times there are things going on here—just
people to hang out with,” says Spies. “I have
lots of friends here.”
W estphal says that
since residents of other
dorms rarely visit, “the
people who live in Mary
Lyon create their own
community.” Sometimes
that community is tied to
the presence of a particu­
lar group of students. In
the ’60s, Dana Carroll
says, “It was the beatnik
dorm. Swarthmore had a
special word for beat­
niks—it was the ‘bode’
dorm. That was what we
called people who had
long hair and wore dark
turtlenecks and liked to
watch art films.”
In recent years ML has
become known as “the
SWIL dorm ,” because
many m em bers of the
Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature,
the student science fic­
tion and fantasy club,
have lived here. Even more members come
to socialize and play the fantasy card game
“Magic” in the spacious first-floor lounge.
Concerned that SWIL may be crowding ML
residents out of their own living room, RAs
this year have occasionally asked the group
to use other parts of the building. “SWIL has
as much of a right to it as anyone else, but
the majority of people who live in ML aren’t
members of SWIL,” explains Josh Silver ’97,
my RA in the labyrinthine basement.
Although most MLers don’t play the
games for which SWIL is known, we’re all un­
usual in our own ways. One evening recently
NOVEMBER 1995

Most Mary Lyon residents pedal the mile
to campus, but some still prefer to walk.
A game of Jeopardy! fills the living room
during an evening study break.

a few people on my hall played Pin the Tail
on the RA, chasing Silver around the hall
lounge with a tail made of a bathrobe sash.
Living in ML is a bit like joining a club. “ML
has its own culture, which exists away from
the dorm as well,” says Maurisa Thompson
’98. “You recognize other MLians on campus.
There’s just kind of a spunk and you immedi­
ately make the connection.” No wonder a T-

'Ja

shirt made by ML residents two years ago
declared, “Mary sez ‘Out of my way, campus
boy.’”
For much of our first semester at Swarthmore, Maurisa and I and the 10 other new
students on our section of ML’s second floor
were inseparable. “Freshman bonding” is an
ML tradition. Spies, Silver, and Johnson all
remember developing close friendships with
hallmates as first-year students in ML. This
year I often see large groups of ML frosh
together in the lounge or around campus.

tudent cooks serve up
a h ot breakfast six
mornings a week. Pajam as
are standard attire in the
first-floor dining room.

S

Above: Rebecca Roth
’97 sings her own songs.
Right: Sam SchulhoferWohl ’98, author o f this
article, dries laundry in
the boiler room, where
it is warm year round.

Beyond its easy familiarity, Mary Lyon’s
perks range from homemade breakfast to its
friendly housekeepers, Dorothy Anderson
and Idahlia Carter.
Six mornings a week, student cooks serve
up hot muffins, pancakes, French toast, and
eggs in the first-floor breakfast room, where
pajamas are standard attire. And, says
Anderson, “We housekeepers try to be there
for the children. When they have their prob­
lems, they come to us.” It’s true. “They’ve
been like that mother away from home,”
says Derek Johnson. “It’s just a nice thing to
have someone who cares.”
The calm that comes with distance from
campus is a perk too. Erika Baumgartner ’98,
Rebecca Neff’s roommate, tells me her life
last year in Willets “was hell. It wasn’t like
home—it was like living in a cartoon. The
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

1

si

Left: Fresh muffins, pan­
cakes, juice, and eggs—
along with lots o f talk—
are ML breakfast fare.
Below: Mark Tong ’99
works into the night,
while Sarah Dumont ’9 7
repairs her bike. Mary
Lyon became the
College’s first coed
dormitory in 1971.

pace was so fast and overwhelming. I don’t
know how I survived. In ML I can leave
Swarthmore behind—the craziness of it—
and relax and have tea with my roommate.”
Yet occasional bursts of craziness do
sneak down the quiet streets of Swarthmore
to punctuate our peace and quiet. At mid­
night one recent evening, six first-year stu­
dents launched an all-out wrestling match in
the lounge. Last year my hallmates and I
invented (or maybe reinvented) ML Ball, a
rugby-like game in which players chase one
another up and down a narrow hallway
while screaming loudly and hitting a beachball with their heads to score goals. Two
years ago Josh Silver and his friends played
a similar sport, called Ape-Ball because the
only equipment was a stuffed ape.
ary Lyon’s wildest tradition, however, is
its annual Halloween Party, by many
I accounts the loudest, craziest social event at
Swarthmore. Hundreds of costumed stu­
dents pack the breakfast room to dance and
drink large quantities of beer, some of which
occasionally leaks through the floor and
drips into some basement bedrooms. Fortu­
nately my room isn’t one of them; it’s under
the kitchen, which is off-limits during the big
bash.
But this fall a little dripping beer has been
the least of our problems. Several times dur­
ing the first weeks of school, clogged toilets
turned some basement rooms into swamps.
That mess had just been cleaned up when
rainwater began to seep through cracks in
the foundation, soaking the room of Eli
Rubin ’97, who has since evacuated to a
drier abode on Parrish 4th. Maintenance
workers say the flooding might not have

M

I

Please turn to page 62
NOVEMBER 1995

A Near Miss

Maurice Foley’s first months
were
a disaster. Now h e’s a federal judge. Honest mentoring
and hard work turned his life around.

By Dana S. Calvo ’92

C

omfortably seated beside two was told to pack up his dorm room
s q u a re pillow s c o v e re d in and leave the College—suspended for
gold and black fabric, Mau­ disciplinary reasons. He moved into
rice Foley ’82 drums his slen­ P h ilad elp h ia to live w ith his older
d e r fingers on th e v e lv e t-c o vberre
d e r , Sam, an d sister-in -law .
o th
couch. Though rush hour traffic is dis­ Although by then Sam had graduated
cernible in m uted bleats outside his from Haverford about five years earli­
oak-paneled office, he looks as if he’ll er and had finished law school, his
be working for another few hours.
e d u c atio n a l e x p e rien c e s p ro v id ed
In April, at 34, Foley becam e the Maurice with som e comfort. “He too
first black and th e th ird y o u n g e st h a d d o n e v e ry w ell in th e p u b lic
judge ever to be appointed to the U.S. schools th a t he had a tte n d ed , and
F ed eral Tax C ourt. But he a lm o st then he found that he was competing
didn’t make it to this fine Washington at a completely different level,” Foley
office. When he tells his story, which sa y s. “It w as like th e d iffe re n c e
begins half a life back during his first b e tw e en th e m inor and th e m ajor
m onths at Swarthmore, he is candid leagues.”
about the near miss.
While taking calculus and English
“My first sem ester could be viewed courses that spring at Temple Univeras a d is a s te r . W hen I firs t got to
Swarthmore, I was not prepared for
college—academically, socially, men­
e walked into
tally, nor spiritually. I was not disci­
plined enough to deal with the rigor­
Professor Rubin’s
ous academic environment,” he says.
“I also had to learn th a t you need
office in his army
other people.”
fatigues and
In the fall of 1978, the only person
Maurice Foley thought he needed was
bandanna— -full of
a se n io r nam ed C a ssa n d ra G reen,
whom he had fallen in love with dur­
intensity— and asked
ing his first few w eeks on cam pus.
what he would have to
And, as in a lot of good love stories,
Foley says he failed at everything but
do to succeed.
winning her heart during that autumn.
He flunked one course, barely passed
his others, and got into serious disci­
plinary trouble. But he is now married sity, Foley mulled over his failures at
to Cassandra Green, and they live in Swarthmore. “That was a really piv­
Silver Spring, Md., w ith th eir th re e otal point in my life,” he said. “I soon
young children. “She is the one thing I realized that I had a great opportunity
w as p e r s is te n t a b o u t in m y first to really push myself and see how dis­
semester,” he laughs.
ciplined I could be.” He made plans to
“I like to think of those days as my re-enroll at Swarthmore in the fall of
bandanna days. I always wore one of 1979.
those bandannas. I was very intoler­
A few w eeks b e fo re fall c la sse s
ant. I p r e tty m u ch ju s t s ta y e d to w ere to re su m e , Foley to o k a job
myself, and I m ade it very clear to repainting crosswalks at the College.
folks that I didn’t want to interact with As he crouched over th e scorching
them,” recalls Foley.
asphalt in his thin-soled tennis shoes,
The future judge’s first contact with he says, something clicked. “I realized
the judicial system was when he was just how comfortable those carrels in
bro u g h t before a s tu d e n t panel to the library could be. I realized that if I
answ er charges th a t he had stolen put in the time, Swarthmore would be
someone’s property. “It’s ironic now,” a place where I could excel. The expe­
he says, “but that was a critical event riences of that year had taught me a
in my life.”
lot, and my character developed more
At the end of the sem ester, Foley th a n it h a d th e p re v io u s 18 o r 19

H

NOVEMBER 1995

years.” Now a born-again Christian, he
attributes to Jesus Christ his ability to
overcome these setbacks.
nce classes began Foley logged
16-hour days in the basem ent of
McCabe Library. A good deal of his
w ork cam e from a p u b lic p o lic y
course taught jointly by Professors
Richard Rubin and Larry Siedman. It
was Foley’s first understanding of the
importance of taxation, and it helped
him make another important decision.
“I saw that the tax system is the nexus
between politics and economics, and I
decided at that point I wanted to be a
tax attorney.”
So he w alked in to P ro fe s s o r
Rubin’s office in his army fatigues and
b a n d a n n a —full of in te n s ity —and
asked w hat he would have to do to
succeed.
“Maurice m ust have sensed that I
w ould n o t tu rn him d o w n ,” sa y s
Rubin. “It was a slow making of the
relationship between us. He asked me
a specific question about helping him
in a world that he wanted to be in, a
predominately white world, where he
would have a much larger arena them
if he worked in a black law firm.”
Rubin didn’t respond immediately
to Foley’s request for help. Instead, he
recalls, “I told him to think about what
he was asking for and come back in
two weeks if he could handle the criti­
cism w ithout feeling it was a racial
put-dow n.” A few weeks later Foley
returned, saying he could take what­
ever Rubin would have to say.
Rubin first to ld Foley he had to
learn to write better, to be more inci­
sive and to the point. “No hearts and
flowers in th e w riting,” said Rubin.
Then he gave Foley fu rth e r advice
that is unabashedly politically incor­
rect: He told him th at he needed to
le a rn to s p e a k a n o th e r form of
English—as if the white world were a
foreign c o u n try , and Foley h ad to
learn to sound less like an outsider
th e re . “T h a t’s u n f o rtu n a te ,” sa id
Rubin, “but th at’s the way it is.”
None of this is easy for a black stu­
d en t to take, says Rubin. “M aurice
came to Sw arthm ore with a healthy
anger toward white people and an ele­
m ent of distrust. I’m sure I was the

O

15

“The M aurice Foley story
really is the best part o f Ameri­
ca, ”said Professor Richard
Rubin at Foley’s investiture last
April as a judge o f the United
States Tax Court. As his Swarthmore mentor, Rubin (at left with
Foley) remembered asking:
“Can you take the critique? Can
you take what I tell you from a
tweedy white professor?”
Foley’s speech at the ceremo­
ny focused on the importance of
his family. He and his wife, Cas­
sandra Green Foley ’79, have
three children: Malcolm, 5,
Corinne, 3, and Nathan, 14 mos.

COURTESY OF MAURICE FOLEY

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

first w h ite p e rs o n th a t he e v e r
thought about getting close to, but I
don’t think he trusted me for quite a
while.”
Foley denies th a t Rubin’s advice
was rough counsel for a 19-year-old to
hear. “The thing I liked about Profes­
so r R ubin w as th a t he w as v e ry
direct,” he said. “I was a perfect exam­
ple of so m e o n e w ho h a d th e raw
materials but had not developed the
skills.”
Rubin and Foley worked together
on his w ritin g . In a d d itio n Foley
le a rn e d w h a t he re fe rs to as “an
entirely new language. I had to learn
how to communicate in two worlds—
the world I can hang out in and the
world I work in, the bandanna days
versus my professional life.” With the
same diligence that had once helped
him overcom e a childhood stu tter,
Foley attacked his studies.
W hen th e lib ra ria n o p e n e d
McCabe’s heavy glass d oors in the
morning, Foley would be outside wait­
ing. And thanks to a job that replaced
his summer painting job, he was able
to stay in the library after hours. “I’d
walk around the library with my little
cart and th e fluorescent bulbs and
install the lights,” he says, pretending
to screw in a light bulb ab o v e his
head.
Foley says he was still a loner who
budgeted 30 m inutes for dinner and
time out to hear an occasional talk.
But he kept up his correspondence
with Cassandra Green, who had grad­
u a te d th e p re v io u s Ju n e an d w as
studying dance in London on a Wat­
son Fellowship.
ard work and the help of Richard
Rubin began to bring academ ic
success, but Maurice Foley’s story is
em blem atic of th e te n d e rn e s s and
complexity that haunt racially mixed
m en to rin g re la tio n s h ip s . “I th in k
there’s a real fear among minority stu­
dents that they won’t be m entored if
they aren’t white,” says Rubin. “That’s
the greatest lack for them, not being
able to becom e m entored. Gaining
co n fid en ce is th e m o st im p o rta n t
thing. So is understanding the differ­

H

NOVEMBER 1995

ence betw een being behind—which
m any m in o rity s tu d e n ts a re w hen
they get to Sw arthm ore—and being
less intelligent.”
It was especially difficult for black
stu d e n ts to find black role m odels.
During Foley’s tim e at Sw arthm ore,
th ere w ere only four ten u red black
professors, and fewer than 28 black
s tu d e n ts in his g ra d u a tin g c la ss.
Today there are 11 black professors,
th re e w ith te n u re an d eig h t m ore
junior m em bers of th e faculty. But
even with this increase, m entoring
minority students can still be a prob­
lem.

oley’s story is
emblematic
of the tenderness
and complexity
that haunt racially
mixed mentoring
relationships.

F

Professor of English Peter Schmidt,
who chairs Swarthmore’s Asian Amer­
ican, Latino, Native A m erican, and
African Heritage Concerns Committee,
spoke of the difficulties that confront
professors of color. “They’ve got an
extra burden that isn’t really written
into their job d escription,” he said.
“Students are asking them to be per­
sonal mentors in addition to teaching
and research.”
P ro fesso r of R ussian T hom pson
Bradley, former head of the commit­
tee, was more explicit about black stu­
dents feeling their way around cam­
pus for a mentor. “They feel, not sur­
prisingly, lonely,” he said. “And on the
other side, there are very real prob­
lems getting people to come here and
teach, b ecau se at Sw arthm ore you
have to teach a lot. When you’re an
academic hotshot, you can go some­
place else and get paid a lot to teach
one class and do your own research.”
A ssista n t P ro fe s s o r A lison Wil­

liams, an African American who has
taught in the Chemistry Departm ent
since 1988, agreed. “Even stu d e n ts
who aren’t in my courses come to see
me. It’s a huge tim e sink. I like th e
in te rac tio n , bu t it’s really difficult
because of the demands of this place.”
W illiams said th a t m inority s tu ­
dents often h esitate to ask for help
because “they’re afraid to reveal any
weakness. There’s a real reluctance to
ask questions either about the class
work or about their lives, so the first
thing you’ve got to do is to get them
over that barrier.”
R ubin a d d e d th a t m e n to rin g ,
regardless of the student’s or profes­
sor’s racial background, is risky work.
Such relationships require trust, time,
and, ultimately, results. With students
who have had poor mentoring experi­
ences in th e past, it becom es even
more complicated.
“T h e re ’s a ce rtain high risk you
take with minority students. It is pos­
sible they can think y o u ’re a racist
when you tell them what needs to be
done to accom plish their goals,” he
said. Rubin adm itted th a t his blunt
advice may have hurt some students
along the way. “They thought I must
have been putting them down instead
of trying to help them up.”
But M aurice Foley so a k e d up
Rubin’s counsel and did beautifully^
g rad u atin g w ith a d ouble m ajor in
political science and economics, with
concentrations in public policy and
black stu d ie s. He w as a c c e p te d at
Boalt Hall Law School at Berkeley, not
far from his native Sacramento.
Ju st b e fo re g ra d u a tio n R ichard
Rubin had one more bit of advice. “I
said to him, ‘M aurice, y o u ’ve done
everything so far, and there’s just one
thing. If you want people in a predomi­
nately white world to help you move
ahead, they can’t feel th at you hate
them . I can’t put love in your heart,
and you should be wary of white peo­
ple, but if you can take people as they
are, y o u ’ll let them at least dem on­
strate that they want to help you.’”
The new alum moved back to the
Bay Area. And, having returned from
Please turn to page 61
17

The most common image in Julie Biddle Zimmerman’s new anthology
of death row poem s is of cold—cold steel, cold cell, cold death.

TRAPPED
lUNDERI
ICE

everal years ago my uncle was
murdered by a man who planned,
bragged about, and carried out the
killing. The rage and grief felt by my
family—by any murder victim’s fami­
ly—is something we can all understand.
We hope that justice will be served and
that that will ease the pain.
Many states are bringing back capital punishment
in the belief that executing criminals will make our
streets safer and our justice system more just. Our
solution to crime and violence seems to be more
prisons, harsher sentences, more executions. It’s
easy to rally support for killing a killer, a criminal
who is known only through the act committed. But
in my opinion vengeance is a poor basis for a crimi­
nal justice system.
The fact that the death penalty is handed down
inequitably, allows for no mistakes, and is a heavy
financial burden are all good reasons to eliminate it.
But primarily, whether it is carried out by an individ­
ual or a society, killing is wrong.
I believe that the supporters of capital punish­
ment would be less apt to condemn a man to death
if they could know him as a person, not just a crimi­
nal. With this idea in mind, in the fall of 1994 I sent
announcements to prison publications soliciting
poems from death row inmates. By expressing them­
selves through poetry, I thought, maybe they could
reach beyond the political rhetoric and show that
creativity and caring exist even in the stagnation of
prison. Maybe through their poems we can meet the
men and women who face a death sentence.
Poetry arrived from every corner of the country.
In addition to submissions from death row inmates,
a large number of poems arrived from those serving
lesser sentences. Their letters clearly showed con­
cern and empathy for those who had received the
ultimate sentence.
The resulting book, published this spring, is called

S

By Julie Biddle Zimmerman ’68
18

Trapped Under Ice after a line from an
inmate’s letter that said, “Death row is
like being trapped under ice.” In winter
the river water under the ice is bitter
cold. There are air pockets that hold
out tem porary hope for the person
who has fallen through, until the cur­
rent carries him away.
Trapped Under Ice is not an attempt to minimize
the crimes or glorify the criminals. It is meant to be
a protest against the death penalty, but its message
is for those who support as well as those who con­
demn capital punishment. If we as a society con­
done legal execution, we need to face the fact that
we are intentionally taking human lives. We must at
least acknowledge the humanity of the men and
women we imprison and remember that they are
still a part of our world. And if we forever still a
human voice, we should first listen to what it has to
say.
Julie Biddle Zimmerman ’68 worked as a pediatric physical
therapist before retiring due to a physical disability. She
headed an AIDS education and support agency before
founding Biddle Publishing Co. in 1991. The company has
published 20 titles, including three on prisoner advocacy.
She lives in Harpswell, Me., with her husband, Sandy Zim­
merman ’69, where they are members o f the Brunswick
Friends Meeting.
Trapped Under Ice, A Death Row Anthology may be
ordered from Biddle Publishing, P.O. Box 1305, Brunswick
ME 04011. Phone: (207) 833-5016. Retail price: $8.00, plus
$2.00 shipping. Royalties from the book are donated to the
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, The Amer­
ican Friends Service Committee, and the ACLU National
Prison Project.
Ken Light is a social documentary photographer based
in Berkeley, Calif. In 1994 he spent three weeks recording
life among almost 400 condemned prisoners in the Texas
state prison at Huntsville. The photographs will be pub­
lished in his fourth book, Sentenced to Death.

• Photographs by Ken Light
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

I Am a Prisoner
Today incredulity breaks like
a fever and reality sets in:
I am a prisoner.
Waves of early m orning odors
(rem iniscent of the Cheyenne
M ountain Zoo) assault me,
wafted on air thickened
By stale tobacco smoke.
Sunlight fights its way through
dingy plexiglass windows,
Cleaved by bars before
reaching m y tiny cell,
Each ray revealing a m yriad
of m otes doing an aerial ballet
As they descend upon helpless,
reluctant prisoners.
The din grows as prisoners
rise to yet another day:
The w hoosh of toilets and the
rattle of plumbing are punctuated
With flatulent exclamations.

Suddenly, above th e din rises
a new cacophonous assault:
Jack boots on steel grates as
a new shift of keepers arrives
To replace th e old guard.
Inter-cell yelling com m ences
as faceless prisoners greet th e day
In their own curious ways and
my hackles rise as I try to
Control th e anger; no, th e rage
for having to listen.
I am a prisoner—
a universe away from
The quiet of my country home,
the m elodious songs of
Morning birds, the sw eet gentle
greetings of my mate.
I am a prisoner!
Dennis J. Dechaine
Thomaston, Me.
19

The Beginning of My End
I woke up this m orning with pain in my heart,
a day full of hardships is th e way it will start.
I sat down for breakfast, sorrow sat down with me
Only God knows my trouble, only darkness I see.
I w ent all through the day, but no end will th ere be,
with my pain and my sorrow and my friend misery.
They walk hand in hand and they never let go,
they consum e my whole body, my mind and my soul.
The m inutes w ent slowly, only tears do I shed,
for I know w hat awaits me and I dread w hat’s ahead.
I cried out from the darkness, but you didn’t hear.
Is th ere anyone left on this earth th a t still cares?
I struggled along, for no end was in sight,
I can’t win this war, with my h e a rt I can’t fight.
So I prayed to Almighty, “Oh, dear God, give m e hope,
for my sorrow is endless, with this pain I can’t cope.”
I fought through th e night, and I couldn’t break free—
Please, God, if you love, from this hell hear my plea.
Please show me th e way I can face all my sorrow s,
for I know they will com e w ith my every tomorrow.
So, God, hear my cries, will you please be my friend,
cause my pain is forever,
this is th e beginning of my end.
Samuel Molina
Tampa, Fla.

The Weed
T here’s a w eed th at grows in your garden,
It’s stem is tw isted and bent,
The ugliest thing th at ever you saw;
You w onder from w here it was sent.
You pull it from your beautiful flowers,
And toss it with never a care.
There is no fear of complaint,
For no one ever would dare.
The flowers flourish with love and your care,
And given all th at they need.
You live your life in their beauty,
With never a thought for the weed.
But after this life is ended
And called on to explain your cr^ed,
You will hear th e M aster ask you:
“Sinner, w here is my w eed?”
George Brooks Jr.
Angola, La.

20

On My Mind
I find th at you’re on my mind
m ore often than any o th er thought.
Som etimes I bring you th ere purposefully...
to console m e or to warm me
or just to make my day a little brighter.
But so often you surprise me...
and find your own way into my thoughts.
There are tim es when I awaken
and realize w hat a ten d er p art of my dream
you have been...
And on into th e day,
w henever a peaceful m om ent
seem s to com e my way
and my imagination is free to run,
it takes m e running into your arm s
and allows m e to linger there,
knowing th ere ’s nothing I’d rath er do.
I know th at my thoughts
are only reflecting th e loving hopes
of my heart...
because w henever they wander,
they always take m e to you.
Eric K. Rodgers
Munising, Minn.

21

Death and Light
Lay the day aside and mourn,
For th e night awaits to swallow you,
Starless and w ithout a moon,
Its blackness darker than th e age.
Beyond the horded minds of men,
Its hom e a sum m it with no name.
No single grain of w heat it spares,
Vanquished m em ories feed its maw.
Death, notable to every soul,
Random reaching its psychotic game.
Picking lovers from a lover’s grasp,
Sucking breath from th e m ouths of babes.
Those with strength and knowledge firm
Impress not the Dark, stalking entity.
Fomenting fear, it sedates its prey,
The stalw art fall, as do th e weak.
The sages claim to know it well—
Supposedly it is their friend.
But ignorant m en are left to query,
For we have never seen its face.
Quietus! Is yours the final kiss,
Or are you just an avenue?
Is em ptiness th e gift you give?
Does som ething follow in your wake?
I’m told a light is w hat you serve;
It com m ands you heed like a frightened child.
Tell me, Death, do you bow and pray,
Like m en w hen you approach their door?
What, oh Reaper, of th e love we feel,
Does your h eart ever sing its tune?
Is it the Light w ho strikes your chord?
Do you drink the wine of humility?
Lying still, your laconic sting I await,
Dimensions I pray you’ll pierce for me.
Wearily I close th e dusty book
On a life filled with tragedy.
There is no fear in my h eart of you,
Nay, I’ll em brace you fervently.
Gird me safely upon your back
Then deliver m e unto th e Light.
Gene Hathorn
Huntsville, Tex.

m

-

Ia f

11

a
Ia

Legacy
M

The Rose
It’s only a tiny rosebud,
a flower of God’s design,
but I cannot unfold the petals
with th ese clum sy hands of mine.
The secret of unfolding flowers
is not known to such as I,
The flower God opens so sweetly,
in my hands would fade and die.
If I cannot unfold a rosebud,
this flower of God’s design,
Then how can I think I have wisdom
to unfold this life of mine.
So I’ll tru st in Him for his leading,
each m om ent of every day,
and I look to Him for guidance
each step of my Pilgrim way.
For th e pathw ay th at lies before me
my Heavenly Father knows.
I’ll tru st Him to unfold the m om ents
just as He unfolds th e rose.
Warren Lee Heath
Tracy, Calif.
NOVEMBER 1995

I sit here alone,
And no future awaits,
Cause I’ll see prison walls
Till I see Hell’s gates.
I'll live in this world,
Surrounded by fools,
Always told w hat to do,
W eighted down by their rules.
I’ll never see th e freedom
That I held so dear,
But th at I’ll be forgotten
Is w hat I m ost fear,
That my life will m ean nothing,
T hat I was b etter not born,
T hat I’ll die all alone,
And for m e none will m ourn.
They have locked me up tight
And throw n away the key,
So Apocolyptic thoughts
My mind brings to me.
I think of my death,
I think of my grave,
I think of m y soul,
Too black to ever save.
I think of the world
And how it will end,
I think of destruction
And my m ind will not mend.
Still I write th ese lines
And know not w hat they mean.
In a world w here th ey ’re m eaningless
And will never be seen,
But I leave them behind
As a legacy of pain,
The w ords I last penned
Before I finally w ent insane.
Joseph A. Provost
Jasper, Fla.
23

■ T V î ", 11 t» '

Into God’s Hands
(Hail Mary, full of grace)
There are no courts left to go to, th at was th e last place.
(The Lord is with thee)
The Governor didn’t call, I waited to see
(Blessed art thou am ong wom en)
There are five in th e waiting room, I believe all kin,
(And blessed is th e fruit of th y womb, Jesus)
Show them you’re a brave man, d o n ’t m ake a fuss
(Holy Mary, m other of God)
As they roll out th e gurney, look at your folks and nod
(Pray for us sinners)
We m ay have lost, but your family are w inners
(Now and at th e hour of our death, Amen)
It will only h u rt a little, w hen they stick the needle in.
(Our father w ho art in heaven)
Do you have any last w ords, son?
(Hallowed be thy nam e)
Like finally accepting th e blam e
(Thy kingdom come, th y will be done)
They said you sh o t him with a gun.
(On earth as it is in heaven)
W hy not just say you’re so rry son?

The Record of History
H istory is an echoing record,
scream ing out at our inhum anity
tow ards humanity,
on the stereo of its creation.
Deafened, we cannot hear
the repeated scream s
of hum anity being led
into the cham bers of death,
or th e electric chairs
extinguishing life.
Blinded, we cannot see
the consequences
of returning evil for evil
on the m isdeeds of each man.
The w orld is turning up
the volume,
blasting its scream ing agony
upon our souls,
hoping th e deaf will hear,
and the blind will see,
so th e record can finally
be changed
for all humanity.
Delores Hornick
Danbury, Conn.

NOVEMBER 1995

(Give us this day our daily bread)
In less than fifteen m inutes you’ll be dead
(And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors)
His m other said he was the only child of hers
(And lead us not into tem ptation)
You can’t change things, w hat’s done is done.
(But deliver us from evil)
Killing you will make things level
(For thine is the Kingdom)
An eye for an eye, a son for a son
(And th e pow er)
Your casket’s waiting over by the tow er
(And the glory forever, Amen)
They’ll release your body to your next of kin.
(The Lord is my shepherd, 1shall not...)
John Yarbrough
Abilene, Tex.

A L

The alumni soccer game during Fall
Weekend drew the following back to cam­
pus (from left to right): Alan Rudy ’84,
Mark Laskin ’92, Nathan Levy ’84, William

Kem ’63, Dave Weksler ’81, Jim Marks ’85,
Larry Schall ’75, Danny Melnick ’81, Steve
Schall ’80, Gary Albright ’75, Krister John­
son ’95, Colin Heydt ’94, Jay Rose ’95, and

U M

N

I

varsity soccer coach Wayne McKinney. The
Swarthmore varsity defeated the alumni
6-2, proving that age and wisdom do not
necessarily score goals.

The commitment to service is Swarthmore’s soul
n Friday and Saturday, September
15 and 16, the College sponsored
its a n n u a l V o lu n te e r L e a d e rs h ip
Weekend. The weekend provides an
opportunity for th o se who serve as
v o lu n te e rs for th e College and its
alumni to get the views and ideas of
th e staff and adm inistration and to
com m unicate them to other alumni.
Typically th e se v o lu n teers include
alumni admissions interviewers, class
s e c r e ta r ie s , c la ss a g e n ts , Alum ni
Council representatives, and others
who dedicate som e of their tim e to
the College. Along with Alumni Associ­
ation President-designate Elenor Reid
’67, I had the opportunity to share a
po rtio n of th e w eekend w ith th o se
who attended.
When one thinks of volunteer «orga­
nizations, one often makes the cynical
assumption that those who volunteer
do so because, due to wealth or posi­
tion, they have the time. Or that they
becom e involved not necessarily to
s e rv e b u t to p ro v id e a line on a
resum é or vita. Yet, on the contrary,
Elenor’s and my conversations with

O

26

th o s e p r e s e n t for th e V o lu n te e rs
W eekend only confirm ed th e view
that those who take time to serve the
College do so b e c a u se of a stro n g
c o m m itm en t to its m issio n an d a
recognition of th e im p o rtan ce of a
strong liberal arts education.
This se n se of loyalty c a n n o t be
quantified as a statistic for the U.S.
News an d W orld R ep o rt rankings.
Sw arthm ore is fo rtu n a te to have a
s u b s ta n tia l e n d o w m e n t to u se in
meeting its goals, and a large number
of individuals willing to ensure th at
the endowm ent does fulfill th at pur­
pose. Yet the College is even more for­
tunate to have alumni willing to serve
purely out of loyalty. Our wealth may
provide the College's foundation, but
the commitment to service is its soul.
Every year the Alumni Association
presents the Joseph Shane Award to
the alumnus or alumna who has pro­
vided exceptional volunteer service to
the College. The 1995 award was given
to two alums: Bill and Linda Rothwell
Lee ’60. The Alumni Council is now
receiving nom inations for th e 1996

Alan Symonette 76
award. If you have someone in mind,
p le a s e c o n ta c t y o u r local Alumni
Council representative or the Alumni
Council s e c re ta ry Jackie Edm onds
C lark ’74, 6839 Rock Islan d Road,
Charlotte NC 28278. By the time the
next issue of the Bulletin is published,
Alumni Council will have had its fall
meeting. We will keep you informed of
the proceedings.
Alan Symonette ’76
President, Alumni Association
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

j

D I G E S T
Recent Events

S eattle: The Seattle Connection got

Atlanta: President Alfred H. Bloom visit­

together on Sept. 16 for a half day of
community clean-up at the Washington
Park Arboretum. Deb Read ’87 coordi­
nated the Saturday morning clean-up.

ed with alumni, parents, and friends at a
reception hosted by Larry ’63 and Carol
Cooper on Oct. 15.
Boston: Boston’s annual Serve-A-Thon, a

W ashington, D.C.: On Sept. 3 Washing­

citywide v o lu n te e r effort, brought
together area Swarthmoreans on Oct. 21
for a variety of special projects. Becky
Voorheis ’93 organized the outing.

ton, D.C., Swarthmoreans turned out to
watch the Baltimore Orioles take on the
Seattle M ariners. Prior to the game,
Swarthmore baseball fans enjoyed a talk
given by Dick Hall ’52, who pitched in
the m ajors for 16 seasons, and who
helped the Orioles win four pennants in
the late 1960s and early 1970s. Dorita
Sewell ’65 organized the event.

New York: The New York Connection

kicked off the Fall with Symposium VIII:
Amazing News About French Wine: You
Can Afford It! on Nov. 7. The wine tast­
ing, which covered classic French wines
for $15 and under, was led by John
Anderson, a wine columnist for the New
York Observer and a form er faculty
m em ber of th e English L iteratu re
Department at Swarthmore. Symposium
VIII was organized by Don Fujihira ’69
and David Wright ’69.
Paris: On Sept. 24 alumni, parents, and

friends g ath ered at th e hom e of
Gretchen Mann Handwerger ’56 for a
reception with Harry Gotwals, vice pres­
ident for alumni, development, and pub-

Young alumni gathered in San Francisco’s
Golden Gate Park for a summer picnic.
lie relations. The gathering was orga­
nized by G retchen and E lizabeth
McCrary ’83.
Philadelphia: On Nov. 18, the Philadel­

phia Connection hosted a beer tasting
on campus led by Hansjakob Werlen,
assistant professor of German.

Upcoming Events
The W ashington, D.C., Connection is
planning to see Chekhov’s classic Three
Sisters at the Studio Theatre on Satur­
day, Dec. 2.
P hiladelphia: On Dec. 3, the Swarth­

more College Chamber Orchestra will
be featuring alumni composers and per­
formers in a concert of 20th-century
American music.

Coolfont Weekend, March 29-31, 1996
oin alumni, parents, spouses, and
friends of the College in the
foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains
of West Virginia for the sixth annual
Swarthmore Weekend at Coolfont,
March 29-31 as we discuss the 1996
political campaign.
The weekend will be led by Swarth­
more faculty members, including Mar­
jorie Murphy, associate professor of
history and political insider. They’ll be
joined by the legendary Ken Hechler
’35, West Virgina’s secretary of state
since 1984 and a crusader for tax
reform. Ken worked for FDR and Harry
Truman, fought in World War II, inter­
rogated Hermann Goering, taught at
Columbia and Princeton, and became
the only Congressman to march in
Selma with Martin Luther King.

J

NOVEMBER 1995

Coolfont Weekend participants will
explore the realities behind the stump
speeches and sound bites, analyze the
key voting blocs that are most vulner­
able to manipulation, and debate
what’s at stake for individual citizens.
Along with the provocative dia­
logue, you can enjoy some of the best
bird-watching in the east, not to men­
tion hiking, golf, swimming, aerobics,
great food, live entertainment, and
good fellowship at the scenic resort
and conference center owned by Sam
Ashelman ’37 and his wife Martha.
You won’t want to miss it.
For information on reservations,
please contact Swarthmore College
Alumni Relations at (610) 328-8402; fax
(610) 328-7796; or e-mail: alumni
@cc.swarthmore.edu.

DENG-JENG LEE

Campaign Promises / Hardball Politics

History professor Marjorie Murphy
will speak at Coolfont ’96.
27

Not a foreigner, but a comrade
In the 1930s, war in China challenged the pacifism and faith of John B. Foster 33.
of Communist soldiers, Fos­
ter traveled first by train,
then by horseback find on
foot, with the sound of
scrawl. Nothing is wast­
Japanese artillery in the
ed. In this section of the
near distance. After two and
little book, one turns the
a half rugged weeks, the
pages from left to right,
in Chinese fashion:
men arrived safely at Eighth
Route Headquarters.
Saturday, Septem ­
The shipment of medicine
ber 24: Walking is very
was not far behind, but Fos­
productive of ideas. We
ter had to wait almost two
went down to the bank of
months more before the
the Yellow River to see
the medicine after what is
hospital he would help staff
could begin its work. It
apparently the usual
seems the Canadian doctor
morning air raid to find
who had pledged to work
pieces of bombs very
there had taken a more indi­
close by. But they could
rect route to avoid the heav­
not have been aiming at
At Eighth Route Army headquarters in 1938, John Foster ’33
iest fighting.
it, for it was well covered
(in leatherjacket, back row) towers above Chinese
When the doctor arrived,
with leaves and branches.
generals and other guests. At his left is General Chu Teh,
I am not a foreigner for
the small hospital was nearly
who later became right hand man to Mao Zedong.
once in this land, but a
overwhelmed with wounded
soldiers and peasants. Foster
comrade.
served as business manager, but he also
in Wuhan. It was, Foster recalls, his first
The words are those of John B. Fos­
carried patients in and out of surgery
ter ’33, who spent more than 15 years of job offer anywhere in the world, and at
and for a while even served as anesthe­
his life in China, including six years dur­ the height of the Depression he felt for­
siologist. At the height of its opera­
tunate to be working at all. He quickly
ing the 1930s as a teacher at a mission­
became interested in China and the Chi­ tion—much to the delight of the young
ary-run college. During this period the
idealist—the hospital staff was com­
young Foster volunteered to accompa­
nese but eventually grew disillusioned
posed of half Christians and half Com­
with the superior, conservative attitude
ny a shipment of medicine through
munists.
of much of the sheltered missionary
enemy-held territory at the start of the
Later in the war, Foster served as a
community in Wuhan.
anti-Japanese War in China—the begin­
secretary for the Chinese Industrial
When Japan launched its invasion of
nings of World War II in Asia. Foster’s
Cooperatives and as an editor for the
China in 1937, resistance from the
destination was the Eighth Route Army,
U.S. Office of War Information. In July
Nationalist government, led by Chiang
the Communist army of Zhu De and
1947, after a stint with the State Depart­
Kai-shek, was weak. But there were sto­
Mao Zedong, which was valiantly hold­
ment in China, Foster returned to the
ries about a great Communist army in
ing out against the Japanese in remote
United States. He was unable to visit
the north, one that two years earlier
and mountainous North China.
Foster’s experiences in China are the had marched 6,000 miles through China China again until after its rapproche­
subject of a 1994 book, The Cross and
ment with the United States in the
and was now fighting the Japanese and
actually winning victories. For Foster, a
1970s. Meanwhile, during the 1950s,
the Red Star, by Richard Terrill, associ­
Foster founded the Unitarian Fellowship
deeply religious pacifist, two questions
ate professor of English at Mankato
in Mankato, during which he was also
arose: Was it right to fight to defend
State University in Minnesota, where
one’s own country against invasion?
hounded by the McCarthyite FBI. In the
John Foster taught English and was a
And could there be an alliance between
1960s Foster was active in the anti-Viet­
campus activist from 1952 until his
Christianity and Communism to fight
nam War movement at Mankato State.
retirement in 1976.
In the 1980s, Foster had a chance to
Fascism and restore the shattered
The book focuses on Foster’s stay
world economy and spirit?
“bring the two halves of my life togeth­
with the Eighth Route Army in 1938.
er.” At the age of 69, he took a position
He concluded the answer to each
Beyond the obvious adventure of such a
question was yes.
at Shanghai Teachers’ University, where
trip, it seemed to be a defining moment
he and his wife, Jane Foster, taught
In the winter of 1938, Foster joined
for Foster. He had held very strong paci­
English for four years. His life had come
the first group of foreigners to visit the
fist beliefs based on a kind of doctri­
Eighth Route Army. Seven months later, full circle, in celebration of his remark­
naire Christianity. When these beliefs
able capacity to change and grow.
were challenged by personal experience with Wuhan about to fall to the
This article was adapted from Richard
Japanese and his college about to flee
and world events, his pacifism became
south, Foster made his momentous sec­ Terrill’s account of Foster’s “great adven­
qualified and his spiritual beliefs found
ond trip north. At last he would be able
ture”in MSU Today, Winter 1995. The
their purpose in good works and
to experience the “real” China, free from Cross and the Red Star is available by
activism.
calling the Mankato State University
the confines of the missionary com­
Foster went to China 1934 to teach
Bookstore, (507) 389-1649.
pound. Accompanied by a small guard
English at an Episcopal mission college
very line of the now
worn pocket diary is
E
covered
in a busy

NOVEMBER 1995

33

A rt and Science Thus Allied
Art conservator Terry Drayman-Weisser ’69 acts as a chemist, detective,
doctor, guardian, and scholar at Baltimore’s Walters Art Gallery
hrough the impressive
marble foyer that wel­
comes visitors to the Wal­
ters Art Gallery in Balti­
more, Terry DraymanWeisser ’69 moves with
confidence. As well she
should. Everything that
comes in through the
doors or up from storage
must pass through her
hands first, from linoleum
flooring to Tiffany glass.
As director of conserva­
tion and technical
research, she has to
ensure that the paintings,
objects, and rare books
are installed in their prop­
er environments.
As we walk through
the collections of glass,
ivory, and ceramics, it is
clear that Drayman-Weiss­
er knows each piece on
display—its importance, its
temperament, its problems.
She shows me where the sili­
ca gel is hidden in panels to
control the humidity in the
display cases and demon­
strates how to light a case
without raising the tempera­
ture.
The Walters Art Gallery is
one of the art world’s bestkept secrets. It recently
acquired the largest collec­
tion of Southeast Asian art
outside of Thailand, has the
largest collection of Byzan­
tine tiles outside of Bulgaria,
and owns one of the most
important illuminated
manuscript libraries in the
country. Its collections of
ivory, enamel, and bronze
are world famous in the
scholarly community. The
museum was a private collec­
tion until 1931, when Henry
Walters bequeathed it to the
city of Baltimore, much to
the dismay of the Metropoli­
tan Museum of Art in New
York City, which had expect­
ed to receive the collection.
The gallery, originally sup­
ported by endowments, has

T

46

Terry Drayman-Weisser (at left, above) consults with col­
leagues in the Museum of Chinese History in Beijing while
leading a delegation across China in 1989; and she examines
the Freedom Sculpture for the top of the Capitol Building in
Washington, D.C., in 1993.

always been a great haven
for scholars. It only began
promoting itself to the public
in 1974 with the opening of a
new five-story wing. Dray­
man-Weisser is excited by
the breadth and the depth of
the gallery’s collection. The
items on display are only 20
percent of the gallery’s hold­
ings.
Drayman-Weisser first
found herself at the gallery
on a grant in conservation
from the College during the
summer before her senior
year. She had arrived at
Swarthmore expecting to
major in zoology and then to
go on to a career in bacteriol­
ogy. But she found she didn’t
enjoy the large science class­
es full of anxious premed stu­
dents. She was enjoying the
art history classes she was
taking to fulfill her distribu­
tion requirements, and she
had loved drawing and paint­
ing from the time she was a
child, but she had never con­
sidered art as a career.
“I talked to Professor
Robert Walker, head of the
Art History Department,” she

recalls, “and told him I
was thinking of changing
my major. He said:
‘You’re good at science and
you’re good at art history.
Why don’t you consider
going into conservation?’
Well, I didn’t know what he
meant. I thought he was talk­
ing about forest rangers!”
But art conservation
turned out to be what Dray­
man-Weisser calls “a perfect
blend of science and art.”
She completed the summer
internship working on illumi­
nated manuscripts and had
an article published in the
Journal of the Walters Art
Gallery. During her senior
year, the gallery wrote to
offer her a full-time position.
Drayman-Weisser has
worked for the Walters ever
since, except for a three-year
hiatus in which she studied
archaeological conservation
in London.
Drayman-Weisser takes
me up to her lab to see her
work-in-progress. The labora­
tory, where she is responsi­
ble for 11 other conserva­
tors, functions as both art
studio and forensics lab.
Gray tubes hang from the
ceiling like elephant trunks to

suck away toxic fumes. An
early Renaissance triptych is
propped against an easel.
Miniature paintings line the
windowsill. On the wide
white tables sit various ob­
jects from different places
and periods: a newly cleaned
carved ivory Geisha, chipped
Russian enamels, an Egyptian
bull growing bright blue salts
on his back, and a corroded
Chinese "ku." Weisser is cur­
rently cleaning them, stabiliz­
ing them, and nursing them
back to health.The cup­
boards contain more
patients: a smashed ivory
Egyptian cosmetics case and
a wax carving sprinkled with
crystalline snowflakes.
Beside them lies a marble
torso, whose base and legs
were shattered by small chil­
dren bounding through the
museum.
In the next cupboard is a
mummy mask. DraymanWeisser laughs. One of her
first jobs as an assistant con­
servator was to clean the
encrustation, jokingly called
“mummy juice,” off the wax
paintings of the masks. The
problem was how to clean
them without damaging the
wax. Inspired by a TV comSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Through a whirlwind of a dream
Young actors blend poetry, farce, sound, and movement into a compelling vision.
hey were chosen Pick of the Day,
rated “magnifique” by The Scotsman
for their contemporary interpretation of
Homer’s Odyssey at the International
Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland
last summer; they were praised for their
“irrepressible wit,” “enigmatic intelli­
gence,” and “intense lyricism;” a Ger­
man woman who saw their play consid­
ered staying an extra day in Edinburgh
to see it again; and not only were they
well reviewed by the Spanish and Chi­
nese press but were also guests on a
Hungarian radio show.
The Pig Iron Theater Company,
which made its professional debut in
Edinburgh, is composed of six Swarthmore alumni from the Classes of 1992—
1995 and one student from the Class of
1997. The name “Pig Iron,” hardly evoca­
tive of “intense lyricism” or “irrepress­
ible wit,” was chosen when someone
mentioned that pig iron (crude iron) is
used to counterbalance stage scenery,
to fly it onto and off the set, or to create
actual flying effects. “We thought that’s
kind of who we are,” said Dan Rothenberg ’95. “We’re interested in poetry
and experimental theater, but we also
want to be straightforward, honest. The
name creates an image of something
crude and unpolished but also of flight.”
The project that spurred the group
to form was a piece called Cyrano for
Two Quartets, with four actors and a
string quartet. Directed by Rothenberg
in 1994, it was a portrayal of the Cyrano
story that synthesized the two art forms
theater and music. Well received on
campus, the group considered ventur­
ing with it beyond Swarthmore. The
Fringe seemed like an ideal place to
start. Taking place around the Edin­
burgh Festival, the Fringe has become
the largest arts festival in the world with
600 companies doing thousands of per­
formances during a three-week-long the­
ater extravaganza. As Rothenberg said:
“The festival is in every nook and cran­
ny. Every church and basement turns
into a theater in Edinburgh.” Fringe
organizers welcome independent the­
ater companies from around the world
and reputedly favor ensemble pieces
that mix various art forms and are not
merely natural theater.
Ultimately, instead of taking Cyrano
to the festival, the company decided to
develop a new play. Exploiting the
broad spectrum of styles offered by
individual members, along with their

T

58

burgh, the artists turned their hands to
business. Confronted with a long list of
Fringe venues, they “took a pin and
chose a church.” Bauriedel became
Fringe coordinator, gathering informa­
tion necessary to their participation; Jay
Rhoderick ’92 was travel coordinator;
Dan Rothenberg and Telory Williamson
’93, the other of the two female compa­
ny members, raised funds, obtaining a
grant for $2000 from the Baker Founda­
tion. In Edinburgh publicity was provid­
ed by Rothenberg’s younger brother,
Jason, a Swarthmore student of visual
arts, who designed posters.
The College donated space for the
group to rehearse, and on August 5 the
play premiered on campus to a large,
enthusiastic audience. Later that
month, heading from Swarthmore “on a
high” to Edinburgh, they found that,
with over 600 productions for theater­
goers to choose from, the average audi­
ence size was six. They never got to do
a run-through of the play before their
debut because four of the actors came
The Cyclops (Quinn Bauriedel ’94 and
Nate Read ’95) terrorizes Odysseus (Jay down with food poisoning. Rothenberg
laughed, “We went into the perfor­
Rhoderick ’92) and one of his sailors
mance blind—to an audience of five
(Telory Williamson ’93).
people, none of whom could speak
English.” Nonetheless a theater critic for
choreography and playwrighting skills,
The Scotsman wrote: “Pig Iron’s Odyssey
under Rothenberg’s direction they pro­
is highly inventive and bursting with
duced their Odyssey. Rothenberg
colour. Wacky and playful, they have
described Homer’s epic as “really long
woven together physical theater, come­
and full of everything.” He said they
dy, and a creative rendering of the origi­
could relate so many events in their
nal text incorporating the poetry of
everyday lives to episodes in the epic
Yeats and Sharon Olds.” Audiences
that they concluded “all the signs were
swelled to between 50 and 60. Professor
there.” Quinn Bauriedel ’94, a co­
Nathalie Anderson of the College’s
founder who first generated the idea of
English Department, who has taught
going to Edinburgh, stressed collabora­
several of the players, was in Edinburgh
tive effort to blend diverse individual
too. “There’s a wonderful moment,” she
ideas into one vision, which, he says,
commented, “when Telory Williamson
should “come from our hearts, so that if (Penelope) arranges the other actors in
somebody asks us, we’re able to explain a series of tableaux, each an emblem of
what we feel. Drawing from each of our
courage, of mutual support, of home­
strengths we made a play.” Their threecoming, as if she were making her hope
act production contains poetry, jazz
for their safety visible, physical. But
and classical music, dance, physical the­ each time she sets them moving, her
ater, and more. There are farcical
imagined security degenerates towards
scenes, with characters like Zeus
disaster. Moments like this have the
(Nathaniel Read ’95) and Athena (Suli
authority of dream—in fact I often leave
Holum ’97) squabbling while “back in
the group’s productions feeling that I’ve
Ithaca” Penelope’s suitors discuss golf
come through a whirlwind of a dream.”
or Poseidon (Dito Van Reigersberg ’94),
This year group members are going
described as a “7-foot god in drag”;
their individual ways to complete cours­
Odysseus’ journey itself is depicted in
es of one kind or another, but they’ll be
all its mythical richness by intermin­
back next June—to start working on a
gling strata of sound and movement.
full season. Aeolus will surely guide
Once they determined to go to Edinthem favorably.
—Carol Bréuart
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Welcome to
Swarthmore.edu

LETTERS
Continued from page 3
tears once again—but this time reached
my head as well as my heart.
Shame on the Bulletin for not pub­
lishing the talk as he had written it. Per­
haps you could make amends by offer­
ing to send a copy of the full text to
alumni who request it.
I wonder if Gross could have told the
story so compellingly when he graduat­
ed from Swarthmore, or whether I
would have reacted so strongly to it
when I graduated. But those are mat­
ters for another day.
J oan B. B erkowitz ’52
Washington
Readers who would like the full text of
“Hitting the wall ...or Gross’Law
revealed, ”(August Bulletin, page 8) may
request one by writing to the editor at the
address below.
Get over fear of insects—or
wolves—and try a straw house
To the Editor:
In my son’s Bulletin, I was happy to see
the article on Prof. Carr Everbach’s
straw bale building project. As an art
historian whose book Contemporary
Native American Architecture: Cultural
Regeneration and Design Since 1965 is
just now being edited at Oxford Univer­
sity Press, I’ve become aware of the
ecological, financial, and social advan­
tages of this method of construction.
Many potential occupants, not only the
poor, ought quickly to get over unwar­
ranted fears of insects (or of wolves
coming to blow the house down) and
they ought at least to investigate exist­
ing examples of straw bale buildings in
various parts of the country. Prof. Everbach recently pointed to a handy
source of information via the World
The Bulletin welcomes letters from
readers concerning the contents of
the magazine or issues relating to
the College. All letters must be
signed and may be edited for clarity
and space. Address your letters to
Editor, Swarthmore College Bulletin,
500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA
19081-1397, or send by electronic
mail to bulletin@swarthmore.edu.

60

Wide Web: http://solstice.crest.org/efficiency/straw_insulation/straw_in.html.
Carol H erselle Krinsky

Professor of Fine Arts
New York University
Cryptosporidiosis a problem in
many city water supplies
To the Editor:
As an environmental science special
major, intending to get an advanced
degree in public health, I very much
enjoyed Marcia Ringel’s article, “Old
Bugs, New Tricks” in the August
Bulletin. In the sidebar section that fol­
lowed, “This disease brought to you by
modern civilization,” however, I did
notice an error. The source of the dev­
astating cryptosporidiosis outbreak in
Milwaukee in 1993 was not public swim­
ming pools contaminated by runoff but
rather the city’s drinking water supply.
Smaller outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis
traced to drinking water have been
recorded in other cities across the Unit­
ed States.
The Environmental Protection Agen­
cy does not currently require testing for
Cryptosporidium in drinking water. And
even in the wake of the 400,000 made ill
in Milwaukee, nothing has been done to
strengthen our drinking water protec­
tions.
R achel Lynn ’97
New York
St. John arguments seem silly—
Jesus him self was a Jew
To the Editor:
The argument over anti-Semitism in the
St. John Passion seems a little silly when
one considers that Jesus was himself a
Jew, who cared enough about his own
religion to chastise the money-changers
in the temple. It was Paul who made
Christianity the religion of the Gentiles.
Incidentally years ago I sang in a per­
formance of the St. John Passion—con­
ducted by Arthur Mendel, who was Jew­
ish—and probably the greatest Bach
scholar of our time. He knew what the
words meant—but he also knew what a
very great piece of music the Passion is.
So did the many Jewish members of the
chorus.
Louise Z immerman F orscher ’44

More than 2,000 alumni (about 12
percent of Swarthmore graduates)
have given the College their e-mail
addresses, and the number is grow­
ing daily. Here are some ways to
communicate with Swarthmore—or
each other—by computer.
■ Swarthmore’s newly redesigned
World W ide Web home page is
found at http://www.swarthm ore.edu/. It was created by the
firm 3r1, one of whose principal
designers is Gary Albright ’75.
Please note that much of the Web
site is still “under construction.”
■ Even if you don’t know a Swarth­
more alum’s Internet address, you
can automatically forward e-mail
through the electronic Alumni
Postmaster. To contact a friend or
former roommate, simply follow
this format: firstname_lastname_
classy eai-@alumni.swarthmore.
edu. Use only the last two digits of

the class year and be sure to use
the underscore character.
People with two first names can
be addressed with both names, as
can those with hyphenated names:
Mary_Ellen_Chijioke_67@alumni.
swcirthmore.edu, or Steven_RoodOjalvo_73@cilumni.swarthmore.edu.
It even works for those who
have changed last names:
Martha_Meier_71@alumni.swarthmore.edu or Martha_Dean_71
@alumni.swarthmore.edu.
■ If you have problem s or ques­
tions about e-mail forwarding or
want to add your e-mail address to
the College’s database, send a mes­
sage to records@ swarthmore.edu.
■ To submit changes of address,
marriages, etc., also tap the words
records@swarthmore.edu.

■ The editors of this magazine
answer their e-mail at bulletin©
swarthmore.edu. Many class secre­
taries now have e-mail, but if not,
we will forward your news to them.
■ And finally, you can zap a mes­
sage to President Alfred H. Bloom
at abloom l@ swarthmore.edu.

Bedford, N.Y.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

A NEAR M ISS
Continued from page 17
London, Cassandra Green enrolled in
nearby McGeorge Law School. They
w ere so o n m a rrie d . In 1985, law
degrees in hand, the couple returned
to the East coast, where Maurice stud­
ied for a m aster’s of law in taxation at
Georgetown U niversity. C assan d ra
went to work as a real estate attorney,
later becoming a project manager for
Amtrak before suspending her career
in 1991 to take care of their children,
M alcolm, now 5, C o rinne, 3, an d
Nathan, 14 months.
M aurice Foley’s first W ashington
job was at the Internal Revenue Ser­
vice, drafting legislation. In August
1988 he was recruited to join the staff
of th e S e n a te F in an ce C o m m ittee
under then-chairman Lloyd Bentsen of
Texas. Bentsen was so impressed that
he asked Foley to come to the Depart­
ment of the Treasury when President
Clinton appointed Bentsen to his Cabi­
net in 1992.
Now Foley is one of 19 presidentially appointed judges who hand down
decisions on fed e ra l ta x d is p u te s
involving m ore than $10,000. Prece­
dents set by the Tax Court influence
the entire tax system. Foley is quick to
point out: “I don’t put anybody in jail! I
have a fair am ount of responsibility,
but I take some comfort from the fact
that I don’t have anybody’s life in my
hands.”
Foley describes himself as “conser­
vative on fiscal and moral matters, but
liberal on social issues,” seeing a role
for tax policy in solving social prob­
lems. At th e S enate he w orked on
urban enterprise zones and the devel­
opment of tax incentives to encourage
the training of disadvantaged workers.
He became something of an expert on
the earned income tax credit, a provi­
sion now under attack in the Republi­
can Congress. While at the Treasury,
he was called several times to advise
President Clinton on this aspect of tax
law.
Using guarded language Foley looks
back and says he was the recipient of
“local affirmative action,” at Swarthmore. “W hen I think of affirm ative
action, I think of b u re a u c ra c y ,” he
says. “But real affirm ative action is
just som ebody reaching out and giv­
ing you a helping hand.”
'IN

NOVEMBER 1995

Foley describes himself as “conservative on fiscal and moral matters, but liberal on
social issues. ”He opposes “bureaucratic”affirmative action, saying that, “real affirma­
tive action is just somebody reaching out and giving you a helping hand. ”
Motivated by a potent work ethic
and religious beliefs instilled by his
mother, a homemaker, and his father,
a re tire d p o st office w orker, Foley
asserts, “Nobody owed me anything.
My mom and dad used to tell me that
with an education and a blessing from
heaven you can do anything.”
e n a to r B e n tse n a n d P ro fe s s o r
Rubin both spoke at Foley’s swear­
ing-in, praising his discipline, intelli­
g en ce, an d w a rm th . R ubin, w ho
remains close to Foley, told the story
of their first meeting, while Bentsen
singled Foley out for having wisdom
beyond his years: “I’ve listened to him
make his point to me. He’s a man of
compassion, stable, and he’s a man of
judgement, and he’s a man who will
give it th e very b e st h e ’s got. And
that’s a lot.”
Then Foley delivered a brief speech
which, even in its transcript form, is
d o w n -to-earth and h e a rtfe lt. After
thanking his family and friends, he did
something which is rare in Washing­
to n —he d isc a rd ed th e language of
pow er and spoke ab o u t his family.
This is the story he told about Mal­
colm, his five year old son:
“About a year ago, Sandy, the kids,
and I were going to a friend’s house.
The friend is a doctor. So on the way

S

over th e re in th e car M alcolm was
very excited, and Sandy told me, ‘Mau­
rice, Malcolm doesn’t know what you
do. You need to sp e n d som e tim e
explaining to him what a tax attorney
does.’
“So I spent about 15 minutes care­
fully explaining to him w hat a tax
attorney does. I would look over my
shoulder, and he would nod in agree­
ment as I carefully explained it to him.
Then when we got to the individual’s
house, Malcolm ran out of the car and
ran to the guy and said, ‘Oh, you’re
th e d o c to r.’ And th e n Sandy said,
‘Now, Malcolm, tell him what Daddy
d o e s .’ And M alcolm p ro u d ly said,
‘Daddy’s a taxi driver.’”
“I will ad d a p e rs p e c tiv e to th e
court that it hasn’t had before,” said
Foley, and he made a promise to men­
tor his law clerks and other younger
students. And he is eager, he says, to
serve as a role m odel to those chil­
dren who face greater challenges than
th e ir p e e rs , th o s e w h o —like th e
young Maurice Foley—have the talent,
but need the discipline and guidance
to develop it. ■
Dana S. Calvo ’92 is a reporter for the
Associated Press in Washington, D.C.
She profiled economist Heidi Hartmann
’67 in last November’s Bulletin.
61

happened had a gutter not fallen off the roof
above Rubin’s room.
Somehow the floods give ML character,
just like the pipes that grace basement ceil­
ings, just like the creaky wood floors, big
windows, and private bathrooms upstairs,
just like the bench seats in the lounge that
lift up to reveal spare light bulbs. ML’s halls
seem not to know what to do with them­
selves, meandering in odd ways, turning sud­
denly here, jumping up a quarter-flight of
stairs there. In the basement the path
between the men’s and women’s wings runs
past an ancient boiler nestled in a 10-footdeep hole in the ground, while on the first
floor, a segment of hallway behind the
kitchen leads to just one room.
And while no one wants to live in a lake,
some ML residents are ambivalent about the
major renovations our dorm may need. It
could all too easily turn into a clean, sterile
Howard Johnson’s. If you want that, you can
always live in Willets. Mary Lyon will always
be a place apart. ■
Sam Schulhofer-Wohl is a sophomore from Chica­
go who plans a double major in economics and
physics. He first wrote about ML in the student
magazine Perspective, Fall 1994. Photographer
Steven Goldblatt ’67 lived in ML for two years and
admits to having been something o f a bode.

I

And then there w as ML 4
A brief history of Mary Lyon

SCOTT COWGER ’82

q

The ML Halloween party (left) is
by many accounts the loudest,
craziest social event o f the year.
Emre Eren ’98 (below) needed
some pasta at 3:00 a.m. Spacious
rooms, old wood, and unusual
angles are all part ofM L’s charm.
Resident assistant Maria Barker
’96 (bottom) has a third-floor
single with private bath.

Mary Lyon 2 burned in the spring of 1982.

oday’s Mary Lyon dormitory was
built in 1917 by the Mary Lyon
School, a private girls’ school named
for the founder of Mount Holyoke Col­
lege. The school, which opened in
1913, eventually had five buildings—
Wildcliff, Hadly Miller Crist, Seven
Gables, Mary Leavitt, and Hillcrest—
which later became known as ML1,
ML2, ML3, ML4, and ML5 respectively.
The school’s motto was “Lifting Better
Up to Best,” and it offered amenities
including a private golf course, riding
trails, and a boathouse on the Crum.
In 1942, pressed for funds because
of World War II, the school leased its
buildings to the U.S. Navy and moved
to New York City. It closed at the end
of the school year. According to most
sources, the College leased the prop­
erty from 1946 to 1948, then bought it
outright. ML1 became faculty housing,
ML2 was rented to various outside
organizations, and ML3 and ML4
housed faculty members and male
students.
The 1951 Halcyon indicated that
Mary Lyon had become “a place
apart” in a very short time: “The prob­
lem of wine and women seems to be

T

NOVEMBER 1995

centered in Mary Lyons and will ulti­
mately be solved by getting rid of
Mary Lyons.”
In 1970 ML4 became Swarthmore’s
first coed dormitory, and ML5 was
torn down. The College closed ML3 in
1981 because with Mertz Hall open it
no longer needed the space. ML2
burned in a fire of unknown origin in
the spring of 1982, and in August of
that year ML3 and what remained of
ML2 were demolished. What is now
called Mary Lyon is actually ML4. (ML1
remains faculty housing.)
Dana Carroll ’65, who lived in ML3
for one year, didn’t know it had been
torn down until he returned to
Swarthmore for a reunion and noticed
that “there’s this big empty spot
where ML3 used to be. My room
wasn’t there anymore. It was kind of a
piece of my life that was gone.” But
ML4, Carroll says, has “changed
remarkably little in 30 years. I was
able to open the door to a few of my
old rooms, and they looked remark­
ably similar, but maybe a bit smaller.”
—S. S. W., with assistance from Mary
Ellen Grafflin Chijioke ’67 and the
Friends Historical Library.

63

n August 7, 1927, when I was still
a very small girl of not quite three
years old, my father, my m other (the
late Sarah Stabler Stabler ’22), my
brother, and I moved into the tenant
h o u se at Crum wald Farm, d irectly
across Crum Creek from Swarthmore
C ollege. In May of th e follow ing
spring, my Uncle William Clarke ’17
and my late A unt E leanor S tab ler
Clarke ’18 moved into their new stone
house next door. My m other contin­
ued to live at Crum w ald for m ore
than 50 years.
At th a t tim e th e re w as an e n o r­
mous barn at Crumwald. It had two
huge hay mows and plenty of room
on the ground floor for two horses, a
pony named Nightingale, many chick­
ens, and a couple of cows. A farmer
was hired to take care of the animals,
but eventually my father did this job.
Twice a day he would milk the cows,
and we drank the milk.
As a child, I was always conscious
of th e College. The old black w ater
to w e r an d th e to w e r of C lo th ie r
Memorial were visible on the horizon.
In the winter we could see the top of
Parrish Hall and the lights from the
boys’ dormitory. We could hear the
yells of the spectators at football and
baseball games and on quiet nights
we could hear the chimes. We attend­
ed Sunday School and Quaker Meet­
ing on the campus.
Apparently the college students in
turn were aware of our farm—and in
particular of the barn and its occu­
p a n ts d ire c tly a c ro ss Crum Creek
from them . On O ctober 30, 1929, a
b rilliant and leg en d ary H allow een
prank was perp etrated . I quote the
front page of The Phoenix of Novem­
ber 5,1929:

O

COW INVADES PARRISH!
Frightens Second West
But Is Finally Quelled
The early hours of last Friday moming were indeed eventful ones for the fair
coeds of Second West. Shortly before
dawn their peaceful slumbers were mdely
shattered by the bovine musings of a cow
that had suddenly turned intellectual.
However, under the supervision of Miss
Stilz, the intruder was ejected, Beauty
64

was rescued from the Beast, and all was
quiet on Second West.
When interviewed by the enterprising
cub reporter, the cow told an interesting
story. While peacefully dreaming of
clover patches, the poor creature was
abmptly disturbed and driven along the
peaceful Crum to Parrish. There its
guardians descried an open window,
through which they climbed. Before poor
Bossy had time to think, the front door
had been opened, and she entered
Swarthmore’s sacred halls of learning for
the first time.
Now came the hard part. For she was

The cow
that went to
college
A tru e ta le by
Helen S tabler Grinstead
a stubborn cow, as cows go, and height
confused her. But the heroic efforts of the
Garnet athletes prevailed, and she was
sent on her way down the Second West
corridor with a well-directed kick to
arouse her gentle disposition. Awakened
by the noise overhead, Miss Stiltz orga­
nized the cowering coeds, and peace was
restored.
Faithful Bossy wanted to keep her
new-found friends, but, reminded by the
breakfast bell, she set off for home.
After the cow was returned safely
—I don’t know how—Uncle Bill wrote
the following letter to The Swarthmore
Phoenix'.
December 4, 1929
Mr. Thomas S. Nicely,
Editor-in-Chief
Swarthmore Phoenix
Dear Sir:
On the night of October 30, a very
peaceful cow was missed from my bam.
On the same night, a cow, I am told,

was discovered on the second floor of
Parrish. Rumor has it that these two
cows were one and the same. It does
not seem possible that my cow could
have wandered to Parrish unassisted. If
she was assisted, I am filled with won­
der and amazement. This particular
animal, when out, has a decided
antipathy to assistance of any sort and
would require the whole football squad
to manage her.
Under the circumstances I am filled
with curiosity and envy: curious to
know if this cow discovered in Parrish
was really mine; envious because I
should have liked to have been in on
the fun.
An anonymous letter from someone
who really knows the facts would be
much appreciated and at least satisfy
my curiosity. Thank you!
Very truly yours,
W.A. Clarke
Uncle Bill received an anonymous
reply, whose author was discovered
many years later to be the late Hugh
McDiarmid ’30. His letter follows:
January 6, 1930
Mr. William A. Clarke
Dear Sir:
I’m afraid I owe you an apology on
several counts: first for helping “bor­
row” your cow on the night of Oct. 30;
secondly for this long delay in answer­
ing your very fine and sporting letter;
and lastly because I have heretofore
been under the impression that you
were somewhat of a “crab”! For all of
which I offer you my sincere apologies I
and regrets.
The idea, of course, was not origi­
nal, but the prank was the outcome of
several factors and the fulfillment of a
long-felt desire. It was done partly to
embarrass Miss Stiltz who possesses an |
astounding faith in locks as a means of ]
keeping students within bounds, and
partly because it was felt that the Col- j
lege was losing its “spark” and more or
less neglecting the human side of col- ’
lege life. Summing it all up, we felt that
a more appropriate night than Hal­
loween couldn’t be chosen.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

ie

A mascot for Swarthmore?
You can help us decide which of six candidates below will become the official
Swarthmore mascot—or whether the College should remain without one.
See the back cover of this issue for details. Please return this ballot by Friday,
December 15. Swarthmore couples may cast two votes.
V o te fo r O n e :

Person A

Person B

...... a.....-....
Garnet Foxes................. .......□.... .... a
G riffin s............................ .......□
•■■■■... --- a
Wild Kangaroos............ .......□.... .... a
Mighty O aks................... ----- ...... .....□
Little Quakers................ .......□.... .....□
No Mascot.......................----- ...... .....□
Swarming Earthworms.

Please sign your ballot and indicate your class year or other College affiliation:
Person A
Person B

From:

Place
20 cents
postage
here

Alumni Office
Swarthmore College
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore PA 19081-1397

There were three of us involved in
the deed, which was accomplished
between the hours of 2 and 3 a.m. We
knew the general location of your bam
and felt pretty sure a cow was kept
there. We had no difficulty in locating
her, but we experienced considerable
trouble in unfastening her headstall by
the flickering and unsteady light of
matches. Finally the job was done and
we led her out through the doorway
and across the lawn towards the road.
Never shall I forget the noise her
hooves made as she crossed the drive.
To us the noise seemed appalling and
almost unbelievable that anyone could
sleep through it. To me, at least, the
worst part of the whole affair was get­
ting the animal safely out onto the
open road; once that was accomplished
I felt fairly comfortable. The cow
behaved admirably until she struck the
main road where she suddenly took it
into her head to bolt, and off we went
(fortunately in the right direction)
down the hill at express train speed,
hanging on for dear life and with our
feet seldom, if ever, touching the
ground. She finally stopped for lack of
breathy and we proceeded with only
occasional such out­
bursts up the hill,
through the Col­
lege gates, across the
Dean’s front lawn and
so to Parrish. Outside
the front door with
the goal almost in
sight, a particular­
ly violent outburst
aided by a few trees and several lowhanging branches tore us all loose, and
we spent a rather anxious and exciting
15 minutes chasing the animal
throughout the length and breadth of
the campus before we finally recap­
tured her. We then “jimmied” the win­
dow to one of the classrooms, opened
the front door, and up the steps.
Halfway up she stuck, while she
relieved herself of an awe-inspiring
amount of waste. After which she
calmly proceeded the rest of the way,
and with a final shove through the
swinging doors our job was done.
The ensuing excitement when she
was discovered I can leave to your
NOVEMBER 1995

imagination. Tmth to tell I believe few,
if any, of the girls had ever been con­
fronted so close at hand with so large
and so terrifying an animal! The night
watchman was called upon to remove
the animal but proved unequal to the
task and finally had to go and seek the
aid of a friend. Together with a great
deal of moral encouragement and
advice from the girls, they finally suc­
ceeded in ejecting the creature. It was
afterwards claimed that the “friend”
hadn’t proven of much use, since he
seemed to be more interested in the
girls than in the job at hand!!
We all feel that something construc­
tive was really accomplished by the act,
and I sincerely hope you don’t regret
the part played by your cow in the
reawakening of the College.
Sincerely yours,
—no signature—
Since I was not quite five years
old at the time, I can only vaguely
remember the excitement. I also
wonder why no one heard the
noise of the cow’s hooves!
Crumwald now belongs to
th e College, and faculty

m embers live in the two houses. My
Aunt Eleanor, who died on August 23
at age 98, had preserved these enter­
taining documents, and recently her
daughter Cornelia Clarke Schmidt ’46
gave them to me. I hope my account
of this Halloween prank brings back
m em ories to som e of th e stu d e n ts
who were in college at the time. ■
Helen Stabler Grinstead lives in Wal­
nut Creek, Calif. Her son Charles Grinstead teaches in the Mathematics De­
partment. She can count 31 close rela­
tives and their spouses who attended
Swarthmore.
Do you have an idea for a future
“Our Back Pages”? Write to the editor.

A mascot for Swarthmore?
D o w e n eed one?
f course not. No school needs a bulldog, tiger,
wolverine—or Quaker—to flourish academical­
ly. But would a collegewide mascot be a welcome
addition to Swarthmore’s complex identity and
“campus culture”? And if so, what should it be?
Here’s your chance to tell us.
Various colorful creatures have enlivened
Swarthmore tradition throughout its history
Consider the aviary of publications named after
birds, real or mythical—the Phoenix, the Halcyon,
the Cygnet, the Veery, and the Auk among them. But
while the College is identified with a stately seal and
a color, it lacks a whimsical image to balance the
negative aspects of its famous “intensity” label.
You’re invited to help us choose a mascot that
would lend itself to a clever graphic design and that
could be turned into a costume. It might join cheer­
leaders on the field, pop up at other campus
events—even escort the Alumni Weekend parade.
When I proposed a mascot search this fall, I
learned that two students—cheerleader Elizabeth
Hirshfield ’96 and co-sports editor of the Phoenix
Jen Philpott ’97—were already working on the same
idea. With the endorsement of Bob Williams, chair
of Physical Education and Athletics, we asked the
faculty, staff, students, and Alumni Council to sug­
gest ideas. From more than 100 proposed, a commit­
tee including former Dean of Admissions Bob Barr
’56 and Alumni Council President Alan Symonette
’76 selected six candidates.
Not everyone was enthusiastic. “If you choose an
animal, the animal rights folks will be up in arms,”
wrote one alum in the Midwest. Others warned that
a mascot—any mascot—would turn our bucolic,
cerebral alma mater into a disgusting beer-soaked
parody of big-time gridiron frenzy. Therefore, please
note the opportunity to vote “no mascot.”
But please vote! You’ll find a postcard ballot
bound into this issue of the Bulletin. Return it by
Friday, Dec. 15 to register your opinion.
—Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59
Associate Vice President

■

Vote for One
Swarming Earthworms
What could be more intimidating than a swarm of
worms? And “earthworms,” essential elements in the
health of the campus landscape, is also an anagram
for... well, you figure it out.
■

The Garnet Foxes

They’re clever, of course. They’re wily and smart and
native to the Crum. We could dress ours in a broadbrimmed Quaker hat, like George Fox, founder of the
Religious Society of Friends.
■

The Griffins

With the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle, this
mythical beast is said to have its head in the clouds
and its feet on the ground. What could be more apt for
Swarthmore?
■

The Wild Kangaroos

Remember the song? “Oh we’re going to the Hamburg
Show; see the lion and the wild kangaroo.” We see a
cantankerous, capricious kanga with a brain—proba­
bly carrying a few books in her pouch on her way to
the game.
■

The Mighty Oaks

... from little acorns grow. As a metaphor, there’s none
better for a college. Picture a sprightly acorn, like the
m&m® peanut that used to jump in the chocolate
pool. Along Magill Walk this is a winner.
■

The Little Quakers

Old-fashioned? Yes, but traditions tend to be.
Swarthmore was known as the Little Quakers (as
opposed to that big university downtown) for many
years. Why not resurrect our old Friend?
□ T o v o te : Fill o u t a n d r e tu r n t h e c a rd
in s id e t h e b a c k c o v e r o f th is m a g a z in e
b y Frid a y, D e c e m b e r 1 5 .