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FAIR RADCLIFFE
At Fay House, April 20, after a press conference about the demise of Radcliffe College and the coming of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, from left: Mary Maples Dunn, director of the Schlesinger Library and interim leader of Radcliffe; Nancy-Beth Gordon Sheerr, chair of the Radcliffe trustees; Radcliffe president Linda S. Wilson; and Harvard president Neil L. Rudenstine.Jon Chase |
With special interest I read in your May-June 1999 issue the "Extra" entitled "Radcliffe: A New Incarnation" as well as a letter, "Think Positively, Radcliffe," from a 1956 graduate (page 104). I thought I was doing just that until in her third paragraph the letter writer states: "For me, 'Radcliffe' has been more of a stigma than support."
Stigma, indeed! Checking my dictionary, I find that the word refers to "something that detracts from the character or reputation of a person; mark of disgrace or reproach." I believe the word "privilege" would best describe the opportunity I had to be there for four wonderful years.
Now our class, 1940, was one of the last to attend without the interruptions caused by World War II. We had the same instruction from the brilliant Harvard professors, but we were all women and in many cases probably had the advantage of smaller classes. Some of us went to Harvard for study at the Fogg Museum or for lab work or, at thesis time, for research at the venerable Widener Library.
Living in women's dorms, we made friends who continue for a lifetime. I take part in a round robin letter of about eight or 10 of us that has been going since graduation, and I know there are a number of other similar round robins. At Radcliffe we had three outstanding women to look up to: President Ada Louise Comstock, Dean Frances Jordan, and Graduate Dean Bernice Brown Cronkhite. Their influence remains an inspiration.
Of course, we had a loyalty to Harvard. We loved going to the football games, the House dances, and who could ever forget the excitement of the Harvard riot of 1937, when 10,000 men of Harvard (or so it seemed) in a burst of spring fever marched on the Radcliffe dorms?
While through the years many people we've met have never heard of Radcliffe, that never deterred us in our ambitions or our careers. It's a time gone by, but it's had a lifelong influence on us. Yes, Fair Harvard, to those of us who go back to those privileged days, Radcliffe, too, remains fair.
Kathleen Stokey Lundeen, Radcliffe '40
Eugene, Ore.
UNDER THE APPLE TREE
Radcliffe College is but a fading memory for a few grey-haired grads. In my view, as a student there from 1942 through 1946, the Radcliffe-Harvard relationship was ideal. Academically and socially, we had the best of all worlds: a small women's college where the administrators knew us all and cared and where we could know each other and forge friendships for a lifetime; all the academic resources of a huge university without the hassle (no proctors at our exams); a social life nonpareil, wherein we were treated like princesses. Radcliffe Yard was a tranquil oasis amidst the cacophony of wartime Cambridge. Behind the high brick wall we had our own intimate world, graced by an apple tree to sit under and a garden with a fountain to sit beside.
As a science major I had access to all the technical libraries, as well as the stacks in Widener. My tutor couldn't have been more supportive, arranging a summer job in the research department at Polaroid and providing a research project that lead to my first technical publication.
We were accorded chivalry and respect by our Harvard peers, especially on dates. Some of the Harvard parties were truly elegant, with catered dinners in the suites before a formal--wonderful dances with big bands, and orchids. And there were football games with attendant hoopla, dancing at supper clubs, theater performances. Such fun, such memories...such nice guys!
Through Radcliffe we had the best education imaginable, the best fun imaginable, and the best gift of all--lifetime association with some very special friends. Alma mater, hail to thee.
Elizabeth W. Moore, Radcliffe '46
Underhill Center, Vt.
DILEMMA
Radcliffe was my alma mater
But it's rather sad--
I don't know if I'm a 'Cliffie
Or a Harvard grad.
To the spirit of Ann Radcliffe
Should my loyalties I direct?
Or should the statue of John Harvard
Give me cause to genuflect?
And as I older grow
With monies to disperse,
Do I give to Harvard's
Or to Radcliffe's purse?
Helen Schiefer Roca-Garcia,
Radcliffe '44
Wellesley, Mass.
THE BOSS AND MARK I
As the widow of Aiken's last Ph.D. student, Gerard Salton, Ph.D. '58, I enjoyed "Computing's Cranky Pioneer" (May-June, page 25), Harry R. Lewis's review of Bernard Cohen's book Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer. I vividly remember not only Aiken but also the layout of the Computation Lab. Gerry spent many a night on an army cot in the lab, waiting for a program to run--or get stuck, as the case might be--and being caffeinated by Al Cheverie whenever necessary!
Aiken--or the "Boss," as he was generally called--really supported the efforts of the fledgling computer scientists by trying to find funding to help them out in their struggle to support a family while attending graduate school.
I recall big holiday parties in the lab, where the place was converted into a Las Vegas-style casino with Aiken and his gambling partner (on one occasion it was I!) successfully winning most of the millions of bogus money. He roared with delight. There were also sing-alongs et al. The "Boss" loved parties.
It was understandable that Aiken was often bitter about being a pioneer who was surrounded by snobs who thought that his endeavors had no place in an intellectual environment. Harvard certainly took a long time to acknowledge that a department of computer science has a place in a university.
Mary Salton
Ithaca, N.Y.
Harry Lewis mentioned Aiken's policy of not protecting his work with patents. I witnessed this when a colleague of mine devised a small improvement to magnetic-core registers --part of Aiken's new vacuum-tube computer --and wound up with a basic patent on the register itself.
Albert A. Wyke, S.M. '51
Moultonboro, N.H.
Back in '49 I had a class in the Computation Lab and often watched the acolyte technicians tending Mark I, as shown in the photograph illustrating "Computing's Cranky Pioneer."
One output was by punched cards. One morning the card punch was making confetti out of its cards. The technicians were pushing buttons and adjusting knobs to no avail. Finally one technician brought over a large Stillson wrench, plunked it down on the computer, and then the card punch behaved properly.
Elroy LaCasce, A.M. '51
Brunswick, Me.
 The clock tower denuded, in 1948, and, below, in its glory in 1940. The copper sheathing was removed perhaps to aid the war effort, perhaps because the tower needed repair. It was while repairs were being made in 1956 that the tower burned. 
Photo by Willam M. Rittase |
COMFORTING CLOCKS
"Restored" (March-April, page 63) tells that the hideously truncated tower on Memorial Hall is finally to be restored, more than 40 years after the fire that destroyed the tower that I remember from my undergraduate days. You included a view of the tower as it looked in 1878 and as it will look when restored, but not one of the only nontruncated tower that any living alumnus can remember--the clock tower. The enclosed photograph, which I took in 1948, shows the tower that I knew: wrought iron and copper missing, with tar paper for protection from the weather.
Yes, the new tower will be historically more authentic. Yes, the new tower (without clock) will be less expensive to build and maintain. And, yes, anything would look better than the gruesome truncation in place the past 40 years. But there was always something comforting about hearing that clock tolling the hours and seeing that the time on my watch did indeed agree with the time on that clock.
Robert J. Davis '51, Ph.D. '60
Belmont, Mass.
SWEDENBORG CHAPEL
Readers might want to know that the architect of the Swedenborg Chapel ("Chapel Cliff-hanger," May-June, page 73), was Herbert Langford Warren, the founder of the School of Architecture at Harvard and its first dean. Warren (1857-1917) did more than anyone else of his era to establish professional training in architecture at Harvard. Early in his career he was chief draftsman for Henry Hobson Richardson, and later built not only the chapel, but was supervising architect for the Busch-Reisinger Museum. When Warren died, he was esteemed as perhaps the greatest architectural historian in America of his time.
Reputations fade fast, but buildings have a chance to preserve memories. Few people know Warren's identity now, and it would be a shame to have his architectural work vanish from the Harvard scene.
Anthony Alofsin '71, M. Arch. '81
Austin
|
DNA UPDATE "Sleuthing the Genes" (May-June, page 17) noted that the Massachusetts databank of DNA profiles for convicted criminals had been frozen by a legal challenge. The American Civil Liberties Union and the state public-defenders' office argued that the forcible collection of blood samples for DNA typing was "suspicionless search" that violated prisoners' Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure. However, on April 13, the state's Supreme Judicial Court upheld the law, stating in its opinion that "the high government interest in a particularly reliable form of identification outweighs the minimal intrusion of a pinprick." All 50 states now have such laws, and the court noted that appellate courts have routinely upheld their legality. |
MUSIC VIDEOS AND VIOLENCE
Michael Rich ("Violence with a Love Ballad, January-February, page 22) correctly asserts that many music videos contribute to violence among teens. But I was shocked and dismayed to find that this relevant research, focusing on how music media "presents violence as normative" and even "desirable behavior," did not even touch upon sexual violence. The most important subliminal message from music videos is perhaps not in what we consider to be blatantly "violent" crimes, such as the gunshot murders and stabbings which Rich studies, but in the portrayal of women as ever-available sexual objects--which contributes to violence against women.
We as a society often overlook sexual assault in our categorizations of "violent" crimes. A case in point is the rape that made Crimson headlines a year ago [referred to in "A Question of Rape," May-June, page 63]. I heard student after student express shock and outrage because this was a "violent" rape. We forget too easily that all sexual assault is violent.
Allison Guttu '98
Staten Island, N.Y.
Editor's note: the article about Rich's research did not explore all facets of his work, which is reported in the journal Pediatrics, volume 101, number 4, April 1998. Among its conclusions, that article notes that "Multiple laboratory and field experiments have demonstrated that exposure to sexual violence in music videos and other media desensitizes male viewers to violence against women and heightens a sense of disempowerment among female viewers."
THE CASE FOR SMALLER CLASSES
It was good to see Frederick Mosteller's "The Case for Small Classes" in your May-June issue (page 34) definitely identify small as "15 or fewer." Isn't it ironic, though, that it takes statistical studies such as that done in Tennessee to call attention to facts that the much wider sample (teachers from all over the country) have been telling us for many more than four years (their lifetime experience)? And isn't it sad that most studies fail to mention any of the major advantages of small classes except for "individual attention" from the teacher, when that is only one of an interwoven nest of advantages for the young, not only in the first few grades, but in all grades K-12.
In today's overpopulated world, our public schools, founded to foster an informed voting citizenry in our democratic republic, have become part of society's problem, rather than part of the solution. In today's overcrowded world of over- busy parents' replacement by machines, the schools can be a major source for humanizing our children--a responsibility impossible in dehumanizing crowds. To operate as mature human beings who can continue to maintain a humane society, our youngsters need schools that teach through small-group discussion, not just in the early grades, though that is a good beginning, but in K-12. Are the adult citizens of this country so fond of their money they cannot see the need to insure all strands of the nest that small classes provide to help our young take flight?
Mass production doesn't work in education. Kids thrive in small groups, even kids who previously had problems; and thriving means learning and maturing, as well as growing physically. Schools should foster this natural process, not stunt it. The question is not, "Can we afford to institute small classes?" The question is, "Can we afford not to do so?"
Marjorie Grove, Ed.M. '60
Seattle
GOOD FROM THE BUBBLE
A footnote to the last paragraph of "The Damn'd South Sea" (May-June, page 36), in which Thomas Guy is named as the person who made the largest honest fortune out of that ruinous financial speculation. Guy was a stationer and bookseller in dockside London. Sailors would sell him their pay chits at discount so they could have cash for a last night on the town before sailing. Guy did well enough to afford his flutter in South Sea Company stock, which he had the wit or luck to sell before the puncture. In 1721, he endowed a neighborhood institution, which is still world-class in health care and education, Guy's Hospital.
William van H. Mason '51 (Guy's '60), M.D.
Albuquerque
MODEL MOZAMBIQUE
"Emerging Africa" by Matt O'Keefe (March-April, page 54) struck me as a facile treatment of an important, albeit complex, subject. Reference to dated research undermines the article's main arguments. For example, citing papers on democratic progress by Robert H. Bates covering the period between 1975 and 1991 tells readers nothing about the more profound changes since 1994 or so, such as the first multiparty elections in South Africa, Malawi, and Mozambique, nor the more recent democratic backsliding in countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe, or Ivory Coast.
It is also unfortunate that O'Keefe did not focus more attention on the less well known, but strong-performing, countries in Africa such as Mali and Mozambique. In the latter, not only has democratic progress been arguably unmatched elsewhere on the African continent over the past five years, but economic statistics look like they belong in Asia. For the period since the democratic transition in 1994, real GDP growth on an annual basis has averaged 8.2 percent, or 5.8 percent per capita. At the same time, inflation has been reduced from more than 50 percent in 1995 to around 5 percent in 1998. So far in 1999, some economists believe the country is experiencing deflation.
As important as events such as South Africa's emergence from apartheid and Nigeria's recent elections are for Africa, the continent's true renaissance will require the type of democratic and economic progress exhibited by countries like Mozambique.
Thomas E. Johnson Jr., M.L.U. '86
Democracy Officer
U.S. Agency for International Development
Maputo, Mozambique
HARVARD AS ADVISER
I was surprised to see that "Russia Stalled" by Timothy J. Colton (March-April, page 33), on Russia's economic woes, left out Harvard's role. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, newspapers regularly reported on Harvard professors going to Russia and other Eastern-bloc countries to advise them on the transition toward a more open economic system. They advocated the very strategies of privatization and open markets that those countries adopted, with the results indicated in your article. Perhaps other countries should have as their motto, "Beware Harvard professors bearing gifts."
David Carlton '93
Stanford, Calif.
ANIMAL RIGHTS: ROUND 3
Peter Braverman's intemperate response (May-June, page 102) to my letter on animal rights (March-April, page 4) seems to have abandoned logic in deference to emotion. Nowhere did I state or imply that because animals do not have rights, it is just dandy to torture them. The proper attitude toward animal suffering is compassion, but not to the point of stopping the use of animals for food and legitimate medical research--which would be immoral and illegal if animals had rights. As for Braverman's denial that animal-rights activists hate mankind, just one quote from PETA (the leading animal-rights group) should suffice: "If animal research led to an AIDS vaccine, we'd be against it."
Edwin A. Locke '60
College Park, Md.
MONTH OF MAYING RECALLED
My memories of Lamont library ("The College Pump," March-April, page 84) go back to 1958, when I attended summer school while an instructor in engineering at the University of Maryland. On my first day, as I was exploring the campus, it began to rain, and I took shelter under the overhang in front of the library. As I stood there, three girls came running across the lawn in front of Lamont to take shelter in the same place. As they ran, they sang, in perfect three-part harmony, Morley's "Now is the month of maying." It was an unforgettable moment for me, coming, as I did, from a cultural desert.
My other memory has to do with a remark by the 'Cliffie I was madly in love with at the time. She said that the way she got books out of Lamont was to snuggle up to some Harvard student about to go in and promise him all kinds of things if he would get her the books she wanted. I was shocked that so brilliant and beautiful a girl should have to go to such lengths to get books out of the library. But then, I don't know. There used to be a plaque in the floor of the Princeton Club of New York City which read, "Where women cease from troubling and the wicked are at rest." Let's face it. Young men are troubled by pretty girls. It's a lot easier to concentrate on your studies without them.
Stefan Schreier, Gp '67
Spokane
MARCHING THE POINT
Almost half a century ago, a strong Yale team approached its annual Harvard thing with both of its superb running backs walking wounded. I put a cartoon in the Crimson with a man at a microphone saying, "Ackerman replacing Corelli for Yale." The drawing showed poor Corelli being carried off on a stretcher, and Ackerman being carried on, on a stretcher.
It was a joke then, and it's a joke now. I see photographs of old alums "marching" in the alumni parade, in wheelchairs. What's the great accomplishment in that? Most of us linger beyond our ambulatory years, to a time when we "feel proud just to get out of bed." But why use Harvard Yard on its most festive day for a bedroom?
Watching the parade preparations as an undergrad, I approached a gigantic marshal who was waiting beside a mass of wrinkles that resembled a miniature man. "How's it feel to help the oldest grad?" I asked. "I don't help him," was the reply, "I hinder him." He explained that the oldest is always showboating, shaking hands, delaying the parade, unless a firm grip in the armpit keeps him moving.
If the parade rulemakers are that powerful, they might consider banning wheelchairs, and whatever is next--gurneys with IV bottles on high?
Time and chance happeneth, of course, but today I have the best chance of anyone to lead the 2030 parade, and maybe several more. I hope I (or my keepers) have the righteousness to stay home if I'm in a wheelchair. And if I'm marching the point, when that huge marshal clamps into my armpit, I'm going to sting him with a hidden 10,000-volt condenser box.
David Royce '56
Westport, Conn.
Editor's note: please see "Friendships Forged in Strenuous Rivalry".
CORRECTION
In "Myths of Old" (May-June, page 22), John W. Rowe, M.D., was identified as "now at Columbia University." In fact, Dr. Rowe has never been affiliated with Columbia. He is president and CEO of Mount Sinai NYU Medical Center and Health System.