FOSTERING
SOCIALIZATION4.
FACILITIES AND SERVICES--THE COLLEGE UNION
GOVERNANCE AND ACTIVISM PERFORMING ARTS
A. Facilities and Services--The College Union
13 November 1970 The board of directors received the draft of a constitution for the proposed COLLEGE UNION in the old Alumni Memorial Library building. RICHARD P. RICHTER, '53, vice president for administrative affairs, presented it. TERRY MARTIN, '72, and JEROME LOUX, '71, accompanied him to lend student support to the concept.
The creation of the College Union was an important step in the Pettit administration to channel student initiatives unharnessed during the unrest of the late 1960s. The draft constitution, developed by students and staff members, gave students a major responsibility in the management of the proposed new facility. Richter's comment to the board was explicit on this point: "The proposed constitution is intended to provide not merely a responsible management of a student social building. It is also intended to bring new coherence to all out-of-class campus events. It is even possible to hope that it could convert some of the restlessness of students into a new and constructive excitement about life on our campus." Bond & Miller Architects designed the renovation. The College Union opened in February 1973. Students poured much energy into the planning phase of the project long before that momentous opening.
10 August 1972 Work on the conversion of the old Alumni Memorial Library into the COLLEGE UNION began at an estimated cost of $400,000. The old reading rooms remained architecturally intact and became large social lounges. A snack shop went into the old open-stack area in the rear of the library building. Spaces for student organization meetings and a music listening room occupied the old boardroom and other former administrative offices.
The administration had hoped to start the project as early as February 1972. When contractors' bids came in at $680,000, far more than expected, the project had gone back to the drawing boards for a scaled-down plan. A grant from the Kresge Foundation of $100,000 tipped the decision to proceed. Even the scaled-down version cost more than the amount originally allocated. The newly renovated building opened in February 1973.
8 December 1972 The first meeting of the College Union governing board took place, operating under the constitution originally presented to the board of directors on 13 November 1970 in draft form. The Union governing board was broadly representative of the college community. It had members from the board (chancellor Helfferich), the administration (vice president Richter, business manager Nelson Williams, and the College Union director, Herman Wessel, serving in this part-time capacity after retiring from the faculty), alumni (Jerome Loux. '71), and students (Robert Lemoi, Dave Zimmerman, Mark Trishman, Judy Freelin, Kathi Jogan, a Miss Ferrell). Dean of women Ruth R. Harris, '36, in charge of scheduling social activities for the whole campus, and President Pettit attended. Officers were Richter, chair; Freelin, vice chair; Jogan, secretary; Robert Gassel, treasurer. An operating or program board made up entirely of students included Lemoi, chair; Zimmerman, vice chair; Freelin and Trishman, secretaries, and Gassel, treasurer. Through an array of functional committees, students took major responsibility for the Union. There were committees for art and interior, coffeehouses and concerts, food, house rules, publicity, lectures-forums-films, recreation, store and merchandising. Wessel was a benign overseer of students. Charles Fegely, his successor, a secondary school physics teacher with long association at the college, extended his style of trusting oversight when Wessel retired. The Union operated financially as an auxiliary enterprise in the college budget, with its own income and expense. Students thus gained valuable insight into the business side of a comprehensive operation, including a snack shop.
The new Union created a menu of social activities that paralleled those organized by the long-standing student activities committee. Administrators hoped to consolidate all activities under a campus-wide aegis. It never quite happened, although events by both groups came to be coordinated somewhat. The Union made a major addition to campus life from its opening in 1973 until the building became the Berman Museum of Art in 1986. It provided dedicated space for student social activity. It gave opportunities to students to initiate and manage. It gave visible evidence of the priority conferred on extracurricular life by the college.
It is hard to measure how much it helped diffuse the fog of negative student feelings inherited from the late 1960s or helped retard transfers out. Still, it was a happy interlude in the history of student life. It was devoid of the haggling over rules that so marked other aspects of student life. It gave real responsibility to student managers, who were heavily involved in its daily operation. Implicit in this balanced success was the agreement of the students not to challenge the college prohibition on the use of alcohol on campus.
14 February 1973 ROBERT R. LEMOI, '74, said in a memo to all College personnel: "The URSINUS COLLEGE UNION opens its doors to the College community on Monday, February 19th at 8:30 am. In addition to having comfortable lounges and meeting rooms, we will have a new snack shop, with good food, cooked to order. A menu is attached for your information. We hope you will make full use of this great new UNION." Hamburgers were 50 cents, sodas 15 cents.
The student Weekly reported on the instant success of the Union and editorialized: "Great numbers of people from all segments of the campus community have continued to use the building steadily...In only a week this steady use has changed the atmosphere of the school to an astonishing extent." The Weekly sensed "a new spirit, a new reinforcement of the bonds of community. We had expected the change in spirit to occur over a few months, not in one week."
7 November 1973 THE COLLEGE UNION organized the creation of a giant U-shaped banana split 600 feet in total length. Statistics: 800 bananas, 150 gallons of vanilla ice cream, four gallons each of chocolate, pineapple and butterscotch topping, 50 gallons of whipped cream, two gallons of cherries--all donated by local vendors. Faculty and students made the massive mess in a half-hour outdoors on the women's practice hockey field. The temperature fortunately was low enough to prevent instant melting of ingredients. Frivolous in substance, the event had the intended effect of mobilizing campus-wide good will, however briefly. Widespread coverage in the Philadelphia area press and television news magnified the sense of accomplishment.
The College Union sponsored similar "record breakers" in the next couple of years. In 1974, it sought to build the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the world, made of 600 pieces; in 1975, the biggest hoagie. None of the subsequent events quite recaptured the joie de vivre generated in the campus community that fall.
Those prone to make comparisons of differences in student attitudes from generation to generation could not help finding significance in this new form of student "activism." These younger brothers and sisters of the angry students of the late 1960s seemed to want to enjoy being kids. Some saw them trying to avoid the anxiety and pain their families experienced half a dozen years before. What such observers thought this said about youthful attitudes toward the serious business of liberal learning was less clear.
19 April 1974 JEANE DIXON, the popular seer of future events (she claimed to have predicted John F. Kennedy's assassination), made an appearance in Helfferich Hall. The College Union sponsored the event. The large crowd included many of her adult followers from the surrounding community. Students organizers compared her appearance with that of a rock star such as BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, who also appeared on campus that semester. Their goal in organizing "big" events was to dispel the impression that Ursinus was out of the mainstream of popular culture.
The desire to hold "big" shows represented a change in student attitudes from the late 1960s. In the earlier years, protest against the Vietnam War and against perceived wrongs in campus life took precedence in the minds of student organizers. ("The Agency" formed by Lou Linet in the earlier part of the 1960s was an unique entrepreneurial initiative. It brought major performers to campus and operated on its own budget, probably turning a profit for Linet. But with Linet's graduation this robust activity waned as youthful anger rose.) Student leaders and administrators found new common ground in arranging such shows. Administrators derived a certain relief from being able to facilitate events that would not threaten to undermine college policies and that would make the students feel good. For their part, students by this time were beyond the threat of the draft. They appeared to be more interested in the hedonistic aftereffects of the social upheaval of the late 1960s than in fighting the system.
Springsteen appeared in Helfferich Hall shortly before he gained national popularity as the muscular laureate of a new attitude toward life in America. Ursinus student organizers got to know him while crawling the Jersey shore spots where he first performed. The college paid a mere $1,500 for the two-hour performance of him and his group. When he finished the concert, students in the darkened, packed gymnasium lit matches and lighters and chanted for an encore. College administrators on the scene panicked at the thought of seeing burn marks on the new synthetic floor of Helfferich Hall. They called off the encore, the lights went up, and the Springsteen appearance became instant legend, in spite of the unsatisfied desire of the students for more.
Dixon came to campus as the Watergate crisis was moving toward its climax, the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. At dinner with the welcoming committee before her appearance, she predicted another presidential crisis in 25 years that would "dwarf" Nixon's dilemma. She did not live to see the scandal that arose over President Clinton's personal life, more or less at the time she predicted.
25 September 1970 The board of directors approved a statement of STUDENT FREEDOMS AND RESPONSIBILITIES. The statement also received approval from the faculty. A group of students wrote the original version in the spring of 1970. The group included JANE SIEGEL, '72, ALAN NOVAK, '71, JAMES STELLAR, '72, STUART SWEET, '71, and KARL WEILAND, '71. Titled "Ursinus Bill of Rights," that version appeared in the 30 April 1970 edition of the Weekly. It became the subject of discussions in a committee of board members, administrators, faculty, and students. It incorporated some material from a previous "Statement on Student Freedom at Ursinus College" written by a committee of board and faculty. That statement received approval from the board and subsequently by the faculty on 6 February 1969.
The document approved on 25 September 1970 accorded students a legitimate place in the governance of the college, albeit one that was subordinate to the corporate authority of the board. It declared a broad philosophical assumption about the open-endedness of knowledge. It gave primacy to rational discourse and declared protest demonstrations inappropriate as a method of communication. It ensured the freedom of students to express their reasoned views in course work and in approved extracurricular activities. It delegated authority to recognized student organizations to invite speakers and guests. However, it asserted the administration’s authority, on advice from the faculty, to withdraw the delegated authority of a student organization to invite speakers. It gave the Ursinus Student Government Association a recognized place in the governance of student affairs but, again, as a delegated authority from the college. Students had freedom of the press and radio, bounded by standards of good taste.
A key section from the standpoint of board members dealt with rights and responsibilities concerning student conduct: "As a college historically concerned with the whole range of human values, Ursinus deems it desirable that certain norms of social conduct be observed by students." Students were to participate in formulating regulations governing conduct. They also were to be responsible for adjudicating and enforcing them.
The college would not prohibit students from distributing pamphlets and creating petitions about college or public issues in the exercise of their rights as citizens. However, they could not deprive others of their right to speak or move, and they could not otherwise disrupt the educational process.
The board acknowledged that students might have a legitimate point of view on policy matters, academic and otherwise. The college would enable student representatives to give advice.
The document ended on a conciliatory but firm note intended to keep order in the heat of campus life following the incendiary spring, when students died violently from gunshot at Kent State and Jackson State Universities. It said: "The accepted method for exercising student influence is reasonable discussion through existing structures of organization. The administration is willing to submit its policies to open discussion by the entire college community and is ready to change when there is a clear meeting of minds. On students, teachers, and others engaged in this continuing policy review, there rests the responsibility to see the importance of the continuity and coherence of the institution’s life, and to accept change through orderly processes."
The underlying rationale of the document allowed the college to sound conciliatory without giving up any substantial authority to students. The board and administration hoped that, by talking with students, they could contain their desire to vent feelings of frustration in "irrational" ways. There was never a time when the college was unwilling to engage in discussion with students. Students who negotiated the document, however, felt less than satisfied with the final document. It did not allow them a means to change the social policies on dormitory life that irritated the majority of students.
25 September 1970 The BOARD OF DIRECTORS set out restrictions on STUDENT POLITICAL ACTION. President Helfferich introduced the policy statement. The previous spring, nervous National Guardsmen had fired at rioting students at Kent State University, killing several. This tragedy heated up anti-war feelings on campuses across the country. By fall, college administrators were preparing for a new academic year of even greater activism. Some small colleges were permitting students to skip classes in order to take part in political actions. The Ursinus board and administration felt compelled to prohibit such direct impact of political action on the academic process. It found grounds for this prohibition in the "conservative" position adopted by the board in May 1970. This was the policy statement unveiled by president Helfferich in his 15 January 1970 speech on the "philosophic temper" of Ursinus.
The board’s action on 25 September 1970 asserted the following: "The Board recognizes the heightened political awareness of many students and encourages faculty and students to exercise their right of citizenship, and it recognizes the right of student organizations to invite speakers to campus....Ursinus College restricts use of the college property for political headquarters or other uses in official support of political parties or candidates....The college will not close for any political activities or excuse its personnel or students from their college duties to engage in political campaigns, but will encourage the use of their own time for such purposes."
8 October 1970 Mounting student frustration over college policies caused a late-night PROTEST DEMONSTRATION. The Weekly reporter, Chuck Chambers, attributed the activism to a combination of issues: "segregated dorm rules, recent vigorous enforcement of the social rules, disagreements within Pro-theatre, cancellation of the sensitivity session, and President-designate Pettit’s policy statements." Deans Richard J. Whatley and Ruth R. Harris, '36, and vice president Richard P. Richter, '53, engaged the crowd of students before they dispersed at about 2:30 am. The students who protested were reacting in the wake of the news that the board of directors had selected dean William S. Pettit to succeed president Helfferich at the end of October. The week before, Pettit had stated he would stand firm on the question of open dorms. Students hoping for change saw this as the signal for a source of unhappiness that would last throughout the next administration. The nighttime demonstrators made a move toward Pettit’s home on Ninth Avenue but stopped when they learned that he was out of town.
Next day after lunch, students again massed. They marched across campus from Brodbeck Hall to the new administration building and then to the flagpole at Bomberger Hall. Then they dispersed. Hefferich was still president for the remainder of the month. He met with the Ursinus Student Government Association committee on student rights late that afternoon. He issued a statement of resistance to demonstrations. At the same time, he yielded to student wishes by approving six "open houses" for the fall semester. These special weekend exceptions to the general prohibition of open dorms allowed visitation during prescribed hours.
In the "riot reactions" from Weekly readers, moderate student voices spoke against the disruptions. Some wanted Ursinus students to protest issues larger than the college’s parochial rules. Cindy Cole wrote, "Why not demonstrate about something more important...like Vietnam, or poverty, or crime, or racism, or social injustice, or human rights."
Through his six years as president, Pettit kept up constant negotiations with student leaders on this issue. He managed to lower the temperature of the students’ displeasure without dispelling it. At the same time, he managed to keep the appearance of conservative rules in place, an important achievement in the eyes of many leaders of the board, alumni, and parents.
11 October 1970 Students held another PROTEST DEMONSTRATION, leading to a meeting with President-elect Pettit. About a hundred students marched around campus on a Sunday night. A faculty member concerned over the disruption called Pettit at home and asked him to come to campus. He agreed to meet with a delegation of ten students in his office in the new administration building. Most of them turned out to be leaders of the Ursinus Student Government Association--different from the leaders several days before.
The meeting had two outcomes. One, President Helfferich, at Pettit’s suggestion, arranged for a meeting of six students with a special board committee to air their concerns. Two, he also threatened to get a court injunction against student protests if they continued on campus.
Student voices of moderation in the Weekly and on campus picked up on Helfferich’s attempt at a middle course for discussion. They also recognized his clenched fist. The fever to march subsided as the displeasure of students siphoned off into the slow, gray process of committee conversation. Through the editorial comment of the time, students showed that they were conscious of being co-opted into debates that they could not possibly win. Because they wanted to complete their education, they usually refrained from the extreme acts of rebellion that they talked about in residence halls late at night.
Close-up, student protest at Ursinus was small-bore stuff among middle class kids and their mentors, who, though worldly wise, were bewildered at times by the attitudes of the baby boomers. From a broader perspective, the petty issues of dorm rules stood as proxy for the generational conflict occurring across the nation, brought to a boil by Vietnam. The board and administration were counting on moderate and even conservative values among students to prevail over the voices of protesters. They were largely right in that bet when push came to shove. Still, students with the urge to change things enjoyed a middling share of latitude and legitimacy on the Ursinus campus in those troubled years. The Weekly editor, Chuck Chambers, a reasonable commentator, said, "Virtually every student on the campus wants some change in the out-dated social rules." That youthful solidarity kept the kettle simmering in Collegeville. It was the stubborn resistance of the administration and the board and the conciliatory disposition of most students that kept it from boiling over.
22 October 1970 A small ad hoc committee of board members met with student representatives to air issues that led to PROTEST DEMONSTRATIONS. A second meeting took place on 30 October 1970. MILLARD E. GLADFELTER, former president of Temple University, and PAUL I. GUEST, '38, led the board committee in the discussion. Students included JANET FLOYD, ‘71, EDWARD LEGGETT, ‘71, ARTHUR SEVERANCE, ‘71, JANE SIEGEL, ‘72, JAMES STELLAR, ‘72, and KARL WEILAND, ‘71. This group of students attended an executive session of the board when it met on 13 November 1970 to decide whether to create a new student life committee.
13 November 1970 The board of directors created a NEW COMMITTEE ON STUDENT LIFE in response to student protests. MILLARD E. GLADFELTER, who led discussions with students, recommended a new committee to "restructure matters relating to student life." It was to have eight faculty and staff members and seven students. With a broad perspective on student activism as a university administrator, Gladfelter may have been attempting to set a stage for a comprehensive and more positive handling of student protest at Ursinus.
Gladfelter was a seasoned and genial veteran of university leadership. He engaged the students in serious discussion without appearing to patronize them. He gave no ground on social policies but yielded, or seemed to, on the issue of structure and process. He and his committee supported the student idea for a new student life committee advanced by the students in discussions the previous month. By the time his recommendation went to the board, however, students were not sure what they were going to get. Gladfelter’s committee recommendation included plenty of language certain to stymie any quick action. A preliminary group was to "study and recommend a desirable structure for all committees and agencies that are now dealing with matters relating to student life and devise a plan for placing under the president a single agency, representative of students and faculty, that will act and advise on matters pertaining to student life." Moreover, it was to make its report to the president. He, and not the committee, would then make appropriate recommendations to the board. The recommendation thus denied the desire of students to have direct access to the board.
Jane Siegel, ‘72, one of the leaders in negotiating with the board, wrote in her 12 November 1970 Weekly column, "The Kitchen Cynic," a few days later: "Everything today is committees and empty but impressive titles. In this real world of UC nobody stands out. The world is flat and the buck is passed until it falls off the edge of the world."
After the board approved the creation of the committee, the faculty followed suit at its next meeting. The committee was to "act and advise on proposals (and initiate its own business) concerning such broad areas of student life as the student union, dormitory regulations, student sponsored concerts and dances, judiciary reform, forums and other student activities." (Weekly, 19 Nov 70)
The committee met for the first time on 26 February 1971. Despite the broad agenda envisioned at its creation, the students persuaded faculty and staff members on the committee to focus on the issue of dormitory open houses. The committee agreed that men’s dorms should open every weekend for visitation by women and forwarded its recommendation to the president. Students may have hoped that, because the committee had come into being in response to their pressure, the committee’s actions would have a new ring of authority. The committee actually had no authority other than to recommend to the president. Pettit reemphasized that when at the 5 March 1971 board meeting he explained the nature of the committee. He called it "a second generation creature of the board...considered to be a committee of the college whose function is advisory to the president." A few days later Pettit approved only half of the number of open houses recommended by the committee.
At the same board meeting (13 November 1970), board member Paul I. Guest, 38, sought to identify the issues uppermost in students' minds. He was giving his impression of the meetings with students. He reported his initial surprise when students said they were dissatisfied with the statement on student freedoms and responsibilities, approved at the board’s special meeting on 25 September 1970. He then learned that the document dissatisfied them because it did not endorse "the two main requests for liquor on campus and open dormitories."
19 November 1970 Student criticism of the college came to a focus in a statement by the president of the Ursinus Student Government Association. ALAN P. NOVAK, ‘71, had resigned as president the week before. He had declared himself the first "chancellor" of the USGA, a parallel to the college’s appointment of outgoing president DONALD L. HELFFERICH as its first chancellor. He thus had relinquished the obligation as president to keep up the momentum of the change process he had been leading. It had brought direct access to board members and the creation of a new student life committee. With his new freedom, he spoke out on the Ursinus scene in a wide-ranging Weekly interview.
Novak was less categorical in his criticisms than many activist students. He found virtue in his political science faculty. He voiced appreciation for what he learned from President Helfferich. (He called Helfferich the "Augustus Caesar" of Ursinus.) He acknowledged that the students’ preoccupation with changing social rules misplaced their importance. He believed that the learning process was the main issue, that the focus should have been on "what’s breaking in the world."
Novak, nonetheless, managed to capture the main points of dissatisfaction that were current among vocal students. He believed that the social climate had to change before the college could meaningfully address the more important academic climate. Helfferich’s attempt to define "truth" in a policy statement on Ursinus’s conservative "philosophic temper" he found "immoral." He urged a more robust dialectic between the conservative traditions of the college and the current student values. He condemned the rigidity of doctrinaire liberals as well as conservatives. ("On this campus ‘Liberals’ are as narrow as ‘conservatives,'" he said; "a true liberal and conservative can be open-minded enough to enjoy each other, to enjoy debate.") He upheld the current generational ideal: "do your own thing as long as it doesn’t infringe on anybody else’s freedoms."
Novak's criticism and that of other vocal students rested on an implicit socio-political critique of the corporate state, the ubiquitous "system" perceived to reach its tentacles into every aspect of life, including academic life. This reflected the rhetoric of activist groups in the daily headlines, such as the Students for a Democratic Society and, at the extreme, the violent Weathermen. Books such as The Greening of America by Charles Reich and The Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak gave this critique the appearance of scholarly legitimacy.
There may have been fleeting moments when some felt that the Ursinus campus was drifting toward the kind of violent confrontation reported in the daily press. The majority of students, however, did not lean toward violence or even toward visible opposition to the college. Students may have established the most accurate measure of activism early in the spring semester. Only few of them voted in the election for representatives to the new committee on student life. The formation of the committee had been a hard-won victory for Novak and his friends. JANE SIEGEL, '72, an ally of Novak’s, commenting on the poor turnout, blamed students for having loud mouths and weak understanding of how to effect political change. But the number of non-voting "loudmouths" probably was small compared to the number of non-voting students who were pursuing studies without ideological or political passion. Their displeasure at rules and regulations may well have rested at the level of personal inconvenience rather than political ideology.
When the spring 1971 semester opened, Weekly editor ALAN C. GOLD, ‘71, commented on "the continuing struggle" on campuses that started at Berkeley in 1964 and climaxed at Kent State and Jackson State, where soldiers shot students to death:
"Nineteen seventy truly marked a culmination of political insurgency, radicalism, and violence in America....A small group of radicals in the U.S. voiced their grievances throughout the year by means of explosive gestures that largely alienated them from the sizable force of the non-violent majority. And as political insurgency continues in the nation at large, we can expect this trend to be reflected in continued unrest within the microcosmic societies of American colleges and universities during the upcoming year."
Gold saw a less disruptive scene at his own college: "Ursinus College has fortunately been spared the ugly publicity of campus violence and insurrection in 1970. Nevertheless, at the same time, the students...have not abnegated the available recourse for grievances provided by rational dissent and peaceful demonstration."
2 December 1970 The faculty approved the formation of a faculty-student COMMITTEE ON STUDENT LIFE, a product of negotiations following the October protest demonstrations. This approval followed the board's approval at its fall meeting on 13 November.
The structure and purpose of the new committee developed out of the give-and-take among board members and students. In that process, President Pettit acted as a catalyst and canny strategist, with the continuing advice of outgoing President Helfferich.
The administration, board, and now the faculty hoped that the new committee would channel and contain the unrest seen that fall on campus. Thinking more ambitiously, students hoped that the committee would bring about a visible change in the shape of the governance system. They were hoping that this structural change would be the harbinger of substantive change in the rules and regulations that seemed to them to hamstring their lives. Student leaders focused on student’s legal rights in the judiciary process. The majority of students with any interest were probably hoping that in some way the new committee would make the rules on dorm visitation less restrictive. Indeed, negotiating the number of dormitory "open houses" per semester promptly became the number one agenda item. Having supported the new committee structure, President Pettit used it effectively. It helped him to legitimize his cautious granting of exceptions to the ban on open dorms. It also helped him to insist that the student government take responsibility for enforcing the rules on alcoholic beverages and general conduct. However suspicious of authority they might have been, students failed to escape co-option.
In the end, it was probably satisfying enough to student activists that they succeeded in formally engaging the board and faculty on governance issues. Their negotiations leading up to the new committee represented their version of the student movement across America. They confronted established authority. Their efforts inched the college toward a more open and participatory social process. Like students elsewhere, Ursinus students entered the fray for a while, became excited, learned, won or lost a little, reemerged, pursued their personal educational goals, and moved on. The college yielded to their enthusiasm and accommodated their need to learn. In the main, it preserved the structure of authority residing in the faculty, administration, and board.
17 December 1970 The student newspaper editorialized that curfews on women students in dormitories were a "lesson in hypocrisy." Editor ALAN C. GOLD, ‘71, sometimes wrote editorials critical of fellow students and supportive of authority. When he spoke out against women’s curfews, it demonstrated to the administration that even the most responsible students were eager for some social change at the college. He argued that college-age women had the maturity to determine their own hours. Moreover, he said the sign-in/sign-out system was broadly unenforced. It turned house mothers "into little more than laughing stocks." Gold presciently recommended a system of self-regulation modeled on that at the University of Pennsylvania. The college installed a system much like it in 1974.
18 February 1971 JAMES R. STELLAR, ‘72, running unopposed, became president of the Ursinus Student Government Association on a light voter turnout. With him on the slate was "the kitchen cynic," JANE SIEGEL, ‘72, and KEVIN AKEY, ‘73. The new officers and the Weekly rang hands over the apparent indifference of students to college political process. Stellar attributed it to "the inability of the USGA to do anything substantial." He planned to push for greater delegation of responsibility to the students for administering dormitory open houses. The administration was granting these cautiously in an ad hoc "give-and-take" strategy. The new student life committee figured importantly in Stellar’s vision.
His other hopes and plans indicated a significant turn away from the ideological critique of the college expressed by his predecessor, ALAN NOVAK, '71, and other student leaders. Ecological concerns, recycling, a student-alumni preceptorship program, student participation in academic reforms--these made up his platform. The echoes of activism from the major centers of campus disruption in America were growing fainter. The Ursinus community, like the nation, was readjusting after the extremes of the preceding year.
Of course, the war still went on, and there was no turning back the social revolution of the late 1960s. What seemed to be waning was the idealism and optimism underlying the first surge of student activism that started in 1964 at Berkeley--the belief that young people could change the system for the better. The waning of such a belief may have led locally to the kind of apathy shown in the USGA election.
An open letter in the 4 March 71 Weekly to "the Establishment" tried to explain why students abandoned interest in working to change the system: "If you have the feeling that you cannot communicate with the young people, don’t conclude that it is because they are irrational and immature; instead, examine yourself….[You think that] the way to win is to get what you can out of other people without them catching you…. I don’t think I like this game, and neither do my friends. You brought us up to be like you so we can keep the game going when you get too old to play. You can’t understand why we are so hostile toward you? We don’t want to change the rules; we just don’t want to play. Who said we have to?"
11 March 1971 The campus community learned that President Pettit approved six open houses for the remainder of the semester, half the number recommended by the student life committee. (Weekly, 11 Mar 71)
This apparent rebuff of the new committee’s recommendations dealt a blow to the morale of the dwindling number of students who remained active and interested in student government. The Weekly editorialized that this was a "death-blow" to student government and any hope for rational discourse. When he granted the six open houses, the president held out the hope that USGA leaders would help enforce not only the rules surrounding the open houses but also all other college rules. The editorial predicted a further withdrawal of students from the system of governance and the threat of irrational reactions to the administration’s exercise of authority.
Pettit’s attempt to hold the center between dissatisfied students and a tough board of directors in the short run kept things going. On 17 March 1971 (25 Mar 71 Weekly), he convened the USGA council for a discussion of their unhappiness. On the strength of student argument, he granted a seventh open house. This rekindled hope and brought public statements from student leaders in support of rational processes. Nevertheless, as his administration went forward, an increasing number of students and faculty were feeling the need for a different set of terms to deal with the negativism that kept arising from the conflict over social policy.
5 May 1971 The faculty approved the constitution of a new BLACK STUDENT ALLIANCE. There were dissenters, according to the faculty minutes. However, the majority of the faculty acknowledged the need of the college to affirm the goals identified by the small number of black students on campus.
The initiative for a black student alliance began in the 1968-69 academic year, when students sought approval of an organization exclusively for black students (with associate membership open to interested non-black students). Through their organization, students wanted to heighten awareness of the Ursinus community to the "dire social conditions of our country." They wanted to help with the recruitment of more black students, add material on contemporary black thought and history to the library collection, and introduce "concern for the present Black dilemma" into social science courses.
The Ursinus students modeled these goals on those observed at other colleges, notably nearby Swarthmore College. Swarthmore's president, Courtney C. Smith, died on 16 January 1969 of a heart attack while black students held a "sit-in" at the admissions office. This tragedy influenced the way Ursinus handled the request for recognition of an organization for black students.
Not long after Smith’s death, President Donald L. Helfferich laid out his position at the 14 March 1969 board meeting. First, he gave his reasons for opposition to the proposed constitution of the black student alliance: (1) The constitution of the college prohibited discrimination (thus, it opposed a black-only membership rule). (2) The college had never rejected a qualified black applicant for admission. (3) The federal government had recently issued a policy statement against all-black dorms and social organizations. (4) The NAACP's Roy Wilkins urged inclusion and opposed "exclusion and the setting up of an apartheid state." Second, Helfferich extended a conciliatory hand by proposing to set up an ad hoc committee to "design procedures that will give individual black students opportunities to make contributions to the total life of the college." He proposed Richard Fletcher of psychology as chair of the committee. He recommitted the college to non-discrimination and acknowledged "the need among black Americans for personal dignity and for full participation in American society." He itemized constraints on the college in pursuit of this goal. They included scarcity of funds, the need to maintain a single standard of achievement, and the need to preserve a climate of order and reason as the only framework for academic pursuit. The last point showed his strong aversion to the disruptions of classrooms reported from around the nation. He favored a special program for students with potential to meet Ursinus standards and favored additions to the curriculum and library holdings.
The ad hoc committee went on to deliberate on the proposed black student organization and the special program for preparing entering black students to meet the academic demands of Ursinus. The adoption of the organization’s constitution on 5 May 1971 completed a long process.
14 May 1971 The Student-Faculty-Administration Relations Committee (SFARC) recommended the employment of a PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELOR. The board, upon receiving the recommendation, referred it to the president for whatever action he deemed appropriate. The desire of students for psychological counseling service had arisen in the late 1960s and continued to simmer through the 1971-72 academic year. The board had voted on 14 November 1969 not to employ a psychological counselor. Finally, at a meeting on 21 November 1972, the president reiterated a firm stand against such a service. The administration held that the established structure for dealing with student life and the faculty’s interest in the welfare of students sufficed to help students with emotional problems. Serious behavioral difficulties, it believed, were the responsibility of families, not the college.
15 September 1971 FRESHMAN ORIENTATION took a sharp turn away from traditional harassment by upper-class students. The end of the boom in enrollment in the late sixties began to affect the posture of the college toward its incoming students. The administration began to tilt planning for freshman orientation--which largely still was in the hands of student leaders--toward a more accommodating and helpful menu in the first days of the semester. This was the start of a change that evolved through the 1970s. The student as "customer" was still a concept waiting to be expressed in 1971, but the era of "marketing" began in changes such as this one.
16 October 1971 President Pettit approved the student government’s twice-revised proposal for OPEN DORMS. USGA President James Stellar and fellow officers were finally successful in persuading the administration to do more or less what it had agreed to do in the preceding semester. Still, it appeared to some students to be progress in the ongoing effort to free student life from the tight rules of the college. The students agreed to take major responsibility for policing the behavior of fellow students during the hours of approved visitation--from 1:00 pm to 1:00 am every alternate Saturday of the fall semester.
Pettit conducted an ongoing strategy of give-and-take and managed to thrust onto the shoulders of students at least the appearance of responsibility for policing. From the point of view of student leaders, this felt like a never-ending war of attrition. Students gained bits and pieces of privilege when pressures on the administration rose to a certain level. Women students at about this time, for example, received permission to stay out after the regular 2:00 am weekend curfew, provided their parents consented and they paid a $10.00 fee.
By granting open dorms only every other weekend, the administration predictably provoked renewed criticism. RICHARD (RICK) MILLER, ‘72, captured the feeling about a continuation of tight rules (11 Nov 72 Weekly): "Over half of the people on this campus (and I refer skeptics to last year’s poll) are drinking, are having sexual relations, and are violating most of the petty laws which make life around here more of an undercover, paranoid experience than it would be anywhere else--even in their own homes. This is an incredible insult to our maturity, it is also a ridiculous, futile campaign to present plan after plan for alternate weekends. How petty can a campus get? Here we are, supposedly receiving an education and maturing, but we spend hours of our time deciding who will babysit us on alternate Saturdays."
JANE SIEGEL, ‘72, the Weekly’s "kitchen cynic" columnist, reached a new level of satire when she described "the science of setback" in her 18 Nov 71 piece: "...the forcible mixing of irrelevant rules with intelligent subjects, considering the by-product of heat, can only yield an explosive precipitate. It is only a matter of time before the solid particles settle out of the colloidal suspension and an uncontrolled chain reaction occurs. It is these modulations that out-dated formulae can neither control nor predict."
When KEVIN AKEY, ‘73, became president of the USGA on 14 February 1972, he and his cohorts won a concession from the administration--open dorms EVERY Saturday.
Still in place, however, despite student complaints, was the requirement to attend college forums (the successor to chapel). An editorialist in the Weekly (28 Oct 71) acknowledged the value of outside lecturers, concerts, and musical groups. But the writer objected to the requirement to attend. He (or she) thought student attendance would increase if the college lifted the requirement--a romanticized view of student motivation sometimes shared by younger faculty members. The fight over the forum requirement was another manifestation of the same unrest that caused students to want reform of the curriculum and removal of restrictions on social life. "The time has come," said the editorialist, "...for concerts, lectures, and other cultural offerings to be attended voluntarily and not because of a requirement. In other words, it is time for another rule to be eliminated in favor of progress and adults." The requirement stood, nonetheless, throughout the Pettit administration.
14 February 1972 KEVIN AKEY, '73, new USGA president, announced that President Pettit approved weekly OPEN DORMS for men. The USGA also expected women's dorms to open for weekend visitors in the near future. There was an anticlimactic tone to this successful conclusion to a tug of war conducted for several years by the student leaders of Ursinus. Many students saw it as a "token gesture" to Akey to keep him from pushing for more. Others worried that with the new freedom students would not take commensurate responsibility for maintaining civility in the dorms. The new policy opened speculation about a future when dorms would be open all the time: "Can you picture studying for a CMP test or writing a term paper or sleeping over some of the noise that has been heard during recent open dorms? It would be impossible, at best." So said a 9 Mar 72 Weekly editorial. Little did editorialist Carol Barenblitt realize how prophetic she was being. Years later, when dorms in fact were open all the time, new arguments about providing privacy for study would arise.
21 November 1972 USGA officers met with President Pettit to discuss the pros and cons of engaging a PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELOR for students. Without college approval, the USGA had initiated an agreement with a local professional to schedule visits to campus. He would counsel students with emotional problems. The president called the meeting to explain that the college could not cover the liability for such professional practice, and he disallowed the agreement. The USGA cancelled its agreement.
The college thus perpetuated a resistance to formal counseling rooted in the late 1960s in the Helfferich administration. The college took the position that faculty and staff members, including the college chaplain, were always ready to meet with students to talk about their personal problems. In the administration's eyes, the advent of professional psychological counselors seemed to violate this tenet of the traditional role of faculty. Students and some faculty saw no conflict between the perpetuation of the "Mr. Chips" approach and the proposed addition of a professionally trained counselor. The USGA took its proactive step after seeing their proposal for student counseling rejected over the years by the administration and the board.
The argument between students and the administration over the hiring of a professional counselor pointed to the more general "culture conflict" between conservative and liberal perspectives at Ursinus. President Helfferich’s policy statement on the conservative "philosophic temper" of Ursinus in 1970 had set a tone that persisted into the Pettit administration. By resisting the introduction of a counselor, the college seemed to be reaffirming a traditionalist idea of character building. This depended upon the inculcation and exemplification of Christian values. The building of character involved a positive program of caring for the self. From this viewpoint, such a program did not seem to need the occasional presence of a "touchy-feely" counselor to indulge the weaknesses of students who had still not built up the strength to cope. The tender sympathies of caring teachers and administrators--of whom there were many at Ursinus--seemed to be more than sufficient to deal with occasional behavioral problems. Moreover, the administration and board believed that serious psychological problems were outside the province of the college’s mission. Students suffering from them should withdraw and seek professional treatment elsewhere. To give in to the presence of even an occasional counselor seemed to be an unwarranted broadening of the educational program of the college.
In the spirit of the time, the activist student government seized on this issue. It allowed USGA president Kevin Akey and his fellow leaders to engage the college in a debate about change at a level that transcended the long-standing fight over dorm rules and regulations. A significant number of faculty agreed with the students. Many colleges already had introduced psychological counseling. They offered the Ursinus students a ready reference and comparison. However, the "philosophic temper" of the college prevailed for the time being. (Weekly, 7 Dec 72, p. 3)
15 February 1973 DAVID ZIMMERMAN, '74, was elected president of the URSINUS STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION. Zimmerman brought a new tone of reconciliation to student leadership. It contrasted with the posture of confrontation originating in the late 1960s and evolving through the first years of the Pettit administration. He announced that the USGA would occupy itself with the Bloodmobile and rules on parking violations. Added to that would be an effort to beef up security in women’s dorms during open houses. The last issue revealed the other side of the movement for freedom to visit. (Weekly, 1 Mar 73) The Weekly (22 February 1973) reported, "Most of all this year’s council would like to stress the point that they are dedicated to cooperating with the administration. All in all they are looking forward to an accomplished year."
An editorial by JOE VAN WYK, '74, on the change of mood on campus could scarcely have enjoyed universal endorsement among students. Yet, its very appearance suggested a mellowing of the atmosphere: "The quality of student life has constantly been improving." He cited the College Union as the most important sign of this. "Optimistically looking to the future and considering what we presently have, we, the students of today are in a much better position than any before us.....the students of this college are satisfied or at least more satisfied than they have been in the past." Van Wyk argued that the non-activist student government reflected the mood of its constituency. It would rise to a new level of activism, he argued, if unpopular college policy again aroused the students. Student activism in the last year of the Pettit administration would bring this prophecy to pass.
1 October 1973 Student government leaders learned that the administration did not approve a recommendation to extend OPEN DORM visitations. The USGA had recommended open houses at both men’s and women’s dormitories on both Friday and Saturday nights. President Pettit’s turndown of the proposal made two points. The students had failed to live up to their agreement to enforce rules of behavior during open houses. Second, he had put himself at risk with the board by granting open dorm privileges without board sanction. Having raised the specter of a complete withdrawal of open dorm privileges, he told students he would risk his standing with the board and support the existing privilege for another year--that is, open dorms every Saturday. He made this contingent on the USGA’s success in policing dorms during visiting hours.
The Weekly (4 Oct 73) reported that some outraged students felt this was "another blow at student morale." It pointed to an administration determined to make "crazy rules designed to frustrate the student, slowly driving him to the breaking point."
JOE VAN WYK, '74, editorializing in the 11 October 1973 Weekly, urged students to work within the system to deal with the announced policy of the administration. He cited Pettit’s difficult position between board and students and the resolve of the board to keep Ursinus conservative. Knowingly or not, he was illustrating the persistence of the effect of D. L. Helfferich’s "philosophic temper" speech of 1970 and the board’s endorsement of it. The ameliorative tone of this editorial was representative, perhaps, of the change of attitude taking place as the campus community moved away from the anger and disruption of the late sixties. The USGA a week or two later initiated a "tough new policy" to enforce good behavior during open houses. Its intention to play along with the administration, however, contrasted sharply with its actual plans for enforcement. The sharpness of that contrast speaks to the growing unlikelihood that small steps from either side would put the issue of social rules behind the college. The USGA said, in effect, that it would not be snooping on the privacy of students. "The USGA is not concerned with what anyone does in the privacy of his own room as long as it does not affect others"--an echo of the late sixties. The USGA was willing to "look the other way" as long as doors remained closed on private behavior. But it would act if students gave it no other choice. (Weekly, 18 Oct 1973)
The college’s stance on social rules began to seem curious to a growing number of faculty members and even to some parents. A few rules of behavior seemed to be about all that remained of a long history of seeking to shape the moral and ethical behavior of students in an unabashedly Christian environment. Through a process that seemed irreversible in mainstream denominational colleges, the religious assumptions and activities of the college in the preceding decades continued to fall into disfavor and disuse, despite the efforts of the administration to maintain them. Helfferich’s call for maintaining a "philosophic temper" of conservatism in 1970 had been an heroic gesture, worthy of his histrionic presence; but it had lacked programmatic vitality. Pettit and the board were left with the social rulebook as shorthand for an institutional purpose reaching back to the beginnings of the college. They believed that the social code gave Ursinus a distinctive identity. By constantly pecking away at the status quo, students, whether strident or polite, were continuing to move the college toward a decision point. At that point, it would have to decide whether to stick with a prescriptive social code as its emblematic identifier or to "lighten up" on social rules and allow the academic priorities of liberal education to surface as the first order of interest.
16 October 1973 USGA turned attention from OPEN DORM policy to the problem of noise during evening hours in Myrin Library.
Myrin Library had become a noisy social spot at 9:00 pm, when students took a "study break" and felt there was no other suitable place to play. The USGA despaired of setting up new rules and, instead, urged a change of student attitudes. Students should give greater value to studying and less to socializing, especially in the library. It proposed, with dubious logic, that an extension of the library hours from 11:00 pm to midnight would "spread out the ‘break hour’ and make it less noticeable." It would also, of course, give an extra hour of time to the serious business of studying.
The turn of the USGA to this problem, away from the perennially hot issue of open dorms, betokened the disinclination of student leaders to "fight" the administration head-on over social policy. In addition, the juvenile tone of library behavior said to some on campus that the college needed to do more to make campus life more sober and academically driven. These themes persisted through the next several years.
14 January 1974 GEOFFREY HIGGINS, ‘75, newly elected president of the USGA, pursued a goal of better communications and "social integration." The latter term was code language for open dorm policy. Nevertheless, Higgins and his team of student government officers continued in an ameliorative mode. He announced that the administration had approved an extension of the existing open dorm policy, contingent, as always, on "community responsibility" during visiting hours. Social integration of another kind took place when the USGA amended its rules to eliminate elective positions defined by gender. Until then, eligibility for certain student government positions had depended on gender. (Weekly, 14 Feb 1974)
21 February 1974 The Weekly reprinted the complete STUDENT BILL OF RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES of 25 September 1970. Attorneys on the board and students in 1970 had hammered out the statement. The result was a lofty and broad-minded document that carefully preserved the authority of the administration and board at every turn. It based student rights on educational rather than First Amendment grounds, a standard legal doctrine. The board acknowledged that students "may have a legitimate point of view on policy matters" and it made provision for students to give advice in "reasonable discussion through existing structures of organization." The board’s bias against disruptive behavior was evident, though expressed with restraint.
Students who won the statement from the board must have seen that it did little to advance their nitty-gritty battle over social rules. It soon fell out of sight. When the students involved in negotiating it left through graduation, it disappeared from the consciousness of new student leaders. Its reappearance in 1974 was a harbinger of the push that soon would come to make women’s dorm rules equal to those for men. J. TIMOTHY CLEMENS, ‘75, made the point explicit in his introduction to the reprint, but the administration failed to catch its significance. The statement, Clemens said, "grants the students at Ursinus the same rights as given to us by the governmental agencies."
15 March 1974 DORMITORY RULES FOR WOMEN were equalized with those for men in accordance with Pennsylvania human relations requirements, to be fully implemented in the following fall semester.
Student government leaders had learned about new State prohibitions against discrimination in student life administration based on gender. They had signaled their intention to file a grievance against the college with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and then had paused to see what would result. The college's legal counsel quickly advised that, to perpetuate its regulation of women's hours, the same rules would have to apply to men. Ursinus men for a long time had been free to come and go as they pleased, while women had lived under the tight control of preceptresses ("house mothers") and a sign-out system. To bring Ursinus into conformance with new public policy while preserving its protective stance toward women required a feat of rule revision that ultimately did not last. However, the College's timely reaction prevented public relations difficulties.
It was impractical to think that the college could require men students to obey a restrictive set of prescriptions without damaging student morale and encouraging withdrawals and transfers to other colleges. The new system aimed to give "equal security" for dormitories for both men and women. It asked men students and women students alike to leave confidential information on their desks as to their whereabouts when they planned to be out of their assigned dorms during late-night and early-morning hours and on weekends. Students would have keys to their dorms, which would always be locked. Women, like men, would now be free to enter and leave their own dorms at any time, day or night. In addition, there would be a review of all social regulations to bring them into uniformity for men and women students. Dormitories would continue to be off limits to members of the opposite sex, except on those administratively approved "open houses" that took place on weekends or during special events.
The banner headline of the Weekly of 16 May 1974 declared, "Women's Hours Abolished: Board Votes Rule Change for Next Fall." The student paper editorialized that the new rules brought new responsibilities to women and men students. It acknowledged that the change came from working "through the system." The paper recognized the power of the State in the story but intoned soberly on the new weight of responsibility brought to students by the change.
This tone may have reflected student understanding that the goal of freeing men and women students to visit one another in their dorms remained unattained. In the following fall semester, President Pettit and student leaders played a continuing game of give-and- take on that issue. Student voices in print urged students to continue trying to work within the system to bring a relaxation to visiting hours. Pettit kept up a skilled conversation about the risks he was taking in his relation with the board. He was trusting students to keep their promises for supervising the limited hours permitted for visitation on weekends. He may been posturing a little for effect. Board leaders, however, had consistently opposed visitation privileges in rooms assigned to students of the opposite sex. Pettit was on sound ground in his interpretation of the board's will. His small concessions to limited open houses became his bargaining chips with the students. A student wrote in the paper: "Dr. Pettit...tells us that we have been lax in supervising open houses, and being a voting member of the organization empowered to do this I must agree. It's time for us to clean house; it's only fair. President Pettit has compromised the rules of the institution in our favor, and I think we can meet him half way and carry out our part of the bargain...." The average uninvolved student probably made no such fine distinctions and just wanted the college to get off his (or her) back on weekends.
Student complaints about the social climate remained a constant refrain in spite of the efforts of the administration and student leaders to make what might be perceived as improvements. Wise heads probably knew that the instability of post-adolescent development foredoomed every college campus in any era to a certain quotient of unhappiness, regardless of policy or local custom. Yet the Michael Faraday quotation on the face of Pfahler Hall influenced thought processes about student life no less than those in science courses: "Yet still try, for who knows what is possible...."
30 January 1975 (approximate) CHARLES REESE, ‘76, as new USGA president, pursued a policy of communications and education of students about privileges. He gave a general call to the students to let their student government know when they "had something they felt the campus should hear." This markedly differed in tone from the feisty rhetoric used by USGA presidents of the early 1970s. Reese devoted the remainder of his statement to an admonition to students not to pull false fire alarms. Doing so, he said, would result in the cancellation of open dorm privileges by the administration.
The marginalization of elected student leaders left an open field for self-appointed students to take up the cause of change. This potential would be realized in the fall of 1975 when an ad hoc student group supplemented a faculty letter of concerns with a petition of its own.
Reese, who went on to become a medical doctor, enjoyed a good opinion among administrators for his campus citizenship and considerate though forthright approach to the administration in representing student concerns. As his graduation neared, he gave an interview to the Weekly (13 May 1976) that perhaps better than any survey captured what most students thought of their college. Among his observations were the following: (1) He would recommend Ursinus to prospective students despite its limitations. (2) Limitations included the academic calendar and lack of opportunities for social interactions. (3) Students were names not numbers and faculty were friendly and helpful for the most part. (4) The campus was beautiful. (5) The diving (Reese was an intercollegiate diver) and swimming programs were well-coached and competitive.
28 February 1975 The dean of women suspended OPEN HOUSES in women’s dorms in reaction to "gross infractions" the week before. On 22 February 1975, a false fire alarm caused mass confusion and created tension with local fire fighters responding to the call. The problems multiplied when men guests did not vacate when the alarm sounded. They were afraid that the college would penalize them for being in the dorm after the closing hour. The dean of women suspended visitation the following week. This action put students on warning for the future. It also told the volunteer fire fighters that the administration would not condone unsafe student behavior. The punishment touched off a predictable debate among students. It was too harsh. It was too lenient. It was unfair in that it punished all for the act of an unknown individual. Student leaders rightly feared that the incident and its aftermath would further damage the cause of open dorms.
3 April 1975 An editorial brought renewed attention to student unhappiness with the college’s policy on OPEN DORMS. The USGA had practically given up in the fight with the administration to broaden the hours of dorm visitation. USGA leaders were mainly arguing with students to conduct themselves well. They said that this would help preserve the limited visiting privileges won in the past. The leaders thus avoided the state of constant conflict between official student voices and the administration. However, many students remained unhappy about the college’s policy. With the ebullience of youth, they found many avenues for expression and enthusiasm apart from socializing in dormitories with members of the opposite sex--in sports, the arts, academic work itself. However, they framed these fulfilling activities within an attitude toward the institution itself that took the form of either indifference or cynicism. The pressure to try to resolve this conflict in their attachment to the college never seemed to cease.
It manifested itself again in the Weekly editorial by MARILYN J. HARSCH, ‘75. Ursinus women students were growing more aware of their rights in the new climate fostered by the feminist movement. Harsch caught that new note when she criticized an alumna of two decades before. The alumna had written "cutely" and affirmingly about the constraints of women’s rules during her student years. Harsch drew a generational line between that alumna’s lifestyle and her own: "I get the feeling that they [alumnae] feel Ursinus should always go on in the same way. I don’t know about most of the students, but I don't particularly care to go to school in a museum." Harsch argued that students were adults in the eyes of the law and should have the right to privacy of adults in their dorm "homes." She challenged the college’s presumption in seeking to form the morals of students.
In doing so, without fully realizing it, she brought into focus the dilemma faced by the college as it sought to live up to the 1970 call by D. L. Helfferich to remain conservative. By asserting that the sexes should remain separated in their living quarters, the college sought to implement the call to conservatism. Along with the prohibition of alcohol, this position seemed to have become the essential expression of the "philosophic" temper of the college. It was too narrow a formulation to last. Students, faculty members, and even board members were increasingly sensitive to the rights of women and to other liberalizing influences of the late 1960s. "The time for...action is now," wrote Harsch. Her words sounded an echo that reached back to 1970.
1 May 1975 The USGA published the results of a survey of student opinion about campus issues. CHARLES REESE, president, gave high priority to the surveying of students in a written questionnaire. The student government had apparently decided that it could not change student life policy through the exercise of its delegated authority. It turned therefore to methodological process in the form of the questionnaire. This appeared to be meaningful activity; at the same time, it avoided direct confrontation with the administration. Reese and his associates believed that the administration would in the end have to take note of its survey results. At the same time, they were certain that the administration, if it were unhappy with findings, would challenge the survey by criticizing its methodology.
The findings were unsurprising to most in the campus community. Academic reputation, especially in pre-med, topped the list of reasons for attending Ursinus. Reasons for wanting to transfer were legion. Weekend activities were poor for the 42 percent who stayed on campus most weekends. "Queen Victoria would be proud" of social rules. Ninety-five percent of respondents wanted to liberalize the dorm visitation policy. Coaches of men’s sports were inadequate and had poor attitudes. Cleaning and maintenance were slow and inefficient. On faculty, "one person’s condemnation was another’s commendation." Administrators were remote, preoccupied with money and alumni, and neglectful of the educational purposes of the college. Course selection was pretty good. Calendar should change to end first semester before Christmas. A majority of students gave a favorable rating to Wismer food, to the disbelief of surveyors. (Weekly, 1 May 1975 and 22 May 1975)
Reese quoted one respondent at length because he felt it hit the heart of the unhappiness over dorm policy: "The most important reason for having open dorms, perhaps the most persuasive to the administration, is for the morale of the student body....A large majority of the students are discontented and dissatisfied over the present situation. People are very sarcastic, cynical, and generally down on Ursinus. It might be hard for the administration to believe that such a ‘little’ thing as not having open dorms could have such a great effect on student attitude, but when students are denied something precious to them (privacy, the opportunity to sit and listen to the radio, or just talk in their rooms), especially when everyone else at other colleges is not, there is bound to be resentment and hard feelings." (Weekly, 1 May 1975)
Some faculty and staff members would begin to see in this viewpoint what essentially was a marketing message. With recruiting satisfactory but facing a tough future, with drop-outs uncomfortably high, and with the litany about social policy growing tiresome, some began to look beyond the tactical skirmishing with students over dorm hours. They wanted to see a more far-reaching revision of social policy. But action on such thoughts awaited a change of administration.
In the following fall semester, the complaints continued unabated and reinforced the feeling that the college needed a new administrative approach. For example, a student wrote in a letter to the editor (Weekly, 30 October 1975): "Each year three or four hundred freshmen will jump on this stinking, sinking ship called Ursinus. All will flounder in the 40 steps to a better U.C. process. Apathy will reign supreme over the four years spent here to earn a genuinely fake sheepskin. Who will stand up and brave the storm to say ‘Hey! we, the students, NEED a freer atmosphere in which to live’."
15 November 1975 Student reactions to the break-up of a Saturday night party in Suite 200 of New Men’s Dorm helped worsen the campus atmosphere. Deans Whatley and Bozorth went to the suite when Whatley received calls from anonymous students who feared that the party threatened the safety of other students. The deans were the targets of verbal abuse and nearly sustained physical harm during their visit to the scene, a regular venue for weekend partying. Punishments meted out to only four of the many students in the suite aroused renewed student anger in the weeks afterward. Many students believed the four were scapegoats for a failed college system that too easily criminalized students for behaving in what they considered normal and acceptable ways. In print, students expressed fear and uncertainty about the college. Meetings held by USGA and SFARC brought out scores of them to discuss the college’s future.
The incident and its aftermath pointed to the difficulty of administering the student social program in the face of long-running student complaints about dorm rules. Likewise, it pointed to a stark contrast between the written code of student behavior and actual behavior. The written code for students envisioned decorum and restraint. Their actual style on weekends was otherwise.
The Suite 200 incident coincided with other events that fueled the antagonism on campus. A letter signed by 18 students went to the board, calling for better communication. A new student affairs subcommittee surfaced, seeking to investigate complaints and issues. The USGA, meeting on 11 November 1975, called for the college to change visitation policy that would permit individual choice of hours in different dorms. The existing system, said the USGA resolution, violated freedom of choice, was not consistent with a liberal arts education, and fostered discontent among resident students. Some 100 students attended an open meeting of SFARC (Student-Faculty-Administration Relations Committee) on 24 November 1975. SFARC set up the meeting to allow for the airing of problems and complaints growing out of the Suite 200 affair. Student editorials and letters to the editor pleaded for better communication on both sides. These developments in student affairs were occurring while the administration was forming its response to a "letter of concerns" from faculty and was reflecting on a possible faculty move toward unionization.
19 February 1976 RON COLUMBO, a sophomore, was elected president of the USGA. Colombo sought to alter the terms of discussion about open dorm policies and to cultivate a better style of communication between the USGA and President Pettit. Some faculty and staff thought that his sense of need for a new style responded constructively to the negative climate that blanketed the campus after the infamous Suite 200 affair in the fall of 1975. Little of substance came from the new approach, however.
14 May 1976 The board committee to work with faculty and students submitted its formal report on requests made by both groups during the year. It had met with the faculty and students in separate meetings in February 1976 (students on 23 February). As far as faculty were concerned, the committee's report was a diplomatic gesture. The board reaffirmed its concern about the need for better salaries and reached out to faculty in good will. At the same time it gave its support to the president's plan for involving faculty in governance and pointed hopefully to the board's intention to mount another fund-raising campaign. As far as students were concerned, the report asserted its felt responsibility "to provide beneficial educational and social experience for all the students." However, the board members stood resolutely opposed to the use of alcoholic beverages on campus and "the intervisitation privileges of students in rooms assigned to members of the opposite sex."
12 March 1972 PROTHEATRE presented Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade while Chancellor D. L. Helfferich was casting for You Can’t Take It With You. Students mounting Weiss’s unconventional play initially lacked official backing from the college but MELVYN EHRLICH of the English department adopted it as a ProTheatre project. The play’s title and intent allowed independent-minded students to push the envelope of conventional values on campus. The persecution and assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade sought to use Antonin Artaud’s "theatre of cruelty" techniques to shock the audience into new awareness. The production thus exemplified the migration of student activism and anger from direct political protest demonstrations to the symbolic domain of art.
Helfferich directed plays for the Curtain Club (forerunner of ProTheatre) for many years while he was vice president of the college. He may have returned to thespian activities on campus in part because of a felt need to counterbalance the unconventional Marat/Sade production. It would have been characteristic of Helfferich to challenge the unconventional with an unconventional return to action on his own. The 1937 play by George S. Kaufman epitomized the polished, polite stage production produced for many years by the theatre group before the cultural quakes of the 1960s.
2 December 1972 Directed by JOYCE HENRY, the PROTHEATRE acting group performed The Fantastiks, then the longest-running production in American history. New to the campus, Henry was beginning a long directing career at the college that would inject a new professionalism into the extracurricular program and introduce performance to the curriculum.
3 May 1973 The TRAVELIN' VI student concert took place in the Wismer Hall dining room, perpetuating a talent show in memory of Scott Pierce. He died when he accidentally fell from a cliff while at a student party in 1967. His parents, both alumni, and friends sought to perpetuate the memory of him as a talented musician with an annual student concert. Although some years later "Travelin'" disappeared, student talent shows continued to be an important part of the social life of the college.
3 November 1973 PROTHEATRE began its year with three one-act plays in its new venue, the old snack shop. JOYCE HENRY involved students as directors as well as actors in challenging stage fare--Ionesco’s The Gap, Shaw’s How He Lied to Her Husband, and Lanford Wilson’s This Is the Rill Speaking. Drama literally moved center stage on campus when it took over the old snack shop, located in a "temporary" corrugated steel building between Bomberger Hall and Wismer Hall, site of today’s Olin Hall. Always resourceful, Henry converted the limited venue into an engagingly intimate theatre. "The audience," said a student reviewer (Weekly, 8 Nov 1973), "being situated on three sides of the performing area, is at close range, which lends much to the atmosphere of the productions, and this arrangement is far superior to the formal setup of Wismer Auditorium."
22 February 1974 A varied and week-long FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS began. The program attracted wide attention in the campus community. It included a folk concert, chamber music, film (Bergmann’s Seventh Seal), theatre. Project director MICHAEL WERNER, ‘74, represented the changing interests of student leaders--away from political activism and confrontation with the administration and toward creative activities. These might generate tension in the conservative atmosphere that the college sought to uphold, but there was no rationale for the college to oppose them. As a result, student life had a lively side that overrode the complaints about social rules.
5 April 1974 Breaking with a campus Christmas tradition, music director DERQ HOWLETT moved the annual MESSIAH performance to the Easter season. It was the 38th consecutive performance of Handel’s masterwork on campus. It long since had become a hallmark of the college calendar. The soloists included alto SHIRLEY CRESSMAN METZGER, ‘73. She had been a mainstay of vocal performance during her student years. Howlett’s rationale for the change was that it would allow inclusion of the resurrection section of the piece. WILLLAM PHILIP had ended the performance with the Hallelujah chorus in years past. In years to come, when the performance returned to the Christmas schedule, the chorus sang the entire Messiah.
20 April 1974 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, still emerging as a rock star, appeared in Helfferich Hall. This fulfilled a desire among many students to bring a big rock band to Ursinus. How this related to the serious pursuit of a residential liberal education was not evident to the administration. However, a reluctant administration was willing to go along if students promised to keep order. Students pushing for a Springsteen concert wanted to validate their college in the eyes of the new youth culture of the region. Other colleges and universities had rock concerts; Ursinus needed them to be "with it." Colleges were only beginning to market themselves aggressively. It may be that the students were ahead of the college in seeing the importance of identifying Ursinus as an "in" place to be. A student reviewer called Springsteen’s appearance "the greatest night at UC." Youth spoke.
9 May 1974 PROTHEATRE presented Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle in the Bearpit Theatre, the old snack shop. The Bearpit had been completely repainted and bore no resemblance, in the eyes of one viewer, to the old snack shop. The set had a "cleverly simple and versatile" design. The play ran for five nights, with sellouts on three of them. RICHARD GAGLIO, ‘76, a talented actor and student director, worked with his mentor, JOYCE HENRY, to make this a broadly supported campus production. (Weekly, 16 May 1974).
11 April 1975 THE MEISTERSINGERS choral group of 47 students packed bags for their annual spring tour, continuing a lively tradition of performance and enjoyment. Their five-day bus excursion during spring break would take them to performances in churches in central Pennsylvania and New York State. JILL LEAUBER, ‘78, reported that, between performances, "Relaxation dominated studies and most books remained unopened and hidden in locked suitcases."
The retirement of WILLIAM PHILIP in 1972, after more than three decades of leadership, had brought transitional pangs to the music program. Student enthusiasts, such as the group’s president, DAVID SPITKO, '75, gave the Meistersingers a vitality independent of professional leadership. As in other activities, the very limits on resources at the college motivated students to reach on their own for program goals.
9 February 1976 RADIO STATION WRUC returned to the airwaves after a prolonged silence caused by administrative and technical difficulties. WILLIAM FRIES, ‘76, was station manager. The radio station had shut down in the spring 1975 semester. It failed to reopen in the fall because thieves had stolen the equipment. It broadcast from noon to midnight five days a week. The programming mainly consisted of popular music selected by the student staff. The station played little role in the political or social life of the campus. For a group of about thirty students, however, it provided a useful experience and outlet.
11 October 1973 VOLUNTARY CHAPEL programs began in the newly created meditation chapel of renovated BOMBERGER HALL. The twenty-minute programs included a short meditation by a faculty member and a talk given by a student. A considerable amount of expense went into appointing the small chapel. Stained glass windows of contemporary design with Christian symbolism were installed. The chapel became the meeting place for student religious organizations. That function gradually superseded the more formal devotions for which it was designed. The move of religious reflection from the large Bomberger chapel to this small addition in the rear of the building symbolized the shrinkage of religious expression in the common life of the campus. It paralleled the move from a compulsory to a voluntary program. The majority of students probably were unaware of the new venue for religion or of the college’s hope that it would perpetuate the vitality of the original religious impulse of the college. (Weekly, 18 Oct 1973)
24 October 1973 A small group of college people and townspeople commemorated the 28th anniversary of THE UNITED NATIONS. WILLIS DEWANE, Mayor of Collegeville, convened the gathering, which took a religious form. ALFRED CREAGER, '33, pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, and other local pastors spoke, along with WILLIAM B. WILLIAMSON of the philosophy and religion department. The emphasis was on cultivating peace. War in the Middle East, the lingering war in Southeast Asia, and the continuing Cold War gave urgency to this sentiment for the thirty-five attending.
30 June 1974 REV. MILTON E. DETTERLINE resigned from the staff as alumni director and chaplain. D. L. Helfferich, '21, hired Detterline in 1969 for his dual role. He managed to enliven alumni affairs while drawing many students into a consideration of religious values and issues, often through vigorous activities in the outdoors. He sustained the close link of the college with the United Church of Christ. His charge in Tamaqua before coming to the college was in the farther reaches of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the UCC, headquartered on the college campus. After he left Ursinus, Detterline became the parish pastor to chancellor Helfferich at St. Peter’s Church in Knauertown. This in a way kept him in the college family. When Helfferich died, Detterline fulfilled a promise that he would edit a commemorative edition of the Ursinus Magazine. The edition stands as one of the lasting memories of Helfferich.
The Rev. Max E. Nuscher, recommended by John Shetler, head of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ, headquartered on campus, replaced Detterline. He served part-time while continuing his full-time charge at a church in nearby Pottstown.
4 December 1971 The student ECOLOGICAL CONCERN GROUP completed a semester of collecting glass on campus and delivering it to a recycling center. The year-old group reflected student concern "for the future of the world." Recycling was a grass-roots effort in the dormitories. The group supported zero population growth and sponsored a speaker earlier in the semester from Planned Parenthood. The administration saw the activities of the group as a welcome alternative to the protests of preceding years. Support from administrators helped channel and legitimize its activities. This betokened a small narrowing of the chasm between the administration and students with a bent toward political change.
11 May 1973 Faculty advisors reported to the board on a "committee to develop volunteer service among students." Professors RONALD E. HESS of chemistry and DERK VISSER of history said that they collated data about student service projects, solicited new recipients of service projects, acquainted faculty with the program and sought their cooperation, and proposed an office to be staffed by students in the College Union.
President Pettit encouraged this faculty-based initiative to lift up the positive aspects of extra-curricular life. He hoped that it would counterbalance the purely social priorities of students and the unhappiness they expressed over rules against drinking and visitation of men and women in dormitories. Both Hess and Visser were younger faculty members with an ease of communication with students out of class. Their sponsorship gave the project legitimacy in the eyes of some students. The project had only a small impact, however, on the tone of the campus.
24 October 1970 "Six Ursinus Beauties" sought the title of Homecoming Queen, according to a Weekly headline (22 Oct 1970), as traditional college activities persisted. Placards calling for the Bears to "smash Swarthmore" appeared on campus. The six fraternity sponsors of the Homecoming court formed the traditional motorcade of convertibles. The candidates for queen perched in the autos as their escorts drove around the perimeter of Patterson Field to the home stands. Partisan sisters along the track cheered. Alumni members of the sororities and fraternities watched as the familiar ritual unfolded. Skirts were shorter, hairstyles looser, and heels less spiked, but they knew the inner pattern of the event from their own youthful experience. That year, ZETA CHI fraternity’s candidate, NANCY HUNT, escorted by DON McAVINNY, won the crown. Although the Bears did not "smash" their gridiron opponent, they slipped past Swarthmore with a 9-7 victory. The tradition of Homecoming survived the transformations that changed so much of college life in the 1970-1976 period.
4 March 1971 The Weekly reported on its discovery of a "bohemian" dormitory where students pursued a culture counter to the dominant campus ethos. Reporter DAVID L. HERMANY gave an "anthropologist’s" report on the unconventional students living in the Curtis Hall basement. He claimed to have found amid peeling paint and bare pipes a talented coterie of non-conformists. He said they pursued a free and creative style of student life hidden from college authorities and the student majority. He alleged that they had created an isolated society in the heart of a campus that touted itself as conventional and conservative.
By exaggerating the unconventional conditions and pursuits of the Curtis basement residents, Hermany offered up a portrait in keeping with the counterculture romance of the time. The portrait provided a contrast to the college’s "middle class" values and "conservative atmosphere." Hermany reported that the Curtis basement counterculture survived in spite of the college’s persistent condemnation of activities that would sully its public appearance of conservatism.
Students of every political and social persuasion were conscious of the effort by President Helfferich and then President Pettit to portray Ursinus as conservative. They had read or heard about Helfferich’s speech on the conservative "philosophic temper" of the college, delivered at a centennial celebration at the Franklin Institute on 15 January 1970. The Hermany article was one of many vehicles for stating the case for the opposition to that portrait of the college.
The reaction to Ursinus’s student "left" came in a stream of letters to the editor from the student right. Signed by "Glenn Plaid" and "Stuart Sterling", they purported to support the conservative position of the college and castigated non-conformist students. With even greater exaggeration and animation than that in the Hermany article, the conservative letter writers condemned the "handful of drugged-up, dirty long-hairs" on campus. (Weekly, 11 Mar 71, p. 3)
Glen Plaid’s position of militant conservatism purportedly reflected the true position of the college itself. His diatribes against the "hippies" caused fun and outrage, depending on the readers. They added to the liveliness of the Weekly pages in those feisty years. Stuart Sterling was especially against open houses and other college policies deemed overly restrictive by most students, "hippies" or not. In the 11 March issue, Stuart thanked the dean of men "for canceling the rumored Open House in the men’s dormitories on Friday, February 19." He said that it enabled him to do a lot of studying that Friday night. "I am glad that you realize that college should be an academic (and not a sexual) experience."
Hermany reported that the non-conformists in Curtis basement invoked the ghost of J. D. Salinger to support their lifestyle. Salinger spent his brief sojourn on the Ursinus campus in 1938 as a resident of Curtis basement, they said. (Salinger’s legacy of satire may have informed the pens of Glenn, Stuart, and their ilk no less than those of the campus counterculturalists.)
Some suspected that Glenn Plaid, Stuart Sterling, and the editorial leadership of the Weekly were the same. ALAN C. GOLD’s articulate and tightly written criticisms of the New Left might have outraged the denizens of the Curtis Hall basement. They expressed in youthfully forthright form what many of the adult leaders of the campus felt about the excesses of the student protesters. Gold’s last editorial before he relinquished the job of editor-in-chief (Weekly, 1 Apr 71, p. 2) was a long polemic against the "moral decadence" of "the unsightly minority." He attacked their use of drugs and their prostitution of the concepts of love, peace, tranquility, relevancy, and justice: "’Love’ actually becomes distorted to mean ‘free love,’ a unique blend of unbridled lust and capricious sexuality which involves little concern for the consequences of one’s actions." "The time is severely long overdue for the moderate-conservatives of straight America to put a decisive end to the iconoclastic and subversive subculture being perpetuated by a small percentage of America’s young people."
13 December 1971 The women’s campus council hosted a "new look" traditional CHRISTMAS BANQUET. Under the traditional calendar, exams took place after the Christmas break. The lack of pressure to finish papers and study for exams before the break allowed for the pleasant pursuit of traditional festivities of the season. One of the most valued traditions was the Christmas banquet for women students only. After the men ate hurriedly at an early sitting, the dining hall was cleared and set for a fancy meal to which women students came dressed up. Women students entertained, and carol singing by all sought to capture the season’s spirit. The women’s campus council introduced a "new look" in 1971 by inviting for the first time all women of the Ursinus community, not just students, including the wives of faculty members. The Dance Club entertained after dinner.
A commonplace among many students--and not a few faculty--held that Ursinus was sheltered from the blasts of change sweeping across the nation. Some thought that was good. Others did not. Some thought the sole purpose of the administration and board was to keep the college that way. Whatever one thought of them, events such as the women’s Christmas banquet sustained the impression of an unchanging traditionalism, even as vocal students expressed their opposition to the status quo. Such students sometimes lamented that the Ursinus campus was less politically aware and active than other colleges their friends attended. Yet, the majority of Ursinus students continued to enjoy traditional activities. The apolitical fraternities and sororities continued to set the tone for much of the social life of the campus. Choosing a Homecoming queen remained important. And the women students, however sophisticated or disillusioned, came in numbers to enjoy the Christmas banquet. The change in the "new look" of 1971 suggested revitalization rather than dilution of the tradition. When in the next administration a change of calendar put exams before the Christmas break, this tradition died.
28 October 1972 Low attendance at a Halloween dance prompted organizers to wonder why Ursinus was a "SUITCASE COLLEGE." JOSEPH E. VAN WYK, '74, upset over the headcount of 150 at the dance, calculated that only a third of the entire student body was on campus for that weekend. He attributed the "suitcase college" syndrome to student failure to support their own organizations. He thought they preferred to blame the administration for everything. He commented: "I have no compassion for kitchen cynics [perennial student critic Jane Siegel had titled her column "the kitchen cynic"] nor do I enjoy people whose constant big joke is to laugh to death every attempt to make a fresh start."
The arguments and allegations over the "suitcase college" syndrome ran as a constant thread through faculty, student, and staff discussions on the quality of student life on campus. Because the college continued to recruit a large percentage of students from the suburban Philadelphia counties, students found it easy to return home on weekends when they found nothing interesting to keep them at the campus. This in turn made it difficult for organizers of such affairs as Halloween dances to mount a lively event. This downward spiraling condition did not change for some years. Estimates such as Van Wyk’s, of course, were always subject to critical scrutiny. Moreover, many students who remained on weekends found offbeat enjoyment in their minority status.
1 November 1972 The faculty approved the start of the NATIONAL GERMAN HONORARY AND SOCIAL FRATERNITY, as recommended by the student activities committee. Such organizations came and went in this as in other periods of the college's history. Prerequisites were a group of interested students (sometimes encouraged by an interested faculty member), a written constitution, and a willing faculty advisor. Some other organizations that came into existence during this period included the following: the Black Student Alliance (5 May 1971); Judo Club (7 March 1973); G. Leslie Omwake Education Club, which was the local chapter of student teachers, renamed in honor of the college's sixth president; the Conflict Simulation Club (5 December 1973).
3 June 1973 A graduating senior reflected on CHANGES during his four years at Ursinus. JOHN O. RORER remembered the protests occurring during his freshman year. "It was almost a real student protest just like we see in the movies." Everybody was upset, he remembered, not over government blunders or Vietnam but open dorms. Rorer recalled the petition of his entering class against the absurdities of freshman orientation imposed by upper-class students. "...The CCC got its first taste of downright rebellion. Every freshman class following [ours] had a very civil orientation program that was almost fun." He remembered the end of the assigned seating system and prescribed attire (ties and jackets for men, skirts for women) in the dining hall. "The tables were composed of four men and four women and each week each group rotated to a different table. This way everyone knew everyone else by the end of the year. Great try but again our class just couldn’t ease itself inconspicuously into the system. Women were also given the privilege that year to wear slacks outside the dorms." He lamented the small percentage of classmates who paid attention to major current events, such as the Kent State killings and the bombing of Cambodia. "Even the celebration of Earth Day was only officially recognized once. This area is one of the primary weaknesses on the part of the college.... Current events are seldom considered." Change was the word for his class and, he thought, for classes to come. "I am sure the college has set itself up again to withstand more petitions and demands for students’ rights." And in farewell: "As one looks over his shoulder he pictures those immortal words: ‘Sin College, found 69’ and a little grin creeps across his face remembering the surprise of our first Parents Day." The reference was to the college sign on Main Street, with letters painted out to produce the above message. Rorer’s humorous reflection helped balance the picture of an angry generation bent on constant change. Underlying the youthful rhetoric inherited from the 1960s was a common-sense stability that Ursinus students brought with them to campus from their middle-class homes and communities.
21 February 1974 A student writer wondered whether Ursinus would survive THE AQUARIAN AGE. In his contrast of the dying age of Pisces to the rising age of Aquarius, he expressed the fear that Ursinus was doomed because its students and administration (no mention of faculty) appeared to be essentially "Piscean." The Piscean was marked by "pessimism, a self-destructive attitude, a sense of doom, and confusion on the unconscious level (concerning moral and ethical issues)." By contrast, the Aquarian was marked by "broad humanitarian ideals, unselfish attitudes, steadfast optimism, and a renaissance of artistic standards." The Aquarian age will "burst into being as the antithesis of Piscean attitudes and will rebel against those institutions that retain old, undesirable qualities."
However dubious as a serious analysis, the article offered a colorful distillation of the generational discontent that fed the give-and-take between the college and students over the social arrangement of campus life. The majority of Ursinus students by this time had grown up with styles, vocabulary, and values formed in the social revolution of the late 1960s. Nevertheless, few would have wanted to be tagged as out-and-out "Aquarians." The gatekeeping in the admissions office and the social conservatism in the counties where Ursinus students grew up combined to exercise a restraining influence. Most Ursinus students watched the process of change and may have secretly hoped that the student critics would win some points. But they maintained a comfortable distance from the action.
A couple of weeks after this article appeared, another student submitted a poem entitled Woodstock Abdication. "And there will be no children’s convocation / At the forest’s heart, / No maypole dance / In the face of the clock." The author dropped out of Ursinus before graduating. The ways of campus life doubtless were changing--sometimes dramatically--in response to the changing social environment in the nation. The students who prevailed at Ursinus, however, remained in the broad middle.
14 March 1974 STREAKING--dashing nude across a public space alone or in a group--arrived on the Ursinus campus. An article on streaking in the Weekly was headlined, "Streaking Hits Campus--the Ursinus Bares Are Here!" Editor JOHN FIDLER, '74, opined: "'Streaking' is not unlike eating a bowl of hot chili. 'What did I do that for?'"
16 September 1974 The faculty gave its approval to an effort by the academic dean to try to enforce observance of rules on INITIATION by Greek-letter groups. Several faculty members spoke on the subject at the faculty meeting. One suggested that students on academic probation end their participation in initiation immediately. The faculty's support of Dean Bozorth led to his 8 November 1974 letter to leaders of fraternities and sororities.
8 November 1974 Leaders of fraternities and sororities learned of new faculty rules to correct perceived excesses in pledging behavior. They received a letter signed by dean RICHARD G. BOZORTH, speaking as faculty spokesperson. It prohibited "drop trips" away from campus, reemphasized the prohibition on hazing, banned "noisy and otherwise objectionable public displays" by pledges, cut the length of pledging to two weeks, and reasserted the first duty of pledges to their studies. This faculty response came after it lost patience with protracted and ineffectual clean-up efforts by student leaders of the Greek-letter organizations. Tasteless "wall shows" at noon in front of Wismer Hall during pledging made it impossible for the general campus community to close its eyes to the antics of pledgemasters and their fledglings.
Bozorth prefaced the new rules with the following: "During the past several years an increasing number of inquiries and complaints concerning fraternity and sorority activities have been directed to the college from students, parents, faculty, alumni, and from the local community. These complaints have resulted from injuries to students in the course of rushing activities, absences and lack of preparation blamed by students on the ‘duties’ assigned them in the course of rushing, public displays involving vulgarity, degrading public ‘rituals’ and noisy activities that interfere with meals or sleep of both the student body and citizens living outside of the college campus."
Some interpreted the new student enthusiasm for the social life of fraternities and sororities as a repudiation of the political activism of the late 1960s and first years of the 1970s. It seemed to some as a hoped-for signal that vocal students might be getting tired of pushing for the restructuring of Ursinus. Greek-letter organizations enjoyed a legitimate place in the college, although their parties and pledging never ceased to create headaches for administrators and the campus community. Students did not feel the need to clash with the college over the basic existence of these organizations as they did over dormitory rules and student rights.
The Greek-letter organizations provided the lubricant for weekend social life on campus and sometimes off campus for the majority of students, members and non-members alike. They somehow managed to skirt state law and college rules against alcohol use much of the time. When police or college officials caught them, students and faculty usually reacted for a while with heated discussions about college priorities and values.
Despite efforts to contain them, the excesses of Greek-letter activities did not end during the 1970-1976 period. The organizations became stronger and more popular in subsequent years. That led to still greater concerns and to intensive policy reviews. Meanwhile, students enjoyed the "bonding" and exuberance of Greek life. It contributed to the general satisfaction that many students found with their Ursinus experience.
15 October 1975 Members of a freshman composition class contradicted a fashionable view that 18-year-old life was "an absurd joke." That had been the view of Joyce Maynard in a New York Times essay in 1972. An English composition instructor asked freshmen four years later to address comments to Maynard. Said one student: "Our generation is not one of heroin and radicals. We cry for normality even while we dearly cherish our individuality. Our music has gone from hard, driving, acid rock to a softer and more mellow type of rhythm. Your songs cried for social reform--ours cry for inner peace. We want '2.2 kids and a house in Connecticut.' We want a steady job and security. Instead we have inherited unemployment and inflation." Said another: "While following the crowd was popular with your generation, we relied mainly on our own independence.... No longer do we feel the need to smoke pot or pop pills because everyone else is doing it." And another: Most of the people I know have definite plans for their future. None of them consider life a joke. Many are going into pre-professional studies at their particular colleges." College administrators who navigated the turbulent seas of the late sixties found such reflections comforting. At the same time, they knew that this crop of freshmen and those to follow bore indelible traces of the recent social upheavals. Students would never again be quite like those that senior faculty had taught before the late sixties.
26 September 1970 The men’s CROSS COUNTRY SQUAD, with two Middle Atlantic Conference championships behind it, started the new season on a winning note. Led by record breaker BRUCE ALBERT, ‘71, the Bears romped in their opener against Eastern Baptist College and Drew University. On 3 October, the harriers against Delaware Valley College again excelled. Albert again captured first by a wide margin. At season’s end on 20 November, the squad stood third in the conference, its hegemony over.
1 November 1970 (approximate) The WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY TEAM defeated West Chester 2-0 for the "mythical" national field hockey championship. As CHRIS CRANE, ’71, reported in the 5 Nov 1970 Weekly, "So the Bruinettes are U.U.U.—undefeated, untied, and unscored upon with an 8-0-0 record." The team repeated its victory over West Chester a year later, on 28 October 1971, on the loser’s turf, by a 2-0 score.
The powerful playing of Ursinus in the later years of coach Eleanor Snell's career resulted from the assemblage of an unparalleled array of athletic talent. As the team defeated West Chester, the campus learned that Ursinus women dominated the selection for the All-America field hockey team of 1970. First team picks included BETH ANDERS, '73, ROBIN CASH, '72, SANDRA WOOD, '71, and TRUDY SCHWENKLER, 72.
Some of the Ursinus team members would later form the nucleus of America’s first-ever entrant in Olympic competition in 1984. America won the bronze medal at the Los Angeles games that year. Anders was captain and VONNIE GROS, ’56, was head coach.
4 November 1970 The men’s SOCCER TEAM defeated Haverford College, coach Donald Baker’s alma mater, for the first time in 25 years. Baker’s philosophy of sport emphasized character building rather than winning. On this day of victory, student athletes on the squad, such as goalie CRAIG CRANDALL, ‘72, may have hoped that the coach would not frown on their favorable outcome over the Haverfordians. The printed record reveals nothing of Baker’s reaction.
14 November 1970 The FOOTBALL TEAM finished the season with three wins and five losses by defeating Haverford College. This was a letdown from the 1969 season, when the Bears were co-champions of the southern division of the Middle Atlantic Conference with a 5-2-1 record. HARRY L. ADRIAN, ‘73, was the standout of the year as running back.
28 February 1971 (approximate) Men’s athletics faced difficulty when the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) made freshmen at all colleges eligible for varsity play.
This overturned a ruling that had permitted only colleges with small enrollments, such as Ursinus, to field freshmen. Freshmen for the likes of Ursinus were the "equalizer" when the Bears went up against larger rivals, such as Franklin & Marshall and Muhlenberg, especially in football.
Worrying over the ruling, students and staff interpreted the move as a change in the philosophy of sports at rival colleges. It appeared as if winning was becoming more important than building character and enjoying the sport for its own sake. With limited facilities, limited funds for recruiting student athletes, and limited size of the total male population, Ursinus was emphatically committed to the philosophy of "amateurism" in men’s sports, ably articulated by soccer coach Donald G. Baker. (No one tried to reconcile the apparent contradiction posed by Ursinus’s nationally recognized powerhouse program for women’s sports.)
The change in ECAC to a more competitive, win-oriented stance betokened by the change in freshman eligibility would continue to evolve in Ursinus's circle of competition in the years ahead. The models of professional sports and nationally televised collegiate powerhouses would influence incoming students and their parents. This would force Ursinus to reconsider its priorities for men’s sports. This process would extend far beyond the Pettit administration.
15 September 1971 Three Ursinus women’s field hockey players returned to campus after a world tour with the US Field Hockey Association team. Seniors Robin Cash and Trudy Schwenkler and junior Beth Anders went with the team to England, the Middle East, Singapore, Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Cash’s comment to the Weekly (7 Oct 71) after returning was prophetic: "This 1971 U.S. Touring Team was the youngest and probably the most inexperienced team ever to represent the USFHA. Yet, when the time came to say our good-byes, I feel I can truly say we gained an awareness of the game." She and others on the touring team became the nucleus of the US team that by decade’s end would be ready for first-ever Olympic competition in women's field hockey.
16 November 1971 The WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY TEAM completed another undefeated season. "Snellbelles" defeated Trenton State 2-1 to complete a 7-0 season record. The depth of the Ursinus team showed in the strong intercollegiate competition of the junior varsity, coached by Adele Boyd, ‘53. Boyd’s team wound up the season with a 4-1-1 record. When Eleanor Snell retired, Boyd moved up to head coach.
10 December 1971 (approximate) DONALD G. BAKER, soccer coach and professor of classics, expressed his "philosophy of the game" at a national gathering of SOCCER coaches. Baker had completed his 38th season as the men's soccer coach at Ursinus. He steadfastly blended his classical learning and his love of the sport: "My premise is that soccer in college is for fun and health, both physical and mental of course. It is not to enhance the reputation of school or coach, to provide a spectacle for crowds (especially if these crowds do not know good play from bad). Even less is it a commercial enterprise subject to the purposeless pressures and shallow deceits commonly accepted today in American business. The ancient view of an amateur, that one does something because he loves it, needs to be looked at anew. As Socrates put it, it is a shame to go through life without knowing the skill and grace of which your body is capable." (Ursinus Magazine, February 1972.)
As in all that he expressed, Baker was emphatic and unflinching in upholding the purity of the sport and the earnest nature of the well-balanced life. Of such individualistic views was the spirit of the faculty as a whole expressed each day.
The Ursinus sports community in these years understood Baker's premise well. Most but not all on campus would have agreed with his final thought: "A man's quality matters more than his achievement." That consensus, however, did not diminish the desire among students and enthusiastic alumni to win games.
When WALTER MANNING replaced Baker in the fall of 1972, he abruptly reversed the long-standing indifference to mere winning that Baker had cultivated for so many years. An outstanding player at Temple, who had spent some time playing professionally, Manning emphasized his "fierce desire to win." It contrasted to what he called Baker’s "zeal of amateurism." (Weekly, 12 Oct 1972) In 1972, Manning's first year, the team won 4, lost 9, and tied 2. In the remainder of the 1970-1976 period, the team's record was as follows: 6 wins, 7 losses, and 1 tie in 1973; 5 wins, 9 losses, and 2 ties in 1974; 3 wins and 11 losses in 1975; 1 win and 13 losses in 1976.
26 October 1972 The women’s FIELD HOCKEY TEAM under new head coach ADELE BOYD, ‘53, played to a tie in the "mythical" national championship game. West Chester State College held a 1-0 advantage as time was running out. Ursinus scored to tie the final score with five minutes remaining.
Coach Boyd now had the awesome responsibility of perpetuating the winning tradition established by her mentor, retired coach ELEANOR F. SNELL. Snell left the college staff owing to a compulsory retirement policy based on age. Still vigorous, she signed on as coach of field hockey at LaSalle College.
11 November 1972 The FOOTBALL TEAM ended a 6-3 season with a win over Trenton State College. While the football team turned in a favorable record, other men’s teams, particularly cross country, also were doing well. (Weekly, 16 Nov 72)
13 January 1973 The MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM and staff heroically rescued victims of an explosion at a restaurant after a game with Juniata College. The event occurred at Motel 22 Restaurant near Mapleton in Huntingdon County, PA. The team and staff had stayed overnight at the motel after playing Juniata College. They had finished their breakfast in the restaurant and returned to their rooms when it exploded. The coaches and staff, led by Warren Fry, joined students in rescuing 14 persons from the motel restaurant. The explosion and fire destroyed the facility. One person died.
ROBERT HANDWERK, assistant coach, said the following as he and others remembered the experience: "Most of the victims had severe facial lacerations and were badly bruised. It was after the entire building was up in flames when Coach Fry and I made a head check…. For some strange reason we never thought of ourselves but more for the people injured by the blast. The [players] demonstrated for the world that one cannot generalize about youth. They displayed total unselfishness of themselves to aid others."
TOM POLINKSI, sports information director, was on the trip with the team. He played an especially dramatic part in rescuing a man trapped under debris from the roof. He described what happened when he entered the destroyed building just after the blast: "A gas-fed fire was licking its way through the kitchen and into the snack bar. There before me was the smashed roof and the blue sky above. The sight was worse than any nightmare I have ever experienced. The area seemed vacated and I attempted to make my way through the partially damaged front wall. Tossing tables and chairs to clear an exit for myself, I noticed someone beneath my feet, dangling into the basement. Wedged between the roof and a blown out section of the floor was an old man. His head and face were imbedded with glass and splinters…. I thought he was dead." Polinksi and others who arrived pulled the man from the burning scene just ahead of the mounting flames.
The Borough of Mapleton passed a resolution shortly afterward to commend the Ursinus people: "The heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of all residents of this community are…extended to the members of the Ursinus College basketball team, and their coaches and staff for their superlative display of concern for their fellowmen. Their actions reflect the highest credit upon themselves and their school and vividly illustrate the true value of athletic endeavor."
22 February 1973 A student athlete voiced his criticism of MEN’S ATHLETICS at Ursinus. Dropped from the basketball squad after playing for two years (for reasons now buried), he articulated what many students felt about the limited college support of men’s intercollegiate sports. He said in the Weekly, "The basic problem is an administration that cares nothing for the success of men’s athletics. The administration refuses to make an honest attempt to develop successful (winning) teams.... I don’t advocate developing an athletic program by using fraudulent means as so many big schools do; all I am asking is that the administration of the college bring in people and coaches who are going to make an honest attempt to win some games."
Numerous men’s sports teams were coached by local men working part-time for love of the game. They received what amounted to token compensation for their seasonal service. The exceptions were football, track, tennis, and soccer, coached by full-time staff or faculty. Disgruntled though he may have been, the student expressing criticism touched on a priority issue that persisted at Ursinus for many years. The highly touted and successful women’s sports teams benefited from the unique strength of a tradition grounded in the teaching of Eleanor Frost Snell. Adele Boyd, '53, carried on her work as a full-time staff member. The "old-girl" network of former athletes in the area produced outstanding coaches on a part-time basis little different from that of the men part-timers. However, the winning tradition in women’s sports came with them.
7 May 1973 At a special convocation organized by President Pettit, The MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM and staff received honors for their heroic rescue work. On 13 January 1973, they rescued a number of victims of a disastrous explosion and fire that destroyed Motel 22 Restaurant near Mapleton in Huntingdon County, PA. The team was returning after playing a game at Juniata College. Each person received a copy of a board resolution of commendation and an Ursinus College centennial medal. Among many commendations was one from President Richard M. Nixon. Novelist JOHN E. WIDEMAN, then director of Afro-American studies at the University of Pennsylvania, delivered a formal address during the program. Wideman had captained Penn's basketball team as an undergraduate.
12 May 1973 The MEN’S TRACK SQUAD completed its twelfth consecutive winning season with a 9-1 record. Coach RAYMOND GURZYNSKI, '39, one of the coaches working full-time on the faculty, had an .857 winning percentage over a twelve-year period, according to the Weekly (17 May 73.) In that period they lost at Patterson Field only twice. ROBERT LEMOI, '73, was most valuable player, having amassed points in pole vault, hurdles, and high jump. Another key member was ROBERT SING, '75, who in the following year would win a national championship in javelin.
15 February 1974 The WOMEN’S GYMNASTIC TEAM took second place in the first intercollegiate gymnastics meet in Ursinus history. Ursinus placed second in a three-way competition with Temple and Franklin & Marshall. Ursinus women’s gymnastics would evolve into one of the few competitive programs in that sport in Division III of the NCAA.
9 May 1974 Five Ursinus women became members of the US LACROSSE ALL-COLLEGE TEAM. They were Ethel Barnhill, '75; Claudia Bloom, '74; Anita Deasey, '75; Janet Luce, '74; Karla Poley, '76. Nine other women from Ursinus were named to the second, third, and fourth teams.
15 June 1974 (approximate) ROBERT F. SING, '75, won the national NCAA Division III javelin championship. Coach of track and field RAYMOND GURZYNSKI, '39, accompanied Sing to the site of the competition, Eastern Illinois University. Sing won the title with his best-ever toss of 234'11". After graduating, Sing earned his D.O. degree and practiced emergency and sports medicine, thus combining his athletic and professional interests.
25 October 1974 The WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY TEAM defeated West Chester State College in the "mythical" national championship game. It was Ursinus’s first victory against West Chester under Coach ADELE BOYD, '53, in three tries. The teams played to a tie in 1972 and West Chester won in 1973. In the 1970-1976 period, the field hockey team had the following win-loss record: 9 wins and 0 losses in 1970; 6 wins and 0 losses in 1971; 6 wins, 0 losses, and 1 tie in 1972; 9 wins and 1 loss in 1973; 6 wins and 0 losses in 1974; 11 wins, 3 losses, and 3 ties in 1975; and 18 wins, 2 losses, and 1 tie in 1976 (when the team took part in regional and national tournaments).
26 October 1974 Fifty-seven alumni athletes entered the newly established URSINUS HALL OF FAME FOR ATHLETES at a combined Homecoming-Founders' Day event. This first cohort to enter the Hall of Fame included athletes from the founding in 1869 to 1965. To identify worthy inductees, in addition to the historical record, the committee relied on the memories of chancellor Helfferich and his contemporaries, such as LILLIAN ISENSBERG BAHNEY, '23. Bahney's prowess in hockey and basketball in the early days of those women's sports qualified her for membership. The keynote speaker for this inaugural ceremony was noted network television sportscaster HEYWOOD HALE BROUN.
In subsequent years, new members of the Hall of Fame gained eligibility only after a decade since their graduation elapsed. To commemorate the names of Hall of Fame members permanently the college installed a handsome wall plaque in the ANNA KNAUER HELFFERICH lounge of Helfferich Hall.
16 May 1975 Men’s TRACK AND CROSS COUNTRY TEAMS added another year to their long string of winning seasons. The track team completed its 14th consecutive winning season, posting a 7-3 mark. During that time the Bears won 111 and lost 21 for an average of 84 percent. The cross country team posted a 9-4 record. Coach RAY GURZYNSKI, '39, had winning seasons every year since he reestablished cross country as an Ursinus sport in 1966. His teams had 99 wins and 16 losses, an 86 percent average.
31 August 1975 EVERETT M. (ACE) BAILEY retired from the position of DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS and Chair of HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION. Bailey came to the college in 1934. He was a graduate of Springfield College and Columbia University. Bailey, like the president, his contemporary on the faculty, and others of his generation had an affinity for the frugal, hard-work ethic that he found in Collegeville in the Depression years. He made up for slim budgets with a warm and giving personality, colored by a Yankee sense of humor. He could "jolly" a team into creditable performance in spite of its tattered equipment. His office in a second-floor corner of the old Thompson-Gay Gymnasium was a model of Spartan simplicity. For many years, he had the only telephone extension in the Athletics Department. When a call came in for a colleague in an office downstairs, he would pull on a thin cord. It snaked down through the building and jangled a little bell, the signal for ELEANOR FROST SNELL or someone else to pick up a remote receiver. In his last three years of service, Bailey enjoyed his new administrative home in the newly opened Helfferich Hall. Some of the luxuries of that facility were beyond his wildest expectations of former years. The spirit of the man was captured, perhaps, in "Baileyball," a game he invented with elements of basketball, tennis, and lacrosse; students and staff played it for sheer fun. Always an exemplar of physical fitness, Bailey remained after retirement a formidable competitor on the racquet ball court, winning over competitors much his junior in years. Articulate and literate, Bailey enjoyed a reputation in the Middle Atlantic Conference and the Philadelphia area as a sports raconteur and after-dinner speaker. After his death in 1992, the college memorialized his lifetime of service by dedicating the basketball courts in Helfferich Hall as "Bailey Courts."
The preparation of teachers of health and physical education was a sizeable portion of the Ursinus academic program throughout Bailey's long tenure. He conceived of the athletic program as a "laboratory" for the future teachers, although he welcomed the many student athletes to varsity squads from other academic majors. Sometimes the distinction between sports and academic work became slightly blurred. This was especially so in the women's program under Eleanor Snell. The individualized attention that students received at the hands of Bailey and his colleagues were thought to make up for whatever shortcomings there may have been in the curriculum or in the bare-bones facilities.
ROBERT R. DAVIDSON replaced Bailey in both the athletic and academic positions. He held both positions until 1996, when he relinquished the position of director of athletics to WILLIAM E. AKIN. He then devoted all of his time to the academic program, by then called Exercise and Sport Science.
1 November 1975 The women’s VOLLEYBALL TEAM won the Philadelphia Area College Division "A" championship. Ursinus won the title in a final match against Temple University on the loser’s court. Even in the moment of sweet victory, campus attitudes came in for criticism in the review of the success. Reporter MARGARET HORIOKA, ‘77, said the volleyball team took a back seat to field hockey, "about 200 rows back, actually." Nevertheless, she said of the players, "Their dedication and skill more than make up for poor communication with the Athletic Department, lack of proper uniforms, limited budget, and general disinterest in the team."
15 November 1975 The FOOTBALL TEAM finished a 1-6-1 season, provoking calls for changes in coaching. Criticism of men’s coaches ran as a minor refrain through the general chorus of discontent about student life. Coach RICHARD J. WHATLEY came in for the criticism although, unlike most others, he was a full-time not a part-time staff member. He was completing his 16th year at the helm. Doubtless, his role as dean of men conflated with that of coach in the minds of some students to make him an especially easy target for student complaint. (Weekly, 20 Nov 1975) The record in the 1970-1976 period shows that Whatley had a 6-3 winning season in 1972 and a 4-4 split in 1971. The other seasons showed more losses than wins.
1 February 1976 (approximate) RICHARD J. WHATLEY resigned as head football coach after 16 years in the position. Whatley came to Ursinus in 1959. After a year as assistant coach, he took over the top job. He led the Bears to a Middle Atlantic Conference Southern Division co-championship in the college's centennial year, 1969. Whatley ran the football program on a tight budget. He was true to the philosophy of amateurism that valued winning less than the uplifting experience of playing the game. Yet, he instilled a competitive spirit in the players through his own example of fitness and hard work. The college community in the Whatley years did not expect him to field a powerhouse, and he held football in what most felt was its proper relationship to the serious academic purpose of Ursinus. Leading up to the centennial year, President Helfferich probably encouraged Whatley and the admissions office to seek out and recruit more than the customary number of good athletes. It brought the desired result in the winning of the conference championship. For the rest of his football coaching career, Whatley worked with the talent that came his way and turned in a respectable record.
Whatley was one of a kind. He did double duty through the Helfferich and Pettit years as dean of men and football coach. A rock-hard sense of integrity combined with the individualism of a Maine native to make it possible for him to balance those roles. As dean, he was a willing soldier in the battle to keep Ursinus on the conservative side of the moving social curve among young people. Still, he followed the president's orders in his own fashion. He was notorious for squirreling his records away from all other administrators. His unorthodox style enabled him to move successfully through the tense years of the late 1960s and into the 1970s. He did not create revolution in the dorms with rigid enforcement of rules; nor did he fulfill the expectations for a campus full of rule-abiding good guys. He applied rules flexibly, sometimes practiced a double standard, always kept up a self-deprecating, macabre humor that saved his balance in even the most bizarre cases of student misadventure.
In physical education classes, Whatley became legendary for nonsensical directions and malapropisms or "Whatleyisms." (For example, to a gym class he would shout, "Count off by fives and each number go to a corner of the gym.") Students never quite decided whether his screamers were unwitting or intentional. Colleagues who knew his wily ways usually glimpsed method in his madness.
He remained an essential part of the student life staff when it underwent a major reorganization in the next administration. He also continued to carry important coaching duties in track and field. He and his wife, Ann, also a Maine native, returned to their native grounds when he took an early retirement in 1993.
25 February 1976 Warren Fry, long-time coach of the MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM, closed out his career with a 10-10 season. Fry began coaching men's basketball at Ursinus in 1960. During the 1970-1976 period, his teams had the following records: 9 wins and 9 losses in 1970; 5 wins and 15 losses in 1971; 12 wins and 8 losses in 1972; 7 wins and 11 losses in 1973; 13 wins and 6 losses in 1974; 4 wins and 14 losses in 1975.
1 March 1976 The WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM finished with a winning season under coach Sue Day Stahl, '66. The final record was 5 wins and 4 losses. Stahl started in 1975. She succeeded Gale Fellenser, '67, who took over when Eleanor Snell retired. Team record: 7 wins and 1 loss in 1970; 2 wins and 1 loss in 1971; 5 wins and 5 losses in 1972; 8 wins and 5 losses in 1973; 2 wins and 10 losses in 1974; 6 wins and 8 losses in 1975.
10 March 1976 (approximate) LAWRENCE D. KARAS became head football coach in place of Richard J. Whatley. Karas came to Ursinus from Swarthmore College in 1975 to teach health and physical education, coach tennis, and act as Richard Whatley's assistant in football. He had been a standout quarterback in his playing years at Ithaca College in New York. In the first season after the long Whatley era, the Bears did not win a game.
15 May 1976 The men's BASEBALL TEAM picked its most valuable player after a losing season. Captain and pitcher RICHARD GAGLIO, '76, was the MVP for the second season. He was first chosen in 1974. Other MVPs during the period: HARVEY POND in 1970; EDWARD DOWNEY, '73, in 1971; STEVEN LONG, '73, in 1972; Long again with KEVIN O'CONNOR, '75, in 1973; EDWARD TERRILL, '76, in 1975.
The record book was lost but a reconstruction points to a season with 8 wins and 12 losses in 1976. The record for the period: 4 wins and 9 losses in 1971; 3 wins and 9 losses in 1972; 6 wins and 7 losses in 1973; 3 wins and 12 losses in 1974; 3 wins and 10 losses in 1975. Gene Harris, '55, coached the team through most of the 1970-1976 period. Carson Thompson succeeded him.
16 May 1976 The men's TENNIS TEAM showed signs of revitalization as it finished the season under a new coach. Larry Karas took the coaching reins in 1976 after the long coaching career of biology professor Robert Howard ended. The team won 5 and lost 10. The record for the 1970-1976 period: 6 wins, 6 losses, and 1 tie in 1971; 2 wins and 5 losses in 1972; 1 win and 10 losses in 1973; 3 wins and 7 losses in 1974; 3 wins and 9 losses in 1975.
20 May 1976 The WOMEN'S LACROSSE TEAM finished the season with another winning record. The lacrosse stalwarts racked up an 8-2 season, perpetuating a winning streak for the entire 1970-1976 period. The record shows the following: 8-0 in 1970; 8-0-1 in 1971; 7-2 in 1972; 6-2-1 in 1973; 7-2 in 1974.
BACK TO TOP, "FOSTERING SOCIALIZATION"
BACK TO CONTENTS PAGE, PART ONE, A CHRONICLE OF SELECTED EVENTS