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March 7, 2001: Letters PAW welcomes letters. We may edit them for length, accuracy, clarity, and civility. Our address: Princeton Alumni Weekly, 194 Nassau St., Suite 38, Princeton, NJ 08542 (paw@princeton.edu). I read the letter about
the Organization of Women Leaders (January 24) with some concern.
Not to be confused with an old, anti-coeducation alum, I have been
one of coeducation’s strongest supporters. Active in ASC work
for the last 24 years, I have had the privilege to interview outstanding
female applicants, and work with some great alumnae on ASC committees
and local alumni clubs. For female students to involve themselves
in exclusively women’s organizations seems to undercut the
very goal of coeducation. If Adlai Stevenson ’22,
George Shultz ’42, and Bill Bradley ’65 had, through a
quirk in history, all graduated from Princeton in the last few years,
I doubt that their memorials in PAW down the road would attribute
their success in life to having belonged to a Princeton Organization
of Men Leaders. Why is it that when “minorities” fight
successfully for years for acceptance into formerly exclusive associations,
the first thing they seem to do is to set up their own “exclusive
society” within that Adrian V. Woodhouse ’59
While we applaud the
founders of the Organization for Women Leaders for their initiative
and efforts to inform the Princeton community of their activities,
we would like to clarify the statement in their letter that OWL
is the first student-run organization for women at Princeton. In
fact, the Women’s Center was founded in 1971 by a group of
determined women students. Although it hired its first director
in 1978 and currently has staff and funding from the university,
it is still an organization that runs on student initiative. Colleen Shanahan ’98 Linda Mason ’79 Emily, get a grip. The
idea that there is no middle ground, that you “sell out”
or “save the world,” just isn’t true (On the Campus,
January 24). It is true that you can’t wear sneakers and knee-high
boots at the same time (unless you wear one on each foot), but lots
of careers allow for a more diverse approach to clothing —
and life — than what you’ve described. For instance, I’ve
been saving the world as a high school teacher for 21 years. Today
I’m doing it in blue jeans. Tomorrow, if I felt like it, I
could wear my Ann Taylor suit. Besides, if your wardrobe
is that important to you, maybe you should consider a career in
the fashion industry. Ellen Eifrig Rennard
’76 I am writing to thank
Richard S. Snedeker ’51 for his letter exposing the disinformation
campaign directed against the proposed Millstone Bypass in the local
media (January 24). I retired and moved to Princeton last fall mainly
for the purpose of auditing courses at the university. To this end,
I moved within a block of the campus so I would be able to walk
everywhere and not contribute one more vehicle to the town’s
horrendous traffic problem. As a full-time pedestrian I have been
struck (not literally as yet) by the volume of traffic on Washington
Road. The increase since my student days 40 years ago is very noticeable.
What is desperately needed — after the Millstone Bypass is
built — is for Washington Road to be sunk about 20 feet into
the ground as it passes by the Center for Jewish Life, returning
to the surface again somewhere near William Street. Wide pedestrian
walkways bridging it would then make crossing safer and more expeditious.
C. Thomas Corwin ’62
As I see the buildings
springing up like mushrooms on campus, and with the expansion of
the student body, I worry about casual access to open fields. I
have fond memories of flinging Frisbees around on Poe Field, which
is shrinking pretty fast. Rick Mott ’73 Since PAW is no longer
a weekly, isn’t it time we changed its name? How about: “The
Tigers’ PAW”? The name would still allow us to refer to
the magazine as PAW, and with the apostrophe put after the “s”,
the title suggests that the magazine reflects the opinions and interests
of all of us Tigers. Susan H. Hollingsworth
’80 I was appalled that you
would print a letter from someone trashing James Jim Baker is one of Princeton’s
most outstanding alumni, a man who has served in the highest offices
of our government with distinction. When the scheming, unprincipled
Democrat lawyers tried to cheat the voters of Florida, it was Jim
Baker who stood high because of his character, integrity, and decency. Franklin Schaffer ’45 The marvelous new Frist
Campus Center brings to mind scenes of what postwar alumni certainly
regarded as the first campus center. It was in Murray-Dodge Hall
before it moved to exalted Chancellor Green. While the incomparable
history department and others such as Hubert Alyea in chemistry,
Walter Terrence Stace in philosophy, and John Martin, already a
star as a preceptor in art and architecture, were much more important
to our minds, the Campus Center was a fixture that many will always
remember. We occupied a modest
two rooms on the ground floor of Murray-Dodge’s stone building
and catered to all who came. President Robert Goheen ’40 *43
used to spend many afternoons there in his beer jacket in serious
discussion while consuming student-made coffee. Frist’s professional
director, Paul Breitman, will shudder at our primitive ways. Making
coffee was not the art that it is today. Although I was at first
intimidated by those shiny big urns, it was just a matter of throwing
in the right amounts of coffee and water; and people paid a nickel
for it. There was not long afterward a coffee crisis, and the price
went up, to either six cents or a dime, I do not remember. Coffee
was a facilitator, however. It was the opportunity to pause and
talk after classes or during sessions in the library or to have
a snack before facing the books late at night. We also sold sandwiches.
I was particularly taken by the recipe for tuna fish, which involved
simply opening the can and mixing in enough mayonnaise until it
tasted just right. No doubt that recipe varied from time to time.
We used a lot of mayonnaise. We also had a big red
Coke machine, which charged a nickel for a Coke. The Campus Center
cleared a lot of nickels, and they had to be transported to the
bank. Today perhaps the Office of Public Safety escorts the revenues
to the bank. Back in our time all revenues were cash, and one filled
up a paper bag with nickels, dimes, quarters, even pennies, all
carefully rolled in wrappers, and walked as nonchalantly to Nassau
Street as one could with this very heavy bag balanced on the arm. In our mid-20th century
era, the Campus Center did provide common ground for many of us.
It was a place for students to talk. One of our two nonstudent employees
was Millicent Bagget, who came to wash dishes and tableware. The
student staff looked forward to her cheerful arrival each day. Handling the revenues
involved keeping the books. John B. Langer ’50, the manager
in his senior year, taught me basically all the bookkeeping I know.
We passed on this scholarship to the next generation, completely
unbeknownst to the economics department. I wish our successors
of today well. Edward A. Woolley ’51
I can’t identify
any of the five undergraduates walking so confidently along, but
two of them appear to be seniors as they are wearing beer jackets.
A careful inspection of the logos on the jackets with a magnifying
glass reveals they are of the Class of 1931, not of the ’20s. Enclosed is a copy of
1931’s beer jacket logo replete with its symbols along with
their interpretation: 1931 are obviously the class numerals; the
patched football reflects a losing season senior year, Princeton’s
first in 61 years; the H banner refers to a 1931 indoor polo game
between Harvard and Princeton, which started the thaw in Princeton-Harvard
relations, which had broken completely in 1926; the toppled statue
symbolizes The Princeton Student, a 71/2-foot bronze statue of a
student-athlete, dubbed The Christian Student, which was pulled
off its base and dragged around the campus when a bonfire rally
on Cannon Green turned into a riot, and 43 members of the Class
of 1931 were suspended; the liquor bottle signifies 1931 as allegedly
the heaviest drinking class in Princeton history; the dangling infant
recognizes 1931 as both the youngest class to matriculate at Princeton
and the class that had the most of its members suspended in Princeton
history; and the Phi Beta Kappa key is for the smartest class to
have matriculated at P.U. Hugh de N. Wynne ’39 |
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