Vassar Chronicle

Volume VI!
Number 19
Puughkeepsie, N. Y., Saturday, March 25, 1950
College
Elects
Fanning, Lynch
For C.G.A. Posts
Biddle, Bloedel, J ohnson,
Rockefeller
Fill Positions
Thursday night marked the culmin-
ation of the
year's
most
important
stu-
dent extracurricular event. Prefaced
by a skit
presented by the members of
C.G.A. Council, the announcement of
next
year's C.G.A. officers was made
in Avery.
The "family group portrait"
represented
at the unveiling could well
be indicative of the closely-knit or-
ganization that may be expected in
C.G.A. next year.
C.G.A. President
The new President of C.G.A., J ean
Fanring, comes from Stewart Manor,
Long Island. At Garden City High
School she was one of the few girls
ever to be elected president
of the Stu-
dent Council. Ever since her arrival
here, J ean has been a leader of the
class of '51; she was its first presi-
dent, and in her sophomore year she
was Secretary of C.G.A. and Chair-
man of the C.G.A. Charter Commit-
tee. This year she has been Chairman
of the Student Advisory System. In
the light of her varied experience
with C.G.A., J ean
has as her aima
feeling of more participation on the
part of every student.
Chief J ustice
The new Chief J ustice is Lucy
Lynch '51. an English major who
hails from New York City. She pre-
pared at St. Timothy's in Catonsville,
Maryland. Lucy was on the Dean's
List her first year. She has been class
representative on the Student Court
and
secretary of the class. Prominent
among her extra-curricular positions
were those of Strong House C.G.A.
representative and Chairman of the
Budget
Committee. Lucy
has also done
a lot of work
at Lincoln Center, and
is on the Board of the Center. Lucy
approves of our
system
of individual
student responsibility during exams
and in all matters
pertaining
to
integ-
rity and honor.
Associate J ustice
Associate J ustice Sheila Biddle
comes from Milton, Massachusetts.
At Milton Academy she was editor
of the school publication. She was the
first president of the class of '52 and
this
year has served as secretary of
C.G.A. She also participated
in II
Hall in her freshman year.
Chairman of Student Advisory
System
Chairman of the Student Advisory
System and a well-known sophomore
is Canadian Lee Bloedel. She attended
Chatham Hall in Chatham, Virginia.
You must have seen her dance her
way through Soph Party. Lee was al-
so active in II and 111 Halls last
year, and was an usher at the J unior
Prom. Last term she was president
of
her class.
Chairman of the
Cooperative System
Chairman of the Cooperative Sys-
tem. Ginger J ohnson '52, a resident
of South Bend, Indiana, and a gradu-
ate of the Madiera School in Vir-
ginia,
has been active in
Soph Party,
and has been a corridor representa-
tive for Strong House. Ginger was on
the Dean's List freshman year. She
hopes particularly
to
improve
the Co-
operative System in Main, and reduce
the time spent on certain jobs.
The new Secretary of C.G.A. is
Lucy Rockefeller, a native of Green-
wich, Connecticut, and a graduate of
Greenwich
Academy.
She was presi-
dent of her class A term this
year
and has been
very active in class ac-
tivities.
The Chronicle congratulates the
new officers and wishes themthe best
of luck and a most successful
year
at
the helm of Vassar College Govern-
ment. There will be many challenges
next
year
in such new entities as the
Cooperative House, the Weekend Ac-
tivities Association, and the presence
of D.P. students on campus, but we
feel confidence in our officers, and in
their
ability to fulfill the duties laid
upon them.
J ean Fanning,
President of C.G.A.
Freshmen Give Final
Showing
Of'I Remember Mama'
Tonight
by Keren Ellington
'51
Tonight
marks the closing perform-
ance of the all too short run of J ohn
van Druten's delightful comedy, / Re-
member Mama.
By now everyone
must know that / Remember Mama
is set in San Francisco in 1910
that nostalgic
time when
grown-up
ladies' dresses swept the sidewalks,
young ladies rarely finished High
School, and every lady
knew and
obeyed religiously the traditions of the
time.
Mama, however, is irrepressible,
and frequently comes to
grips with the
most inviolate of the traditions, and
of course, comes off triumphant.
Kat-
rin, the
aspiring young
author of the
Hanson family never will forget the
time when Mama rode in the auto-
mobile with Uncle Chris' housekeeper,
although the lady's reputation was
mch that the Aunts tersely referred
to her as "that woman." Neither will
we.
And as with every
fine comedy, /
Remember Mama has its moments of
tragedy
when
only the indomitable
Mama can bring the
family through
smiling. One of the most charming
aspects
of the play however, is that
her solutions are never contrived, but
arise naturally
from her sympathetic
and common "sensical" character. For
example,
when the authorities faced
Mama with the stringent and anti-
septic rules in the
city hospital, a se-
quence
ensues which reveals Mama at
her most ingenious and amusing
best.
It is true, however, that in most
cases, no matter how fine the play,
it never achieves its
greatest height
without the aid and abettance of the
technical crews. The
backstage people
for / Remember Mama have created
sets and costumes and arranged light-
ing and
make-up to support the actors
with maximumeffectiveness. And this
is quite an accomplishment in a play
which requires the difficult combina-
tion of realistic sets and
stylized light-
ing.
Susie Neuberger, who has directed
the show, has announced that both last
night's and tonight's performances are
planned
for the benefit of the Dis-
placed Persons who will be at Vassar
next
year. There will be a place to
contribute set
up
in the
lobby
of Stu-
dents'.
Freshmen in "I Remember Mama"
Dr. Muir Will Conduct
Vassar
Chapel
Service
Dr. C. Marshall Muir will conduct
the sen-ice in the Vassar College Cha-
pel on Sunday. March 26 at 11 o'clock.
At present
minister of the First Pres-
byterian
Church of East Orange, New
J ersey,
Dr. Muir is president
of the
Essex County Council of Churches,
moderator, of the Presbytery
of Mor-
ris and Orange, and a director of the
Bloomficld College and Seminary.
Dr. Muir has been pastor
of the
Bellefield Presbyterian
Church in
Pittsburgh and has served as Protes-
tant Chaplain of the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center. For eight
years he was chairman of the Pitts-
burgh Round Table of the National
Conference of Christians and J ews.
Dr. Muir received his A.B. degree
from Washington and J efferson
Col-
lege,
the S.T.B. from Western Theo-
logical Seminary
and the D.D. degree
from the University of Pittsburgh.
Panofsky
Presents
IllustratedLecture;
Subject
Is "Durer"
by Mary Louise Harvey
On Thursday evening
at 8:30 in
Taylor, Dr. Erwin Panofsky of the
Institute for Advanced Study
at
Princeton spoke on "Durer and
Classical Antiquity." The lecture
was illustrated with slides. Dr. Pa-
nofsky began his talk by laying
that
some feel a continuity in history
no real change in human attitudes.
Therefore many believe that the
Renaissance never existed at all.
According
to Dr.
Panofsky,
the Re-
naissance did exist, and Albrecht
Durer, born in 1471 in Nuremburg,
lived through
the shift from the
Medieval attitude to that of the
Renaissance.
The Middle
Ages
The Middle Ages inthe North ap-
proached classical antiquity from
two angles. One was the representa-
tion of classical figures, such as Ve-
nus or Apollo,
in Christian allegor-
ies, as exemplified by the famous
Reims Visitation, where a figure
treated in the classical style rep-
resents the
Virgin. The other angle
was the treatment of such subjects
as Pyramus and Thisbe in contem-
porary costume and
illustrating con-
emporary
moral
problems.
T're
Middle Ages, said Dr. Panofsky,
were afraid of the integration
of
classical form and
subject matter,
of
representing
Venus as Venus, for
example.
The Italian Renaissance
began
this
integration* the 14th
century
Petrarch being
its initiator. Durer
began his integration
in the North.
He became interested in 15th cen-
tury interpretation
of classical an-
tiquity in his first Italian journey,
:rom 1490 to 1495, mainly through
drawings
of such artists as Man-
tegna.
Members Of
Faculty,
CGA President Discuss Attendance
System, StressingRole Of
Individual Student
Responsibility
by J oan Wharton
President of CGA
Wharton On Attendance
B term was supposed
to usher in a
new policy about going
to classes. The
Attendance System, agreed upon by
the Senate and the
Faculty, was to
be explained to all students to clear
up
confusions and misconceptions that
had existed in respect
to this system,
but because we feel that there are
still students who are not altogether
certain about the policy as it now
stands, a further discussion seemed a
good idea.
Vassar has an Attendance System,
as opposed
to a "free cut" or "limited
cut" system. The emphasis
is there-
fore on the
positive
aspect of attend-
ing classes.
There is now no set num-
ber of times a student may
be absent
from a class. It is up
to her to at-
tend as frequently as possible, and the
penalty is on her own head if her
work falls below par
from too many
absences. In other words, the quality
of the work alone determines the
mark.
No Set Penalty
There is now no penalty
for cut-
ting an arbitrary number of times,
because it was agreed by everyone
that this policy
is unfair to faculty
and students alike. It would be say-
ing that all students are alike and that
it is as bad for one to be absent three
times as another. This is obviously
not the case. One student
may
be able
to cut the class six times without af-
fecting
her work, while another stu-
dent should not cut it at all. But the
responsibility for absence lies on the
student. She must make her decision
and be ready
to
accept
the conse-
quences if her work suffers by
her ab-
sence.
It is well to remember that "work"
covers active class participation and
discussion as well as passive attend-
ance at lectures and doing the home-
work. In other words if a course is
described as a "discussion class," and
a student is absent several times dur-
ing the term, she has not done part
of
the class work because she has simply
not been there to discuss.
No teacher is supposed
to state an
arbitrary number of cuts in direct
conflict with the stated policy,
but
each teacher is urged
to discuss his
own interpretation of the policy with
his class at the beginning
of each term
so that the system is fully
understood
and agreed upon by all.
Miss Russell Gives Viewpoint
It would be pleasant
to believe that
a statement cm attendance at classes
could be devised that would accur-
ately describe practice
and at the
same time satisfy everyone. In a
community as strongly
individuatis-
tic as ours tilts seems unlikely. The
possibilities
for
private interpreta-
tion ate inherent in the nature of
language itself and hence will al-
ways be
presenr
in any statement.
However, faculty and students are
essentially in agreement, I think, on
certain basic attitudes toward cut-
ting. The setting up
of a mechanic-
ally operated
"cut
system" is ab-
horrent to both. Surely the freedom
to
plan
her life withina time scheme
over which she has some conrol is
one of the student's most valuable
aids on the road to
maturity.
For
this she needs training that the col-
lege
environment should offer in
various ways; by direct discussion
with the
faculty and with more ex-
perienced students, by the pressure
of the expressed and even the im-
plid attitudes of her
contemporar-
ies. She should come to realize that
each of her classes represents a un-
ique situation in which she is di-
rectly involved, both as recipient and
contributor, learning
to meet diff-
erent kinds of demands with a wid-
ening use of different techniques.
This is part of the educative pro-
cess. Perhaps Hie shrewd estimation
of the characters of her individual
teichtts, inevitably a part of a more
or less free system, is also of edu-
i rtional value.
(Continued on page 4, col. 1)
(Continued on page 4, col. 4)
POSTS AND USHERS FOR
THE SENIOR PROM
Head Post:
Catherine Hull
Posts: Georgia Elmes
Eunice Holt

Molly Rand
Betsey Wcntworth
Ushers:
Sally Applcton
r>;irbara Decker
Phoebe Ellsworth
Katriuka Kip
Susan McWilliams
Helen Tasche