Navy and black letterpress on matte paper. Stapled. Catalog for the 1940-1941 school years. First image is of front of catalog. A white circular logo on a deep blue background, text around logo reads "BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE BLACK MOUNTAIN N.C."
Black Mountain College
1940-1941
CALENDAR 2
ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 3
LOCATION 4
LIFE 4
STUDY AND CURRICULUM 6
JUNIOR DIVISION 8
SENIOR DIVISION AND GRADUATION 9
WORK AND RECREATION 10
APPRENTICE TEACHERS 12
COURSES 12
ART AND ARCHITECTURE 12
MUSIC 14
DRAMATICS 16
WRITING 16
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE 17
FOREIGN LANGUAGES 19
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT 20
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY 21
PSYCHOLOGY 22
BIOLOGY 23
PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY 23
MATHEMATICS 24
PHILOSOPHY 25
LIBRARY 25
LABORATORIES 26
OTHER EQUIPMENT 26
HEALTH 27
ADMISSION TO THE STUDENT BODY 27
FEES 29
PAYMENT OF FEES 31
INFORMATION FOR NEW STUDENTS 32
BULLETINS 32
OFFICERS 32
FACULTY 33
STUDENTS 38
CALENDAR
1940-1941 Fall Semester begins September 9
Fall Semester ends December 14
Winter Vacation begins December 15
Winter Vacation ends January 19
Spring Semester begins January 20
Spring Vacation begins March 23
Spring Vacation ends March 30
Spring Semester ends May 31
1941-1942 Fall Semester begins September 8
Fall Semester ends December 20
Winter Vacation begins December 21
Winter Vacation ends January 18
Spring Semester begins January 19
Spring Vacation begins March 22
Spring Vacation ends April 5
Spring Semester ends May 30
The College has no summer session.
ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION
Black Mountain College was founded in the fall of 1933 by a group of teachers and students interested in the ideas of a coeducational college, unhampered by outside control, where free use might be made of tested and proved methods of education, where new methods might be tried out, and where there should be candid recognition of the importance of participation in responsibility by students as well as Faculty.
When the College was incorporated its charter was so drawn as to place control of all its affairs ultimately with the Faculty. Matters of educational policy and discipline are dealt with directly by them. Appointments and financial affairs are handled by the Board of Fellows, members of which are elected for three-year terms by the Faculty from their own membership. A Rector, elected by the Faculty from among the Fellows for a one-year term, presides over the Board, which elects a Secretary and a Treasurer. It is felt that no division should exist between educational and administrative functions insofar as the guidance and responsibility for them are concerned, for the College is an organic social unit.
The student government of more than nominal or honorary importance is administered by four student officers elected by the students. The by-laws of the Corporation provide for the automatic nomination of the chief student officer for election to the Board of Fellows by the Faculty. Student participation in College affairs is, however, not limited to the legal representation of the Board. The student officers regularly attend the business meetings of the Faculty and meet from time to time with the Board. The students, moreover, are represented on every committee in which their opinion is of value, as for example the Admissions Committee or the Building Committee. By these means students share much responsibility and have a voice in making the decisions on matters in which they are involved. At intervals general meetings of the whole community are held, where there is free discussion of the activities and problems of the College.
Outside opinion and contrasting points of view on College affairs are provided by an Advisory Council composed of friends of the College competent to offer expert advice on special aspects of its work.
LOCATION
Black Mountain College is located in the mountains of North Carolina at an altitude of 2700 feet, near the town of Black Mountain which is about eighteen miles east of Asheville. It is on one of the main lines of the Southern Railway and is easily accessible by motor car and bus. The property, which the College leases, and which comprises over one thousand acres, is on the slope of the main Blue Ridge, facing the Black Mountain and Craggy ranges on the other side of the Swannanoa Valley. Most of the land is wooded, but there is a farm of about thirty acres and a considerable number of buildings well adapted to the College needs.
In 1937, the College purchased for a permanent location some seven hundred acres of land on the North Fork of the Swannanoa River, three miles across the valley from the present site and about the same distance from the town of Black Mountain. The property, which has fifteen buildings, a farm, lake, and tennis courts, was formerly used as a summer resort under the name of Lake Eden. Plans are being carried out to make the present buildings suitable for college purposes, and a large modern building is being constructed in order that the College may move to its permanent location in the near future.
LIFE
The physical setting, with its relative isolation, is well suited to the educational aims and methods of the College, as well as to community living, which is regarded as a part of those methods. A degree of isolation offers the advantage of permitting the development of thought and the accumulation of experience in an environment where fundamental issues are not obscured by the pressure of immediate, trivial, or merely exciting aspects of contemporary life. This does not mean that life in the community is cloistered or that the affairs and problems of the world today are ignored; but rather that under such conditions of working and living, essential questions and problems that are of enduring importance may be brought into the foreground more easily than is often the case in the modern educational world. Problems arising from lectures, class work, and conversation may become the center of discussions, fruitful because they stimulate general and active participation. The community keeps in touch with affairs outside the College through a fairly constant stream of visitors, many of whom speak informally on subjects in which they have a special competence. The long winter vacation enables students and faculty to visit metropolitan centers during the season when cultural activities are at their height, or to pursue studies, especially those for which time is lacking during the academic year.
The numbers of the teaching staff, and their families, and the students live in the same buildings. Although in general two students share a bedroom, every member of the community has an individual study in which his privacy is respected. Faculty rooms are scattered among student rooms.
As a result of this close contact with one another the relationship is not so much that of teacher to student as of one member of the community to another. Thus the student has informal access to the knowledge and help of every member of the Faculty, and the latter in turn has direct acquaintance with the student’s attitudes and interests. This ease of communication, in a natural and informal environment, meets one of the time-tested needs of education. The student not only receives impersonal knowledge, but is influenced by the attitudes, enthusiasms, and methods of work of his instructors. To a large degree this element of personal guidance and example renders the customary formal curriculum superfluous. Such an organic union of living and study, however, creates a kind of life for which not all students are suited, since it is more congenial for some people to follow a prescribed track than to find their own goal and their own way toward it.
The community life of the College contributes much toward what is regarded as an important aspect of education; namely, the development in the student of an attitude of intelligent responsibility toward the society in which he lives, together with an understanding of its problems based upon personal contact with them. The structure of American society seems to require that men and women should be education together, and that they should learn to associate with each other in most of the important activities of life on a basis of common humanity. Consequently it is believed that coeducation should be more than attendance of the same classes and participation in social trivialities at an entirely artificial level. By sharing intellectual work, manual work, recreation, and responsibility both to themselves and the group, young men and women may come to respect each other primarily as human beings, and thus establish a healthy and mature attitude toward one another.
It is believed that the development of intelligently responsible people can be brought about only by trusting students with responsibility. This the College attempts to do in all directions and to the fullest extent compatible with their ability to assume it. The placing of responsibility upon all members of the group carries with it implication of a minimum of rules. Students learn from experience the necessity of consideration for others, since they themselves are involved when that consideration is not shown; consequently co-operation comes from an enlightened self- and community-interest rather than from externally imposed rules. Such agreements as the students have are assumed voluntarily, and these are subject to re-examination at any time. The student thus learns to formulate and to examine the laws by which he lives, and to recognize the fact that democracy not only guarantees rights but also requires that obligations be assumed. When he has reached the intellectual and emotional maturity that enables him to see his actions in terms of their effect upon the community as well as upon himself, to consider the future as well as the present, and to recognize those areas in which he is competent to have an opinion and those in which he is not- in short, to think before he acts- one of the tasks of the College is done.
STUDY AND CURRICULUM
At Black Mountain College there is not the sharp cleavage that often exists between work and play, between curricular and extracurricular activities, since all these are regarded as contributing to a student’s education. The aim is to avoid the separation of intellectual development from emotional and social life. In the area of his formal studies, which naturally is the central element of a student’s life at the College, he is encouraged, in so far as he is capable, to learn how to work on his initiative and to regard the teacher as a guide to wisdom rather than a source of wisdom. Classes are small, and as a result there is active student participation. The more advanced students receive tutorial guidance from the instructors.
The student chooses some member of Faculty as his adviser, and because of the smallness of the community and the large area of interests held in common, the relation between adviser and student is distinctly a personal one. The adviser assumes the responsibility, together with the student, for seeking the best path for his maximum development. In addition, the Faculty as a whole periodically examines the progress of each student during the course of the year and makes recommendations.
The College has no required courses. Since the process of becoming educated is not only complex but varies greatly from individual to individual, depending upon a student’s background, native ability, present capacities for handling given material, and upon other considerations, rigid curricula are often more logical than they are effective. Hence more emphasis is placed upon organic development and upon the total accomplishment in various subjects. The student is free to elect, under the guidance of his adviser, those studies which he believes will be of greatest benefit to him, and he is urged to follow and enlarge his own interests, in the belief that interest is one of the surest guides to real self-development. This system of instruction provides the flexibility necessary to care for individual needs and implies that a student shall have a will to work; it implies that a student shall make an honest effort to know and to experience the thought and achievements of mankind in order to discover his own real interests.
In order to avoid confusion in the student’s mind between working for grades and becoming educated, no grades are given to students, although, for the sake of possible transfer of credit, records are kept.
In the field of his studies the student is offered the opportunity to integrate his learning so that he may understand, questions, and reinterpret that material and those fields of knowledge with which he comes into contact. He is not given facts merely to be accumulated, passively held, and forgotten; however in the special field of his choice he is expected to gain a substantial and systematic body of information. His study should lead him from a search for facts to an examination of the basic assumptions underlying them, and in this way to an understanding of the unity of mankind. Thus the student may discover for himself the essential problems of man, both in their objective relations and in direct regard for himself. It is the aim of the College to lead him to such an understanding of the world and his own position in it that he will order his experience within a broadened horizon and will find his way to true decisions.
Therefore productive activities, such as music, dramatics, the fine arts, and writing, are also regarded as an integral part of the life of the College and of importance equal to that of the courses that usually occupy the center of the curriculum. In fact, in the early part of the student’s career, they are considered of particular importance; because they are, when properly employed, least subject to discretion from without and yet have within them a severe discipline of their own. Since they are by nature subject only to qualitative evaluation, experience in them tends to correct the sort of quantitative standards which the student has only too frequently come to accept. Finally, the aesthetic awareness and the sensory and motor training produced by these studies are not provided in the same degree by work in the strictly academic subjects. Hence the student is urged to participate in at least one of the arts, even though he may not regard himself as having a particular talent.
All work at the College is regarded as general education rather than as training for specific professions or vocations. This does not mean, however, that a thorough background or high degree of proficiency cannot be obtained in any field.
At two points in the student’s career he must face comprehensive tests of failure or success in his program. The curriculum of the College is divided into two parts, the Junio Division and the Senior Division. Before moving from the former to the latter the student must pass one of these tests, and before graduating, the other.
JUNIOR DIVISION
The Junior Division, in which entering students are placed, is intended as a period of exploration in the varied fields of knowledge offered by the College curriculum. The student’s adviser helps him to decide what subjects to take, with a view to gaining some acquaintance with the problems, aims, methods, and accomplishments of the sciences, the social studies, literature, and the arts. There is no prescribed length of time for a student’s stay in the Junior Division beyond a required residence of one semester at the College; whenever he believes he has explored sufficiently in some or even all of these main fields to be able to make an intelligent choice of a particular subject for special study, he may apply for entrance to the Senior Division.
Admission to the Senior Division depends upon whether the student has explored widely enough in the fields of knowledge and has reached a state of intellectual, social, and aesthetic maturity which will enable him to make a sound judgement as to what shall be his special interest, and upon his accomplishment up to the time he applies for entrance, as demonstrable by: faculty testimony, specimens of work, records, and a comprehensive examination.
The examination is both written and oral. The written part consists of two papers, for each of which there is allowed a maximum time of nine hours. The first of these is made up of a small group of questions of a general nature, answers to all of which the candidate is expected to attempt. These are calculated to test his powers of observation and reflection, and his ability to express himself and to confront unexpected problems, more or less irrespective of his factual knowledge. It is the purpose of this examination to reveal the student’s maturity of thought and feeling by setting questions, the answers to which are not necessarily to be found in the ordinary courses of study; for it is believed that since the whole of a personality is being educated, more than the memory or the intellect alone should be tested. This examination is also a means for opening the eyes of the student to the multiplicity of problems involved in common phenomena.
The second paper consists of comprehensive examination including a choice of questions on all subjects in the College curriculum. Here also the emphasis is placed upon the candidate’s insight and his ability to organize his knowledge in such a way as to communicate cogently. He is encouraged to write upon questions in fields of knowledge with which he feels familiar, not necessarily attempting all fields; but it is expected that some variety of knowledge will be displayed. This examination is looked upon as a means by which the student himself, as well as the Faculty, may discover his degree of progress.
Finally, a plan of study for the Senior Division, outlined by the student in conference with his adviser and with faculty members whose fields it touches, must be approved by the Faculty.
SENIOR DIVISION AND GRADUATION
In the Senior Division, the student's work is of a more specialized character and is guided mainly by the plan he has himself drawn up, though he still has time free for courses not included in his plan. As in the Junior Division, his stay here depends upon his accomplishment and not upon any residence requirement. In general, however, the length of a student's college career approximates the usual four years.
Graduation is based on the student's accomplishment at the time he wishes to graduate, particularly upon the completion, to the satisfaction of the Faculty, of the work outlined in his plan of study for the Senior Division, as shown by a rigorous comprehensive examination given by examiners from outside the College.
The requirements for this final comprehensive examination vary somewhat according to the field of study, but in general they call for seven three-hour papers with oral examinations following. In most cases, two of these papers deal with the student's subject knowledge, and three papers deal with the student's subject in an extensive way, one paper with related fields of knowledge, and three papers with subdivisions of the student's subject which particularly interests him. The seventh paper is intended to concern itself with some special problem connected with the subject and may often be presented in thesis form. In the arts performances or exhibitions may take the place of some of these papers.
The quantity and quality of work required for graduation in a given field is equivalent to the required for the Bachelor of Arts degree at universities of long-established standing, and on objective measurement of this work is provided by the reports of the outside examiners. The College does not confer degrees; it graduates have, nevertheless, been admitted to graduate schools for advanced study.
Examinations for graduation in the last two years have been given by the following outside examiners: Robert Arnold Aubin, Tutor in English Literature, Radcliffe College; Douglas Bement, Assistant Professor of English, George Washington University; Marcel Breuer, Assistant Professor of Architecture, School of Design, Harvard University; C F Tucker Brooke, Sterling Professor of English, Yale University; Phillip Putnam Chase, Lecturer in American History and Chairman of the Board of History Tutors, Harvard University; John Frederick Dashiell, Kenan Professor of Psychology and Head of Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina; Louis C Hunter, Professor of American History, American University; Cecil Johnson, Assistant Professor of History, University of North Carolina; Frank Allen Patterson, Professor of English, Columbia University; Corydon Perry Pruill, Jr., Professor of Economics, University of North Carolina; Alfred Thurber West, Director of Dramatics, Duke University.
WORK AND RECREATION
All community work except that which requires special knowledge and continuous attention is divided among volunteers from the student body and the teaching staff. For example, members of the College wait upon themselves and each other at meals, and work in the library, the bookbindery, the print shop, or on the stage. Typical outdoor jobs include farm work, chopping wood, and landscaping.
A major project for the current year is the construction of a unit of the new College building, using materials which make simple construction possible and therefore suited to student and faculty labor under the direction of an architect, a construction engineer, and a work supervisor.* Students and faculty members volunteer for one to three afternoons of work a week. The various activities in the process of building-collecting stones, ditch digging, road building, mixing and pouring concrete, stone masonry and carpentry- provide experience in manual work. The construction of the building and the planning of its furniture and textiles are, of course, particularly valuable as specific laboratory problems for students in the Architecture and Art courses. Even more important, however, is the fact that students come to realize the differences between a practical job and intellectual study- in method, in material dealt with, and in total quality of experience. Manual labor develops readiness, resourcefulness, and judgement in practical matters; in addition it develops broader social understanding through inculcating a respect for good workmanship and for the worker. Participation in the building process also demonstrates the fact that individuals’ efforts combined in group activity can overcome major obstacles and change a plan into a reality, a visible achievement.
These out-of-door activities also tend to take the place or organized athletics. However, several tennis courts, an athletic field, and a well-equipped gymnasium, containing handball and basketball courts, provide opportunities for informal sports. A large out-of-door swimming pool and a small lake are suitable for swimming and other water sports. There are, in addition, many miles of trails on the mountainside for walking or horseback riding.
Since the College is a social unit, an appropriate place is given to entertainment and social activities. Two or three times a week there is a half hour of dancing after dinner, and almost every Saturday night a semi-formal dance. Frequent formal and informal concerts given by members of the College and by outsiders provide a broad musical background. Numerous art exhibitions from galleries and foundations come to the College, and the artists within the College exhibit their works from time to time. Several plays are presented during the year. These activities, in addition to their recreational aspects, give a common basis of aesthetic experience in the life of the community.
*The director of the work program holds a Research Fellowship from the General Education Board for the purpose of carrying our this experiment in student work.
APPRENTICE TEACHERS
Believing that the development of teachers should be one of its functions, the College has begun and proposes to continue the practice of admitting each year as apprentice teachers two or three students, either its own graduates or highly recommended graduates of other colleges. Such apprentice teachers are in no sense assistant instructors taking over part of the work of members of the Faculty, nor are they what is ordinarily designed as graduate students of education. Rather, they are students who, having already a sound foundation in some field, wish to learn the art of teaching - insofar as an art can be learned - by working with and studying the methods of successful teachers both in their own and in other fields, by attending the educational meetings of the Faculty, and by some practice teaching after they have become competent to do it. The College has had apprentice teachers in Art, Dramatics, and Music, and expects gradually to offer opportunities in other fields.
Applicants must apply for admission in the same manner as regular students, although additional information will be required. The same financial regulations will apply to apprentice teachers as to regular students.
COURSES
The following statements of ideas and practices in different fields and courses are not meant to be definitive or inclusive. The curriculum is flexible and generally able to meet reasonable new needs as they arise. The plan of work for each student is an individual problem. In each course the emphasis is essentially on process and the relationship between subjects is stressed.
Most of the courses listed are being given this year. Some are offered in alternative years; others are offered only on demand. Classes usually meet in small discussion groups without formal lecturing; but each teacher is free to conduct his courses in whatever way he sees fit.
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
The main purposes of all art studies is: to reach through practical experience, an understanding of the essential crafts and problems of art work; to learn different seeings and interpretations of our world and time; and most important, to get an insight into one's individual constitution. Because these ends are better attained through class work, art studies are conducted as classes. But for special art students there is, additionally, tutorial correction and criticism.
The classes in drawing seek primarily to achieve a disciplined training of the eye and hand. This is done by technical exercises; by elementary studies and three-dimensional representation; and for advanced students by free drawing from nature, preferably of plants, still life, figure, and portrait.
The elementary course in color consists of basic studies of the different qualities of color: color related to color, light, space, form, and quantity; of important color systems; and of the psychic effects of color. The advanced course is concerned with the practical use of color in painting- which is combination, composition or construction of both two- and three-dimensionality.
Werklehre – practical designing with unlimited choice of materials - is for students with experience in drawing. Its purpose is to develop an understanding of material and of space. It includes practice in combination of material- related to its appearance; and in construction with material- related to its capacity.
The studies in textiles combine practical and theoretical work in handweaving. They deal with the elements of form in weaving and with different weaving techniques. They serve to develop a feeling for material. Studies in free composition of texture, color, and the surface qualities of materials, on the other, are to enable the student to use textiles as a medium for art as well as to prepare him for industrial designing.
The textile department has a number of looms, including both simple and complicated types, for the weaving of yard goods and for rug and gobelin techniques.
A group for photo-study meets for instruction and discussion which provide technical and artistic guidance in this branch of art that develops a new kind of seeing and expression.
Frequent art exhibitions in the main hall and original works of art lent for hanging in private studies, help to develop a personal contact with art.
Contemporary architecture offers an analysis of aesthetic and practical requirements of planning. The house unit is related to the general organization of the community or neighborhood. In the advanced course individual projects are developed as plan, working drawings, and models. There is emphasis upon tactile acquaintance with materials and their application to building structure, finishes, and furniture.
A ALBERS*, J ALBERS*, A L Kocher
Introductory Drawing
Advanced Drawing
Introductory Color
Advanced Color
Werklehre
Weaving Theory
Weaving Practice
General Art Lectures
Group Art Conferences
Contemporary Architecture I
Contemporary Architecture II
(See Bulletin 2, “Concerning Art Instruction” by Josef Albers)
(See Bulletin 5, “Work with Material” by Anni Albers)
*On leave of absence fall semester 1940-1941.
*On leave of absence 1940-1941.
MUSIC
In the belief that the genuine appreciation of music includes listening to it in its own terms, that a keener recognition of the technique brings a closer understanding of the content and of the composer's intention, three successive courses have been worked out in music appreciation and history. History is represented in these courses, however, not as a mere collection of dates, names, anecdotes, and generalities, but as the organic growth of forms and styles. It is believed that historic understanding should seek to make students appreciate works not because they are old and wear costume of a certain period, but rather because we recognize how new these works were when they were created. Thus an attempt is made, through study and experience, to show how the music of various periods, on bases quite different from those with which we are familiar, had its own kind of perfection as a lively art. Through a study of this sort it is felt that a student may gain a more unprejudiced understanding of music in general and a greater discrimination.
In the further belief that a fuller and more genuine understanding of music grows from active participation in its performance, there are classes in ensemble singing and playing.
A sufficient number of potential musical performers are always at hand to rehearse works ranging from madrigals and string quartets to cantatas and concertos. While many performances have been given at concerts within the College, the laboratory nature of the rehearsals is paramount. The value of this sort of participation is to be found in the conscious adjustment of an individual part to the more important whole of a musical work, and in the necessity of bringing out each detail in relation to the lively, artistic unit, thus making exactness not a forced obligation and virtue in itself but the means of achieving the most significant and enjoyable representation. In this atmosphere of general musical vitality, the solo singer or pianist escapes the musical isolation that might otherwise be the price of his technical training, and in addition the beginnings of composition are immediately conditioned by considerations of practical reasonableness.
The resulting experience and confidence lends authority and breadth to the work done in the appreciation courses; so that what persists as the ultimate goal of these activities is an intelligently critical acquaintance with musical literature, alike from the perspectives of historical knowledge and direct experience.
J EVARTS, H JALOWETS, J A NELSON, G STRAUS
Music appreciation I
Music appreciation II
Music appreciation III
Harmony and Counterpoint
Ear Training and Keyboard Harmony
Instruction in Piano and Violin
General Singing
Chorus
A Cappella Chorus
Orchestra
Chamber Music
DRAMATICS
The work in the Dramatics is intended to serve to purposes: to be a meeting point of all the arts and to be the medium through which the student, interpreting and performing under the discretion of the playwright's mind, may become more fully aware of himself as a person. Dramatics at the College is not primarily designed for the training of actors but rather to be the medium through which the student, interpreting and performing under the direction of the playwright’s mind, may become more aware of drama as an artistic form.
Through the medium of acting, dramatics, as a means of education, offers an opportunity for the simultaneous personal and artistic development of the individual student. In order that beginning students may work constantly with more advanced students there is no required sequence of dramatic courses. Students specializing in dramatics may gain experience not only in stage production and acting but also in the direction of plays. Most of the College productions are of a laboratory nature; consequently the entertainment of spectators is of secondary importance. Occasionally, however, a play is presented by the more experienced students so that the rest of the College and its guests may become aware of drama as an artistic form.
Plays of genuine literacy merit are usually selected for production, but some are chosen for the opportunities for experimentation they afford to actors and technicians.
K KURTZ, W R WUNSCH
Play Production I
Play Production II
History of the Drama
Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama
WRITING
All students are expected to be able to express themselves clearly and competently in English. For those requiring instruction in grammar and composition small classes or tutorials are held; but in general the setting of a high standard of written works by the teachers in every field is sufficient to encourage and teach adequate writing on the more or less utilitarian plane.
Writing as an artistic and creative medium has its place in the curriculum along with the other arts; and, as in these, the emphasis is on art expression as distinguished from self-expression. The beginning work attempts to make the student more aware of the world immediately about him and to acquaint him with linguistic possibilities for its presentation. More advanced work assumes a familiarity with the basic problems of writing and provides an opportunity for longer and more ambitious projects.
Ultimately only technique can be taught. Nevertheless, a broad conception of technique includes the powers of observation, analysis, insight, and expression, and these can be stimulated and enhanced by class and individual criticism. The cultivation of vision, in a metaphorical as well as a literal sense, is one of the chief goals of writing work. Furthermore, the student, subjected to an evaluation of his communicative efficacy, can become more and more aware of an audience; and, in becoming accustomed to the idea of language as the pre-eminent social phenomenon, can gain a direct knowledge of the distinction between the personally relevant and the socially and artistically relevant. The difficulty of making his material assume forms, the perception of the labor involved in creating desired effects, and the increasing consciousness of the mysterious relation of thought and language, soon convince him that writing is one of the severest of disciplines, and that even the most modest mastery of it is an enriching achievement.
It is considered indispensable for students who intend to graduate in literary fields to attempt some creative writing during the course of their study. An understanding of English literature, for example, will be incomplete unless it includes some experience in trying to do what English writers have done.
A specialized phase of writing instruction is practical journalism, which consists of almost exclusively of supplying College articles for newspapers.
F R Mangold, W R Wunsch
Introductory Writing
Criticism and Writing
Writing Seminar
Journalism
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
The primary purpose of the studies in literature is to help the student toward experiencing and understanding the major literary works in the English and the American traditions. This includes both appreciation and the development of critical insight. Oral reading in informal groups, reading and analysis in the class, and tutorial work with the more advanced students are the methods used to accomplish this purpose.
Factual knowledge and the techniques of scholarship are treated as means to an end rather than as ends in themselves, but an adequate command of these is regarded as necessary for a real understanding of literary work. Appreciation and the development of taste are given considerable emphasis. However, it is recognized that literature, because it is essentially a personal expression of life, is of unusual value in contributing a knowledge of man’s nature and his experience to the student and thus leading him to a more mature and broad comprehension of himself and his fellows. To achieve this end, the peculiar qualities of the major types of literature, such as tragedy, poetry, comedy, are examined with a view to understanding their origin in human experience and to evaluating specific works in terms of their significance as an expression of life. Courses in collateral fields, such as creative writing and acting, constantly suggest the immediate relationship between literature and life.
English Literature when treated historically is regarded not as a self-contained tradition but as an inseparable part of the articulate thought and feeling of a millennium or so of English history in the broadest sense. Similarly, individual works are examined as offsprings of the age and society which produced them, contemporary parallels in other fields are often cited, and possible modern analogues are suggested. Here, as in other discussions of relationships, the emphasis rests not on establishing by the scholar’s apparatus the facts of “sources” and “borrowings”, but on perceiving the specific quality of the likeness or the difference.
K KURTZ, F R MANGOLD, W R WUNSCH
Introductory Survey of English Literature
Chaucer and Medieval Literature
Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama
Seventeenth Century Literature
Eighteenth Century Literature
The Romantic Movement
Victorian England
Nineteenth Century American Literature
Contemporary American Literature
Readings in Literature
Form in Literature
Problems of the Novel
General Introduction to Linguistics
FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Work is offered in French, German, Greek, Latin, and Spanish, and their respective literatures and cultures. The learning of a language is not regarded as an end it itself, but as an approach to broader human problems, during the course of which many fields may be opened, many faculties exercised. Language is not conceived as an isolated grammatical mechanism but as an organism with countless psychological, historical, and esthetic implications. Although no rigid curriculum has been set up first goals are the acquisition of a sound grammatical and phonetic foundation and of the ability to read comprehendingly. As soon as the student has attained these, the courses become predominantly literary and cultural, although from the beginning only texts of intrinsic merit are used. There is also ample opportunity for learning to speak the modern languages.
In all the languages an Introductory Course and an Advanced Course are offered in alternate years. By the end of the second year a student should be able to read in the modern languages, without the intermediary process of translation, all but the most difficult texts.
Exhaustive series of courses are not listed because they are not offered regularly. A literary genre, a period, one single author or several authors, will be studied as the need arises. Philological work may be taken by students specializing in a language.
Only special tutorial work is offered in Greek and Latin in 1940-1941 because of a temporary vacancy on the staff.
K CHENKIN, F R MANGOLD, E W STRAUS, G STRAUS
Introductory French
Advanced French
Introductory Survey of French Literature
Seminar on Stendhal, Flaubert, and Proust
Introductory German
Advanced German
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century German Literature
Seminar on Goethe
Introductory Greek
Advanced Greek
Plato
Introductory Latin
Advanced Latin
Latin Lyre Poetry
Introductory Spanish
Advanced Spanish
Seminar on Cervantes
HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT
The courses in history attempt to give the student a familiarity with the broader aspects of man's past and present activities, and of the forces which bear on them, and to awaken in the student a free spirit which will not allow him unthinkingly to conform to what has been and what is. The accumulation of factual material and the development of a sense of chronological continuity are regarded as necessary. With these as a foundation the student may discipline his reason, enrich his imagination and intuitive faculties, learn to select essentials, weigh evidence, order material and present it in logical and graceful fashion. Such knowledge and such techniques offer a basis from which he may attain a mature insight into human action, and may reach a sane perspective in weighing human motives and events.
The purpose of the student of government is twofold; to lead the student to a comprehension of how governments actually work and of how they may possibly work in theory; to give an understanding of what is and a conception of what ought to be. The assumption is made that failures of democracy have their source in the ignorance of the electorate. Therefore, in studying political institutions in the concrete, both American and foreign, attention is turned to actualities rather than to appearances, and to processes, trends, and semi-political agencies. In studying political theory attention is concentrated upon the thinkers who have contributed to the growth of political ideas and to the various prophets of things as they might be. It is hoped that the student will come to comprehension of the meaning of political democracy, and of the different between liberty and license, comparative truth and propaganda, emotional and rational voting. More than that it is hoped that his political horizon will not be limited within national confines alone but that an understanding will give rise to other forms of government, so that he may not only understand international issues but that he may also see his own country in perspective. In short what is desired is an intelligent voter. For the more advanced students tutorials in both theory and government practice are offered.
R S BABCOCK, W C BARNES
History of the United States
Civilization and the New World
History of Modern Europe
Modern Russia
Renaissance and Reformation
Philosophy of History
Political Theory
International Relations
American Government
European Political Institutions
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY
An attempt is made to integrate fields of economics and sociology in such a way as to present what is primarily an economic study of institutions. Economics is taught not as a group of theories on price scales, the business cycle, and economic man, but as a science of life. The student should learn to handle statistics as a tool and to acquire a method of social research, which will make him reasonably immune against too simple social blueprints, and which will encourage him to take part in the effort to accelerate social evolution in our time.
R GOTHE
Introduction to Economic Thinking
The Science of Work
Evolution of Social Ideas
Educational Sociology
PSYCHOLOGY
The introductory course to psychology presents a broad view of the field for students who may be taking only one course, yet at the same time it provides a foundation for more advanced study. Thus it includes the usual topics of a course in general psychology, and also introduces the student to special fields, such as social, child, and educational psychology, and psychoanalysis. In addition to the general class work, the student is expected to explore, through reading, experimentation, and writing, special psychological topics related to his other major academic interests. Stress is placed on the application of psychological knowledge and methods to human problems in the student’s own experience; to problems such as study habits, propaganda analysis, and the study of personality.
Instruction in advanced psychology is founded upon the assumption that psychology has its own subject matter and methodology. Psychology is not treated as a branch of physiology. The relationship between mental life, brain, and endocrine glands is not neglected; but because of the peculiar nature of this relationship the functions of the brain and of the endocrine glands must be treated as secondary aspects. Present concepts of the functions of the brain- knowledge of which is largely hypothetical- are not adequate to explain mental life. It is assumed that the province of psychology is the study of man in the specifically human world, i.e. in relation to history, to values, to the arts- in a word, to his culture. It is not sufficient to explain the so-called higher mental life as a combination of simpler impressions and processes.
Throughout the advanced courses the relations between man and his world are considered as primary. It is shown that mental life is not made up of separate thoughts, perceptions, emotions, etc., but that all these are only aspects of this fundamental relation between the ago and its world- a relationship which remains the same throughout all these various phenomena. It should be noted that the concept of psychic time- as distinct from physical time- is the central point around which the studies gravitate.
This approach permits the instructor to clarify the difficult theoretical problems of psychology by very concrete examples from human experience, and on the other hand to understand the concrete phenomena of metal life by means of these new insights. An attempt is made to remain as free as possible from the impersonal abstractions of laboratory psychology.
J R P FRENCH JR, E W STRAUS
Introductory Psychology
Fundamentals of Psychology
Child Psychology
Educational Psychology
Social Psychology
Psychoanalysis
Psychopathology
Seminar in Psychology of Aesthetics
BIOLOGY
The courses in Biology are presented from a functional rather than a wholly morphological point of view. The position of man as an organism in a living environment of other organisms, plant and animal, is stressed, together with a study of the ecological interrelationships among themselves and of their relationships to their physical environment. While most of the courses are designed principally for the student who wishes to obtain an insight into the biological nature of himself and of his surroundings, adequate preparation can be given to those wishing a pre-medical or otherwise technical knowledge of zoology and botany. In addition to the courses listed below, more advanced work is available for students with adequate preparation and is arranged to meet their special needs and interests.
J R CARPENTER
General Biology
Comparative Anatomy and Embryology
Plant Morphology
Field Biology and Ecology
The Plant and Animal Kingdoms
Ecology in Relation to Man
PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
The purpose of work in the physical sciences is threefold; to give the student a broad background of factual material; to give experience in the fundamental methods of scientific thought and experiment; and to give an orientation in the economic, social, and philosophical significance of the sciences. In this way it is hoped to train students for intelligent citizenship in a democracy in which technology plays an ever more important role, as well to provide the prerequisite knowledge for more advanced study. In the introductory courses these general aims are particularly emphasized, while in advanced work emphasis is increasingly placed on the acquisition and understanding of the facts, theories, and techniques necessary for professional training.
C H LINDSLEY, N ROSEN
General Physics
Mechanics
Sounds
Heat
Electricity
Optics
Modern Physics
Physics of Musical Sounds
General Chemistry
Qualitative Analysis
Quantitative Analysis
Physical Chemistry
Organic Chemistry
History of Science
MATHEMATICS
The study of Mathematics is regarded as training in abstract thought; but abstract thought is related to the world. The emphasis is of course on method, although practical problems are used. It is considered more important, for instance, for a student to formulate for himself a relation between several variables than merely to manipulate an aggregate of symbols given by someone else. It is better still when he discovers an abstraction which links together diverse phenomena which had seemed unrelated. The relation of Mathematics to science becomes obvious from such practice. And if thereby the student also attains some recognition of the importance of general ideas in the world, he has opened for himself a gateway to philosophy as well.
In his earlier studies the student has learned to operate with fixed numbers, both known (in arithmetic) and unknown (in algebra). If he has dealt with these successfully he is now prepared to understand the idea of the variable, which is the subject of the calculus. He is therefore invited even if he has not had trigonometry to start immediately with Mathematical Analysis, which is essentially an elementary course in calculus, though it includes topics in trigonometry, algebra, and co-ordinate geometry. This course deals with matters much more important for a general education than the specialized courses in Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry, which he can take later if he requires them.
T DREIER
Mathematical Analysis
Trigonometry
Analytic Geometry
Intermediate Calculus
Differential Equations
Advanced Calculus
PHILOSOPHY
The purpose of the course in Philosophical Classics to introduce the student by means of class reading and discussion, to the world of thought, the problems, and the styles of great philosophers. Although there is an attempt to follow the historical development, the chief purpose is not to familiarize the student with historical facts and details, but rather to awaken his mind to the perennial themes of philosophy. The course seeks to show how the hierarchy of values in life today, usually taken as self-evident, is in fact conditioned by philosophical interpretations of the past, and how the problems of philosophy are, therefore, of immediate concern to every individual and community.
E W STRAUS
Philosophical Classics
LIBRARY
The library at present contains about ten thousand volumes, two thirds of which have been catalogued according to the Library of Congress system. Three thousand more, in faculty members' private collections, are available through a separate catalog. A periodical room includes some forty magazines and newspapers which are received regularly.
Though not large, the library performs the functions demanded by the college in fairly adequate fashion. Its original nucleus was the professional libraries of the faculty members, it has been very fortunate in some of its gifts from outside, and its direct purchases have practically all been made to meet the specific needs of individual courses. A regular annual appropriation for book buying assures steady coordinated growth. In addition, the University of North Carolina and Duke University have extended the courtesy of their Interlibrary Loan Service, through which books required for more specialized work are available for limited periods.
The library also provides an opportunity for a number of students, working voluntarily under the direction of the Librarian, to gain experience in several kinds of practical work.
The individual student is encouraged to collect a private library and to learn how to select books judiciously, especially those of immediate usefulness in college and of permanent intellectual or artistic interest thereafter.
LABORATORIES
Scientific apparatus and laboratory equipment are sufficient for elementary work in Physics and Biology, and for all ordinary undergraduate work in Chemistry. As the demand grows for more advanced courses in the sciences, the laboratories will be expanded accordingly.
OTHER EQUIPMENT
The music department has a studio equipped with piano, radio and phonograph as well as containing a library of musical scores and more than a hundred albums of phonograph records. There are also a pair of concert pianos and several orchestral instruments, while several cottages containing additional pianos is available for practical purposes.
Theatrical equipment includes a medium-sized stage with modern lighting apparatus and other stage properties.
For studies in handicraft there are, in addition to the weaving workshop, shops for woodwork, printing, bookbinding, and a dark room for photography. The print shop contains to hand presses, with several type fonts and complete accessories. Most of the smaller publications of the College are printed in the shop. This work affords opportunity for the study of modern typography. A small bookbindery is operated in conjunction with the library and the print shop. A woodworking shop is equipped with hand and power tools. Here things needed by the College and by individuals, such as laboratory equipment, hand looms, bookshelves, and stage properties, are constructed. A professional cabinetmaker gives a regular course in the handling of tools and in construction in wood. All problems of designing in the different workshops are studied in connection with the art department.
A six-inch reflecting equatorial telescope has recently been given to the College.
HEALTH
A Health Certificate and an Oculist's Certificate are required of all applicants for admission, and all entering students are urged to be immunized against smallpox, diphtheria, and typhoid fever. The College reserves the right to insist upon inoculations at any time should occasion for them arise; and, further, to insist upon any health measures that its medical consultants may prescribe.
Room has been provided in which people suffering from minor ailments or injuries may be isolated and properly cared for. The College has no resident nurse, but requires anyone needing the attention of a nurse shall have it, at the College's expense if the person is absolutely unable to afford it himself.
There are several physicians immediately at hand in Black Mountain, and the neighboring city of Asheville is well supplied not only with modern hospital facilities but also with specialists in various fields of medicine.
A practical course in first aid training, following the specifications of the American Red Cross, is given at the College.
ADMISSION TO THE STUDENT BODY
Admission to the student body is determined by a committee composed of faculty members and students. It is the function of this Committee to form an opinion of what sort of person an applicant is, of how adequate his previous training has been, and of what likelihood there seems to be that he will be benefitted by attending the College and will in turn contribute to the life of the College.
The College has adopted no fixed regulations concerning the age or scholastic background of applicants for admission, preferring rather to consider each individual case upon its merits. It assumes, however, that in most cases an applicant will be of normal college age, and will have satisfactorily completed a four year course in an accredited secondary school or will be able to show, by acceptable certificates or records of examinations, that he has had equivalent scholastic preparation. Candidates whose preparation is in any way dubious will be further investigated in whatever manner the Admission Committee sees fit. No student will be admitted unless, in the judgement of the Committee, he has sufficient intelligence and has had sufficient previous training to be able to carry college work. Every applicant for admission must submit to the Committee, on forms provided by the College:
1. An Application for Admission to the College, which must be filled out in full and which must be accompanied by a non refundable application fee of ten dollars.
2.A Financial Agreement for the full fee, or an Application for Reduced Fee, signed by the person responsible for the applicant’s fees. (See Fees.)
3. A Health Certificate and an Oculist's Certificate, to be sent directly to the College by the examiners.
The College will write directly to the references, given on the Application for Admission, for letters of recommendation and for records of previous work.
A personal interview with a representative of the College is required when this is at all possible.
The Admissions Committee does not require but would be pleased to receive from an applicant an original piece of writing such as an essay, a poem, a letter, or a story. The Committee prefers this to be in the applicant’s own handwriting and will appreciate a typewritten copy accompanying it if the handwriting is not easily legible. A specimen or a description of work done in a field of special interest may also be submitted.
It has been found desirable, under certain circumstances, for a prospective student to visit the College before applying for admission. The time preferable for doing this is during the semester preceding the one in which he wishes to matriculate. The committee will not decide upon an applicant while he is visiting the College.
Decisions upon applications will be given as promptly as possible. Since the number of students that can be admitted at any given time is limited, decisions may be postponed for comparative purposes. At the time they apply, applicants will be informed of the date by which they may expect a decision.
No students will be accepted for a short trial period.
Students who wish to transfer from institutions of collegiate standing must apply for admission in the same way as students who are going to college for the first time. Like all entering students, regardless of the amount of work they have done elsewhere, they will go automatically into the Junior Division, but they may apply for entrance to the Senior Division after one semester’s residence.
Applicants, on admission, are expected to comply with certain financial arrangements (See Payment of Fees).
Students may enter at any time in the College year. However, the date at which the student desires to enter must be clearly indicated on his application blank and he is admitted for entrance only at that time. If, after being notified of his admission, he finds it necessary to postpone his arrival for more than six weeks beyond the date appointed for entrance, his admission is automatically cancelled and his application must come before the committee a second time. If such postponement defers the student’s entrance until the following academic year, a new application is required, together with a second application fee.
Students who withdraw from the College without obtaining a leave of absence from the faculty must make regular application for re-admission if they wish to return.
All correspondence pertaining to application for admission should be directed to the Registrar.
FEES
Believing that a cross-section of American life, economically as well as geographically, contributes to the educational value of the College, and realizing that ability to pay the full fee is in no sense a criterion of a student’s desirability, the College makes use of a sliding scale in its yearly fee. This scale ranges from $1200 to $400 for room, board, and tuition, according to ability to pay. Ideally, and in so far as possible practically, admission to the student body is made to depend upon personal merit. The Admissions Committee decides on each applicant, in the first instance, quite independently of financial considerations. Unfortunately, lack of endowment and limited resources do not permit as full an expression of this principle as is ultimately desired, since a certain gross income from student fees must be maintained in order to meet the operating expenses of the College. Nevertheless, during the academic year 1939-1940, almost $41,000 in fee reductions was granted.
Those who can are required to bear the full cost of their education and pay the full yearly fee of $1200. Others pay as much of this fee as they can afford, the deficiency being partially made up from gifts to the College. Since there are more applicants for admission than can be accepted, and since many of these need a large reduction of fee, the competition is, of course, greatest at the lower fee levels, particularly at the minimum fee of $400.
There are available a few $100 tuition scholarships whereby a limited number of students who cannot pay the minimum fee are enabled to attend the College for $300 a year. As vacancies occur in these scholarships, and as new ones are created, awards will be made to entering students, upon a basis of merit as determined by the Admissions Committee. Some assistance to students who have attended the College at least one year and whose resources have unexpectedly changed is provided by a small Student Loan Fund. Applicants for admission, however, should have in sight sufficient funds for the total length of time they expect to attend the College, since no student will be eligible to borrow from the Fund unless unforeseeable and authentic changes have occurred in their finances. The College believes that no student should borrow, from all sources, more than $1600 for his education; and that all borrowing should be under such conditions of repayment that the debt contracted will not be too onerous a burden after graduation.
In order to arrive at a fair fee, each applicant for a reducation of fee is required to make annually a detailed confidential statement of his family’s financial resources on a blank furnished by the College. This statement must be signed by the person responsible for the payment of fees. After a reduced fee has been agreed upon, a Financial Agreement embodying it will be sent to the person responsible for fees for his signature.
Applicants paying the full fee must submit with their Application for Admission a signed Financial Agreement.
For personal expenses during the academic year students need at least $60 to $90, exclusive of transportation.
Within the College money is minimized as a basis for the measurement of the individual. No distinction of any kind is made between students paying reduced fees and those paying the full fee, the amount paid by each student being known only to a small financial committee unless the student himself chooses to reveal it. No provision is made for students who work their way through the College, for the extra-curricular work done by students is regarded as educational activity and is on a voluntary basis with no reference to their financial status.
PAYMENT OF FEES
The College cannot guarantee that a place will be reserved for any student after August 1 for the Fall Semester, or January 10 for the Spring Semester, unless $200 has been deposited with the College by those dates. This deposit is not refundable if the student withdraws after those dates, except at Faculty discretion; for a withdrawal from the reserved place at the last moment may create a vacancy which otherwise could have been filled. In the case of students admitted after these dates the deposit must be made within ten days of notification of acceptance by the College and before the student’s arrival. Fees are payable as follows:
August 1 Reduced fee$200.00 Full Fee $200.00
During the first week of the Fall Semester Three-fifths of the balance $600
During the first week of the Spring Semester The balance $400
For new students entering more than three weeks after either semester has begun special adjustments will be made.
The only other fees are:
Application fee $5.00
Contingency deposit $25.00
Examination for graduation $25.00
Fee for late payment of any bill $10.00
The application fee must accompany the application for admission to the College and is not refundable. Applicants who are accepted by the College should make the contingency deposit of $25 within ten days of notification of acceptance, since admission does not become effective until this deposit is received. It is not refundable if the new student fails to enter. While a student is in attendance it must be maintained; but any unused portion of it is refunded upon graduation or withdrawal. Bills are payable on the date of the bill and if not paid within ten days are subject to the fee for late payment.
INFORMATION FOR NEW STUDENTS
Students are responsible for the care of their own rooms, and for providing their own blankets, bed linens, and towels (which they should have at hand on arrival). Bedroom furniture is supplied and the bed linen is laundered by the College. Although additional cots, straight chairs, and other bedroom furniture may be similarly obtained for use in studies, most students either bring along their own study furniture, curtains, rugs, and the like, or buy them in Asheville.
The climate at Black Mountain is moderate and healthy, although the temperature may fall as low as zero once or twice during the winter. Clothing appropriate for walking in the mountains and for working outdoors should be provided as well as ordinary clothes suitable for this climate. Since old clothes or work clothes are worn during the day, an extensive wardrobe is neither necessary nor desirable.
No pets should be brought unless permission has been obtained.
Students may keep automobiles but garage facilities are limited.
BULLETINS
The following supplementary pamphlets may be had on request: Pictures of the College, Financial Statements, The Building Project and the Work Program, Education in a Time of Crisis, Concerning Art Instruction, Work with Material
ADVISORY COUNCIL
Francis F. Bradshaw Chapel Hill, North Carolina
John Dewey New York, New York
Ethel E. Dreier Brooklyn, New York
J. Malcolm Forbes Milton, Massachusetts
Lucy Gage Nashville, Tennessee
Sarah Goodwin Concord, Massachusetts
Walter Gropius Lincoln, Massachusetts
Joseph Katz Nashville, Tennessee
Walter Locke Dayton, Ohio
Malcolm Ross Washington, District of Columbia
Thomas W. Surette Concord, Massachusetts
BOARD OF FELLOWS
Josef Albers, Theodore Dreier, John Evarts, Frederick R Mangold, Harold B Raymond, Erwin W Straus, Anna Moellenhoff, W Robert Wunsch.
STUDENT OFFICERS
Edward B Jamieson, Phyllis S Josephs, Harold B Raymond, Evelyn J Tubbs
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
W Robert Wunsch Rector
Frederick R Mangold Secretary
Theodore Dreier Treasurer
Morton J Steinau Assistant Treasurer
Anne G Mangold Registrar
Nell A Rice Librarian
FACULTY
Anni Albers Textile Design
Private Art School, Berlin; Kunstgewerbe School, Hamburg; Bauhaus, Weimar; Bauhaus Diploma.
With Weaving Department of Bauhaus, 1925-1929. Work in weaving exhibited in Europe and the United States. Weavings in permanent collections of National Museum of Munich, and Textile Museum, Zwickau.
Black Mountain College since 1933.
Josef Albers Art
Royal Art School, Berlin; Kunstgewerbe School, Essen; Art Academy, Munich; Bauhaus, Weimar.
Positions in German public schools; at the Bauhaus, Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin, 1923-1933. Works exhibited widely in Europe and North America. Guest lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Design, since 1936.
Black Mountain College since 1933.
Robert Shillingford Babcock Government
University of Rochester, A.B.; Oxford University, B.A.; Northwestern University.
Rhodes Scholar for Illinois, 1937-1939; Graduate Fellow, Northwestern University, 1939-1940.
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Walter Carl Barnes History
Lafayette College; Colorado College, A.B.; University of California; Oxford University, B.A.
Positions at the University of California, 1916, 1918-1920; University of British Columbia, 1917-1918; University of Oregon, 1920-1930; Smith College, 1931-1938; Rhodes Scholar for Colorado, 1913-1916; Contributor to the National Encyclopedia.
Black Mountain College 1938.
John Richard Carpenter Biology
University of Illinois, A.B.; University of Oklahoma, M.S., Ph.D.; Oxford University, B.Sc.
Positions at University of Oklahoma, 1934-1935, 1938-1939; Oklahoma Biological Survey, 1938-1939; Louisiana State University, summer session, 1939. Rhodes Scholar for Oklahoma, 1935-1938. Author of An Ecological Glossary.
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Kirill Chenkin French and Comparative Literature
University of Paris, License es Lettres
Black Mountain College since 1939.
Theodore Dreier Mathematics
Harvard College, A.B.; Harvard Engineering School, S.B. in E.E.
Positions with General Electric Company, 1925-1930; Rollins College, 1930-1933.
Black Mountain College since 1933.
John Evarts Music
Yale University, A.B.; Yale Music School; private instruction, Munich, Hochschule fuer Musik, Berlin; composition with Hans Weisse, New York; Concord Summer School of Music.
Positions at Millbrook School for Boys, 1931-1932; Assistant Music Critic, “Brooklyn Daily Eagle”, 1932-1933.
Black Mountain College since 1933.
John Robert Putnam French, Jr Psychology
Black Mountain College, Certificate of Graduation; Harvard University, M.A., Ph.D.
Assistant in Psychology, Harvard University, 1937-1940.
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Richard Gothe Economics and Sociology
University of Berlin; University of Kiel, Ph.D.
Research Worker, Notgemeinschaft Deutscher Wissenchaft, 1934-1935; Research Worker, American Council on Education, 1938-1940. Co-founder of Work Camps for America. Author of Arbeiter und Seine Arbeit.
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Heinrich Jalowets Music
University of Vienna, Dr. Phil.; composition with Arnold Schoenberg.
First conductor at the Deutsches Theater in Prague, 1916-1923; first conductor at the Opernhaus in Cologne, 1925-1933; conductor of orchestra concerts in Vienna, Prague, Cologne, Berlin; summer school, Conservatory of Toronto, 1939.
Black Mountain College since 1939.
Alfred Lawrence Kocher Architecture
Stanford University, A.B.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Pennsylvania State College, M.A.; New York University.
Positions as Head of the Department of Architecture, Pennsylvania State College, 1916-1925; Head of the Department of Architecture, University of Virginia, 1926-1928; Editor of The Architectural Record, 1928-1938; Visiting Professor of Architecture, Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1938-1940; Practicing architect, 1916-, Author of Early Architecture of Pennsylvania, Color in Early American Architecture, New Materials and New Construction Methods.
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Kenneth Kurtz English and American Literature
Jamestown College, A.B.; Yale University; Oxford University, B.A.
Positions at Western State College, Colorado, 1933-1936; California Institute of Technology, 1936-1937; Deep Springs College, 1937-1938; Colorado State Teachers college, summer sessions. Rhodes Scholar for North Dakota, 1930-1933.
Black Mountain College, 1938.
Charles Halsey Lindsley Chemistry
Princeton University, B.S., M.A., Ph.D.
Positions with Princeton University, 1932-1934; Biochemical Research Foundations of Franklin Institute, 1934-1936; International Nickel Company, 1936-1938.
Black Mountain College, 1938.
Frederick Rogers Mangold Romance Languages
Princeton University, A.B.; University of Wisconsin, M.A., Ph.D.
Positions are Louisiana State University, 1929-1930; Colorado School of Mines, 1930-1931. Fellow in Spanish, University of Wisconsin, 1931-1934.
Black Mountain College since 1934.
Jessie Ann Nelson Assistant in Music
Bennington College, B.A.
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Nathan Rosen Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, S.B., S.M., Sc.D.
National Research Fellow, University of Michigan, 1932-1933; National Research Fellow, Princeton University, 1933-1934; Research Worker, assisting Professor Albert Einstein, Institute of Advanced Study, 1934-1936; University of Kiev, 1936-1938; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1938-1940/
Black Mountain College, 1940.
Erwin Walter Strauss Psychology
Universities of Berlin, Zurich, Munich, Goettingen, Dr. Med.
Positions with Charite and Poliklinic Hospitals, Berlin, 1919-1933; University of Berlin, 1927-1936. Guest lecturer at Universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, Leyden, Utrecht, 1933, Sorbonne, 1935, Practicing physician, 1923-1936. Editor of “Nervenarzt”, 1928-1935. Author of Wesen and Vorgang der Suggestion, Atlas der Elektrodiangnostik, Geschehnis und Erlebnis, Vom Sinn der Sinne.
Black Mountain College, 1938.
Black Mountain College since 1937.
William Robert Wunsch American Literature and Dramatics
University of North Carolina, A.B.; Teachers College of Columbia University; Rollins College, M.A.
Positions at Monroe High School, Louisiana, 1920-1922; Greensboro High School, North Carolina, 1924-1926; Asheville High School, North Carolina, 1926-1931; Rollins College, 1931-1933; Louisville Male High School, Kentucky, 1933-1935; Demonstration Summer School of Progressive Education Association at Alabama Women’s College, 1935, 1936, 1937; Progressive Education Workshop at Sarah Lawrence College, summer 1938; Colorado State College of Education, summer 1939. President of North Carolina Dramatic Association, 1926-1928, 1929-1930, 1932-1933, 1938. Demonstration teacher of Creative Writing and Dramatics and staff member of the General Education Workshop and the Teacher Education Workshop at the University of Chicago, summer 1940. Co-editor of Thicker Than Water.
Black Mountain College since 1935.
STUDENTS 1940-1941
Allen, Mariette Cincinnati Ohio
Ayres, Kenneth R Austin, Texas
Barnitz, Eric Hanover, Pennsylvania
Begay, Harrison Ganado, Arizona
Belt, Avis Chevy Chase, Maryland
Benfey, Renate Groton, Massachusetts
Billing, Leonard W Foochow, China
Bliss, Robert Seattle, Washington
Bovingdon, Derek Wollaston, Massachusetts
Brett, Elizabeth Detroit, Michigan
Brooks, Thomas Rockford, Illinois
Campbell, John H Fairhope, Alaska
Carr, Cynthia Winchester, Massachusetts
Clapp, Margaret Westport, Connecticut
Dabbs, Maude Mayesville, South Carolina
Dalton, Thomas S, Jr Lexington, Massachusetts
Deaver, John V Econdido, California
DeNiro, Robert Syracuse, New York
*Englehardt, Harriet Montgomery, Alaska
Forberg, Charles Minneapolis, Minnesota
Forbes, Stephen H Milton, Massachusetts
French, Miriam Lincoln, Massachusetts
Furnas, Anne Lebanon, New Jersey
Goehring, Robert M Newtonville, Massachusetts
Goldman, Frances New York, New York
Greene, Margaret Winchester, Massachusetts
Haase, Rudolph Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Hall, E James New York, New York
Hamlin, Will Northampton, Massachusetts
Heyman, Hella Hollywood, California
Hill, Peter Laguna Beach, California
Hunt, Martha New York, New York
Jamieson, Edward B. Newton Centre, Massachusetts
Josephs, Phyllis S. Arden, Delaware
Karlin, Marjorie Long Beach, New York
Kasik, John Bridgeport, Connecticut
Kaye, Edwin H Beverly Hills, California
Kelley, Elizabeth Jackson, Mississippi
Kronenberg, Gisela J Cincinnati, Ohio
Kuntz, Frances Bronxville, New York
Leon, Fernando Firthcliffe, New York
Leon, Francisco, Firthcliffe, New York
Maciejczyk, Roman F. Brooklyn, New York
Malek, Bernard Bronxville, New York
Marks, Mendez, Jr San Antonio, Texas
Marquis, Lucian Beverly Hills, California
Moench, Marjorie B West Newton, Massachusetts
Nakata, Isaac Honolulu, Hawaii
Noble, Suzanna Elmira, New York
Oldenberg, Nan New York, New York
Page, Don Denver, Colorado
Paul, Leslie New York, New York
Peterson, Jean Long Beach, California
Peterson, Mardi Long Beach, California
Pines, David Dalla, Texas
Randall, George M. Oakland, California
Raymond, Harold B. Melrose, Massachusetts
Riddick, Frances Corapeake, North Carolina
Riegger, Mary Rose New York, New York
Ritchie, Robert L Mooresville, North Carolina
Robinson, Jane Rahway, New Jersey
Schindler, Mark Los Angeles, California
Sieck, Barbara W Winnetka, Illinois
Simon, Morris Union City, New Jersey
Slater, Jane Ogden, Utah
Spayth, L. Sue, Dunellen, New Jersey
Spencer, Carolyn Washington, D.C.
Stix, John M. St.Louis, Missouri
Stoller, Claude New York, New York
Stone, Frederick Richmond, Virginia
Swackhamer, John Middletown, New Jersey
Tubbs, Evelyn Wyoming, Delaware
Weekes, Alexandra Rockville, Maryland
Wiggin, Paul New Haven, Connecticut
Windholz, Alain Rochester, New York
Wolpert, Jeremiah F East Orange, New Jersey
Yamins, Hyalie Fall River, Massachusetts
Zhitlowsky, Eva Croton-on-Hudson, New York
*On leave of absence fall semester 1940-1941.
