BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College year 10 Bulletin 4
Wednesday, October 21, 1942
CALENDAR
This afternoon, the faculty and student officers will meet promptly at 4:30 o’clock in the Kocher Room.
Thursday evening at 7:00 o’clock there will be a student meeting in the Lobby of North Lodge to discuss student agreements.
Saturday evening there will nine or ten visitors from Black Mountain for dinner, the concert, and dancing. Among the visitors will be Dr L G Beall, Mr and Mrs JL Cobb, Mrs SS Cooley, Mr and Mrs RT Greene, Miss Anna Holman, and Mr and Mrs Herbert Sanders. The John Evarts Farewell Concert will begin at 8:00 o’clock in the Dining Hall. The program will begin with an arrangement by Frederic Cohen of John’s overture to Moliere’s The Physician in Spite of Himself. Then an ensemble of one violin, one viola, two cellos, and piano, will play the gavotte and musette from John’s incidental music to the same play. This will be followed by three songs from Let Me Have Air, sung by Patsy Lynch, Barbara Pollet, and Herbert Oppenheimer, accompanied at two pianos by John and Frederic Cohen. In conclusion, a group of piano portraits will be played by John.
Tuesday evening at 6:45 Bob Marden will give the weekly news summary and commentary in the Lobby of North Lodge.
THE FORTUNE TELEGRAM
To WR Wunsch: “In preparation for an article in the December issue, Fortune is now making a study of the effects of the war on American Colleges and Universities. Since lack of time has made it impossible for us to visit more than a handful of campuses we are taking this method of rounding out our survey. If you or one of your aides can find time to answer these questions about your institution, we should be very grateful. Will you please wire us this information night press collect as soon as possible. 1. How much has enrollment dropped from that of last year’s first term? 2. How great has been the student shift away from the humanities and into physics and mathematics? 3. What new or training courses have you started and how have the students responded to them? 4. How have your students responded to the Army and Navy enlisted reserve corps plan? How many of your eighteen and nineteen year old students rushed to enlist this week? 5. How have extra-curricular student activities been affected, and how have students responded to the changes (significant editorials from your campus newspapers would be very welcome)? 6. Has loss of faculty members become a serious problem to you? 7. What proportion of your income comes from students? With how fer students could you keep your institution open? 8. Assuming early passage of the eighteen-nineteen draft amendment, would you favor having all able-bodied students admitted to college on merit and paid by the army and navy? If so, how much share do you think the army and navy should have in determining which students should be admitted, which should be allowed to remain, and what courses they should study? Do you believe that the prospective army curriculum of English, physics, mathematics, and history is adequate training for leadership? 9. President Hutchins of the University of Chicago believes that the Army-Navy demand for scientific and technical training will mean the permanent end of liberal education in America. Do you, Mr President, share this view in whole or in part? If not, what, in brief, are your views on the future of literal education?
Hubert A Kay, Board of Editors, Fortune Magazine Rockefeller Center, New York City
Black Mountain’s reply:
25%
One third more students taking math and physics.
No new courses, although substantial shifts of emphasis in psychology, study of war propaganda; in architecture, designing bomb-proof shelters, in collaboration with National Institute of Sciences, and studying post-war community planning, and prefabrication; in economics, checking the cost of wars, needs for
BMC Community Bulletin, Wednesday October 21, 1942, page 2
Rationing; in dramatics, training for quick preparation of skits and radio entertainment for production in service centers and hospitals.
4. Good response- quota will soon be filled.
5. Simplicity and purposefulness have always been characteristic; no expensive athletic program to eliminate, no fraternity or sorority life to curtail’ no elaborate social schedule to temper. Therefore, main change is in intensification of campus work experience program by voluntary one third increase in hours spent by students, who maintain buildings, assist in offices, library, and laboratories, harvest wood to save coal, operate farm and dairy. Double number of girls working on college farm to relieve manpower and harden for war tasks ahead.
6. Yes, has been necessary to replace nearly one third staff called to war administration or armed forces.
7. Three fourths. Present enrollment approaches minimum.
8. Yes, if paid by government rather than army or navy. War Manpower commission should determine admission and terms of remaining. Joint military and college board should determine courses of study. No, these courses are necessary but not sufficient. Even in war, best leadership cannot be developed by putting blinders on youth. Broad vision essential to intelligent democratic action now, and to satisfy the demands of post-war reconstruction.
9. Limitation of education to army demand even during war period might prove serious setback to democracy. To accept such a narrow standardized pattern would mean yielding to philosophy or dictators. A citizen of democracy who much not only accept orders and fulfill requirements, but must make decisions of his own and assist in the building of society, needs more than technical or professional skill: He must free his imagination; he must acquire self-imposed discipline, and he must learn to act on judgements based on broad knowledge of men and affairs gained through work and life experiences as well as from books.
Even though temporarily restricted, unless freedom fails, an education aiming to achieve these fundamental objectives will in the end persist.
ANNOUNCMENTS
Roland Boyden will arrive on Thursday morning for a five day visit to the College.
John A Collett, a new students from Los Angeles will arrive on Friday afternoon.
John Evarts will enlist on Saturday. He expects to leave Lake Eden on Monday.
Prof William Morse Cole will arrive on Sunday morning for a visit of at least two weeks. It will be Mr Cole’s tenth year as auditor of the College books.
Sam Brown will arrive on Sunday morning. He will be accompanied by Neltje Weston, a former student at the College.
Trudi Straus has been invited to become a member of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra which will likely give its first concert at Duke University, Friday evening, November 15.
Mr Howard Kester will speak to the community Thursday evening, November 19 on “The Collapse of Cotton Tenaney in the South”. He will follow this talk with a series of seminars on the economic problems of the south.
We expect a visit from Karl Terzaghi, of the Advisory Council, and his wife, early in December.
FOR DICUSSION AT FACULTY MEETING
The report of the Committee on Committees.
Fall Quarter Registration.
2p, single sided pages,mimeograph on matte off white paper. Announces that Mr Howard Kester will speak on Thursday November 19 on "The Collapse of Cotton Tenancy in the South." one horizontal fold. Small tear on bottom right of second page. staple in top left corner.
