BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College Year 10 Bulletin 26
Monday, April 20, 1943
CALENDAR
Danny Deaver will summarize the latest world news and comment on it this evening at 6:45 in the Lobby of the North Lodge.
The Faculty and the Student Officers will meet on Wednesday afternoon, April 21, at 4:30 o’clock in the Kocher Room.
Frances deGraaff will give on Wednesday evening, April 21, the talk: “The Soviet Union- What It is Like”, postponed from April 7.
The Board of Fellows will meet on Thursday afternoon at 5:00 o’clock in Room 10.
On Friday afternoon, April 23, Dorothy Trayer and Frederic Cohen will give the Black Mountain College program at the Radio Station WWNC. They will begin their concert with the A Fist Major Variations by Schubert. The program next week will be presented by the Shakespeare Class.
There will be no concert on Saturday evening.
The Nineteenth Century Class will read Bernard Shaw’s “Fanny’s First Play” on Sunday evening, April 25, beginning at 7:30 o’clock.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Josef Albers is participating in an art panel at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill today.
Dorothy Trayer is leaving on Saturday for Concord, New Hampshire, where she will take up he new duties as a laboratory technician at the Diagnostic Laboratory of the State Board of Health.
The Senior Division Examinations will be given during the last week in April.
Erwin Straus will give a paper on “Depersonalization: Its Significance for Psychology and Psychopathy” ta the meeting of the North Carolina Academy of Science at Duke University in Durham on May 1.
In the current number of The Antioch Review (Spring 1943) there is an article, “Bernard Shaw, Caesar, and Stalin” by Eric Russell Bentley.
Francis Foster has received his orders to appear for induction at Fort Snelling in St Paul, Minnesota on April 26. He will leave Black Mountain tomorrow afternoon.
Jack Swackhammer has received word that he will get his orders to report for military service within the next two weeks.
Black Mountain College has been invited to contribute to the Encyclopedia of Modern Education- “a special article” on Black Mountain College.
“The extent of our coverage of the area of higher education is indicated by Professor Good’s articles on University Education and Graduate Education, President Klapper’s article on Liberal Arts College, Dean Faust’s article on the Chicago Plan, President Barr’s article on the St John’s Plan, and Professor Grover’s article on the Rollins College Plan. The Black Mountain College represents from all we hear, so distinctive an approach to the problem of an article describing and evaluating the philosophy and the procedures.”
The thousand-word article must reach Harry N Rivlin, Editor of the Encyclopedia, Queens College, Flushing, New York by Monday of next week.
Bill McCleery writes that he expects to arrive at Black Mountain on May 3 to spend a week at Lake Eden.
BMC COMMUNITY BULLETIN, Monday, April 19, 1943- page 2
ALUMNI NOTES:
Morton Steinau writes from 6402 Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia: “I like working with Time. I’m learning about magazine production in a hurry. It’s interesting and very complicated. Add to that the fact that Time is produced- because of its news nature- at the greatest speed of any magazine in the world, and you have a prospect that is frightening to a newcomer. I work solely on the foreign editions: Time Canadian, Time South American, and Time Overseas. These books carry different ads, are printed on lighter paper, and go by air express. Winston Churchill and Douglas MacArthur get their copies of Time almost as quickly as you get yours at Black Mountain.”
Marjorie Karlin is now working as a junior draughtsman at the Sperry Gyroscope Company in Brooklyn.
Hyalie Yamins Green is now living at 1819 West Riverside Avenue in Spokane, Washington. Her husband, Leo, is with the Air Corps in Spokane.
ADDRESSES
PFC Peter Hill
ASN 31315352
Co E, 544 EAR
Washburn Ireland
Camp Edwards, Massachusetts
Private FM Stone
706 TG, Squadron C
RM 1225
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Mr and Mrs Merrill Hunt announce the marriage of their daughter, Martha Jane Eliot, to Royal Goodridge, Whiting, Jr., Lieutenant, Army of the United States, on Saturday, the thirteenth of March at Spuyten Duyvil in New York.
WITH FORMER BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE TEACHERS
Bedford Thurmen was graduated at the OCS in Miami Beach, Florida on Friday of last week. His address now will be: Lieutenant Bedford Thurman, AC, School for Special Services, Lexington, Virginia.
Bob Babcock is now assistant chief of the staff in his division of the Board of Economic Warfare.
In addition to rehearsing in “Room Service” scheduled to be produced on April 26, Private John Evarts is playing a role in Workshop radio program at Miami Beach in Florida.
Born to Mrs (Helen Boyden) Lamb recently a son, William Roland Boyden Lamb.
WANTED
A Polish boy, confined in the Moore General Hospital with wounds from the African campaign, wants a tutor in English. He was at one time a watchmaker in Switzerland, was captured by the Germans and put into a concentration camp from which he escaped. He has a high school education and the equivalent of two years in College. He can speak some English; he wants to learn to speak it more fluently and to write it. The nurse says he is a very eager and bright boy. He is unable to come up to the College.
EXCERPTS FROM RECENT LETTERS:
Private George B Steinberg writes from Scott Field in Illinois: “I am a radio operator, waist-gunner in the air forces. I’ve read a detailed account of your democratic, liberal form of education here in the army hospital. As I read this account I felt that here was something we boys were fighting for. An apex of culture, a peak of free intelligence.
“I left college to join the army. I left only a few weeks after being matriculated but I felt that a war to preserve our democratic ways should be enough reason to set aside, temporarily, our normal peace time dreams and idealizations.
BMC COMMUNITY BULLETIN, Monday, April 19, 1943- page 3
(continued)
“I had intended being a student in architecture. How everything had changed. But I pray God that this war ends soon and that we all may come home safe and sound. I hope that I once more can become a student of architecture. I have a motive in writing to you, this day. My request is unstable and insecure. It depends upon the wars termination and if I am fortunate enough to return. I would like to know if there is any possibility of my attending your college at the close of this war. I am 18 years of age at present, but, of course, that will vary. I have been taught to destroy, but I must be taught to creat once again. I remain with patient expectation
Yours respectfully, (signed) George B Steinberg
Sergeant Ralph H Thomas of E Company, 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment at Camp Mackall in North Carolina writes:” “For the second time in my life I have heard of your college. Each time I have heard a little more and in the May issue of “Click” I read a few pages on the school proper. Its description leaves the thought that Black Mountain College is the only spot in America which lives the life America should and is what America stands for. Sir, will you please send me a note on how I might, if possible, enter the school after the war is over.
“May I ask you to overlook this paper and the way I had to write this letter- but under the conditions we are living at this moment it is the best I can do.
Yours truly, (signed) Ralph H. Thomas
US Naval Construction Training Center Camp Peary Williamsburg, Virginia
April 13, 1943
Elsa Kahl
Black Mountain College
North Carolina
The article regarding your college was brought to my attention in “Click” magazine. I was most interested in the unusual Staff of teachers and the courses.
For a long time I have conceived of such a higher education, but thought that such a plan was almost impossible. At long last this has come to pass.
I work in the Neuro-Psychiatry Department in the Navy and have seen the results of lack of education, especially that of the middle west. If only these men could have attended such a school as yours, I’m sure that they would have been leaders instead of Apprentice Seamen.
I chose to write to you because of my past associations with the dance. For I have designed the costumes and stage settings for Devi Dia and her Beli-Java Dancers. In the past I have also given two water colour exhibits of these and other ballet costumes in Hollywood, my home.
Please write and tell me more about your college and your activities.
Sincerely yours, (signed) Winan Winant Winans, SK3c
Barracks 48
Medical Corps
Camp Peary
Williamsburg, Virginia
BMC COMMUNITY BULLETIN, April 19, 1943- page 4
A PROPOSAL
Charles Lindsley writes to Bob Wunsch: “It is eminently fitting and desirable that there be at Black Mountain some suitable memorial for Derek Bovingdon- not one of wood or stone or metal, but one of more living substance that may in some mall degree bring back his spirit, his hopes, his activity, and his devotion. I have thought much about this during these few days, trying to conceive what might be an appropriate and lasting memorial. May I present for your consideration one suggestion?
I’m trying to decide what would be appropriate, I have naturally considered Derek’s plans for study and for life after college. He was deeply interested in the problems of the South, especially of the poorer farmer, the tenant farmer, the share-cropper. He had hoped to do what he could to improve their lot, by helping them organize themselves into co-operatives, by bringing to them more knowledge and better techniques in the use of their land their other resources, and also, I suspect, by opening their hearts, and their minds to a new view of themselves and their relation to their neighbors and to the larger social groups, the state, the nation, and the world.
That Derek was well suited for such work and would have done much good I think is shown by the fact (at least I believe it to be a fact) that he was the best liked of all the College community by the people in whose midst we lived. They regarded him as one of themselves, thought he never ceased to be one of us: that fusion was a great achievement and one essential for the work he hoped to do. He would have been no reformer, no outsider coming in to show others what to do and how to do it. He would have bene one of them, feeling their needs, sharing their problems, talking their language.
And so I would like to see a memorial to Derek that would to some degree carry on this work, in this spirit. I would like to see a fund established, and the income from it, however small, used to study the problems of this group of our people, to assist them as far as it is possible, and to foster and strengthen those bonds which do or should bind us to our neighbors, so that Black Mountain College may become increasingly an integral, organic part of the community in which it is located, without losing its own peculiar character and nature. This is a large order, I know, and I don’t know just how it could be put into effect. It might be through assisting in some community undertaking, perhaps the organization of a consumers’ co-operative. It might be by helping in the purchase of equipment or supplies for the Children’s Clinic, by helping to maintain a visiting nurse, or by helping to provide and equip a playground with trained supervision. It might be through the purchase of books and other materials dealing with the problem of the South, or by bringing to the College someone with direct knowledge of the problems and ways of dealing with them. It might be through adult education classes or through assisting local boys and girls to attend the College. There are innumerable ways that would have both immediate and lasting value, and would be valuable parts of our education for democracy. Those selected would depend upon the interest, wisdom, and time of the ones responsible for the undertaking, and also upon the amount of money available.
I would place the administration of the money in the hands of a small committee, say the rector, another member of the faculty, and a student, and have reports made regularly. I would not tie the hands of this committee by prescribing narrowly the projects it might undertake or the methods it might use. I would far rather see set forth the brad purpose to be sought, in very general terms, and then rely upon the imagination and insight of the committee to choose the particular means to attain that purpose. Of course these means would change from year to year to meet changing conditions, needs, and opportunities for service.
Such a plan involves what amounts to an endowment, thought it would probably be quite modest. Endowment is something new in the college, but I see no reason for avoiding it on that score. I favor it for it seems to me now to be the best way to provide a living, growing, active memorial to one whom we love and wish to commemorate.
BMC COMMUNITY BULLETIN, Monday, April 19, 1943- page 5
(continued)
Does this seem completely wild and impractical to you? I know I have been thinking and writing with a full heart, and that therefore my judgement may be prejudiced and I may see the thing in a false light. There may be objections to it on many grounds, perhaps by Barbara or Derek’s mother. But I do want to see something done to keep his memory alive, not in our hearts, for which no monument is needed, but in the College which he loved so much and to which he gave so much of himself.
Yours very cordially, (signed) Charles
VISITORS
Rachel Dwinell, formerly a secretary to the faculty, now Program Assistant in the YMCA at Fort Slocum, near New Rochelle, New York.
Jules Schwerin, who is connected with the Office of Imports, Board of Economic Warfare. He will soon leave for his appointment in India.
Miss Eunice Miller, a member of the State Department of Public Welfare in Massachusetts.
Terry West, Nancy West’s sister, who is a student at Barnard College, New York City.
FOR DISCUSSION IN FACULTY- STUDENT OFFICERS MEETING
Recommendation of the Soldiers-Saving Plan Committee (Erwin Straus)
Student Absences from Classes (Sam Brown)
Recommendations for productions of “The Elves and the Shoemaker”
At Lake Eden on Friday evening, May 14 for the children at the Orphanage.
At the Plaza Theater on Saturday morning, May 15 for the for the Asheville School Children.
At the Stephens-Lee School in Asheville on Friday afternoon May 21 for the Negro children.
At the Grammar School in Black Mountain for the Black Mountain children on Saturday evening May 22.
4) The candidates for the Senior Division Examinations.
For entrance into the Senior Division.
For practice
5p, one sided. Mimeograph on matte off white paper. Three horizontal folds, staple in top left corner.
