8 p, mimeograph on matte off white paper.
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College Year 11 Summer Bulletin 1
Monday, July 3, 1944
CALENDAR:
The regular Summer Session of the College will begin this morning at 8:30 o’clock.
The Summer Music Institute will begin tomorrow morning, July 4, at 8:30 o’clock.
There will be a General Meeting of work campers, students, and teachers tomorrow evening at 8:00 o’clock in the College Dining Hall.
The Faculty of the regular Summer Session will meet in the Kocher Room on Wednesday afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00 o’clock.
The Chorus practice for the first week will be held on Wednesday evening at 8:00 o’clock in the Dining Hall.
The first of a series of ten Saturday evening concerts by the Music Institute will be given on Saturday evening, July 8, at 8:15 o’clock in the College Dining Hall. It will be a ‘cello-piano concert by Nikolai and Joanna Graudan and will include Beethoven’s Twelve variations on a Theme by Handel, Victor Babin’s Sonata-Fantasia (1943), and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Sonata Opus 58.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Board of Fellows announces the appointment to the Faculty of Alfred Kazin as visiting lecturer of English and American Literature for the Fall Quarter of the 1944-45 Session. Mr Kazin is the contributor of several hundred essays and reviews, since 1934-35, in literature, history, and philosophy, to such journals as The New York Times Book Review, The New York Herald Tribune Book Review, The Saturday Review of Literature, The Antioch Review, The Sewanee Review, Sribner’s, New Republic, Fortune, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Partisan Review. He is a contributor also to the forthcoming Cooperative History of American Literature, prepared by a board of chosen scholars in the field and to be published by Macmillan in 1946. He is the author of On Native Ground, An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature. A number of his articles have appeared in anthologies. He is a consultant on the staff of the Oxford Companion to American Literature. Mr Kazin is a graduate of the College of the City of New York and of Columbia University. His teaching experience includes three summers as Visiting Instructor at the College of the City of New York, two years as a member of the Department of English at the same institution, the Spring Quarter of 1940 as a member of the English Department at Queens College, and a year (1941-42) as lecturer in American Literature and Philosophy in the New School for Social Research. In 1942-43 Mr Kazin was Literary Editor of The New Republic; he is now Contributing Editor on the staff of this publication. In 1943-44 he was Associate Editor of Fortune Magazine. He is now on leave from this publication. Mr Kazin was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1940-41 and the holder of a Carnegie Grant in 1941.
Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling have agreed to examine Maja Bentley and Jane Stone for graduation. Mr Barzun examined for the College last year. He is the author of Romanticism and the Modern Ego and is well-known to radio listeners to “Invitation to Learning.” Mr Trilling is the author of Matthew Arnold and E M Forster. Both men teach at Columbia University and are regular contributors to The Nation. Maja and Jane took their written examinations at Lake Eden last week. They will go to New York City later in July for their orals.
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WITH FORMER STUDENTS:
New Addresses:
Pfc Richard D Brown, 14101337
78th AAF Base Unit
AACS (S and R Center)
Selfridge Field, Michigan
Harriett Engelhardt
ARC 42557
APO 887, c/o Postmaster
New York, NY
Sgt L H Crane, 34168887
18th Weather Sq Det 342
APO 633
c/o Postmaster, New York, NY
Pvt Robert Marden, 14101733
3503rd AAF Base Unit ORD
Section R, Branch 4
Greensboro, NC
In the Mail:
Pfc Dick Brown writes from Selfridge Field in Michigan on June 11: “Selfridge Field and I are at last together. Whether this be bad or good remains to be seen. So far I’ve had a pretty favorable impression of the place, mainly because I have been doing nothing but recuperating from my furlough.”
Pvt Bob Marden writes from Greensboro, North Carolina: “I reported here a week ago Friday, and the training has been rather rugged. I was rather out of condition. In spite of protests from my weary muscles, I am now in pretty fine shape. It has been mostly hot and clear- much better than Mississippi or St Louis, but worse than Lake Eden. I wish I could come over, but overnight passes are non-existent…When I arrived here, I found that we were going through faster than I had thought, so I called Helsey and she came here to stay until I leave…Helsey is staying about a half-mile from camp, which is very convenient…The morale here is much higher than it was an Scott Field- probably because the war seemed so remote there. Here the emphasis is on getting in shape and on learning techniques to keep ourselves alive and useful- first aid, malaria control, gas first aid, and so forth. And, of course, we have a good bit of arms training- although not much actual firing as yet…It is hot and dusty, and everyone bitches about what we have to do and laughs at our situation at the same time. Somehow, out of this confusion and apparently aimless effort emerges a victorious army. But something that isn’t much written about is the terrific amount of simple sweat and exertion that goes into war…”
Pvt Isaac Nakata writes from Italy on June 8: “The promise of victory is at hand. At last we can breathe a sigh of relief. At last the agonizing stalemate has been broken. Instead of sitting on our haunches..’killing’ time, blood, sweat and tears, we are now having the pleasure of seeing the Jerries fleeing…we have attacked, here and in France. They know there is no salvation from defeat here. They have subsisted on a meager diet, on hard brown bread and wine, or cognac stolen from the Italians. I see their happy faces as the jeeps carry them back, and I wonder why they didn’t give up sooner. Maybe they lacked the opportunity…We are constantly on the move, so we cannot settle down to enjoy this beautiful location. As we enter towns, the gleams return to look over their former homes. This section took very little beating, since the Jerries retreated so rapidly, and in confusion. They had systematically dug foxholes, dugouts and emplacements, but I doubt if any of those devices had any use against us….The mechanized unites are having a field day. As for us doughfoots, we either ride or hike…and I’ve had enough hiking for the rest of my life. So far, I have been lucky; I haven’t been in a really tight and hot place yet. Many of my comrades have fallen or been wounded. I have seen rotting corpses. I have seen broken houses and lean and disheveled pisanos come back to their once comfortable villas. It will be difficult, if at all possible, to erase the imprints of war. I hope that all of my friends in England come out okay. An inescapable fatalism, that comes sometimes to every soldier, has come to me; I shall live or die with the war. The terrible realization of the consequences of fighting and war has taken root and has deeply embedded itself in my nature. Yet I take life philosophically and enjoy it…”
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ALUMNI REFLECTIONS:
Sergeant John Stix writes from England: “Fernando brought up points which many of us have mulled over from that stage in our third or fourth year when we became aware of them or- more accurately- exposed to them. I heartily agree, for instance, that because of the concentrated effort required of the graduating student in his final year, he is forced to exclude himself from community life as he knew it during the first three years. It is indeed regrettable, for as Fernando explains, he has usually developed to the point where he can derive maximum benefit from his contact with the entire with the entire community, students, and teachers. And by monkish isolation he may even stand in danger of losing the communal sense so carefully nurtured from the start. Once that is lost, nothing can replace it, and it is one of the most wholesome factors in the educational scheme. Yes, it is to be hoped that either the faculty and advisers or the students outlining their plans for graduation will adjust the student program to permit, over the period in the Senior Division, time to complete the intense course for graduation without relaxing the standards but, at the same time, without jeopardizing the educational experience to be gained from continued interest and participation in the activities, social and academic (if there be such a distinction) of the community.
“Black Mountain College has never aimed at graduation per se. it is too well recognized that the simple fact of graduation from college means relatively little. But such discussions as these may tend, in some quarters, to discourage it altogether, especially in such an elastic set-up as Black Mountain’s where a degree and sheepskin are not suspended from the finishing line as further or final enticement. Having once had to make the choice myself, and having followed the course I did, I cannot say I have really regretted it, except for the separation demanded of us the last two terms. And just in case a re-examination of your Senior Division program should lead to minimizing the significance of graduation, I’d like to say that I think it has very definitive advantages which, in my opinion, outweigh the disadvantages providing a student is fully determined to round out his four years at Black Mountain. Fernando says: ‘We usually find ourselves with lots of time on our hands and full or regret for not having used some time in having learned more, usually in fields totally unrelated to our major concern.’ Aren’t we as likely to feel dissatisfied, if we finish four years without having pursued one specific subject, as a jack-of-all-trades and masters-of-none? I don’t mean to imply that once you’ve graduated in any on subject you’ve ascended the ultimate heights. But I believe the concentration in one field gives your work a direction and purpose which should not be ignored, and in many subjects that one field can become the core about which you center your other interests or from which they develop. Moreover, in graduation there is a certain sense of completion which, few will deny, is satisfying in itself. It doesn’t mean that you are educated. Commencement, perhaps, is the appropriate term. But you graduate- or commence- with the feeling of having seen something through. And if you have the feeling that you could so easily have learned so much more, I believe it is a healthy one because it is very apt to stimulate further pursuits. To illustrate, Fernando says: ‘I do quite a lot of reading now, and less than ten percent of it has anything to do with engineering.’
“We could spend the rest of our lives at Black Mountain what we missed at Black Mountain. But perhaps there is value in striving for a definite goal, completing a definite task. Your exploration need not cease once the task is complete, and in the course of it all, you become familiar with your own weaknesses; you learn in part how to cope with them; and you are obliged to formulate working patterns which can be applied where and whenever you tackle any subject.
“This is no argument against Fernando’s proposal in the matter of graduate students. I think his ideas are excellent. Rather, it is a defense for what seems to be the vital factor in promoting fourth-year isolation.”
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FROM FORMER MEMBERS OF THE STAFF:
Addresses:
Mr and Mrs David Bailey
Dawes House
Lawrenceville School
Lawrenceville, NJ
Mr and Mrs GE Mattison
318 Carona Street
Winston-Salem, NC
In the Mail:
Sargeant John Evarts writes from England on June 26: “I expect that many changes will have taken place by the time this letter reaches you. An important event took place this evening: Cherbourg was reported by German radio to be entirely in the hands of the Allies at 7:30 (June 25, that is. Since it’s after midnight now, I dated my letter June 26). Around 11:00 I had a chance to listen to a radio in the room of one of the boys. We got a German Army radio program meant for the soldiers only (not home consumption). 18,000 Germans were reported as having been taken prisoners. Losses and retreats were reported on all fronts- at Vitebsk, in Italy, etc. the tone was a rather desperate one. Many losses were reported. There were no false-front optimism and no arrogance. Damages to factories and equipment of “the enemy” were mentioned in detail. Altogether it was an amazingly open and apparently accurate picture of how it dismal for Germany the situation actually is….So- it looks hopeful for the Allies. Things may move swiftly. The pilotless planes, to be sure, are doing some damage according to the newspapers, but they will probably soon be controlled….We are still in England. We have no idea when, where or if we will move. Many of us hope that we will move across soon. It would be far more satisfactory to be nearer the theater of action….I had a letter from Claude Montuex this afternoon, the second one since he arrived over here. It was dated June 8. (you see how long it takes mail within the Army to reach its destination.) By this time he may well be over in France. I wrote Jack Kasik the other day, but haven’t heard from him yet. Nor have I heard from John Stix lately…. We have some small contacts with what’s going on over there, but not a great many and not very big ones. I can’t mention them anyhow…Otherwise, the more or less ‘even tenor’ of our existence continues: work, sleep, eat, write letters, read a little, play the piano (me), and perhaps occasionally get into town for supper at the hotel and a couple of drinks at a pub. The attendant troubles of being relatively isolated and just plain being in the Army and away from the US crop up: considerable analysis and criticism of associates; complaints about food and rules and people; loneliness and fond reminiscing of home, and its comforts and friends and wives and families. How many times I’ve heard my roommates going over the same ground and what they would do ‘for the first three months after I get home.’ And small gripes become paramount sometimes- or at least blown-up…”
In the news:
A foreign correspondent writes from the Invasion Coast in the New York Herald Tribune of June 14: “Just as I finished the above paragraph there was a commotion in the next field and two American soldiers came walking across it, holding their guns on a German private they had just found hiking in the heddgerow of the field. The two Americans are Lt Ernest Gendreau, of Providence, and Private Anatole Keep, of New York City. They asked their prisoner a few questions and then marched him down the road to a prisoner-of-war cage. The German was unarmed except for a bayonet. He explained his presence so far behind the by telling his captors that he had lost his unit and had been hiding for a week. Incidentally, Private Keep was born in Paris
RECENT DECISIONS:
At the meeting of the Faculty and Student Officers on June 21 it was decided that the next academic year will begin on Saturday September 30, that the Fall Quarter will run to Friday, December 15; that there will be a four weeks’ vacation at the Christmas season; that the Winter Quarter will begin on Friday, Jan 12
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And end Thursday, March 29; that the Spring Quarter will begin on Tuesday, April 3, and end on Monday, June 18; and that there will be a two weeks’ vacation in June before the beginning of the Summer Quarter.
Ted Dreier, as Treasurer of the College, will act as Business Manager until a successor to Bob Orr has been appointed or some other solution found.
Peggy Emery of Piermont, New Hampshire, has succeeded Bob Kumabe as Bookkeeper and Secretary to the Business Manager in the College Business Office.
Mac Wood, after a prolonged illness, has rejoined the College staff; he will exercise general supervision of the maintenance of buildings, grounds, and equipment and will act as purchasing agent of the College.
Molly Gregory is now in charge of the farm books of account under “the new regime,” as set up by Professor WM Cole during his recent stay at the College. The farm is now being run on a more independent basis under Ross Penley’s direction, with Molly Gregory acting in a supervisory capacity for the College.
Chuck Forberg will continue his duties as Chairman of the Planning Committee and Director of Construction during the Summer Quarter.
Mrs Otto Billig of Asheville has been appointed College dietitian for July and August.
VISITORS:
Among the recent visitors to the College were:
Mrs Bertha Ostrow, mother of Carol, and her young son, Jarold, who arrived from Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 15 and who were still visitors at Lake Eden.
Rudolph Freund of Charlottesville, Virginia, who arrived on June 22 for a two weeks’ visit.
Private Ralph Tyler who arrived on June 24 for a visit of twenty four hours.
Mrs Marguerite McFall, director of the Nursery School at the University of Georgia, who brought by car the Jean Charlots from Athens, Georgia, to Lake Eden and spent a day here with them.
Private Herbert Oppenheimer, who spent part of July 1 and all of July 2 at the College.
Jimmy Stranch, who was here last weekend.
WORK PROGRAM REPORTS:
(For Period From the End of the Spring Quarter until July 3)
Progress of construction work by outside labor:
The upper floor of the addition to South Lodge was completed on schedule last week. A living room, three bedrooms, and a bath room were turned over to the kitchen staff on Tuesday. Work will continue on the lower floor; and, within the next two weeks, two bedrooms, a bath, and a large storage room are expected to be finished.
The interior finish (sheetrock) in the new central attic in South Lodge was finished last week. The adjourning bathroom was enlarged and additional fixtures were installed to complete an attic section that will provide bed space for six persons.
The Hallways in the Student Studies Building have undergone a startling change. Random-width chestnut T and G boards have been applied horizontally for about fifty feet at both ends of the upper floor an at the stair tower end of the lower floor. Only 2,300 board feet of the chestnut were available at the time, but
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Those parts of the hallway that are completed are very impressive.
Five new shelving units were completed for the music room by the Construction Contractors Shop in Asheville. The units that were installed on Friday, complete and with sliding doors, run around the five sides of the octagon-shaped room at table height and provide shelving for different for different musical material.
A steady drone throughout the Studies Building last week made obvious the floor sanding operations which were in progress. Five days of work produced new-appearing floors in the Kocher Room, four faculty studies, and five student studies on the lower floor; and in the faculty apartment, the Language Room, three faculty studies and five student studies on the upper floor. All sanded floors were given two coats of Minwax, and the remaining study floors were scrubbed and shellacked.
--Chuck Forberg
Community Work Program:
Approximately fourteen students spent their “vacation” at school. From June 18 to July 2, during this Black Mountain College “vacation,” the Work Program consumed everyone’s energies but rejuvenated the community: Meadows Inn, the Office, Black Dwarf, the Dining Hall Porch, the Dreier’s Lobby, the kitchen trim, and the Service Room, as well as the Roundhouse doors and innumerable miscellaneous pieces of furniture were painted, mostly white, with occasional deviations.
In the Studies Building thirty floors were varnished. All the windows were washed by Mimi French and Jane Slater, assisted at times by Ati Gropius.
The terrace under the Studies Building was almost completely filled by “volunteers,” in the evenings, Ross Penley manning the Hough leader.
A second music cubicle was finished.
Under the tutelage of a philosophical plumber, a sewer ditch was dug for the water pipes leading from the newly constructed Servants’ Wing of South Lodge.
From the shop came ten grey-topped dining room tables, new trays for the silverware, a large kitchen shelf, extra trays for the dishwasher, and a new mail box.
The Lodges and Stone Cottage were cleaned and prepared for Institute teachers and students. One room in the Science Building was made into a practice room for players of stringed instruments. The Roundhouse was glorified with a new grand piano and new shelves.
A telephone booth was arranged in the Office.
Accommodations for daily tea service were established in the Stone Cottage kitchenette.
In the kitchen Mrs Linsey and Nell Rice took over during Malrey Few’s two day’s absence. Students and faculty wives assisted. Students and faculty wives assisted.
The farm supplied beans, cabbages and onions; from surplus milk we made 16 pounds of butter and 10 pounds of cheese.
The students participating in the colossal rejuvenation program were: Barbara Anderson, Mimi French, Jane Slater, Jeanna Wacker, Addison Bray, Dan Dixon, Ati Gropius, Mary Brett, Esther Coppock, Archie McWilliams, Margaret Strauss, Gwendolyn Currier, Neal Nathanson, Rudolph Freund, and Lorrie Goulet.
--Mary Brett and Molly Gregory.
SUMMER ADDRESSES
Of the 1943-44 Students (after July 1)
Nancy Albee Route 1, Accord, NY
Barbara Anderson BMC
Marilyn Bauer BMC
Maja Bentley BMC
Doris Bollen 556 West 184th Street, New York City
Molly Boring 21 Bowdoin Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Addison Bray BMC
Mary Brett BMC
Samuel Brown BMC
Sue Brown Osbourne General Delivery, Paris, Texas
Dick Bush-Brown 3683 Ivy Road, Atlanta, Georgia
John Campbell CPS #4, Grottoes, Virginia
Kathryn Carlisle 340 South Gaylord Street, Denver 9, Colorado
Esther Coppock Moylan, Pa, and BMC in August.
Gwendolyn Currier BMC
Roxane Dinkowitz Ponus Avenue, Norwalk, Connecticut
Daniel Dixon BMC
Jerome Flax 437 Kearney Street, San Francisco 8, Calif
Mimi French BMC
Jack Gifford Cape Theatre, Cape May, New Jersey
Nell Goldsmith 629 East Day Avenue, Milwaukee 11, Wisconsin
Fred Goldsmith 629 East Day Avenue, Milwaukee 11, Wisconsin
Lorrie Goulet BMC
Ati Gropius BMC
Faith Hartwig 305 North Wellwood Ave, Lindenhurst, LI, NY
Janet Heling 305 North Wellwood Ave, Lindenhurst, LI, NY
Betty Kelley BMC
Renate Klepper Cape Theatre, Cape May, New Jersey
Alice Knox 234 Bankhead Street, New Albany, Mississippi
Mary Kriger BMC
Liese Kulka BMC
Irene Lott 58 Lafayette Avenue, East Orange, New Jersey
Harriet Lyford BMC
Patsy Lynch BMC
Judith Mandelbaum 14 Conklin Avenue, Newark 8, New Jersey
Laddie Marshak 7 Morton Street, New York City
Arlyn Mckenna BMC
SUMMER ADDRESSES OF THE 1943-44 STUDENTS Page 2
Bill McLaughlin 109 North Seventh Street, Easton, Pa
Sue Alice McNeil RD #4, Dover, Delaware
Archie McWilliams BMC
Ruth Miller BMC
Louise Minster c/o AS Oko, 1215 Fifth Ave, New York City 29 and BMC in August
Faith Murray BMC
Virginia Osbourne BMC
Carol Ostrow BMC
Marita Pevsner 309 East 92 Street, New York City
Viera Pevsner BMC
Barbara Pollet BMC
Janet Rees BMC
Flora Ricks 1844 Minnesota Avenue, Washington, DC
Olga Schwartz BMC
Jane Slater BMC
Jane Stone BMC
James Stranch 324 Lawson Street, Greenwood, South Carolina
Margaret Strauss BMC
Egbert Swackhamer Church Street, Middletown, New Jersey
Dorice Tentchoff 603 West 138th Street, New York City
Helen Wright Marden c/o Pvt Robert Marden, 3503rd AAF Base Unit ORD, Greensboro, North Carolina
Lana Yarash 6040 Smart Street, Detroit, Michigan
SUMMER ADDRESSES of Former Members of the 1943-44 Staff (after July 1)
Bob Kumabe 244 West 104th Street, New York City 25
Bob Orr 8439- 60th Ave, c/o Chas R Nagle, Elmhurst, Long Island, NY
Paul Radin 298 West 11th Street, c/o Miss Curtis Ritter New York City