Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine [1990-1992]

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ALUMNAE MAGAZINE FALL 1990

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REFLECTIONS
ON A NEW WINDOW

OUT THE WINDOW

Mary Alverta "Bertie" Bond
'53, tells about the time Dr.
Wallace M. Alston ended
up holding the bouquet for an Agnes
Scott bride while her maid of honor
searched for the groom's ring.

That moment is telling. In spite
of his own demanding schedule,
Dr. Alston was there. A Presbyterian
minister as well as Agnes Scott
College president for 22 years, he
made time to officiate at numerous
ceremonies or to celebrate with
students and alumnae.

"To Dr. Alston it mattered:
whether it was your birthday,
whether your mother was ill, whether
you made Mortar Board, whether you
had a date or not," says Miss Bond,
administrative assistant to the
president.

"His friendship with students did not end when you
graduated. He performed their marriage ceremonies. He
baptized their children."

Growing out of that legacy of friendship and concern,
Dr. Alston continued to secure quality educators and
facilities for students. The book value of the endowment
when he retired in 1973 was 12 times greater than when
he came in 1951.

He was also a careful steward who anticipated needs
and gave generously of himself. "And," says Miss Bond,
"he expected you to do your best, to use well the gifts God
had given you."

Among his unfinished dreams was a chapel for the
campus.

The Class of '52 knew he wanted a special place for
ceremonies lovely, accessible and more intimate than

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Gaines Auditorium in Presser
Hall a quiet corner for student
prayer and introspection.

Under the administration of
Dr. Ruth Schmidt, that dream began
taking shape when in 1988 an
upstairs room in the Alston Campus
Center (the former Bucher Scott
Gymnasium) became the Mary
West Thatcher Chapel. Amish
woodworkers crafted the pews which
seat 70 and that year a small pipe
organ was constructed for the room.

This year the Class of '52 com-
bined resources to replace the clear
plate glass window at the end of the
chapel with stained glass.

On September 21, faculty,
administration, alumnae and
members of Dr. Alston's family
gathered in the chapel. Dr. Schmidt offered the welcome:
"We trust this will be a blessing to you." Patricia Snyder,
the first full-time chaplain at Agnes Scott, wrote a litany
for the occasion.

"To the glory of the Lord of Light, we dedicate this
window," read the audience.

"This many-faceted God who leads us in rekindling
hope among all creation and offers clarification for
complicated lives, also comes to us through the dedica-
tion of human beings. One such person was Wallace M.
Alston," read Sally V. Daniel '52, pastor of Grant Park-
Aldersgate United Methodist Church.

"As a faithful steward of his gifts, he helped in many
ways to focus the glory of the Lord of Light for Agnes
Scott College. . . ."

May that generosity of spirit and pure light guide all
our giving as we enter this holiday season.

Editor: Celeste Pennington. Design: Harold Waller and Everett Hullum.

Student Assistants: April Cornish '91, Julie Cross '94, Willa Hendrickson '94, Hawa Meskinyar '94.

Publications Advisory Board: George Brown, Christine Co:zens, Karen Green '86, Steven Guthrie, Bonnie Brown Johnson '70,

Randy Jones 70, Kay Parkerson O'Briant 70, Becky Prophet, Dudley Sanders, Edmund Sheehey, Lucia Howard Sizemore '65.

Copyright 1990, Agnes Scott College. Published three times a year by the Office of Publications, Agnes Scott College, Buttrick Hall,

College Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030, 404/371-6315. The magazine is published tor alumnae and friends of the College. Postmaster: Send

address changes to Office of Development and Public Affairs, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA 30030. Like other content of the

magazine, this article reflects the opinion of the writer and not the viewpoint of the College, its trustees, or administration.

Cover photo: Michael McKelvey.

TURNABOUT

CONTENTS

Just a word to tell you how invigorating
to the thought-life was the Fall (1989)
issue of the Alumnae Magazine. Most
people believe in the golden rule and
other good ideas but are not very
enthusiastic about such philosophies. All
of the articles in this magazine rekindled
my thinking, especially the article by
Robert Coles on "The Moral Life of
Children."

Mary Elizabeth (Heath) Phillips '27
Knoxvilk, Term.

I have a couple of minor contributions:
the mysterious buildings in the rear left
on p. 32 (Winter 1990) were probably
the physical education building and the
steam plant (see pp. 72 and 80 of Ed
McNair's book, Lest We Forget) .

Second, the pictures on pp. 36 and 37
are of different floors of the library, as you
can see by the windows. The old one is
of the floor below the street level which
was called the Reserved Book room.
Nearly everybody studied there, because
that was where special reading for one's
classes was shelved.

Eleanor Hutchens '40
Huntsville, Ala.

Enjoyed the Centennial issue of Alumnae
Magazine. But thought you might like to
"re-file" the basketball photo on p. 13.
It's from 1958, not the 1940s. Martha
Meyer and myself and Lang Sydnor
(Mauck) at right. Good memories!

Pinky (Marion McCall) Bass '58
Fairhope, Ala.

I remember the building nearest Rebekah
shown in the picture on p. 32 of the
Winter (1990) issue of the Alumnae
Magazine.

When I was about 10 years old my
older sister Elizabeth Moss Mitchell of
the class of '29 took me to Miss Emily
Dexter's child psychology class to be
given an I.Q. test. . . .The class was in a
room on the McDonough side of that
building. . . .

The building must have been torn
down shortly after that, because I remem-
ber playing with other children around
the construction site of Buttrick. . . .

Nell Moss Roberts '40
Atlanta, Ga.

Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine

Fall 1990 Volume 68, Number 2

Page 4

A Meeting of
Minds

by Celeste Pennington

Page 10

Reflections

Page 13

Exceptional
Vision

by Mike D'Orso

Page 20

Rosalynn Carter
Connection

by Faye Goolrick

Page 24

My Favorite
Student

by Jane A. Zanca

What happens when
Fuller Callaway
Professor (and gadfly)
Richard Parry intro-
duces Socrates to the
MTV generation.

Stained glass for
Agnes Scott College
from the class of '52

It's easy to forget that
Harvard-educated
lawyer- Unguis t-musician
Karen Gearreald '66
is also blind.

For the third year,
former First Lady and
ASC Distinguished
Lecturer brings a pol-
itical insider's vantage
to global awareness.

In some classes
it's just harder to tell
who is the student
and who are the
teachers.

Page 2
Lifestyles

Page 30
Classic

Page 31
Finale

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE

LI FESTYLE

Building for the future
hoteldesigns with
a woman's touch

Sensitivities to people's
needs can give women a
clear edge in the field of
architecture, believes Helen
Davis Hatch, '65, design
director and principal in
Cooper Carry 6k Associates
Inc., one of the largest arch-
itecture firms in the country.

ASC's Hatch: "A lot of people
work together on a building. "

Among other projects,
she designs a number of the
leading hotel-resort-confer-
ence centers for the Marriott
Corporation at a time
when the travel industry is
increasingly concerned with
catering to the business-
woman.

The percentage of women
business travelers has grown
from single digits in 1970 to
39 percent today. Marriott
and others in the hotel
industry are anticipating
that by 2000, women will
comprise 50 percent of all
business travelers.

Security is a primary issue,
leading to additional lighting
in hotel parking lots, corri-
dors and elevator lobbies, to

more closed-circuit televi-
sion cameras and to new
lock systems (from keys to
cards).

A woman traveler's
needs, as well as Mrs.
Hatch's designs, are giving
shape to a wider range of
hotel services and comforts.
Her hotels include spas or
health clubs, indoor pools
and more spacious rooms.
"Business hotels will have
more of a residential feel,"
she says. They also will offer
services such as secretaries,
fax machines, computers
and extensive recreational
facilities.

One of her most recent
Marriotts, at the Crocker
Center mixed-use develop-
ment in Boca Raton, Fla.,
was selected by the Ameri-
can Institute of Architecture
(A1A) for display in the
institute's national travel-
ing exhibit: "Many More:
Women in American
Architecture."

Mrs. Hatch is one of two
women principals in the 12-
partner firm of Cooper
Carry. She leads a team of
architects and other profes-
sionals through the months-
long process of developing a
hotel from concept to work-
ing blueprints in the field.
"It takes a lot of people to
put together a building a
lot of guiding, working with
people, teaching." In addi-
tion to her firm's production
team, each project involves
consultants: engineers, inte-
rior designers and others. "In
a hotel," explains Hatch,
"you even have kitchen con-
sultants and laundry consult-
ants. It's a lot of coordina-
tion among people."

Crocker Center in Boca Raton, Fla. , is an award-winning mixed
use development with shops, restaurants and meeting places.

Mrs. Hatch is from a fam-
ily of architects; her mother
was the first licensed woman
architect in Alabama. Her
father and husband are
architects as well.

And although she em-

phasizes the team approach
and uses phrases like "work-
ing with" the fact of the
matter is that, in her own
low-key, unpretentious way,
she's the boss and she is
one of the most successful,

I 2 FAll

990

LI FESTYLE

better-known women archi-
tects in the country.

Her hotel designs have
drawn among the highest
occupancy rates in the in-
dustry. She's also a well-re-
spected, trail-blazing minor-
ity player in a field that's still
only 10 percent female.

For Hatch, however, the
"you-can-have-it-all" success
story takes a back seat to the
more practical side of archi-
tecture: It's a good profession
for women, whatever their
ambitions or stage of life.

"I don't want to be snob-
bish about this, but I think
there are certain sensitivities
that women have that help
a lot in architecture, in de-
signing for people," she says.
"And there are so many dif-
ferent areas women can go

into. You can make architec-
ture a full-time profession,
or it's easy to make it a part-
time profession, especially
in smaller-scale residential
design." When asked if
women might get pigeon-
holed into residential, more
"female" endeavors such as
designing kitchens, she
laughs, then responds slyly:
"No but I think we're
pretty good at it."

When her son Charles,
now 1 1 , was younger, Mrs.
Hatch worked part-time
with her husband in their
small firm, Rabun Hatch.
Her introduction to design
for the hospitality industry,
however, was with Atlanta-
based Thompson, Ventulett
Stainback & Associates Inc.
when Hatch designed the

Memphis Marriott (left and above) displays
Mrs. Hatch's flair for placing modular design
elements in a dramatic, but subdued setting.

auditorium and conference
rooms for the Georgia World
Congress Center (in the
Omni complex in down-
town Atlanta).

Since joining Cooper
Carry in the early 1980s,
Hatch has concentrated on
hotel and resort design, a
corner of the profession that
she particularly enjoys be-
cause "it's an ever-changing
challenge you never do
the same thing twice and
it's very people-oriented."

"While you have to sat-
isfy the owner of the facility
and meet the budget, you
always approach design
especially hotel design
based on how people will use
the structure. I'm constantly
putting myself in place of
the people who are going to
be using the hotel."

Mrs. Hatch believes her

liberal arts back-
ground contrib-
utes to the more
humanistic,
"people-ori-
ented" side of
the profession
which she ranks
equally with her
more technical
skills of archi-
tecture.

She was a
math major who
taught school
for several years
at the West-
minster Schools
in Atlanta be-
fore switching
fields. Her lib-
eral arts degree
was a stepping
stone to gradu-
ate-level study
in architecture
at the Harvard Graduate
School of Design, where she
earned a master's degree in
1973. (Most architecture
schools offer only a five-year,
technically-oriented
bachelor's degree.)

In retrospect, although
she didn't plan her curricu-
lum at Agnes Scott with the
Harvard Graduate School of
Design in mind, her career
preparation was clearly
solid and flexible enough
to accommodate her future
choices in graduate school
and beyond. "As a matter of
fact," Hatch observes, "I
think every architect should
have a liberal arts back-
ground because there's so
much more to architecture
than just drawing pretty
pictures and building
buildings."
Faye Goolrick

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 3 I

4 F ALU 990

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IND;

BY CELESTE PENNINGTON

Illustration by Ian Greathead
Photography by Laura Sikes

ts Jker

Its early in tine niornmg, and

JOfo Irvicnara. Jrarrys pnilosopny

lenfe are stndying Oocrates, icJ Salvador,

iat it means to nave a compassionate ana

IP ' In tlie incandescent ligkt, a student

a lat, looseleai notelkooJk, Anotner witln. a

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 5 I

In the quiet solitude of a secluded

corner on campus, Parry pauses

to reflect. But he is equally willing to

be involved in group protest, too.

"I call him," says a colleague,

"the conscience of the college."

thatch of fly-away red hair chases sleep
with a swig of Classic Coke from a can.

Roughly 20 other students pore over
recently returned and graded philosophy
papers. "1 got an 80. 1 always make Cs,"
half laments/half brags a student seated
sideways in her desk. "CC.C.C."

Quickly moving into this throng is a
modest man in gray tweed: Richard D.
Parry, Ph.D., Fuller Callaway Professor
of Philosophy.

Plastic glasses circle his eyes. Neat
heard and thinning hair rim his face.

He clears his throat and grabs a piece
of chalk.

"What is justice?" he asks. "Is justice
more profitable than injustice?

"Profitable" he offers as an aside,
"means is it good for you?"

Those acquainted with Parry know
this is not merely a question posed for
discussion, but a concern with which he
wrestles, personally.

GOD ORDERS ME

TO FULFILL THE

PHILOSOPHER'S MISSION

OF SEARCHING INTO

MYSELF AND OTHERS.

Socrates, Apology

It's a roughly 2x3-foot cross of unfin-
ished wood lathing. In the sunshine of a
crisp January day, Richard Parry carries
this cross which bears the name of a
murdered El Salvadoran woman.

Her death is one of a string of murders
dating back to 1980 with Archbishop
Romero, then four North American
churchwomen and now six Jesuit priests,
their housekeeper and her daughter.

So today, Parry and about 20 protest-
ers walk around outside the Russell
Building in downtown Atlanta, while an
Irish priest from their group delivers a
petition for U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn. In-

stead of meeting Nunn, the priest has an
audience with an aide who says he
knows little of El Salvador.

Justice and so, El Salvador is a
cause with Parry.

His 15 -year-old Amy teases that her
dad has many causes. In the interest of
justice, she says, "We are not allowed to
buy from G.E. Or Nestles. Or Exxon."

She giggles. "He has far too many
causes. While we're still eating dinner,
he's off to another meeting. He says, 'I
hate to eat and run, but ....'"

Parry, who cooks the evening meal for
his own family, monthly dishes up lunch
for the homeless at the Open Door
Community.

Pax Christi, an international peace
organization for Catholic laity, is one of
his causes which also engages Amy. "I
decided to join the group," she says. "It's
something I have done on my own.

"Last night at a Pax Christi meeting
and my dad was talking." Amy grins. "I
just wanted to go up and hug him."

It was Quakers standing silently and
almost shoulder-to-shoulder along
Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, N.C,
protesting the war in Vietnam that first
focused Parry's concern for peace. He, a
grad student completing his dissertation
(The Agent's Knowledge of His Own Ac-
tion) at the University of North Caro-
lina, decided to join them. "The Quak-
ers," he says, "are the shock troops of the
peace movement."

By the winter of 1967, Parry, a new
Agnes Scott philosophy professor, was
standing with several other faculty at the
bottom of the steps in front of the dining
hall in another demonstration against
the war in Vietnam.

"When I first came to Agnes Scott I
was both aggressive," comments Parry,
"and offensive."

The wry comments which spark his
conversation belie the force of his com-
mitment, which on this January day in

1 990 draws him to the steps of the
Russell Building to protest the war in El
Salvador whether anybody seems to
notice, or not.

"It's always kind of discouraging,"
Parry admits.

"On the other hand, I read about six
Jesuit priests who were murdered and
mutilated. I feel like I want to do some-
thing.

WHO ARE THE TRUE

PHILOSOPHERS?

THOSE, I SAID, WHO ARE

THE LOVERS OF THE

VISION OF TRUTH.

Socrates, KefrulWrc

"Even if Sam Nunn is not going to
talk to us about it, I get the ritualistic
consolation that at least I and some
other people have expressed our disgust."
Back in the wide and marbled portico of
second-floor Buttrick, Parry weaves in
and out of rows of classroom desks.

The students are women. Their togas
are jeans with T-shirts or sweaters or
bright-colored sweats.

"Socrates says, 'Justice is good in itself
and good in its consequences.' But the
many say, 'be immoral if you can get
away with it . . . .' "

It is not lecture so much as repartee
that bristles with Parry's questions and
oblique humor.

"If you surrender to your passions and
eat that third piece of chocolate cake,
what happens?" he asks and pauses for
response. "You get halfway through the
third piece of chocolate cake and you
feel a revulsion.

"Your spirited side says, 'See, I told you.'

"Later, reason says , 'Remember the
time you ate the third piece of chocolate
cake?' "

With analogy he drives these 20th

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century students to the crux of Socrates'
bid for balance in passion, spirit and
reason.

And there are the questions, always
the questions. He leans toward the class.
"Let me ask you: 'Would you like to have
this kind ot ordered soul?' "

NEVER MIND THE

MANNER WHICH MAY

OR MAY NOT BE GOOD; BUT

THINK ONLY OF THE

TRUTH OF MY WORDS

AND GIVE HEED TO THAT.

Socrates, Apology

It's a guise Decatur student Elizabeth
Fraser won't soon forget: Dr. Richard
Parry stnding into class dressed in his
son's camouflage jacket and aviator sun-
glasses to present an hour- long argument
for nuclear deterrents.

"I hammed it up," admits Parry, mis-
chievously.

"I couldn't get a speaker, so I assumed
the persona ot someone from the Depart-
ment of Defense.

"Humor is very important," he insists.
"A year or so later the student won't re-
member the course name but they do
remember the joke."

A few years before that he made an-
other memorable entrance disguised as
a rabbit at his daughter Amy's sixth
grade party. "He came hopping down the
stairs. He introduced himself as the Eas-
ter Bunny," reports Amy. "It totally hu-
miliated me in front of my friends."

"He is unpredictable," surmises Fraser.

"He's a crary person," counters Amy.

"He's incredibly playful," says Donna
Sadler, Agnes Scott assistant professor of
art history who recalls Parry "in Plato
baseball cap and tacky shorts" actually
leading a group of Agnes Scott College

For Agnes Scott's Socrates,

the students are women,

the togas are jeans and T-shirts.

In his teaching, he rummages

through the treasures of the mind,

using the past to light the future.

students through the streets of Athens,
looking for Socrates' prison cell.

That playfulness served them well as
she taught art and archaeology of the
ancients and Parry taught the dialogues
of Socrates. It also came in handy when
Sadler lectured students among Greek
ruins and her two-year-old Lauren
needed a friend. "Richard would whisk
Lauren away, tell her the worst jokes you
have ever heard. She loved it."

That playfulness also takes the edge
off situations that require discipline.
"What strikes me about Richard," says
Sadler, "is the lightness with which he
treats certain situations. In his aw,
shucks, throat-clearing manner, he got
across to the students that this behavior
would not be tolerated."

Says Parry's son Matthew, 20: "My
Dad's never been really strict but he is
definite on morals." His wife Susan calls
Parry "the moral fiber of our household."

As an Agnes Scott faculty member,
his commitment is to a strong liberal arts
curriculum. "He is able to analyze com-
plicated issues and condense them down
to manageable choices," says Gus
Cochran, associate professor ot political
science who serves with Parry on the
faculty executive committee.

As chairperson, Parry insists on
exploring thorny issues and looking at all
the angles. "He raises this voice: 'Is this
the right thing to do,'" notes Sadler. "He
may stop procedure to ask that one ques-
tion.

"Under the cuff," she says, "I call him
the conscience of the college.

"And in the classroom? He questions,
always questions. Sometimes I want to
take him by the lapels and say, 'What do
you think?'

"It's apparent how much he values the
students in this way he teaches. His
teaching is not hierarchical.

"He gets in a circle of students. He
engages them."

IF THE DIFFERENCE
CONSISTS ONLY IN WOMEN
BEARING AND MEN
BEGETTING CHILDREN, THIS
DOES NOT AMOUNT TO A
PROOF THAT WOMAN DIF-
FERS FROM MAN IN RESPECT
TO THE SORT OF EDUCATION
SHE SHOULD RECEIVE.

Scxrates, 470-399 BC

"Reason. Order in lite. This is what I
strive tor," asserts a student near the
front of class.

8 F All 1990

Interrupts another, "But this happens
in the dorm all the time: You have a pa-
per to write. You want to do something
else. So you forget the paper. You can rea-
son out this decision. . . ."

Parry: "Reason can be perverted. . . ."

Another student: "You have a passion
to go out and make love to your
neighbor's wife . . . injustices could be
reasoned out and crimes committed."

Parry: "But aren't your passions getting
out of whack? Where's the balance
Socrates talks about?"

"What if you try and try, but it just
doesn't balance out?" questions a student.

Parry: "Let's go back. This is a modern
way of seeing moral issues. We concen-

trate on the act like sleeping with a
person. To Socrates, the more important
question is, 'What sort of person should
I be?'"

Outside class, Parry admits, "What we
consider in class must seem awfully pre-
cious or esoteric. But here at Agnes
Scott we are dedicated to the idea that
this is all vital to the kinds of lives
people are going to lead.

"In class, we had people talking ear-
nestly about adultery as if it were an
issue. I don't watch television much, but
it bothers me that sex is cast so ... as if it
were not a question of what resonance it
has in your life or what obligations with
which it is enmeshed. . . .

"This (academic) course is presented
in the context of an author who has
been dead for two thousand years. If the
outside world looks on it as precious and
esoteric here, on the inside, its consid-
eration is just the opposite."

Parry refers to his teaching task as
"rummaging around in the treasures." In
the space of this one hour class, he has
helped excavate and bring those trea-
sures to light.

He also has pushed and probed, lis-
tened and questioned until these AD
2000 minds at least brush with the mind
of a philosopher from 470 BC.

And today, it seems, they did momen-
tarily connect.

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 9 !

The class of '52 remem-
bers Wallace M. Alston
and generations of
Agnes Scott students to
come with a gift of light

T

Red reflections stain
Ronnie Fendley's face and
neck as he oversees the
pressing of putty along the
seams that support the
colored glass: "You don't
come up to a window
much prettier than this
one," says Fendley, field
superintendent for Joe
Llorens Stained Glass
Studio. For two days,
his crew has worked to in-
stall a nine-panel, jewel-
colored window in Agnes
Scott's Mary West
Thatcher Chapel a gift
from the Class of '52 in
memory of Wallace M.
Alston, minister, philoso-
pher and the College's
third president.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MICHAEL McKELVEY

1 FALL 1 990

<** t

(I ! ; T

c

lass members knew that
Alston had dreamed of estab-
lishing a chapel for students.
They determined their gift in
his memory would enliven that
space with color and light.

"Dr. Alston was inaugu-
rated in the fall of 1951," says
class president Shirley Heath
Roberts '52. "We were his first
graduating class we were all
very close."

Those class members recall
not only Dr. Alston's intellect
and dignity, but his warmth,
and the moments when he
took some personal interest in
them. He knew each student
by name. He opened his of-
fice and his home to them.
He kept their confidences.
"We became an extension of
his family he made us feel
that good about ourselves,"
says Barbara Brown Page '52.

"He was tender and kind.
We knew that he loved us, and we of the
class of 1952 loved him back.

"It was just that simple."

To handle their project, the class
commissioned Joe Llorens. (His tather,
Joseph V. Llorens, made the original
windows for Agnes Scott's gymnasium,
library and Presser Hall.) He furnished
the committee (Roberts, Adelaide Ryall
Beall '52 and Shirley Ford Baskin '52)

with designs. They selected one. He sub-
mitted a watercolor rendering for ap-
proval. Then he did a layout and made a
full-size template to guide glasscutters

V 4f <. 1 |^H

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"For God, who commanded

the light to shine out of darkness,

hath shined in our hearts ..."

and, finally, glazers who assembled each
panel.

Then Fendley's crew began installa-
tion. They knocked existing clear and
amber glass from its metal frames. Sec-
tion by section, those spaces they care-
fully filled with the vibrant hand-blown
Blenko glass.

Joe Llorens Stained Glass has made
windows for more than 2.000 churches

and other edifices across the United
States and in five foreign countries. Its
Atlanta work includes the opalescent
windows with portraits at Ebenezer Bap-
tist Church, windows depict-
ing the life of Christ at
Wheat Street Baptist Church
and stained glass windows at
The Columbia Theological
Seminary.

On this morning, as the
crew quietly daubs black
paint on putty, Fendley
pushes back his cap and sur-
veys the shower of morning
light pouring from the upper
panel. "It's a blessing to do
this kind of work."

In these converging pat-
terns of light and glass, he
finds a message. "The top is a
star," he points out. "To me
that says you're supposed to
let your light shine."

His interpretation fits the
verse inscribed on glass at the
window's base: "For God, who com-
manded the light to shine out of dark-
ness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ."

That was a favorite scripture verse of
Dr. Alston's.

"We believe," says Roberts, "this
stained glass window will be a glorious
reminder of his presence."

1

V-

^^^^^^^HL*

I 1 2 FALL 1 990

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 3

In Karen Gearreald '66 a "woman for all seasons," teacher,
pianist, singer, attorney, computer expert, poet believing is seeing

Karen could see, she would
not have to feel along the wall with her
fingertips as she leads a guest into her
living room.

If she could see, she would know her
visitor has explored her piano, rubbing
his own fingers across the Braille notes of
the Mozart arrangement opened above
the keyboard.

If she could see, Karen Gearreald
would not have to ask which of her
stuffed animals the guest holds in his
hands before she says: "Yes, the tiger. My
coach is always encouraging me to play-
like a tiger."

If she could see, she would know her
visitor's eyes have moved to the tiny,
time-worn typewriter stored on a corner
shelf, the same machine on which she
first tapped out the alphabet when she
was 4 and on which, 2 1 years later, she
wrote her Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard.

"An old friend," says Karen, smiling
in the direction of the aged Royal. "This
place is just full of old friends."

If Karen could see, she would not
need a computer that speaks. Her up-
stairs office hums with an array of state-
of-the-art machinery she uses to type and
transmit conespondence lessons for
blind students. The centerpiece is an
IBM talking computer she affectionately
calls Isaac. For seven years, she has lis-
tened to Isaac's deep, synthesized gargle.
"Sometimes he won't stop," she says,
grinning and nudging the machine as its
babbling fades to a halt.

If she could see, it might not mean
so much to have the sculptured Oriental
rug on the floor of her bedroom.

"Oh, it's one of my favorite things,"
she says, stepping on the carpet. "You
can feel the flowers."

Karen feels it all, from the carpet be-
neath her feet to the sunshine on her
face and the music in her ears. It she

could see, she might not, at 46, remain as
eager to devour life as she was when she
was 16. She might not glow with the in-
ner peace so gentle and so generous it
cloaks those around her like a quilt.

If she could see, she might not have
built an army of friends, both sighted and
blind, who shake their heads in wonder
at all she has done and been.

But Karen cannot see, and so she con-
tinues to do and be all these things.

It

,is easy to forget that Karen
Geaneald is blind. Besides her doctorate
in linguistics and literature, she is an at-
torney a graduate of Duke Law School,
a member of the Virginia Bar Association
and a mainstay in the legal office of the
Norfolk Naval Supply Center, where, for
each of the past 14 years, she has guided
hundreds of millions of dollars of contract
bids and government purchases through
a procedural maze.

"I don't relish litigation at all," she
says, preferring the paper work she does
mostly at her desk. "I don't enjoy going
for the jugular of anyone."

But neither will she back away from a
challenge. It was 40 years ago that she
became the first blind child to begin pub-
lic school in Richmond. She was a test
case, arranged by the state's Commission
tor the Blind (now the Department for
the Visually Handicapped) to break
ground in a city that until then had
baned children without sight from all
but its high schools.

"We were all watching her," recalls

Raised just as if she were as "normal" as her
sister and brothers, Kareri often walks with her
father in the neighborhood near her home.

I 14 FALL 1990

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 5

In the 1 966 G.E. College Bowl, Karens correct answers clinched
the ASC's upset over Princeton. She just doesn't miss much.

Virginia Diggs, a retired commission
member now living in Newport News.
Diggs, who is blind herself, was Karen's
Braille teacher when she entered first
grade in 1950. "We were very interested
in how Karen was going to turn out, be-
cause there were a lot of other children
wanting to go to public schools at that
time. She really opened the door for the
ones who came after."

"It's routine now," Karen says of the
more than 1,200 visually handicapped
children who attend Virginia's public
schools cai h year. "But it wasn't then."

Nor was Karen. Even her blindness
was out of the ordinary. Retinitis
pigmentosas is a condition of gradual
sight loss that normally strikes adults,
rarely people younger than their teens.

Karen was born with it. When she
was six weeks old, a nurse noticed her
unusual rapid eye movements. When
the doctor checked her sight, he discov-
ered she had none. But it was not until
Karen was 8 that doctors were finally
able to give a confirmed diagnosis.

"It was quite mysterious, really,"
Karen says.

"It was a real blow," says her mother,
Marion Gearreald, recalling the 29 doc-
tots she and her husband, Tull, took
Karen to over the years. "We just didn't
think we could deal with this."

The Gearrealds and their three other
children lived in New Jersey when
Karen was born. Tull was an Army offi-
cer. When he left the service a year later,
the family moved to Richmond. Keeping
their questions about their youngest
daughter's condition to themselves, Tull
and Marion raised Karen just as they did
her sister and brothers. Like them, Karen
made her bed, cleared the table, washed
the dishes. "We just treated her like she
was normal," Marion says. "Having the
others around helped her learn every-

I was determined to do whatever I had to
do to make it work. It the price I had to
pay was a little cruelty, a little inconve-
nience, I didn't care."

Classically trained in piano and voice,
Karen practices on a synthesizer in her bed-
room and a grand piano downstairs .

thing from obedience to love."

"Faith, love and discipline," echoes
Karen. "We were very consistently
brought up that way."

Nothing about that upbringing
seemed abnormal to Karen not even
the fact that she could not see. "I've
often tried to remember if there was a
day when I realized I was blind, and I
can't," she says. "It was never a shock or
a trauma for me. I think people who lose
their sight later have it much harder."

When she entered first grade, she
knew she was what she calls "an experi-
mental child." But she didn't let that
prevent her from feeling as normal at
school as she did at home.

"I could hardly wait to seek out girl-
friends and boyfriends. I remember ex-
ploring the classroom, finding the
rhythm instruments, sitting on the nig
that first day with all the others. Oh, I
loved that, sitting on the rug."

There was cruelty too, of course. But
not much, Karen says. Certainly no-
where near enough to discourage her. "I
was just happy to be there, and to be
growing up with my family. I didn't want
to be sent away to a school for the blind.

At

a time when public schools
were ill-equipped to handle blind stu-
dents, Karen got help from a legion of
volunteers. Church friends, Red Cross
volunteers and family members sat by her
side as readers. After the Geanealds
moved to Norfolk when Karen was 10,
she began taking supplemental cone-
spondence courses from the Illinois-
based Hadley School for the Blind.
Braille and recorded texts were sent from
groups around the country. As much as
Karen appreciated the help then, she is
even more thankful now.

"The depth of volunteerism in this
country is something that should be
mentioned more than it is," she says.
"Other countries don't have nearly the
level we do. I know. My students tell me.

"Part of it has to do with our higher
standatd of living and having more lei-
sure time, but I think much of it is simply
the tact that many Americans are thank-
ful for the privileges they have in this
country. They're thankful for what
they've been given, and at some point
they give it back."

From her years at Larchmont Elemen-
tary, through James Blair Junior High,
Maury High and on into her undergradu-
ate career at Agnes Scott College, Karen
amassed dozens of local and national aca-
demic honors, ranging from a National
Merit Scholarship at Maury and selec-
tion as Norfolk's Outstanding Teenager
of the Year in 1962 to an appearance on
the nationally televised "G.E. College
Bowl" program her senior year at Agnes
Scott. It was Karen's answer with one

1 6 FALL 1 990

Karen is active in her church, Larchmont Baptist, where she is choir president and soprano soloist
and a Sunday School teacher. "She's a classic," says a friend, "a woman for all seasons."

second left on that 1966 broadcast ("the
sword in The Song of Roland") that al-
lowed her team to come from behind to
beat Princeton, an upset that was tninv
peted the next morning in newspapers
around the nation. Much was made of
her coolness in the clutch, but Karen
tells a different story.

"I simply had no idea of our situa-
tion," she says with a soft smile. "If I'd
been able to see the scoreboard or the
clock, I would have choked."

Paying particular interest to that
broadcast was the admissions staff of
Harvard Graduate School. A week ear-
lier, they had called Agnes Scott to ask
Karen's professors about her. "I guess they
had some qualms," she says. Two days
after the College Bowl, the mail brought
not only Karen's acceptance to Harvard
but a scholarship as well.

"I was lucky," she says, explaining the
award in the same way she sums up her
pioneering grade-school role in Rich-
mond. "I was just in the right place at
the right time."

She

has been in so many

places since. One was the Hadley School
itself, where Karen went after Harvard to
do a little giving back of her own. That
was in 1969, when she joined the staff at

Hadley 's headquarters in Winnetka, 111.
The homestudy school has graduated
50,000 students since its creation in
1920. But Karen Gearreald, says Hadley's
cunent dean, Or. Charles Marshall, is in
a class by herself.

"She goes beyond all her credentials,"
Marshall says. "She's a classic in the Sir
Thomas More sense, a woman for all
seasons. A teacher, a pianist, a singer, a
Braillist, an attorney, a computer expert,
a poet. She's just a remarkable human
being, and the best part of all is she's so
modest.

"If I were to boil it down, I'd say she
has an inquiring mind and a compassion-
ate heart, and that's a real nice combo."

The dean might have mentioned
Karen's driving skills. She displayed
them in 1970, when a fellow faculty
member he was sighted took her for
a spin in the school's station wagon.

"He regarded driving as a sport," she
says, savoring the story. "That's what he
called it, a sport."

Somehow, Karen says, she ended up
behind the wheel that day.

"We started out in the woods and
gradually worked into traffic. I got up to
about 40 miles an hour, steering and giv-
ing more or less gas. I loved it. But I gave
up when it came time to park."

When she arrived at Hadley, Karen
wasn't sure if she would ever want to

leave. But after four years, she set her
eyes on law school. "I simply continued
to grow," she says. "And I hadn't ex-
pected to."

She should have known better.
Although she has now been with the
Naval Supply Center's legal staff for 14
years, she has done anything but slow
down. Since 1982, she has worked with
the Department of Justice and the Navy
to develop ways of using computerized
speech synthesis for disabled employees.
In 1983, she went to Indiana to appear
in a film on the life of 19th century
blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby "I die
in the first reel."

In 1988, she began teaching Hadley
students again, from her Norfolk apart-
ment. There are 67 of them, all blind, all
learning Latin, Bible studies and rapid
Braille through correspondence courses
taught by Karen. She is choir president
and soprano soloist at Larchmont Bap-
tist Church, where she also teaches an
adult Bible studies class. And for the past
six years, she has commuted regularly to
Manhattan for classical piano and voice
lessons with a coach she met through
the Virginia Opera Association. The
idea of eventually appearing on stage is
something she allows herself to imag-
ine with caution.

"If I ever got to appear in a stage pro-
duction, I'd love it," she says. "But one
has to be realistic about these things.
Normally a part on stage goes to a
younger person who can see."

There are some things Karen can't
imagine anymore such as being a
mother. "I'm too old now," she says. "But
I feel like my 60-some students are my
children an instant family."

Marriage, too, she says, seems less
likely now. "It was a very real possibility,
more than once," she says. "But I'm glad
it didn't happen. I don't think it was the

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 7 I

"I can do a great deal by example, by teaching and, more than that,
by encouraging ... I want to overflow with what I'm wanting to share"

right time. I'm not ruling it out, but nei-
ther am I seeking it. It would have to he
a very special situation."

The church is only four blocks away.
Her parents live within a mile. She occa-
sionally visits friends and they her. She
rides a city van to and from work. But
most of Karen's time is spent at home,
with her music and her students' lessons
and Isaac.

There are times, Karen says, when she
feels lonely. "But everybody does," she
adds. "I think I feel less lonely than a lot
of people."

There are times as well when she con-
siders how many blind people, with cre-
dentials even as strong as hers, have jobs
tar below their qualifications if they
have jobs at all. Asked if that's fait,
Karen responds with a line from
Dickens' A Christmas Carol when
Scrooge is asked to give to a charity, "if
it's convenient."

"He said: 'It's not convenient. And it's
not fair!' "

She pauses and shrugs.

"We visually impaired people recog-
nize there are many things that are not
convenient nor are they fair. But every
sighted person I know is statggling as
well with things that are not convenient
and not fair."

As tor the cause of the blind in gen-
eral, Karen is not one to take to the tam-
pans. "I don't think I'm much of a mass
crusader. Though I do think I'm a good
individual advocate, I can't get up and
tell a whole group to pass a law. I'm not
good at commanding or demanding. But
I can do a great deal by example, by
teaching and, more than that, by encour-
aging. Encouragement the lost art."

Even after 46 years, Marion Gearreald
still stniggles with the hardest part of
having a child who is blind accepting
it. "This is what breaks my heart about

Karen," she says. "I think of it every time
I see a sunset or a flower. I hate to think
her life will end and she will not have
seen what her family looks like."

But Karen talks of the same issue in a
different terms when she speaks of how
close she is to her students, even though
they have never met.

"We don't put the same value on a
face-to-face visit as people with sight,"
she says. "But we feel very close."

It

is, in the end, her feelings that
drive Karen to pull so much of the world
into herself and to give so much of it
back. It's the way she approaches every-
thing, from a day at work to a piano les-
son to conversation with a stranger.

"My coach says I'm like a sponge, I'm
just so ready," she says. "And it's true.
You have to be full in order to give. I
want to feel overflowing with what I'm
wanting to share. That's why I want to
get the maximum mileage out of every
experience, no mattet what it is."

The radio beside her bed gives Karen
much of her news each day. On this day,
the news is of horse racing, of the
Belmont Stakes and the fate of the ailing
thoroughbred Mister Frisky. Karen is
hurt to hear it.

"There's something about horses," she
says, her voice quavering with concern.
"They're so elegant, so powerful, so beau-
tiful. And yet so frail."

She pauses and turns her face toward
the window.

"They remind me of people in many
ways."

If Karen could see . . .

But, then she can.

Reprinted by permission, 1990 The Virginian
Pilot and The Ledger Star.

18 FALL 1990

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 9 I

20 WINTER 1990

B

A

G O O L R I C K

N

CAR

R

OONNECTDN

A slender, neatly dressed woman of middle years looks out over
the Agnes Scott College Global Awareness class. "The world is
getting smaller and smaller," she says.

"Thursday, we were in Atlanta and then over the weekend we
went to Haiti and to Guyana to talk to leaders about holding free
elections. We were in Plains for church and a family reunion Sun-
day, then yesterday we were in Rochester, New York. And today,
we're back in Atlanta."

She stops and smiles.

"You know, when I was a child, it was an all-day trip from
home to Americus, which was only 10 miles away."

She soon discards the microphone and sits on a nearby desk-
top. And for the next 50 minutes or so, former first lady Rosalynn
Carter fascinates her audience of 45 students with her firsthand
accounts of politics in Haiti and Moscow, of women and children
in the Sudan and Pakistan, and the worldwide medical war against
such horrors as river blindness, tetanus, guinea worm and polio.

This fall marks her third year as a Distinguished Lecturer at
Agnes Scott. Her association runs parallel with that of her hus-
band and former President Jimmy Carter who is Distinguished
Lecturer at Emory University in Atlanta.

PHOTO BY ELIZABETH KURYLO

With riveting, first-person accounts, the former First Lady and Agnes
Scott College Distinguished Lecturer brings Global Awareness home

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 2 1

THE ROSALYNN

PREVIOUS PAGE:
On a trip to oversee
the elections in
Nicaragua, Mrs.
Carter pauses to talk
to a young child. The
Carters concern for
human rights extends
beyond political issues
to very deep, very
personal concerns .

Jn one of her many
visits to campus, Mrs.
Carter speaks to
Gits Cochran's political
science class. Her
lectures range over such
human rights and
humanitarian issues as
infant mortality, water
purification aiid other
Thud World concerns.

At Agnes Scott, Mrs. Carter has participated in
classes on international relations (dealing with hu-
man rights), ethics, psychology 1 (with mental
health), American history, conflict resolution, ad-
vanced composition (on writing an autobiography)
and religion. She has held informal "Conversations
with Mrs. Carter" and attended receptions and lun-
cheons with administration, faculty and students.

Today, as the class winds down, she opens the
floor to questions.

"What do you think about Mikhail Gorbachev
winning the Nobel Peace Prize?" asks one student.

"It's wonderful and very well deserved," answers
Mrs. Carter. She and former President Carter have
met with Gorbachev many times. "He has changed
the world, more than anybody I've known in my
lifetime."

"I'd really like to get involved in Habitat for
Humanity over spring break next year," says Susan
Pittman, a sophomore from Charlotte, N.G, talk-
ing about a project both Carters participate in to
help provide inexpensive housing for the poor.

"Just imagine," senior Cathie Craddock says.
"We're talking with someone who converses with
Gorbachev!"

Both Mrs. Carter and her husband lecture
frequently. "It took me a while to decide
whether I could do this, because I am so
busy," she says. "But then I decided that I'm so
wrapped up in the things I'm doing that it would
be good to get away and be with young people.
"Being at Agnes Scott, I get a different outlook

on life. I thought it would be something meaningful
and something I would enjoy."

In her measured, distinctly South Georgia
cadence, she continues, "For instance, the first class
1 taught was on human rights. Before the class, I
studied the history of human rights and how it
became part of international law, so I had to look
deeper into this issue. . . .

"This adds a new dimension to what I'm doing."

What fomier first lady Rosalynn Carter
and husband are doing these days is un-
usual among "retired" residents of The
White House. Instead of withdrawing from public
life, they have turned The Carter Center, an ad-
junct to the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta,
into an international think tank and mediation
center for hammering out peace agreements among
warring nations, for negotiating the release of
hostages and political prisoners and for proposing
solutions to a range of Third World problems.

Nearly 10 years after leaving Washington, the
Carters' work for human rights, peace and anti-pov-
erty has drawn international recognition. As a
December 1989 cover story in the New York Times
Swiday Magazirie pointed out, fomier President
Carter and his entourage accomplish things at the
bargaining table that are off-limits for official U.S.
foreign policy operatives.

Carter retains "considerable clout in interna-
tional affairs," wrote the Tbnes, and his negotiating
efforts are normally conducted with the "advice,
consent and even encouragement of the Bush
White House."

Mrs. Carter's Agnes Scott con-
nection has opened the way for ad-
ministrators, faculty, students and
alumnae here to partake in this
"living history."

She comes to class with galva-
nizing, first-hand descriptions and
an insider's view of world political
events and leaders that she com-
bines with a unique perspective of
a morally conscious, small-town
Southern woman whose own life
has spanned dramatic changes in
the way American women live .

She personalizes world events, in
one class addressing the conflict
between Ethiopia and Eritrea. "This
is a war in Africa," she says. "There
are wars all over. What does that
mean to me, to you?

"When you sit down with one of

22 WINTER 1990

TER CONNECTION

these people and talk about mothers fighting and
daddies fighting and babies having to be cared for
underground everybody lives underground in
Eritrea, because of the war. This is a war that has
gone on for 29 years. Two generations of children
have grown up underground. They have to find
somebody to take care of the babies, because the
father might not ever come back from the war, or
the mother might not."

Mrs. Carter, herself a mother of four, pauses a
moment. She looks stricken at the memory. "So
that makes me want to do something about peace
in that country, to really work to help them."

She is part of the negotiating team which helped
persuade the president of Ethiopia to release 220
Somalian prisoners of war along with eight political
prisoners sentenced to death. The team has also
convinced then- President Daniel Ortega of Nicara-
gua to allow 30,000 Miskito Indians living in exile
in Honduras to return to their homeland. The
Carters monitored elections in Panama and
Nicaragua. This fall they are campaigning for free
elections in Haiti and Guyana.

In Moscow this past spring, Mrs. Carter met
Soviet officials and human rights activists and
members of Helsinki Watch, an international
human rights organization. By summer she was
living in a tent in Tijuana, Mexico, helping Habitat
for Humanity build houses for the poor.

With Carter Center personnel, she helped plan
an agenda for the World Summit on Children at
the United Nations. One Carter Center project
is aimed at immunizing the world's children and
teaching mothers oral rehydration therapy (a cure
for diarrhea and dehydration that kills, by some
estimates, as many as 40,000 of the world's children
every day). "We were looking at some figures yester-
day," she says. "For $29 to $30 billion, in 10 years,
you could cut that number in half."

The Carter connection began when
Juliana Winters '72, an Atlanta attorney
and former Carter campaign worker,
mentioned the idea to other Agnes Scott trustees
and President Ruth Schmidt, who approved whole-
heartedly and approached Mrs. Carter.

"I remember a luncheon on campus with
Rosalynn and six or eight students," says Winters.
"Something major had just happened in the Middle
East and in the course of talking about it Rosalynn
quoted first Mrs. Begin and then Mrs. Sadat. It was
extraordinary. It gave me goosebumps. I looked
around and thought, 'Here we are in the throes of
history, listening to a personal encounter from
someone who was there.' "

Mrs. Carter is "excellent with students," be-
lieves Dr. Catherine Scott, assistant professor of
political science who hosted Mrs. Carter last
spring. "When she visited my class, it was around
the time of the 40th anniversary of the United
Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"She was very soft-spoken at first, but then she
warmed to the topic and talked about the politics
of human rights around the globe."

Says Dr. George Brown, director of the Agnes
Scott's Global Awareness program, "I think both
of the Carters have a
sense that they've
been blessed with
unique experiences
and they are inter-
ested in sharing those
experiences, espe-
cially with young
people. Rosalynn sees
the college environ-
ment as a forum for
doing that."

Mrs. Carter speaks
of her experiences on
campus with satisfac-
tion. Drawing on the experiences of her own
daughter, Amy, 22, Mrs. Carter says, "It's a diffi-
cult time, I think, for young women because they
are making a transition from the kind of life I
lived to the kind of life my daughter will live.
And it's so totally different. . . .

"Awareness is a main issue. The more we be-
come aware of other people in the world and the
situations they live in, the more that makes us
willing to work for peace and to vote for people
we think will help us solve these problems."

Over the course of a lifetime, Mrs. Carter has
found her own way from tiny, traditional Plains,
to power meetings throughout the world. She has
deliberately moved into the firing line of interna-
tional negotiations. Yet she is able to go home
again, to tend her garden, to hold her grandchil-
dren, to help them take their first steps.

If knowledge is power, then Rosalynn Carter's
presence at Agnes Scott should help empower
young women who must negotiate the future.

Clearly she believes women today have
choices, not only in the voting booth, but in day-
to-day life also.

Here at Agnes Scott, her life is an open book
that challenges all of us to ask, "What can I do?"

Faye Goolrick is a freelance writer in Atlanta and a
frequent contributor to Agnes Scott publications.

A member of negotiat-
ing teams that have
worked in many coun-
tries for human rights ,
Mrs. Carter takes notes
at all meetings and tran-
scribes them as on
a recent trip to Africa.

AGNES SCOn AAAGAZINE 23

By Jane A. Zanca '83
Illustrations by Bill Mayer

My Favorite Student

ASC ALUMNA JANE ZANCA FELT
PREPARED TO TEACH HER DEKALB
COMMUNITY COLLEGE CREATIVE
WRITING CLASS. THEN IN STRODE
IVY IN BLACK PARACHUTE PANTS.
NEXT CAME THE PREACHER. THE TEA
LADIES. TEX. WREN. AND ANNIE
OAKLEY. EACH STUDENT OFFERED
PROVIDENT INSIGHTS.

To teach: to show, in
struct, guide; to impart
information. Most of us
who work, with our backs
to the blackboard know
these definitions well. One of the most
delicious discoveries of teaching, how-
ever, is that the object of the verb "to
teach" may well be the teacher, not the
taught.

There was, for example, the lesson I
learned from my favorite student. Her
name was Ivy. (Not really, I am a fiction
writer at heart, so I will name my charac-
ters as I please. But the story is true.)

Ivy strode into my first class in black
parachute pants, a black lace see-
through blouse, and a huge, glow-in-the-
dark crucifix on a black satin ribbon.
Mixed messages were definitely her bag,
except in response to my lectures. On
that topic, she was clear and even-

handed: I didn't know what I was talking
about, and she didn't mind saying so,
frequently, in a loud, abrasive voice.

Ivy was armed with a manuscript that
weighed in at 13 pounds. It was a cantata
of mumbled horrors, most of them
sexual. She assured me that every word
was true. She wanted, via fiction, to
make some sense of autobiographic hor-
rors. To read it was traumatic. To live it
must have been hell. To critique her
work was to critique her life. I offered a
few limp suggestions on syntax and
punctuation and let it go at that.

Any shortcomings in Ivy's ability to
invent cruel twists of plot were overcome
in her written evaluation of my class at
the end of the quarter. She vividly de-
scribed me as incompetent, unavailable,
unprepared and unknowledgeable. In
bold, curlicued, underlined phrases, she
demanded a tuition refund.

Outrageous as it seemed at the time,
there was some truth to Ivy's assessment,
even if it was solely Ivy's truth. She had
come to Creative Writing with the hope
of healing, the expectation of a philo-
sophical revelation from me that would
cut the Gordian knot of her suffering. In
that, it is true, I failed. Perhaps, instead
of editing her grammar, I should have
acknowledged her pain; in retrospect, it
seems that was what she needed most.
But Ivy taught me that I will not always

know, or be able to give, what a student
needs; that sometimes my students will
want things from me that it is not appro-
priate for me, as a writing instructor, to
render. I am a teacher, not a healer, and
the confines of an eight-week course,
even for the most astute of instructors,
are not enough to glue a lite back to-
gether when it has been shattered by
years of brutality.

My favorite student, in a later quarter,
was The Preacher, a young religious mili-
tant who specialized in guerrilla assaults
on wayward souls. I opened that quarter
with the question, "What keeps you
from writing?"

Fear, ventured some.

Lack of time, said others.

"Nothing!" beamed The Preacher.
"My writing is inspired by God, and
nothing keeps me from writing it."

Well! In a stint as an editor for a cul-
tural magazine, I had boldly negotiated
editorial changes on the work of many
fine and well-known writers. Now it
seemed, I would be called upon to edit
the work of God.

Two other students, the Tea Ladies,
were distinctly unimpressed with The
Preacher's smug self-assurance. They
were (I imagined) from an ivory suburb
where dark-skinned preachers and im-
poverished writing instructors dare not
tread. They lived (I imagined) in houses

24 FALL 9

with rooms that were interior-deco-
rated, and cooked low cholesterol,
greaseless meals in kitchens that were
bigger than my entire house.

I admit it; at first, the Tea Ladies
were not my favorite students. I wasn't
very nice to them. The more they
squirmed and resisted The Preacher,
the more protective 1 telt toward him.
At times, however, even I longed to
pull him off the soapbox and into the
classroom. He did try my patience when
he began every response in class with
"As God said to me the other day. . ." or
something to that effect. How, I won-
dered, did he get a direct line to God,
when all I could get was a record-
ing that the number was now un-
published?

It was with shock that I read
The Preacher's first assignment.
Though rambling, the work
demonstrated an excellent grasp
of grammar and syntax. His
plots were unengaging, but he
was a man who had witnessed
suffering, and he refused to avert
his eyes. He wanted to change the
world, and he was in my class because he
believed written words would help him
do that. Ignoring my admonition that I
would accept only 20 pages per
student over the quarter, The
Preacher handed in 8 to 10

pages each week.

Because all of us, The Preacher in-
cluded, might benefit from some

Ivy vividly
described me as
incompetent,
unavailable,
unprepared and
unkaowledgeable.
There was some
truth to Iveys's
assessment.

earthbound inspiration, I scheduled
a Saturday morning brunch and
field trip to a photography exhibit at
the High Museum. The Tea Ladies
politely boycotted us. The Preacher
arrived late; his outfit, gray slacks worn
shiny and thin and held up by sus-
penders, tugged at my heart. Watching
him tackle a bowl of cereal (the cheap-

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 25

est item

on the menu), I
kept seeing a hungry
little boy.

He did not let me
indulge the vision long.
Satiated, he wiped his
mouth neatly, then pounced on us
and thumped soundly with his
Bible.

The other students rolled their
eyes, smirked, and finally, bruised,
stumbled from the table. The
Preacher stretched and grinned; the
sparring had gotten his juices going.
He skipped ahead of us, the message
emblazoned on the back of his T-shirt
rippling in a whip of urban wind: Follow
me, I know the way.

As assigned, the students wandered
the exhibit and selected one photo that
moved them to write. Surreptitiously, 1
watched to see what each would choose.
The Preacher stopped, transfixed, before
the photos ot a black midwife at work.

She
leaned
into the
light, confi-
dently urging for-
ward new black life, her
hands tough, deft and warm.
Her calm demeanor propped
the shoddy, rough walls of
bare rural bedrooms. This
was a woman who did not
avert her eyes from suffer-
ing. She served her
people well, and she
was honored by them.
Little girls gathered
shyly around her, as
if to touch her spar-
kling white unitonn
would lay the myster-
ies of life and death in
their arms.
The Preacher
scrawled lines in his note-
book, pushing hard with
his pen so the words would
not slide off the page. Then,
in the hushed hall ot the
High, he sat beside me, deep in
thought. When he spoke, it was
his voice, not God's that he
called up. For just a few mo-
ments, unarmed, he talked
about what he was feeling. It

26 FALL 9

This time, when
The Preacher spoke,
it was his voice,
not God's, he
called up. It was
an encounter in
trust. I scarcely
dared to breathe
or move.

was an encounter in trust. I scarcely
dared breathe or move.

Ironically, I cannot take credit for
those splendid, slippery moments with
him. It was the Tea Ladies, my favorite
students, who had opened The Preacher
up. In the class preceding the field trip,
we had critiqued one of The Preacher's
works "anonymously," as always but
of course everyone recognized the au-
thoritative voice of his Co- Author. The
Tea Ladies leaned together, whispered,
then ventured, "This work does not in-
vite us into the author's experience."

Clatter. Not only could I not have
said it as well, I couldn't have said it at
all because I had so wanted to protect
The Preacher. Instead of helping him rid
himself of his cumbersome armor, I had
inadvertently been adding to it. It was a
lesson in pride, which as The Preacher
would gladly remind me, goeth before
the fall. And shame on me for my judg-
ments on the Tea Ladies; for all I know,
they may actually live in a trailer park,
take in laundry and write by the light of

a candle. They were witty, talented,
incisive writers and fine students. They
taught me that I can be as bigoted as
anyone, and that sometimes it will be
students, not I, who will offer the most
provident insights.

Then there was Wren, my favorite
strident. Her silent, intense scrutiny of
my every word, from the farthest reaches
of the classroom, was a mystery to me
until the night that I announced a field
trip to the campus library. Wren raised
her hand, just a little. Pressing toward
the wonders of the library, I nodded im-
patiently in her direction.

"I have a confession to make," she
said. I had to lean forward to hear her. "I
have never been inside of a library."

The courage it must have
taken for Wren to speak
those words! Stunned, I
looked around the class-
room to assess the re-
sponse. Her quivering voice continued.
Her formal education had ended at a
very young age. She was in my class be-
cause she had always dreamed of becom-
ing a writer.

The other eight students, my favorite
students, were silent, but it was compas-
sionate silence, and in the breathless mo-
ments that followed, I sensed them
weaving ever so gently a protective nest

around Wren.

"Wren," I asked, my heart pounding,
"do you like to read?"

"Yes."

"How do you select a book when you
want one?"

"I go to the bookstore."

The vision of the local, gaudy, com-
mercial bookstores flashed before my
eyes, framed by high gulleys and abysses
of dark unknowing. A bookstore's pur-
pose is to sell, not educate; reading only
what was available in the bookstore was
like going to the Grand Canyon and see-
ing only the souvenir stores.

Downstairs, I knew, there was a
tough, toe-tapping librarian waiting for
us. The bolt of opportunism had struck
me only a half hour before class, and it
had taken some fast talking to persuade
her to tolerate this spontaneous intrusion
by a large group of students. Now, to-
gether, she and I had in our grasp the
power to change a life. Maybe several
lives. Maybe there were others in the
group who also had never been in a li-
brary, but lacked the courage to say so.

The librarian (my favorite librarian)
welcomed us graciously, albeit suspi-
ciously. Everyone browsed and read and
browsed to his or her heart's content. At
the end of the half-hour allotted to us,
no one wanted to leave, and the librar-
ian would have thrown her body in the

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 271

doorway if I had forced the issue. These
were, after all, her favorite students.

It was there, in the library, that 1
learned the power I hold as a teacher is
not my power at all; it is the power of
knowledge that draws these people, my
favorite students, into my classroom.
When they open themselves to me, trust
me with a life's secret (so thinly guised in
fiction writing), risk the red slash of my
pen across their attempt at expression, it
is a gift, and one that perhaps I have not
earned.

Let me tell you about Still, one of my
favorite students, a man more given to
the written word than spoken. The only
word he spoke, each class, was "Here,"
but he had outlined an epic novel built
on intense memories and set in a grand
and expansive country. The words had a
long way to go, but the scope of the task
he had set for himself was admirable. Be-
cause of Still, I learned that there are
some students whom 1 will never favor,
especially Tex.

Tex was in my class to
meet women. Not that
this is an unworthy goal;
what is unconscionable is
that this appeared to be
Tex's sole focus. He brought no paper or
pen, took no notes, and distracted me by
running his fingers lingeringly through

the tresses of one beautiful, charming,
intelligent bninette (way out of Tex's
league). To his chagrin, she was happily
married and frankly uninterested.

Thus preoccupied, Tex heard not a
word of my most important lecture, ren-
dered each quarter: How to Critique a
Fellow Student's Work Without Destroy-
ing Forever the Will to Write.

So, when Still's work was read out
loud, Tex launched an assault that the
entire class will forever remember as
Tex's chainsaw massacre. The story, he
said, was boring; clearly, the author had
never even been to the country that was
the setting, and the story was devoid of
authenticity. I watched Still's eyes widen,
his precious memories shudder. Pressed
to explain what he meant by "boring,"
Tex pulled the cord and revved his saw,
but the bninette cut him off. In a stage
whisper that could be heard on the
South Campus she commanded, "Tl'.v,
shut up."

Oddly, it was Tex who dropped the
course, while Still went on, quietly, gen-
tly, to complete it. Please, Still, if you
read this, keep uniting.

Then, there are the others.

Daisy, who pops up perennially, quar-
ter after quarter, pen poised, notebook
with the jottings from the preceding
quarters.

And the Roses, all of them, who raise

tiny children on tiny salaries and fill the
tiny corners that life allots them with
stories of beautiful heroines in marble
mansions. There's Wiley, who had never
written about anything, ever, but began
with two handwritten pages about what
happened to him in Vietnam.

There's Annie Oakley, a rootin-tootin
grandmother who takes in stray dogs,
cats, and teaches and heals their boo-
boos with cheesecake. There are my
black students, all of them, whom I lump
together only because they have all ex-
perienced the oppressiveness of the
white race (yes, still), and still they come
to my class and sometimes, despite the
ignorant things that fly out of people's
mouths, they stay and they take the leap
to trust this white woman's eyes with
their words and their longings. And ah,
my favorite youngsters: Bill and Coo,
who lit the gray halls with their
smooching during coffee breaks. When
they were forced to tear their eyes from
each other, one heard the sounds of

There were
Rose and Wiley
and Daisy and
Annie Oakley, a
rootin-tootin grand-
mother who takes
in stray cats.
Kindred souls. Who
taught me so much.

28 FALL 9

sheets ripping. They didn't
hand in much written work,
but they left me with faith
in myself; I thought that
kind of love was something I
had only dreamed of.

They are such
amazing people,
these students
of mine;
scratch ink
on the dog-
eared
pages and
one finds
struggles and
tragedies and
triumphs. Mine
are not necessarily
the students who
had been read sto-
ries as a child, and
thus anive en-
dowed with love of
reading and the abil-
ity to sit placidly
through a story from
the beginning to end.
Mine may not be the
Ones who have been
well-drilled in the
marches of research, study
and application. Mine are
the ones who, after a ten-to-

twelve-hour day of work (usually dead-
ening) and travel (usually exhausting),
throw together a sandwich, skirt the lure
of an evening on the sofa with Jake and
the Fatman, and trek, faithfully, to my
classroom, to hear what I have to say
about writing.

few come fully equipped as
professional writers; most
have never written more
than a grocery list. But
they want to learn,
and for that reason, we are kindred souls,
on an equal footing: learners all.

My students never permit me the
luxury of complacency, or the dubious
"success" of completing a class as out-
lined. They demand a log-rolling perfor-
mance in a stormy sea of questions,
needs, hopes and expectations. But that's
not as intimidating as it sounds.

Actually, the demands of the job are
so simple. Keep my feet moving, keep
my balance. These, my favorite" students,
are hungry.

Feed them and be filled.

Reprinted with permission, The Chattahoochee
Review, Dunwoody , GA.

]ane Zanca '83 is a writer in professional
education at the National Offices of the
American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Ga.

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 29

CLASSIC

Blackfriars: The curtain
has been going up
for 75 years

Gentle light tails on fragile
teacups and saucers held by
two ladies seated at the cor-
ner of a delicately carved
table. One is smiling and
leans so close that the wide
brims of their hats almost
touch.

That scene from a vin-
tage photograph depicts the
six-member Blackfriars en-
semble in its first theatrical
production, a breezy little
comedy: The Kleptomaniac.

From that 1915 portrait,
one might think the fresh-
faced founders of
Agnes Scott's drama
club had only
frivolous
intents. ^

But
think
again.

They
named
themselves
Blackfriars.
The v ^

original
was a pri-
vate the-
ater, one
of few

housed inside
London's walls dur-
ing a time when the-
aters were banned.
Its founder Richard
Burbage discovered
a loophole in the
urban statutes and
therefore a sanctuary
for his troupe within
a London monastery.
His all-male troupe
played only
Shakespeare.

The Agnes Scott
Blackfriars' repertoire over
the years has included com-
edy and serious drama: The
Trojan Women, by Euripides.
The Crucible by Arthur
Miller. And GettingOut by
alumna Marsha Norman.

They have long outlived
every other theater group in
Atlanta.

And this year marks their
75th anniversary.

To celebrate, backstage
Chrissie Lewandowski pours
a pool of grape-black into a
pan. She and a handful of
Blackfriars have swept the
last sawdust from the floor,
quickly moved back saw-
horses and a table.

Now they are
ready to paint
the set.
In this 1990 anni-
versary production
of Antigone, she
plays the lead. Yet
amid the squish-
squish-squish of
paint rollers, she
explains, "There's
no room
for being a
prima
donna in
Blackfriars.
"You have
to do it all."
It's a unique
arrange-
ment for
undergradu-
ate theater.

Under fac-
ulty direc-
tion, through
the years Blackfriars have
handled each production on
their own.

By committee they
select the play and cast,

they help build the sets, do
costumes, lighting, makeup,
stage direction and props.

Finances tor future plays
are derived entirely from
past box office profits.

"I guess we were just red-

take in a play in town. In
1924, Blackfriars had
enough box office to take
their play, Conflict, to an
intercollegiate contest at
Northwestern University.
Prior to this production,

Blackfriars first drama: The Kleptomanaic .

headed step-children,"
muses Man - Ben Erwin,
Blackfriar from the class of
'25. "We were never in the
college budget."

A lean box office one
season may mean simpler
costumes and a spare set, the
next. Yet Becky Prophet,
assistant professor of theater,
believes student involve-
ment at this level elicits a
vitality not always experi-
enced in college theater.

It also provides unforget-
table instruction. "When we
were in dire straights, we did a
musical," says Lewandowski,
now spattered to the elbow
with black paint.

"On the other hand,
when you have money in
the bank, you can take a few
risks."

With money in the bank,
together Blackfriars may

any Agnes Scott student
playing a male part impro-
vised with a long coat
appearing in trousers was not
allowed. Louise Buchanan
Proctor '25, remembers tor
this play they made an ex-
ception. She played a bare-
foot boy her costume was
overalls. But she was called
into Dean Nanette Hopkins
office before the cast made
the trip to Chicago. "She
said our representing Agnes
Scott was a sacred trust. 'You
play the part of a barefoot
boy?' she asked me. I said
yes, m'am. 'That would not
be becoming of the college,'
she said. 'You must not go
barefoot. You wear your ho-
siery onstage.'"

We come from a tribe that
asks questions, remorselessly
arul to the end, Lewandowski
says under the strong light of

30 FALL 1990

FINALE

the Winter Theater stage.

Night after night she
returns. To discover mean-
ing. To explore inflection,
silence, timing, nuance,
gesture, space.

Seventy-five years ago,
Gertrude Amundsen
Siqueland '17, one of the
14 founders of Blackfriars,
was preparing for her role
as Val in The Kleptomaniac.

With fondness, she re-
calls those days. She played
Curio in Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night; Beatrice in
Much Ado About Nothing
and Oberon the fairy king
in A Midsummer Night's
Dream. For the part of
Oberon she sewed a long
flowing tunic. Blackfriars
presented their play in
front of a dark green
curtain stretched out under
the widespread arms of an
old oak tree.

Blackfriars. When they
couldn't find plays written
for women, Blackfriars as-
sumed male roles. When
they were not allowed to
wear trousers, they impro-
vised. When they had no
stage or theater, they per-
formed in borrowed halls
or on the campus lawn.
And when they couldn't
find a play they liked or
could afford, they wrote
their own.

Historically speaking,
perhaps, the best reflection
of these young thespians
and their purpose is not so
much in that lovely old
photo but in a word:
Blackfriars.

A strong community.
With resourceful leaders.
Properly steeped in
Shakepearean lore.

Agnes Scott praises
its outstanding
alumnae for 1 990

Three distinguished Agnes
Scott graduates: Saxon Pope
Bargeron '32, Frances Steele
Garrett '37 and Aurie
Montgomery Miller '44 were
named Outstanding
Alumnae for 1990.

They were cited for ac-
complishments in career,
service to the college and
community service, respec-
tively.

Saxon Pope Bargeron

Known as "Mrs. Education"
in Savannah, Mrs. Bargeron
served consecutive terms as
elected president of the
Chatham County Board of
Education and worked for a
half a century as teacher and
administrator there.

Saxon Pope Bargeron: Mrs.
Education in Chatham County.

"She helped to educate
Savannahians and to build
the community's modern
public school system during
an age of racial controversy
and change that threatened
to pull it down," according
to the Savannah News-Press.

She was a Phi Beta Kappa

ASC graduate with a BA in
Latin and Greek, who began
her career as an elementary
school teacher and eventu-
ally became director of the
division of curriculum devel-
opment and pupil services in
Chatham County.

After retirement she
ran for president of the
Chatham County Board of
Education. During her
presidency, the Savannah-
Chatham County Board of
Public Education was
honored as one of 1 7
Distinguished School Boards
in the United States for
excellence in education in
1984- She was the first and
only president re-elected to
the Savannah-Chatham
Board of Public Education.

Frances Steele Garrett

Cited by the awards com-
mittee for "contributions
toward making this campus
one of which we can all be
proud," Mrs. Garrett has
through the years diligently
supported Agnes Scott
College.

Due to her efforts as
chairman of the Acquisi-
tions Committee, furniture
donations were solicited,
collected, refinished and
placed in public areas of
newly refurbished buildings.

She has served as presi-
dent and fund chairman of
her class. From 1981 to 1985
she was career planning
representative on the
Alumnae Board. Recently
she was a member of both
the Centennial Steering
Committee and the
Centennial Exhibition
Committee. She arranged
for the Centennial

Exhibition at the Atlanta
Historical Society and
planned the opening
reception.

Mrs. Garrett graduated
from Agnes Scott with a BA

Frances Steele Garrett: Her
contributions to ASC have
"made this campus proud."

in Sociology and Economics.
For two years she was super-
visor for the National Youth
Administration and eight
years with the Southeastern
Regional Division of the
DuPont Corporation.

From 1956 until retire-
ment in 1974, she joined the
Coca Cola Company where
she worked in public rela-
tions, the export division
and the treasurer's office.

Aurie Montgomery
Miller

Mrs. Miller pioneered medi-
cal technology in what is
now Zaire. She set up the
first laboratory in Lubondai
and began training Congo-
lese students in chemistry,
bacteriology, serology, parasi-
tology and hematology. As
an appointed Presbyterian
missionary, with her hus-
band John Knox Miller,
M.D., she established the

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 3 1

FINALE

Christian Medical Institute
of the Kasai and the Good
Shepherd Hospital. With a
colleague she also organized
a lab school at Tshikaji.

Aurie Montgomery Miller:
Her commitment helped bring
hope and opportunity to Zaire .

Her community service
extended beyond her
professional commitments.
To combat malnutrition she
distributed seeds, encouraged
gardening and wrote a
cookbook in the Tshiluba
language.

She also served as a
welcoming committee for
diplomatic personnel, Peace
Corps workers and mission-
aries.

During the stniggle for
Zairian independence, tribal
warfare forced Aurie and the
children to be evacuated
twice and to endure house
arrest on several occasions.

After establishment of the
new nation, Mrs. Miller
worked to heal broken rela-
tionships in much the same
way she had worked so long
to heal the sick.

Montgomery is a native
of Tsing Kian Pu, China
where her parents were
Presbyterian missionaries.

Alexander Gaines:
a friend of the College
dies at age 80

Alexander Pendleton
Gaines, a friend of Agnes
Scott College whose com-
mitment and service
spanned three decades, died
in Atlanta on September 20
at the age of 80.

Trustee Emeritus at the
time of his death, Mr.
Gaines served on the board
from 1959 to 1984. He was
vice chairman from 1964
until 1973 and chairman
from 1973 until 1979.

His daughter, Mrs.
Virginia Ford of Atlanta,
said her father's loyalty and
devotion to Agnes Scott
date back to his own child-
hood when his grandfather
was college president. She
said these feelings stayed
with him throughout his life.

"He grew up with people
who were part of the begin-
ning of the school," she said.

His grandfather, the Rev.
Frank Henry Gaines, was
the college's co-founder with
Mr. George Washington
Scott in 1889.

"He had a tremendous
appreciation for the fact that
a college like this could give
young women leadership
that other schools couldn't,"
said Mrs. Ford. "Agnes Scott
was absolutely a special
place for him."

Born in Atlanta in 1910,
Mr. Gaines was the son of
Lewis M. and Virginia Ethel
Gaines. He graduated from
the University of Georgia in
1932 and received his law
degree at Emory University
in 1935. He was a senior part-
ner of the Atlanta law firm

Alston, Miller and Gaines.

Mrs. Ford said her father
shared his devotion to ASC
with Central Presbyterian
Church in downtown At-
lanta, where he served as an
elder for many years.

"These were his loves,"
said Mrs. Ford. "The time
and effort he put into these
endeavors came from his
heart." Mrs. Ford quoted a
former Central Presbyterian
minister who once said that
Mr. Gaines was "able to see
his way clear through a bar-
rel of fish hooks." She
believed that described her
father's talent. "My daddy
was somebody who was
always up on a pedestal.
What he said I thought was
right, and it usually was."

President Ruth Schmidt,
in announcing Mr. Gaines'
death, said, "During almost
31 years of official associa-
tion with Agnes Scott, Alex
Gaines provided wise and
effective leadership and
unselfish commitment in
fostering the mission and
purpose of the college. He
will be remembered on this
campus with deep gratitude."

Mr. Hal Smith, who pre-
ceded Mr. Gaines as chair-
man and knew^ him tor 45
years, said, "He was one of
the great citizens of Atlanta.
He was just an outstanding
man in many ways."

Mr. Smith recalls his
friend tor his wonderful
sense of humor. "He had a
attractive laugh and smile.
He had a lot of fun in him."

Former board member,
retired minister and semi-
nary president Davison
Philips knew Mr. Gaines for
30 years and remembers him

for his leadership and com-
mitment to the college. He
also remembers the kind of
relationships he developed.

"He was committed to
the students," Rev. Philips
said. Many undergraduates
looked up to him as a quiet,
steady person.

Rev. Philips said Mr.
Gaines also cared about the
philanthropic sector. "He
wanted to see money put
toward the educational and
religious life ot the city."

Mr. Gaines worked
closely with several founda-
tions, including the
Campbell Foundation,
Loridans Foundation and
the J.M. Tull Foundation.

Mr. Gaines was never
afraid to take a position, but
always acted in a quiet yet
commanding way.

His son, Alex Jr. , said his
father's religion, family and
commitment to Central
Presbyterian Church and
education are the things that
meant the most to him.

As a child, he remembers
visiting his grandmother,
who lived near the college.
"My father would talk to me
then about Agnes Scott. He
would say that the future of
this complicated and chang-
ing world was in the hands
ot the generation coming
out of this school. He really
believed that that each
generation graduating from
Agnes Scott had something
very special to give."

Many friends and associates
are contributing the Alex P.
Gaines Honor Schtlars Fund.
For information, contact the
Office of Development aiid
Public Affairs, ASC.

32 FAIL 1990

' ***Wk. lmr^{

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W Yjz3-

^\fc^&

Hnp^v >y/ /

L^V

or Go4 1*^0 commanded the light to shine
' out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts,
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ."
II Corinthians 4:6

JVLay God continue to illumine
this institution and our lives.

Oeason's greetings from the

Agnes Scott Alumnae Association

Gay Blackburn Maloney y 76

President

1

ALUMNAE MAGAZ RING 1991

EDITOR'S NOTE

Catching the long, green stem of
the hydrangea in the curved
blade of his hand-snips, Charles
Williams makes a quick, clean cut. He
thins a few lush blossoms then thought-
fully moves on through the Alumnae
Garden. Spring is a time for thinning
bushes, tor trimming skinny, up-turned
water shoots and lopping off deadwood,
he says. His nimble fingers pull down a
low-hanging tree limb. "This is over-
grown." Near a joint, he carefully snips.
The leafy pained portion flops onto the
ground, the limb, now lighter, snaps up
into place. Then Williams stands back.
Bright eyes peering from under the rim of
his baseball cap survey the effect of that
small adjustment on the overall tree.
Williams has been planting and pruning
for 20 years now. Four of those years he's
been at Agnes Scott. He smiles slightly
and pushes the red-plastic handled hand
snips into a back holder. "Till I knew

more about it," admits Williams, "1 thought it must hurt the
plant to prune it.

"But I learned it's all in the way you cut."
Fiscal pruning is not a phrase Gerald Whittington, ASC's
vice president for business and finance, would choose to
describe the staffs foray into zero-based budgeting for 1991-92.
He does say, "Anything you cut seems traumatic." But after
several years of what Whittington terms "incremental growth,"
he believed it was time to bring into sharper focus the priorities
and needs of the College. He initiated modified zero-based
budgeting, asking managers to review their operations, then set
goals and objectives in the light of the mission of the College.

"Basically," he says, "we asked our managers the question, 'Is
this fundamental to the college: Is it fundamental tor us to
convert our library to the Library ot Congress system? Is it
fundamental to provide transportation to take students to other

Spring

campuses for coursework and social
interaction? Is it fundamental that we
have a variety of foods in the dining hall
or could we all eat peanut butter
sandwiches every day?' "

As members of the budget work
group later reviewed requests for funds to
support fundamental activities, they
compared and consolidated duplicate
efforts, established priorities and
explored new directions. The effect of
the budgeting process was to cut back a
branch or two in order to support growth
elsewhere. Says Whittington, "We tried
to do it as painlessly as possible."

Converting the ASC library to the
Library of Congress system and provid-
ing a pilot inter-campus transportation
system tor students will be possible now,
pv . in part, because other units cut back.

I I I J PI I nC^I Trimmed from the publications budget
^Z/ tor 1991-92 is the equivalent of one

Alumnae Magazine. Instead of three 32-
page issues, during this fiscal year, look for tall and spring
magazines, plus the President's Report. (Main Events will anive
on its normal tall-winter-spring schedule.)

On our walk back toward my office, Gardener Williams
notes that pruning helps a plant breathe. It's all a matter of
selecting the right branch, he says. I think I know what he
means. Pmdent trimming here and there is the constant choice
of good stewardship. It is also the job of the editor whose pencil
can bring sharp focus to an unwieldy sentence or give form to
overly exuberant or lethargic publications. For 20 years now,
I've been planting and paining as writer and editor on various
books, magazines, newspapers and video productions.
"Paining," Williams tells me, "lets in light."

jfe^?t*s7~t~&y^-J

Editor: Celeste Pennington. Editorial Assistant: Kathy Choy. Archivist: Lee Sayrs. Design: Harold Waller and Everett Hullum.

Student Assistants: April Cornish '91, Willa Hendnckson '94, Hawa Meskinyar '94.

Publication* Advisory Board: George Brown, Christine Cozzens, Steven Guthrie, Bonnie Brown Johnson 70,

Randy Jones 70, Kay Parkerson O'Briant 70, Becky Prophet, Dudley Sanders, Edmund Sheehey, Lucia Howard Si:emore '65.

Copyright 1991, Agnes Scott College. Published three times a year by the Office of Publications, Agnes Scott College, Buttnck Hall,

141 E. College Ave., Decatur, GA 30030, 404/371-6315. The magazine is published for alumnae and friends of the College. Postmaster:

Send address changes to Office ot Development and Public Affairs, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA 30030. Like other content ot the

magazine, this article reflects the opinion of the writer and not the viewpoint ot the College, its trustees, or administration.

Cover photo: jerry Burns.

TURNABOUT

CONTENTS

As we read the article, "A Meeting of the
Minds," about the scholarship and dedi-
cated teaching of Dr. Richard Parry, we
learn just how supportive women can be
of a man who has dedicated his life to
teaching women at a women's college.
Sarah Legg Schoon '65
St. Louis, MO

Thanks for sending the magazine copies.
It's a beautiful publication. I thoroughly
enjoyed your piece on Professor Parry
my undergraduate degree at William and
Mary was in philosophy, so the story hit
me where I live.

Again, thanks for noticing the Karen
Gearreald piece and using it in your
magazine.

Mike D'Orso
The Virgin/an Pilot and
The Ledger Star
Norfolk, VA

I just finished the Fall issue. Beautiful. I
highlighted passages from the Rosalynn
Carter article to include in an upcoming
speech I'll be making. . . .

Leisa Hammett-Goad
Stone Mountain, GA

In efforts to improve our alumni maga-
zine here at Kalamazoo College, we are
trying to review outstanding college pub-
lications around the country. I noticed
the Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine won a
Gold Medal in the CASE Periodicals
Special Issues category this year (con-
gratulations! ). Do you by chance have
an extra copy?

Sandy Fugate
Director of Publications
Kalamazoo, MI

Spring 1991 Volume 69, Number 1

Page 4

A woman with
a past

by Stacey Noiles

Page 14

Clyde Edgerton
puckers up

by Bill Bangham

Page 20

When the victim
must testify

by Barbara Thompson

Page 28

Working
for nothing

by Judy Bouvier

U.N. staffer, now
Adeline Arnold
Loridans Professor
of French, Regine
Reynolds-Cornell
reminds us of the power
of communication .

A glimpse ofASC's
mercurial bestselling
author -in-residence , on
stage and off.

]udy Taylor Smith '73
intervenes so the judicial
process is not just a
second assault on
victims of violence.

Bottom line: experts
say experience through
extemships and
interships makes THE
smart career investment.

Lifestyle Page 2

Martha A. Truett '67 - Developing antiviral AIDS
treatment Cathy Zurek '83 - A scent of success

Classic Page 41

The Spring Formal

Finale Page 42

Geraldine M. Meroney dies

Best Shots/ ASC Photo Contest announced

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 1

LI F ESTYLE

Brown-belt Truett:
breaking boards
and diseases

t's such a kick." That's
what toe kwan do brown
belt Martha A. Truett '67
says about breaking boards
with her feet. It is a require-
ment for each toe kwan do
belt rank qualification. But
Tniett admits she and others
in her all-women's class
"sometimes break boards
because we teel like doing it.
"I love breaking boards."
Truett, Ph.D., derives
similar pleasure in her work
as projects manager with
Berlex Laboratories in
Alameda, Calif. Over the
past several years she has
been responsible for the
development of pharmaceu-

ticals for the tough diseases
ranging from AIDS to
hepatitis B.

As project manager, she
takes a product from re-
search through marketing,
with full responsibility for
strategy, budget, in- or out-
licensing and any legal is-
sues. "I oversee the entire
course of events."

Last year she managed
the development of AZDU,
a chemically synthesized an-
tiviral agent (similar to
AZT) for treatment of
AIDS. That compound is
now in clinical trials, await-
ing FDA approval. "It will
be used in place of other
therapy [which has not
worked successfully for cer-
tain patients]. It is new hope
for these patients, basically."

As project malinger for a California pharnwceuticals company,
Martha Truett takes new drugs from research to marketing.

Her current projects in-
clude the development of
FEAU, a chemically synthe-
sized antiviral agent used in
the treatment of chronic
active hepatitis B. Alpha
interferon is the licensed
product now on the market.
"It's also treated by acu-
puncture, by vitamins. They
don't have a very good
therapy for it," she says. Al-
pha interferon is injected.
"FEAU would not be."

Prior to working at
Berlex, Truett was principle
scientist at Chiron Corpora-
tion in Emoryville, Calif.,
where for eight years she was
involved in research, devel-
opment and manufacturing
for vaccines, for therapeutic
and diagnostic products.
She also worked with law
firms on product patents.

"I like being able to move
from strictly research to a
marketable product.

"I've been extremely for-
tunate that I've been able to
pick and choose what I've
done and with a little
planning have been able to
do things that I find really
challenging. . . .

"In my work, a person
tackles problems without
knowing if they will be trac-
table or not. You have to
have persistence, tenacity."

Those qualities, she ad-
mits, are critical to the mar-
tial arts.

"I like tae kwon do be-
cause I never thought I
would be good at it. I am
not a good runner. I was
never good at Softball."

She laughs.

"To be able to do this
and do it well it's mind-
boggling." ASC

Chemist Zurek:
Enjoying the sweet
smells or success

Every day, Cathy Zurek
'83 is surrounded by a
mix of chemicals in her
Bogota, Colombia, lab.

But she is no ordinary
scientist poring over 2, OCX)
bottled ingredients. The test
tubes in her lab contain
synthetic chemicals and
natural oils of plants and
flowers.

Zurek is a junior perfumer
forGivaudan, second-largest
perfume company in the
world. The Swiss-based
multi-national company's
U.S. clients have such
household names as
Colgate-Palmolive and
Proctor & Gamble. So one
day, Agnes Scott grads could
be among those shampooing
or perfuming with a fra-
grance concocted by Zurek.

Zurek admits that becom-
ing a perfumer was not a
career goal upon graduation
with a chemistry degree from
Agnes Scott.

"My family has a soft
drink company in Carta-
gena, and everyone assumed
that after I graduated I
would go to work for them,"
says Zurek.

Initially she did.

Givaudan's flavor divi-
sion in Zurich provided the
flavors for her family busi-
ness, Laboratorios Roman.
Company officials invited
her as a client to taste the
latest soft drink syrups at
their headquarters. She
learned the basics of the
flavor trade, then later was
asked to join their perfume
division.

CDD.Nir* inni

LIFESTYLE

In December, Zurek
received certification.

Perfumery involves both
the art of combining ingredi-
ents to achieve a pleasing
fragrance and the science of
mixing components that will
remain chemically stable.

"Sometimes you can
make a wonderful-smelling
fragrance, but you can't wear
it," admits Zurek.

"On the other hand you
could have a perfect techni-
cal mixture, without the de-
sired scent."

Ultimately her job is to
develop fragrances that will
satisfy the cultural prefer-
ences of her home country.
"What they like in Switzer-
land might be different
from what they like here,"
she said.

Some of the natural
essences she handles aren't
always pleasing to the senses.

"A few of the animal de-
rivatives smell like 1 couldn't
even tell you," said Zurek.
"Everybody always knows
where I've been at the end
of the day because I stink. I
could wash my hands ten

Cathy Zurek is combinirig the art and the science of fragrance creation to become a perfv

times and it wouldn't go
away."

She wears no perfume or
other fragrance on the job
since it interferes with her
work.

Perhaps she was testing
the finer scents of rose oil or

jasmine when she first met
her husband, Felipe Lopez,
who heads sales and market-
ing for Givaudan Bogota.

Zurek's goal is to advance
to the levels of perfumer and
senior perfumer in the com-
pany which recently nosed

out the competition for a
contract to produce a new
perfume for a major cosmet-
ics firm. The fragrance cam-
paign will be launched later
this year. The name, she
says, is a secret. ASC
Karen Young '84

Paxton brings history
alive for students

A standing ovation
Z.A greeted Mercedes
/ YVasilos Paxton '74,
when she was named Na-
tional Outstanding Ameri-
can History Teacher of the
Year in Washington, D.C.

She called the award,
"the icing on the cake."

Paxton, who has taught
social studies and history at
Lakeside High School in
DeKalb County, Ga., for

almost 20 years, says she tries
to relate history to events
occurring today.

She teaches the advanced
and gifted classes in history.
Her students score in the
96th percentile on IQ tests.

Last year Paxton was
named DeKalb County
Teacher of the Year; this year
she was a semi-finalist for
the 1991 Georgia Teacher of
the Year. She has been
selected a STAR teacher
four times. Five times stu-
dents elected her "Distin-

guished Teacher."

"Mrs. Paxton brings his-
tory alive for students and
helps them learn how to
think," wrote Lakeside prin-
cipal Thomas S. Beuglas in
nominating Mrs. Paxton for
the state title. "She teaches
students to read, interpret,
analyze, synthesize and com-
municate. She teaches re-
search and critical thinking.

"Mrs. Paxton takes a per-
sonal interest in the students
and is friend, teacher and
counselor."

While a student at Agnes
Scott, Paxton considered
careers in law or research.
"My love for teaching really
clicked after student teach-
ing [during] my senior year."

Paxton called this latest
award "a wonderful honor."
It is made annually by the
National Society of Daugh-
ters of the American Revo-
lution for a teacher perform-
ing outstanding services in
stimulating a deeper under-
standing and appreciation of
American history. ASC

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 3

A Woman With a Past

Linguist Regine Reynolds-Cornell reminds us the end of language

has never been perfect elocution, but to understand and to be understood.

By Stacey Noiles

lD<\d kvi -ftv\ewU WmtW cxuA Vaclav

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hen Regine Reynolds-Cornel! was a child,
the Germans marched into France. "It
seems to be gray and cold all the time, in my
memory," she recalls wearily. "I don't seem to
remember the summers." What she remembers
clearly is the pro-German music teacher who
called Regine and the other children the "offspring of defeated adults."
The next time the students gathered for choir practice, their pockets
were full of subway tickets cut in the shapes ofV's and crosses.
"The crosses were the symbol of Free French forces led by
General Charles de Gaulle," she says. "The V's were for victory.
"As we sang, we slowly emptied our pockets.
"Hundreds and hundreds of V's and crosses fell around us."
When class was over, the childreri departed, as usual. But notes
Reynolds-Cornell: "We left our message on the ground."

Reynolds-Cornell, now Agnes Scott College Adeline
Arnold Loridans Professor of French, brings to her classes a
deep understanding of human relationships borne of
childhood's gray remembrances and a series of richly colored
careers that span continents and cultures, wars and peace.

Images of war-torn Somalia flicker through tonights
evening news. She was once there, working as cryptographer
and administrative assistant in charge of the diplomatic pouch
(classified material) on assignment for the United Nations.
With tart description and yellowed photos from an old album,
Reynolds-Cornell reviews the places and the people she en-
countered when she was part of the Trusteeship Council pre-
paring. the colony for independence. "I learned a great deal
about others," she muses, "and far more about myself."

Today the U.N. Security Council grapples with the after-

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math of crises in the Middle East. She's worked there.

As a UN. staff member first assigned to Political Affairs
and the Security Council, she took notes of speeches and
typed synopses in French. At that time the Suez Canal was the
focus of a mideastem crisis and during heated council sessions
Reynolds-Cornell says she wrote fast and "watched the feathers
fly." She remembers the ambassador from Egypt had a heart
attack on the U.N. floor and died a few hours later.

Messages non-verbal or artfully expressed symbols and
words powerfully link her various experiences from searching
for gems of history when she was a student of Renaissance
literature to coding and decoding UN. communications to
teaching students of French.

With a group of students gathered recently for an informal
session of "Don't Quote Me," red-haired Reynolds-Cornell

quoted an ancient passage which shows the importance of
communication and, perhaps, the wide-ranging effects of a
mere mispronunciation. From Judges 12:5-6, she read, And the
Gileadites took the passage of Jordan before the Ephraimites. And it
was so that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said unto
them, "Let me go over" that the men ofGilead said unto him, "Art
thou an Ephraimite?" If he said, "Nay," then said they unto him,
"Say now Shibboleth" and he said, "Sibboleth, " for he could not
frame his lips to pronounce it nght. Then they took him and slew
him at the passage of Jordan. And there fell at that time of the
Ephraimites forty and two thousand inen.

"We are more lenient in the French Department," she says
and laughs.

"Having visited a good number of countries and lived in
seven, I can get along very well with people in most places,"

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 5

Qvfa , Scr\ual\

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she notes. "The first step toward communication is a frame of
mind that is accepting."

child of war and the only daughter of a pharma-
cist and his wife, Reynolds-Cornell recalls
that regardless of luxuries the family possessed
before the German occupation, they suffered
the shortages and discomforts known to the
rest of the French population. Wood tor
shoe soles replaced valuable leather (which the Germans took
tor their own use). The wood rubbed blisters. "We pinned
newspapers inside our coats for the long walk from unhealed
homes. Soap became a luxury." Germans allowed Parisians gas
for heating three times a day, an hour at a time, and electricity-
only from nightfall till dawn. So "soaking in a warm bathtub,"

says Reynolds-Cornell, "became a distant memory."

Still, Reynolds-Cornell gleans humor from predicaments in
which the citi:ens of occupied France found themselves. Since
wheat flour was scarce, bakers substituted com flour in France s
fragrant loaves. "You had to eat it when it was very fresh, be-
fore it became hard," she recalls. A smile dances at the corner
of her mouth. Failing that, she says, "you could kill your neigh-
bor with it."

She studied at the Lycee Jules Ferry. Scholarship was rigor-
ous. "There was a great deal of self-discipline and a vast
amount of homework." French students crammed an equiva-
lent of two years of American education into one. She learned
English and Spanish.

Her knowledge and facility with language later served her
well when she applied for work with international organiza-

CDDIK I/" l on 1

a

lad

tions. She was required to take tests in French, English and
Spanish. Before the first test, the proctor told applicants:
"Accuracy is more important than speed." Reynolds-Cornell
had never seen a multiple choice test before. She thought in-
structions meant to fill in the boxes beside the correct answers
with great care. "I wasted an incredible amount of time filling
in completely those little rectangles," she says, laughing. "It
turns out I tested almost mentally retarded in French."

Three red-bound albums of photos hint at the diversity of
Reynolds-Cornell's eight years working for the United
Nations.

In one photo she sits at a long table, wearing headset, bent
intently over her writing around and above her in the U.N.'s
familiar curving tiers of desks are diplomats also wearing head-
sets and dark suits, seated in alphabetical order by country:

Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bunna, Byelorussia ....

In another photo, young Reynolds-Cornell stoops in the
sand to bottle-feed a lion cub. In another the voluminous net
skirt of her formal gown sweeps across a marble dance floor in
Mogadiscio, Somalia. Her partner's dark hair is slicked back.
He wears a crisp dinner jacket and black tie.

Among the most compelling images are the photos she
took of the Somali marketplaces: erect women gracefully
draped in floral fabrics; thatched villages and tall palms and
long-necked camels led by bare-chested herdsmen with long
twists of white fabric about their loins.

It was in Somalia that Reynolds-Cornell first experienced
teaching. "There was a young American there who was in love
with a gorgeous Italian girl who spoke no English," the profes-
sor explains. "After they became engaged, I gave her English

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 7 I

W^%- ^t&L (kvStt W VU ibacfc ^

lessons. I had to start from scratch. I took her in my house from
room to room to teach her vocabulary. Then we started short
sentences with verbs. I found that teaching could be fun."

n 1964, Reynolds-Cornell served as a language instruc-
tor tor the Peace Corps, leading intensive training
sessions tor pre-medical and nursing students headed
for West Africa. That same year, on return from Chile,
she moved west to become a research assistant in the
L. departments ot Spanish and Portuguese at the

University ot Texas and begin serious study of Renaissance lit-
erature. Her love affair with Renaissance literature and history
had begun as a young student in France. "The 16th century
was a time when great minds were exploring everything. They
were not making rules yet, just exploring. I very often wished 1

could be invisible and spend a week in those days ot the Re-
naissance," she muses, then smiles at the thought ot a 20th-
century woman in times still restrictive for women. "1 probably
would have been burned at the stake and never made it back."

Her special interest was women authors from that period.
"Women authors were totally neglected never mentioned
anywhere, except for their beauty." As a doctoral candidate she
selected Renaissance author Marguerite ot Navarre as the sub-
ject ot her dissertation. Her adviser chided her tor not choos-
ing a "major writer." Reynolds-Cornell prevailed. "1 am glad 1
did." Marguerite "is now the subject of many dissertations,
many works." A professor at the Sorbonne asked tor permis-
sion to use her dissertation in his class. "He told me he telt that
a woman would understand this woman tar better than he and
his male colleagues did." Marguerite, sister ot King Frances I of

i^ l no i

France, was a prolific writer from the 16th century whose
book, Mirror of the Sinful Soul, a meditation in verse on death
and redemption, was later copied in longhand by the 1 1 -year-
old princess Elizabeth later queen of England.

After Marguerite's maniage to a poorly educated nobleman,
the Duke of Alencon, courtiers at the wedding reported that
there was " 'weeping enough to hollow out a stone' Isn't that
a lovely phrase?" asks Reynolds-Cornell.

Finding historical and literary gems such as these keeps the
professor pursuing 16th-century women authors, whom even
some female colleagues deride as "second-rate."

"Second-rate is all a matter of opinion," Reynolds-Cornell
counters. "My favorite author is a man, Montaigne, but lor my
personal research, I'd rather explore a little bit."

Perfect elocution is not the end of language, Reynolds-

Cornell tells students. Mutual understanding is. If Reynolds-
Cornell concerns herself with language, she has also considered
the impact of non-verbal communication and has written
papers on the rhetoric of silence. "Silence," she says, "can be
more eloquent than speech." The message silence conveys may
be indifference, hatred, scorn. "It is a double-edged sword."

Her world brought her into contact with wordsmiths and
great communicators. In New York, she lived in a fifth-floor
walk-up (living room-dining room-kitchen) in Greenwich
Village, on St. Mark's Place. She remembers often "seeing this
ugly old man who lived in the next building." He wore shoes
like bedroom slippers. The man was poet W. H. Auden.

At work she saw Dag Hammerskjold, who served as Secre-
tary General of the United Nations; Indira Ghandi, the first
woman to chair the general assembly. "They had to hold a

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 9

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meeting to decide what to call her." They decided, Madame
Chairman.

She also experienced the hrokenness ot worlds without
understanding.

She lived with it in Somalia, as armed guards patrolled the
U.N. compound where she lived right after the Mau Mau
uprising in nearby Kenya.

She lived with it in Texas, too, where she taught French
and chaired the department of foreign languages tor 12 years at
Southwestern University.

Her two small sons had traveled extensively the first few
years ot their lives. They had black friends and brown friends.
Because ot this they frequently were the objects of verbal and
physical abuse at school. Reynolds-Cornell even recounts a bit
ot abuse directed at herself. One day a woman called Reynolds-

Cornell. "We don't need no hippies like you," the woman told
Cornell, a housewife and mother.

Says Reynolds-Cornell, "I don't know if we will ever learn."

ack when Reynolds-Cornell was a member

ot the U.N. Trusteeship Council in Soma-
ia, she and her team had opportunities to

explore the country. She traveled with a col-
eague from the World Health Organization

by Land Rover (loaded with cots, mosquito
nets and supplies), to vocational schools, to agricultural pilot
projects, to a leper colony. "The Somalis are gorgeous people,
very friendly," she says. Some were unaccustomed to, even
afraid of, the camera's eye. And those ot the nomadic tribes
could grow to adulthood without glimpsing a white person.

10 SPRING 1991

She describes one significant encounter. "On this trip we
met one of the small, nomadic extended families that moves
with its cattle with its houses packed on camels."

Her own skin was tanned, but still fair, her hair bleached by
the equatorial sun. As she got out of the Land Rover, she no-
ticed that the tribe women "stared at me and began giggling.

"For a few seconds," she remembers, "I felt offended. I won-
dered what in the world was so funny?"

Then she quickly recalled her reaction upon first seeing
Somali men. They wore elaborately wrapped loincloths, "a
little bit like a diaper, but backwards." Their sphinx-like hair-
cuts completed the picture. "Deep down, I had to admit, I felt
they looked a little funny."

It was then, she realized, "here I was this person with short,
straight hair bleached orange-ish by the sun, wearing a short-

sleeved white shirt and khaki skirt. To them I was, indeed,
really funny, too. We giggled together for a moment and had a
good time."

She gave candy to the children. The women gathered
around her to touch her arms, her hair. "We communicated
without a word.

"We accepted one another."

The barriers, she says: social, economic, religious, racial,
ethnic, sexual differences, "can only fall if we deal with each
person on an individual, personal level, one by one."

"And each of us," Reynolds-Cornell reminds students, "is
alone in his/her own struggle to understand others and to be
understood." ASC

Noiles is a former editor of Agnes Scott College's Main Events.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 1 I

Teaching for Learning

ASC's Reynolds-Cornell brings "energy, lite and a good
mood" ro the classroom and to her co-workers.

"In the long run, we are really nothing more than
the sum of our actions and the effect they have on
other people. " Refine Reynolds-Cornell

^ he College's Adeline Arnold Loridans
Professor ot French came to Agnes
Scott in 1986. Associate professor
Huguette Chatagnier recalls, "We saw
something in her you don't find very often. This
was a person ahle to do so many things from
teaching first year French to seminars she was
involved in the life of the students."

Chatagnier calls Reynolds-Cornell "dynamic
and demanding hut not an excess. She hnngs
energy, life and a good mood to the department. It's
a quality that's appreciated day after day."

Departments often ask strong candidates to
teach a "test" class. Reynolds-Cornell was asked to
teach a 1 7th-century literature class. "Her teaching
was pleasant, hut systematic the students loved
that," Chatagnier recalls. "The day we hired her
was one ot those good days."

By most standards, Reynolds-Cornell's plate is
full with her teaching schedule and responsibilities
as department chair. Still, she finds time to consult
with The College Board on advanced placement
tests and has worked with the Educational Testing
Service since 1977. She is president of ASC's Phi
Beta Kappa chapter.

The College expects an endowed chair to pub-
lish, but Reynolds-Cornell has her own compel-
ling reasons tor doing so. "If you don't do research,
you not only don't grow, you stultify a little bit
your field keeps growing and you're left behind."
She has published numerous articles and is one of
an international team of Renaissance literature
specialists working on a 15-volume series about
Renaissance theatre to be printed in 1992. She has
also organized an international colloquium that
will draw professors from prestigious universities to
ASC for the 500th anniversary ot the birth of
French author Marguerite ot Navarre.

Despite this abundance of extra-curricular ac-
tivities, teaching remains her main focus. Not con-
tent to leave the majority of her duties to a teach-
ing assistant, she instructs her three first-year
French classes tour days a week and spends most
evenings grading papers.

"1 love to teach first-year French," the professor
admits. "It you can convey your enthusiasm to
them, some get excited about it. It also makes
them more aware of their own language."

Confirms April Van Mansfield '92, "Even it
she is busy, she will find the time to help. She's
not just teaching French, she wants you to leam
it." ASC

Despite other duties as author and department chair,
Dr. Reynolds-Cornell still stresses classroom teaching.

SsSs?

Ml

'

12 SPRING 1991

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 3

'i'-\

The stage is bare but for piano
and stool The audience sighs,
eyes one another and waits for a
moment of magic. A slender,
graying man steps into the lights
and delivers. With a pucker of
lips he disappears into the whee-

dling voice of a young woman

By Bill Bangham
Photos by Paul Obregon

arguing God with her newly-

wed husband. It's a Southern

thing, delivered like sorghum on
white bread a promise going
down smooth and guaranteed to
stick in your throat filled with
all the sound and fury of simple

truths, long-held and dear, clash-
ing with new and confusing cos-
mopolitan complexities. It's a

snoot rooting in a well-watered

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 5 I

garden of the mind; an Eden remem-
bered. Though heathens from the North
long ago meddled and ruined a wonderful
way of life, this is still the land of cotton.

Even Yankees little versed in Old
South-New South rhetoric, regional po-
litical posturing and pious preachments
delivered in polyester can appreciate the
imbroglio wrapped in this petite and prim
daughter of the land struggling with a
new marriage and a new life in a new
time with old tools.

Suddenly, in the midst of laughter and
well-nibbed eyes, she's gone.

Only piano and stool and man remain,
pucker replaced with a grin.

This is Clyde Edgerton at his
best novelist, storyteller,
musician reading from his
first three novels, Raney,
Walking Across Egypt and
The Floatplane Notebooks ,
and recently published
fourth, Killer Diller, as he
parades a line of characters
across the stage in Agnes Scott's Charles
A. Dana Fine Arts Center.

There is Raney, the bride, pitting
Fundamentalist Baptist-bred absolutes
against her uncertainties.

Then, Mattie Ross, who once got
stuck in a cane-bottom rocker and has as
much business taking in a stray dog or
Wesley Bentield, as she has in walking
across Egypt.

And Mark Oakley, an Air Force pilot
on a reconnaissance flight over Southeast
Asia, recognizing, in a figure along the
Ho Chi Minh Trail, himself walking a
dusty North Carolina road.

And Wesley again, older now, in Killer
Diller, living in a halfway house, learning
to play the bottleneck dobro, working at a
small Baptist college, attending church
and ferreting sexually explicit passages
from the Bible.

Edgerton was a musician long before
he became a writer. So there is music in
the writing and on stage. Raney likes tra-
ditional tunes; Wesley, John Pnn.
Edgerton plunks them from a banjo and
hammers them out on the piano.
There's a certain frustration in
attempting to describe Edgerton's charac-
ters. "You can talk about them," he says,
"but they're really not reducible. They
have their own meaning.

16 SPRING 1991

AizSZ?

"If they could be reduced to one or
two sentences, I would have just written
them and not spent two years writing a
novel."

They have depth, humor, familiarity,
lives filled with found moments. We feel
like we know them, that they are real,
and we look for them in our own lives.
There's a feeling that if they aren't there,
they should be.

It's part of the magic.

Edgerton's storytelling and
humor come from his
mother's side of the family.
When he was a child, she
was always telling funny
stories some about people
he had never met, who for
him only existed in those
stories. In that environ-
ment, he says, he couldn't help but
develop a strong sense of story and
humor humor that gives his stories
particular twists.

"It's not difficult," he says. "I think it's
a consequence of coming up with charac-
ters that are not predictable, a little
shaky." Like Raney, who with aggressive
naivete, on hearing about third world
countries, asks, "You mean on another
planet?"

Or Mattie stuck in the cane bottom
rocker, hoping someone will find her,
worrying through interior monologue
that whoever it is will notice her lunch
dishes aren't done and suspect the
truth that she's been watching her
favorite soap opera.

"I learned a secret about humor with
my last novel," says Edgerton. "I always
put my characters in a predicament."

Predicaments and situations do more
than generate humor. They are the found
moments, kernels that produce stories.

Edgerton's mother was once stuck in a
chair though he is quick to state Mattie
Ross is not his mother; "Mattie may have
some of my mother's characteristics, but I
have never known enough about a real
person to write about them like I do my

Edgerton lecturing a class
at Agnes Scott. "I learned a secret
about humor with my last novel,"
says Edgerton. "I always put my
characters in a predicament."

characters" and a soft spot in the floor
in front of the refrigerator led to his first
short story.

He investigated a spot and found an
open well beneath it. Wouldn't it be
funny, he thought, if someone fell
through that spot and got out OK ?
"Natural Suspension" was the result of
that thought. Eleven years later it
became a humorous and memorable inci-
dent in his third novel, The Floatplane
Notebooks .

t 33, Edgerton finished his first
story, "Natural Suspension."
Wiile he had started writ-
ing several times before,
nothing had clicked. He
attributes this to being
busy with other things.
He had been a U.S.
Air Force pilot, earned a
couple of graduate degrees and pretty
much figured out what it takes to teach
on the college level when he walked into
his home one afternoon. The television
was on; Eudora Welty was reading her
short story, "Living at the P.O."

It was a story he had used to teach
literary technique to his students, one he
was familiar with. But this reading was
different. As he listened to Welty reading
her own words he thought, "That's what
I want to do."

Until this past year he has continued
to teach. A Guggenheim fellowship has
given him a year off from the classroom.
But his presence on this campus marks
more than a literary reading. Agnes Scott
is a place where Edgerton feels comfort-
able and familiar. His wife, Susan, is a
1970 graduate of the college. "She's
always known more about everything
than I do, so I've always felt good about
Agnes Scott," he says.

He's been here for the fall term,
teaching a fiction writing class.

It's an unusual class. Edgerton is on
campus one week a month, commuting
from his home in North Carolina. EXir-
ing that week there are class meetings
and individual conferences with each of
the 1 2 students. The rest of the month
they all maintain contact through corre-
spondence.

It's a real-world situation, he says. "I'm
treating them like fiction writers, acting
as their editor reading, responding."

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 7 I

Iii addition, he's helping them analyze
fiction. "That's coming at the story from
the outside, where as a fiction writer
they're coming at it from the inside."
Through this approach he hopes his
students find a voice and a story they
can write.

"I don't think you can teach creative
writing," he says.

"You can recognize and encourage

gifts, teach some short cuts, help them
avoid distractions, but that's all."

As for himself, Edgerton finished read-
ing the final galleys of Killer Diller during
his first week on campus. It was printed in
early 1991. But beyond that, "There's
nothing barking at me right now. There's
a spell in there between books where 1
have to be patient," he says.

"Fiction comes from experience, obser-

vation and imagination," he continues.
"The problem is, 'How do you get them to
work together?'

"I think it comes from a split personality,
a psychotic disorder that allows you to get
away with it where normal people can't.

"And you have fiction." ASC

Clyde Edgerton pauses

between lectures at ASC. Perhaps

pondering a plot for his next novel?

Excerpts from Edgerton

"Charles, why didn't you do something? You've got all the
answers. Now you've got all the answers. Charles, I can't
believe you're saying all this."

"Listen, Raney. I haven't said I have all the answers. I have
tried to say things. God knows
I've tried. And I give up. I
couldn't care less. Your family
is a brick wall. I couldn't care
less. Why should I waste my
time beating my head against
a brick wall?"

He was standing there
holding a pack of frozen
hamburger to fix chili with,
getting more and more intense.
I was so mad I couldn't stand
it. I knew it was coming. We
had had a big argument every
day four days in a row. My

cheeks got hot and my chest hurt and I felt ice water between
my skin and rib cage. "Charles, I can't live with this. You
think Mama murdered Uncle Nate!"

"No. No. Now, Raney, don't be ridiculous. It wasn't
murder. It was a whole family's refusal to look for alternatives
to a . . . way of life. To read to become educated about a
problem staring you in the face. Given the self-righteousness
of . . . fundamental Christianity in this family, your Uncle
Nate didn't have a chance."

Something snapped in my head . . .

/ 985 by Clyde Edgerton. Reprinted from Raney by Clyde
Edgerton, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1 985. Used by
permission.

CLYDE EUGEKTON

WALKING

ACROSS

EGYPT

It was one o'clock on the dot. Mattie walked into the den,
bent over and clicked the TV on. She slowly walked back-
ward, still bending over, toward the rocker. Her left hand
reached behind her to find the chair arm. Ah, the commer-
cial New Blue Cheer was
still on. She had started sitting
down when a mental picture
flashed into her head: the
chair without a bottom. But her
leg muscles had already gone
lax. She was on the way
down. Gravity was doing its
job. She continued past the
customary stopping place, her
eyes fastened to the New Blue
Cheer box on the TV screen,
her mind screaming no,

wondering what bones she might break, wondering how
long she was going to keep on going down, down, down.

When she jolted to a stop the backs of her thighs and a
spot just below her shoulders were pinched together tightly.
Her arms were over her head. Her bottom was one inch from
the floor. Nothing hurt except the backs of her legs, and that
seemed to be only from the pressure. How could she have
forgotten? she thought. . . .

What if Alora comes in the back door and sees me
watching this program? What in the world will I say? Well,
I'll just say I was sitting down to watch the news when I fell
through, and so of course I couldn't get up to turn off that silly
soap opera. That's what I'll tell her.

/ 987 by Clyde Edgerton. Reprinted from Walking Across

Egypt by Clyde Edgerton, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill,
1 987. Used by permission.

I 1 8 SPRING 1991

WHEN THE VICTIM MUST

TESTIFY

by Barbara R. Thompson

ustration by Thomas Gonzalez
photographs by Laura Sikes

OUR ONLY HOPE WILL LIE IN THE FRAIL WEB OF UNDER-
STANDING pf ONE PERSON FOR THE PAIN OF ANOTHER.

JOHN DOS PASOS

I 20 SPRING 199t

AGNES SGOn

ALUMNAE MAGAZINE
READERSHIP SURVEY

1 . What is your relationship to Agnes Scott College?

alumna

faculty/administration

student

other (please specify):

Z. If you are an alumna of ASC, please indicate your
class year:

J. Which of the following best describes how you read
the magazine? (Choose only one.)

I do not read the magazine at all

I look primarily at the pictures

1 look primarily at titles and headings
G I sometimes read an article or two

I usually read an article from each issue

I usually read several articles from each issue

I read almost all of every issue

T- How long (total time) do you usually spend reading
ASC magazines?

two or three hours

one or two hours

one-half to one hour.

less than one-half hour.

.J. What do you do with the magazine once you
receive it?

keep it 6 months or more

keep it 1-6 months

throw it away after 2 weeks or less

throw it away immediately

O. If you do not read the magazine or do so only

seldomly, please indicate why. (Check aR that apply.)

not interested in subject matter

do not have enough time to read it

do not like the format of the magazine

do not agree with the editorial approach

articles are too long

articles are too short and superficial

articles are poorly written

other (please specify):

7.

How many times would you say you pick up each
issue of the magazine?

none

once

twice

three times

four or more times

ontrary to custom,
ier to wear into
lifer speaks she
; hat to block her
: is a creative cop-
le more poignant
i 10 years old.
any victims of vio-
>und a compas-
5mith 73, the first
Witness program

for the northeastern judicial circuit of
Georgia. Smith enables victims like
Jennifer to be effective witnesses in a
courtroom setting and helps them find
the social services they need for indi-
vidual and family recovery.

Before "victims" are called upon to testify,
Judy Smith often talks to them, quietly easing
their fears and tensions. Says judge John
Girardeau: "Judy helps make human a
system too often known for its lack of
humanness . 1 hope someday aR courts will
have someone like Judy to let victims of
crime know we care about them, too. "

AGNES J^OTT/mAGAZINE 2 1

WHEN THE VICT

TESTI

OUR ONLY HOPE WILL LIE IN THE FR,
STANDING Qf ONE PERSON FOR THE

JOHN DOS PASOS

O. Have you ever been featured in an article?

yes

no

If so, please indicate the issue(s):

y . What do you read first?

Choice 1:
Choice 2:

1 U. What do you read last?

Why?

1 1 . Do you prefer to read:

a few major articles (5-7 pages each)

many short articles (1-3 pages each)

1 Z. Do you have any suggestions on features or articles
you would like to see added?

Choice 1 :

Choice 2:

LD. Which types of articles would you like to see less
frequently in the magazine?

Choice 1 :

Choice 2:

1 T". Length of the magazine

reduce number of pages

increase number of pages

keep the magazine about the same size

1 J. Physical dimensions of magazine (height and width)

make the magazine smaller

keep it the same size

make the magazine larger

1 0. Type size

make letters larger
J present size is fine
J use smaller letters

1 /. Photographs

use fewer photographs

J keep about the same number
J use more photographs

I 20 SPRING 1991

lO. Type of photographs

use more color photographs

present use of photographs is fine

use fewer color photographs

iy. Content of articles

make articles more informative and in-depth

articles are fine as they are

make articles brief and more concise

L\). Which types of articles would you like to see in the
magazine? (Check all that apply.)

ASC news

ASC structure and organization

book reviews

contemporary issues

contemporary student life

features about administration

features about alumnae

features about faculty

features about staff

features about students
L) historical material

home economics

how-to articles

management

ministry

trends that affect higher education

L 1 . Which of these types of articles would you like to
see less?

ASC structure and organization

ASC news

book reviews

contemporary issues

contemporary student life

features about alumnae
Q features about faculty

features about administration

features about staff

features about students

historical material

how-to articles

trends that affect higher education

LL. What sort of a picture of ASC does the magazine
give you?

positive

negative

balanced and informative

not clear

other:

ontrary to custom,
ler to wear into
lifer speaks she
2 hat to block her
: is a creative cop-
le more poignant
f 10 years old.
any victims of vio-
>und a compas-
?mith 73, the first
Witness program

for the northeastern judicial circuit of
Georgia. Smith enables victims like
Jennifer to be effective witnesses in a
courtroom setting and helps them find
the social services they need for indi-
vidual and family recovery.

Before "victims" are called upon to testify,
Judy Smith often talks to them, quietly easing
their fears and tensions. Says fudge John
Girardeau: "Judy helps make human a
system too often known for its lack of
humanness. I hope someday all courts will
have someone like Judy to let victims of
crime know we care about them, too."

AGNES^SOTT/AMGAZINE 2 '

WHEN THE VICT

TESTI

OUR ONLY HOPE WILL LIE IN THE FR>
STANDING QF ONE PERSON FOR THE

JOHN DOS PASOS

^T?si

t i l - ,.,g =

LJ . What three magazines do you read most frequently'

1.

2.

3.

Zt - . What is your age?

24 or younger

25-39

40-54
Q 55-64

65 and up

Z D. Which best describes your occupation?
(Check only one.)

agriculture

arts

education

entertainment

government

homemaker/volunteer

production

professional

retail/ wholesale

retired

skilled trade

social service

technical/secretarial

Please send your responses to:

Agnes Scott College
Office of Publications
141 E. College Avenue
Decatur, Georgia 30030

20 SPRING LWt

PRINTED ON 4* RECVCLED PAPER

Jennifer* sits on the witness stand,
calmly answering questions from a pros-
ecuting attorney. The jury listens intently
to her testimony; the defendant stares at
the floor. Jennifer is a prime witness in a
child murder case, and she has been
sexually assaulted numerous times by the
man on trial.

The only sign of Jennifer's fear is an

*Name has been changed

Easter bonnet which, contrary to custom,
the judge has allowed her to wear into
the courtroom. As Jennifer speaks she
tilts her head, using the hat to block her
view of her assailant. It is a creative cop-
ing strategy made all the more poignant
because Jennifer is only 10 years old.

Jennifer is one of many victims of vio-
lent crime who have found a compas-
sionate ally in Judy T. Smith 73, the first
director of the Victim/Witness program

for the northeastern judicial circuit of
Georgia. Smith enables victims like
Jennifer to be effective witnesses in a
courtroom setting and helps them find
the social services they need for indi-
vidual and family recovery.

Before "victims" are called upon to testify,
Judy Smith often talks to them, quietly easing
their fears and tensions . Says Judge John
Girardeau: "Judy helps make human a
system too often known for its lack of
humanness. I hope someday all courts will
have someone like Judy to let victims of
crime know we care about them, too."

jf AGNES SGOTT/MAGAZINE 2 1
i

ationwide, there are an
estimated 15,000,000
victims of crime each
year. For many of these
individuals, the judicial
process itselt can become
a "second assault," a confusing journey
through a complicated and slow-moving
system that seems insensitive to the
needs of the victims.

"There is so much in our legal sys-
tem and justly so which protects the
rights of people accused of crimes," notes
Smith, a striking blond who moves with
the calm self-assurance of a corporate
executive. "But over the years, the rights
of the victims often have been over-
looked."

She saw first hand the problems of
crime victims during the 1 1 years she
worked as a case worker for child protec-
tive services. Her first incest case was a
17-year-old teenager who had been
sexually abused by her father since the
;igc i 'I -eu-n.

"We didn't have adequate treatment
tor the victim, and after she disclosed the
abuse, she was ostracized by the rest of
her family. Eventually she was forced to
leave home.

"I realized then there must be better
ways to help victims of violent crime
and their families," remembers Smith.

So she began coordinating services
between law enforcement agencies and
social service organizations. In 1987, she
became the full-time director of the
region's Victim Witness Program.

Her introduction to the complexities
of social work began at Agnes Scott,
where she was a psychology major. As a
student intern, she worked at Scottish
Rite Children's Medical Center.

She was also deeply influenced by
now retired professors Dr. Miriam
Drucker of psychology and Dr. John

District Attorney Andy Fuller has worked
with Smith on many difficult cases, often
beginning with pre-trial "relaxation" sessions
with Smith and the victim child (right). Fuller
finds her to he , "an integral part of the prose-
cution team. Without fier support, many
t'icriJTrs would, not be able to testify and their
testimony is almost always critical to our
successful prosecution of the criminal."

In 1986,
Judy Smith
became the
first victim
witness
director
for the
northeast
Georgia
DA's office.
It's not an
easy job
"helping
victims
regain
control of
their lives."

22 SPRING 1991

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 23 I

Tumhhn ot sociologv. "Roth ot them are
the kind of role models a student would
be glad to choose for herself," recalls
Smith. "They pushed you to look below
the surface, to analyze issues and ideas."
This training Smith drew from as she
designed her program for victims of vio-
lent crime. "My task is to help victims
regain as much control of their lives as
possible," she explains.

soon as the crime is re-
ported, Smith contacts
victims and their families.
At this stage they are of-
ten in shock and need
support to work through
feelings of denial and helplessness.

After that Smith begins the process of
helping the victim learn to be an effec-
tive and confident witness.

"One ot the first questions I ask vic-
tims is what kind of court shows they
watch on television," she says. "Almost
without exception the answer is 'People's
Court.' They see the courtroom as a dan-
gerous place, where people are out of
control and yelling at each other.

"My first job is to help victims see the
court as a place of safety."

The adult victims of rape often have
the hardest time feeling safe in a court-
room or anywhere. "I've seen strong,
capable women whose world is dramati-
cally altered by a sexual assault. They
may suffer a trauma reaction and be
afraid to go out of the house to work."

For such victims, the court experience
can be as traumatizing as the actual as-
sault. They suffer not only the fear of fac-
ing their attacker, but also the pain of
recounting intimate details of their vic-
timization to a courtroom of strangers.

So these victims can be effective wit-
nesses under intense personal pressure,
Smith provides practical information
about the judicial process. "When you

I 24 SPRING 1991

Smith faces
a dramatic
increase in
her case
load. "We
live in an
increas-
ingly dys-
functional
society.
Crimes
against
persons
are a
byproduct
of this."

give people information, you help them
gain control," she explains.

During pre-trial preparation, Smith
notifies victim-witnesses of court dates
for preliminary hearings, helps them un-
derstand courtroom procedure and legal
terminology, and even teaches them re-
laxation techniques to use before court-
room appearances.

Pre-trial support is equally important
to children. In Jennifer's case, Smith
made numerous visits to her and her fam-
ily over a period of 10 months. She as-
sisted the family in finding a therapist
and helped Jennifer understand her role
as a witness. Jennifer met the district at-
torney, took a private tour of the court-
room, and learned a simplified version of
courtroom procedure.

Like most child victims, Jennifer
needed constant reassurance that her
attacker would not be able to hurt her in
the courtroom.

"Being a court witness is hard for an
adult," reflects Smith.

"But it's even harder when you are a
child and the victim."

Despite the potential trauma of being
a court witness, Smith believes it is gen-
erally better for the child to testify in per-
son than to rely on videotaped testimony.

"It is empowering for children to tes-
tify against their assailant," she notes.
"The defendant has put them in a posi-
tion where they couldn't resist. Now they
can say, 'No, you can't hurt me again.' "

Although giving court testi-
mony is an important step
for victims, it is seldom the
i cathartic experience for
\ which they hope. "Vic-
m tims often believe they
will be able to put the experience behind
them when the trial ends," reflects
Smith. "But usually this only begins the
healing process. Victims must still work
toward the day when the crime is not a
motivating factor in their life."

The beginning of Jennifer's healing
was expressed in a drawing she did during
therapy. The picture shows a monster-

Smith and DA Fuller often confer over testi-
mony during court recesses. Constant vigi-
lance is required to protect victim's rights.

like creature and a heroic queen, sepa-
rated by a small coffin with a child in-
side. Angels hover over the child and
around the queen.

"When Jennifer gave me this picture
she said, 'These are the angels helping
us.' " remembers Smith. "Even at her
young age, it was important for her to
see something made right out of such a
tragic situation."

Through years of dealing with vic-
tim-witnesses, Smith has learned that
people's capacity for recovery depends
largely on their individual coping sys-
tems, effective therapy, and the support
of family and loved ones. "I am amazed
at what individuals can experience and
still survive," Smith muses. "My own life
has been deeply enriched by the remark-
able people I have met in the most
tragic of circumstances."

She draws her own support from deep
religious faith and from the cooperative
spirit that exists between different com-
munity agencies in her region.

Recently she has also felt encouraged
by new Georgia legislation which pro-
tects victim's rights. This legislation in-
cludes an exception to the hearsay law,
enabling witnesses to testify about what
they have heard from children.

Effective victim advocacy for Smith,
however, remains a matter of learning to
work within the slow and often cumber-
some court environment. "It's a hurry up
and wait system," she says. "It will al-
ways be intricate, and you have to find
ways to compensate."

Like Victim Witness advocates
around the country, Smith is experienc-
ing a dramatic increase in case loads.
The number of people referred to her
office has tripled in the past year. She
attributes this growth not only to an
expanding population base but to deep-
ening currents of social disorder. "We
live in an increasingly dysfunctional
society," she says. "Crimes against per-
sons are a byproduct of this."

By recruiting volunteers and intensi-
fying training of law enforcement offi-
cials, Smith hopes to expand her pro-
gram to meet the need. "If we can make
victims feel valued, if we can help them
through the system and enable them to
take positive action, we will continue to
make an important contribution." ASC

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 25 I

ttHl

To all job applicants:

Straight A's are not enough. Resumes
must include internships, externships
and other work experience

I 26 SPRING 1991

MARK SANDLIN PHOTO

AGNES SCOTT AAAGAZINE 27 I

Colleges around the country agree it's
more than getting a foot in the door.

By Judy Bouvier

In Palo Alto a student
rolls out of bed, goes to
his computer, and
accesses opportunities
to work for nothing.

In Boston, companies dip
from a pool of 2,000 prospec-
tive student employees por-
ing over non-paying job
openings listed in catalogs at
Boston University.

In Fort Worth, a career
homemaker calls a public
relations firm to ask if she
might be considered tor
uncompensated work in any
capacity.

In Atlanta, an Agnes
Scott sophomore spends a
week of her semester break
working without pay in the
office of a regional publisher.

What's going on?
National madness?
No. But a willingness to work
"for free" to gain experience
may mark a national trend, a
change in the way America
views professions and how
to prepare tor them.

Medicine, teaching and a
handful of other professions
have for years required in-
ternships: on-site, pre-em-
ployment training.

Yet for American employ-
ers in general, and tor
middle-age baby-boomers
now far removed from col-
lege campuses, the concept
may seem new.

Interning is an umbrella
for a range of short-term
work experiences which may
include externships and
"shadowing." Amy Schmidt,
Agnes Scott director for
career planning, says 60 stu-
dents signed up this year for

week-long externships.

In the past few years
interning generally has bur-
geumd according to career
planning and placement
counselors in colleges across
the country and experts
studying the phenomenon.

"Internships have been
around for a long time,"
notes Barbara Baker, program
associate for the National
Society for Internships and
Experiential Education
(NSIEE). What's new is the
scope: Schmidt says Agnes
Scott College offers a broad
range of extern placements
in all major fields, from busi-
ness to science to the arts.

What's also new, accord-
ing to Baker, is thinking
about internship "as some-
thing that everybody does."

Baker says that her orga-
nization has seen a tremen-
dous increase in membership
just in the past five years
along with a proportionate
increase in calls from stu-
dents and parents looking
specifically tor schools offer-
ing internships. More and
more schools require them.

Once in college, students
are going to greater lengths
to get intern experience.

"They might have to
work double time or have
no vacation for a couple of
years," says Baker of students
whose financial situation
prevents the luxury of an
unpaid summer or semester.
"Some are taking an extra
[academic] term so they can
have time to do one. Also
some are doing them after
graduation." Baker also finds
more and more people doing

mid-career internships
such as women returning to
the work force or middle-
aged people who have lost
jobs or who seek new career
directions.

Multiple factors have
contributed to the
upsurge in internships,
according to NSIEE: more
students participating in the
programs, more schools
requiring internships, more
former interns in positions to
hire others. Says Baker, "As
more people are involved, it
creates a cycle where there's
more expectation that you
would have experience when
you get out of school."

Tim Stanton, associate
director of the Haas Center
tor Public Service at Stanford
University and author of The
Expenericed Hand, a widely-
used guide to successful
interning, agrees that there
has been a powerful re-emer-
gence in the past three to
five years of the trend, which
actually started in the late
'60s and early 70s. But with
a new wrinkle. "The interest
is deeper now," he says. "In
the 70s the idea was just get
them oft campus in some way
or another. Now there's a
deep interest in how experi-
ential learning connects with
academics, especially in pub-
lic service areas."

It's an echo, Baker con-
curs, of the cry for relevance
in education heard during
the first round of widespread
internships, especially as it
connected with social prob-
lems. She cites an increased
emphasis on ethics in educa-

tion, "having students think
about how they use what
they learn," as one of the
main reasons.

From a sampling of other
career planning and place-
ment offices, however, were
cited other, perhaps stronger
factors. "Most students do it
so they can put it on their
resumes," says Aaron Galus,
director of Boston Univer-
sity's internship program,
which helps 2,000 students
seeking internships each
year.

Marilyn Bowles, director
of the intern program at
Mills, a small liberal arts col-
lege tor women outside
Oakland, agrees and adds
that career sampling is
equally important. "It gives
students a chance to keep
from making a mistake. To
see what they really want
to do." Hiawatha Morrow,
internship coordinator at the
University of Georgia, adds,
"The increase in internships
in the past tew years is a re-
sult of the changing job mar-
ket it's more competitive."

Whatever reasons tor the

28 SPRING 1991

phenomenon, supervised
practical experience as a nec-
essary stepping stone to em-
ployment is definitely on the
upswing, taking different
forms in different institutions
around the country.

The program at Agnes
Scott is more developed and
formalized than some. In ad-
dition to the standard semes-
ter or summer internships,
externships (one week) and
shadowing (half-day) work

experiences are available.

During her winter break,
sophomore Anna Crotts,
who is considering a career in
law, spent her week as an
extern working with Superior
Court of Fulton County
Judge Leah Sears-Collins.

"It's not like 'L.A. Law,' "
comments Crotts, who ob-
served a case in which a
grandmother with no previ-
ous offenses faced a possible
60-year prison sentence. To

be responsible for such a
judgment Crotts found
"scary." Yet the externship
helped reinforce her career
choice. "I thought I wanted
to go to law school before.
Now I know it definitely."

A SC's Schmidt notes an
JLJl internship or extern-
ship furnishes a graduating
senior with talk material for
interviews and an established
network for job contacts and

recommendations.

"I was well prepared for a
stress interview and knew
how to handle it," says Jenny
Gruber, a recent ASC gradu-
ate now working in person-
nel for the Georgia Merit
System. During college she
participated in a series of
extern-intern placements.

The internship or
externship may even result in
a direct job placement with
the extern sponsor. Fre-
quently an ASC externship
develops into part-time or
summer employment. Occa-
sionally it opens the door to
a full-time position after col-
lege. "Anyone who has the
get-up-and-go to pursue an
externship has the qualities
we're looking for," comments
Kathy Landwehr, publicist of
Peachtree Publisher, Ltd. of
Atlanta. "I've seen plenty of
interns get in and create
their own positions."

NSIEE's program associate
Sally Migliore insists that
"more and more employers
are interested in candidates
who have some kind of docu-
mented work experience."

Randy Siegel, vice presi-
dent and general manager of
Fleishman-Hillard, an At-
lanta public relations agency
underscores that. "I won't
hire a kid out of school who
has not had an internship,"
he says. "With the number of
resumes I get, a 4.0 average
isn't enough for me." ASC

Barbie Sritt's extern experiences
working with children offer her
an insight into possible careers
after her graduation from ASC.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 29 I

The partnership between alumnae employers and ASC
externs often provides opportunities for creative interaction

By Leisa Hammett-Goad

:ross a fog-shrouded
pasture, a rooster
:rows. It's day three
of Barbie Stitt's
externship with the Mother
Nature program of High
Meadows School and Camp
in Roswell, Ga. While her
alumna supervisor Burnette
"Bunny" Sheffield '69, a.k.a.
"Mother Nature," starts a fire
in her cabin classroom's
wood stove, Stitt routinely

tary school on 48 acres of
farm and woodlands
enticed Stitt, a history and
biology major. She is inter-
ested in developing educa-
tional programs for museums.

But she is also a junior
ready to investigate a number
of career options.

Unlike some externships,
the criteria for this was
"love ot nature and sunny

Sheffield introduced her to a
group of preschoolers, they
stared, speechless and wide-
eyed. "I was nervous that the
kids wouldn't accept me,"
admits Stitt. "I had to gain
their confidence. It's really a
shame that by Friday, when
I'll be leaving, they will have
warmed up to me."

Red-haired 11 -year-old
Annalysa Carpenter warmed
quickly, though. As she said,

Barbie Stitt '92 Bachelor of Arts,

Major: English literature/Creative writing
Externships: High Meadows School, January 1991
Internships: Historic Preservation Consulting, Summer 1990
Historic Oakland, Spring 1991

fills two birdfeeders. She ca-
sually rattles off the birds'
names: Chickadees. Blue-
birds. And Tufted Titmice.

Before the children arrive,
Stitt grabs her camera. The
sun peeking above scallop-
edged clouds is a picture this
student newspaper photo
editor can't resist. The set-
ting ot the externship a
private, alternative elemen-

disposition." Stitt felt she fit
the description. "I chose this
externship because it
sounded fun."

It was also an opportunity
for Stitt, a native of Chatta-
nooga, to stay in Sheffield's
home, to observe her at work
and to help with the school's
300 children.

Her first day she recalls as
"nerve wracking" when

For e.vtern Stitt, work with Mother Nature was fun and practical.

"It's nice to know that some-
one's interested in us."

Jody Holden, High Mead-
ows founder and owner, says,
"The way externs relate to
children is nice. They're
unsullied. They have a vital-
ity that the children love.
They bring a glimpse ot the
outside world, what's going
on in the teaching profes-
sion. It makes us look at what
we're doing with a fresh per-
spective.

"Externs," she also notes,
"are more free to enjoy them-
selves than practice teachers
who have the responsibility
of making a good grade."

Stitt's externship experi-
ences are impossible to
grade: observing wildlife,
making peace with an ornery
sheep named Wooly B and
sharing knowledge learned

in botany class when chil-
dren discovered several of
the odd, smoke-tilled Puff
Ball Mushroom.

Mushrooms and wildlife
became measurements ot
success tor Stitt. "If I've
helped children get the
most out ot what's going on
around them by sharing my
knowledge, then I've been
successful."

Stitt and Holden agree

30 SPRING 1991

that Sheffield provides a
model for success. "Bunny
was our first multi-age pri-
mary teacher," says Holden.
"She's innovated and imple-
mented a lot of steps we've
taken. Agnes Scott can be
very proud of her." She was
also a good extern supervisor.
"Bunny welcomed Barbie
as a partner," says Holden.
"She's added an extra dimen-
sion to her week so that she

can use Barbie and she will
not be just an observer."

Sheffield hopes that
Barbie's experience has "in-
vigorated her for teaching
or, helped her decide not to
pursue teaching. By getting
acquainted and spending
time with different adults, an
extern sees perspectives and
available choices."

What made Stitt most
nervous about the week was

actually staying in Sheffield's
home. "I didn't know what to
expect." What Stitt found
was an open-arms reception
from the Sheffields and their
14-year-old daughter.

"I'm playing racquetball
with Mother Nature's hus-
band this week. I'm going to
church with her tonight and
to a town recycling meeting
tomorrow night they re-
cycle evv-ry-thing."

Stitt habitually runs a
hand through her thick,
black mass of natural curls. "I
used to be apathetic about
the environment. . . .

"Yeah, Mother Nature's
definitely been a role model
for me." ASC

Bunny Sheffield '69, Stitt's
extern supervisor, explains how
the children, like the penguin,
can huddle to keep warm.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 3 1

Externships provide a network for job contacts,
a career overview, a realistic sense of work

By Judy Bouvier

In a little windowless
back room at the
offices of Peachtree
Publishers, Ltd., Agnes
Scott extern Tonya Smith
stands at a photocopier feed-
ing pages of a 700 page man-
uscript. Not one of the more
glamorous duties in a small
publishing company but, sur-
prisingly enough, a vital one.
"No matter how simple a
task here," says company
president Margaret Quinlin,
"it's linked to something
larger. All kinds of complexi-
ties can arise for an extern.
It's a window to business."
It's a business that has
s< imetimes been romanti-

Aspiring writer Tonya Smith
found working m a publisher's
office prepared her for "what will
happen when I submit my own
work for publication."

cized, admits staff member Jill
Smith. But, she says, "It's
hard, hard work. Most people
here have packed boxes.
That sort of thing dispels any
romantic notion."

times. You have to be ready
for rejection."

After a week of organiz-
ing and copy-editing
unsolicited manuscripts, fil-
ing book reviews, observing

though, 1 would enjoy."

Smith also was able to
make some of those ties in
the complex and interrelated
ateas of the business that
Margaret Quinlin men-

~~

Tonya Smith '93 Bachelor of Arts

Major: English literature/ Creative writing
Externship: Peachtree Publishers, January 1991.

Tonya Smith chose this
particular externship
because she is an aspiring
science fiction wtiter. The
brief experience helped her
face realities of many aspects
of publishing. "I know the
procedure now and I know
that my fitst novel will prob-
ably get sent back a hundred

layout in the production de-
partment, and running an
adding machine in account-
ing, Smith narrowed her
publishing career focus.
"Certain things I definitely
don't want to do," she says.
"Like production. Mainly
because I don't like working
with computers. Editing,

tioned. The connection, for
example, between the cre-
ative side of making a book
and the practical side of mar-
keting it.

"I learned from the sales
department," she says, "that
sometimes even a wonderful
novel can't be published be-
cause it won't sell."

32 SPRING 1991

She gained experience
from just being part of the
publishing milieu. "It was
informal but not unprofes-
sional. Everyone seemed so
creative and open-minded."
This atmosphere enabled
Smith to absorb more by sim-
ply observing and asking
questions, a practice the
Peachtree staff encouraged.

"People were wonderful,"
Smith says. "Kathy bent over
backwards for me." Publicist
Kathy Landwehr returned
the compliment. Smith, she
said, "was great. She catches
on quick."

Editor Susan Thurmond
believes the externship
"gives a student a really good
overview of the field before
jumping into it ... it looks
very good on a resume," she
continues. "It also helps you
find a network." Taking it
one step further, Jill Smith,
vice president and director of
sales, says: "It's a way to get a
foot in the door."

Margaret Quinlin sums it
up. "Publishing's a very de-
manding business. Every
single person here matters.
Externs can be just marvel-
ous. It becomes a symbiotic
relationship. Good for us and
good for them."

And has it been good for
Tonya Smith?

"I know that if I do an-
other externship in publish-
ing," she says, "I want it to be
in editing. But this has also
reinforced for me the fact
that I don't want to be in an
office at all looking at other
people's books. I want to be
out writing my own." ASC

A placement often offers an eye-
opening opportunity for a student

By Kathy Choy

The room is dark.
Britt Brewton is
staring straight
ahead. Pinpoints of
light quickly appear and dis-
appear within her range of
vision. Each time she sees a
flash, she presses a button.

boy. She took a close look at
his cornea and lens.

Then Thomas walked
Brewton through the case his-
tory of a glaucoma patient.
"He explained the tests and
computer printouts and how
he interpreted the informa-

nized office with five secretar-
ies and assistants. The doctors
are constantly booked. Still,
each took some time to in-
volve Brewton in the work of
the office. She did more than
clean contact lenses and help
patients pick out frames.

She learned to test
patients' optical power with
an auto refractor. She learned
to use a skills machine to de-
tect problems connected with
distance vision, depth percep-
tion and color blindness.

Brewton became the tester
rather than the testee in a
visual fields test. As patients
were willing, the Reagins
let her sit in on several eye

Britt Brewton '94 Bachelor of Arts

TAajor: Biology/Pre-med

Externships: Reagin Optometries, January 1991

Shadow: Crawford Long Hospital, Pathology Dept., Spring 1991

When the test results are
in, Brewton, Agnes Scott
extern with the Reagin
Optometric Group, learns she
does not have glaucoma.

It's not that Or. Wallis
Reagin and his optometrist
sons Thomas and Richard
suspected that she did. But
the doctors wanted her
externship to include experi-
ences from the patient's as
well as the professional's point
of view.

Working from the other
side of the "throne," (exami-
nation chair), Richard invited
Brewton to participate in the
eye examination of a young

tion," says Brewton. "Thomas
told more than what was
done. He told me how and
why it was done."

Such attention to detail is
typical of Reagin's prac-
tice. Waiting rooms are com-
fortable and homey rather
than high tech offices are
housed in what was once a
private residence.

In addition to the usual
magazines, one comer of the
waiting room is reserved for
children.

T

he relaxed atmosphere
here belies a well orga-

examinations.

But watching the doctors
give therapy to children with
learning disabilities was the
real eye opener for Brewton.
"It was an area of optometry
that I would never have
guessed existed," she says.
"The doctors work hard to
make it fun for the children so
they won't be afraid."

Brewton got a crash
course in optometry. Any
frustration she experienced
centered around the fact that
most of her week-long ex-
ternship was spent filing. She
admits: "I wanted to spend

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 33

more time with the doctors,
following them around and
discussing case histories. But
they were so busy it was hard
to work me in."

Thomas concurs. "You
can't teach a great deal in
that amount of time." He
notes, "Watching an eye
exam is exciting but impor-
tant things are done in the
office, too. If you don't learn
how to run a business, it's
going to be hard for you to
deliver health care."

Brewton does feel the
week was well spent. "I
got a good general view of
optometry and that's what 1
came for," she concludes. "It
was a very valuable learning
experience and it reinforces
my decision to go on with
pre-med."

Reagin is convinced that
the benefits work both ways.
"When you show someone
what you do, it makes you
take another look at things,"
he observes. "You think, why
am I doing this? You don't
want to get in a rut."

His son Thomas agrees.
"We derive benefit from in-
teracting with bright young
people like Britt. We would
like for Britt to learn to be
human when she's engaged
in her profession so both she
and her patient can enjoy
the experience as they ad-
dress the problem. We hope
she never loses sight of the
patient as an individual."

If this is accomplished, he
says, "this experience will
have done the student and
the medical profession a
service." ASC

Brewton s experiences ranged
from observing eye exams to
reading prescriptions for glasses .

I 34 SPRING 1991

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Reaching out now may confinn
or reject an extern s life-long goals

By Mark Sandlin

Miss Ashley,
piece oi paper.
Miss Ashley,
cookie. Miss
Ashley, color. Miss Ashley,
Miss Ashley. . . ."

"Miss Ashley" ASC
senior Ashley Barnes has a

Area Psychoeducational
Program are severely emo-
tionally disturbed. The
school is a community-based
day treatment program tor
birth through 18 years. It is
one of 24 centers comprising
the Georgia Psychoeduca-

in understanding.

Like almost halt of the
externships, this marks a part-
nership of Agnes Scott and
its alumnae. Debby Daniel
Bryant 79, associate psy-
chologist tor the center, has
ottered ASC externships

Ashley Barnes '91 Bachelor of Arts

Major Psychology with teaching certification

Externships: Griffin Area Psychoeducational Center, January 1991

Atlanta Speech School, January 1989

Wesley Chapel Psychoeducational Center, January 1 988

three-year-old constantly
seeking her attention. She
listens, watches and responds
mindfully.

Whether the children sing
songs, listen to stories or play
with toys, Barnes joins in.

Most children at Gnftin

tional Center Network.

The program also admin-
isters Project REACH,
which provides tor the
special needs of children,
ages 3-5, with moderate to
severe difficulty in seeing,
hearing, moving, talking or

since the program's inception.

"Everyone on the staff says
'hurrah' when we announce
the externs are coming,"
says Bryant.

Agrees Brenda Folk, a
Project REACH teacher:
"Not only do they [externs]
provide a fresh face tor the
children, but they are an ex-
tra set of hands for us."

This year, along with
Ashley's help, the center
has gained two additional sets
of hands with extents Lisa
Anderson, a junior, and Eliza-
beth Isaacs, a sophomore.

One extern helps a young-
ster wtite his name within the
lines. Another helps a stu-
dent just trying to draw a line
across the paper.

Working with youngsters who
need almost constant attention
can be demariding. Yet extern
Barnes discovered her calling
was "definitely this kiivi oj
work" with special-rieeds kids.

36 SPRING 1991

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 37 !

Externships benefit the student, the
employer, and, usually, the "clients"

Those one-on-one
encounters add a depth ot
experience for children,
center staff and externs.

"This is a training facility,
so we are supposed to always
he training people," notes
Bryant. "We receive credit

The one-on-one encounters
offered by extems add a depth
of experience needed by
emotionally disturbed children.

from the state for having
trained the students the week
they are here."

This externship offers
ASC students contact with
professionals. "The extern-
ship is a good opportunity to
see what is availahle in the
job market before commit-
ting to a school or a job,"
explains Bryant. "It allows
the student to talk with
different people and get

ideas for further studies and
possible careers."

Tie week's constant
opportunity tor extern inter-
action with young students,
observes Folk, provides: "a
good feel tor the psycho-
educational program and the
type of child we serve. . . .

"1 have seen people come
here straight out of college
and become completely lost.
They just didn't reali:e the

severity of the problems we
deal with here."

The involvement has
been critical to Barnes who
found that she likes the chal-
lenge of working with older
autistic children.

"I definitely will do this
type of work," Barnes has
decided. "Now it is just work-
ing with the time frame, get-
ting a master's degree and
being certified." ASC

38 SPRING 1991

CLASSIC

The FORMAL May Day
was a time for more
than beauty queens

She stands there: bare arms.
Delicate feet. Hands hidden
beneath a bouquet of spring
flowers. A stiff collar framing
her face, lace cascades hint-
ing at the form beneath. All
is carefully contrived.
Caught in a moment on a
yearbook page.

Yet her glance makes this
more than a moment. There
is someone off to the side.
Someone she sees, distract-
ing her from the pageant this
portrait would make of her.
And we know.

This is for fun.

Few would accuse May
Day Queen, 1929, of
exploiting her sexuality.

Agnes Scott never was a
college where such shenani-
gans paid much premium.
Life here has always held
higher purpose.

May Day celebrations,
first held in 1903, would last
with few interruptions until
1960.

In one sense, May Day
was a spring formal held
without men. Any who at-
tended were incidental,
purely spectators. In 1903 all
co-ed activity what little
there was was carefully
chaperoned, including
streetcar rides into Atlanta.
It was a practice that would
continue with the decades,
the fence once encompass-
ing the campus said to be
built to discourage passage of
stray dogs and loose men.

"There weren't many
things they let us do with
boys in those days," says
Anne Equen '45. May Day

Charlotte Hunter '29: The formal was wonderful fun.

was for the women.

It was a chance to be for-
mal when there were few
opportunities to do so. It was
a chance at a moment to
look back on, an opportu-
nity to be seen young and
beautiful in a spectacular
way, and remember.

"It all seems so trivial,"
says Adelaide Benson
Campbell, when she reflects
on May Day festivities in
1939, the year she was
crowned queen. Yet so sig-
nificant.

The pageantry was spec-

tacular, the costumes stun-
ning. While May Day cen-
tered on the presentation of
a queen and her court, there
was also the writing of a
script and an elaborate the-
matic dance production in-
volving numbers of students.

One year the theme was
Elizabethan, another
Grecian. Once, Peter Pan
swung through the trees of
the May Day Dell. And one
year there was the marriage
of a mouse.

In the center was queen
and court, dancers swirling

about them in twilight pas-
tels. Dionysus in the Dell,
loveliness suspended in a
cloud of orange and organdy
gliding gracefully through
the dance.

May Day disappeared
into a fine arts festival in the
60s. Then one year a com-
mittee of students and fac-
ulty simply voted both out of
existence.

There was a hiatus of
anything recognizable as for-
mal lasting through the 70s-
- an era of keggers and
T.G.I.F. parties. In 1980 the
formal returned with a dance
tacked on to a round of par-
ties known as Spring Fling.
Not as formal as May Day
celebrations of the past, but
with men this time. And
once again with formal
dresses.

What to wear, where to
find it was the conversation
on campus for weeks this
spring, says first-year student
Willa Hendrickson '94.

For her it was a square-
necked, mid-calt, puffed-
sleeve, white-on-white floral
pattern, lace-trimmed,
Victorian.

The night before the for-
mal her boyfriend arrived
from MIT The day of the
dance, she traded several
hours shampooing hair as
payment for henna and a cut
from her long-time hair-
dresser. It seemed an old-
fashioned thing to do, the
henna; the hint of red,
something from another age.

But then, so was this.

The formal is a moment,
even more a moment for the
future, perhaps, than the
present. AS4
Bill Bangham

AGNES SCOn AAAGAZINE 39 I

FINALE

A former student

stood them as individuals as

Meroney Prizes for juniors

she finally settled in

remembers professor
Geraldine Meroney

well as she understood her

and seniors at Agnes Scott,

Atlanta.

subject matter. Like the

her intellectual breadth

She achieved the rank of

Renaissance humanists she

made it fitting that these

lieutenant in the U.S. Navy

\ /ou're not teaching the

admired, she educated the

awards were given not in

during World War II; she

y material; you're teach-

whole human being.

history but for the work in

served as the administrative

1 ing the students," Pro-

Meroney s own research

all disciplines of the hu-

assistant to the Chancellor

fessor Geraldine M.

was in the colonial history of

manities.

of Vanderbilt University; she

Meroney once remarked

South Carolina and

A voracious reader,

had wide experience at edu-

when we were discussing

Georgia. She achieved

Meroney knew literature,

cational institutions as

how I should lecture on a

national recognition for her

philosophy and theology as

diverse as the University of

particularly difficult 18th-

work on the Southern

well as history. And her vast

Oregon and Earlham Col-

century novel.

Loyalists during the Revolu-

knowledge was always for

lege before she joined the

Her comment reflects

tionary War.

use, not ostentation,

Agnes Scott faculty.

many of the traits that

However, the scope of

whether she was explaining

Students listened to her

students valued most in

her knowledge enabled her

the lineage of the Planta-

and believed her because she

Meroney: the originality and

to range through history

genet kings to a medieval

carried the convictions of

complexity of her perspec-

seemingly at will, from

history class or constructing

experience far beyond nar-

tives; the precision of her

Aquinas to Marx, from the

the intricate genealogy of

row academic boundaries.

intellect in salient defini-

Norman Conquest to the

her beloved champion

Wide scholarly accom-

tion; and, above all, her un-

Vietnam War, from the

poodle.

plishments, thorough profes-

failing ability to integrate

Acropolis to the U.S.

Like most scholars who

sionalism, practical knowl-

mind and heart, to translate

Senate.

are wise as well as learned,

edge of life itself, and deep

intellectual abstractions into

But Meroney was so very

Meroney s knowledge had

human sympathy are a rare

directly human terms.

fine a historian because she

not come only from books.

enough combination.

Meroney loved humane

was so much more than an

A fiercely loyal Texan, she

But even together they

learning, and she could

historian. When on her

had travelled widely and had

do not entirely explain the

inspire this love in her

retirement students and

lived in Oregon, in Ireland,

impact that Meroney had on

students because she under-

friends established the

and in the Midwest before

her students and on those
who knew her well. The key
was her integrity, her unwill-

1 "<T"- -<' ---

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ingness and indeed inability
to compromise herself, her

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beliefs, or her relationships
to other people.

A A-

Geraldine M. Meroney
was among the very tew

g.Jm*7jH

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scholars in any generation

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who, because of their own

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caliber as human beings,

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because of what they are as

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well as what they know,
mold lives along with minds.

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by Martine Watson

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Brownley

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For ASC history professor

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it

Geraldine Meroney (second

fSSuv 3 "' rr^*"''' V

from right with her students),

'4iH&:

n ifW- I 1 *' j M * I

the goal oj teaching was to edu-
cate the whole human ring.

40 SPRING 1991

FINALE

Grant gives ASC
opportunity to focus on
women's college,
gender-based issues,

A gnes Scott College is
/ \nnp of seven women's
/ \ colleges recently
awarded a grant in the
amount of $350,000 from
the Jessie Ball duPont Fund.

To be used to expand
scholarly research pertaining
to women's colleges and
gender-based issues in
higher education, it is
believed to be the largest
grant offered for explora-
tion of the purpose and
contributions of women's
colleges.

The seven women's col-
leges received the grant
jointly on behalf of the
Women's College Coalition.

Along with Agnes Scott
College in Decatur, recipi-
ents are Virginia colleges
Hollins in Roanoke, Mary
Baldwin in Staunton and
Sweet Briar in Sweet
Briar; Meredith College
in Raleigh, N.C; and
Stephens College in
Columbia, Mo.

Terms of the grant are for
the hiring of a research
director, funding of research
initiatives and honoraria,
organizing a research council
and disseminating of studies
and reports.

The grant will support
scholars from both women's
colleges and coeducational
institutions who are studying
gender issues in higher
education. It will cover a
three-year period beginning
this spring. ASC

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT . . .

of Agnes Scott's faces and places, moments
and moods. It's the Agnes Scott's Best Shots
Photo Contest. So reach for your camera.
And capture college life.

Alumnae, students, faculty and staff are
eligible to enter.

1. Send us 8x10 black and white prints or
color slides taken after January 1, 1991.

2. Enclose your name,
address and phone
number with each
entry and include the
names of all identifiable
people appearing in the
photograph.

worked with Agnes Scott College and are
familiar with our campus.

The first place winner will be awarded $200,
second place $100, third place $50. Winning
entries will be published in the SPRING

1992, Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine

Send us your best shot.

AWAY!

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 4 1

Agnes Scott College
1 4 1 E. College Avenue
Decatur, Georgia 30030

Nonprofit Organization

U.S. Postage

PAID

Decatur, GA 30030

Permit No. 469

Previewing the Fall 1 991

AGNES SCOTT

Alumnae Magazine

The "Naba" chief of
Damesma was the next-door
neighbor of Delia McMillan
'75, when she first came to
the village to do research
related to river blindness.
McMillan's research moved
into environmental issues,
and she now works as a
consultant for the Burkina Faso
government "in the dance of
foreign funding" trying to
bring outside resources to the
developing African nation.
Read more about her work
in our next issue.

{

%AE MAGAZINE

FALL 199

fsSe

m&.

A\feleome
to the
Class

Mi

EDITOR'S NOTE

A

vestige i if 1990 Black Cat competition between the classes
lains on a restroom stall door, second floor, Buttrick Hall.

i It's hand-lettered, on a scrap of green paper: "HELP SAVE
THE EARTH Please use
biodegradable paper products.
Thanks, Class of 199 1 ." For that
week last October, related mes-
sages littered campus: SAVE
ENERGY over light switch pan-
els, RECYCLE ALUMINUM
CANS on vending machines.

Help save the earth.

Several students at Agnes
Scott have taken the issue seri-
ously. They collect recyclables.
They collapse cardboard boxes.
They sort mixed glass and paper,
and bag soft drink cans.

This concern for the environ-
ment marks a clear instance,
notes ASC assistant professor of
math Myrtle Lewin, in which
"the young are teaching the old."

ege

Other colleges report a similar

groundswell: young activists instigated the Environmental Lobby
(and recycling) at Hollins College. Two years ago Georgia Tech
students approached officials about recycling now the state pro-
vides program support. Junior Rebecca Wholley helps coordinate
Harvard's recycling. This will be an "experimental year," reports
Wholley, as Harvard examines ways to develop the program.

Says Lewin, emphatically: "We recycle because it is morally
right." That level of commitment (last year Lewin devoted 10
hours a week) has moved the College to recycling's cutting edge.
With no budget and only volunteer labor, Agnes Scott Recycling
now collects 10 items: corrugated board, glass, five grades of paper,
two kinds of plastics, styrofoam packing and aluminum cans.

"It's nobody's job," quips Lewin. "Everybody's responsibility."
That's how she and many staff and faculty assess ASC recycling.

Victoria Lambert, for one, started recycling green waste when

she became landscape supervisor in 1986. Grounds crews dump,
then smooth grass clippings and leaves over an area covering more
than half a city block. They later turn and retrieve "that wonderful

rich black earth Co put back on
campus." ASC transforms dead
tree limbs into wood chips for
mulch with a used chipper pur-
chased last year.

Computer services began
recycling paper several years ago.
Most faculty and staff recycle of-
fice paper. For the past three years,
Annual Fund drive materials have
been printed on recycled stock.

In March, Lambert, now
manager of campus services, intro-
duced products to be used campus-
wide: toilet paper dispensed in
jumbo rolls (to reduce packaging,
cardboard tubes, lining and pack-
ing by 35%); unbleached paper
towels on rolls to replace white
multifold hand towels ("bleach
contaminates sneams with diox-
ins rolls save 62% in paper packaging").

A student assistant set up a recycling station in our office. Now
we're experimenting with recycled papers tor College publications,
including this and the Spring 1991 Alumnae Magazine. (Paper
stock used in this issue is from both manufacturing and post-con-
sumer waste. Sludge from recycling byproducts such as paper a vic-
ing, the paper mill uses in the ptoduction of multi-ply papetboard. )

A week after Black Cat 1 990, the cleanup crews had removed
the balloons, posters, streamers and the small, handscrawled note
taped to our publications office shingle: HELP SAVE THE
EARTH RECYCLE PAPER. But clearly, the message stuck.
Thanks, Class of 1991.

gy

?/!^t*ts^~&y^J

Design:

Editor: Celeste Pennington. Contributing Editor: Mary Alma Durrett. Editorial Assistant: Audrey Arthur.

Harold Waller and Everett Hullum. Student Assistants: Photenie Avgeropoulos '95, Eli:aheth Cherry '95, Tonya Smith '93,

Willa Hendrickson '94, Josie Hoilman '94, Helen Nash '93.

Publications Advisory Board: Christine Co::ens, Steven Guthrie, Bonnie Brown Johnson '70, Randy Jones '70,

Kay Pirkersun O'Briant '70, Becky Prophet, Dudley Sanders, Edmund Sheehey, Lucia Howard Sizemore '65.

Copyright 1991 , Agnes Scott College. Published three times a year by the Office of Publications, Agnes Scott College, Buttrick Hall,

141 E. College Ave., Decatur, GA 30030, 404/371-6315. The magazine is published for alumnae and friends of the College. Postmaster:

Send address changes to Office of Development and Public Affairs, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, G A 30030. Like other content of the

magazine, this article reflects the opinion of the writer and not the viewpoint of the College, its trustees, or administration.

AGNES Scott ALUMNAE MAGAZINE is printed on recycled paper using vegetable- rather than perroleum-based inks.

Cover photo: Monika Nikore.

TURNABOUT

CONTENTS

Thanks for die beautiful picture of my old
friend, Charlotte Hunter [Spring 1991
issue]. Incidentally, she became associate
dean of students of ASC, dean at Austin
and Converse colleges and president of a
school; she wasn't just a beauty.

Also, May Day was mainly a production
of the dance department and was in no
sense a "formal." Many people worked
hard and seriously on it.

Please don't patronize antique efforts.

Movies of May Day, shown to prospec-
tive students, nearly kept us from coming to
ASC; they looked too silly; but as a stu-
dent (not involved in it, except one year as
writer), I came to respect the professional-
ism of Harriette Hayes Lapp and the disci-
plined performance of her students.
Eleanor Newman Hutchens '40
Huntsville, Alabama

... I have one major suggestion and that is
that there be a more complete identifica-
tion of authors. . . .

I know Martine [Tina] Brownley, but it
would add to the article about Professor
Meroney to have said when Tina gradu-
ated, that she has a Ph.D., from Harvard
and that she is a member of the Emory
faculty.

I have seen several comparable periodi-
cals which give a little blurb about the au-
thors and about those featured. . . . This
would add to the pleasure one finds in read-
ing the Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine.
Julia T Gary
Decatur, Georgia

AGNES SCOTT

Fall 1991 Volume 69, Number 2

Page 5

In and out
of Africa

by Jeff Worley

Page 14

The rapture of
self-expression

by Terry McGehee

Page 20

The odyssey
of discovery

by Celeste Pennington

Anthropologist arid
Southerner Delia McMillan
'75 dances an intricate
dance of foreign funding in
the West African Sahel.

An artist's sketchbook
designed to stir up the
sterling moments, the
deep-colored memories
and the creativity within.

It's a four-year odyssey
into life at Agnes Scott
with Texan Estella Matheu
from the Class of '95.

Page 30

Agnes Scott goes
Hollywood

by Mary Alma Durrett

Move over Kim Basinger
and Julia Roberts a little
paint and blight lights
transform yet another demure
Southerner into a star.

Lifestyle Page 2

Rhodes Scholar lla Burdette after 10 years Susan Morton,
forensic biologist Marsha Norman's Secret Garden

Readership survey Page 39

What you like and don't like

Classic Page 40

The gazebo

Finale Page 41

Best Shots/ ASC Photo Contest; Milton Scott remembers

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1

LI F ESTYLE

Norman: ASC's
tough, tender, Tony-
award playwright

A r a recent performance
/ \ of the Tony-award
/ \ winning Broadway mu-
sical, The Secret Garden, two
designer-dressed matrons, flash-
ing pseudo sophistication
and real gemstones, were
overheard during inter-
mission sharing produc-
tion stories. "They
brought Marsha Norman
in to do the script," one-
explained to the other,
"because she's a tough,
caustic sort and could he
counted on to keep the
story from getting too
sweet and sentimental."

Marsha Norman is also
vulnerable, humorous,
warm, an artist who em-
braced the Garden project
from its outset. Designer
Heidi Landesman had
relayed her interest in a
musical version of Frances
Hodgson Burnett's
children's classic and
invited Marsha to
collaborate.

No question, though,
Marsha Norman is tough.
She's already survived
impressive levels of suc-
cess and failure. Now, highly
visible as a consequence of win-
ning her second major honor
the 1991 Tony for her script-
ing of this new musical
Norman seems poised to pursue
musical theater. This is less a
departure for her than it may
seem to those who have
sampled the serious plays of
her early career.

When Marsha Norman was
awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize
for her drama, 'night, Mother,

the Agnes Scott campus was
stirred: we were pleased to
remember the young playwright
had been a student at the
college in the late sixties.

At that point, we had little
first-hand information about
her. Those who had witnessed
Atlanta's Academy Theatre

when the laurel-crowned
Norman returned to Agnes
Scott in April of 1984 for the
English department's Writers'
Festival and declared that she
had been "invisible" as a stu-
dent. She had left after her jun-
ior year to marry; and although
she completed her undergradu-
ate and gradu-
ate degrees at
the University
of Louisville,
nothing, she
insisted, quite
compensated
for abandon-
ing the ASC
degree until
she won the
Pulitzer. Be
sure you have
a Pulitzer in
your future,
she warned
would-be
transfer stu-
dents: that is

production of Getting Out were
exposed to Norman's provoca-
tive first drama about a woman
confronting the challenges of
her release from prison. But tew
anecdotes of her personal his-
tory were flying across campus.
As a philosophy major at
Agnes Scott, the then Marsha
Williams had been closest to
Professor Merle Walker, and
she died before her student
came to prominence.

We were amused, therefore,

Bob Marshak Pholo

the only way you'll feel all right
about yourself again.

However, her droll talk that

April instructed us that she was
already thinking of the Pulitzer
as a liability-; in later interviews,
she characterized it as a "curse."
Her play, Traveler in the Dark,
had opened at the American
Repertory Theatre in Cam-
bridge in February, 1984, and
the Pulitzer had hardly guaran-
teed its success. In Norman's
view, that had almost invited
its failure. Still pained by criti-
cal rejection, the artist, in her
talk to her Agnes Scott audi-
ence, shaped her own determi-
nation to use failure to provoke
her growth as a playwright.

Norman went through one
of her periods of relative "invis-
ibility." She abandoned theater
briefly to write a novel, The
Fortune Teller, and she eventu-
ally developed a cautious work-
shop production of Sarah and
Abraham with the Actors' The-
atre of Louisville, the company
which had nurtured her talents
with Getting Out. The new play
focused on the disinte-
gration of the longest
mamage on record. At
the same time, Norman
changed her personal
lite dramatically.
Realizing a lifelong
passion to live by the
sea, she and her new
husband, artist Tim
Dykeman, moved to a
beach house on Long
Island. At age 40 she
became the mother of
Angus and entered
gratefully into a time
which she regards as
one of her most cre-
ative and satisfying.
The Secret Garden
opened in May of 1991
to reviews that were sufficiently
favorable to give the work
momentum; the three Tonys

2 FALL 1991

LI FESTYLE

garnered by the show
Norman's, Heidi Landesman's
for dazzling sets, and eleven-
year-old Daisy Egan's for her
creation of Mary Lennox
will likely extend its life
through albums and touring.

The play, lavish and lovely
with its Victorian setting and
graceful costuming, is poignant
in its reminders of a time when
love and death were inextrica-
bly locked in exquisite ex-
tremes of passion when con-
victions held that love and life
could indeed prevail over dark-
ness and death.

Mandy Patinkin creates the
character of the grieving uncle
Archibald Craven, who must
be reawakened to life by young
Mary; and Patinkin's gorgeous
voice deepens the aural plea-
sures of the piece almost to the
depths of tears.

But this musical is most
impressive for celebrating the
talents of the four women who
brought the $6.2 million pro-
duction into being: Norman
and Landesman, director Susan
H. Schulman, and composer
Lucy Simon, who wrote the
hauntingly beautiful music.

When Norman ran for
office at Agnes Scott back in
1967, she wrote in The Profile
about the risks of action getting
stymied by reassessment, evalu-
ation, analysis: "By experiment-
ing, working, changing, we can
discover ways to vitalize our
commitments."

Her life to date has proved
the validity of her early advice;
her talents along with her resil-
ience and flexibility have been
honored by a Pulitzer and a
Tony. But "invisibility" in any
sphere for Marsha Norman is
no longer an option.
Linda Hubert '62

Burdette: From
Rhodes Scholar to
scholarly architect

la Burdette '81 politely
requests a telephone inter-
view rather than meeting
face to face in her office. She
prefers that the photographer
postpone his shooting session
until after hours or the week-
end, so as not to disrupt the
daily routine at Nix, Mann 6k
Associates of Atlanta. Burdette
appears uneasy about being in
the spotlight, like she'd much
rather blend in with the 60 to
70 other architects and design-
ers who fill the drafting tables
and cubicles at her Peachtree
Street office.

So why draw her into the
spotlight? Well, she'll probably
always have notoriety in Agnes
Scott's eyes. In 1981, as a senior
in mathematics at Agnes Scott,
Burdette became the College's
first Rhodes Scholar and
Georgia's first woman to gain
that distinction. This year
marks the 10th anniversary of
her award and the end of her
first full year of professional
work in Georgia milestones
that beg for reverie and retro-
spection, particularly when you
learn that her life could have
turned out quite differently.

"After my freshman year at
Scott, I began to seriously con-
sider architecture as a career,"
recalls Burdette. "So that sum-
mer, I enrolled in Georgia Tech
for two semesters. Arthur Frank
Beckum was my professor and 1
began to seek his advice about
whether I should stick with
that program or go back to
Scott. He said go back and get
your liberal arts degree and go
after the technical stuff later.
So I did and started working

Burdette a decade after her
experiences as a Rhodes Scholar.

with [Nix, Mann] on summer
jobs thereafter."

But even with her career
choice settled and her math
direction mapped out, Burdette
was a lover of words and her
English teacher coaxed her to-
ward the Rhodes. "I took all
the English I could on the side.
Mrs. Margaret Pepperdene I
was really her girl. There were
about 12 of us, and she believed
in all of us." Burdette almost
didn't apply for the scholarship,
"but Mrs. Pepperdene said, 'Do
this for me,' and I did."

She completed two years of
English study at Oxford Uni-
versity, attaining a master's
degree, and went on to an
even-less-likely third year

Rhodes Scholarship, gaining a
diploma in art history.

"I lived in a room that
Oliver Cromwell occupied [dur-
ing the seige]. It was freezing
but it didn't matter because
everything was an adventure.
And by the time you got there,
there had been so many inter-
views that everyone knew so
much about you that you didn't
have to introduce yourself."

The tutorial format was
much to the Georgian's liking.
"Once a week you would ap-
pear at your tutor's door. You
would read to him your essays
of the week. He would inter-
rupt and ask questions and then
continue, and he would give
you the next reading and essay
assignments, about two essays a
week for three years."

Americans were not very
popular in England at the time,
but the British were not unkind
to the Rhodes Scholars who, as
Burdette explains, worked and
lived outside of any established
"class" of people. By the time
the very small group completed
a third year of study at Oxford,
"we were the dinosaurs." It was
time to return home and begin
her advanced study in architec-
ture at Princeton.

One of her Princeton profes-
sors led her to the Philadelphia
firm Kieran, Timberlake and
Harris, where she gained expe-
rience on historic projects:
Philadelphia's Eastern State
Penitentiary, an 1829 structure
designed by John Haviland; the
Church of the Ascension in
New York City, designed 1840
and 1885 by Richard Upjohn
and Stanford White; and the
Church of the Covenant in
New York, designed by J.C.
Cady 1871; and the famous
Frank Furness Boathouse Row,

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 3

LIFESTYLE

Philadelphia. "1 climbed a Kit of
church steeples," jokes the
young architect. The stint also
allowed her experience on a
number of contemporary
projects, including the Powel-
ton Gardens Housing for the
Homeless and a Rider College
building.

Family, friends and a long-
ing tor Georgia led her back
home, and to the familiar
offices of Nix, Mann, where
she's a member of the team
designing the $25 million
Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Say-, t inn rresideni Lew is Nix
of lla's work, "1 can only speak
of her in the highest superla-
tives. When Ila [was still in
school], we thought she could
become the head of General
Motors why does she want
to become an architect?"

To Nix, Mann's advantage,
says the president, she chose
architecture. "The work that
she had done in Philadelphia
was very impressive and her
credentials were far beyond
what we normally see. The
great thing to me about Ila is
her everyday personable atti-
tude. She's completely unas-
suming. She represents the firm
well, and will probably end up
in a managerial position."

What advice would Bur-
dette offer others who are con-
sidering a Rhodes Scholarship?

"I'm answering from two
spots now," she says, explaining
her membership on the Ameri-
can Association of Rhodes
Scholars Board. "Don't think of
it as a stepping stone to some-
thing else or as a competitive
[thing to attain]. It you can,
treat it as a gift that miracu-
lously happens, then even the
interviews can be fun."
Mary Alma Durrett

Forensic biologist
Morton is a "loops
and swirls" detective

Susan E. Morton 71 takes
a single finger print,
enlarges it, carefully
traces it, then enters that image
into her computer.

The data is expressed as a
grid pattern then through a
series of queries, compared with
millions of fingerprints stored
in a network of law enforce-
ment computers throughout
the western United States.

"It narrows the field from six
million [suspects] to ten," she
jokes.

She compares the fine de-
tails of those 10 fingerprints and
follows up the closest match.
"We have solved several cases
that otherwise had no leads, no
In >pe i >t v living," she notes.
"Criminals hate it."

Morton, a biology graduate
of Agnes Scott, is a forensic
biologist working in
the crime laboratory
of the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service,
San Francisco, Calif.
She is senior docu-
mentation analyst
serving the western
region.

"In a way, it's de-
tective work,"
Morton explains.

She mulls over
evidence from illegal
operations involving
counterfeiting, drugs,
forgery, burglary,
weapons, then pre-
pares that evidence
tor presentation in
court. "I make charts.
I show the jury what
I've seen. I try to
make it so clear that

they believe the evidence
themselves."

For the first five years after
graduation, Morton was an ex-
pert in paper evidence (involv-
ing counterfeiting and forgery)
for the Georgia Bureau of In-
vestigation. She testified in
cases all over the state. One
involved a master forger who
impersonated a physician and
emptied the doctor's bank ac-
count of $100,000. "He was so
good at forgery, even the doctor
couldn't tell the difference in
the signatures." By comparing
things like relative heights of
letters, Morton was able to
prove the forgery.

Today she handles many
kinds of criminal evidence,
from shoe prints and footprints
to letters on computer or type-
writer ribbons. Some cases
require extensive pu::ling and
research. Others she finds
practically solve themselves.
Recently she was helping ttack

a gang of expert counterfeiters
all Chinese, just arrived in
the United States and still
unfamiliar with English.
The first member was
caught in a department store
attempting to purchase several
expensive watches with a
stolen credit card and faked i.d.
"He was confused. He had his
own picture on the i.d. to prove
who he was," says Morton. But
it didn't take an expert to call
his hand. The name he faked
was Elizabeth Selby.

The rest of the gang was
rounded up later, attempting to
break into a relay box with a
counterfeited key. The San
Francisco post office had antici-
pated the visit with a time-
lapse video camera and a key
grabber.

"We had quite a little scene
out there about 2 a.m.," says
Morton. A member of the
gang ran to get the leadet when
the key grabber held on to the
faked box key. "Then
the head of the gang
came out. He thought
his minions were being
incompetent. So he
began yanking on the
key. We got all this on
videotape.

"Videotape is won-
derful. It may cost a lot
of money to set up, but
it's cheaper than hiring
a person to wait on the
suspect. And after it's
over, who can argue
with it?" ASC

Did you hear about the
Chinese counterfeiter
ivimed "Elizabeth"? As a
forensic biologist, ASC's
Siisan Morton helps solve
Postal Service crimes.

PAUL 06REGON PHOTO

4 FALL 1991

For years Delia McMillan '75 has moved

between the Southern U.S. and famine-ravaged rural West Africa, an

anthropologist caught in the intricate "dance of foreign funding"

BY JEFF WORLEY

MORNING

AFTER

MORNING,

Barbara Emmons lllusfration:

Delia E. McMillan
75 awakened to the
booming cadence of
Damesma women
pounding grain tor
millet, while others
returned from the
village well, balanc-
ing their daily sup-
ply of water in
heavy vessels on
their heads. In
those early hours,
McMillan, Ph.D.,
during her first
long-term fieldwork
in Sub-Saharan
Africa, worked on
her field notes and
brewed tea. "Morn-
ings were wonderful
my quiet time."

With her home
next to the chiefs,
that early calm was
frequently inter-
nipted. "You're
never alone in a
compound," ex-
plains McMillan,
now an indepen-
dent consultant out
ot Gainesville, Fla.
"You learn to work

with lots of people coming in and out." She
made her tea strong, dark and sweet, serv-
ing up to 1 pots a day to women who
drifted in. Everyone drank from the same
bowl, according to custom. And as they
talked, McMillan gleaned information.

For almost 14 years, this native Geor-
gian has worn, alternately, die richly pat-
terned Burkinabe dress and the scholar's
robes, dividing her time between the
United States and the plateaus of Burkina

vtca

l # BUNDNESS

Faso as well as Ghana, Togo, Mali and
Nigeria in the Sudano-Sahelian regions of
West Africa. She's an anthropologist who
traded an academic position for a chance
to use her expertise to help set national
policy and attract
foreign funding for
projects in the
West African
Sahel. "An an-
thropologist loves
to go into villages
and study things.
Getting things
done," she says
with a smile, "steps
across the line into
policy making."

Her initial field
research (from
1978 to 1980)
focused first on a
Burkina "home"
village in the
densely populated
Mossi Plateau,
later on the agri-
cultural practices
of several families
who left home to
help settle and
farm a once
disease-infested
river valley.

For more than
a half century, vil-
lagers along that
fertile river had
been forced out of
their homes by
onchocerciasis (river blindness). Parasites
(passed through the bites of black flies)
grew under the victims' skin and produced
millions of microscopic offspring that
eventually attacked the hosts' eyes. As a
result, as many as 60 percent of the river

Delia McMillan and friends in Burkina Faso.
She recently was made an alumnae member
of Agnes Scott College Phi Beta Kappa in
recognition of her unyrk and her PhD.

HER FIRST STUDY

INVOLVED NEW

SETTLERS IN A REGION

ONCE DECIMATED

BY A PARASITE-BORN '
DISEASE CALLED RIVER

I 6 FALL 1991

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 7 I

villagers over the age of 55 had become

partialis or rurally blind.

McMillan's research studied the social
and economic impact ot a control program
involving insecticide sprayed over area ris-
ers and the tree distribution ot an oral pro-
phylactic which protected villagers from
resurgence o( the disease.

"In one fell swoop," says McMillan,
"they opened up all this land. River blind-
ness control changed everything." Once
abandoned villages and tallow land
are springing to life as government-spon-
sored settlers institute modern fanning
methods: fertilizing, rotating crops.

Carefully McMillan watched and re-
ci irded whether these families were follow-
ing g( ivernment guidelines and why.
She also compared some spontaneous set-
tlers with those settled by the government.

By day, she talked with visitors and
extension agents. Each evening, with note-
book and a lamp in hand, she ventured
pasi village cotton fields to families. "First 1
worked with 20 tanners in the 'traditional'
home village and 24 in two neighboring
villages," she says. "I ended up getting two
years' data on 36 farm families."

Crucial to the entire study were rela-
tionships, beginning with the Naba (the
Damesma chief who represents a long line
of traditional rulers who remain a political
force in the region) and his several wives.

"As I got to know the chief in the home
village better, he opened networks for me
to move into the valley with the re-settled
fanners." From the Naba's point of view, "It
was very prestigious to have an anthropolo-
gist living in his village."

She found herself at home among the
people. Yet in the beginning, she admits, "I
made every mistake you could make"
including a decision to build her house
next door to the Naba. She laughs. "Every
field manual tells you: Never build your
house right next to the chief."

THE RED
EARTH-

of Burkina has seemed like home to
McMillan whose roots grow deep in Geor-
gia clay. Acquaintances unaware o( that
strong cultural tie sometimes kid about her
career choice: "You look like a Southern
belle, talk like a Southern belle, act like a

Southern belle. . . ." She notes that for a
while she was "directionless and a
Southern belle without direction can be a
dangerous animal." Yet she believes her
Southern experience prepared her to relate
to the Burkina people and understand their
culture. "There are a lot of similarities be-
tween rural Southerners and Burkinabes."

McMillan grew up on St. Simons Is-
land. "In 1959, it was like a small village,
with a marsh on one side and the ocean on
the other."

Delia McMillan Photos

OFEN,ASSHE

DRIVES THE BURKINA

COUNTRYSIDE,

SHE IS REMINDED OF HER

RURAL GEORGIA '

EXPERIENCES.

THERE ARE SIMILARITIES

BESIDES GEOGRAPHY.

As children, she and her brothers spent
time on their grandfather's mral Georgia
farm near Athens where they rode ponies
bareback down winding, red-dirt roads and
cattle paths.

Her grandfather, an executive with
Southern Bell, maintained a weekend farm
in Greene County where he had grown up.
He loved and collected the simple tools of
turn-of-the-century Georgia agriculture.
"There was no TV, no telephone on his

farm. He taught us how to chum butter,
make candles, soap and bullets," she says.
"This is where I got interested in tradi-
tional fanning methods."

Her grandfather taught her that sophis-
ticated tools like tractors were useless for
farming small areas. "He said, 'They use gas
and break down all the time.' My grandfa-
ther had quite a collection ot plows, some
very much like those that the more ad-
vanced farmers now use in Burkina Faso."

McMillan's first connection with West-
ern Africa occurred in 1973 while she was
at Agnes Scott, an undergraduate enrolled
in one of Penny Campbell's courses on
African history. "Around this time I sat
down and thought, 'What are the most
exciting things going on in the world" To
me, it all centered around the West discov-
ering Africa."

Forty-plus new African nations were
being formed. "It was exciting to contem-
plate," says McMillan, "what those coun-
tries were going to do in the world order by
the year 2000."

As a junior she experienced Africa,
spending the summer in Togo and visiting
Benin and Ghana in 1974-

"I owe basically what I am today to two
Agnes Scott professors Penny Campbell
and John Tumblin. Penny's African history
course pulled it all together for me. This is
where I got hooked and found a sense of
direction." She recalls writing a paper on
Togo based on interviews conducted during
the summer of 1974, as well as an intensive
review of literature. She worked more than
two months on the assignment. "Then,"
she recalls, "I turned it in without proofing
it it had 32 typographical errors. Penny
gave me a 'B.' But she said, 'Delia, you just
don't turn in 32 typographical enors.' (I
rewrote the paper and submitted it as part
of my application to Northwestern.)

"I took John Tumblin's anthropology
course and loved it. He basically put a bit
in my mouth and nudged me and said,
'You're on the right track, go!' " Muses
Tumblin, "In spite of the pummeling she
took from us, Delia is still wide-eyed,
excited and amazed at the world around

Solemone, a son in the family with whom
McMillan lived on the AW project, takes
aniirtak to market. Soon afterwards, he left the
village to seek his fortune on the Cote d'lvore
(Ivory Coast) . Top left: A Damesma woman
with a bowl of seeds she's about to plant.

8 FALL 1991

Delia McMillan Photos

her. She still has a healthy sense ot wondet.
She came to us with a lot of resources
which she expanded at Agnes Scott. She's
been a thoroughbred all along. Agnes Scott
simply served as a place she could run."

She earned her master's degree ( 1 976)
and her doctorate (1983) in anthropology
at Northwestern University and served as
assistant professor in anthropology at the
University of Kentucky ( 1986-88).

As she narrowed her focus on Africa,
McMillan slowly gained a fresh perspective
of the world. "I feel
that African history
distilled European
history, Third-
World history and
even Asian history
because you're deal-
ing with all those
influences."

And, she be-
lieves, "If you ob-
jectively examine
the history of the
South, it opens
your eyes to under-
standing Africa."

She smiles.
"During rainy sea-
son, riding through
many parts of
Burkina is like
riding from Macon
to Atlanta. The red
clay. The mix ot
soft wood and hard-
woods. The
climate, the crops."

Cotton,
once Georgia's
staple, today is
Burkina's cash crop.
"If you travel west
of the capital, you
are in the cotton
boom area and it's
spreading rapidly with positive economic
consequences tor the region. But," she
warns, "production techniques may cause
the same kinds of troubles that plagued
Southern farms."

In poor countries like Burkina Faso, as
many as 80-90 percent of the people live in
rural areas. And, she believes, "Rural
people all over the world have certain core
values and attitudes, which persist for sev-
eral generations after they become urban-

I 10 FALL 1991

'v

IF YOU

OBJECTIVELY EXAMINE

THE HISTORY

OF THE SOUTH,

OPENS YOUR

EYES TO

UNDERSTANDING

AFRICA." TWO

PARALLELS ARE

RURAL UFE AND

FAMILY.

A

ized. Until recently, the southern United
States has been highly rural."

TO RURAL.
BURKINABES,

family means power. "They perceive their
country as an abstraction without much
significance. They see their family as the
unit to be improved." Historically, South-
erners have valued
close family ties.
"We use family," she
draws the parallel.
"Black and white
Southerners alike
know that until re-
cently, family was
the avenue to suc-
cess as well as the
beneficiary of one's
success both
social success and
political success."

Upward mobility
for rural Burkinabes
may require a move
away from home.
As in the American
South, "If you are
an ambitious young
man from rural vil-
lages, the way to
make money has
been to migrate to
the coast and make
it there.

"Historically,"
she continues,
"Burkina is un reser-
voir d'hommes (a
reservoir of men),
strong, hard-working
people who could be
drained for military
service. . . . The Southern United States
has been the reservoir d'hommes for the
United States military and northern indus-
trial growth. We were its cheap labor. Since
World War I, men and women of both cul-

Conrrasts stand out vividly in developing
nations. B\ 1987, some settlers had earned
enough to rent tractors. Nevertheless, many
still relied on the two oxen and a plow given
them when they immigrated to the valley.

.^m

V

,

4%

*^ \i i*

*.-..-

tures have been attracted to the military as
an avenue of upward mobility."

War has influenced the destinies of
each. Africa's "reconstituting" by numerous
cultures French, British, Germans
has developed in it an "overlay of colonial
culture." Like Africans, she says, "Geor-
gians know what it teels like to be a con-
quered people. We know that after a war,
reconstruction is hard. We know what it
means to be the victim of policies made by
non-related peoples living generations in
faraway geographical regions. Like
Africans, we know that Civil Wars can
leave scars for generations."

McMillan says both Burkina and the
Southern United States have good
weather, cheap land and cheap taxes.

"If you teally scratch beneath the sur-
face, Southerners should be more sensitive
to the plight of the Third-World countries
than anyone in the United States. 1 think
it is no accident that [former President and
Geotgian] Jimmy Carter has taken an in-
terest in the Third World, that his mothet
Lillian served as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Carter is still widely loved in Africa."

FOR YEARS,

McMillan worked African outposts, ven-
turing into cities only occasionally. Now
her work is primarily in metropolitan
circles. Her dwelling is in high-rise hotels;
she travels by chauffeur-driven cars from
boardroom to government office; she has
served on various national and interna-
tional teams designing projects for the
World Bank and the United Nations. She
says the stakes ate high.

On one hand, McMillan is drawn to
this challenge. "Thete is a certain
headiness in dealing with governments.
There is an intoxication of being where
decisions are made." Yet she admits to feel-
ing unschooled for the task. "As an anthro-
pologist, you know in your gut what works.
Being direct, saying exactly what I think,
has worked well tor me until now. But in
the diplomatic mode, you must negotiate.

"My eyes have been opened to the huge
complexity of policy making. This is a dif-
ferent culture the cultute of donors and
national government administrators."

The civil servants working for bilateral
agencies like USA1D and the Dutch gov-
ernment, or the multilaterals like the UN

and World Bank, must promote programs
that are consistent with their governments'
and/or agency's policies. For instance, a
U.S. or Dutch aid program must consis-
tently address women's issues "or it will be
shot down at home."

African officials operate under their
own peculiar constraints. Most tepresent
young governments that rely on urban
minorities (tathet than rural majorities) to
stay in power "they simply cannot adopt
policies that would weaken those allies'

Delia McMillan Photos

SOUTHERNERS,

MORE THAN OTHER

AMERICANS,

SHOULD BE

SENSITIVE TO

THE PLIGHT OF AFRICA

TODAY.

positions, even if it would be better tor the
whole country." To keep donations flowing,
these officials "must also whistle Dixie" to
the United States, the European Economic
Community, the Russians.

Donors like the World Bank and na-
tional governments are constrained and
encouraged by policies or concerns of their
constituencies. One country may give
money earmarked for education, another
tor health or agricultural development.

Tension mounts as each group tries to
meet the Burkinabes' needs and at the
same time respond to constraints of all the
other constituencies.

"I became more empathetic with the
Butkina government and why they seem to
design policies that don't always benefit
their own people. They are forced to
answer to the donors and to the urban
Burkinabe.

"My job," adds McMillan, "is usually to
try to get all of these groups moving to-
gether in a positive ditection, to dance the
dance of foreign funding."

For her, that job can be frustrating, even
tough, especially when the design for fund-
ing seems impractical, its application not
workable at the grassroots level. "You know
what the local officials say they want. You
know what the data has taught you. You
know what a particular donor will fund.
You know what has worked and not
worked in othet areas of the wotld. Thete
are these constraints, but also the opportu-
nities, of the dance. As an anthropologist
you can say it's useless, I can't accomplish
anything. They won't listen to what the
natal constituent teally needs.

"You can throw up your hands. You can
walk away. You can write a paper. You can
even get an endowed chair at a university
writing papers on how the wotld system
wotks against grassroots development.

"Or," she says, "you can get in thete and
learn a whole new set of skills that no one
teaches you in grad school diplomacy.

"This requires you to be a whole differ-
ent person. You are not in the village
learning and beloved and non-threatening.
For me it's much easier to go out and do a
study. It's much harder to determine what's
doable, then push what you think is good
as far as you think you can."

This past summer McMillan worked on
behalf of the United Nations Development
Program in Nigeria, then spent six weeks
in Washington, DC, and Uganda, coordi-
nating a conference on Involuntary
Resettlement in the Environment for the
Environmental Division of the World
Bank. "Now I must atgue a position," she
admits and grins.

"To me, it's a lot more fun to sit around
and drink tea." ASC

Jeff Worley is a freelattce writer in Lexington ,
Ky. , and ftynner assistant professor oj English,
Pennsylvania State University.

12 FALL 1991

.

MCMILLAN

ON EDUCATION:

THINK GLOBAL IN SCOPE,

PREPARE WOMEN '

FOR LEADERSHIP

The July day Delia McMillan 75
stopped by Agnes Scott, she was on
her way to make a presentation to
the World Bank. During those mo-
ments, she expressed her concerns
for contemporary training of women
who will one day assume roles of
leadership in the world.

In successful presentations and
negotiations "the trick," she says,
"is to make what you know easily
understandable and quickly usable."
She laments that her early training
did not require courses in public pre-
sentation and notes additional gaps.

"I see one of the challenges of
women's education whether in
college or high school is to give
women the chance for leadership
roles that are very different from the
overarching sex roles in the society.
This is where the game gets most
difficult: I am used to being very di-
rect, saying exactly what I think.

"My Achilles heel is I don't re-
spond in meetings in the most pro-
fessional ways: tonalities, facial ex-
pressions, body language. That will
cause people not to take a person
seriously. I do wish someone earlier
in my career had helped me work on
this. Maybe I should have played
Little League baseball."

McMillan urges students to ex-
plore cultures outside their own. "I
think it is crucial that cumculum at
the university level provide courses
about Third World countries.
Teachers, people in military,
businesspeople all need this perspec-
tive.

And finally, advises McMillan, "If
I were 18, today, I would be learning
Chinese or Japanese or one of the
Eastern European languages.

"I would be turning my eyes to-
ward Asia or the former USSR."

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 3

The Rapture

cfSetf

fcxpressiQQ

JL EVERYTHING BY TERRY McGEHEE

r 1

I

14 FALL91

What is creativity? Where does it come from? Do some of us have it . . .
but not others? Must it be mysterious and remote?

V_>l Hv^^i^ W JL JLdL In the second grade, I was the one who drew the "bet-
ter" cat. One evening, when I was supposed to he practicing my reading, I drew a CAT.
The next day, when I carried it to school, I was DISCOVERED.

On that day in the second grade I was labeled ARTIST. And from that day on,
I received encouragement concerning my creativity.

But many others, who did not share my second-grade
experience of affirmation, cease to believe in
their own ability to create. The myth that cre-
ativity had been placed outside their
boundaries dampened that creative spark
ft-*f\ and made the process of art-making inaccessible
and therefore, beyond possible achievement.

I wish to dispel that myth.

We come into this world with creative abilities. No
matter what country or culture, we spend our childhood as
creative entities. Many of us have forgotten what it was like
to be a freewheeling, ever-inquisitive bundles of energy. We
sang before we knew we couldn't carry a tune; we scribbled be-
fore we knew we couldn't draw. There was a time, for all of us,
when we did not know there were limitations to our creative being.

What happened?

When did creative atrophy begin?

tneir own ;
K-tn and m

lit /ML A- Af/UrnA. te+uu-

;

ODE U.S. M.S. NO. 237 A

When did we begin to say, "Someday I want to take a painting class of*
music lessons or knitting or gardening or ... or ... or ... ? /fr

EAST,
92

A

FOr tilC P3SL 13 ye3TSj my challenge has been to
balance the demands of teaching with my sincere interest in making art. The foun-
dation of both areas is the belief that self-expression is essential to the realization
of our potential as human beings.

Conscious participation in creative activity is a goal worthy of our serious
consideration. The positive results of self-fulfillment are reminders in this
technological, out-of-time, out-of-touch world that we are still alive.

We live in a time and place in which we have lost sight of meaning
and often lack feeling because of our inability to tell content from
form. We look to "information" for answers: the TV, billboards,
newspapers, books, magazines, education, malls. . . . We move
faster between and among objects that we possess and our
worlds are so cluttered we do not notice the possessions
anymore. Our expectations are so high for gadgets i

that will make our lives more efficient so we can
accomplish more.

But what more do we need to accomplish outside
of ourselves?

"People say that what we're all seeking is a
meaning for life. I don't think that's what
we're, really seeking. I think that what
we're seeking is an experience of being
alive, so that our life experiences on the
purely physical plane will have reso-
nances within our innermost being
and reality, so that we actually feel
the rapture of being alive." Joseph
Campbell, |

Myth and the Modern World

' I believe we live in a universe worthy of our awe and wonderment
Yet when did we last feel rapture? Where have we placed the subjective, the
intuitive, the mysterious, the accidental? Is it "God"-centered and outward, self-ori-
ented and inward, some combination, or have we lost touch with the spiritual?

I think we are closer to experiencing the rapture of being alive than most of us believe.
But how do we get in touch with it? How far are we away from it? How will we know it?

I believe self-expression is a major player in being fully alive.

ko Nikore photo

18 FALL 91

What are we doing with our lives and when have we assessed our dreams?

I once taught

an evening art class people of all ages, with
different training in art and very different needs. Four women in their 60s had
signed up; each said she wouldn't have taken it alone. One of the women was
very intent on painting a purple orchid. "Honey," she exclaimed to me, "if you
can teach me how to paint an orchid, I will be indebted to you forever." . . .
Intuitively I realized she was asking for skills, not knowledge; she knew more

about orchids than I would ever know, but she could not make the transla-
tion from knowledge to form. I began to ask her about orchids. She
"painted" the orchid in words. Every question I asked, she could answer.
Then we talked about color, light, texture and brushstroke. And soon she
was able to paint her orchid to great satisfaction.
I never touched her canvas.
She refused to take the appropriate credit for her knowledge and
continued to support the "great artist myth" by suggesting I had unusual powers as an
artist. She saw me in a grocery store years later and spoke, with great devotion, of what
I had done for her.

I believe we are much more than we have come to believe we are. I think we
possess many of the answers we seek from external sources.

But to rediscover the creative self-expressive core of our
beings; to express ourselves freely; to dispel

?.-.-;:

the debilitating fears that "I have no talent" m
(or "what will it look like?") we must access
our memory. We must go back in time, before
institutions and value systems interfered and changed
our world, back to the memory last experienced fully,
when we were children, and believed we could draw.

Ask yourself, "What if I had drawn the better cat?" This is
the first step toward reclaiming the creactive child within
and it holds the hope of being fully alive.

Terry McGehee is chair of the art department, Agnes Scott
College. The article is excerpted from her Dean's Lecture
delivered in the spring.

AGNES -SSQTT MAGAZINE 19,1

20 FALL 91

Written by Celeste Pennington
Photographed by Monika Nikpre -

A MIXTURE OF EMOTION
AND RATIONALITY, ESTELLA
MATHEU BEGINS LIFE AT ASC

If fresh tee-shirt
and white
sneakers make
Estella Matheu
, blend with
other first-year stu-
dents at Agnes
Scott, what sets her
apart is easy, light-
hearted laughter.

It surrounds her
like afternoon sun
as she and room-
mate Kathy Durkee
sit with two new
friends in the ga-
zebo. It follows her
into the night as
neighbors take a
break from studies
for a romp through
Walters halls.

She keeps a
teddy bear on her
bed. "I am very
emotional," she
admits. But stark
against the wide
white wall above
her bed is a curved
black and silver
stethoscope. She
smiles. "I am also
very rational."
Estella is 19, a
biology major from
Houston, Texas.
She plans to be a
pediatrician. Her
special interest is in
infants with AIDS.

First-year students
Estella Matheu and
roommate Kathy
Durkee with Emory
freshmen Andrew
Groelinger and Brian
Lenzie, new friends
they've made since
arriving at ASC .

Setting aside a
bias for women's
colleges long enough
to visit a half-dozen
schools, she chose
Agnes Scott based on
its small classes, aca-
demic reputation,
campus, dorm life
and "the kindness of
its people."
It was, she concludes,
"custom-made for

>\P*

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Of a record total 684
(527 first-year) stu-
dent applicants,
Estella Matheu is
among the 152 newly
matriculated first year
students at ASC.
Beginning this issue,
Agnes Scott
Alumnae Magazine
will document four
years of contempo-
rary student life, fol-
lowing Matheu and
the Class of 1995
from orientation
through graduation.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 2 1

AS TIME COMES TO LEAVE,

ESTELLA'S PARENTS ADMIT, "WE FEEL

GOOD. BUT WE WORRY, TOO."

Stella's
father,
Walter,
reaches

sack and gingerly
pulls out a small
package wrapped
with a pink bow.
"Tli is is tor her
roommate," he says
,is he places H < >n
l lir dresser.

It's 10:30 a.m.,
Saturday. In muggy
August 24th heat,
Walter and wife
Teresa like hun-
dreds of parents
have already hauled
boxes, duffle bag,
laundry detergent,
dresses and luggage

under the Welcome
Scotties banner
and up to their
daughter's third-
floor room. While
Estella empties suit-
cases into a closet
and chest of draw-
ers, her parents
make her bed.

Then they look
around. Her lamp is
on the desk. Her
leans, she >es and
short formals are in
the closet. Her
"pet" plant sits in its
tiny glass vase on
the windowsill.

Their work here
is almost complete.

"We are feeling
good," her mother

insists. "But we
worry, too." Walter
stares out of the
dorm window, then
teases his daughter
to beware of any
Romeo who might
try to scale the
walls. She says not
to worry, then
giggles. She will
throw the pet plant
on any intruder.
"When she is
little, we always
take care of her
we never leave her
with a babysitter
because we did not
want to leave her
with strangers,"
explains Teresa.
Walter holds up his

index finger and
says just two words:
"One daughter."

These immedi-
ate family ties are
strong. All but one
member of their
extended families

Italian French-
speaking and Italian
Spanish-speaking

reside in Argen-
tina and Uruguay.
Estella is their only
child.

"She is our life,"
says Teresa.

On the Monday
after orientation,
Walter and Teresa
talk about that long
ride back to their
home in the Spring
Branch suburb of
Houston. As the
three finally head
down the sidewalk
leading to the park-
ing lot and the fam-
ily car, Teresa stops
and reaches for
Estella. If they walk
on to the car, she
says they may cry.

"I think," Teresa
tells them, "the best
way we can say
goodbye is right
here."

^0*

Which way to

Decatur? Upperclass

students provide

informal orientation.

I 22 FALL 91

Estellds parents Teresa and Walter help her move in to the third-floor
Walters residence hall (far left). "My mother didn't want me to go this
far away to school, but she was as impressed with Agnes Scott as I
was." After first-year student orientation, Estella says goodbye to her
parents (above) . "If we cry it is because we will miss her but also because
we are happy for her, " says mom Teresa. "It's the best way we can feel. "

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 23

HER STETHOSCOPE HANGING
ON THE WALL, PREMED STUDENT
ESTELLA AWAITS HER ROOMMATE.

y noon
on Satur-
day only
about 50
percent
of first-year students
have checked in to
residence halls.

They do not know
roommate assign-
ments until they
move in. Names are
posted on doors. A
green book with
senior pictures
identifies names
with faces. Estella
sits, anxiously wait-
ing: "Roommate,
where are you?" she
wonders, and sighs:
"I'm not excited
any more. I'm going
to lunch." She
looks for her orien-
tation schedule.
"When is lunch??r

i

Estella: "I'm a little
homesick for my
old room, my
friends, talking on
the telephone. I
used to talk on the
phone to my friends
all night. My par-
ents are passing my
phone number to
my friends so I can
get some phone
calls. It feels so
good to talk to any-
body on the phone."

HHHHHHH

Teresa: "I can pic-
ture her studying. I
can imagine her
with her friends.
For a parent, this is
peace of mind. We
miss her a lot. But
every day we thank
God she is happy.
She is a woman.
Soon she will be 20
years old. She has
to open her little
wings and fly."

Estella: "My par-
ents have sacrificed
so much for me."

mirrors

catch

ltiply

reflections of stu-
dents in tights and
leotards making
quick, crisp motions
with arched teet,
pointed toes. "Very
nice," encourages
professor of PE
Marylin Darling.
"Other side. ..."

Serious, graceful,
erect, Estella is
accustomed to the
discipline of dance.

During high
school she juggled
studies with a part-
time job in a medi-
cal clinic and social
life. She brings to
ASC honors
biology. She under-
stands Spanish,
some Portuguese
and Italian. She's
taken six years of
French. "My par-
ents have encour-
aged me to be
whatever 1 want,"
she says. "I am
really ambitious
and nervous."

26 FALL 91

THE HURRIED, HARRIED FIRST WEEK
PROVIDES A BACKDROP FOR, AND AN
INSIGHT INTO, ESTELLA'S FIRST SEMESTER

ong before
Estella sat
down with
Frances
Kennedy,
her advisor, she
read the academic
catalog and then
deliberately worked
out a detailed
schedule of classes
for each semester
for four full years at
Agnes Scott.
"Are you a
morning person?"
inquires Kennedy.
"I don't want to
be, but I can be,"
Matheu answers
with a laugh.

They start with
English 101, 8:30
a.m. . . . and work
down through biol-
ogy, math, psychol-
ogy, PE and 200-
level French.

Kennedy stops:
"This schedule
leaves only 10 min-
utes for lunch. ..."

Estella's dream
of college collides
with reality in a
relentless succession
of early classes,
focus groups, part-
time library job,
mandatory convo-
cations, residence
hall meetings, an

honor code mock
trial, laundry, iron-
ing, after-hours
Black Cat planning,
reading, research
papers, study for
tests which starts
all over the next
day with a
hurried
bagel
break-
fast.

Immediately
classes such as
French (above)
prove challenging and
stimulating. "I have
to really sit down and

concentrate , says
Estella. "Studying is
not that easy for me .
As far as biology and
psychology are con-
cerned, 1 have such a
love for them, so
learning does not
seem that
hard."
Ballet (far
left) and
fitness
exercise
(left) also
prove taxing, re-
warding. "I was
scared. I thought
they might make me
take folk dancing.
That's just not me."

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 27 I

ATLANTA OFFERS ESTELLA
AND ASC FRIENDS A WORLD
OF DISCOVERY OFF CAMPUS

Jn her first letter from home, "M\ Dad said
how much he missed me. They said they were
glad I was going to such a fine school and to
behave. . . . My parents are very caring
people. They have high expectations forme."

Before
classes
started,
seven
ASC stu-
dents packed into a
white Yugo, looking
for Emory Univer-
sity that and an
Alumnae Association
sponsored-MARTA
ride to learn about
Atlanta's mass transit
system helped
introduce Estella to
life off-campus.

With roommate
Kathy Durkee, a
lanky blonde from
Jacksonville, Fla.,

who's become a
surprising "soul
mate," Estella has
quickly learned to
enjoy the city.

Kathy is as free
and easy as Estella
is carefully focused.
"My Mom said they
don't custom-make
roommates," notes
Estella, who asked
for an outgoing,
non-smoking room-
mate. "Mollie
Merrick [associate
dean of students
who makes room
assignments] did
such a good job,"
she concludes. "My
roomie and I are
perfectly matched."

Getting away
from it all is part of
what they like to do
together. "We went
out last night," says
Estella and giggles.
"We didn't know
we could have so
much fun." ASC

I 28 FALL 91

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 29

AGNES SCOn GOES

<*

By Mary Alma Du

s

(U TJ'U'U UUIXUUUUUIJ

disassembling all the mode'tii
light fixtures that dot the
College quadrangle. They
collect the goods and dash
out of sight. No evidence of
1991 remains. Vintage cars
appear along Buttrick Drive
and 1 gaggle.pt folks,. trigged
in 195jPs fashions "pour otKo
the qxjadrajigle- and^ colon- .
nadej A mammoth, camera
dolfy'springs up in Rehekah
Scotc Hall's front flower bed.
Cameras, lights, reflectors,
makeup amsK, saraid ex-
pertsj grips and offers file in,
settuka the place atu::.

Tf\c actors and ( ircctor
take theii positions.

The demure lady' we've known for years
has become the courted star of many a movie

A team of men scurry "Roll the film."

, up from the The clapboard s heavy

I Physical Plant edge slaps down on its base.

Office and quietly set-about = ^^Seeae one, take one

"Outer on the se

"Action."

Agnes Scott becomes the
University of Alabama in
1955; the magic and
lucrative business of movie
making begins.

Agnes Scott's campus is
transformed in the summer
months sometimes, into
,several worlds in one season,
depending on how manyffilm
makers wint the Agnes; Scott
look. Thisipast summer, ASC
was the sejtting for Fried
Green Tomatoes qt fhe,)$histle

;

Fried Green Tomah
three movies shot on the
campus this past summer,
transformed ASC into the Uni-
versity of Alabama in 1955.

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Stop Cafe; White Lie, a cable
TV movie starring Gregory
Hines; and The Nightinan, an
NBC television movie star-
ring Joanna Kerns. Fried
Green Tomatoes, starring Jes-
sica Tandy, Kathy Bates and
Cicely Tyson, is due out dur-
ing the holiday season

The three projects com-
bined netted more than
$30,000 for the College's cof-
fers, a significant boost to the
$25,000 netted through sum-
mer workshops and seminars
on campus. Says Gerald
Whittington, vice president
tor business and finance, "In

spite of the hassle, we made
money, good money.

"In order to put it in
perspective," continues
Whittington, "for movies to
be a significant money gen-
erator, we'd have to do 30
movies a year. However,

when you wedge them in
between projects in down-
times, they're perfect things
to do. It will never be meat
and potatoes though."

Movie making remains
relatively "easy" money when
weighed against cash outlay,

time and workers required to
generate it. The film compa-
nies assume all additional
line item costs for things
such as unexpected electrical
power use, additional security
personnel, repairs needed to
restore sections of the cam-
pus to their original form it
sets have prompted change.
During the shooting of The

Cicely Tyson (far left) and
Joanna Kems are among the
Hollywood personalities who
have been filmed on campus.
Others include Gregory Hines,
Kathy Bates, Marybtuart
Masterson and Jessica Tandy.

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Nig/itman, one corner of the
Quadrangle was transformed
into a fenced yard, complete
with clothes line, mud holes
and chickens.

o ingenue to
filmdom, the
College has been
the setting for at least por-
tions of 14 feature-length
films or made-for-television
movies,, beginning with A
Man Called Peter in 1955
(based on the book by Agnes
Scott alumna Catherine
Marshall). The past 20 years
however have been the most

prolific, bringing forth: The
Double McGuffin (1978), The
Four Seasons starring Alan
Alda( 1980), The Bear star-
ring Gary Busey (1983), One
Terrific Guy (CBS, 1985),
From Father To Son (1987),
The Unconquered (CBS,
1988), A Father's Homecom-
ing (NBC, 1988), Murder in
Mississippi starring Tom
Hulce (1989), Driving Miss
Daisy starring Jessica Tandy
(1989), Decoration Day
(Hallmark Hall of Fame,
1990).

"I think the [College]
learned an awful lot about

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i "'

Him making on The Bear"
comments Karen Whipple, a
1981 graduate of Agnes
Scott, who returned as assis-
tant film editor for Fried
Green Tomatoes. "I'm sure
there are lots of stories from
Agnes Scott people about
that [The Bear]. They trashed
the place, absolutely trashed
the place and filmed for five
weeks all over campus. . . .
They'd used it for The Four
Seasons while I was a student
and for some other things,
but not for that long.

"On that picture they
learned a lot about what not
to let people do."

What makes Agnes Scott
so attractive is the look, says
Whipple. Carolyn Wynens,
community relations coordi-
nator and chief negotiator of
contracts with production
companies, agrees. "When
the location scouts call to
look at the campus, they've
generally seen photos of it,
probably [secured] through
the state film office. They say
they like Agnes Scott be-
cause it looks most like an
Ivy League college and its
proximity to Atlanta helps
too [where there's a pool of
professional and technical
talent to support film
projects]. We've done a good
job of keeping the interiors of
our buildings in the period in
which they were con-
structed," says Wynens,
thanks in large part to the
more than $20 million, pre-
centennial celebration resto-
ration work. Agnes Scott's
scaled-down size also makes
the campus attractive. With
less territory and fewer vari-
ables to control, film projects
are more manageable.

The first inquiries of
most scouts Wynens
takes "with a grain of
salt." If they come back a
third or fourth time, then
serious talk begins. All inter-
ested parties leam from the
first that the school has to
read and approve of the
script in advance so as not to
compromise its integrity;
the rate structure, though
negotiable, generally runs
between $1,500 and $2,000
per day (depending on
indoor/outdoor shooting
needs); and, as Wynens states
emphatically, "the needs of
the campus, first and fore-
most the academics of the
College and campus life, take
priority."

Wynens gives interested
companies a tour of the

ASC's voice on the set is
Carolyn Wynens. coordinator
of community relations, who
reads all scripts and makes
sure production companies
leave campus in the same
condition they find it. "The
needs of the campus come
first and foremost," she says.

grounds. "I do a little com-
mercial for the College and I
listen hard as they [generally
the producer, the production
designer and the location
scout] talk among them-
selves. As they see the cam-
pus, they talk about what
they want to do and I keep
quiet. I find out more about a
project that way."

Often, prospects are
eliminated right away for
instance, when a company
needs to shoot inside the
library for four weeks in
October.

And even if the produc-
tion companies are given the
OK, film details do change.
"Film companies are notori-
ous for a camel-in-the-tent
analogy," observes Whitting-
ton. "They get in here and
start expanding into every-
where. We have gotten bet-
ter and better at saying, 'No,
you cannot do that.' It's a
technique they use to get you
into the sweep of being 'a
part of Hollywood.' We've
kept our hassle factor down
and our cost to a minimum.
We make sure that they
don't set a foot on the cam-
pus until we have their insur-
ance policy certificates."

The Nightman filming
required actors to engage in
elaborate acrobatics, includ-
ing one close-up scene that

*mt

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE. 35 i

r .v.

m

m

_r_

W

required Joanna Kerns to
land face-down in a mud
puddle. Afterward, produc-
tion folks appeared aghast
that the College wouldn't
allow her to go into Main to
take a shower.

"She understood com-
pletely and would not have
considered entering the
building muddy," says
Wynens. "We gave her a
hose to rinse off with, then I
took her up for a shower."

w

hen film
crews are on
campus, Wynens
is the College's presence on
the set. With walkie-talkie in
hand, she is a mobile "mis-
sion control" on-line with
the College's security crew.
Often, traffic is the easiest
thing to control. The hard
parts, says Wynens, arise
when the city of Decatur
decides to cut the grass on
the railroad right-of-way
within earshot of the film set
or a train whistle blows in
the middle of a crucial scene
or the number of jets flying
overhead seems to triple.
"And then there are the
times when somebody
stumbles into a building
[even though they've been
asked not to] with a cigarette
and sets the smoke alarm
off." But those moments are
rare.

The Nightman's crew was
"one of the best we've ever
worked with. The organiza-
tion of people was good and
the schedule was tight
shi its were thought through
and planned out by the
director," says Wynens.

Because of our cumulative
knowledge, other colleges are
calling AS( fi ir advice on

handling movie inquiries.

The added benefits are
that College folks get to
know some celebrities.
"When they were filming
Murder In Mississippi, starring
Tom Hulce, there were two
children on the set who were
big fans of [Hulce's earlier
movie character] Arnadeus.
When he found out that
they wanted to meet him, he
said, 'Where are they, where
are they?' It was a privilege
for him to meet them."

When Driving Miss Daisy
was being filmed, Jessica
Tandy was waiting inside
Buttrick for her scenes.
Recalls Wynens, "It was such
a cute sight to see her kneel-
ing down to read the low-to-

Vintaqe cars such as this
Thunderbird lined Buttrick
Drive to create a 1955 scene
in Fried Green Tomatoes at
trie Whistle Stop Cafe.

the-ground press clippings
about the College that are
posted outside the public
relations office."

While sequences shot on
campus don't always make it
into the final film, the fun
and the magical moments
linger, Wynens concludes.
"Plus, it's great public rela-
tions for the school. When
movie shoots are going on,
the campus becomes a focal
point in the community." ASC

i . * ": -
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36 FALL91

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Karen Whipple '81, spent a good part of this
past August sitting in a dark little room in
i Senoia, Ga., watching someone cut up Fried
Green Tomatoes. Not exactly your garden variety work.

Maybe some explanation is in order. Whipple has
been working as assistant film editor on the movie ver-
sion of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, an
adaptation of Fannie Flagg's book about life, friendships
and changing times in a rural Alabama restaurant. She
has been tagging and cataloguing every foot of rough film
shot and cut, including the commencement scenes that
brought the project to Agnes Scott's campus for two days.

"I handle syncing the dailies. 1 do not cut. I handle all
the paperwork, more organizational-level things. Every
trim, every piece of film that's been shot and cut [I record]
so we can find where it is, without even looking at the
film. I won't start cutting until I get to the 'associate'
level," says the Georgia native who majored in theater at
ASC.

The Tomatoes project brought Whipple full circle
back to the turf where she did her first film work. Follow-
ing graduate study in theatrical technical design at
Northwestern University, Whipple returned to Atlanta.
"I got involved in production ot The Bear," a biographical
film of University of Alabama Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.
Agnes Scott "became" the University of Alabama from
1933 to the 1950s for The Bear.

When the movie crews "trashed" the campus,
Whipple, who aided in set "dressing," was "very much
caught in the middle because the film people would say,
'Let's do this,' and I'd be saying, 'We better ask somebody
first.' "

She was baptized into the fellowship of diplomacy.

"That's why they brought me on; they wanted some-
one as a go-between who would have some experience. I
hadn't gone over into post production yet, what I'm do-
ing now. The more 1 worked in production, the more I
thought there were other aspects of it that were appeal-
ing. You work more with the director, more with the idea
people. When you are in the art department, you're out
there in the mud, painting houses in the rain. It's less fun
than it looks."

Since that transition, Whipple's clipped off a list of
film projects, adding seven titles to her resume. Fast Food,
Goin' to Chicago and Constant Reminders, were all filmed

ASC's Karen Whipple: a film career that's "at lot of fun."

in 1989 and Whipple served as either apprentice film
editor or assistant film editor; From My Grandmother's
Grandmother Unto Me, Sensini Na? (What Have We
Done) and Once in a Bhte Moon, followed in 1990; and
Talkin Dirty After Dark in early 1991. On all but Senrini
Na?, she worked as assistant film editor.

"I got involved with that one about two weeks after I
moved to Los Angeles. I was the sound editor for it," she
says. The film, nominated tor an Academy Award, is
based in South Africa. It's the story of a black man who is
mistaken for a African National Congress organizer. He's
pulled off a bus and beaten and questioned. "Then they
realize that they have the wrong man and say, 'Very sorry.'
and they're gone. Obviously, he's changed by the experi-
ence," says Whipple. "I had to place the sound, do a lot of
research, about what would" be native to that area. When
we did background voices, we were careful to use Zulu
only."

Her favorite movie to date was GrandmorAer. "It was a
stage play, a one-woman show, [that had been] touring
the Southeast for about three years. John Allen brought
me in [after almost all of it had been shot] and we started
reworking it. It's difficult making a theater piece into a
film because it doesn't cross over well, but that was a
good crossover for me, because I understood the theater
end of it so well. It was a lot of fun, very much a woman's
story, talking about Appalachian women through the
ages." Marv Aima Durretx

1 :aa0cn0Q]3Q"OQnnDOLiDnnannUDUnrjii

38 FALL91

Our Readers Wite

What you like and what you don't

For the past couple of months I've looked forward to the
late morning mail my chance for a sack lunch break and
a word from Alumnae MAGAZINE readers. It took less
than a week after mailing the Spring 1991 AGNES SCOTT
ALUMNAE MAGAZINE responses to the readership survey began
pouring in.

Ninety percent of those who filled out surveys are alumnae.
Ages run from early 20s to mid-90s. Most are avid readers with
tastes ranging from news magazines to The Nation, Wall Street Jour-
nal, Southern Living and Grandparents to The American Journal of
Dance Therapy. "I read over 30 magazines a month and four news-
papers a day," notes a respondent from the class of '68. Those
handwritten comments, filling the spaces provided and
sometimes running along the bottom or sides of the
survey form, offered the most interesting
insights.

According to the survey, almost 75 per-
cent read from "several" to "all" of the
articles in the magazine. (Less than one
percent confessed to tossing the magazine
without reading it.) Some readers skip
around, reading shorter articles first.
Many more claimed, as did a member of
the class of '50, "I read AGNES Scott
Alumnae Magazine from kiver to kiver."
About 75 percent hang onto each issue
from one to six months. A number of readers
pass their copies to others: family members,
students even alumnae of other women's
colleges.

Most of you are fairly clear on what you
like and what you don't.

"I want more about alumnae and faculty,"
requests a reader from the class of '48.

"I like articles that transport me back to
the ASC I knew or keep me up to date with
what's happening now," from the class
of '69.

"Use less shiny paper. The reflection is
hard on old eyes," says an alumna from the
class of '40.

"I want to know more about the controver-
sies, not just the positives," notes a reader from the
class of '37.

"Visually, this magazine is gorgeous," says another.

Mitzi Cartee Illustration

Ninety percent of the survey respondents indicated they are
pleased with magazine format (size, length, and type size). Between
70 and 80 percent approved of photo use and article content. Al-
most 90 percent believe the magazine offers a positive and/or bal-
anced and informative view of Agnes Scott.

Generally, readers asked for more alumnae and College news,
particularly related to faculty and students. You also are interested
in trends in higher education, College history, contemporary issues
and contemporary student life, in that order.

Readers also asked for unvarnished truth. "It's a little overly
slick, like a PR piece. No one ever seems to have any problems,"
complains one. Most surveyed don't like how-to articles
or reviews of books not written by Agnes Scott
faculty, students and staff. Some expressed
J > concern about the costs of producing

I / the magazine.

Already, we are shaping maga-
zine content to reflect more in-
depth coverage of alumnae faculty,
contemporary student life and
history of the College. Because
readers are busy with careers
and family, our mix of articles
will continue to include sev-
eral shorter pieces. And we are
constantly looking tor cost-sav-
ing measures for production.
"Cover Return-to-College students,"
one requests.
We will.

"Are you using recycled paper for the
magazine?" asks a member of the class
of '55.

We are. We are also experimenting
with both dull and glossy paper for
reproduction and readability.

"Keep the magazine geared to our
audience," admonishes a reader from
the class of '66.
We'll try.

And thanks to you who took the
time to fill out the survey and the post-
age to mail it. I'd like to continue to
hear from you. So don't wait until the
next readership survey to write. ... ASC

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 39 I

CLASSIC

The Gazebo:
Linking ASC's Past
with rter Tomorrow

To the side oi Woodruff
Quadrangle, the Agnes
Scott gazebo stands, .1
conundrum from another age.
The word gazebo is derived
from the 18th century mock-
Latin formation of the English
"gaze" with the Latin suffix ebo,
meaning "I shall." To under-
stand the gazebo as more than
an architectural embellish-
ment, perhaps, would be-
to value contemplation.
A glance over the
shoulder rather than
a <j,i:e seems to tit
our 1990s, fast-for-
ward style.

Once, the
Agnes Scott gazehi 1
stood surrounded
by a small brick
patio in front of
Main, near College
Avenue. Students
called it the Summer
House. It served as a
cover for the College
well. While documenta
tion is sketchy, the well was
1 losed around 1909 when .is
many as 30 students fell ill with
typhoid and the source of the
disease was discovered sewage
seeping into the well. The well
was capped that year. But the
gazebo stayed.

In the 1920s, a circular drive
proposed tor the front of the
campus eliminated that space
tor the gazebo. Frances
Gilliland Stukes '24 remembers
an effort to preserve the
painted white structure: an
alumna wrote President [ames
Ross McCain threatening
never to return to campus it the
gazebo were destroyed.

The gazebo was moved west
ofRebekah Scott Hall. With
the move it took on a new ap-
pearance and a new name.
The sides were enclosed and
benches were built around the
inside. Students began calling
it the Round House. Caroline
McKinney Clark '27 says a
pink rose vine covered the out-
side. "It was a nice place to
collapse,"

presence. Others remember it
as a place to take a date. Ru-
mors circulate about more than
- me marriage proposal happen-
ing there. For a few it was a
place of retreat from classes and
the dorm. For Martha Davis
Rosselot '58, it took on a great
significance late in her senior
year. "I was struggling with
what to do with my life," she
remembers. It was in the quiet
moments within the gazebo
prayer room that she made a
lecision to take a job in In-
dianapolis with a Method-
ist church. She remains
in Christian education
today.

ust four years ago
the Round House
became a gazebo
once more, moved
to its current loca-
tion on the quad-
rangle and reno-
vated to its original
1890s appearance.
Often at Christmas

it's decorated with bows and
evergreen boughs. In Spring,
classes sometimes meet there.
But tor a few it's just a peaceful
place to push back and forth on
old wooden rocking chairs be-
neath its pointed roof.

April Cornish '91 says she
likes the gazebo because it gives
her a sense of history and conti-
nuity with students who came
before. "From the gazebo," also
notes Comish, "you can take
one sweeping look at the cam-
pus.

In a society which places a
premium on purpose quickly
followed by action, there is
need for a place to draw away
from the center and view life
with more than a glance. Per-
haps the Agnes Scott gazebo
has now found its proper place.
Bill Bangham is a magazine
editor arid freelance writer. He
urote about best-selling author
Clyde Edgerton in the Spring

Agnes Scott Alumnae
Magazine.

she notes.

For the next 60 years it
remained in that location and
served a number of functions:
day room tor students who
commuted to class, prayer
room, memorial chapel, Chris-
tian Association center, even
an office of the Southern Asso-
ciation of Colleges and Second-
ary Schools. One senses the old
structure stniggling for a right-
ful place and identity.

Some alumnae vow that
while they never visited the
gazebo, they were fond of its

Once nicknamed the "Round House," the gazebo's renovation

and restoration in 1987 turned into a beautiful focal point of campus.

I 40 FALL 1991

FINALE

Picture This. . .

/Vppealing? Enter Agnes Scott's "Best Shots" Photo Contest and you'll
I Xhave the best shot at getting your hands on the $200 first place prize,
/ \ $100 second place prize or $50 third place prize. If you've captured that
irreplaceable slice-of-life moment on film since Jan. 1, 1991, now is the time to
bring it out and prop it up against the competition. The contest is open to all
alumnae, students, faculty and staff of Agnes Scott College.
But remember, you've got to play by the rules. Here they are:

1

Send your 8X10 black and white prints or color slides taken after Jan. 1 ,
(repeat after Jan. 1, 1991).

/ Enclose your name, address and phone number with each entry and include
the names of all identifiable people appearing in the photograph.

3

All entries must be received in the Publications Office, Agnes Scott Col-
lege, Buttrick Hall, 141 E. College Ave., Decatur, GA 30030, no later than
Dec. 31, 1991 (better make it fast) .

Entries will be considered the property of Agnes Scott and cannot be re-
turned. Entries will be judged by a panel of professional photographers who
have worked with Agnes Scott College and are familiar with our campus.

Winning entries will be published in the spring 1992 edition of AGNES
Scott Alumnae Magazine.

Go ahead, give it your best shot!

This could be you getting
close to $200 in cash

Living history for
ASC: Milton Scott
remembers

Milton Scott, 95, remembers it
vividly. It was past the dusk
curfew. He was a young man
walking through the Agnes
Scott College campus after a
longer than normal lecture
here. The path to the Scott
family home led him past
Agnes Scott President Frank
Gaines' house (where the
Letitia Pate Evans Dining Hall
now stands). Gaines caught
and chided Scott, grandson of
College founder George Wash-
ington Scott, "mistakenly" on
campus past nightfall. Scott
took little comfort in knowing

that this remonstrance was not
so severe as those Gaines deliv-
ered to a contemporary who
persisted in after-hours banjo
serenades to ASC women.

As part of a series of "His-
tory and Tradition in Winnona
Park" talks hosted by the orga-
nization in September, Scott
recounted a range of historical
anecdotes, including the zeal
with which Gaines policed the
campus for those breaking the
curfew (1896-1923). The meet-
ing was part of a regular gather-
ing of the Winnona Park
Neighborhood Association at
the Winnona Park School.

The Scott family developed
Winnona Park, a residential
project on a section of their

expansive land holdings. Scott
told of buttermilk and straw-
berry parties at the family
homeplace, of skinny-dipping
in a branch that traversed the
rolling property, of plans to de-
velop a golf course that were
shelved long ago, and of the
Scott family's migration into
Georgia. On that subject,
Milton Scott's daughter, Betty
Scott Noble (a current member
of Agnes Scott College's Board
of Trustees) added detail.
Milton's grandfather,
George Washington Scott, a
veteran officer of the War Be-
tween the States, had moved to
Decatur in 1875 from Tallahas-
see, Fla., following a yellow fe-
ver epidemic. Ill health had

driven him south from his na-
tive Pennsylvania, where his
mother, Agnes Irvine Scott
(the namesake of the College)
had been brought by her
mother in 1816. The young
Agnes Irvine, as she was known
then, had rather reluctantly
journeyed from Northern
Ireland to the United States.
Noble explained that Agnes
Irvine was afraid of both being
scalped by Indians and of being
frowned upon by Presbyterians
in America who disapproved of
dancing. Noble said that Agnes
came nonetheless, married
leather worker John Scott in
1821 and lived the rest of her
life in Pennsylvania. Mary
Alma Durrett

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 4 1

Agnes Scott College
141 E. College Avenue
Decatur, Georgia 30030

Nonprofit Organization

US. Postage

PAID

Decatur, GA 30030

Permit No. 469

HAVE YOU
GIVEN US YOUR
BEST SHOT?

iintM

Monika Nikore did
wfien she photographed
Estella Mathew andffie
Class of '95 for this
issue. But she's not
eligible for our photo
contest. And you are!
The contest runs until tfie
end of the year. For
more information, see
our story on page 4 1 .

PRINTED ON Q RECYCLED PAPER

AGNES SCOn

ALUMNAE MAGAZINE SPRING 1992

f

T jtp

DOCUMENTING THE IN WAR I RNEY

v

LI F ESTYLE

Momko Nikore Pholo

Preservationist
Gayle: NYCs
"Cast Iron Lady"

Mtrgot Gayle '31 has
saved a con of New
.York, literally. A
champion of preservation
causes for more than 40 years
and a master grass-roots activ-
ist, the energetic Gayle has
focused most ot her lite on re-
searching and saving the things
many considered old fashioned
and useless cast-iron buildings
and bridges.

Gayle was taken by the dis-
tinctiveness of cast iron, the
delicate designs into which it
could be shaped and the rug-
gedness ot the metal that could
be inexpensively produced and
quickly assembled. From her
Upper East Side "command
center" an apartment filled
with remnants of past projects
(clips, files, books, notes, pho-
ii igr.iphs, ,i perM mal o mipurer,
salvaged floor-to-ceiling mirrors
and decorative iron pieces)
down to her old turf in SoHo,
I ia\ le ha-- g.iined tame as the
"Cast-Iron Lady." This past fall,
the diminutive Gayle was
handed a hefty bouquet of
praise tor her work by the New
York Landmarks Conservancy
in the form of the Lucy G.
Moses Award tor Preservation
Leadership.

New Yorker Magazine writer
and critic Brendan Gill encap-
sulated Gayle's lifetime of work
in a speech before presenting
her with the Moses award in
October. He cited as one of
her most notable accomplish-
ments, the founding of the
Friends of Cast-Iron Architec-
ture in 1970. Through FCIA
Gayle successfully leveraged
public support and funding to

save a long list of cast-iron
buildings and bridges built in
New York City between 1850
and 1900. Many of them are
included in Cast-Iron Architec-
ture in New York, a photo-
graphic record that Gayle pro-
duced jointly with photogra-
pher Edmund V. Gillon Jr., in
1974, of more than 100 cast-
iron buildings.

But her effort doesn't end
there. Gayle has used her
knowledge and persuasiveness
to attain recognition for James

Bogardus, responsible tor start-
ing the cast-iron building
movement in 1848.

Bogardus, a self-educated
Dutch-American inventor,
revolutionized a milling
method that could be applied
to many grinding needs corn,
wheat, paint. The wealth he
accumulated from this inven-
tion and the technical knowl-
edge in iron casting he acquired
by attending British expositions
ot similar technology allowed
him to revolutionize the

commercial building industry
and capitalize on the idea
during a boom time in New
York's history.

"It must have thrilled him
because he came back and said,
in effect, 'In England, they just
use it tor interior construction.
Why not tor outside?' Today,
everyone calls to mind his name
with that [industrial] connection
but they don't know anything
more about him," explains Gayle,
who is finishing a book about the
inventor. "I will add a good bit

2 SPRING 1992

LI F ESTYLE

Recognising the beauty of New
York City's cast-iron architecture,
ASC's Margot Gayle fought to
save it for future generations .

of original information about
Bogardus."

Gayle's passion for preserva-
tion began soon after she and
her family moved to New York
in 1944. While her husband
served overseas in the military,
Gayle worked as a staff writer
for CBS. From her Greenwich
Village apartment, she

launched a host of political and
preservation campaigns, which
"nearly drove my family crazy,"
she says. A failed attempt to
win a New York City Council
seat in 1957 didn't daunt
Gayle, whom many Scotties
knew as Margaret McCoy in
1928-29. She eventually served
as assistant to the commissioner
of the New York City Depart-
ment of Public Events and as
information officer of the NYC
Planning Committee.

In 1959, while a freelance

magazine writer, she rallied a
group known as The Village
Neighborhood Committee for
a three-year fight to save the
1877 Jefferson Market Court-
house. She led the push for
passage ot the city's 1965 Land-
marks Law which preserves
historic structures and in 1966
she founded the American Vic-
torian Society, which educates
the public on the importance
of numerous historic structures.
Gayle has long been a member
of New York's Municipal Art
Society, has served on former
Mayor Ed Koch's city Art
Commission and has served on
the city-controlled Consulta-
tive Advisory Group, pushing
for acquisition and preservation
of high quality public art. In
1988, with art historian
Michele Cohen, Gayle penned
a guide to outdoor sculpture in
Manhattan.

While her own legacy is im-
pressive, Gayle is even prouder
of her recent efforts to gain
recognition for the man who
started the cast-iron move-
ment, James Bogardus. Today
in SoHo, a pie-shaped traffic
island park (with six trees)
bears Bogardus' name. "You
know you have to go through a
lot of rigamarole to get some-
thing pennanently named and
in an old city, everything's al-
ready named," observes Gayle.
"But we got it through the local
planning board and through
the Parks Committee of the
New York City Council. It all
came off just fine. Mayor Ed
Koch signed the final bill and
said, 'If Margot says it's a good
idea, we know it's a good idea.'
And it's a stone's throw away
from the very few Bogardus
buildings still in existence."

Mary Alma Durrett

Education Consultant
Lucas: Helping
Arctic Teachers Teach

Bracing herself and her
.child against the
weather, which hovers
near 55 degrees below zero, she
quickly makes her way to the
plane. Once she's safely inside,
the pilot readies the two-seater
for take off to a remotely-
located school in the Arctic
regit 'ii.

Traveling from one assign-
ment to another by plane is
typical for Mary Paige Lucas
'73, a curriculum consultant to
rural school districts in Alaska.
"Because of inclement weather
and unpaved roads in rural
areas, traveling by mail plane is
the quickest and safest way to
go," she explains.

Her 10-month-old son often
accompanies her on assign-
ments. "I just pack his little
playpen and set it up in the
classrooms. It is pretty informal,
and I usually stay four or five
days at a time when I go out to
the districts."

Lucas' work as a consultant
has taken her to more than 15
school districts in Alaska
from small Arctic villages to
cities such as Anchorage,
where she now lives with her
husband, a natural resources
economist, and three children.
She enjoys traveling but admits
it can be hard to manage a hec-
tic schedule and raise a family.
"I have a lot of support from my
husband. Without him I could
not do this type of work."

Her job involves working
with elementary and junior
high school-level teachers and
administrators on a contract
basis. One of her more chal-
lenging projects was to design a

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 3 I

LI FESTYLE

In the pristine Arctic wilderness, Alaska education consultant Mary Paige Lucas '73 helps native peoples
preserve their culture while they learn to live in a white-oriented society.

behavioral management train-
ing program for teachers' aides
in the northwest Arctic. She
has also maintained a five-year
collaboration with Alaska's
Special Education Service
Agency (SESA). With SESA's
approval she makes modifica-
tions to school curriculums in
order to accommodate neuro-
logically-impaired and other
special education children.

Her work has also taken her
directly into the classroom
where she has conducted coop-
erative education workshops in
which students learn to work in
groups rather than individually.
"This workshop fosters self-
esteem and it's an Eskimo way
of working together. It fits well
into how they do ihmgs at
home and it has helped to
implement lessons in the class-
room," she says.

Lucas notes that another
aspect of her work which she
finds very important is her
ability to bridge the culture of
mainstream society and the
unique culture of the Eskimo.
"It involves mixing the white
culture of the school setting
and the native culture of the
town. From there I try to figure
out how to keep the Eskimo
heritage and culture, yet help
them prepare to move ahead in
the 20th century.

"Eskimos want to be able to
function in society to get a
job, run a business, work a com-
puter ... I never know what
I'm going to find, who I'm go-
ing to meet and how it is going
to work. I would have been
considered to be just one more
person who came in and out,
but I have a genuine interest
and pleasure in working with

them in their way."

In many of the school dis-
tricts Lucus visits, the Eskimos
live in very small, isolated com-
munities. Although many
speak English and some have
satellite television to connect
them to the outside world, they
embrace their own cultural val-
ues. Lucus explains these values
as being "not as competitive,
being respectful ot elders and
operating within extended
families."

Lucas, a psychology major,
looks back on the long-lasting
repercussions of her education.
"One of the things Agnes Scott
teaches is to be able to adapt to
.1 situation and how to work
with and see the whole picture.
And in this type of work that is
necessary."

Following graduation from
ASC, Lucus taught in Douglas

and Cobb counties. She de-
scribes her move from Georgia
to Nome, Alaska, in 1978 as an
"impulsive decision, and I don't
tend to make impulsive deci-
sions." A friend teaching in
Fairbanks told her of the state's
shortage of special education
teachers. So Lucas did some
research and literally struck
gold opportunities were
abundant. Soon a position was
offered and within two weeks
she went from 9 5 -degree to
4 5 -degree weather.

In 1983 she and her family
returned to the "lower 48" so
that she could attend graduate
school at the University of
Delaware. When they returned
to Alaska in 1987, Lucas began
consulting and working on her
Ph.D. dissertation. She com-
pleted her doctorate in educa-
tion in 1991.

On returning to Alaska she
and her family settled into a
house on the coast of the Cook
Inlet, just off the Pacific Ocean.
Their reason tor returning to
the state: job opportunities, its
geographic beauty and adven-
ture. "The opportunities here
are special not as many
bureaucratic layers to go
through. This is also pristine
country the forest is right
here. I have moose in my back-
yard and the mountains and
oceans are gorgeous.

"Alaskans have a spirit of
adventure about them," she
adds. "They want to branch out
and try things. People here
have a lot of energy and are
creative."

True to her description of
Alaskans, Lucas is also fond ot
adventure. Each time she steps
into a mail plane she begins an
"educational advenmre."

Audrey Arthur

4 SPRING 1992

READING BETWEEN THE LINES

When green-eyed Joan Kimble '91 walks into the Thompson house,
Betty Thompson's entire face creases deeply into a smile and her right arm
the one not tied to her wheelchair flies up to meet Kimble's affectionate embrace.
"How are you?" asks Kimble, plopping a red board engraved with a white
alphabet onto Thompson's lap.
Thompson's free hand thrusts downward, her finger lands on G.
"Good?" guesses Kimble.
Thompson cuts her eyes upward and makes a guttural yyyeh for yes.
Her finger points to I-L-O-V.
"I love," repeats Kimble. "I love. . . ."
H-U-G-S.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 5

READING BETWEEN THE LINES

RTC-grad Joan
Kimble '91 has
turned work
with a
quadriplegic
client into
something more.

Written by
Celeste Pennington

Photographed by
Paul Obregon

Joan Kimble's relationship
with quadriplegic Betty
Thompson is more than
caregiverldient. A deep
friendship has evolved as
they've worked together.
Whether in the Th impson
hi iii.se.' id mi i.iliic'il ii all
"I must always be thinking
for two," says Kimble.

KIMBLE AND THOMPSON
became acquainted through United
Cerebral Palsy of Atlanta, where
Kimble worked part time as a respite
care giver, helping families care for
people of all disabilities. Thompson, who at seven
months of age contracted meningitis, is a quad-
riplegic.

With Kimble's regular visits, the two quickly
developed a close relationship at its base, this
letter-by-letter communication. "I majored in
English at Agnes Scott," says Kimble, a former
Return to College student. She laughs: "I can spell.

"Betty has little control over her muscle func-
tions. She can't speak, but she understands every-
thing. Through spelling, she taught me how to
care for her: How to use the lift for the wheelchair,
where to find the soap, where to find her tooth-
bmsh, how to turn on her typewriter."

Kimble can spell. She is also attuned to
Thompson's more subtle communication: a shift
of her eyes or flutter of eyelids, a hand motion, the
nuance of sound without words. For everything to
click, Kimble must read between the lines, exer-
cising skills in psychology, imagination and intu-
ition. "Has anything been going on?" she asks Th-
ompson, who points to N.

"No?"

Thompson cuts her eyes. Kimble knows
Thompson's joking.

R-O-B-I-S-TA-K

"Rob is taking you to. . . ."

P-O-T-L-U

"Potluck supper? At the Quaker church?"

Y-

Both grin.

H-U-M-O-R, spells out Thompson, is another
key to care. "You have to really like the person
who is helping you," Kimble explains. "We
[caregivers] are constantly in your face."

MENTALLY TAXING is the way Kimble
describes work. "I must always be thinking for
two." For Kimble the job is a constant tug-of-war:
to anticipate need yet not interfere with her cli-
ents' self-sufficiency.

The work requires great patience, as well, re-
minds Estella Sims, respite care coordinator for
United Cerebral Palsy. "Dressing a person takes
time. Feeding a handicapped person may take
more than three hours."

Kimble is constantly seeking new ways to

6 SPRING 1992

MEETING EXTRAORDINARY CHALLENGES

AGNES SCOTT AAAGAZINE 7 I

EEN THE LINES

Kimble "takes
the extra step.
She is there
even when
she isn't
getting paid."

Kimble believes the gov-
ernment does too little to
meet the needs of people
like Thompson. She often
unites to public officials,
urging creation of special
group homes. Thompson's
father, Raymond (below
right), now spends six
hours a day in harvls-on
care for his daughter.
What happens , wonders
Kimble , when Raymond
now m his mid-70s
can no longer provide this
care for his daughter?

communicate, analyzing and breaking down daily
tasks into basic components as well as frequently
lifting, bathing, dressing, feeding, shifting, mov-
ing. "This job is exhausting," admits Kimble.

"It takes my mind and my body and my heart."

Critical to doing her best is Kimble's ability to
assess and mentally catalogue each client's capa-
bilities. Thompson, for instance, reads, works jig-
saw puzzles, types with one hand, and takes
"walks" through the neighborhood in her electric
wheelchair. "You must," says Kimble, "allow every
person to do whatever they can for themselves.

"You have to learn each person."

What she has learned in her four years of work-
ing with the handicapped is that "each one is so
different from the last." Mentally retarded clients
she describes as stable, predictable. The challenge
is to teach them basic living skills. Simply washing
hands, explains Kimble, must be thoughtfully
communicated: "This is a water faucet. Turn on
the water. Pick up the soap, please. Put the soap
on your hands. Lather up the soap. Put the soap
down, please. Rinse your hands. Turn off the fau-
cet. Pick up the paper towel. Dry your hands.
Now, put the paper towel in the basket. For some,
to turn on the water before they pick up the soap
is quite an accomplishment."

Her mentally ill clients have intelligence, good
mobility and communication skills, yet behaves
unpredictably. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizo-
phrenic, this person requires careful observation
and protection from doing things like overmedi-
cating himself.

Kimble chose this work over teaching English
in a school where she encountered drug-related
discipline problems. She found two part-time jobs

working with handicapped persons. Seven months
after graduation and in the midst of a hiring
freeze she was hired full time by Gwinnett
County Mental Retardation. "The people Joan
helps are very fortunate," notes Sims. "When she
wanted to work out a program for a child, I
remember she called late one night wondering
how she could help. She takes the extra step. She
is there even when she isn't paid."

Teaching task analysis and training others to
work with the mentally retarded interest Kimble.
"The mentally retarded are extremely loving
people. You begin talking, and they respond. Not
only am 1 able to give love in this relationship,"
she says, "but my love is returned."

Eventually, Kimble would like to manage a
home for people like Thompson who have normal
intelligence but special needs for communication
and mobility. She is acutely aware of this need for
a home as she relates to Thompson, 44, and to
Thompson's 73-year-old father, Raymond. He is
proud of his daughter and her accomplishments,
and has devoted his retirement years to her care.
But he expresses concern tor her after he is gone.
Her only option now would be a nursing home.
"People there are often senile," says Kimble, "not
mentalh quick like Petty. We are afraid she might
end up with no real communication."

Kimble has helped Raymond draff letters to
state officials and representatives expressing the
need for a group home in DeKalb County. "I am a
friend who is concerned."

FRIENDSHIP partially accounts for the successful
shorthand communication between Kimble and
Thompson. "I read people fairly well," says
Kimble. "But Betty reads me like an open book.
She is that tuned in." Even though Thompson is
no longer an assigned client, Kimble stops by to
talk, to take her friend on an outing or for a walk:
Thompson honk-honking the horn on the wheel-
chair and laughing Kimble running to keep up.

Because the two are such good communicators,
last year Kimble was chosen to translate for
Thompson when she appeared on a local tele-
thon. But now and then even Kimble fails to sec-
ond guess, as this day when Thompson spells out
her reason for their enduring friendship: I-L-O

"I love?' Kimble translates.

H-E-R-S-O-M

"I love her sometimes?"

S-O-M-U-C-H. uc

8 SPRING 1992

MEETING EXTRAORDINARY CHALLENGES

Being outdoors is a special
treat for Thompson, one she
and Kimble share together.
Despite her disabilities ,
Thompson remains active;
she serves as secretary for
a sports program for the
disabled she has learned
to bowl with a ramp.

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 9

A SOLITARY ACT

Keeping a
journal gives
words to
thought and
documents
a person s
inward journey.

Written by
Lynn Bulloch '64
Illustrated by
Mitzi Cartee

Physical growth is easy to recognize, but personal growth is inward arid elusive.
In the metaphor of Lao Tse, it is evanescent, like smoke going out the chimney.

- IRA PROGOFF, JOURNAL WORKSHOP LEADER, DREW UNIVERSITY

For an hour the business executive
scribbled notes. The man, a
Princeton graduate in his 60s, had
already crafted a tightly written
letter to his shareholders, but it was
this freely written journal account of
a crucial, life-changing experience a turning
point that he wanted to present to the investors.

Instead of what is normally a very image-con-
scious corporate note, this communication was
marvelously unguarded. He was determined to
offer more to his readers than straight numbers
and the proverbial bottom line.

Usually reserved tor the writer's use, alone, a
journal is characteri:ed by a frankness unlike writ-
ing done tor publication. As defined by Webster, a
journal or diary is a daily record of experiences
and observations.

Reasons for keeping a journal are as varied as
each writer: one documents significant family or
historical events; another notes regular touch-
points of a lite in progress; one collects poems,
jokes or song lyrics; while another chronicles the
inner life, or, with intensive journal keeping,
works through personal crisis. Some educators of
young children use group journal-writing to en-
hance writing and reading skills. For professional
writers, material from journals may provide the
seeds of a play or novel.

1 think of it as a log book of one who is on a
journey.

As a form, journal writing actually began to
flower in the late Renaissance period, with its
focus on the individual.

Some of these and later journals offered great
records ot social and political history, such as Jour-
nal d'un Paris, kept by an anonymous French priest
from 1409 to 1431, an invaluable resource to
historians ot the reign of Charles VI. While many
men have kept journals, through the centuries
women have proven to be the more diligent and
prolific journal-keepers.

As a discipline, according to a recent article in
The New York Times, journal-keeping is rooted in
loth century England: then, Puritan clergy
instructed the faithful to keep daily record of their

spiritual lives. The earliest surviving example is
the religious self-examination of Englishwoman
Margaret Hoby, dated 1 599. Letter diaries were in
vogue by the time of the American Revolution.
And here, pioneers optimistically kept such jour-
nals to be mailed out at the journeys end:

"If we drown," wrote Margaret Van Horn
Dwight matter-of-tactly in 1810, "there will be an
end to my journal."

Historically, suggests the Times article, women
particularly have understood journal-keeping as
an opportunity for self-assertion and self-commun-
ion, setting apart time, as described by English
writer Mary Berry in her diary in 1836, to have a
"little colloquy with myself every day."

For me, journal-keeping provides inner stability
and a sense of connection within the complex
tapestry of my own existence. It provides an anti-
dote to the contemporary world that, as e e
cummings noted, daily seems to be trying to make
me someone I am not.

Its value for me became particularly clear in
the summer of 1986. After an 18-year career as
counselor and group therapist, I had arrived at a
painful moment: no matter how wonderful my lite
appeared on the surface, I was crying every night.
Out of that time, call it mid-lite crisis or deep psy-
chological shift, I felt compelled to make a career
change. I learned, then, that lite offers no place of
honor for darkness. So I turned to the wisdom of
keeping a journal. Thumbing through the pages of
my journal dating back to that year, I found this
tear-stained entry dated June: "I may break down
in front of the staff," I wrote. "What does this
mean? Am I breaking down or am I breaking
through?"

Under certain stresses, certain violent
events, losses, separations, one expe-
riences the world with the emotional
size of Alice in Wonderlard. . . .
smaQer than events call for.

DIARY OF ANA'IS NIN, VOL IV, 1945

^<v*~^

A S

Y ACT

In recording

their

thoughts,

many

"journalists"

discover that

the dreams

they hold can

be realized

within

themselves.

Lmda Bulloch '64 is a
playwright and writer from
Maysville, Ga. , who leads
journal-keeping work-
s/ii ips. She is also coordina-
te ir fi rr the upcoming Inter-
national Women's Writing
Guild seminar which will
be from ^ to 5 on Satur-
day, Oct. 31, 1992, at
Agnes Scott College.
The program is the first
Southern seminar m the
organization's 15
history and will include
presentations by foui
Southern authm
mine information about
the seminar contact
Bulloch at 404-652-327 1.

Journal-keeping begins as a very private
discipline and requires only rudimentary
t( h pis, ranging from a pocket-si:ed notepad
and pencil to an elaborate art book and
costly pen, depending on the style of the
writer. There is no right or wrong way to keep a
journal again, styles vary.

Journal-keeping usually begins as a silent work.
Simple and solitary.

Yet like the daily walk or aerobics workout that
gets the heart pumping, journal-keeping can grow
into a regular exercise of the heart and mind.

A technique I suggest tor beginning journal-
keepers is this: with pen and journal in hand, sit
quietly, for a moment closing your eyes and
breathing deeply. Clear your mind of distractions,
then write deliberately, and without censoring the
flow.

While on one level this activity may seem in-
nocuous, I like to point out that on another level
it may very well be slightly subversive as a writer
begins to listen to the sounds of her own soul.
Some journal-keepers have been known to give
up strict attention to what others expect as they
tap that normally elusive inner voice.

While this discipline may begin by blessing the
life of the writer, it sometimes has immeasurable
implications for others, as well. What reader can
resist a literary peek through another's window
and the privacy, revealed?

\iim I ic. >rui.i i VKeeffe's published journals
reflect humorously and obliquely on her life's
work. "I don't know what Art is," she wrote in her
New York Diaries, 1916, "but I know some things
it isn't when I see them."

Writers Virginia Woolf and Anai's Nin used
their journals to try ideas, to collect fragments of
information, to explore their own minds.

Anne Frank's diary and Etty Hillesum's journal,
historical gems, gave each of them as writers and
each of us as readers tools with which to sift
through life in the midst of Holocaust.

I have often been downcast, but never
in despair. I regard cur hiding as a
dangerous adventure, romantic and
interesting at the same time. In my
diary I treat aR the privations as amus-

ing. I have made up my mind noiv to
lead a different life from other girls .

-DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. 5 MAY, 1944

Contemporary journal-keeping,
suggests Harriet Blodgett, author of
the Times article and editor of Capa-
cious Hold- All. An Anthology of
Englishwomen's Diary Writings, suggests that the
Velcro-sealed Filofax or Day Runner which she
calls a "ubiquitous yuppie handbook" tills the need
for a personal diary at the same time it keeps the
lives of "status-seeking men and women on track
and on time."

In her research, she found that Filofax ancestry
actually dates back to 18th century England where
it bei ame common tor wt mien ti > use bound
pocket diaries. The 19th century version of this
pocket diary might include an almanac, verses,
notes of personal interest, and a space for house-
hold expenses.

In our next century', Blodgett suggests, diaries
could be on computer disk.

Whatever the form, 1 believe the basis of jour-
nal-keeping is the unfolding of a person at differ-
ent intersections of life. I have come to trust the
process. I believe it helps scratch out the clues of
our existence and gives voice to an inner thought-
life which is often squelched by circumstances or
lost in the barrage of other voices that direct and
shape us.

A woman attending one of my journal semi-
nars, last year Tapping the Writer Within has
found that inner voice. She told the group that as
a child she had kept a diary that recorded family
events. More recently, at age 50, and after her fifth
divorce, she discovered her latest journals were
tilled with poetry, tor her, a new genre.

Later during the afternoon seminar, as she and
the other participants wrote in their journals, I
could hear this woman chuckling.

When, in the final hour, I gave group members
an opportunity to share whatever they wished, she
read a poem.

She called the poem "Prince Channing," and
observed that the prince she had sought all of her
adult lite was probably within. ASC

Additional research for this story was done f>\ Emily
Pender '95.

I 12 SPRING 1992

THE VALUE OF JOURNAL KEEPING

A STUDENT JOURNAL

Mary Sturtevant Cunningham
'33 was a pediatricians
daughter from Philadelphia
who attended Agnes Scott
during the Depression.
Active in YWCA and Mor-
tar Board, she worked to change College chaperonage
rules and in 1931 she supported an effort to "boost
Southern industry" by wearing 25 -cent beige cotton
hosiery. In 1933, she played "Light" in the May Day
Festival and helped direct "The Stewed Prince (In
Two Sips and a Final Gulp) . "

After graduation she returned to Philadelphia to
work as a fund raiser for the Museum of Natural His-
tory. In 1936, she married her high school sweetheart,
Gilbert L. Bean. They lived in Braintree, where she
worked with the town's Historical Society. After Bean
died in 1 972 , she married Donald Cunningham.

The Smithsonian Institution recognized a program
she developed for children as a prototype for giving
youngsters an appreciation of life in the 18th century.
At her death in 1990, the Historical Society called her
a guardian angel, "a philanthropist in the truest sense
of the word. " Among Cunningham's papers was
found a small ring-bound diary recounting notes she'd
kept during her college years (1929-1933). Given to
ASC by her family, the journal is excerpted below.

1929

ARRIVAL

We had a good time on the train
because about 50 boys from River-
side Military Academy entertained
us with their victrola. One of them in
particular said he wanted to see me. . . .

My room is quite nice, rather big with two
large closets. The girls are all very nice to me and
my "Grandmother" is the president of the Senior
Class and the most popular girl in the school.

I was glad to get my first letter from home. Al-
most everyone weeps buckets over their first letter,
but I didn't. I haven't been homesick at all. . . .

STUDIES

I am getting used to studying so long and it doesn't

seem nearly so bad as it did at first. We have a
Latin prose test on Thursday. That makes me
shake in my shoes, but I am learning how to study
and I'll do my best to pass it.

There is a story around here that one of our
Latin teachers was engaged to Mr. Bennett of
"Bennett's Latin Grammar" and broke her engage-
ment because they had a fight over the ablative
case.

Oh, Thornton Wilder spoke here on Wednes-
day. He was excellent and his talk showed a good
deal of understanding of human nature.

CLASS ACTION

Last night the Sophomores went around selling
things. They said they would launder our curtains
for 25 cents apiece. They also sold us chapel seats
for 25 cents, all of which was spaghetti we bit.

After dinner there was a Student Government
Meeting which all the Freshman had to attend.
As soon as it was over they turned out the lights
and shut the doors so that no one could get out.
Then the Sophs came in dressed in long robes and
singing a funeral song. They carried a coffin. They
called certain Freshmen up before them, who had
to kneel before the coffin and put their foreheads
on it. These lowly rats were told to provide a
dance at a certain time and place before the

whole school. Some had to take a census of all
the black cats in Decatur. . . .

Now I will tell you how we are dressed. Our
hair is up in curl papers, no less than 10. We have
white middies with long sleeves, a white petticoat
and a gingham dress, black stockings and white
tennis shoes, cotton gloves and a cap. We wear
the cap outside and carry it inside. A candle we
hold in our left hand and whenever a Soph asks us
where we are going, we must say, "Trying to find
our way out of the fog."

MY BIRTHDAY

I had not been looking forward to a birthday away
from home but now I am almost decided that it is
just as much fun to get lots of packages and letters
as to have a birthday dinner. Your box arrived
Monday morning, and now there is one piece of
cake and three brownies left. Need 1 say the food
was enjoyed by everyone?

Notes from
the college
writings of a
Depression-
era Agnes
Scott student.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 3

ACT

From golfer
Bobby Jones
to socialist
Norman
Thomas, a
lineup o(
famous people
tantelized
Cunningham.

Mary Sturtevant Cunningham (first row, right)

aivl other first year students . The candles are to help

them"ftnd our way out of a fog. "

DORMITORY DEMENTURE

There has been loads ot excitement here this
week. On Monday night a group of us were to-
gether in a girl's room having a feed tor the girl
whose leg was broken. Suddenly we heard some-
one playing taps on a hugle. We rushed to the
window and saw a man outside tooting away. We
called "encore" and he started to play "O Solo
Mio." A girl from the college ran down the
drive, met him and they ran down the
street together. Great was the ex-
citement, for we were sure we had
seen a real honest elopement. . . .
After two days of much talk and m-
mors, it was discovered that the girl was only a day
student merely going home. What a disillusion-
ment, and especially after we were beginning to
believe that romance was not dead after all.

Y.W.C.A

Last night a group of us went to the "Manless
Dance" given by a group ot industrial girls at the
Atlanta Y.W I never realized before how interest-
ing girls who worked in the mills could be. I hope
that 1 will have the opportunity to see them again.
Dad, will you tell me something about the indus-
trial situation? What is the average income of the
wi irking class? What about labor unions and com-
munism? I'd like to know more. . . .

19304931

THE DEPRESSION

Tilings are in a pretty state here in the South.
Almost every day we hear that a bank has failed.
Several [girls] will probably have to stay here dur-
ing Christmas, it they cannot go home by bus. I
never saw such an absolutely broke community.
None of us has any money to spend.

The most exciting event happened on Thurs-
day when the Decatur bank tailed. Some Commo-
tion! The school, campus organizations and lots of
individuals, especially faculty members, lost lots of
money. I don't know how hard hit the school was,
but not very badly I guess, because it has its money
in several banks.

THE LEISURE LIFE

Nonnan Thomas spoke here this afternoon. He is
very tall, has white hair and wears very ill-fitting
clothes. 1 don't believe in his politics, but I cer-
tainly admire him because he has the courage ot
his convictions.

On Tuesday night I went with a huge crowd
from school to hear Paderewski, and he was won-
derful. He played Beethoven's "Moonlight
Sonata," Chopin's "Nocturne in E. flat" and
Rachmaninoff's "Prelude." The crowd was so
enthusiastic they made him play three encores.

14 SPRING 1992

THE VALUE OF JOURNAL KEEPING

Last night a group of us went over to Emory
University to hear Carl Sandburg read some of his
poems and play and sing songs from "The Ameri-
can Songbook."

I saw Bobby Jones play in a charity game. We
couldn't afford to buy a ticket, but we drove along
the road beside the golf course and stood on the
car where we saw quite well. The point was to see
him rather than to see him play.

THE CAMPAIGN

For the next two weeks, the administration is
planning to put on a campaign to raise enough
money to finish paying for the new building
which we built this summer. We are working hard
to help with it.

Of all the crazy times to raise money, this is the
worst. . . . They asked the students and faculty to
pledge $20,000. We did that and more.

1931-32

CONSTRUCTIVE THINKING

We have been working hard to get the chaperon-
age rule changed. As it stands now, it is nothing
more than a farce. . . . There is a meeting on
Thursday which will tell whether we have been
doing any constructive thinking.

ON BEING A JUNIOR

I think that the Junior year is the nic-
est of all. This is the time when we
can enjoy our friends so much. Our
class is all in a dither about Junior
Banquet, which I think is a
pretty dumb entertainment.
But, after all it's the only official
time when men are entertained
out here, so I guess it is pretty im-
portant. A dance would be much more
worth getting excited about. (I am going to invite
a boy from Emory.)

1932-33

STUDIES

I am taking American Lit, American History, a
survey course of German Lit, German Conversa-

tion, Art History and Genet-
ics and Evolution. . . .

1 talk of my exams as
though they were tenible
things, when really I am hav-
ing a fine time. Not having to go to classes or to
have any kind of a regular schedule is giving me a
complete vacation. Of course there is always
studying to do, but 1 can sleep late, stay away from
meals and be as lazy as I please when I don't have
an exam the next morning. This week is my easy
one. I have four exams next week and they are all
pretty hard.

MAY DAY

I was told this morning that I am to do a solo
dance in May Day. That has been the height of
my ambition. I realize that it will be difficult to
imagine this horse getting out and flitting before
all those people. My costume is white crepe de
chine, and cut exactly like an evening dress.

SENIOR OPERA

The Senior class always gives a burlesque on the
evening of May Day. I am general chainnan,
which means I can't do any acting. This year we're
presenting "The Stewed Prince In Two Sips and a
Final Gulp" by the Seniorpolitan Operetta Com-
pany. We practice every night. I have to see a mil-
lion people a day, and when I go to bed and try to
get some sleep, I lie awake and think about all the
people I have to see the next day. You would think
that I didn't enjoy it, by the way I am complain-
ing, but I really do love it.

MISCELLANY

The Fox Theater here is making an all Atlanta
picture and one of our Freshmen is the heroine.
They have been taking pictures out here.

Everything is out here in full bloom. Atlanta is
famous for its dogwoods and believe me, justly so.
The main residential district looks like fairyland.
In addition the azalias are in bloom.

FRIENDS AND LAST DAYS

Although our old crowd is divided, we see a good
bit of each other, so I don't miss them as much as I
thought I would.

I am sleeping out on the roof at night and it is
glorious. I have been busy getting a tan and play-
ing tennis. These last days are so much fun and so
short. ASC

In the

worst of times,
students and
faculty man-
aged to raise
$20,000 for a
new building.

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 5

LOVE IN THE MORTAR JOINTS

On their spring break, 13 Agnes Scott
students help build a new family of
friends and four habitats for humanity

"I just didn't

MARCH 20 w r

today
to end," Savannah
sophomore Nancy Zehl im-
parts our collective feeling as
she kicks the red clay off her
mnning shoes, takes a seat in
our familiar muddy maroon
van and readies herself for the
short hut bouncy ride hack to

our home away from home
the First Baptist Church of
Starkville, Miss. We are dust
covered and physically weary
hut we are high with the eu-
phoria of accomplishment.
Sixteen of us have completed
our week (March 15-20) as a
work group for Hahitat for
Humanity which builds and
refurbishes homes, world-

wide, through the efforts of
volunteers and recipient
homeowners.

This week we started one
house from the ground up,
walled and sided two others,
and finished (or very nearly
finished) a fourth. We have
made friends. We have seen a
new place, worked hard, nego-
tiated our way through prob-

16 SPRING 1992

lems, eaten heartily and
accomplished much. We have
learned a good deal about
ourselves.

Tomorrow we will begin
our 300-mile journey back to
the campus of Agnes Scott
College but tonight, in our
final huddle with our co-work-
ers we will "die and go to cat-
fish heaven." A rivers-edge

eatery known as The Friend-
ship House Restaurant
provides us with a seemingly
never-ending stream of cat-
fish.

I savor the food and com-
pany the dozen University
of Vermont students, the local
Habitat for Humanity board
members, the women from the
First Baptist Church who have

coordinated the lunch and
laundry needs of Scottie
group.

What's stuck in my
memory for the moment is the
sheer beauty of the day blue
sky, cool breeze, warm chatter
and pure exhilaration from
hoisting up the framework at
the Washington Street site.

Another house is begun.

Like an oV time bam raising,
lifting the framework on the
Habitat home was a high
point for the ASC and
University of Vermont crews
that worked on the Mississippi
site during spring vacation.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 7 I

Women in
workclothes
find "at days
end, it's nice
to see what
you've
accomplished."

SUNDAY -This is
MARCH 15 f

JNvJwJN rubber meets
the road," says Chaplain Patti
Snyder as she and I point the
two vans full of women and
workclothes toward north
Mississippi, arriving in
Starkville at about 4:30 p.m.
We find the church fellowship
hall where we are to bed and

bathe this week, divide into
snoring and non-snoring
groups and unfurl the sleeping
bags and foam cushions.
Dinnertime arrives and we
beat a path to the First Presby-
terian Church for the first of
many meals given to us by
total strangers.

We arrive in Oktibbeha
County after much prepara-

'

."

?

ASC & HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

MONDAY Scents

MARCH 16 of ff

_ cottee

I A.M. and sweet rolls
awaken me. Rick and Eliza-
beth Gaupo, the site coordina-
tors from Habitat Interna-
tional, and the Vermont group
join us for our first of five pre-
work devotionals. We gather
our hammers and lunches
(which we made the night
before) and head for the work
sites. "I saw a side of life I've
never seen before," says
Theresa Hoenes, a sophomore
from Marietta, Ga., who is
among the students I travel
with to the Holland family
house site, out on a secluded
dirt road beyond the expanse
of Mississippi State University.

Fire destroyed the
Holland's home in November.
The stark symmetry of their
new home-in-progress stands
in contrast to the lumbering,
old home which had a geode-
sic dome as its focal point.
The family's belongings are
strewn out across the lawn
toys, clothes, appliances.
Hoenes and most of the other
workers spend the day sand-
ing, staining and coating
baseboards, painting the house
interior, tiling the floors, or
wiping up the sticky black
adhesive that seeps up

Christy Bed '95 (right) cut dl
the lumber used in making the
door and window headers for the
Washington Street house.
Kara Russell '92 (left) found
many tasks familiar: her father is
in die construction business.

Nancy Zehl '94 and French instructor Marie -Christine Lagier work on doorframes. Although she didn't
bring many building skills, said Zehl, she brought what is most important: "All you need is an ability to care.

through the flooring squares.
Owner, Debbie Holland is
the hardest of workers. She is
on her knees all day, laying

down tile and custom-cutting
the pieces that wrap around
the plumbing fixtures. Her
three sons are bright and in-

quisitive and play all around
us, making swords of anything
that doesn't move, including
sheetrock.

Debbie schools them at
home and admits that they are
behind in their studies. Her
husband, Sonny, is in town at
his regular job.

The Hollands have pur-
chased the home on what
Habitat Founder Millard
Fuller calls the "Bible Finance
Plan": 500 hours of donated
service to the organization
plus a no- interest mortgage
issued over a fixed period.
Their monthly house pay-
ments are made at no profit to
Habitat partners and actually
will be used to build other
homes for the needy.

"I enjoyed meeting the
families and working with
them, especially the Hollands
and their little boys," com-
ments Hoenes.

"It was nice to be able to
actually see what you had
accomplished at the end of a
day."

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 9

LOVE IN THE MORTAR JOINTS

Fullers message
in song "Give
a little love"
becomes the
theme of the
Habitat week.

Georgia Fuller '93 , daughter of
Millard and Linda Fuller,
founders of Habitat for Human-
ity, found some down time in the
evenings to play piano. Her
song, "Give a Little Love," be-
came a theme of the students'
alternate spring break. An ex-
cerpt expresses the mood:
"When you sec your neighbor's

in trouble nou
Give a link love.
You just better get on the

double now,
Give a little love.
Don't just keep it, take and

deliver it,
( rive a lade love ..."

WEDNESDAY
MARCH 18 ^

group
J A.M. is physically
tired. For two days we have
installed insulation, hung
sheetrock, mudded walls,
affixed siding, sanded, shov-
eled, hammered and painted.
It is raining and will likely
continue all day. Personalities
nib and friction results.

Snyder advises: "We have
to learn to be patient with a
lot of people."

I am in need of inspiration.

Enter, Georgia Fuller for
the daily devotional.

She tells us about the
origin of Habitat in her native
Americus, Ga., about the ridi-
cule she and her family
(Millard and Linda Fuller)
have endured tor daring to
reverse the trend of poverty
housing. Through volunteer
tabor, management expertise
and donations of money and
materials, Habitat will have
built 13,000 homes, world-
\\ ide, b\ the i l< >se oi this
week. Fuller reads from scrip-
ture in Galatians about the
importance of being bold and
teaches us a song she has writ-
ten the night before, called
"Give a little love. . . ."

For three hours today it
rains down on volunteers Julia
Short, a sophomore from
Tennessee, and UV student,
Charlotte Sector, who refuse
to give up their outdoor posts
at the siding saw. Short, with a
length of siding, negotiates
her way up onto a sawhorse
and beneath steadily dripping
eaves, hammers siding onto
the house.

As Georgia Fuller says,
"There are lots of conse-
quences to doing God's work."

A HABITAT

FULLER

ATASC

When Georgia Fuller enters a
room, if her nearly six-foot
frame and long, wavy brown
tresses weren't enough to com-
mand attention, her efferves-
cent personality invariably
does. This Agnes Scott Col-
lege junior is the daughter of
Habitat for Humanity
founders Millard and Linda
Fuller.

"I grew up in Habitat,"
explains the Americus, Ga.,
native.

"We had a sign out in front
of our house that said we were
going to 'Eliminate poverty
from the face of the Earth.'

20 SPRING 1992

ASC & HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

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With our whole family and a

being bold or foolish and this

On the evening of day two,

the piano in one of the church

few others working, we had

clearly was one. For Christ's

with the group of ASC and

choir rooms.

just enough people to lick the

sake, we are fools.' "

University of Vermont "Colle-

A French major, with

stamps to send out fundraising

Georgia Fuller has partici-

giate Challenge" home-

minors in religion and Ger-

letters."

pated in numerous work

builders tired from physical

man, Fuller plans to study in

Most people thought their

projects in the United States

labor and bracing for a day of

Angers, France, next year

plan was a foolish little whim.

and in Tijuana, Mexico. Since

work in the rain, Fuller in-

before returning to ASC for

Detractors ridiculed her

the first house was built in

spired us with her memories of

graduation.

parents; the people they

1969 in southwest Georgia,

Habitat. Putting musical tal-

"I love to travel and Habi-

helped were often harassed.

300 houses have been built in

ents to work, she taught the

tat is starting to have more

Millard Fuller's name was pur-

Fuller's home county alone,

group an a cappella song she'd

projects in Europe now, so I

portedly second on local law

and Habitat for Humanity has

written specifically for that

know that for the rest of my

enforcement's list of Commu-

grown into a worldwide move-

morning's devotional. In the

life I am going to be interested

nist Party members. "Jimmy

ment building 13,000 houses.

evenings throughout the

in participating in Habitat in

Carter's name was first," Fuller

Today Habitat has building

week, it was not unusual to

one way or another," says

says and laughs. "But that

projects in 800 cities in 37

hear her singing in the stair-

Fuller, "because Habitat fulfills

didn't stop them. As my father

countries worldwide, averag-

well of the church where the

what I perceive to be the goals

would say: 'There are times for

ing 15 houses per day.

ASC group stayed or playing

of Christianity."

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 2 1 I

IN THE MORTAR JOINTS

Monotonous
work turns
joyful, tired
muscles ache,
and the new
home progresses.

THURSDAY The
MARCH 19

3 A.M. Washing-
ton Street is mighty muddy. I
am shoveling gravel around
the rim of the house. It is
chilly. Nancy Zehl and Nitya
Jacobs, a first-year student
from Maharashtra, India, are
hammering odd nails out of
two-by-fours. Christy Beal, a
first-year student from Ellijay,
Ga., proves quite adept with
the circular saw and is cutting
and assembling door and win-
dow headers to he used in the
frame.

The work is a bit monoto-
nous. We play a word game
until the sound of slinging
gravel and buzzing saw drowns

out our voices.

Nancy and Nitya ask Glen
Heath for their next job.
Heath, our site manager and a
construction veteran advises,
"Lay those studs onto those
horses."

Nancy repeats, "Lay the
it '/uit on the what?"

We laugh as Heath adds
the needed definitions.

My shoulders ache.

From carrying lumber to
"mudding" arid sanding dry-
walls , students proved they could
do the work. ASC, developing a
campus chapter of Habitat, will
work on an all-women halt
house in Atlanta this coming jail.

i

22 SPRING 1992

N THE MORTAR JOINTS

THURSDAY *
MARCH 19 w

ity

P.M. Presbyterian
Church, students and home-
owner families meet for the
tirsi time and sit down to-
gether for supper. I'm across
from Mary Isaac, a quiet
woman of about 50, who
works in a professor's office at
Mississippi State. She says
when she found out she was
going to get a Habitat house
she didn't sleep all night.
With this project, she has al-
most completed her 500 hours
of volunteer labor required of
homeowners. Children are
moving about the fellowship
hall at Trinity, playing, talking
and laughing as the other
homeowners tell their stories
and the group applauds.

Then Snyder presents
ASC's contribution of $1,500
to Habitat local board mem-
ber Wilson Ashford. Months
ago we began raising money
for this Habitat for Humanity
"Alternative Spring Break"
project, soliciting our friends
and helping with a benefit
play performance by Atlanta's
Theatre Gael. Agnes Scott
participants are 16 among
3,000 students nationwide,
from 100 colleges and univer-
sities who have contributed
$140,000 to Habitat and
building homes in 70 cities
across the United States.

The ASC and UV students
mo\ e to one side of the fel-
lowship hall to sing our newly-
learned, "( live a little love,"
song.

Everyone stands to ap-
plaud. Then handshakes and
hugs break out all around.

"For many in the group this
was an important trip because

- f*%

His family's home rising in the background, T.J. Holland carves a sword from discarded sheetrock. Like other
family members, he contributed "sweat-eqiaty" during the week of intense building fVv the visiting collegians.

they had not only an opportu-
nity to apply things learned in
the classrooms of Agnes Scott
to real lite situations but to
come to terms with their own
religious beliefs and philoso-
phies," says the chaplain.
"This was a first-hand
example of how you live out

what you believe."

The entire group forms a
circle and joins hands.

Snyder sings a benediction.
A kind of spiritual energy fills
the room.

And for that bright and
fleeting moment, we are a
Habitat community. ASC

Writer Durrett traveled to
Starkvitte with the Agnes Scott
students mentioned above, as
well as Christy Beal, Jessica
Daugherty, Joy Farist, Sarah
Fisher, N ity a Jacobs, Marie -
Christine Lagier, Lora Munroe,
Lisa Rogers, Kara Russell and
Jennie Sparrow.

24 SPRING 1992

U PDATE

New ASC master's
degree to further
teaching careers

\ A /ith an eye toward
\ / \ /education for the
V Y next century, this
summer Agnes Scott will offer
its first graduate degree pro-
gram, a Master of Arts in
Teaching [MAT] Secondary
English.

The initial graduate ses-
sion will begin June 15 with
as many as 5-10 students en-
rolling in the first-year class.

The College takes its place
with 15 (out of 84) other
women's colleges in the
United States to offer gradu-
ate-level degrees. Because
federal law mandates that all
newly created graduate pro-
grams cannot deny entrance
to students on the basis of
gender, race or creed, the
Agnes Scott program will be
open to men.

The program will empha-
size gender equity in public
school classrooms. "So that
young women will realize
their potential, we need men
and women teachers who are
sensitive to the destructive
effects of bias in the class-
room," says Dean of the Col-
lege Sarah Blanshei.

"We want to provide the
model for a bias-free, gender-
equal education," concludes
Blanshei.

"The MAT program will
enable Agnes Scott to do an
even better job of preparing
well-educated teachers for the
schools of Georgia and other
states," observes President
Ruth Schmidt. "Fine teachers
are desperately needed and
this is an area where Agnes

Scott's mission and strengths
match the need."

During the next decade,
according to Ruth
Bettandorff, associate dean of
the College, about one-third
of the pre-college teaching
force will retire. By 1995, she
says, the need for teachers will
increase by 24 percent and
half of that need will be in

cant course work in English.
The Graduate Record Exam
(GRE) is not a prerequisite
for admission.

The MAT degree will
require 45 credit hours and
student teaching in Atlanta
metro area high schools. "Stu-
dents will take between 1 2 to
15 credit hours per session
with schedules tailored to fit

The MAT plan evolved as "we were

reflecting on the College and thinking of

ways to make the institution more viable,

exciting and directed toward the next

century." Linda Hubert

secondary education.
Bettandorff will direct the
new office of graduate studies.

Agnes Scott's program is
designed specifically for stu-
dents who have either made a
late decision as undergradu-
ates to become teachers or for
those who have been out of
school for a few years.

Distinctive from MAT
offerings at other colleges will
be Agnes Scott's writing
workshop, "an exciting
hands-on experience, a
chance for graduate students
to develop their own writing
as well as learn good ways to
help others with their writing.
It will focus on composition,
shaping ideas and communi-
cating those ideas," according
to Linda Hubert, chair of the
English Department.

Academic requirements
for students participating in
the Agnes Scott program will
include either a bachelor's
degree in English or a degree
in a related field with signifi-

the needs of the individual
student," explains Hubert.
"Classes will be small to
provide lots of personal
attention."

Tuition for the summer
graduate session will be
$2,875; during the academic
year (fall and spring semes-
ters) it will be a total of
$5,750.

Seniors like Return-to-
College Student Florence
Hardney-Hines believe the
MAT could dovetail nicely
with the announced Scott-
Free Year 5 which will offer
ASC students completing
graduation requirements be-
tween December 1991 and
August 1992 the first oppor-
tunity to take classes during a
fifth year, tuition free, on a
space-available basis. "I
already know the teachers,"
she says. "It gives me more
options to enable me to
teach."

The graduate program will
be separate from undergradu-

ate studies, explains Dean of
the College Sarah Blanshei.
Graduate students will not
participate in undergraduate
organizations or activities and
male students who enroll in
the program will not be
housed in Agnes Scott resi-
dence halls, she says.

"Agnes Scott is not
becoming a co-educational
institution," emphasizes
Blanshei, who with other ad-
ministrators downplays the
impact of a possibly greater
male presence on campus.

The plan for the Agnes
Scott graduate program grew
out of the Strategic Plan.
Hubert, who worked on the
plan and was a guiding force
in the MAT proposal, says,
"We were reflecting on the
College and thinking of ways
to make the institution more
viable, exciting and directed
toward the next century. ASC
has always provided qualified
teachers at the undergraduate
level.

"Now we will develop a
program to train teachers who
will be able to make a differ-
ence in the classroom in the
next century."

Bettandorff adds, "Offering
a graduate program provides a
new dimension to Agnes
Scott in the eyes of other aca-
demic institutions. We are
known for the quality of our
undergraduates; now we will
be recognized for providing
quality teachers for the class-
rooms of tomorrow."

As ASC readies for the
anival of its first graduate
students, Hubert concludes,
"This program makes good
sense in terms of Agnes
Scott's history and future."
Audrey Arthur

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 25

BODY TALK

Alumnae
ranging in age
from the mid-
twenties to the
late eighties
share how they
keep fit.

Written by
Celeste Pennington
Photographed by
Paul Obregon

The rhythm starts easy. The singing
is seductive: "Dahlin', dahlin 1 stay,
please stay. I want to see you in the
morning sun, every day, every day,"
croons Bob Seger to 20 women
gathered in the Briarlake Baptist Church gymna-
sium. Three times a week, a lanky, lean Deborah
Long Wingate 72, leads the class of 55-to 75-year-
olds in an hour of carefully choreographed muscle-
stretching, mind-bending dance. She calls it con-
scious movement training tor body and brain.

"If you don't use it, you lose it," warns Wingate.
"It boils down to that."

Wingate is a certified dance aerobics instructor.
She explains that with aging, "things like walking
backward become more difficult. So as we do
dance aerobics, we move backward to remind our
bodies how to do that. When we do side lunges, it
reminds our bodies that if we get off balance, to
steady ourselves, we can lunge to the side instead
of falling."

To call on muscles only to sit, stand, walk tor-
ward and lie down eventually limits the body's
repertoire of motions, diminishes flexibility,
stamina, balance and coordination.

"Rumba," barks Wingate and the women raise
their right arms, bent at the elbows. "Good
posture!" A few more steps. Then they lunge for-
ward, in sync. Perspiration pops out on a forehead
here or there and the class moves as one in
intricate steps. Their motion is quick, light and
controlled.

This is lou'-impact aerobics. As the rhythms
change and the tempo escalates one wonders
should real exercise seem this fun?

It's the notion of "no pain, no gain" that
Wingate decries as myth. "You open any magazine
or turn on any TV commercial and that's pre-
sented as the standard. But that's not real."

This is. Wingate and a core group of 10 or
more women have been exercising, together, for
eight years now: 45 minutes of aerobics, 10 min-
utes of floor work exercising abdominals, gluteals
and thighs, and five minutes of stretching and up-
per body work with rubberhands. The workout is a
challenge. But there is also a pervasive sense of
well-being. Wingate explains, "We carefully moni-
tor the effort at intervals in class. These women

r ^H i

know when they are working hard and whether
they are working harder than they should."

Regular aerobic exercise reduces the risk of heart dis-
ease, improves mental outlook, lowers blood pressure
and cholesterol. It can also cause chronic health prob-
lems. "If your body is hurting," wants Wingate, "it's
saying to stop."

REGULAR AEROBIC EXERCISE like running,
brisk walks, bicycling and aerobic dance, reduces
the risk of heart disease by 50 percent, decreases
mental anxiety and depression, lowers blood pres-
sure and cholesterol levels and improves the deliv-
ery of oxygen to body muscle cells, according to
an article in Women's Sports & Fitness.

Few argue the value of exercise. Yet the experts
differ widely on what constitutes effective exercise.

Must a person work out at 70 percent of the
maximal heart rate for 30 minutes, three times a
week? The answer hinges on individual physical
condition, exercise needs and goals: does a person

26 SPRING 1992

Exercise, says dance
aerobics instructor

Deborah Long
Wingate '72, is
crucial to Ufe-long fitness.
'If you don't use it," she warns,

you

lose it."

need to build muscle, for instance, or to increase
aerobic capacity or to burn fat/

The growing concern is that long-term exer-
cise, as noted in a recent article in the New York
Times, can actually lead to painful, often chronic
health problems, so some fitness programs make
people less fit. Even young people.

Wingate ruined her knees, running. She advo-
cates carefully monitored exercise. "Why put your
muscles and joints in jeopardy," she reasons. "If

your body is hurting, it is saying to stop."

Pushing the body beyond its limit can also
produce hormones that cause stress rather than
reduce it, warns Ralph LaForge, director of health
promotion at the San Diego Cardiac Medical
Group, interviewed in the April issue of Working
Women.

Bicycling and aerobic dance are safe sports for injury-
prone athletes. Even no-sweat activity can yield health
benefits. "Listen to what your body is saying," advises
Wingate , "and adjust. "

WITH INCREASING AMOUNTS of exercise
and intensity, risks grow exponentially. "Your
body," Wingate notes from her own experience
with injuries, "will win, every time."

Running and tennis can cause knee and ankle
injury; jumps and lunges can result in athletes leg
(a partial pulling away of the Achilles tendon
from the calf muscle). Swimming, often regarded
as one of the safest and most beneficial sports, pro-

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 27 I

BODY TALK

Exercise is
individual;
each sets her
own pace. But
for all, it's a
perscription
for better
health.

For alumna Pauline
Hoch '55 (right), exercise
fights high cholesterol; for
jane Espy '42, exercise is
a remedy for arthritis .

duces tendinitis of the shoulder among 10 percent
of serious recreational swimmers within one year
of swimming.

Bicycling, which avoids pounding the legs and
feet, is one of the best sports for injury-prone ath-
letes, according to the Times article. Because of
the low intensity of the workouts, aerobic dance
injury rate is also quite low; and researchers have
found that fewer than 10 percent of those injuries
require medical treatment.

The Public Health Service has revised its na-
tional fitness goals for A.D. 2000, which will call
for adults to be physically active 30 minutes each
day. Each person is encouraged to find exercise
that will be enjoyed on a regular basis.

Even no-sweat activity can yield health ben-
efits. For those who don't care to walk or can't
run, regular physical chores like window washing,
car washing and gardening will foster fitness.

In fact, researchers at the University of Pitts-
burgh compared volunteers who gardened for an
hour a day with those who ran 20 or more miles a
week. While the runners burned far more calories,
they showed only slight health advantages over
their gardener counterparts, according to the ar-
ticle in Working Woman. "The three times a week
program is only relevant for a sedentary person
who wants to improve her aerobic capacity,"
insists James M. Rippe, author of The Exercise
Exchange Program. Yet he also notes a number of
other things like improving flexibility, reducing
risks of heart disease and better weight control as
valid goals tor fitness.

Running 20 hours a week, reports one study, showed
only slight health advantages over gardening an hour
per day.

GETTING BACK IN SHAPE after pregnancy
was Wingate's goal when she began taking dance
aerobics almost a decade ago at a YMCA. Later
she decided to teach. "I knew if I did not teach, I
would not participate on a regular basis."

Each woman in the class has an individual
goal. Trim Pauline Hoch '55, who has participated
for five years, says, "I have very high cholesterol
and pre-osteoporosis. I'm involved to keep choles-
terol down and my bones intact."

Each also has different physical limitations
which become more pronounced with age. Each

person's height for leg lifts varies as does the depth
of lunges. "From your head to your toes, from your
brain to the soles of feet," says Wingate, "aging
makes a difference."

Wingate emphasizes the importance of taking
differences into account as each person becomes
involved in exercise. "We don't make compari-
sons. But we must listen to what our bodies are
saying to us, and adjust." Agrees Hoch, "You can
bring vigor to this experience or you can tone it
down."

Wingate knows the long-term values of fitness
and keeps the class moving. "March forward and
reach," she calls to the class. "Left, left, turn from
the left. And back."

"This class helps keep all my joints moving,"
says Jane Stillwell Espy '42. She smiles. But she's
not kidding. She names arthritis and rheumatism
as prime motivation for her regular dance aerobics
workouts. That and the fact that Wingate keeps it
fun. "Just about the time I feel like, 'Oh, no, why
do we have to do this?' they have a routine to
music from my era," says Espy.

Out on the floor today, Espy moves smoothly,
gracefully to the Big Band sound of "Satin Doll."

I 28 SPRING 1992

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

VIRGINIA PHILIP '61

A Runner's World

On February 1 , Gellerstedt Track echoes
with the soft clip-clop-clip-clop of feet
and a chorus of belabored breathing:
Who who who who, hah-hah-hah-hah, hnh-hah,
hnh-hah, hnh-hah, hnh-hah.

"This is lap four?" asks one runner edging past
another.
"Yeah."

A frosty breeze freezes faces, nips at bare legs
and hands. One woman who checks her watch,
hardly lifts her feet above the blacktop as she
scoots along.

"Ha-HAH, Ha-HAH, Ha-HAH. I'm hurtin',"
admits a silver-haired man. "HAH! HAH! HAH!
HAH! HAH! HAH!" another runner loudly yells
as he gasps in the biting air.

Among the 73 competing in this Atlanta
Track Club-sponsored hour run emerges the slim,
compact form of Virginia Philip '61 in white knit
gloves, shirt and pink-purple-teal-swirled spandex.

She runs easily, she breathes easily, face for-
ward, cropped dark hair bobbing. Now and then,
she grins.

Even after 50 minutes, after the trackside is
strewn with overheated runners' discarded hats,
gloves, T-shirts and empty paper cups, and after
the run has slowed many folk with haggard faces
and heaving chests to a walk, Philip keeps pace.

Finally, a gunshot cracks out over the field.

Philip stops. Stretches. Smiles. "It's time to
rest," she says, while the man behind her catches
his breath. "You begin to wonder, are they ever
going to shoot that gun?"

Her spotter fills out a little blue card after
tracking 26 laps plus 713 yards in lane 3. That
divides out to more than 6.5 miles in an hour.
"Four to five years ago, I could run under eight,"

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 29 I

BODY TALK

Philip ains
for health, for
solitude, for
friendship
for, most of all,
the challenge.

Philip dismisses her many
medab and awards, but
she's proud nfher runner's
chart that shows a nine-
month total of 608.8 miles.

laments Philip, 52. Later when medals are passed
out, she gets one. Another runner catches Philip's
eye and mouths: "You always win something."

If that spells frustration to other runners, so
must the fact that Philip just ran more than six
eight-minute miles with no hard breathing and a
mere film of perspiration glistening her forehead.

In the larger scheme of things six or seven
miles is just no sweat tor Philip; the Saturday
before she ran 20.

Philip is a marathoner who celebrated her 50th
birthday by running one of the most physically
challenging events, the Boston Marathon She
ran the New York Marathon that same year. "Your
body is destroyed after a marathon, but your head
is happy."

She laughs a little. "It is difficult to walk after a
marathi mi."

VIRGINIA PHILIP grew up in LaGrange. Child-
hood friends remind her that as a kid, she didn't
like playing out-of-doors. At Agnes Scott she was
a chemistry major, "absolutely not" involved in
sports. She remembers her off hours being spent in
the campus gathering place, the Hub, playing
bridge and smoking.

It was in 1978, a year after Philip quit smoking,
that she began to exercise to improve health and
to lose weight. She started running with friends
after a Y exercise class. Then she joined co-work-
ers at The Coca-Cola Company in the Peachtree
Road Race. "I decided on July 3. 1 competed on
July 4- I remember asking, Am I going to come in
last?' My friends said no. What I remember about
the race is the sound of this thundering herd
around me."

Philip won a T-shirt that day and became a
regular in the 10K event. "It's like a party running
down Peachtree Road. People play music and
carry flags. My mother who was in her 80s, would
come up every year. As runners stampeded down
the street, she'd be there, clinging to a lamp post.
I'd run by, stop and give her a kiss."

THE CACHE OF SYMBOLIC AWARDS Philip
has accumulated glass plates, a second place sil-
ver tray from the Savannah Marathon, pottery
mug and bowls from runs in North Carolina, as-
sorted medals and what she calls "tacky trophies
with plastic runners on top" she quietly dis-

misses as "somewhere in the closet."

What Philip does show is a dog-eared paper,
marked 1978. On one side a yellow highlighter
traces her paths on a photocopied map; on the
other side a chart records daily distances run. The
chart begins with a 3.6 mile run Friday, July 21,
and continues through April 6 the following year.
The first week adds up to 18.1 miles and slowly
increases every few weeks until the nine-month
running total is 608.8.

In the intervening 14 years Philip has main-
tained a general conditioning regimen, running
four or five times a week. "It makes me feel physi-
cally stronger and emotionally calmer." Each week
she logs about 20 miles. "That varies. From year to
year, from day to day, I experience periods of dif-
ferent kinds of motivation. Sometimes it is to run
in the company of other people. Sometimes it is to
run alone, to have that solitary time. Sometimes it
is to set a goal and make it."

The goal before Philip at 5:45 a.m., this Satur-
day, January 25, 1992, is the London Marathon
which occurs in spring.

To prepare, during the week she has mn in
downtown Atlanta from her office where she is
executive assistant to the senior vice president for
science for The Coca-Cola Company, to Pied-
mont Park. On weekends she has added two miles
every other week until she's running 26 miles for
the last three weeks before the marathon.

"The decision to run a marathon," she ex-
plains, "means I have to make a commitment to
follow a training schedule. 1 have to plan around
it. For instance I know that a training run of 20
miles will take all of this Saturday morning."

Philip keeps two pairs ot ninning shoes lined
with simple telt orthotics which she has built up
herself to push the balance of her foot to the out-
side. She smoothes on a little lip balm, but other-
wise runs without tape and the other parapherna-
lia connected with muscle strains and aching
joints experienced by many distance runners. She
saves her stretches for after the run: "My muscles,"
she explains, "are warmer then."

She ran a week ago in the snow. This dark
morning temperatures hover around 30. The silver
of a half-moon shines down through the bare tree
branches as Philip steps out the front door of her
town home. The perfect stillness is broken by the
swish-swish-swish of nylon warmups and N ikes'
soft pop against black top as Philip heads down
the hill onto Habersham.

30 SPRING 1992

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

"This is my favorite time of day. Nobody's out
there. It's a very solitary time for me," says Philip.

"I can see the sun rise. I love the quietness
of it."

FOR THE NEXT HOUR Philip runs up and
down gentle hills, past dormant houses and into
pool after glowing pool of street lamp light.

Daylight reveals tiny puffs of breath forming a
halo of light, air and moisture around her face as
she inhales-exhales. The air is burning cold.

By 8:53 a.m., she's joined by a friend and legal
assistant with Coca-Cola, Gale Nairne, who along
with Philip has competed on the company team.
At 10:01 a.m., Philip is pulling up the hill toward
Peachtree Street, still running steadily as she fin-
ishes the last leg of her workout.

By the time she reaches home she admits her
breathing was a little shallow toward the end of
her 20 miles, but, she says, "I'm not running hard
enough to get winded." She does a few long, slow
stretches against her Volvo.

"My legs feel used," she says as she prepares to
go in the house to shower. "It feels good to have
done it. "

She grins and assures, "I'm not going to run any
more today."

DISCIPLINED, STRONG, mentally tough are all
words applied to runners who have gone the dis-
tance (26 miles and 385 yards) since marathon
running began in 1896. (Women officially joined
the competitive ranks of marathoners in 1972.)
Philip began with the Savannah Marathon in
1985; the Boston and New York marathons in
April and November of 1989.

In London, she'll compete along with friends
who are traveling with her. She's been thinking
about this marathon since that first one in Savan-
nah. "It's a big one." For the past three years, she
and her friends have talked about it. And since
late last year, she's been regularly training for it.
"I'm ready. I'm as well-trained as I've ever been."

When she arrives in London she will rest,
drink plenty of water and try to eat carbohydrates
and avoid fats.

For about a week after the London Marathon
she says she will take a break and resume her nor-
mal running schedule.

"A marathon? Anyone can do it," she says.

SARAH QUINN SLAUGHTER '26

A Drawer Full of Walkathon T-Shirts

Slaughter is not into the celebrity video work
outs. She just watches Atlanta's Peachtree
Road Race. "I'm not into running or jogging," she
quips. She is into walking. She has a drawerful of
walkathon T-shirts to prove it. Last October she
was recognized as the oldest among roughly 800
members from 150 churches participating in an
8.2-mile Stone Mountain walkathon to generate
money for Wesley community centers.

Not so much to keep in shape for those events,
and on no set course, she gets out and walks a
couple of miles daily.

She's one among a impressive array of Agnes
Scott women some competitors (a number of
them marathon runners like Virginia Philip),
some not who find exercise so enjoyable, or
sport so physically challenging, that it's now an
integral part of their lives.

MARY ANNA SMITH 78

MARTHA THOMPSON '66

Running for Life . . . and Fun

Sporting Agnes Scott T-shirts, last spring Mary
Anna Smith of New York and her coach,
Martha Thompson of Washington, D. C, partici-

Sarah Slaughter '26 at the
Agnes Scott challenge race
at Gellerstedt Field. She
walks daily: to the post
office, to Ansley Mall, to
her church. Pretty good for
a woman pushing 88.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 3 1

BODY TALI

The "why
they exercise"
varies. But for
all, there is
pleasure in the
challenge and
in the feeling
of completion.

Running gives Mary
Anna Smith '78 (above)
"a great way to maintain
weight." For Tennis Hall
of Famer Ruth Lay '46
(right, with Kristin Louer
'93, ASC's top tennis
player and one of Lay's
former students) , "there is
nothing greater" than
coaching 30 young players
a week. "They are my
friends," she says.

pated in the five-mile Alamo [Car Rental]
Alumni Run through NYC Central Park.

"Running for speed is very much of a talent,"
says Thompson. "Distance running is a discipline."

To build endurance, Smith, a special events
consultant whose clients include American
Express and the Museum of Modern Art, runs
mornings along the loi ips thn nigh ( Central Park:
"It's a great way to maintain weight. The more you
run, the more you can eat."

Thompson, who works for Compuware, liter-
ally runs errands or runs to see friends. She likes to
map out interesting courses for herself, like run-
ning a series of area bridges. She has run on vaca-
tions in Ecuador and Africa and recommends it as
a "great way to learn a place." Often she and
Smith meet in Atlanta to run the Peachtree to-
gether. And Thompson has run the Chicago and
New York marathons, back to back.

It's the New York Marathon that the two love

to have run. It begins early in the morning and
touches various boroughs in the city. "You run
through all the ethnic neighborhoods. The chil-
dren reach out and touch you," says Thompson.
"When you enter Manhattan there are 200,000
people on street corners cheering tor you."

CA ROLYN WEAVER '89

Challenged by Rock Climbing

W r eaver is limber and short. She eliminated
a field of activities dominated by tall folks
and made rock-climbing her sport of choice.
"Rock-climbing was something I could do respect-
ably well, early on," she explains. "It helps that 1
can bring my foot almost to my shoulder."

Weaver, a marketing analyst for an insurance
company in the Atlanta area, likes the clear-cut
goal and personal challenge of the sport. It holds

32 SPRING 1992

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

an element of danger. And on picking
a course to the summit, she says,
"You have to fight every step of the
way."

Her interest in climbing was
piqued along the Appalachian Trail.
One experience in Virginia stands out.
Two male climbers tried and failed to
scale the face of a rock, there,
fell, too. I wondered if I would bust my head,
she says, "I made it to the top."

RUTH RYNER LAY '46

Tennis Halb of Fame

Southern Tennis Hall of Famer Lay ranks as a
tough competitor in her own right, honored
in both the Southern and the Georgia Tennis
halls of fame. And she has been to Wimbledon
nine times with her students. She spends three to
four hours each day on the tennis courts, coaching
30 young players a week. "There is nothing greater
than working with young people," insists Lay.
"They are my friends."

Over the years, Lay, of Norcross, Ga., has re-
cruited some top players for Agnes Scott's tennis
teams. She follows their play with more than pass-
ing interest. Lay and Anne Register Jones '46
(who played tennis together at Agnes Scott) pur-
chased purple and white warmup outfits for this
year's team.

RACHEL KENNEDY LOWTHIAN '37

Gutsy Golfing with the Pros

Ajutsy old woman" is how a Delaware news-
paper describes Lowthian. Her golf partners
have included pros Nancy Lopez, Hollis Stacy,
Patty Rizzo and Sandra Post during 13 years of
Pro- Am tournaments. "In spite of her 76 years and
a total hip replacement, Lowthian plays 18 holes
of golf three or four times a week and consistently
scores between 95 and 105.

She likes the mental rigor: "You have to think
through your shots." She enjoys the out-of-doors,
the scenery, the birds. "Most of all," she says, "I
like my partners. We just have a great time to-
gether."

Lowthian, who began golfing in 1965, played
every day for a while and had a 19 handicap. She

remains among few amateur women competing in
pro-am events. "It's pretty nerve-wracking on the
first tee," the sturdy Lowthian admits about play-
ing with the pros. "You always want to get off on
the first tee with a good drive."

JOSEPHINE SULLIVAN '44

jumping to Better Health

Sullivan of Greenville, S.C., says her six chil-
dren were a bit shocked when she began
training for master's level track and field events.
But she says, "They got used to it." This winter she
placed first in the long and triple jumps at the

After appearing in a
tournament together, pro
golfer Nancy Lopez
congratulates 72-year-old
Rachel Lowthian '37-
"Nancy is one of the finest
young ladies in the sport,"
says Lowthian, who la-
ments that so few women
play in the Pro-Ams. "J
am chagrined that other
women golfers are afraid. "

AGNES SCOH AAAGAZINE 33

BODY TALK

pry got
into exeigise "
when she
found team
Frisbee an
addictive sport.

I^>

caseworker for
Children
wCTweerm Cobb Coi
Ga. , practices regular, _
For out-of town
tournaments, she lilce
many often stays in the
l\omes of other players .

Master's indoor track meet at Brown University.
She won a gold last summer in the triple jump
during an international track and field competi-
tion drawing 5,500 Masters athletes to Finland.

She begins training (aerobic exercise and
weight lifting) around January' and competes at
indoor and outdoor meets through the end of
summer. Her best is 1 2 feet 3 3/4 inches in the
long jump and 23 feet 4 inches in the triple.

She also competes in the 55-meter and 200-
meter runs at 9.8 and 40 seconds, respectively.
"1 think this makes a difference in strength and
endurance and lung capacity. And this
has opened up a whole
new world.
I didn't think there
would be anything
like this, competitive
sports, for someone
as old as 1 am."
Although Sullivan usually tries
to win, there is one exception. When racing along
the beach with grandchildren, she says, "We sort
ot tie."

AN NE SPRY '86

The Ultimate in Frisbee

Sports are something Spry has engaged in only
"under pressure." Three years ago she came to
watch a game of Ultimate [Frisbee], and was liter-
ally dragged into the game because the team
needed an additional woman (coed leagues re-
quire each team to have at least two women on
the field at all times).

"They were so desperate. It didn't matter to
them that I was awful," remembers Spry, who
enjoyed herself in spite ot having to run up and
down a soccer-sized field, catching and passing a
plastic disc until it was caught in the end zone.
Now she's a regular on the women's B-Flat team,
competing in Southeastern tournaments from
South Carolina to Florida.

Ultimate, invented by a New Jersey high
school, is played in 30 countries. It consists of two
seven-member teams attempting to keep a Frisbee
in the air and moving down field to the goal.

"The people are very nice. After about the first
two or three weeks ot playing, I thought, this is
awfully fun. And once you get in shape," says Spry,
"it is addictive." ASC

34 SPRING 1992

CLASSIC

Mortar Board:

Sixty Years

Of Highest Honors

The clock closes on
midnight. Sixteen
young women cross the
quadrangle, a space framed in
red brick, amber lit. They
walk in pairs and in threes.
Robed. Figures in black. They
duck through doors. Reap-
pear. Cross again. Enter oth-
ers. They glide. A Chimera.
Monastic. Something an-
cient, venerable.

There is little sound, only
snatches. The swish of cloth.
Heels against brick. One
woman softly calling to an-
other as they pass.

For 60 years each spring at
Agnes Scott, in ceremony
more ritual than secret, soon-
to-be-graduating seniors have
tapped juniors to take their
place on Mortar Board.

It is an unbroken chain.

Though the years have
brought changes, those with a
view of six decades still find
familiarity in the practice and
intent of the organization.
The values recognized among
its members then leader-
ship, scholarship, and ser-
vice remain intact.

Mortar Board arrived at
Agnes Scott through the ef-
forts of 14 members of the
Class of 1931. Members of
HOASC the Honorary
Order of Agnes Scott Col-
legea campus honor society
for seniors founded in 1916
with aims similar to those of
Mortar Board, petitioned the
national organization for a
chapter on campus. A charter
was granted and Mortar Board
began the following year.

Members of Mortar Board in 1945: Always the highest ideals

When the new honor soci-
ety began, it simply picked up
where the old one had left off,
numbering among the mem-
bership those elected since
1916.

Katherine Morrow Norem
'31, one of the 14 who
brought Mortar Board here,
remembers selecting juniors
for that first year's member-
ship. They were leaders, in-
volved in student government
and other campus organiza-
tions, holders of an exemplary
standard of scholarship.
People like herself- feature
editor for the college newspa-
per, member of the YWCA
board, class secretary, and
"probably some things I've
forgotten."

Membership was an-
nounced at a special convo-
cation held during chapel.
"Agnes Scott was a Presbyte-
rian school and we had chapel
every day," says Norem. She
remembers it as lovely. A pro-
cession of seniors in caps and
gowns, faculty in colorful aca-
demic hoods. Later there was
dinner and investiture of new
members who wore the recog-
nition pin of their senior
sponsors, a simple "H," until
Mortar Board pins arrived the
next year.

"While Phi Beta Kappa

honored scholarship,
HOASC was something
more. It was about the highest
honor you could get at Agnes
Scott," says Norem.

Ann Chapin Hudson
Hankins '31 agrees. "It recog-
nized what you did for the
college."

Many of Hankins' contri-
butions were on the athletic
field, but it was as YWCA
president her senior year that
she made a most lasting con-
tribution. The Y sponsored a
forum, a meeting with black
students from Spelman and
Morehouse colleges, to discuss
racial issues. In 1931, no
black students attended ASC.
Even when students from the
three colleges met, they were
not allowed to eat together
"There were laws against such
things then," she says. And
there were other ramifica-
tions. She recalls the parents
of one Agnes Scott student
almost pulling her from the
college for participating. Out
of that experience grew the
Maude and Waddy Hudson
Memorial Scholarship for
black students. It is named for
Hankins' parents. She and her
husband contribute funds
each year.

Through the years, one
characteristic common

among individual members of
the honor society is commit-
ment perhaps over-commit-
ment to causes both on and
off campus. The most notable
shift in Mortar Board in re-
cent years has been to not
only to recognize this com-
mitment, but to make it a
characteristic of the organiza-
tion itself. Traditionally, Mor-
tar Board has been respon-
sible for Black Cat, student
elections and service projects
for the year. During 1991-92,
Mortar Board sponsored fac-
ulty lectures, two blood
drives, a family at Christmas;
members did volunteer work
at an elementary school,
helped with the Special
Olympics, collected funds for
an international hunger relief
agency, worked one night in a
women's shelter, worked with
mentally handicapped adults,
tutored non-reading adoles-
cents and adults, and secured
a grant that will bring a lit-
eracy program on campus
next year.

It's not surprising that the
organization accomplishes so
much, says current president
Jennifer Bruce '92. "We didn't
turn down a thing. These are
committed people. All you
had to do was mention a
project and hands shot up."

What next year's Mortar
Board will accomplish is
anyone's guess.

What is sure, the time-
honored values of leadership,
scholarship, and service will
be passed from one class to
the next, one generation to
the next, one decade to the
next women linked across
time in what is best at Agnes
Scott College.
B;y Bill Bangham

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 35

FINALE

BEST SHOTS CONTEST WINNERS

First Prize

"Meglum"

Hannah Griffin WilJner '81

Norcross, Georgia

Second Prize

"M\ Husband at 50"
Patricia H. Cooper '61
Raton Rouge, Louisiana

Honorable Mention

Untitled

Lisa Freeman '95

Atlanta, Georgia

i i if

36 SPRING 1992

FINALE

Third Prize

"Capping Candles"
Barbie Stitt '92
Chattanooga, Tennessee

Honorable Mention

Freedom

Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia
Tracy Peavy '93
Dallas, Texas

Honorable Mention

Untitled

Lucia Sizemore '65

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Honorable Mention

Violinist Dara Chesnutt
Carolyn Thorsen '55
Atlanta, Georgia

* -*

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 37 I

Agnes Scott College
Decatur, Georgia 30030

Nonprofit Organbation

U.S. Postage

PAID

Decatur, GA 30030

Permit No. 469

:3:atur 3A 30033

"Out of the Fog"

A candle we hold in our left hand

and whenever a Soph asks us where we are

going, we must say , "Trying to find our

way out of the fog. "

from fhe journal of

Mary Sturtevant Cunningham, 1929

Page 1 3

recycled paper

ALUMNAE MAGAZINE FALL 1992

EDITOR'S NOTE

Ernest Hemingway stood tip to
write. To the right of his type-
writer he scrawled in longhand,
then transferred his copy to type.
Robert Frost wrote in an armless chair
so he would have complete freedom ot
movement. James Thurher had poor
eyesight and a phenomenal memory, so
often he composed in his head and
wrote by dictation. Truman Capote
wrote lying down. He insisted that he
was incapable of writing anything he
thought he couldn't get paid for.

Writers' quirks. It seems those en-
dearing idiosyncrasies have gone the
way of manual typewriters and worn
fedoras. Like staff in Agnes Scott's Of-
fice of Publications, more and more
i iters ii >J,i\ work seated al a unputers.
The quirks, we all suspect, are in the technology.

In one corner of this office sits assistant publications manager
Mary Alma Durrett with head slightly down and fingers pound-
ing the keyboard in a way that heats up her Macintosh SE with
first drafts that throw caution and typos to the wind. "You
certainly write with verve," observed an alumna reader. She
does. That word also fits Durrett, who started her career as a
feature writer for the Mobile Press Register in Alabama, worked a
few years in magazine writing/editing, then switched to public
relations. Her litmus for writing parallels a Carson McCullers
character's measure for romance: does it "make you shiver?"
Durrett edits Main Events and contributes to this magazine and
other College publications. A contrary computer is about the
i mly thing that slows her down: "There's a pattern on my com-
/inter screen that I've never seen before," she calls out.

"Is it a plaid!"

"No. Stripes."

Editorial assistant Audrey Arthur brings to publications dig-
nity: strains of classical music waft from her small desk-top radio
accompanied by her keyboard's rat-ta-tat-tat-tat. She likes the
Thurber approach to writing, working constantly to "make the
finished version seem smooth and effortless." She has a degree

Writers' Quirks

from Syracuse University, one of the
country's top schools for magazine jour-
nalism, and experience ranging from
newspapering to public relations. Be-
fore coming here she was a researcher/
writer tor the Atlanta Chamber of
Commerce. Arthur has known what
she wanted to do since second grade
when her teacher encouraged students
to approach homework as "explora-
tions." Some found they liked painting
or math. "I liked writing," says Arthur.
Without a computer, that year she
wrote 40 short stories and plays.

"Celeste," calk out Durrett, "First it
was the big Mac. Now we're getting stripes
on the small monitor screen. ..."

My whole creative effort is labori-
ous, adhering closely to Hemingway's
iceberg principle: "There is seven-eighths of it underwater," he
said of his writing, "for every part that shows." Even a small
story is built on a couple of notepads of interviews, a stack ot
library books and photocopied magazine excerpts. Then 1 write
to rewrite. As Dorothy Parker said, "I can't write five words but
that I change seven." My 20-year career spans Texas newspaper
reporting in the early '70s, seven years ot magazine writing
(dealing primarily with religious, ethnic and socio-economic
issues), eight years of book publishing plus movie and video
script writing. On computer I've edited many books and
authored a few.

Burp. Blip. Blip. Beeeep. "Can you hear this?" asks Durrett.
Her computer continues: Boing-boing. "I don't want to overreact,
Celeste, but I smell something binning. ..."

Si nnet imes 1 w< uulei it the great writers would have swapped
some of their quirks tor ours. I can imagine at least Truman
Capote "the horizontal author" would have appreciated a
laptop computer. First drafts he wrote longhand.

Final drafts he wrote with his typewriter balanced on his
knees.

-&y^J

Editor: Celeste Pennington. Contributing Editor: Mary Alma Durrett. Editorial Assistant: Audrey Arthur.

Design: Harold Waller and Everett Hullum. Student Assistants: Elizabeth Cherry '95,

Willa Hendrickson '94, Josie Hoilman '94, Helen Nash '93, Emily Pender '95, Tonya Smith '93.

Publications Advisory Board: Jenifer Cooper '86, Christine Cozzens, Carey Bowen Craig '62, Bonnie Brown Johnson 70,

Randy Jones 70, Helen Nash '93, Kay Parkerson O'Briant 70, Edmund Sheehey, Lucia Howard Sizemore '65.

Cover: Tynesha Davis, a high school student, works with plants during the SHARP! Women experience at ASC.

Photographer: Phillip Spears.

Copyright 1992, \gncsScoti I ollege Published two dines a year by the Office of Publications, Agnes Scott ( ollege, Bunnell Hall, HI E. College Avenue, Decatur, GA !0030, 404/371-6315.

Tlu- magazine is published loi alumnae and friends ol the College. Postmaster: Send address changes to Office of Development and Public Att.nr>, Agnes Scott College, Decarur, GA *0030.

Like other conreni ol the magazine, thi> article reflects the opinion ol the writer and not rlit- viewpoint ol the l College, n^ trustees, ,<r administration.

\gnes Scott Alumnae Magazine is printed on tecycled paper usin.t: vegetable- rather than petroleum-based inks

TURNABOUT

CONTENTS

What fun to see Sturdy's [Mary
Sturtevant Cunningham '33] journal ex-
cerpts in the Alumnae Magazine.

But so much of the fun was left out!
I have a five-year journal with brief en-
tries. . . .On October first, hazing started.
The Sophomore funeral marched into
Chapel after the Student Government
meeting, and then they ran us through a
gauntlet. . . . The next day I made Chris
Gray's bed, carried her books and dragged
mine in a shoebox. . . .

On October 8, the school got a radio.

In March we began to worry about
"Spring Raid" when the Sophomores
would descend unannounced on the
Freshmen with who knows what dreadful
consequences.

We danced on Inman porch; went to
the tea rooms (often in our pajamas) for
snacks after the dates were shooed out of
Main at 10 o'clock. . . .

I guess our pleasures were simple, but
they were happy days.

Margy Ellis Pierce '33
Newton Square , PA

Congratulations on your excellent article,
"Love in the Mortar Joints."

Our copy arrived on Wednesday and
all of us here at the Fuller house thor-
oughly enjoyed reading the article and
viewing the outstanding photographs.
Especially I want to commend Mary
Alma Durrett on the photograph which
appears at the beginning of the article.
You can almost jeel the energy and excite-
ment of the wall going up. . . .

Millard Fuller

Founder, Habitat for Humanity

Americus, GA

In a recent issue of the Alumnae Quarterly
there was a story about May Day at Agnes
Scott. . . .My mother, Ethel McKay
Holmes '15, was the first May Queen on
the first [official] May Day in 1913. 1 en-
close a picture of that first May Day from
an issue of the Agnes Scott News (I was
Editor in 1944-45).

Leila B. Holmes '45
Thomasville, GA

Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine

AGNES SCOTT

Fall 1992 Volume 70, Number 2

ORats!

by Audrey Arthur

The Renaissance
of Marguerite
de Navarre

by Mary Alma Durrett

Wonder and
Lighting

by Harriet Stovall
Kelley '55

When Corporate
Patterns Don't Fit

by Celeste Pennington

The Merits of
Self-Scrutiny

by Celeste Pennington

Page 5

Page 1 1

Page 14

Page 24

Page 2
Lifestyle

Page 27
Book Review: Life of the Party

Responding to a
national shortage of
scientists , ASC devised
a unique program
aimed at engaging young
women in research
science.

International scholars
gathered here to
re-examine the work of
this religious reformer,
writer and patron
of the humanities .

Some stunning
examples of the
serendipity of
scholarly research.

Erin Odom '85
scrapped a promising
corporate career
far fabric, needle
and thread.

A few words about the
SACS self -study from
Dean Sarah Blanshei,
who knoii's college
accrediting commissions
from the inside, out.

Page 28
Classic: Black Cat

Page 29
In Memoriam: Llewellyn Wilburn

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE

LI FESTYLE

ASC's Anderson:
Political Insider
Brings Others In

The red, white, and blue
Democratic log< 1 1 in
Karen Anderson's busi-
ness card bears the identifiable
donkey head silhouetted in pro-
file beside the outline of the
state of Georgia. The donkey's
ears are angled up in a V for
victory fashion. "Winning in
November is a reality," believes
Anderson.

"We are extremely excited
about the large number of
women candidates running this
year," says Anderson in a confi-
dently modulated voice.

Anderson '90, is a behind-
the-scenes professional staffer
helping Democratic women
and men win election this fall.

As a political director of the
Democratic Parry of Georgia,
she advises and provides re-
source sendees to candidates
throughout the state.

This past July she attended
her first national convention in
New York, acting as a primary
staffer for the 109-member
Georgia delegation.

Months of preparation led
up to the convention, from
managing delegate selection to
updating the state's 40-page
plan so that it might be prop-
erly implemented.

She initiated affirmative
action workshops throughout
( !& irgia to enlist proportional
representation of women and
minorities the state's delega-
tion was comprised of 50 per-
cent women and M perceni
minorities.

A typical convention day
began at 6 a.m. and ended after
midnight hack at the hotel,
planning sessions tor the next

Eddie Ross llluslralfon

day's events. In between she
made sure that shuttle buses
ran on schedule to and from
the Madison Square Garden
Convention Center, that the
109 delegates arrived at the
right locations and at desig-
nated times each day, that they
even hummed a tew bars of "I

Anderson is working to involve
more women in Georgia politics .

Love New York" and "Happy
Days Are Here Again."

According to Scotty Green-
wood, executive director of the
Democratic Party of Georgia,
Anderson was the "reason that
everything came together so
well. She managed to give the
same attentiveness to the aver-
age delegate as she did to the
VIPs . . . She's an incredibly
good listener and effective
communicator. And she really
follows through on what she
says. Her word is golden."

As political director,
Anderson's primary duties now
include overseeing opposition
research, targeting for state
races and building strong links
between the state organization
and local legislative candidates.

During her years at ASC,
Anderson (daughter of Marga-
ret Shugart '62) was active in
i irnpus politics and was elected

president of the Student Gov-
ernment Association her senior
year. A double major in politi-
cal science and economics,
Anderson learned early to work
from within to affect change.

ASC's Gus Cochran, chair
of the political science depart-
ment, recalls Anderson as a
soft-spoken student who could
lead by the forcefulness of her
convictions. "Karen was one
of a whole group that really-
changed the student body from
inward-turning and not terribly
interested in larger political
issues, to one that became po-
litically engaged."

Issues included advocacy for
on-campus day care, a fully op-
erational recycling program and
a stronger women's studies pro-
gram. Looking back, she voices
appreciation for the diversity of
opinion at ASC. "I don't think
outsiders realize its extent."

Two weeks before gradua-
tion Anderson answered a 1988
recruitment letter filed away in
the college placement office
which sought applicants for an
internship program at the state
Democratic headquarters. Im-
mediately she was called for an
interview and was hired. In
May of 1990 she began work
with the party as a research as-
sistant on a small stipend.

Now she is setting up the
delegate selection process for
the state in what Greenwood
describes as a "meteoric rise" for
the young alumna.

Because of the current
political climate, Anderson
believes a lot of women will be
elected in November.

But she firmly dismisses the
idea of ever running for politi-
cal office herself.

Barbara Allen Kenney is a
free-lance writer in Decatur,Ga.

,./ ""'4?.

'*&

VV.

"I

1

'C*^

2 FALL 1 992

LI F ESTYLE

Keller Barron:

A Career of Bringing

Out the Vote

Care about politics.
Have a sense of re-
sponsibility. Be
involved in issues for the sake
of your community and for
your children.

Those were lessons Keller
Barron '54 learned at Agnes
Scott 38 years ago, and they are
the lessons she has applied to
her life and work as a volunteer
for the League of Women Vot-
ers and as the paid director of
research for the South Carolina
Joint Legislative Committee on
Aging in Columbia, S.C.

As a national board mem-
ber, Barron chaired the
League's efforts to lobby for the
Equal Rights Amendment.

Since 1979, the Atlanta
native has worked with the
South Carolina house and sen-
ate and advocacy groups to im-
prove conditions for the aging.

She effortlessly recalls the
long list of her committee's
accomplishments and speaks
passionately about each of
them. They include giving the
aging person power of attorney,
the right to name an individual
to make health care decisions
in the event of disability; the
homestead exemption, relief
from property taxes as income
decreases; and a death with
dignity act, allowing a person
the right to die a natural death
versus having one's life sus-
tained by medical technology.

The tempo of her conversa-
tion increases as she describes
South Carolina's current efforts
encouraging businesses to pro-
vide employees adult day care
in addition to child care.

"We're emphasizing commu-

nity-assisted living home and
community care versus institu-
tionalized care. Working people
can place their parents in adult
day care and care for them in
their homes at night."

Barron chuckles when asked
if she, at age 60, is benefitting
from her efforts to improve the
aging's quality of life. It is the

Barron has been active in the
League of Women Voters, which
informs citizens about government
aitd lobbies for certain issues.

baby-boom generation, she ex-
plains, that benefits from such
legislation, because they will
take care of their parents.

Agnes Scott graduates in
South Carolina's capital city
take care of each other. When
Barron needs legal advice or an
advocate in passing legislation,
she phones attorney Mary
Smith Bryan '65 or Elizabeth
Goud Patterson '68, University
of South Carolina law profes-
sor, or "our pride and joy" Jean
Hoefer Toal '65, the first
woman elected justice of South
Carolina's supreme court.

"Our ASC network makes a
difference in a little state," says
Barron with alumnae pride.

Leisa Hammett-Goad

is a communication specialist in
Stone Mountain, Ga.

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 3 I

LI FESTYLE

Susan Phillips:
An Opportunity to
Influence Policy

n the imposing marble

corridors of the nation's
central hank, among the
country's top economists,
Susan M. Phillips '67, is in
her element.

"Coming into this environ-
ment provides opportunity tor
a lot more than policy-setting,"
says Phillips, who was ap-
pointed in December 1991 to
fill an unexpired term on the
Federal Reserve Board of Gov-
ernors. "I had been specializing,
but now 1 am going back to the
basics of economics. It is like
climbing back into a text-
book." Thoughtful and analyti-
cal not prone to snap judg-
ments she enjoys the process
of re-examining policy, mulling
over ideas, fine-tuning her
own. "1 don't want to be rigid
or unthinking," she says. "I
want to keep fresh ways of
looking at things."

Phillips was vice president
for finance at the University of
Iowa when Treasury Secretary
Nicholas Brady called to say
that President George Bush
wanted to nominate her to be-
come a member of the Federal
Reserve Board.

When Brady and Fed chair-
man Alan Greenspan inter-
viewed her for the job, they
delved into "how I go about
making decisions, how I ana-
ly:e si imethmg. Some people in
the economic world are strict
monetarists who only look at
the monetary supply. Others
are more concerned with ideol-
ogy. I come from a more prag-
matic background."

Each member ot l he hoard
works with the others to refine

and influence the direction of
economic policies for the coun-
try. Banking regulation, for one,
is a perennial topic of discus-
sion at the Fed.

Basil ,ill\ the Federal Re
serve Board has supported
hanking deregulation, but
Phillips says the discussion
doesn't stop there. Even though

Phillip' "pragmatic background"
made her right for the Fed.

a policy may be established, its
impact and its side effects may
he understood only after time.
"You monitor the effects of
regulation, things in the
economy that happen to affect
them."

When Phillips' ideas about
federal monetary regulations
don't mesh with those of the
other members of the board,
she says, "You have to convince
the other governors of your
point of view. Sometimes you
convince them at the board
table. Sometimes you . . . direct
the staff to investigate." And,
she grants, "There has to be a
certain amount of give
and take."

Phillips' career has led her
from the futures market to
scholarly examination ot the
theory ot regulation, to the Fed.
Her areas of specialization in-

clude options and commodities
futures, financial management
and the economic theory ot
regulation, all a far cry from the
career as a math teacher that
she envisioned more than 20
years ago.

"While at Agnes Scott, I
thought 1 would be a math
teacher. When I went to do my
student teaching, I wasn't crazy
about it. I liked teaching, but
dealing with the discipline
problems in high school, 1
didn't like. And 1 didn't like
the routine." That's why she
began exploring other options.

From the days when Phillips
worked as a resident assistant
and Mollie Merrick (now asso-
ciate dean of students at Agnes
Scott College) was resident
director of Walters Residence
Hall, Merrick remembers that
Phillips was "one student who
was willing to go far afield
when it was time to look for a
job. She went to Indiana and
Boston at a time when most
students just wanted to stay in
Atlanta."

Phillips wound up working
for an insurance company, then
later went to graduate school.
(She received a B.A. in math-
ematics from Agnes Scott Col-
lege in 1967, a master's degree
in finance and insurance from
Louisiana State University
[LSU] in 1971, and a Ph.D. in
finance and economics from
LSUin 1973.) She worked at
the University of Iowa in 1 978
as an associate professor and
later was named associate vice
president for finance and uni-
versity services in 1980.

In 1981, she was appointed
to membership on the Com-
modity Futures Trading Com-
mission [CFTC], and became
its chair in 1983. At the CFTC,

she gained a reputation tor
minimizing government regula-
tion of the marketplace. She
returned to the University of
Iowa as vice president in 1987.

Phillips' adaptability to new
places and new roles arises, per-
haps in part, from growing up
in an Air Force family. "We
lived overseas a lot so I was ex-
posed to lots of things. When I
lived in England, in the 5th or
6th grade, I can remember
people weren't fond ot Ameri-
cans. They would ask you what
time it was, you'd answer and
they'd know just by those
few words that you were an
American.

"I did have English friends,
and very much enjoyed living
there, but there was some ad-
justment, too."

In her spare time, Phillips
still enjoys travel. She's been to
the coral reefs of Australia,
taken helicopter rides over
Hawaii, marveled at the recon-
structed versions ot the Nina,
the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
Seeing such diverse parts ot the
world opens her to new ideas,
says Phillips, the same way her
college education did.

"The variety of liberal arts
stretched me," Phillips says.
"You don't have the luxury of
concentrating in one area, you
dabble. It gave me a sense of
breadth. The struggle of trying
to do well forced me into the
rigor of studying. It was a very
competitive environment. 1
worked in the library, and one
of the faculty, Dr. [Henry]
Robinson in math, asked me to
tutor. There was a sense and
tradition ot studying being
hard work."
Elaine Furiow is an editor with

an environmental cammunicar
turns group in Washington, D.C.

I 4 FALL 1992

ORATS!

^L "W g W bile many teenagers headed
% ^^ m for the beach, lounged at
^ J^ I home or earned money this
%/ %/ past summer, several Atlanta
high school students spent part of
their break at work in Agnes Scott's laboratories,
classrooms and greenhouse participating in sig-
nificant scientific experimentation.
The psychology project involved rats.
It compared the stress levels and the resulting
neurological effects on rats raised in different envi-

ronments (rats living alone in small cages versus
those living in rat communities with enriched or
activity-enhanced settings). The experience
brought Emily Kyle, a junior at Woodward Acad-
emy, face to face with realities of research.

"We thought there were going to be these cute
little mice. And here were these huge rats," she
says, "with red eyes."

What she and the others discovered through
careful monitoring, testing and finally dissection is
that rats living in enriched environments were

Responding to a
national shortage of
scientists especially
women scientists
each summer Agnes
Scott College brings
sharp young women
eye-to-eye with the
adventure of research;
their projects are
both educational . . .
and rewarding.

Written by Audrey Arthur
Photographed
by Mark Sandlin
and Phillip Spears

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 5

S H A V OMEN

SHARP!
Women is
focused on
educating
women and
minorities in
science. It also
"helps teachers
who will reach
many more
students than
the ASC
summer
program can."

healthier, more alert, "had a thicker cortex and
bigger brain cells," notes Assistant Professor of
Psychology Barbara Rlatchley who headed up the
psychology team. "They were better rats."

Kyle and nine other high school students were
parr or a two-week program called SHARP! (Sci-
ence Honors Associates Research Program) tor
Women. According to Assistant Dean of the Col-
lege Patricia White, three-year-old SHARP!
Women is one of the few "hands-on" science pro-
grams in the nation that involves teams of stu-
dents and faculty working r< igether on research
projects. It is an outgrowth of the Strategic Plan-
ning Process and its call for the College to develop
a Science Center for Women.

SPECIFICALLY SHARP! WOMEN is focused
on educating women and minorities in science.
This year it included both students and teachers
from five high schools as well as Agnes Scott stu-
dents and faculty working in teams on tour indi-
vidual projects in biology, chemistry, mathematics/
computer science and psychology.

"The American Association of University
Women issued a report about how females aren't
encouraged to pursue science careers," White says.
"We need women not just because they are
women but because there is an overall shortage ot
scientists. Women will help till that shortage."

Recently the National Science Foundation in
Washington, D.C., further quantified the need,
reporting that the number of men and women

Betfi Barnes '94, chemistry major, was part o] a team
led by chemistry professor Leon Venable that worked
to create compounds that don't exist in nature.

who earned degrees in physical science, earth, at-
mospheric, and ocean science declined in 1990,
with the exception of math/computer science
(which did not experience a decrease in male re-
cipients). Most scientific degrees earned by
women were in fields ot psychology, social science
and biological/agricultural science.

The SHARP! Women pilot program grew out
of a research project undertaken by White and
Professor of Biology Sandra Bowden. They real-
ized that Agnes Scott students needed research
experience for teaching, research and post-gradu-
ate studies. Two Agnes Scott students assisted in
research the first year. The next year the program
expanded ti inc. lude six high si hi n >1 students and
four ASC students working on two teams, biology
and astronomy.

White and Bowden knew, too, that high
school teachers needed research experience to
remain on top ot scientific advances and technol-
ogy. So now SHARP! Women is also a way "to
help teachers who will reach many more students
than we can."

THIS SUMMER, Frances Dale, biology/physics
teacher at Avondale High School, welcomed the
opportunity. "My greatest pleasure is learning
about things, firsthand, rather than reading about
them. It's also great to see the kids get a joy out ot
this hands-on experience." Through labs, she and
students worked side by side. "Students think that
teachers know everything," Dale says with a grin,
so now and then "it'-- probably tun tor them to see
a puzzled look on my face."

From the outset, emphasizes White, "SHARP!
was not a Lib [in which only lecturing takes place],
this was research. They were collecting data and
analyzing data. The high school students had to
explain to the other high school teams what was
happening to their projects. It was nice because
whenever students had a break, they would go to
someone else's project and there was an exc hange
going on.

"ll worked well."

So well in fact that this year two additional
high schools were invited to participate. Each
project learn was comprised of a high school
teacher and students, and an ASC professor and
students. Participating high schools were
Woodward Academy, Shamrock, I. ,'olumbia and
Avondale. Students were chosen for the program
based on application, transcripts and rccommen-

6 FALL 1992

PROGRAM OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION

ASC students jane Xu and Elizabeth Isaacs helped monitor the stiess levels of lab rats in the psychology project.

dations by science teachers. High school facility
members were also selected, based on applications
and nominations by school principals and/or sci-
ence coordinators.

"SHARP! Women gives the high school stu-
dents a chance to see that there is an awful lot of
everyday work that goes into scientific discover-
ies," comments Frances Kennedy, a biology in-
structor/lab coordinator at Agnes Scott.

She coordinated the biology project which was
designed to show how hormones applied to the
leaves affect growing plants.

During the two weeks, students learned the
importance of teamwork, says Kennedy, as they
learned how to dab hormones on delicate plant
leaves, compare growth rates, harvest plants, use a
centrifuge, run protein assays (strength or potency
tests). "SHARP! Women gives students an early
view as to whether they would like to pursue sci-
ence as an everyday affair, and it's good for the
undergrads because it gives them a different lab
experience. Class lab is often self-contained,
whereas, in this research experience they experi-
mented and made predictions. As in real life these
predictions and experiments didn't always come
out as they thought they would."

THE MATHEMATICAL PORTION OF
SHARP! Women was directed by Dan Waggoner,
assistant professor of mathematics. He, together
with ASC student Laylage Courie '94, wrote a
computer program utilizing the latest Windows
graphic environment. It allowed their team to
visualize polynomial equations in non-traditional
ways. Producing a single picture often required
over 16 million algebraic operations. However,
using optimized computer routines together with
state-of-the-art PC's [personal computers], these
computations were completed in minutes as op-
posed to hours.

"Students discovered on their own that for
cubics the picture depends on only the configura-
tion of the roots." Waggoner says. "If the roots
form similar triangles, then the pictures are simi-
lar. By the end of the program they could fairly
accurately predict the image that they would get,
given the configuration of the roots. However, as
with all research projects, more questions were
raised than were answered."

Andrea Bradner '93 also worked with
Waggoner. She believes SHARP! Women is espe-
cially valuable because it gives high school and
college students a chance to identify scientific in-

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 7 I

1

ASC biology
instructor/lab
coordinator
Frances
Kennedy (at
rig/it with ASC
student Annette
Sessions)
conducted a
project designed
to show how
hormones
applied to the
leaves affect
growing plants.
The experiment
gave students
"a chance to
see that there
is an awful lot
of everyday
work that goes
into scientific
discoveries."

WOMEN

As a result of
participation
in SHARP!,
high school
students will
take their
knowledge
back to their
high school
science classes.

Dan Waggoner's team wrote a computer program to visualize polynomial equations in non-traditional ways ( left) .

terests. "I told Dr. Waggoner that I wished I'd had
this opportunity in high school. I went through
four or five different majors before 1 came back to
math. If 1 had been encouraged about math I
would have had a better idea of what I wanted
in college."

The team led by Leon Venable, associate pro-
fessor of chemistry, concentrated on exploratory
synthesis, creating new compounds that don't
exist in nature.

One project was aimed at making compounds
(based on organic, polyvalent elements ruthenium
and boron) which may have potential use in can-
cer treatment. "The evidence is preliminary, but
we think we have managed to attach the otganic
molei ule beta c.stadiol, an estrogen steroid, to the
ruthenium atom," says Venable. Researchers are
currently working to make boron site-specific by
using the steroid to guide it to the cancer. But says
Venable, "we've not managed to add boron yet."

The second project included an effort to pre-
pare a class of compounds molecular wires
which could be used to transmit electrical cur-
rents. He believes that these could be produced to
pack more information or electrical current
into a much smaller space than can conventional
wires. Venable made an analogy: it would be like
making the largest computer on campus tit in a
shirt pocket.

He believes that molecular wire, which was
produced in small quantity by the SHARP! team,

could revolutionize circuit design, yet it's "years
away from practical application."

Overall, Venable said the students wete eager
to work in the labs. "They weren't shy or intimi-
dated. They synthesized new compounds."

ASC STUDENTS WORKED 8-12 weeks this
summer. Students and faculty have indicated in-
terest in expanding the high school portion of
SHARP! Women from two to three weeks, and
White notes that Agnes Scott would also like to
add more high schools to the program. They are
limited, however, by the availability- of ASC fac-
ulty and by funding. (The program which will
continue its fourth year next summer has been
funded by a $100,000 grant from The Coca-Cola
Foundation and individual gifts.)

Although the program's long-term impact is
not yet evident, as a result of participation in
SHARP!, high school students will take their
knowledge back to theit high schools where some
will conduct science projects.

A tew ASC faculty and students will continue
theit research projects through the academic year.
And several ASC faculty have presented findings
to ptotessional organizations.

Waggonet summarizes the importance of
SHARP! Women by noting that fewer and fewer
males are becoming scientists. "If we are to survive
|as scientists] we have to attract women. It we
don't, we are wasting half the intellect out there."

10 FALL 1992

THE RENAISSANCE

OF MARGUERITE DE NA/ARRE

An Agnes
Scott professor
is helping
academicians
and others
rediscover the
contributions of
a 16th century
French author.

Written by

Mary Alma Durrett

arguerite de Navarre might
have felt at home at her birth-
day dinner on April 13 with
chicken, lentil stuffing, beef
ribs and leeks lapping over
the edges of the dinner plates
and wine glasses raised in her honor. She might
have enjoyed the Georgian Dancers performing
Renaissance dance and the Emory Early Music
Consort performing period music. Air condition-
ing and electric lights would have certainly been a
curiosity though.

The dinner, held just two days after the 500th
anniversary of the French queen's birth might
have gone unnoticed had not her resident devo-
tee, Regine Reynolds-Cornell, brought her into
the light for all to study.

Reynolds-Cornell, Agnes Scott's Adeline

Arnold Loridans Professor and chair of
the French department, rec-
ognized 1492 as being
important for more
reasons than Co-
lumbus' voyage. It
marked the birth
of Marguerite
d'Angouleme,
duchess of
Alencon, queen of
Navarre, who is rec-
ognized as an out-
standing figure
in the

French Renaissance. Reynolds-Cornell, a French
native and authority on the life and works of Mar-
guerite de Navarre, launched her own "retro-jour-
ney" to Marguerite's world this past April 13 and
14 through an international symposium held at
ASC. Reynolds-Cornell gathered a group of
scholars from Italy, France, Canada and across
the United States who could illuminate the pow-
erful queen's life (1492-1549) and works within
the context of French history and offer insight
into the public, the private and the secret life
of Marguerite.

"Very few women achieved star status" in that
age, observes Reynolds-Cornell, whose doctoral
dissertation focused on Marguerite's Heptameron.
"There had been many studies written about
[Marguerite], but she was not considered an im-
portant character. She was considered more a dil-
ettante and a mystic, very interested in religion
in this because she saved lives but was simply
not considered a great brain, a great influence, a
great power in terms of literature."

But Reynolds-Cornell holds a different opin-
ion. "She was very influential in church reform."
She was a kind, well-educated woman, who
was fascinated with religion and who wrote
"with the didactic aim; never totally to entertain."
She wrote meditations, songs and plays, all of
which dealt with religion, with death or relation-
ships of people love, friendship, marriage, faith-
fulness, integrity with intellectual and social
"prisons," with liberation of the intellect, but
never manners.

BORN APRIL 11, 1492, to Charles de Valois-
Orleans, comte d'Angouleme, and Louise of Sa-
voy, Marguerite was influential as queen consort
to King Henry II of Navarre and as the sister of
King Francis I, who almost by a fluke (French
kings Louis XII and Charles VIII died without
male heirs) acceded to the throne of France in
1515. She was a patron of Humanists and Reform-
ers, and a writer, producing poems, spiritual essays,
songs and novellas. Heptameron, considered her
most important work and published posthumously
in 1558, is a collection of 72 stories told by travel-
lers delayed in their return from a Pyrenean spa.

A voracious reader, Marguerite had other hab-
its good hygiene and a balanced diet which

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE

TE DE NAV-

Many members
of Marguerite's

circle were
brought up on
charges of
heresy, their
works

condemned.
Many were
killed. "This was
a time when
people were
burned at the
stake tor their
religious beliefs."

seemed rather quirky tor her day. Her idiosyncra-
sies would not have been tolerated had she not
enjoyed the "protection" of courr lite; but she was,
after all, a prixJuct of court lite. Two years after her
brother Francis was Kirn (Marguerite was tour
\ ears i ild at the time), their rather, Charles, died.
Marguerite, her mother and brother were invited
by the king to live in the castle Amboise and Kith
children were educated by outstanding scholars.
"It was a happy and warm intellectual place to be
when she and her brother were together," com-
ments Reynolds-Cornell. "The only person she
thought had no faults was her brother. She adored
him. Friendship was a passionate thing in the 16th
century, a lot more important than it is now. like
a Kind."

When Marguerite was 17, (and thought to be
practically past marrying age), Marguerite's mar-
riage was arranged to Charles, Fourth Duke ot
Alencon, who is described as a "kind man ot lim-
ited intellect." Distraught by the betrothal. Mar-
guerite is said to have "wept enough tears to hol-
low out a stone" during the wedding ceremony. To
the union she brought intellectual passion and a
vast library- which she continued to build. She
liked to entertain and was given to kitchen inno-
vation, but led what Reynolds-Cornell describes
as a rather dull lite. However, 1515 proved a
turning-point.

With the death of King Louis XII, brother
Francis advanced to the throne, and Marguerite,
with the added title ot duchess of Alencon, was
allowed much freedom and greater cause to
traverse the provinces. She witnessed first-hand
corruption within many convents, "some were
little more than brothels." and recognized a need
for reform within the Catholic Church which had
grown wealthy and powerful as the poor became
poorer. She was familiar with Martin Luther's
works and was influenced by the doctrinal and
disciplinary reformists: Francois Rabelais, Clement
Marot, Bonaventure Des Periers and Etienne
Dolet. Her spiritual concerns drew her to seek
counsel in the Humanist scholar Jacques Lefevre
d'Etaples and precipitated what Reynolds-Cornell
describes as a "turning point in Marguerite's spiri-
tual itinerary."

She became involved in the evangelical move-
ment and extended protection to the scholars who
wished to return study to the classical Greek texts.
Tins approach, which grew into what is now-
called the College of France, differed greatly from

the scholarly methods employed by the traditional
Faculty ot Theology ot the University of Pans
(SorKinne). Explains Reynolds-Cornell: "It was a
direct challenge that the University- oi Paris took
very badly but they [College ot France] engaged
the best scholars from Germany, France, Switzer-
land, Italy, and people would come from all those
countries to hear their lectures. It was a great Hu-
manistic wave that engulfed Europe and Marguer-
ite and her brother greatly influenced this."

n an age when knowledge
and religion were closely
enrwined, "ideas deemed
false or heretical posed a
threat both to good order in
this world and to salvation
in the next. Censorship was therefore as logical
and necessary to people in the sixteenth century
as are traffic laws and the control of toxic sub-
stances to us in the twentieth," observes James K.
Farge of the Pontifical Institute ot Mediaeval Stud-
ies in Toronto in his colloquium address. "The
Faculty- of Theology- was the heart ot conservatism
in France and the Parkment of Paris was its strong
right ami." Many members of Marguerite's circle
were brought up on charges of heresy, their works
condemned and many killed.

"This was a time when people were burned at
the stake tor their religious beliefs. Books were
bumed and books were banned." says Revnolds-
Comell, who has published three book-length
studies on French women authors of the 16th cen-
tury-. Marguerite protected men who advanced
church reform and scholars of the new school
from prison and sometimes from death. Appar-
ently it was through her that John Calvin was in-
formed that he was aKiut to be arrested. "Later on
she and Calvin did not see eye to eye and they
stopped communicating. He felt she was not aus-
tere enough. Others thought her too austere."

While the ecclesiastical and intellectual battles
dominated Marguerite's life, economic and geo-
graphic wars raged beyond the provinces. In 1525,
a failed battle placed Francis I in a Madrid prison.
the captive of Emperor Charle- V of Spain.
"It was K"cause of Marguerite's husband's
[Charles due d' Alencon] misunderstanding of
some battle plan," that her brother, the French
king, was captured, and her husband was mortally
wounded, explains Reynolds-Cornell. "Charles
d* Alencon was of course very remorseful and upset

I 1 2 FALL

16TH-CENTURY FRENCH AUTHOR

about that." He died aftet 15 yeats of marriage,
leaving no heirs.

BROTHER FRANCIS was "the person she loved
most in her entire life," and Marguerite would not
rest until he was freed from prison. She traveled to
Spain to seek his release and found him ill. "She
was beside herself," explains Reynolds-Cornell.
With the Spanish crown she negotiated fiercely
for his release, all the while watching the ap-
proach of her passport deadline. "When she se-
cured his release and documents were drawn, she
left not in a carriage but on horseback, galloping
across the Pyrenees to beat the sunset. When she
arrived back in France she collapsed from her
horse and sustained a nasty cut on her leg."

Charles V was so impressed with Marguerite s
abilities that he asked tor her hand in marriage.
His request was not obliged. In 1527, Marguerite
married Henry of Albret, king ot Navarre, who
was 1 1 years her junior. With him she bore a
daughter, Jeanne d' Albret (who would be the
mother of Henry IV of France). Henry was fond of
Marguerite but as Reynolds-Cornell explains, "he
much enjoyed the company of attractive women"
and entertained a mistress. The complexities of
loyalty, friendship and marriage Marguerite chose
to explore in The Coach, Comedy for Four Women,
On Perfect Love and later in the characters of
Heptameron.

WRITING HAD ALWAYS BEEN Marguerite's
response, particularly in times of death and
mourning which were frequent. She lost her fa-
ther, husband, aunt, nieces and nephews, endured
several miscarriages before giving birth to a daugh-
ter, lost a child in 1530 and endured the death of
her mother in 1531. During these periods of
mourning and contemplation, Marguerite wrote.
Her Dialogue in the Form of a Nocturnal Vision and
Mirror of the Sinful Soul (which was banned) fol-
lowed the deaths of her niece and daughter. Be-
tween 1526 and 1530 she penned Prayer to Our
hard Jesus, Salve Regina, Theatre Profane, Prayer
from the Faithful Soul and Discord Between the Soul
and the Flesh which centered on Paul's Epistle to
the Romans.

By 1535 when six "hetetics" were paraded and
burned at the stake in Paris, Marguerite had al-
ready left court (possibly at her brother's request),
begun to travel extensively and spent a good bit of
time in Beam. In 1540 she resided at the Louvre.

After 1 542 Marguerite was less in the public
eye and kept a low profile because her brother
hardened his stance against moving away from
church tradition. "That was a very logical thing
for the King of France who needed the church to
reaffirm his power and to get money," observes
Reynolds-Cornel 1 .

Comedy for Four Women is believed to have
been written in 1542 and Most, Much, Little, Less
in 1544. The latter was critical of the Roman
Church and revealed her belief that the differ-
ences between the Sorbonne faculty and her circle
could not be reconciled. By 1546, all the key
members of the Humanist circle were dead, her
husband's mistress had borne him a son,
Marguerite's daughter was restricted from travel to
Navarre, and she was even more isolated from her
brother (who died in 1547).

Surrounded by death, Marguerite began to
contemplate her own

^T ''f-F

*->>v 2L,

X* 1 -M

life and what legacy
she might leave,
prompting publication
of The Pearl of the
Pearl Among Prin-
cesses. "I feel that she
included a sample of
every genre in which
she wrote," explains
Reynolds-Cornell. "I
think she did that to
show that she was a

versatile and creative woman. That was very rare
and it shows that she was perhaps not as humble
as we thought she was, especially in light of the
title."

She died in 1549.

Reynold-Cornell's insights on the French
writer, illuminated in her doctoral dissertation,
The Storytellers in the Heptameron's Contribution to
Political and Social Thinking of Marguerite de
Navarre, were used by Robert Aulotte, professor
emeritus of the Sorbonne, in his lectures on Mar-
guerite. Aulotte, the fomaer president of the Inter-
national Society of 16th Century Specialists, par-
ticipated in the recent ASC colloquium.

"When he read my dissertation, he sent me a
letter and said he realized that women perhaps
understood Marguerite better than men did and
that there was a dimension that had escaped
them," the ASC professor relays. "That was very
ego boosting."

fr

,Jf3 --*

)nAVi)iutfil-e-

/

1

Throughout Marguerite's
life, writing was her
ongoing response,
particularly in times of
conflict or sorrow.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 1 3 I

4 FALL 1 992

WONDER

LIGHTING

1 never saw their faces, never

heard their speech,
and no one 1 know ever heard

their names.
1 only stumbled on their dark

shades , some might say
by Chance. I like to think
my Muse or Angels led me

to them, hidden partly by

the night ....

The Aesthetics
of Research

By Harriet Stovall Kelley '55
Illustrations by Ralph Gilbert

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 5 1

THE SERENDIPITY OF DISCOVERY

Research is formalized curiosity.
It is poking and prying with a
purpose. It is a seeking that he
who wishes may know the
cosmic secrets of the world and
they that dwell therein.

Zora Neale Hurston

I NEVER HEARD OF ZORA Neale Hurston
until my mother-in-law's Atlanta home near Little
Five Points was condemned in the 1960s to make
way for the "infamous" Druid Hills freeway that
was scrapped before completion (now the site of
the Jimmy Carter Library). Going through her
basement we found a dusty old book left there ap-
parently by a former boarder. It was Dust Tracks on
a Road and was identified as having come from the

De Sun, Ah!

Gethered up de fiery skirts of her gannents
And wheeled about de throne, Ah!
Saying, Ah, make man after me, ha!
God gazed upon the sun
And sent her back to her blood-red socket
And shook His head, ha!
De Moon, ha!

Grabbed up de reins of de tides.
And dragged a thousand seas behind her
As she walked around de thtone
Ah-h, please, make man after me
But God said, "NO"!
De stars bust out from their diamond
sockets

And circled de glitterin' throne cryin
A-aah! Make man after me.
God said, "NO!

I'll make man in my own image, ha!" /
From Jonah's Gourd Vi'n

ZORA NEALE HURSTON (19014960)

During ilw I larlem Renaissance this flamboyant, multifaceted artist wrote
short stores, plays, musical reviews, novels, articles, essays and critiques frr
newspapers arid journals. A graduate of Morgan College and" recipient of a
Guggenheim fellowship, her first published novel was Jonah's Gourd Vine.

"Phillis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA." (I'd
never heard of Phillis Wheatley, either, but
through this coincidence she became one of my
spiritual comrades, dear as a sister, closer than a
contemporary.)

Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Fla., the
country's first all-black autonomous community
established by its own citizens after the Civil War.
I never made any effort to find out about
Eatonville, or visit there, but one summer right
after 1 became acquainted with the author, we
were driving home to Atlanta from a trip to
Disney World in Orlando and the car died from a
broken fan belt or something. We were right by an
exit ramp on the highway and could ease off and
coast to a safe stop. We looked up and saw that it
was the Eatonville exit. . . .

Because of these unexpected encounters, my
life was enriched by two women, Hurston and
Wheatley, who became profoundly significant for
me. 1 didn't learn of them in a class, no one rec-
ommended them to me, I discovered them only by
accident, in the cellar of a house my husband's
mother had lived in for 40 years.

Of course, at Agnes Scott I was taught the
principles of authentic research: how to follow
ideas through channels to conclusions, how to
document findings with meticulous precision, but
as any scholar knows, some of the most intriguing
findings and intricate involvements have come
out of the blue like "bolts from heaven."

It seems that when one becomes immersed in a
subject, tidbits seem to gravitate or magnetize to
our ken (to use a poetic term). Serendipity?
Lagniappe? I don't even know if it has a name,
but I think it's more than these. As is true with
our approach to Scripture, I think all we can
do is be humble before the Mystery of
these experiences and not try to equate
believing with understanding.

[ABOUT THE SAME TIME I became
'acquainted with Hurston, I moved from
Morningside to Braithwood Court, in a section of
north Atlanta, with streets named Hazelvvood,
Boxwood, Cherrywood, WillowWood. Those
trees I knew, but what was a Braith? I looked it up
("A restless, roaming, discontented, disembodied
spirit" appropriate since I was never happy living
there). Then my eye fell on "Braithwaite, William
Stanley: Black American mystic poet, born in
Boston, works unrelated to race."

16 FALL 1992

AESTHETICS OF RESEARCH

It was some years later that I made the discov-
ery that this man had taught creative literature at
Atlanta University for most of his career. Earlier,
through yet another happenstance, I became ac-
quainted with Nan Cooke Carpenter of Athens,
Georgia, whose sister Margaret Haley had collabo-
rated with Braithwaite on some of the anthologies
of American Magazine Verse for which he was best
known. Cooke and I shared the same publisher at
the time, and when we began to correspond (after
I moved to Texas in 1983) she sent me a copy of
his 1958 collection that her sister had edited and
introduced.

CHARLES MORGAN IS ANOTHER favorite
writer whose themes I share. I discovered him the
year after my graduation. (I invite you to discover
his themes for yourself. I think I'm the only person
who has checked out his essays from the ASC li-
brary in all these years!) I was working in the li-
brary and was assigned to process for acquisition
the collection of books donated by the late Emma
May Laney upon her retirement after 37 years of
teaching English at the College. Morgan's essays
were among them. I read them only out of curios-
ity because Charles Morgan Kelley is my
husband's (at that time my fiance's) name. An
uncanny affinity sprang up. I later learned that
Morgan had died about the very time I was dis-
covering him, the same year, also, that my own
father died.

During the ensuing years, without even trying,
I found more and more connections with the
Morgans people in Atlanta who had known
Charles Morgan during World War II, who still
kept up with his widow in London. One family
kindly loaned me copies of Morgan's books no
longer available anywhere else. I never sought out
these people, but met them first through a tennis
partner and a fellow employee of my husband.

I believe these found fellows have not so much
"influenced me" as they have awakened in me the
recognition of shared affinities. C.S. Lewis speaks of
older writers as "sources, not influences nor mod-
els." But even the word source implies to me a pri-
ority, not mere congruity which has been my ex-
perience with these writers through the years.

There's more. . . .

In London in 1984, while on a business trip
with my husband, I stopped in a small bookshop
to ask directions to the British Museum and my
eye fell on a shiny little green and gold book on

Tto

imes of sorrowing: yea, to weep:
To wash my soul with tears, and

keep
It clean from earth's too constant

gain,
Even as a flower needs the rain
To cool the passion of the sun,
And takes a fresh new glory on.

Farther than noon lo! the sun
^ mounts no higher,
And Love in man's life is his
noon-sun a-beaming.

Failure is a crown of sorrow,
Success is a crown of fears. . . .

The House of Falling Leaves

WILLIAM S. BRAITHWAITE (18784962)

Poet, anthologist, literary critic, he is best known as compiler and editor of
1 7 volumes of the Anthology of Magaiine Verse and Year Book of
American Poetry, which helped launch the careers ofVachel Lindsay and
Carl Sandburg. He wrote critical essays for such publications as Atlantic.
From 1936-1945, he was professor of literature at Atlanta University.

the shelf just past the proprietor's head. It was a
mint copy of Morgan's history of The House of
MacMillan written for the publisher's centennial
in the 1940s. Such a find is humbling, and I sup-
pose, a little frightening. I was not looking for a
copy of this book or any book, whatever. If the
store had been a flower shop, at that moment I
would have dipped in for directions. The best de-
tective skills and experience in the world (and I
think I'd have made a pretty good detective)
could not have sufficed to uncover, with as little
effort, these im-mediate (which is one of the
meanings of mystic) "haps."

AMONG THE MOST GLITTERING of these
gems came to me during my work on William
Ferguson Smith's (my great-grandfather) Civil
War papers, discovered a hundred years after he
wrote them, and narrated in the third person as a
novel. To validate the authenticity of his battle
accounts as well as his historical and autobio-
graphical data, I spent seven years studying the

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 7 I

THi NDIPITY OF DISCOVERY

These

anecdotes about
my great grand-
father do not
minimize the
importance
of pristine
research. The
point is to
show that there
are rewards
and receipts of
sublime
inheritance
even in the
driest of
drudgery.

period, the idiom, the customs of his era. Some
pu::hng inconsistencies I could not reconcile. In
i me early chapter there was a reference to Par
LaChaise in Paris. Being provincial and untrav-
eled, 1 naturally assumed this to be a typo for Port
but could find nothing.

After the manuscript had already gone to press,
I was in the h< une i >t .1 friend who had jusi died,
helping her daughters to sort out things, and on
the coffee table, in plain view, was an old copy of
Smithsonian magazine with the cover illustration
for a feature article on Pere Lachaise, the Paris
cemetery where many notables are buried! The
wonder is that the public library people I queried
tor reference did not make this connection, un-
able to find it as I had been. I cannot really fault
one of them for pronouncing Versailles as "Veer-
Sallies" because I myself had called gaol gowl (hard
g) until I was grown and visited Williamsburg with
my children. Again, so much for proper research.

A MORE STARTLING answer came to a

puzzling reference in the manuscript
about prisoners of war at Point
Lookout, Md., raising the Confed-
erate flag in their quarter of the
camp. Experts from A to Z (Dr.
Bell Wiley of Emory had become

and died before I could avail
myself of his endorsement and
counsel) had told me an occur-
rence like this was not possible. My
ancestor, they believed, had made it
up. I doubted that. Up to this point,
my great-grandfather's veracity
had been impeccable. He
had been incarcer-
ated at Point Look-
out. So he should
kni i\\

I queried Edwin
Beitzel, head of the
park now encom-
passing the old en-
campment. This
time I did not hear
until almost too
late. To save face
both for my tore-
bear and my publisher, 1 deleted the para-
graph, reluctantly, to "purge" the original
manuscript from possible error. After the gal-

leys were set, I received a long distance call from
the New Hampshire Historical Society. Beitzel,
who had helped me before, had retired and New
Hampshire had somehow fallen heir to some of his
papers, including my letter. The man who called
had found a parallel incident: officials of a rebel
camp had allowed the New Hampshire flag to be
raised, without incident. I rewrote the passage (or
rather, reinstated it in my great grandfather's origi-
nal words and at my own expense), relieved, and
awed at the mysterious workings of the Guardian
Angels of Accuracy.

THESE NARRATIONS do not minimize the im-
portance of pristine research. I suppose the point is
to show that there are rewards and receipts of sub-
lime inheritance even in the driest of drudgery.

I am enriched by my findings, treasures that Just
Came, but would they have come were I not al-
ready focused on truth? Who said that Beauty
eludes us when we seek her, but overtakes us when
our minds are dedicated to our duties? The Bible
does tell us to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven,
and all else, material and otherwise, shall be added.
And we learned in human anatomy and in Dr.
William Calder's astronomy, that the corner of the
eye is most sensitive to brightness and to the mag-
nitude of the stars.

A final cap on the interconnectedness oi all
these things came when I inherited a large scrap-
book that had been made by a village lady for my
great-grandfather, the Civil War chronicler. Miss
Jo Varner, whose old home is now Indian Spring
Hotel (cunently being restored by the Butts
County Historical Society) made these books as
spelling-bee prizes and convalescence gifts for her
friends. Today, several are housed in collections of
the Georgia State Archives in downtown Atlanta.
This particular scrapbook contained random
newsclippings and programmes, pictures and trivia,
and in perusing it, my attention was arrested by a
long article cut from an undocumented source,
headlined, "Young Negro Poet Gains Acclaim on
Two Continents." The clipping supplied, belatedly,
biographical details I had not seen anywhere else,
on William Stanley Braithwaite.

What is the lesson or moral of all this? Some
guarantee that all missing links will eventually tall
into place?

The synthesis of this, tor me, came in my writ-
ing a poem. It 1 had to reduce the principles to a
lesson or moral, 1 would have to say, as I say in the

18 FALL 1992

AESTHETICS OF RESEARCH

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c. 17534784)

Born in Africa, she was purchased from a slave ship (at about age
7) by wealthy Boston merchant John Wheatley. Within a few
months of arriving in the States, she learned to read and write. B;y
17, she had had her first poem published. She went on to write a
book of 38 poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and
Moral, before she died at age 31, shortly after the birth of a child.

Imagination! Who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
The empyeral palace of the thundering God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind. . .

On Imagination

"Her morning sun, which rose divinely bright,
Was quicky mantled widi the gloom of night.
But hear in heaven's blest bowers your Nancy fair,-
And learn to imitate her language there." k . _ _ -

On the death of a young lady of five years of age

"X

poem, let us be careful what our purposes are.
Those who crusade may miss their target, their
audience, their purpose, their best rewards. Zora
Neale Hurston was a storyteller, pure and simple.
Braithwaite and Wheatley were devoted to their
art and experience as well. They are alongside-
companions, not mentors or tutors, not accusing
me from a podium or pedestal or yelling at me
from the past.

When 1 judge poetry contests, I eliminate first
all those that are too preachy, too didactic, too
obvious. Give me the experience, I say, and I'll
make my own point.

I HAVE LOOKED for many other elusive things

and people I never did find, and sleuthed out
others, intentionally, and found them through the
usual avenues of research.

So why did these other experiences occur?
Those of us who look for meaning and purpose
and plan in all we do, have no easy answers, only
occasional stunning evidence.

That there is a design is apparent. It is the
repeated minoring, reflection, of the random
flotsam in a kaleidoscope that gives symmetry to
any otherwise chaotic anangement of baubles,
and holds our fascinated attention. It may be
nothing more than to delight us, and keep us in
the game. It is not an answer, but it is a start.

The Question is gift enough.

HARRIET STOVALL KELLEY

Kelley '55 is an artist, writer and poet living in
Texas, who spent the first 50 years of her life in
Atlanta. An art major, she illustrated the Spiing
1955 edition of The Alumnae Quarterly, and
designed the sketches used on Alumnae Associa-
tion letterheads and bmchures for many years.
Her husband works with IBM and they have

The italized excerpts at the beginning and end of this article ate from "Three
reprinted courtesy of The National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Prize

three grown children . Her works include an his-
torical study, The Rival Lovers of William
Ferguson Smith 1845-1912, publislied by
Peachtree Publishers in 1980, and My Flovilla,
published by HaSk in 1988. Recently she won
the Natiorial Federation of State Poetry Societies
Grand Prize for her poem The Sand Bottle.

Figures Far: A Charcoal Sketch," by Harriet Stovall Kelley,
Poems of 1986.

Go know them now,

go find them,

hear them, listen,
all you who think Art

must have

Messages .
Forget all politics and

propaganda.

Talewiights ,

mystics ,
all, in their own way,

taught us this

lesson:
there doesn't have to be

a lesson in it after

all!
It is the light that

matters , in the

dark.

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 1 9 I

WHEN CORPORATE
PATTERNS DON'T FIT

Blithe spirit Erin
Odom stitches a
career from
swatches of cloth.

Written hy
C 'eleste Pennington
Photographed hy Monika
Nikorc and Mark Sandlin

Erin Odom shatters most
stereotypes of a traditional
qmlter. "Lots of people
perceive quilts as 'country'
or 'old fashioned.' I try to
dispel that idea. I try to re-
educate each person I meet.
I like people to put some of
themselves in the design."

SHORT, SILVERY NEEDLE. A
heavy-duty thimble. Orange-
handled scissors. A tangle of white
threads on dark teal cotton. And
. an ample supply of hydrogen
peroxide. At age 27, Erin Odom traded a promis-
ing corporate career for these quilting tools and a
simpler life.

Under a soft light pouring through her dining
room window, Odom '85, a slim, well-toned
woman with roundish black-rimmed glasses and
dark, shorn hair, sits alone at fabric stretched over
a white PVC frame.

Carefully she loads up her needle with stitches:
this day she traces her own patterns of soft dark
plumes; on other days she has outlined golden star
bursts or bear claws or pink flying geese and kelp-
stitched corners and waves of sea-foam green.

Each night by lamplight she cuts shapes from
scraps of colorful print and solid cottons, then
with precision she stitches them into blocks and
strips and lovely patterns.

"Today my fingers are pretty sore," she admits,
examining a punctured, calloused thumb.

Etched in painful memory is her work on one
quilt, straight through the night to 4 a.m. on the
day of an art gallery exhibit deadline. "My fingers
were bleeding." With hydrogen peroxide she com-
pletely erased the stains from the fabric. But her
fingers remained tender.

"I didn't want to quilt again," she remarks,
then stops herself and grins "for a week, at least."

THE WHISPER of thread pushed and pulled
through layers of cloth and cotton batting punctu-
ates what for Odom is a solitary occupation.

Sewing by hand cross-stitch and embroi-
dery Odom learned as a youngster. But she has
never joined with other women around a large,
wooden frame for a convivial quilting bee nor has
she attended a quilting class. "Some real quilters
might come in and say, 'Where did you leam your
technique'"' What Odom knows, she has learned
by trial and error or from books. She confesses, "I
am a loner."

She often listens to )azz as she works. "I don't
consider myself a patient person," she explains,
"but tor the most part I don't get impatient with
this because I enjoy meticulously detailed work.

"1 in sit and do these little bitty stitches every
day, hour after hour."

On schedule, she's up and quilting by 9 a.m.
With breaks for lunch, a walk, or exercising her
fingers, she quilts until 5:30 or 6 p.m.

Often during those silent times, Odom men-
tally sketches quilt tops or plans her weekend or
ponders life's problems. "Having a steady income.
Making this successful. That's mostly it."

She laughs. "I am not wild in terms of going
out and really living it up. But day by day, I'm liv-
ing on the edge."

Less than two years ago Odom started thinking
seriously about quilting full time. She paid off
what she could, built up savings and began re-
structuring her finances.

Over seven months she began phasing out of a
successful job as operations manager for an indus-
trial real estate firm: "I had acquired a lot of skills.
But as time went on, I knew it wasn't my niche. I
didn't like the corporate atmosphere; it was too
political for me. And my creative juices never
came into play."

But to make that change of lifestyle requires "a
lot of realism," admits Odom. "I spent a year of
gut-wrenching kinds of thinking just to get myself
ready to cut back to part-time."

For less than a year, quilting has been Odom's
business. To insure a small, steady income she
works as a wordprocessor/bookkeeper for a few
hours a week. "Since quilting is really what I want
to do, I am unwilling to sacrifice very much quilt-
ing time in order to make more money. I just don't
want any job to cut into my quilting."

So she has established clear priorities. "My bills
come first. Quilting supplies come second.
Somebody's birthday that's a priority. Sometimes
I feel the need to buy a little something for myself
every now and then, just to keep my hand in the
consumer market. But I have a lot of will power. 1
want to become self-sufficient in this."

Her long-range goals include showing her
quilts in more galleries. Eventually she wants to
serve corporate clients with what she calls "more
art pieces than functional quilts." But for now she
relies on individual clients with advertising by
word oi mouth.

Since making her first quilt a yard-square
wall hanging with a broken ribbon border and
bright pinwheels against black she's completed
nine. Bed-sized quilts start at $650; wall hangings,
$300 and up. Some, like one patchwork quilt, she
might love to sell but hates to part with: "1 think I

20 FALL 1992

%.

# *

THE QUILTER

Odom, a
history and
French major at
Agnes Scott,
grew up in a
family of artists:
both parents
paint; her sister
makes jewelry.
Odom's gift for
quilting is
handed down
from maternal
grandparent
Mamaw Grace
Fowler: "It's in
the blood.' 1

subconsciously designed that with me in mind."
She likes at least three projects going at once, each
in a different stage of completion. From an armoire
she pulls the beginnings of another quilt: small
squares neatly hand-sewn together, 17-20 stitches
per side with 1/4-inch seams all around. "Straight
lines are easy to work with. Curved shapes are
hard. Points," she warns, "are tedious."

BLOCKS OF TURQUOISE, black, hot pink,
dark and what she calls light-teal green spill from
the 2x4 portable frame onto shiny hardwood din-
ing room floor. This quilt, commissioned as a cov-
erlet tor a Victorian bed and breakfast inn, is a rich
juxtaposition of color and line, employing piece-
work and applique. Colors she has chosen for this
quilt complement a pre-existing scheme. So her
real challenge was to combine them into a cus-
tomised design for the client.

For ideas Odom usually combs books of quilts.
She also borrows from images around her. "There
is a big hutch at Mick's restaurant in Decatur. It
has an interesting running pattern. It would make
a great quilt border.

"Everything I look at turns into a possible
quilt pattern."

Because quilt designing offers endless combina-
tions of color and pattern, "the possibilities out
there exceed what I have done or what I will ever
be able to do," laments Odom. "The choices are
hard to narrow down." For this project, Odom
talked with the client and spent a night at the inn
to gain a sense of the place. "I worked and worked
at it, but I couldn't come up with the design.
What epitomized this client? This project I had to
set aside for a while."

Like colorful pieces in a turning kaleidoscope,
finally the elements fell into place. Against a tradi-
tional block pattern Odom set several architec-
tural details from the inn's Victoriana gable and
weathervane: appliques of stylized birds, stars (4-
point, 8-point and royal stars), half moons and
dancing ladies.

If quilting is an art, it is also a science. Before
Odom ever begins to cut or stitch a project, she
must translate her colored pencil sketch into
inches and yards of fabric. She plans tor each pat-
tern to match, criss-cross or dovetail precisely with
the next. All renderings and measurements she
keeps on tile. "The worst part of quilting tor me is
figuring out how big all the pieces should be. I
hate math. It's agony."

ODOM SEEMS A STUDY in contrast with an-
cient seamstresses (from the days of poor knights
and fair maidens) who once stitched together
two layers of fabric, stuffed with wool, to warm
their castle beds or to fashion into vests as substi-
tutes for armour, or with the English and Dutch
who brought quilt-making to the New World. By
the 18th century Americans were quilting petti-
coats and patchwork comforters.

She treasures those old, soft and worn
bedcovers. Some with their melange of fabrics
and embroidered signatures hold family history,
remembrances of a church missionary group or
the bits and pieces of a larger community. And
each recalls gentler times. "Most of us can re-
member a quilt in our lives, one that may have
been ugly or pretty," she says. "My mother had a
scrap quilt that my grandmother made that was
always on someone's bed."

From their closets and attics, friends send
scraps to Odom; she purchases traditional fabrics
from New England. But scrap quilts and tradi-
tional fabrics provide merely a point of departure
tor her own artistry which reflects an imaginative
sense of pattern, design and color. Often she cuts
her own mylar stencils and templates. She moves
quilt pieces around and around on the floor in
different combinations to achieve unusual effects
of prints and solids, of primary colors with others.
For one project she pulled together hot pink, hot
turquoise and bright yellow: "I like the colors to
really do something.

"I especially like rarely seen, older quilt pat-
terns," she says, yet insists, "I will never copy a
quilt exactly. I don't like to make carbon copies."

FOUR TALL KARATE trophies stand on a
white-painted windowseat in the living room.
Odom, a black-belt karate instmctor, removes
the trophies and opens the lid. Inside is an
"oddfellows" quilt made from an unfinished top
handed down from her maternal grandparent,
Mamaw Grace Fowler. "She started this not long
after she was married, but she had never finished
it. Each piece is a different fabric."

It was this unfinished quilt top that invited
Odom's own first quilting efforts.

She carefully draws out the oddfellow, danc-
ing with rows on rows of tiny prints and solids.
She spreads it out on the floor and kneels over it.
"When 1 was nine, my Mom made us all match-
ing Easter dresses out of this fabric: the pink was

22 FALL 1992

ERIN O D OM '85

Piecing fabric is the first step, then the pieced cover is quilted (smched)^in a pattern to a backing material, with
wool, cotton or other fabric m between for added warmth. Traditional quilting calk for at least 1 1 stitches per inch.

Mother's," she hunts and points, "the blue was
mine, this green was my sisters."

Odom finds a bold pink-flowered pattern:
"This was from a dress of my Grandmother."

She points again, "This peach fabric with the
tennis player? That was from my mother's
playsuit." She smoothes another bright piece:
"And this pink-orange-navy-brown ugly striped
stuff very 70s was from one of my favorite out-
fits in the world."

She sighs. "These days, people don't sew so

they don't have the scraps with memories of their
old dresses and playsuits. That's disappointing."
She carefully folds up the quilt and puts it away. "I
guess I have a nostalgic streak."

Quilting is her way to preserve a valued tradi-
tion, a sense of family, a reminder of another time.
"I value this link with the past," says Odom run-
ning her hand along the folds of a favorite patch-
work quilt. "To me, this is like comfort food

"It is something to wrap around you, while you
eat chicken soup or watch an old movie."

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 23

THE MERITS

OF SELF-SCRUTINY

Once a decade,
Agnes Scott
goes through the
vital college
accreditation
process. For Dean
Blanshei, it's an
opportunity, not a
"terrible burden."

One thing that is wrong
with us and eats away at
us: we do not know
enough about ourselves.

Lewis Thomas in an address at Douglas College

gnes Scott's Dean of the College
Sarah Blanshei takes off her wire-
rimmed glasses and rubs her eyes.
In a day filled with hack-to-back
appointments, once again she's
switching gears. Her focus at this moment is col-
lege accreditation and SACS (Southern Associa-
tion of Colleges and Schools).

In less than a year after arriving at Agnes
Scott, Blanshei began laying groundwork for the
institution-wide self-study and resulting report to
be reviewed by a visiting SACS team in 1993.
It's a once per decade event. The selt-study por-

1 lathering information far the SACs study takes Dean
Blanshei across campus several times each day.

tion of the review engages the entire college com-
munity and requires hours on hours of meetings,
committee work, detailed research and the diges-
tion of stacks of written and statistical reports.
Recommendations for the College are distilled
from task force and department reports. Some
administrators might rely on assistants to organize
the study. But Blanshei's concerns for the College
are as wide-ranging as the study and her goal is to
help the College achieve a holistic approach to
liberal arts education. "I see this as an opportu-
nity," she says, "instead of a terrible burden."

Ultimately the SACS review determines insti-
tutional accreditation.

THE REVIEW ITSELF involves analysis of
numerous interrelated and complex issues. Rec-
ommendations from the self-study 10 years ago led
to the newly arrived President Ruth Schmidt's
immediate investigation into several philosophical
and practical matters ranging from academic free-
dom to expansion of admission's Return-to-
College program to hiring a full-time chaplain, to
the structural integrity of the Hub (the Murphey
Candler Building) as well as Rebekah, Main and
Inman residence halls.

It's anticipated that the 1992-93 SACS recom-
mendations will closely parallel plans already out-
lined and under way as a result of the recent stra-
tegic planning process. Blanshei, who played a key
role in strategic planning, feels that that will cer-
tainly facilitate this review. As will, according to
others, her approach and the experience she
brings to the task.

Faculty members describe Blanshei as a quick
study, "impeccably organized." Notes Michael
Brown, professor of history and chair of the self-
study a decade ago, "She has a wonderful head for
detail. She has an appetite tor work that is close to
being awesome, I think."

Rock-ribbed intellectual intensity is how John
Presley describes it. He served as associate provost
to Blanshei when she was the first worn. in provost
at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. before coming
to Agnes Scott two years ago. Blanshei organized
the Lafayette selt-study and served as chair for the
Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools. "She set a pace," says Robert Kirkwood,
retired director of Middle States, "that others ad-
mired and tried to keep up with." Through that,

I 24 FALL 1992

she gained experience on both sides of the review
process, handling what Kirkwood describes as
delicate issues. "She was rigorous and demanding,
while at the same time sympathetic to problems
that perplex institutions."

Since migrating South, Blanshei has also
served on a SACS review team.

She has weighed the advantages and pitfalls;
she knows the intricacies of the reviews. She un-
derstands the Agnes Scott College faculty wari-
ness concerning a new (1986) SACS requirement
for each institution to gather evidence to show
what it is doing for students. "The new buzzword
is assessment" comments one faculty member.
"That implies measuring outcomes. And this
drives faculty right up the wall." While assessment
does not require "precise measurements," it puts a
gnarly spin on an already labor-intensive, time-
consuming process. Time, notes Blanshei, "is most
precious to faculty: time to prepare lectures, to
grade papers, to meet with students, time to grow
and reflect and not be crushed by routine."

AT THE SAME TIME, she knows that in recent
years consumers have taken a more critical view
of education. They want to know if a college is,
indeed, providing the product described in its aca-
demic catalog and student recruitment materials.
Earlier evaluation of education in general and
particularly higher education tended to be anec-
dotal, reminds Tom Maier, acting director of com-
puter services. But today, he says, "People aren't

willing to take other people's words. They want
hard evidence to be convinced that this education
is a worthwhile investment. I think in general it
has been good for education. But there is a con-
cern. Do you spend so much time assessing it that
you never get around to doing it?"

Blanshei reminds that the approach to han-
dling the study itself and consequent recommen-
dations is "not prescriptive you find your own
way." Some colleges have taken a statistical ap-
proach, relying on standardized tests to measure
effectiveness. Others have experimented with
more qualitative analysis.

Blanshei cites some conceptual abuse as insti-
tutions have dealt with self-study. Yet this process
of soul-searching and self-scnitiny which first
emerged in the late '60s/early 70s has also
benefitted many. As a result of assessment, for
instance, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania
decided to hire external examiners to evaluate the
overall development of honors students. A small
private college in Wisconsin has developed a
series of portfolios to track the students' progress
through the institution. Harvard University,
beginning with leadership of then-president Derek
Bok, has been involved in self- assessment for a
number of years now. One result, notes Blanshei,
is that "they have come up with some innovative
learning curves."

Blanshei, who trained as an historian in the
field of new social history at Bryn Mawr with
David Herlihy, welcomes the entire review as

In one of the rnany meetings
that consume her days,
Dean Blanshei talks about
library space with director
Judith B. Jensen (above) .
The SACS study is difficult
arid time-consuming
meetings cut giant slices
from everyone's schedules.
Yet Blanshei feels the re-
wards are more than simply
scholastic acceptance by the
college's peers. It is not
"prescriptive" its findings
offer insight into improve-
ment and new direction.

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 25

S A C C

A T I O N

As a new
member of
the Board of
Directors of
the Association
of American
Colleges, and as
an educator/
administrator,
Blanshei is
concerned
with liberal aits
learning and its
central issue:
What does it
mean to be an
educated person?

another way tor Agnes Scott to gain a more
holistic understanding of itself and the education
it provides. "Where I get my intellectual satisfac-
tion as an administrator is in understanding
interdisciplinary relationships and in forging
new ones.

"What this study means is we have an opportu-
nity to see what we do well and how we can do
things hetter. It will," she explains, using the anal-
ogy of blind men who see the elephant by touch-
ing only one feature or another, "help us see how
all the pieces fit together."

And as to the assessment aspect of the self-

study, she reminds with a smile, "Scholarship says
you back up generalizations."

Agnes Scott has a long history with SACS and
the distinction of being the first college or univer-
sity to receive regional accreditation from them
(1907). When SACS later established a program
of institutional self-study, the College became an
early participant. Blanshei believes the College is
positioned well to execute the current study. And
notes John Pilger, professor of biology, Blanshei
"has brought organization to it so we are not start-
ing next year cold. She has us moving, she's mini-
mizing the burden, spreading it out."

REFLECTIONS

The dean talks about Agnes Scott's past, present and future

Dean Sarah Blanshei had
known Agnes Scott's academic
reputation since high school.
"When I came to Agnes Scott I
felt there was a similarity with
Wheaton [in Massachusetts],
where I visited as an under-
graduate. I also found here
one-on-ones with faculty were
so stimulating. There is a will-
ingness here to listen to and
engage the other. There was
something else, that I found
amazing. The absense of sex-
ism. I didn't have to worry that
I was a token woman and
everything I said would affect
all the other women."

:
Because Agnes Scott is small:
"In a larger institution, one
department may not care what
happens to another. Because
our departments are small,
barriers between departments
and disciplines are much
smaller. Here, people of all dis-
ciplines talk with each other.
I think that nourishes, so that
teachers become the caliber of
i ii -| lie we have here . . . The

place is so small; change affects
everyone. Even a small change
has a ripple effect."

*
Because Agnes Scott is well
endowed: "With a high endow-
ment comes high expectations.
It's tough for this institution to
make choices because of that
legacy of resources. The fear
of choices becomes more
paralyzing."

Her administrative philosophy:
"I try to prepare for each meet-
ing the same way a faculty mem-
ber prepares for a class. I feel I
have to be the
most prepared
person present.
That can be
hard when you
have several
meetings all
day. I try to re-
flect and antici-
pate issues. I try
to do that, not
so I'm simply
putting my
viewpoint

across, but so I am prepared to
appreciate others' points of

To get away from it all she has
a home in the hills overlooking
Lake Burton. "Every time I
look up, I feel refreshed in my
soul." It provides her mini va-
cations and/or an opportunity 7
for uninterrupted work.

To unwind at home, Blanshei
reads for 30-minutes to an hour
each evening. "I enjoy books in
medieval history. I read novels
voraciously."

I 26 FALL 1992

BETWEEN THE LINES

The Life of the
Party: A Look at
Festive Fiction

With its jaunty
double
entendre, the
title of Christopher Ames'
new book, The Life of the
Party, hints at his multifaceted
approach to the ambitious
topic further defined by its
subtitle, Festive Vision in Mod-
em Fiction. An inclusive read-
ership of literary scholars and
lay enthusiasts of 20th-cen-
tury fiction should find these
pages central to their interest.
The Life of the Party is criti-
cism that may change the way
a reader looks at the works of
the seven authors Ames
closely elucidates, but its en-
gaging central argument may
indeed alter the way some
experience life itself. His is
the kind of book that might
reasonably contend for the
Christian Gauss award of Phi
Beta Kappa distinguished by
its scholarship and significant
in its scope.

Extravagant? Perhaps. But
when I agreed to introduce
this promising young
colleague's work, I warned
that my remarks would natu-
rally be predicated on bias.
Now in his seventh year at
Agnes Scott, Chris Ames has
already made consequential
contributions to the depart-
ment of English, which, with
his support and flexibility, has
been diversified on several
exciting fronts.

This fall, for instance,
Ames is teaching a lively
course in postmodern world
fiction, designed for Agnes
Scott's first students in the
new masters program in the

teaching of English.

His first book, rooted in
his prize-winning dissertation
at Stanford University, pro-
claims Ames a scholar of sub-
stance. Standing sturdily on
the now well-trampled shoul-
ders of such giants of literary
theory as Northrop Frye and
Mikhail Bakhtin and build-
ing on the seminal sociologi-
cal and anthropological stud-
ies of Emile Durkheim and
others Ames imaginatively
presses old theory to new pur-
pose in explaining the devel-
oping narrative patterns of
modem fiction as a function
of each literary generation's
response to the celebratory
habits of its culture.

Ames notes that the novel
and the private party have
grown up together. The party,
which begins to develop as an
important social activity in
the 18th century, is the mod-
em legatee of the ancient car-
nival. Like the ancient com-
munity festivals it displaces,
the private party represents a
brief stay and stand against
death: the party encourages
excesses of jollity that belie
the darkness and separation
that tremble at the chrono-
logical edges of the social
event, itself a metaphor for
human life.

Carnivals and festivals of-
ten featured a ritual confron-
tation with death; so, too, the
modem party provides a
veiled encounter with moral-
ity, though in the novels, like
Woolf's Mrs. Dalhway, that
track these modern versions
of the ritual, the traditional
catharsis and return to the
normal social order are often
frustrated.

Noting by a fascinating
survey the extent to which
the party scene is fundamen-
tal to modern fiction, Ames
proceeds to focus on party
texts that span the century
from the mortal celebrations
of Joyce's wake to the misrule
of Coover's Gerald's Party.
Sorting 20th-century fiction
into three distinct periods,
Ames views the experimental
narrative strategies of James
Joyce and Virginia Woolf as
exciting consequences of the
excesses of control that con-
tribute to the failed parties of
modernist literature. The lit-
erature of F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Evelyn Waugh and Henry
Green describes the decadent
parties between the world
wars in structures that reflect
resistance to experimentation
and which represent "a colli-
sion of novelistic traditions;"
and, with the party scenes of
the postmodern writers
Thomas Pyncheon and Rob-
ert Coover, narrative experi-
mentation resumes with in-
tense vigor as "festivity turns
chaotic."

The virtue of this study is
not its accessibility. Even as
Bakhtin contributes some of
the principal premises for the
relationship of festive visions
to fiction, so, too, is he the
source for the difficult jargon

that seems de rigueur for con-
temporary criticism: such
terms as the "camivalized
novel," although efficient in
encoding theory, elude dictio-
nary definition.

However, Ames dazzles
with his grasp of the seven
authors he selects to illustrate
his thesis close readings that
are all the more compelling
because he considers featured
works of fiction within the
context of each author's en-
tire canon and each oeuvre
with reference to a large body
of modem British and Ameri-
can fiction.

Because parties and fiction
are both forces to fight the
darkness, this book promotes
a doubly life-affirming
endeavor.

My only regret is that
ASC Professor George Hayes
is not alive to enjoy it. The
last author the 90-year-old
Hayes studied during his esti-
mable life of letters was the
puzzling Thomas Pyncheon,
and he would have delighted
in sharing Ames' remarkably
lucid approach to Pyncheon's
texts. He would have taken
supreme pleasure, too, in the
knowledge that a teacher/
scholar of Ames' stature was
in place at Agnes Scott.

The Life of the Party is
available from the University
of Georgia Press, known
among the university presses
for fine design and quality
publications.

Professor Ames is under
way now with another fasci-
nating study of the intersec-
tions of culture and litera-
ture a comprehensive view
of the Hollywood novel.

Linda Lentz Hubert '62
ASC Professor of English

AGNES SCOn MAGAZINE 27 I

CLASSIC

Black Cat:
A Tradition in
Wit vs. Wile

The "greening of treshics"
is how early Silhouette
yearbooks recorded it.
St >ph( mil ires w< iuld creep up
Ci i .1 freshwomaris bedside;
several would hold her down
while one painted the green
"F" on her forehead. That,
mil. irtunately tor the new-
comers, was just the begin-
ning. Each fall about the turn
ot the century, sophomores set
aside an entire week for
pranks (later known as Rat
Week). Sometimes under the
( i >\ er of darkness and cloaked
in black, these upperclass-
women might tie together,
then throw freshies in the
swimming pool, or require
them to lie on the ground and
scramble like an egg, or skip
backward across campus.
Hairpulling often turned to
duking it out in the dirt,
leaving many a "middie"

tattered in the name of intcr-
class competition.

It was not a pretty picture.
Enter Dr. Mary Frances Sweet
(at ASC 1908-37), charged
with student health and
hygiene. She recognized the
need for students to have
physical and mental outlets.
But many felt what had
evolved was the antithesis of
Sou them womanhood .

About mid-way in her ca-
reer, Su-eet proposed an alter-
native to the humiliation and
ridicule that had previously
plagued each first-year class.

Perhaps Sweet's own black
kitty whirling 'round her
ankles sparked the idea ft ir
the bronze Black Cat trophy,
but it was the sophomores in
1915 who chose new "weap-
ons," then threw down the
gauntlet: "Instead of the
hand-to-hand fights with the
new girls, we inaugurate a
new method of deciding the
championship." What they

proposed was a battle of the

wits, with the two classes
competing by writing original
parodies of campus life in the
forms of "stunts" or plays.

With this Thespian die
cast, the curtain closed on the
sophomore "reign of terror"
and opened on a 77-year tra-
dition that includes unforget-
table theatrical performances
such as An Issue Concerning
Miss Tishue and Romeow and
Julicat. Even the campus
newspapei gc >l in on the feline
fun, parading such headlines
as "Mystery Shrouds Campus;
Annual Fur-ful Fray Nears."

"Mi ist ot what we did was
brain work," says Caroline
McKinney Clarke of
Decatur, among the
"stunt" writers for the
Class of '27. She notes
that the formal dance
later marking the close

Bonnie Broun Johmon
'70 (with Winnie the
Pooh) and roommate Judy
Mauldin Bcw.s '70.

of a Black Cat festival was not
a part ot their tradition. "Ours
was the era when no men
were allowed on campus so
we didn't have a dance." She
laughs. "It would surprise the
men to know how much fun
we had without them."

Fun they did have. Classes
teamed up through the 1930s
and '40s, first-year students
with juniors, sophomore with
seniors; class colors emerged
in decorations and dress.
Later on a rotation basis,
either blue, yellow, red or

3RM

m M>r-

Plays, skits and Black ( \n pranks: In 1924, a sku with cops and robbers from the class oj '26; one year a marching band in front of Butrnck
two Black ( '.ats ago, tru kidnapping of the president. "It evolves every year," notes Merrick, "but the spirit of Black Cat continues."

I 28 FALL 92

N MEMOR I UM

green was assigned to a class
to be retained as its color
through all four years at ASC.

Musical competition up-
staged the skit-to-skit duel by
the close of the 1940s. That
gave way to a single skit with
each class presenting songs.
Mortar Board, official spon-
sors, set the rules, enlisted
judges and devised a system to
determine song and spirit
winners. Black Cat became a
rite of passage for first-year
students and the trophy a
"symbol of the freshman
class," recalls Mollie Merrick
'57, associate dean of students
and Black Cat authority.

Then late one night in
1953 in Rebekah Scott Hall,
the Class of '55 cooked up the
first mascot. Dorothy Sands
Hawkins remembers class-
mates coaxing her into mask-
ing as their own crazy cre-
ation "Chief Yatilyitch."
Since then mascots from Pogo
to the Blues Brothers have
paraded across the Quad,
along with three repeaters:
Dennis the Menace, Raggedy
Ann and Jiminy Cricket.

In Merrick's mind the
most memorable mascot of
the 1960s was the Yellow
Pages. With yellow their as-
signed color, this class used
the telephone directory motto
"Let your fingers do the walk-
ing" and depicted it as a royal
page in yellow garb. During
those years Black Cat ex-
panded to a multi-day festival
including hockey matches,
bonfire, community picnic,
skit with songs, the unveiling
of the first-year mascot and a
party or dance following the
evening skits. The 1967 skit
afforded the only Friday the
13th Black Cat with partici-

pants dancing until midnight
to music by a "purrrfect"
combo, The Black Cats.

Much of the modem battle
of wits grew out of the 1 960s
when classes gathered clues to
guess the identity of the first-
year class's mascot before its
campus debut. Bonnie
Johnson '70, now ASC's vice
president for development
and public affairs, remembers
how she and other classmates
launched an offensive of "mis-
information" with a decoy to
draw conjecture away from
the real class mascot, Christo-
pher Robin. From her upstairs
Hopkins room, Johnson plot-
ted, then left a songbook
open to the lyrics of "Little
Red Riding Hood," by Sam
the Sham and the Pharaohs,
dropped the pattern for a
hooded cloak in the trash and
in slightly louder than normal
telephone conversation
dropped hints about the de-
coy. She believed the diver-
sion would work. She bet her
bellbottoms on it.

The competition (and the
rigors of college life) landed
Johnson in the College infir-
mary with mononucleosis.
Today, she laughingly con-
cedes the loss of a Black Cat
trophy but claims, "It really
pulled the class together."

Those beginnings for
Johnson and others at ASC
might have been dramatically
different if Dr. Sweet's pre-
scription for hazing had not
brought a cure. Even today's
first-year student might have
found herself crawling the
length of the hockey field as
plebeian predecessors did,
chanting and kissing the feet
of sophomores.

Mary Alma Durrett

She Expected
the Best from
Her Scotties

Llewellyn Wilbum '19,
former chair of the ASC
physical education de-
partment, was an Agnes Scott
alumna and faculty member
known for strong leadership
and resonant voice.

She died June 20 at the
age of 94-

"She had good rapport
with the students and staff
and was a whispering boss
who could be heard across the
athletic field," remembers Kay
Manuel, retired professor of
physical education at ASC.
"She conducted business well,
but was fun to work with."

After earning a history
degree, Wilbum remained at
ASC as an instructor of physi-
cal education. She received
her physical education mas-
ters' degree at Columbia Uni-
versity in 1923, instructed at
the University of Michigan
and worked in Tennessee,
before returning to ASC in
1926 as chair of the physical
education department a
post she held until her retire-
ment in 1967.

At Agnes Scott she intro-
duced such activities as ar-
chery and tumbling to the
curriculum and coached field
hockey. "She really built the
department up," says her
niece, Lee Kennedy.

In addition to faculty re-
sponsibilities, she was presi-
dent of the alumnae associa-
tion, active in fundraising, a
participant in faculty skits and
director of May Day events.

Her commitment to im-
proving women's athletic pro-
grams extended from local to

Coach Wilbum: Always con-
cerned for her students's welfare.

national levels. She served as
president of the Southern As-
sociation Directors of Physical
Education for College Women,
and was a member of the
President's Council on Physi-
cal Fitness for Georgia, dis-
trict chair of the National
Section Women's Athletics
and member of the National
Basketball Committee.

Wilburn was concerned for
each student's development.
Bertie Bond '53, administra-
tive assistant to the President
at ASC, was a student in
Wilbum's PE class. "I was very
non-athletic and it was hard
for me," Bond recalls. "And
she expected us all to give full
participation and our best.
She kidded me that badmin-
ton was my sport and that 1
was her badminton star. She
gave me an A that was the
only A I ever got tor athletics.

"I admired and respected
her," says Bond. "She enter-
tained friends and I felt fortu-
nate to be in that category."

Wilbum is survived by
three nieces, tour nephews
and two sisters-in-law. Burial
services were held June 22 at
Decatur Cemetery.

Audrey Arthur

AGNES SCOTT MAGAZINE 29 I

tCollege
1 tecatur, v !e< irgia 30030

Nonprofit Organization

U.S. Postage

PAID F i

Decatur, GA 30030

Permit No. 469

Oeca tu r , GA 3683

The Last Dance?

Some seem to think women's
colleges where the art of dance
intermingles with the art of science
and hoth add to the dimensions of
the educational experience are
anachronisms, institutions with a
past hut without a future, 'i et a
growing number of studies continue
to indicate women's colleges otter their
students significant opportunities for
learning, personal growth, as well as
career development. For a look at the
latest research and the answers to
questions relating to the advantages
ottered by women's colleges, see the next
Agnes Scott Alumnae Magazine.

FOR REFERENCE

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