A Full and Rich Measure: 100 years of Educating Women at Agnes Scott College, 1889-1989

FULL AND RICH MEASURE

100 years of Educating Women at Agnes Scott College, 1889-1989

by M. Lee Sayrs and Christine S. Cozzens

"Colleges and universities play a major role
in helping to shape values. Agnes Scott has
traditionally found ways not only to provide the
best possible education for women, but also to
emphasize things like honor, spiritual growth and
personal values. I think Agnes Scott is a special
school because the College teaches the traditional
values and encourages women to get involved in
issues, to work for their beliefs, and to stand up

for the things that are important to them /

have been trying for years to get people involved,
and when I came to Agnes Scott s community
service fair, I saw how much the women in this
College are doing. That was exciting!"

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter
Distinguished Lecturer at Agnes Scott College
and recipient of the College's Centennial Award
of Distinction

"The student who comes through Agnes Scott
is one of the brightest, and her education ranks
among the best. She is smart, resilient, special.
It is no accident that Agnes Scott is one of the
preeminent women 's colleges in this country. The
institution has sustained its dedication to the
highest academic standards for 100 years. In our
time, the promise of the college is ours to keep."

Lawrence L. Gellerstedt, Jr.

Trustee and former chairperson and recipient of

the College's Centennial Award of Distinction

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/fullrichmeasure100chri

FULL AND RICH MEASURE

100 years of Educating Women at Agnes Scott College, 1889-1989

bvM. Lee Sqyrs and Christine S. Cozzens

Copyright e 1990 by Agnes Scott College

Publishing Services: Susan Hunter Publishing. Inc.
Atlanta Georgia

Design: Barbara Holcombe

Front cover photograph courtesy of Flip Chalfont.

Back cover photograph courtesy of Flip Chalfont.

Manufactured in the United States of America

ONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

A SCHOOL OF HIGH CHARACTER.

The Founding of A gnes Scott College /

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN MIND SPARKED MIND:

The A cademic Life 13

CHAPTER THREE

BEYOND THE COLLEGE GA TES:

A gnes Scott College in the Community

and in the \\ orld 29

CHAPTER FOUR

A FINE SPIRIT:

Organizations, Clubs, and Traditions 41

CHAPTER FIVE

COMMUNITY OF COOPERATION:

Life on Campus 57

CHAPTER SIX

VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE:

Agnes Scott College at 100 77

GNES SCOTT COLLEGE TIMELINE, 1889-1989

1889 Decatur Female Seminary founded

1890 School renamed Agnes Scott Institute

1891 Agnes Scott Hall ("Main") built

Christian Band founded with emphasis on
Christian missions

Mnemosynean Literary Society founded

1897 Agnes Scott Institute accredited as a secondary school

Aurora first published

1898 Dr. Howard Arbuckle joined faculty as first Ph.D.

Propylean Literary Society founded

1902 Silhouette first published

1903 George Washington Scott died

Samuel M. Inman chaired the Board of Trustees

A gymnasium and classroom building added

1905 Rebekah Scott Hall built

Christian Band reorganized as YWCA chapter

1906 Agnes Scott Institute renamed Agnes Scott College

First Bachelor of Arts degree awarded

Student Government Association organized

1907 Athletic Association founded

Agnes Scott College accredited by the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools. First college or
university in Georgia to gain accreditation

1908 Glee Club founded

Investiture observed for first time

1909 First successful financial campaign launched

Typhoid epidemic erupted. The well housed in original
gazebo was capped.

1910 Carnegie Library built

1911 Inman Hall and Lowry Science Hall built

Home Economics course added

1913 First public Investiture

Little Girls' Day initiated

1914 J.K.. Orr chaired the Board of Trustees

Home Economics course discontinued

1915 Samuel Inman died

James Ross McCain appointed registrar

Black Cat activities arranged as a competition between
first and second year students

Blackfriars founded

Student newspaper, Jlte Agonistic, began publishing

BOZ and Folio established as creative writing groups

1917 Agnes Scott Students joined YWCA Patriotic League

Drama troupe entertained soldiers at Camp Gordon

First debate tournament with Sophie Newcomb College

1918 Founder's Day celebrated for first time

Dr. McCain appointed Vice President

1919 Students gave up their yearbook and contributed

funds to the war effort

1921 Alumnae House built. It was the second such building

in the nation

1922 Pi Alpha Phi. a debate society, organized with merger

between Mnemosynean and Propylean Societies

1923 Dr. Gaines died

Dr. McCain elected president

1924 Camp at Stone Mountain opened to student use

South Decatur Stone Mountain trolley moved to
Dougherty Street from a path that cut through the
present-day athletic field to land now occupied by
the president's home and Winship Hall

1925 George Bucher Scott Gymnasium built

1926 Beta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa organized

League of Women Voters chapter founded

Founder's Day radio broadcast initiated

1928 Participation in a Junior Year Abroad

program approved

Steam plant and laundry constructed

1929 Practice teaching available

1930 Buttrick Hall completed

1931 HOASC became chapter of Mortar Board recognizing

achievement in leadership, scholarship, and service

First Alumnae Weekend held in the fall

1937

1938

1932 Footstool first used for Investiture and Commencement

First McKinney Book Award offered

1934 Current Agnes Scott ring design adopted

1936 New Carnegie Library opened; in 1951 renamed to
honor President McCain

Quarter system adopted

Old library building designated Murphey Candler
Building later known as the Hub

Louise McKinney retired after forty-six years in the
English Department

Class cut system adopted on a trial basis
Dean Nannette Hopkins and J.K.. Orr died

George Winship chaired the Board of Trustees

Samuel Guerry Stukes named Dean of the Faculty

Carrie Scandrett appointed Dean of Students

University Center established

Christian Association organized as College broke ties
with the national YWCA

Students protested Saturday classes

1939 Agnes Scott Celebrated its Semicentennial

1940 Presser Hall built; $10,000 Dogwood preserved

1941 Pension plan introduced

War Council organized

1943 Agnes Scott students participate in USO

College sponsors a day-long conference on the war
to increase student awareness

1946 Art and Music Departments offer majors

1948 Wallace McPherson Alston appointed vice president
and president-elect

1948- Evans Dining Hall, Bradley Observatory, Campbell
1951 Science Hall. Walters Infirmary, and President's

Home constructed and dedicated

1950 Honors Day established

Smoking on campus permitted

1951 James Ross McCain retired

Wallace M. Alston assumed the presidency

Library renamed McCain Library in honor of
retiring president

Black Cat became campus-wide celebration

1953 Hopkins Hall built

1954 A Man Called Peter filmed on campus
1956 Walters Hall built

Hal L. Smith chaired the Board of Trustees

1958 Fine Arts Festival held

1962 Students sought shelter in Alston home during
Cuban Missile Crisis

1965 Dana Fine Arts Building dedicated

First black student enrolled

1966 Agnes Scott team won College Bowl competition

with Princeton

1971 First black student graduated

1972 First Writers' Festival held

1973 Wallace M. Alston retired

Marvin Banks Perry elected to presidency

Alex P. Gaines chaired the Board of Trustees

1974 Return to College program began
1976 McCain Library renovated

1979 Lawrence L. Gellerstedt, Jr. chaired the

Board of Trustees

1980 Buttrick Hall renovated

1981 11a Burdette, Georgia's first female Rhodes Scholar

graduated

1982 Marvin B. Perry retired

Ruth A. Schmidt elected to the presidency

Campbell Science Hall renovated

1987 Quadrangle renovated and named the George and Irene

Woodruff Quadrangle; Gazebo restored and relocated
on the Quad

1988 Wallace Alston Campus Center opened;

Robert W. Woodruff Physical Activities Building
completed; Presser and Dana Fine Arts Buildings
renovated

1989 Agnes Scott College Centennial celebrated

Elizabeth Henderson Cameron '43 elected Chairperson
of the Board of Trustees

To the students

of

Agnes Scott College

past, present, and future.

E

OREWORD

Every educational institution has a life of its own
one that is distinctive and unique. It is made up of individual
persons but is always larger than any one person. Faculty,
students, staff, and trustees, as well as presidents and deans,
put their stamp on the institution's collective being, some
in ways which are highly visible and others by their quiet
influence.

How can such a multiform world be chronicled
fairly and clearly? It is surely a daunting task. There is no way
to include everyone's favorite professor or most cherished
tradition. Nor can the excitement kindled in a classroom, or
the whack of a hockey stick hitting a ball, or the joy of
friendships formed be recaptured on paper.

The authors of this centennial history, alumna and
College Archivist Lee Sayrs and Assistant Professor of Eng-
lish Christine Cozzens, have, however, chosen to describe the
College's life through the century by providing their readers
with the flavor of this campus community rather than a
detailed record. Through their words, we catch a glimpse of
Miss Latin (Lillian) Smith, coming into her classroom each
day and carefully adjusting the transom for ventilation, never
realizing that it contained no glass. We experience some
sense of what it was like to be on this campus when the coun-
try was at war, or what it took to keep the place going
in times of economic hardship. And we celebrate the high
moments, the milestones, the creative innovations, and the
accomplishments.

It is our sincere hope that this history of the remark-
able institution which is Agnes Scott College will bring
pleasure and inspiration to the Agnes Scott family and to all
the readers of these pages. This is a college blessed by God
and brought to a second century of service through the
investment of the lives and talents and resources of people
who believed in and worked for its mission.

Ruth Schmidt
President

GEORGE WASHINGTON SCOTT, 1829-1903

George Washington Scott's commitment to pro-
viding the best facilities to Decatur 's fledgling school
for young women earned him recognition as the founder
of Agnes Scott College. Born in Pennsylvania, he came
south because of his health and arrived in
Decatur in 1850 on his way to Florida,
where he became a prosperous
merchant and planter. He fought
for the Tallahassee Guards
in the Civil War and rose to
the rank of colonel, u Like
many Southerners, George
W. Scott suffered from the
political and economic ,
conditions in the South
after the Civil War.

Highly respected in Florida, he ran for governor there
in 1868 but met defeat at the hands of Reconstruction
Republicans. In 1870 he moved to Savannah, where
he prospered as a cotton merchant, but political and
economic conditions led again to financial
failure. Moving to Decatur in 1877,
he built a third fortune in commercial
fertilizers, cotton mills, and real
estate. Misfortunes like those
Col. Scott suffered made many
men cling more tenaciously
to later wealth. To the end,
however, George Washington
Scott remained one of Agnes
Scott s most avid and
generous supporters.

i

CHAPTER ONE

A

SCHOOL OF HIGH CHARACTER:
The Founding of
Agnes Scott College

In nineteenth-century America as the future
founders of Agnes Scott College were growing up the posi-
tion of women both at home and in society was a frequent if
not always explicit subject of public concern. Educators and
community leaders eager to support schools debated ques-
tions as to the nature, extent, and purpose of female educa-
tion. By the 1830s, the growth of the American republic, with
its demand for an educated electorate, had contributed to a
corresponding expansion of public education. Unlike the
private academies for boys of the colonial period, public
schools that were supported financially by townships and
counties did not exclude girls. Young women who gained the
rudiments of reading, writing, and figuring in these settings
soon began to search for greater educational opportunities.
The growth of public schools during the first half of the
century also created a need for teachers that could not be
satisfied by the male work force.

Beginning in the 1830s, educational opportunities
for young women expanded. Private girls academies began
to offer high school or even college level courses, though
none provided the type of college education that was avail-
able to men. Between 1830 and I860, institutions across the
country moved toward offering full collegiate courses for
women, though considerable private and public debate
accompanied this change.

After the Civil War, an increasing number of
women's and coeducational institutions in the North and
West began to offer college level courses to women. In the
South, political and economic conditions during the War and
Reconstruction retarded expansion of educational oppor-
tunities until the 1880s, when southern educators turned their
attention to the serious lack of good schools. The founders of
Agnes Scott College joined this movement in 1889 when they

1

proposed "to establish at once a school of high character" for
"young ladies and girls" in Decatur, Georgia.

In 1889 Frank Gaines, pastor of the Decatur Pres-
byterian Church, surveyed the educational services available
in his community and found them to be inadequate, espe-
cially for girls. Pastor Gaines approached several members of
his congregation with the idea of establishing a school under
church auspices, and they responded enthusiastically to his
proposal. Within six weeks of the first organizational meet-
ing at Pastor Gaines' home on 17 July 1889, the Decatur
Female Seminary later to become Agnes Scott College
opened its doors to sixty-three students and four teachers in a
rented house on the south side of the Georgia Railroad
tracks.

The original concept behind the Decatur Female
Seminary promised to provide "a liberal Curriculum fully
abreast of the best institutions of this country" and to ensure
that "all the influences of the College [would be] conducive
to the formation and development of Christian character,"
as Pastor Gaines wrote in that first year. During those early
years, the school offered elementary and grammar school
courses to girls who, like most students in the area, had little
or no preparation. A provision by the founders that boys
twelve and under would be admitted suggests the inadequacy
of other educational options in the area and the doubts these
men must have had about the school's prospects as a female
institution. A few small boys did attend that first year. As the
school matured, however, the founders raised their curricular
goals and focused their efforts exclusively on the education of
girls and, ultimately, of young women.

In 1890 one of the founders, George Washington
Scott, offered to finance a building for the school, which
would then be renamed to honor his mother, Agnes Irvine

FRANK HENRY GAINES, 1852-1923

This pastor of Decatur Presbyterian Church envisioned providing high
quality Christian education for young women. His passion for lofty
ideals found expression in the high standards he set and maintained for
the College.

Frank Gaines was born in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, earned a B.A. from
C umberland I niversity, and studied medicine and theology before his
ordination. He served Presbyterian churches in Kentucky and V irginia
and came to Decatur in 1888.

After serving as the school's first chairman of the board of trustees, Dr.
Gaines accepted the presidency in 1896. From that time on, he
supervised the growth of the campus, the expansion of the faculty, and
the development of the curriculum.

Long-time campus employee John O. Flint worked under the first four
presidents. He remembered that all four were fine men but that
President Gaines was a bit too strict. "He built a fence around the
campus and would not allow dogs or boys to pass through. "

Scott, who had died in 1877. Colonel Scott wrote of his desire
to "benefit my fellow beings" with his newly attained wealth
and said of his mother,

In viewing my life over one thing stands out promi-
nent above all others and that is that I am indebted to
my mother for all the good impulses of my heart and
for all my hopes for the future.

2

His determination to build for the school an architectural
masterpiece with all the most modern conveniences such as
electric lights, steam heat, and full plumbing paralleled the
vision of Dr. Gaines and the other trustees to make Agnes
Scott Institute "as good an institution of this kind as there is
in this land." Over the next few years, the trustees hired more
highly qualified faculty and raised the course levels as they
gradually eliminated elementary and grammar school
courses. In 1898, for example. Howard B. Arbuckle joined
the faculty as the first Ph.D. A chemist by training. Dr.
Arbuckle taught all the sciences in his first years at the
Institute. That same year, Agnes Scott Institute was accre-
dited as a college preparatory school by the Association of
Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States.

AGNES IRVINE SCOTT, 1799-1877

Agnes Irvine Scott, mother of George Washington Scott, was born in
Ballykeel, Ireland, in 1799. When she was seventeen, she came with her
mother and sister to A merica, though during the thirty-six day voyage,
her sister became ill and died. I pon their arrival, Agnes and her mother
traveled to Alexandria, Pennsylvania, where they joined relatives. There
Agnes metJohnScott, a widower with five children. They married in
1821, and she bore seven children.

One son, John, remembered his mother's character and teaching as a
determinative influence in the Pennsylvania home. Agnes Irvine "was a
Presbyterian and loved her church. She believed in the sovereignty of
that God as devoutly as in His goodness and mercy . . . and diligently
went about her duties and saw to it that no child of hers should go out
into the world ignorant of the Shorter Catechism." Agnes Irvine Scott
died in 1877 at the age of seventy-eight. George M ashington Scott
honored his mother when he asked that the Decatur school should be
named A gnes Scott Institute.

College tradition names the White House as the school's first structure. Rented in 1889, it sat on the present site of
Main, from which it was moved when construction of Main began. Subsequently the College bought it, and Miss
Louise McKinney and Dr. Mary Sweet moved in along with sixteen students. Nicknamed the White House after Miss
McKinney identified herself at a costume party as the Lady of the White House, the building provided dormitory
rooms and a dining hall until the 1940s.

Agnes Scott Hall was built in 1890 and soon became known as "Main." Sixty students had helped lay the bricks in the
"Dieckmann Corner." During its first years. Main housed offices including that of the president, class rooms, art
studios, music practice rooms, and dormitory rooms for all the boarders. The Dean 's office occupied the same space as
does the Dean of Students office today. The School dining room was in the basement along with a small gymnasium.
TheMcKinney and Dieckmann Parlors formed one large room in which chapel was held

ztgtfk^

Q

lis*

As women began to enter institutions of higher
learning in greater numbers in the late nineteenth century,
educators were reassessing the content and purposes of a
liberal education for both men and women. The classical
curriculum which included Greek, Latin, mathematics,
philosophy, science, and English had begun to give way to
faculty and student pressure for a modernized course of
study that would gradually embrace the newer social scien-
ces, the influence of Darwin's theory of evolution on the
biological sciences, the concept of electives, and even voca-
tional courses. The debates surrounding this transition posed
particular questions concerning the education of women.
What did it mean to be a liberally educated woman? What
lay ahead for her when she completed such a course of study?
Should women follow the same curriculum as men? In addi-
tion to their concerns about the uses women would make of
their education, parents and educators questioned women's
physical and mental abilities to perform college work.

The founders of Agnes Scott, like the leaders of
many women's colleges during this period of curricular trans-
formation, chose to offer a classical liberal arts education
that would prove female students' intellectual abilities in the
same ways that had long been traditional for male students.
Advertisements and college catalogues from the Institute's
first decade demonstrate a commitment to the belief that
women could benefit from a rigorous classical education,
even while acknowledging the southern tradition of genteel
womanhood that placed women in a separate social sphere
from men. These publications emphasized the teaching of art
and music, for example, as skills that young ladies must
acquire. By touting Decatur's healthful climate, early cata-
logues also addressed parents' worries that a taxing scholastic
program might endanger their daughters' health. The site,
they claimed, was

sheltered from the cold winds of the more northerly
sections by the Blue Ridge range of mountains, and
yet at an altitude far beyond the malarial lowlands of
the South Atlantic and Gulf states.

The 1892-93 catalogue assured parents that the physical
health of their daughters would be as closely guarded as their
social contacts. A description of the College's advanced phys-
ical education facilities was prefaced by this alarming
observation:

In these days, when public thought is so constantly
directed to physical training, it seems scarcely neces-
sary to mention the importance of the subject. But the
stooped shoulders, weak backs, poor lungs, and shat-

tered nen'es of many of our girls show that the
subject has not yet received the attention it deserves.

Agnes Scott women lived up to and perhaps sur-
passed expectations regarding their intellectual and even
their physical abilities. In 1890 courses fell into ten classifica-
tions or schools that included English, mathematics, natural
sciences. Biblical instruction, history, moral science, Latin,
modern languages, music, and art. In 1897 the Institute began
offering instruction in Greek, thus completing the classical
liberal curriculum.

NANNETTE HOPKINS, 1860-1938

ISannette Hopkins was the first person Frank Gaines hired to teach in
the new Decatur Female Seminary. Born in 1860, she had graduated
from Hollins Institute and intended to go on to Bryn Mawr or I assar to
complete her undergraduate degree after working in Decatur for a year
or two. She never left. Serving first as Lady Principal, she later became
the College's first dean, a position she filled until shortly before her
death in 1938.

Miss Hopkins influenced the school immeasurably during its first forty-
nine years. Early curricular development at A gnes Scott followed that of
Hopkins' alma mater, i pon her suggestion as soon as the school had
attained collegiate status, student government was established. Between
1929 and 1954, the Hopkins Jewel, an amethyst pendant or ring, was
awarded to the senior who most closely exemplified Dean Hopkins'
ideal of scholarship, service, and gentility.

Changes in the faculty reflected an increasingly
sophisticated and diverse curriculum. From the first year,
when two teachers divided the academic subjects between
them, the faculty grew in size and specialization and soon
included a number of men and women with advanced
degrees. In 1905 Lillian Smith, known as Miss Latin Smith,
arrived as the first woman faculty member to hold a Ph.D.
This growth of the faculty, the development of an advanced
liberal arts curriculum, and the establishment of standard
entrance and graduation requirements prepared the way for
full accreditation. With the support of Dr. Gaines, who had

assumed the presidency in 1896, and the steady encourage-
ment of Colonel Scott, who then chaired the Board of Trus-
tees, Professor Arbuckle guided the Institute towards this
goal. In 1906 the school became legally two institutions, with
Agnes Scott Academy taking over all secondary education
and Agnes Scott College conducting the collegiate course.
Later that year, the College awarded its first Bachelor of Arts
degrees. In 1907, the Southern Association awarded full
accreditation, and the eighteen-year-old school in Decatur
became the first accredited college or university in Georgia.

During the Institute's early days, many students lived at home and came to the school as day students. However, there
were always a number of students who boarded. Faculty women lived with the students and were responsible for
social activities as well as academic programs.

* T

<r

- ; " :

' T

*

"'*

1

,

1

The first gymnasium was located in the basement of Main, but in 1903 a new gymnasium and swimming pool were
built. A s the school grew, the facilities became increasingly inadequate. The pool, for example, accommodated only
four students at a time. After many years of planning, the George Bucher Scott gymnasium with a regulation size pool
was opened in 1925. Sixty-three years later the new U oodruff Physical A divides Building opened in 1988. The old
building along with the W alters Infirmary was reno vated and became the 11 allace A Is ton Campus Center.

Lowry Science Hall was built in 1911 through a gift from Colonel Robert J. Lowry. The modern facilities it provided the
sciences demonstrated the College's determination to offer women the best instruction in chemistry, biologv, and physics.

The Gazebo, now located in the Woodruff Quadrangle, has had many
lives at A gnes Scott. First located in front of Main, it sheltered the
college's primary well. After the 1909 typhoid epidemic, the well was

capped. The little house, sometimes known as the Round House, has
since served as office, day student room, prayer room, and meditation
chapel. Some alumnae remember it sitting on the lawn west ofRebekah.

The A nna Young A lumnae House, built in 1921, was the second alumnae house to be built
in the United States. It is named for A nna Irwin Young, who attended Agnes Scott Institute
and taught mathematics at the College from 1895 until her death in 1920.

IB* in -

Jenie D. Inman Hall, built in 1911

and named for Board of Trustees

Chair Samuel M. Inman 's first wife,

still serves as a college dormitory.

The old carriage gates guarded the entrance to the campus for many years. W hen a brick and stone gate honoring
President McCain replaced the iron gates, the latter fell into disuse until the campus was renovated in 1987. They now
stand at the pedestrian entrance to the east side of the campus.

10

F CntoX n -uT arS ' P u7 ?*" Md mUSk classrooms were Seated on the fourth floor of Main. In 1940 the
College built Presser Hall where music students learn, practice, and perform today.

JAMES ROSS MCCAIN, 1881-1965 \'

In 1959 a Presbyterian visiting team of scholars
observed: "It was evident in all of the discussions
that the faculty and administration of Agnes
Scott College believe in a liberal arts
education within the Christian context
and are dedicated to providing it for their
students in a full and rich measure. "

James Ross McCain was
President of Agnes Scott
from 1923 to 1951 and led the
College into the front ranks of colleges for women in
the United States. Born in Covington. Tennessee, he
earned a B. A. from Erskine College, a law degree from
Mercer University, his M.A. from the University of
Chicago and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Begin-
ning in 1915 he sen>ed the College variously as registrar,
as professor of Bible, history, and sociology, and as
vice president. Upon Dr. Gaines ' death, the Board of
Trustees voted unanimously to name Professor McCain
Agnes Scott s second president.

12

His organizational skills in a
number of associations advanced
higher education in the the South. He
played a key role in founding the University Center of
Georgia, ser\>ed on the Rockefeller Foundation s Gen-
eral Education Board for seven years, and occupied re-
sponsible positions in many other regional and national
educational associations. His presence on campus was
felt by students and faculty. He taught a campus Sunday
School class every week, and students believed that his
connections to God were such that for forty years May
Day was rainless. He participated in student I faculty
hockey games and in all campus activities.

CHAPTER TWO

HEN MIND SPARKED MIND:
The Academic Life

The achievement of college status in 1907 was an
extremely significant moment, but it did not end the debate
among faculty and administrators as to the purpose of an
Agnes Scott education or the content of the curriculum. For
the first half-century, college publications and other official
statements emphasized women's responsibilities to the home
and to God, but portrayed these ideals in terms that went
beyond duty or service to suggest both strength and self-
determination.

A student from the 1920s finds a quiet place to study.

13

While acknowledging that properly educated
young ladies must be accomplished in art and music, for
example, the founders insisted on a rigorous classical liberal
arts curriculum for the new school in Decatur and recognized
the pressing social need for informed and educated women.
The catalogue of 1906-07 stated that Agnes Scott College
cultivated "true womanliness, which combined strength with
gentleness and refinement." In 1946^17 an Agnes Scott gradu-
ate was expected to be "a power in blessing the world and
glorifying God." By the 1950s, the College regularly men-
tioned a variety of careers including business, medicine.
and research in addition to teaching and social service in
statements about the purpose of an Agnes Scott education.
In 1972 the College added to its vocabulary of purpose the
affirmation that a liberal education acted as a humanizing
force to produce thinking women who can quickly acquire
the skills needed for any occupation.

But even as late as 1932, biology professor Mary
Stuart MacDougall had to justify a liberal arts education for
women in relation to their duty to home and family. As she
told the students at Senior Investiture of that year:

The primary career of woman is in the home, but the
responsibility of training a girl for practical house-
keeping does not lie with the college. The ability to
make social and intellectual contacts, to live in har-
mony with humanity, to lead a happy and useful life is
aided in its development by four years of concentrated
study at a liberal arts college. The mind is quickened,
the imagination fired, the intellectual capacity devel-
oped by education. This is assuredly true of women as
well as men. Sex has nothing to do with education.

These two apparently contradictory impulses, acceptance of
women's domestic destiny and recognition that their intellec-
tual capabilities equaled those of men. both contributed to

the early successes of the school and were played out in a
number of curricular changes over the years.

During the Institute days, for example, students
could acquire certificates in art and music as part of the
College's effort to appease those who believed that a woman
must be accomplished in these abilities to be truly educated.
The College dropped the certification program upon accredi-

tation in 1907, and art and music remained in the curriculum
as electives until 1946, when the faculty voted that both
should become majors. So carefully did the College guard its
status among institutions of higher learning for women that
almost forty years passed before art and music could take
their places as central to the humanities component of the
liberal arts curriculum.

Students taking instruction in art at the A gnes Scott Institute in 1892.

14

The inclusion of vocational courses in the curricu-
lum also illustrated how the College's commitment to the
liberal arts ideal gradually became a commitment to prepar-
ing women for careers. As early as 1895, the school recom-
mended that students who wanted to teach should take a
fourth year of mathematics that included "arithmetic studied
from the teacher's standpoint." Upon accreditation as a
degree-granting institution, the College added courses to
prepare students for teaching math and Latin at the second-
ary school level, and by 1916 the curriculum included seven
education courses, four of which were required for the state
teacher's license. The earliest form of practice teaching
became part of the curriculum in 1929.

Agnes Scott faculty also debated the role of formal

home economics courses in the education of young women.
Added to the curriculum in 1911, home economics courses
lasted only until 1914, though both President Gaines and his
successor. President James Ross McCain, continued to
lobby for their reinstatement for many years. When a new
science building was planned in the late 1940s, President
McCain hoped that a Department of the Home would be
included, but the faculty resisted efforts to install home eco-
nomics as a scholarly venture. Professor Louise Hale sum-
marized this resistance in her 1940 Investiture address about
self-discipline and the Agnes Scott ideal of high intellectual
standards by affirming that the College should "keep the
B.A. degree only for those subjects that would definitely
attain those ideals."

Home Economics Class between 1911-1914. The curriculum for the course covered food products and their preparation,
foods and food value, household chemistry, household sanitation, nutrition and dietetics, advanced work in foods,
and a course to prepare students to teach home economics.

15

t'W*

:.

McCain Library, built in 1936, was named to honor President McCain upon his retirement in 1951 .

16

Along with the expansion of the student body, the
changing demands of the curriculum fostered the physical
growth of the campus through the years. When Agnes Scott
Hall ("Main") was built in 1891 it served as dormitory, class-
room building, administrative center, and even library. The
College's first library was located in a glass bookcase in
President Gaines' office in Main. Each evening students
would sprawl on the office floor to prepare the next day's
lessons. As the collection of books grew and services
increased, the library moved to its own room in the school
building. Finally, in 1910 a grant from the Andrew Carnegie
Foundation enabled the College to build a separate library
building. By 1936 the collection had already outgrown the
capacity of the Carnegie Library, and a new building, later
named McCain Library, took its place.

Agnes Scott's early emphasis on the sciences in the
education of women brought the first Ph.D. Dr.
Arbuckle to the school in 1898 and resulted in the building
of Lowry Science Hall in 1911 as one of the earliest additions
to the campus. Lowry Hall housed the Departments of
Chemistry, Physics, and Biology for more than forty years
until expansion of the programs and changing needs led to
the erection of Campbell Science Hall in 1951. A complete
renovation of that facility in the early eighties and the efforts

of faculty members to update equipment through govern-
ment and corporate grants demonstrate the College's contin-
uing commitment to the scientific education of women and
to research.

For many years A gnes Scott 's dress code required students to wear
skirts in the library. Students supported this code because they thought
that more casual dress might encourage rowdy behavior. Moreover,
wearing pants to the library might lead to students draping themselves
over the furniture, which would offend visitors.

Chemistry laboratory in Lowry Science Hall circa 1912.

Biology laboratory in Lowry Science Hall circa 1912.

IS

Kenan Professor of Chemistry A lice J. Cunningham, with the College
since 1966, observes a student's work.

For many years the gymnasium of the George
Bucher Scott building served as the campus meeting place
and as the theater for music and drama performances. Music
and art faculty offices and practice rooms were scattered
across the campus, and both departments needed facilities in
central locations. Presser Hall, built in 1940, met some of
these needs, but the expansion of the studio art program and
the need for galleries and a fully equipped theater required
still more space for the arts. The College acknowledged the
importance of art and drama to the curriculum and the
community with the opening of the Dana Fine Arts building
in 1965 and its subsequent renovation in 1988.

Gaines Chapel in Presser Hall, built in 1940.

Throughout the College's history, the faculty's
commitment to teaching has inspired these improvements
and the memories of generations of Agnes Scott graduates.
As Catherine Wood Marshall LeSourd, an alumna of the
class of 1936, recalled:

T/iere were those shining moments in classes, when
mind sparked mind, as if a spark from a teacher 's
mind fell on the dry grass of mine, and caught fire.
How well I remember the thrill of that, and the intui-
tive knowledge that at that moment I had broken
through to reality.

20

Professors as well as students experienced those "shining
moments." English professor George P. Hayes described the
teacher's perspective: "We are fellow beings whose spirits
interlock with yours as we search, without us and within, for
beauty, holiness and truth." He thought of this mutual discov-
ery of knowledge as "a glorious secret in the breast that
makes the heart dance, the step light, and keeps one youthful
beyond the days of youth."

/

Economics Professor

William H. Weber, a

member of the faculty

from 1971-1985,

responded to spring's

call and moved

his class outdoors.

Campbell Science Hall, built in 1951 and renovated in 1982, houses faculty offices, classrooms, and laboratories for
biology, chemistry, and physics. Legend tells us that biology Professor Mary Stuart MacDougall, who taught at Agnes
Scott for thirty-three years, rooted a cutting from a Christmas decoration and planted it at this corner of Campbell
against the building. A tall cedar grows there now.

21

Many alumnae who went on to careers in teaching
remembered influential college teachers and credited their
own success in the field to the Agnes Scott example. "I think 1
got a lot of my enthusiasm from listening to teachers who
were enthusiastic themselves . . ." wrote one former student.
"I just won a teaching award at my university, and I owe a lot
of that to the teachers 1 had at Agnes Scott." Another alumna
spoke of a professor's commitment to her as a student as "the
core of what 1 think education at Agnes Scott is all about."
The commitment of professors and students to the
academic program often made the classroom experience
intense and demanding. A 1940's graduate remembered that
medical school had been easy compared to her Agnes Scott
classes. One day in English class Professor Emma May
Laney asked her to identify a character in a play by Shakes-
peare. The student knew the answer but hesitated to speak
the appropriate word. She finally began by saying "he was
the illegitimate son of..." Before she could complete the
sentence. Miss Laney slammed her book down and said, "If
you are old enough to be a sophomore at Agnes Scott, you
are old enough to say 'bastard.'"

In another rigorous course on Shakespeare, a pop-
ular faculty member demanded thorough knowledge of the
plays. In 1949 a production of Hamlet came to campus
shortly after the class had studied the play. The actors in the
company must have been puzzled to hear their lines accom-
panied by an echo from students who had learned lines by
heart. Occasionally, an indignant whisper from the audience
would proclaim, "He left out a line!"

The faculty traditionally expected no less of the
students than they did of themselves. As one Agnes Scott
professor observed:

/ must have taught Don Quixote more than a hundred
times in the past 20 years, but there I was at 5:00 a.m.
reading the section for the next day. Every time I
assign a piece of literature, I read it all again before
every class even though I know it by heart. You
cannot teach literature without freshness. You read it
word by word, line by line, page by page. You must
have the whole thing in your head at once to see it as
art and to be a good interpreter of the literature.

Visitors to the campus often commented on the
quality of the faculty and students and the special atmos-
phere of the College. The poet Carl Sandburg visited Agnes
Scott in 1937 and wrote

On looking back toward my visit to Agnes Scott
College when I try to get at what made it unusually

memorable, I find that I go to several circumstances:
an extraordinarily personal hospitality: an introduc-
tion to an audience made so quietly yet lavishly that it
would be sure to draw out the best in any speaker: a
warmth from the audience as though its members had
somehow met the speaker beforehand whether in per-
son or not: and in the dewy morning hours driven to
an airport by a highly companionable and democratic
college president: not forgetting a view of the library
having architectural equivalents of Bach music. To
this ensemble I would subscribe myself.

Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review and author,
spoke on campus in 1944 and said of his visit: "I came back

with a pack full of pleasant memories One thing that

impressed me especially was the alive and stimulating quality
of the students."

From the beginning
Agnes Scott honored
academic achievement.
For many years, the
school printed
'The Blue Book, " a
publication presented
at Commencement
honoring those
students who had
excelled in various
subjects.

The faculty's respect for students' academic
achievement contributed to the stimulating intellectual
atmosphere on campus. During the Institute days students
who earned an average above ninety received Certificates of
Distinction. President McCain established the practice of
recognizing fine academic records by placing students on an
honor roll that was read aloud in Saturday chapel at the
beginning of each school year. President-elect Wallace

22

McPherson Alston instituted Honors Day as it is celebrated
today and made it "an impressive day on campus, a day
devoted to emphasis upon intellectual excellence and fine
scholarship."

In 1938 the Academic Council adopted stringent
guidelines for graduation with honors. Students aspiring to
this status had to read for honors during the senior year, pass
a six-hour written and a two-hour oral examination on the
major and minor fields, meet a minimum standard in grades,
and be approved by the faculty. At present the College
requires that to be eligible for high honors, students must
complete an Independent Study course and maintain a high
grade point average.

Early in its history, Agnes Scott welcomed to its
campus two honorary societies that recognized academic
achievement. In 1914 the faculty organized Gamma Tau

Alpha as an honor society that would eventually join Phi
Beta Kappa. The name for the Agnes Scott group was taken
from the first Greek letters to a passage in John 8:32, "You
will know for yourselves the truth." When all the criteria for
the national society were met. Gamma Tau Alpha became
the Beta chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1926, the second Phi
Beta Kappa chapter in Georgia and the ninth among
women's colleges. In 1976, the Beta Chapter celebrated its
fiftieth anniversary on campus with a series of talks on the
theme of women and work. Phi Beta Kappa plays a vital role
on campus by bringing noted speakers to address the college
community. In the fall of 1989, for example, the Society
sponsored a lecture by Alexander Dallin, Spruance Profes-
sor of International History and Professor of Political
Science, Stanford University. Professor Dallin addressed the
issue of "The Gorbachev Reforms: Problems and Prospects."

History Professor John L. Gignilliat, a member of the faculty from 1969 to
1989, frequently sprinkled his lectures with amusing anecdotes.

A s part of Commencement ceremonies in the 1940s, seniors with their academic hoods on their shoulders process
through the quadrangle followed by the faculty in full regalia.

The faculty also wanted to recognize those stu-
dents who contributed to the life of the College through
scholarship, leadership, and service and the important con-
nections among these qualities. In 1916 they founded the
Honorary Order Agnes Scott College (HOASC), which
became associated with the national Mortar Board organiza-
tion in 193 1 . Through the years, M ortar Board has performed
many services essential to campus life from supervising stu-
dent elections and communications between students and the
administration to promoting the Independent Study pro-
gram, the Scholarship Trophy, and student participation in

faculty and college committees. In the 1930s Mortar Board
abolished "Rat Week," an initiation rite when sophomores
ruled over freshmen, and furnished the Murphey Candler
Building, which became the student hangout affectionately
known as the Hub. In the 1940s the society published a
campus etiquette booklet entitled Campus Code and advo-
cated changing the grading system from merit, pass, fail to
letter grades. In the 1960s Mortar Board broadened its areas
of interest to include the promotion of course evaluations,
increased financial aid for students, and a more heterogene-
ous student body.

President J.R. McCain (right) poses with

J. K. Orr (left) who chaired the Board of

Trustees from 1915 to 1938.

^ With them stands

Dean Nannette Hopkins

and an unidentified guest. ^

25

Commencement is the culminating event of the academic year. In this picture Professors Mary Virginia A lien, Marie
HuperPepe, Margaret W. Pepperdene and Michael A. McDowell enjoy meeting the commencement speaker.

26

W. BURLETTE CARTER S2

During the fall of 1980, Burlette Carter participated in the Washington
Semester program working with South Carolina Senator Ernest
F.Hollings. "/ really am enjoying my job tremendously, " she reported in
The Profile. "I feel that I am contributing something to this office and at
the same time gaining in valuable experience. "Ms. Carter was named a
Truman Scholar in 1981. Karla Nell Vaughn '86 and Joy Elizabeth
Howard '91 also have been named Truman Scholars.

ILA L. BURDETTE "81

I la Burdette became the first woman in Georgia to be named a Rhodes
Scholar. She studied at Oxford University during the tenure of her
scholarship and later became an architect.

Agnes Scott's academic resources have long
included those of a number of other institutions of higher
learning in Atlanta, thanks to its membership in the Univer-
sity Center, a consortium of colleges and universities that was
established in 1939. President McCain played a leading role
in the founding of the University Center, which organizes
student and faculty exchanges among the member institu-
tions, as well as the sharing of speakers and other resources
and committees focused on the disciplines. The first Agnes
Scott students to take advantage of the cross-registration
program enrolled in classes at Emory University in 1941 and
reported that it meant dealing with more people on campus and
their fears of appearing to know too much in front of boys.
In 1948 the first Emory student to attend classes at Agnes
Scott was an eighty-one year old man who came to study

nineteenth-century English history with Professor Catherine
Sims. In 1972 Agnes Scott and Georgia Tech joined
together to offer a dual degree program which allowed the
student to attain both the B. A. and the B. S. degrees from the
two schools. Today, the special resources and atmosphere of
each member institution reach a wider audience as students
from Agnes Scott and other schools travel to other campuses.
Maryanne Gannon Deaton '81 summed up the
academic experience of many Agnes Scott students when she
wrote of her own college years: "Agnes Scott establishes and
fosters in its graduates growth, eagerness to learn, and an
excellent attitude that there is a place in the world for
women and that we can handle it."

27

Between 1905 and 1940, daily chapels and special events were held in the Rebekah Scott chapel.

28

CHAPTER THREE

JJ EYOND THE COLLEGE GA TES:
Agnes Scott College in the
Community and in the World

During the early years of Agnes Scott's history,
attending college set a young woman apart from most of her
contemporaries, especially if she left home to go to school.
While a college education did not necessarily lead to a career
outside the home, it exposed women to professional interests
and to opportunities for service and gave them broader knowl-
edge of the world than they might otherwise have gained.

In so attentively guiding the new school in Decatur
through the transition from seminary to institute to college,
the founders affirmed a woman's right to such an education
and to the possibility that she might use it to accomplish goals
other than the accepted ones of raising children and manag-
ing family life. At Agnes Scott, a Christian tradition of
service influenced the College's attention to social issues and
to the mission of educating women, and speakers and events
on campus even in its early days covered a broad range of
political, social, and economic issues. From the beginning,
Agnes Scott was committed to providing a liberal arts educa-
tion in a sheltered academic setting while encouraging its
students to be aware of and involved in the world beyond the
college gates.

In the early years, faculty and administrators con-
scientiously informed students about issues such as the prob-
lems of working people, environmental concerns, or
international affairs, but at the the same time they often
limited opportunities to translate knowledge to action. The
Mnemosynean (1891) and the Propylean (1897) literary socie-
ties provided opportunities for students to discuss and debate
literary and political topics. Beginning in 1921, the Public
Lecture Association brought to the campus many famous
speakers whose lives and works would be of interest to the
students. As Professor Mary L. Boney Sheats, the chair of
the Lecture Association, wrote in 1960: "We believe that one

29

of the most valuable things we can do for the students ... is to
confront them with greatness."

Sometimes greatness challenged the status quo. In
1917 Anna Howard Shaw, a noted minister, physician, and
suffragist, spoke forcefully and humorously to a receptive
student audience on women's rights. As the student news-
paper reported:

Dr. Shaw declared that while men hate to be thought
ladylike, yet it is to be noted that whenever a man
arrives at the highest dignity and honor he may
obtain, be it pulpit, bench, or classroom, he always
puts on a gown. Witness the bishop, the judge, and the
professor.

A fellow member of Dr. Shaw's in the National Woman's
Suffrage Association. Carrie Chapman Catt. lectured in 1925
on women's rights and on the responsibility students have to
pass their heritage on to future generations. Florence A. Allen,
an associate justice of the Ohio Supreme Court and the first
woman to attain that rank, came to campus in 1924. A tradi-
tion of linking course work with experience also began in
these early years: in 1917, for example, a sociology class visited
a federal penitentiary. The liberal arts community could
sanction these activities because they exercised the intellect.
Activism that grew out of religious faith afforded
Agnes Scott women a means of participating in certain social
movements, just as it had enabled women to speak out on
abolition earlier in the nineteenth century and on temperance
in the decades after the Civil War. During the Institute days,
an early school organization called the Christian Band
focused on the missionary movement and on the experience
of missionaries many of them women in the field. Stu-
dents were encouraged to consider mission work for them-

College several times. Professor Margaret Pepperdene joins Ms.

^ \ ,.\^ a to

0*

/to/p/7 Nader,

advocate/or

consumer rights,

walks across

campus with

students.

Photograph

courtesy of

Ron Sherman.)

selves and to support such religious activities by raising and
contributing money.

As early as 1916, the College sponsored events that
brought racial issues before the student body. Like many
white educated Southerners and Northerners, students
responded with concern for the condition of Negroes but
were unwilling to challenge segregrationist laws and prac-
tices. A campus screening of the film Birth of a Nation that
year incited a spirited, "wholesome" discussion, as one
faculty member noted approvingly. In 1924 the sociology
classes heard Dr. T. J. Wofter, a secretary of the Georgia
Commission on Race Relations, a voluntary organization
aimed at improving the lives of Negroes. The student news-
paper reported Wofter's presentation without recognizing his
stereotypical portrayal of blacks and concluded that "the
commission is doing much to inform the public concerning
the race problems, and to aid in bringing about the solution
of them through a co-operation of the leaders of both races."

Over the years, individual students took up the
cause of race relations, and Agnes Scott supported these
efforts as long as they did not jeopardize the College's posi-
tion within the community. In the summer of 1926, Ellen
Douglass Leyburn 27 attended an interracial meeting of the
National Student Federation of America (NSFA) at the
University of Michigan, while later during that school year
the College opposed students attending biracial dinner meet-
ings because the state of Georgia prohibited convivial inter-
racial events.

During the thirties this policy underwent a some-
times painful process of evolution. In 1930 Agnes Scott,
along with Atlanta University and Georgia Institute of Tech-
nology, agreed to host a meeting of the NSFA, where repre-
sentatives from student governments across the country-
would meet at the Atlanta Biltmore to discuss campus and
world issues. NSFA President Edward R. Murrow, the
future radio and television journalist, organized the meeting
and planned to seat a large number of black delegates. He
enlisted Agnes Scott students, as well as women from other
colleges, to act as ushers, speculating that the presence of
women would deter hotel officials and members of the public
from disrupting the meeting. Murrow judged correctly, and
during the week-long meeting black and white students
mingled with Atlanta society in the posh hotel.

In 1935 Professor Arthur Raper of the sociology
department took his class to Tuskegee Institute, where the
students met George Washington Carver and stayed over-
night in Institute housing. Though the trip to Tuskegee had
been approved by the College, the students' overnight stay

raised opposition both on campus and in the community. A
few years later, Agnes Scott faculty and students participated
in a group that held interracial and interdenominational
meetings to discuss religious and social issues. Mary Price
Coulling '49 attended those meetings and recalled that Presi-
dent McCain discouraged her from attending a weekend
retreat with other participants because social interaction with
Negroes by an Agnes Scott student might cause concern in
the state government.

After the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown
v. the Board of Education made segregation in public schools
illegal, racial issues everywhere became more heated. In
Georgia, the debate grew so intense that it threatened the
future of the public school system. The Agnes Scott com-
munity again faced the difficulties of balancing intellectual
support for school integration with fears about the social
consequences of interracial living. In 1956 President Alston
issued a statement supporting the public schools, and on
December 14. 1958. the Atlanta newspapers published a sim-
ilar statement signed by seventy-two members of the faculty
affirming that the public school system was "essential to the
very life of the community." Professor Julia Gary said of this
incident, "It was the first time that I had ever done anything
as a faculty member that I felt was of great significance."

During these years, student interest and participa-
tion in the civil rights movement intensified, and Agnes Scott
faced questions about racial attitudes on its own campus.
Student publications often addressed racial issues, and
organizations brought visitors to the campus to speak about
the movement. Ralph McGill, the noted editor of the A tlanta
Constitution and leader in the civil rights struggle in Georgia,
spoke on segregation and the public schools. Professor Anna
Green Smith's sociology class surveyed the student body in
1962 and found that though the majority of students sup-
ported advances in civil rights, many would not openly
socialize with blacks.

That same year the College received its first appli-
cation from a black high school student, and the Board of
Trustees made it clear that fully qualified students would be
admitted without regard to race, color, or religion. In 1963
the College rescinded its policy that students attending inter-
racial meetings had to have written permission from their
parents, and two years later Agnes Scott admitted its first
black student. In 1968 an editorial in the student newspaper,
proposed that the College more actively recruit black stu-
dents and faculty because "only through personal interaction
in the routine of daily life can we see the basic similarities
which define people as people."

31

A ulhor Norman Mailer lectured at Agnes Scott in October 1980. Most speakers agree to meet with students in small groups.

32

In other areas, the College met less opposition to
its efforts to inform students about social, economic, and
political issues. Beginning in 1921 and continuing for many
years, the Atlanta YWCA sponsored meetings with the
Agnes Scott YWCA chapter and the Industrial Girls YWCA
to promote good relations between working women and
college women; in 1925 members of these groups attended a
weekend camp to study YWCA's topic for that year, the
history of women in industry. National and international
economics continued to capture students' attention during
the Depression. In 1932 the sociology department sponsored
a film about the working conditions of women in America
that argued for improvements such as an eight-hour day, one
half day of work on Saturday, and a safer workplace all
goals established by the Women's Bureau of the federal
government. To extend the work of courses into the com-
munity, faculty members regularly arranged tours of prison
facilities, mental health hospitals, and rural agricultural areas.

AurieH. Montgomery Miller '44 and her family, pictured here, served

in the missionfield in Africa. Her two sisters, Virginia Montgomery

McCall '42 and Sophie Earle Montgomery Crane '40, also spent their

lives doing mission work in Africa and A sia.

Agnes Scott's connections with the global com-
munity began to develop early in the College's history, espe-
cially through awareness of and support for the work of
missionaries. Through the years a number of Agnes Scott

graduates became missionaries and traveled around the
world; through these religious contacts the school began a
long tradition of attracting students from distant countries.
Philrye Kim Choi '26 came to Agnes Scott as an interna-
tional student and returned to her home in Korea to found
a school for women based on her experience at Agnes Scott.
She was jailed three times during the Korean War, as were
many Christian leaders.

Biology Professor Mercy Samuel participated in a faculty exchange
program with universities in India. During her time at Agnes Scott she
taught the community about differences in culture and traditions.
(Photograph courtesy of Charles Pugh, A tlanta Journal-Constitution.)

33

By the 1920s, the presence of international stu-
dents at Agnes Scott was well established, including repre-
sentatives from Europe, the Far East, Africa and South
America, and certain schools in these countries regularly sent
their students to the college in Decatur. In 1924 Professor
Frances Gooch led the first college trip abroad when she took
a group of students and alumnae to Europe; Professor Leslie
Gaylord conducted several such tours beginning in 1927, and
other faculty-led trips followed. By the 1970s Professor
Michael Brown had transformed these excursions into study
tours in which students could earn academic credit. After
World War II, a resurgence of travel opportunities such as
junior-year-abroad programs organized by other colleges or
organizations, College sponsored trips, and summer work
camps in underdeveloped countries gave many Agnes Scott
students the enriching experience of living and working in
another cultural environment.

During each of the world wars, the campus
responded with a desire for information and a willingness to
become involved in the war effort at home. The International
Relations Club, formed in 1920, grew out of interest in the
complex international political situation and continued to
provide a forum for world affairs through the twenties. In the
1940s, students followed the events of the Second World War
through weekly presentations given by history professor
Catherine Sims, and a display of war maps in the library
charted military events and the areas of occupation. Students
participated in the war effort during both world wars by
contributing services such as knitting, recycling of metals and
paper, or collecting money for relief organizations. Many
students and faculty enrolled in First Aid courses, where
working side by side in a common effort promoted greater
understanding between the two groups. In the twenties and
thirties, Agnes Scott students regularly supported programs
that helped European students, and in 1944 and again in 1947,
campus organizations undertook the financial support of
war orphans.

Beginning in 1941 students, faculty, and adminis-
trators participated in a war council that directed all war-
related volunteer activities on campus, supplying each
building with blackout curtains and organizing air raid drills
among other efforts. One evening after the Junior Banquet,
as the students were preparing for bed, bells rang out over the
campus signalling a blackout drill. Professor Charlotte Hunt-
er, still in her evening gown, gathered up her skirts, grabbed
a flashlight, and hurried off to inspect the preparations.
Students rushed to lower all the window shades, extinguish
the lights, and make their way to their assigned air raid

34

shelters, while their dates huddled in the day students' room.
Amid all the confusion, a uniformed figure ran across the
quadrangle toward Buttrick. There, Mr. Mell Jones, the long-
time campus policeman, found President McCain standing
before the bell controls illustrating their use to a visitor;
Mr. Jones politely asked the president to ring the bells twice
more to release the campus from the accidental blackout.

The period during which many American students
protested the war in Vietnam passed quietly at Agnes Scott.
One alumna remembered that students were "vaguely aware
but their own personal world of studying, friends, and getting
a date" seemed to occupy their thoughts more than antiwar
protests. But as always, activist students on campus made
their voices heard. As early as 1965, students circulated a peti-
tion protesting the war. The next year, however, Agnes Scott
students joined students from Emory University and other
Georgia colleges and universities in the Affirmation Viet-
nam movement, which expressed support for the United States'
government position. In 1968 students held peace vigils
on the steps of Evans Dining Hall, and in 1969 the College
participated in the National Vietnam Moratorium in opposi-
tion to American participation in the war in Southeast Asia.

Just as the missionary movement brought early
Christian Band members into contact with the world com-
munity, the YWCA and later the Christian Association pro-
vided students with opportunities for spiritual growth
through social activism. In 1913 almost all the students
belonged to the YWCA, which sponsored nine mission study
groups and popular Bible study groups. In 1925 the Agnes
Scott Chapter of the YWCA announced its theme for the
year, "The Opportunities of Christians," in a statement that
summarizes the connection between faith and service:

We hope to take up all possible phases of a Christian 's
life, from the simple things we can do in our every day
living at home, at school, or whatever we might he
doing, to our attitude toward the movingforces which
can change the world as interracial problems and
problems of war.

In 1938 the Christian Association became the
primary Christian service organization on campus. As the
College matured, religious programs embraced a wider range
of activities. In 1942 the College began an annual program
that brought distinguished Christian leaders to the campus
for intensive religious discussions known first as Religious
Emphasis Week and later as Focus on Faith and Community
Focus. During this period of study and reflection, instructors
were asked to avoid scheduling major exams or assignments

k *-

lih
bi rs

,*WtlM Group M

^l.on of Mr ' "*f the di- (in es ,"' ran "ut.

7 " Mp SUPD , " Uts,de ^ d . 19)3. Mr "" h A Boy s WlII

"na P r ac(icat " ipc-f 'arnier -,r ' vfl hav >,

dressings, SaIl . -.'"<

tan " "" A an'a r eral "- ,e *

"or off, ce

. ' ana ,niere, a >' Jan. u

""" s - Preside"? *'"* Dab cy
."' ej ' Wofc,,,, ' "*, na med
' W *P and b*"""" 0, C

P '" n *la,tt S ' ,r ''a*
' nj ' '' <IK fresh b ma * 'or

r. , "'" ./charge o, .. " oa 'd MacLc,.,, ,.. ,

'"'o remainder ,p L 55

Mareari,., T
Ridlcv r- "- v ">'an,

l_h SnSr-' , w,csr

v:,;;;.:- :: -'
-'";...;:::;;':-.; -S;

B ovecn ii, )l V""' ""-M-in-hi"' 1 ?' MU Pcn.
'or ovcryoo

r"^'lT""* , " M '

- *uiantijp d~ . ""oired
da ''n, i e -i ""-alKis Fou ' J '

.*. " 'o these ^/oii^J an ann a , u - e -

'" ''Iw.rt p ro

e veo/ Music
" 0Ur Pogrom

Mr. ,
J an. 15 a , s _ rocial ''' Hour on /

j* pX m '^^r^' Smm 2?s ;

^ '" D m, or T "f la a "d ,,, .,^:- -

ffc dbJfl,r ^w'"""
s; K , m ;r- i ?

("'""o. n c ,, VV ">o.

'/;, -'.,:'/ -*

end' *"" tav, w ,

L^;?*"- o,, "i

"".<>- IWfeK an<i * BL
"- A d anc,,. R
G,, OrCia ^, B< "frr,

;i; a,k " :;:

""" and r u , ur , P""">i)il TO as
"' J.-ar\ ,, n,ors ria,

>' lie ,' * ;,nd "ic c i, "'"

T l ' r-d c "a'rman

"' "oniora will ,.

"'" P"l.i s " Ur "f hi S .

"' """* on ?"' nu

' Sonio, ,,,, rrs 'x>ns I b,;,,.

" - ,'Z "" ""

( '"" "uar, " s ' olasse, /do

[m-M, s of , ^ , ne ,,, arcio s , has MnrribuiM Jv, ' '" " s f '>sl m,.o, Ur " s "

* - ho S avod-?o ^ *" t/- " a " a d H dr ;;*' *~-/ t rM ' '' ^ ' 8

'"Pononoos f

Novelette." -L ,'"'" Parker

R ofa7a" Dv us Tmlaridja..
Mmeii on piio"" 55 ""' "e pre.
'""* "ffl be a 0,Ban ' a "d

:' i . U "art-GnS Pi *''"P

major." e ^onala, f

st .IH. po " > Ctarto^/for ,

a and /, '"" 'hil 6 , /Do to be Saved" t "'"''

" Tobelos,... / Por ,. """Oram

,.L'.' , !._f '**..

organ sew'fT "

ec!, ons_"To ccat , -I poured , t '

<a and Hatsoo,.,, * "''"' Rite

' f or ih ^.._ "/ ^ co "pge.

in a ,.,,. em " er o dnve h _ f/onjoyme ,. .,.._ _

" """ent'Zr ^ ,"""-*/* ,b . " ar Pian^ "^am to . /-ii" - TOP,a '" >he m S *

Continued on^'^ "' a. La *" G-tana 2a . *"* in cb.pj, ", " events

41 /' dance Sew," *" da, and bo'l / S "^ ,,,'" ,">, n( ,

_ ,anas and a Coup| a /, ma " offens.v. ,. " pr

/Social and " - '->
/smuod... T f no ""<' Baofc':

/ U r h f """'PP'hin? ""*>

*' "total * and ,p

*>y Mrs. Ped> . 'h- point. mad o

l'X' s '"' tei " ,"'""" e m ""t-

J^Emor,. J RC

' "" offonsiVe ""'" P'oson, Gor .
'' a,M ' 'ront-C r.t" eh ' f "

During both world wars, Agnes Scott students participated in the war
effort. The 1918 Silhouette, with its wartime look, showed students
knitting for the soldiers, contributing to the Student Friendship H ar
Fund, conserving food, and making trench candles. Some alumnae
remember running to the college fence to wave at the passing troop
trains. In 1919 students decided not to publish their annual, and instead,
donated the money to the war effort.

f

TWO A" ?IH\

Annual &taff

1 "1 l-l Sl.*l K

\lmeda III n HESO\

issociate Editor

Hi in Lei Esi es
Business Manager

tssistant Business Manager

i itherini Reed

Lois Eve

t/lirtfi h'.ttttitr-tn i furl

Marion Harper
tssistonl irt F.tiiinr

f ZditOf int ' hlrl Krtirrtl

M\m Paixe W i:\iiii.

Elizabeth Denman

In Editor

/.inn/ r.illtnr

In 1943 the Student Government A ssociation
sold "Red Cross Buns" to make money for the
war effort.

36

Sister

Cla sseS

Ad op* (

OrP

hem

A6" cS

BO****, W o

VJal

\ort>V s -Th C ^ jo*

COM^'

\^la<

rT nar.

;t*

as '

par 1

d Vn

c-haif

\tatV

P W !ot

CO""

\ihis 3 c c sVV u

*'* Ive < U ' t,4 t0 W *

e 4.

ac

tua*

W be .f V twt1 *'

arW

ia-

\se*

\cW eS

,f vw

c^ 1

. ap-
s e\ec'

WW '

,\4 * re

iV,e ; e ^ 4

ooi> * "is cel history

During World War If, when students and faculty participated together in Red Cross
instruction, one student commented "The Ph.D.s have as much trouble with the Red Cross
splints as undergraduates do."

so that students could participate in the seminars, lectures,
and activities. A World Emphasis Week in 1953 brought
together the themes of faith and world affairs.

In 1961 the College faced an amusing dilemma
during Religious Emphasis Week. Students who had seen an
art exhibit on religious themes by Joachim Probst helped
bring a similar exhibit to campus for the occasion. When the
artist unexpectedly decided to visit the campus that week in
the company of a woman friend. College officials were
puzzled as to how they could entertain the unmarried pair
without seeming to condone the relationship, finally deciding
upon a room in the Faculty Club as less conspicuous than
one at a local hotel. As Dean of Faculty Julia Gary recalled.
"This was probably the College's introduction to contempo-
rary living."

Over the years at Agnes Scott, the evolution of
religious practices and a growing commitment to educating
women for positions of responsibility in the community and
in the world has resulted in increased attention to social issues

and more College-sponsored service projects. From 1916
until the late 1940s, students sponsored an annual Christmas
party for underprivileged children in Atlanta or Decatur. In
1949, students began spending Saturday afternoons with
poor children. By 1955 and continuing for many years, the
Christian Association sponsored a much wider range of
projects and sent students to work at the Methodist Chil-
dren's Home, Hillside Cottages for children with special needs,
Scottish Rite Hospital, and Juvenile Court. Circle K, a group
affiliated with the Kiwanis and Key Club, formed in 1981 to
sponsor student participation in community activities such as
the Little Sister Program with Renfroe Middle School, the
Girl Scouts, Grady Hospital's problem pregnancy ward, the
Atlanta Hunger Walk, the March of Dimes Walkathon, and
the World Hunger Relief Program. Community service and
awareness of the global community influence activities and
even course work on today's campus more than ever before.

37

"" f" 1 '*TSk^

;

The magnificent dogwood located in the little quadrangle next to Presser Hall is known as the $10,000 Dogwood. The
architects who developed the plans for the new music building called for the tree to be uprooted. Dr. McCain's veto of
that proposal cost the College $10,000 to have the plans redrawn.

38

Bui trick Hall, built in 1930, has served as the main academic building for sixty years. Namedfor Wallace Buttrick,
executive secretary of the General Education Board of the R ocke feller Foundation, the building houses classrooms,
faculty offices and administrative units. Today Buttrick Drive is a pedestrian way bordering the George W. and
Irene K. Woodruff Quadrangle.

WALLACE MCPHERSON ALSTON, 1906-1987

Dr. Wallace Alston served as president of the Col-
lege from 1951 to 1973. With degrees from Emory Uni-
versity, Columbia Seminary, and Union Seminary, he
came to Agnes Scott in 1948 as Professor of Philosophy
and President-elect. Born in Decatur, he had more
reason to know the College than most, as he had grown
up on Candler Street where his grandfather lived and
had played baseball on the campus grounds. In 1931 he
married an Agnes Scott alumna, Madelaine
Dunseith of the class of 1928. m Dr
Alston involved himself in every
aspect of college life and knew
each student by name. He cared
about students ' lives and per-
sonally worked to ease trou-
bles they might have. One
year he. Dean of Students
Carrie Scandrett, and Busi-
ness Manager P.J. Rogers
went to the Atlanta jail to
gain the release of students

arrested for sitting in at an all-night hamburger stand to
protest segregation. He also cared about staff and
faculty. One long-time employee recalled that when
her mother was ill. Dr. Alston quietly offered finan-
cial help. Both a pastor and a scholar, Wallace
Alston combined a belief in academic excellence with
love and concern for others. He was also a teacher. For
more than fifteen years he taught a philosophy course
on the Christian religion, and each year
his class was full of the best Agnes
Scott students, as well as students
from Emory University and
Georgia Tech. He particularly
enjoyed bringing eminent
scholars to the campus. The
visiting scholar programs
drew art critic Sir John
Rothenstein, poet/ novelist
May Sarton, theologian
George Buttrick, and phi-
losopher Theodore Greene.

40

CHAPTER FOUR

A FINE SPIRIT:

Organizations, Clubs,
and Traditions

For the first generations of undergraduate
women, the experience of founding, joining, or carrying on
traditions gave identity and importance to their college years.
The enthusiasm for "clubbing" and for creating the mythol-
ogies that surrounded events and practices was especially
vigorous at women's colleges, where a pioneer spirit and the
absence of entrenched male traditions afforded female stu-
dents a new freedom of expression.

From the 1890s until at least World War II, Agnes
Scott experienced a remarkable proliferation of student
organizations, clubs, festivals, honors, and rituals many of
them quite short-lived and all of them reflecting the students'
sense of pride in their school and in their developing intellects
and interests. In 1905, for example, in addition to several
campus-wide organizations there were at least thirty-nine
clubs on campus some with as few as three members and

The Pilot Club circa 1910

The Camera Club, 1903

sporting names such as Dames de Qualite, Good Times
Club. The Sat Upons, The House of Lords. X.Y.Z., Quarrel-
some Quartette, The Midnight Owls, Jolly Rovers, and The
Grass Widows, whose motto was "All Women are Born Free
and Unattached."

So abundant were the opportunities for extracur-
ricular activities on campus that administrators and student
leaders frequently met to discuss limiting or restructuring
these distractions. Most acknowledged the importance of a
well-rounded college life, however, both in complementing
the academic program and in promoting individual and
community growth. Organizations and traditions also pro-
vided opportunities for small groups on campus to satisfy
special needs and interests and added breadth to the liberal
arts curriculum.

Dean Nannette Hopkins recognized the value of
autonomy and initiative to the development of the mind
when she suggested in 1906 that students organize and estab-
lish a student government, a practice not yet adopted on
many college campuses. Elizabeth Curry Winn '07 remem-
bered the day the idea was announced in the new Rebekah
Scott Hall chapel and the many long and painful meetings in
which students hammered out the details of organization.

She served on the first Executive Committee, or Exec, and re-
corded her peers' mixed reactions to the new responsibilities:

We felt that our freedom was greatly increased under
the new regime, and there was a general feeling of
rejoicing, as well as much criticism. The criticism
became especially strong when the committee had to
deal with infringement of the rules, and there were
times when all of us would have laid down our official
authority and returned to the carefree status of private
students.

Exec and its successors played an important part
in changing life on campus through the years. From the
beginning. Exec held regular Open Forum meetings where
students expressed opinions that were developed into pro-
posals for the administration. In 1926 for example, a meeting
of the student body in Open Forum addressed the following
topics: telephone problems, mail room policy, dormitory
services, dating regulations, class cuts, class schedules, and
electric light rules. Through meetings like this one and
actions by Exec, students gained concessions about social
rules and even about the academic program.

42

Victims of Sophomore Rat Week, 1923. Proposed as a way to control hazing. Black Cat frequently did just the
opposite. In 1923 the sophomores held a "reign of terror" during Sophomore Week, as reported in The Agonistic:

"Two hundred freshmen trembled in the dark as they listened to their sentence read by the gleam of a flash light. Having
heard the orders they were to abide by, the Freshmen began their obedience by marching single file between a double
row of Sophomores and doing whatever they were commanded."

No matter how the dean and student leaders tried to change them, the fall activities surrounding Black Cat always
resulted in sophomores exercising their new ly attained authority at the expense of the incoming class.

From its inception. Black Cat caused controversy on campus, with some members of the community arguing that the
festivities enhanced school spirit, promoted class unity, displayed student talent, and built friendships while others
charged that Black Cat bred hostility, lowered grades, wasted time, and added nothing of value to campus life.

43

With each extension of its responsibilities, student
government at Agnes Scott gained further respect from the
community and evolved to meet the changing needs of the
College. In 1929-1930 Exec appealed to the Board of Trustees
for a major expansion of student government powers. The
trustees appointed a special committee to study the proposal
and eventualy approved the expansion with the following
statement:

While the powers requested seem larger than most of
those exercised by the students of the colleges in our
territory, we believe that the spirit of our students is
fine and that the conservative ideals of Agnes Scott
will be presen'ed and cherished as heretofore.

This trust in students' abilities and "spirit" was
reflected in Agnes Scott's honor system. In coming to Agnes
Scott, each student pledged to abide by the honor system,
which governed both academic and social behavior and
formed the foundation of their lives on campus and in the
community. Today, as in the past, students promise to be

bound by honor to develop and uphold high stand-
ards of honesty and behavior; to strive for full intellec-
tual and moral stature; to realize [their] social and
academic responsibility in the community.

Until 1962, students who served on Exec exercised both
executive and judicial power. In 1944, dissatisfaction with
this arrangement led to the beginning of an eighteen-year
process of separating the two functions, and in 1962 the
renamed Representative Council or Rep Council as it is
known today assumed reponsibility for executive and legis-
lative actions, while Judicial Council maintained the honor
system. Eight years later, the judicial system was divided to
allow Dorm Councils and Interdorm to administer social
rules, while Honor Court dealt with the appeals process and
infringements of the honor code.

In the early days of women's colleges, administra-
tors and faculty anxiously guarded their school's academic
reputation and encouraged student activities that supported
this image. For example, Agnes Scott supervised the estab-
lishment of chapters of two national honor societies. Phi Beta
Kappa and Mortar Board, to recognize students' academic
achievements and to foster the links between scholarship and
leadership and service on campus (see Chapter Two).

As extensions of the academic program. College
publications offered young women opportunities to practise
journalism and creative writing and to develop their views on
a range of campus, national, and international issues. The

first Agnes Scott publication grew out of the activities of the
Mnemosynean Literary Society, founded in 1891 and deter-
mined "to foster a taste for polite literature and to acquire on
the part of its members familiarity with standard authors,
musicians, and artists." The group met every Saturday eve-
ning in its own hall in Main, and that first year began produc-
ing The Mnemosynean Monthly, which led in 1897 to the
first Aurora, a publication that served both as an annual and
a literary magazine. In 1902 The Silhouette took over as the
College annual while the Aurora continued as the literary
magazine; these student-produced publications have con-
tinued to reflect the creative efforts of the College throughout
its history.

From its beginning in 1916, the student newspaper
occupied an important place in the activities of the College
and in keeping students aware of national and international
events. Information about campus and community events,
reviews, and discussions of the interests and pastimes of each
generation of students appeared in each issue. Founded in a
time of international crisis, the newspaper reported the events
and service opportunities of the Great War to an eager
student body.

Exec ran a contest for the name for this first
student newspaper, finally choosing The Agonistic from the
word meaning "pertaining to mental combat." The name
caused a certain amount of confusion over the years: many
people misspelled it to read "Agnostic," which was particu-
larly unfortunate for a Christian college, and others tried to
associate "Agonistic" with the name of the College. A lengthy
debate in the 1930s resulted in changing the name to The
Agnes Scott News in 1938. In 1965 the paper took the name
The Profile.

Theater studies played an important part in
women's education from the beginning, though the early
goals of such programs were often limited to developing
womanly graces in their students. At Agnes Scott the drama
program immediately took on more serious challenges. In
1915 two faculty members, Professors J. D. M. Armistead
and Mary L. Cady, organized an offical campus drama
troupe, Blackfriars, which they named for the Elizabethan
theater in London where many of Shakespeare's plays were
performed. When Professor Frances K. Gooch arrived later
that year to teach "expression," she took over as the group's
leader and continued to produce plays with Blackfriars until
her retirement in 1951.

Miss Gooch had a reputation for being difficult,
and no play couy be performed without her losing her
temper at least once and "washing her hands" of the whole

44

affair. Alumnae from the 1920s recall that one of her favorite
tactics was to pretend to faint from frustration during re-
hearsals. During one such episode her students were so
alarmed that they ran immediately to Dr. Mary Sweet, the
College physician. Miss Gooch and Dr. Sweet did not get
along, so when Miss Gooch realized that her nemesis had been
called, she quickly recovered and resumed the rehearsal.

Under the guidance of Miss Gooch and others,
Blackfriars planned an ambitious schedule of performances
each year, frequently including one of Shakespeare's comedies
and plays adapted or dramatized by members of the campus
community. At the 1928 National Little Theatre Tournament
in New York City, the Blackfriars' presentation of Pink and
Patches, written by Margaret Bland Sewell '20, won first prize

for the Best Production of an Unpublished Play.

Since no men were permitted to participate in
early College productions and no student could wear trous-
ers, Agnes Scott actresses played the male roles wearing long
black skirts. A 1925 graduate recalled that she broke the ban
on trousers when she borrowed a pair from President
McCain so that she could play the role of Sir Peter Teazle in
School for Scandal. The prohibition against male actors was
broken in 1930 and again in 1933 when President McCain's
ten-year-old son Charles joined the Blackfriars' cast. Eventu-
ally Blackfriars' oustanding reputation drew actors from the
community to its casts, and the company cooperated in play
production with Emory University and Georgia Tech theater
groups.

In 1924 Blackfriars performed Conflict by Clarice Vallette McCauley in an intercollegiate competition at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where it won second place. Blackfriars, founded in 1915, is the oldest
continuing drama group in the A tlanta area.

45

46

-*#

4

*

I

With the approval of an administration concerned
with "the whole woman," other campus-wide organizations
planned activities that promoted college and class spirit.
Shortly after the College achieved collegiate status, the
Athletic Association was organized to further students'
health and fitness and to augment the activities offered by the
Department of Physical Education. Besides sponsoring
intramural sports through the years sports such as basket-
ball, field hockey, swimming, tennis, and baseball the
Athletic Association directed activities for the general benefit
and amusement of students. During exam periods, for exam-
ple, AA ran contests that would encourage students to take

47

care of themselves physically during times of stress. In 1925
the organization awarded points to students who slept eight
hours, exercised for one hour each day. ate three regular
meals, and avoided sweets.

After World War II, a proposal that the College
should participate in intercollegiate sports was debated in
The Agnes Scott News and elsewhere on campus, but not
until the 1970s did the field hockey and tennis teams compete
with teams from other colleges. In the 1980s intercollegiate
competition expanded, while intramural sports with faculty
and staff participation continued to play an important part in
promoting fitness and good community relations.

4S

As successor to the YWCA in 1938, the Christian
Association offered opportunities to students to express their
faith through service and campus activities, such as programs
in the chapel and community worship. In 1943 CA sponsored
World Emphasis Week, during which daily chapels and
vespers focused on world affairs. Activities of the association
in the 1950s also concerned international affairs. By the 1970s
CA operated solely on voluntary contributions but offered
an ambitious array of projects including glass recycling,
panel discussions on Vietnam POWs, Focus on Faith, and
World Wide Communion.

While most of the campus organizations spon-
sored social activities in support of their other purposes, from
time to time groups formed solely to improve the social
opportunities for the students. Some of these clubs were
exclusive in their membership policies, and a few became full
sororities. By 1920 three sororities the Complicators, the
Bull Dogs, and Sigma Delta Phi had generated bad feelings
on campus and even among alumnae. That year The 5/7-
houette staff, the Pan-Hellenic Council, and the Senior Class
and other student groups debated the future of such clubs.
Unable to reach a conclusion among themselves, the students
appealed to the faculty, who accepted a proposal from non-
members that the clubs be closed to new members and
abolished as their last members graduated. The faculty also

prohibited the future organization of exclusive clubs.

In the twenties students turned towards campus-
wide social activities. In 1921 a time when dancing with men
on campus was prohibited the Cotillion Club declared as
its goal "To give more pleasure to the girls who dance and to
give Agnes Scott more of the social life."The Club sponsored
several activities for the student body, and those who
attended claimed they did not miss having male partners. Stu-
dents tried out for membership in the Cotillion Club and were
judged on poise, personality, appearance, and dancing ability.

In the years after World War II, a Social Standards
Committee was formed to promote social interactions and to
reestablish a sense of gracious living. The war had forced
cafeteria-style meals and other privations on the College, and
Dean Scandrett wanted to return to the tradition of served
meals and dressing for dinner. Students resisted her plan, but
agreed to freshen up for evening meals and to dress formally
for special occasions. In the 1950s, Social Council took the
place of the Social Standards Committee in providing for the
recreation and social development needs of the campus. In
1960 Social Council sponsored a Social Emphasis Week "to
bring Agnes Scott College into a full realization of the proper
social graces," which included calling cards, invitations,
choices for the dining room, good posture, fashion, and
lessons on how to entertain.

For fifty-five years, the celebration of May Day with its elaborate costumes and productions absorbed student
energies each spring. A traditional part of Southern life in the nineteenth century, the first May Day event at Agnes
Scott occurred in 1903.

In 1912, the campus YWCA chapter
sponsored the May Day celebration as a
money-making picnic for which students
dressed in pastoral costumes. The
maypole first appeared the following
year, and within a few years pageants
based on classical mythology had become
apart of the tradition.

By the 1950s interest in making the
complicated costumes for the May Day
pageant flagged, and in 1958 the College
combined May Day with a fine arts
festival that included programs of music,
dance, and drama. In 1963 a student-
faculty committee voted to discontinue
the May Day rite.

51

Evans Dining Hall, built in 1950, was financed by Letitia Pate Evans of Hot Springs, Virginia, and some of her friends.
Mrs. Evans was an Agnes Scott Trustee from 1949 until her death in 1953.

52

Celebrations of important moments in campus life
also contributed to the sense of community by bringing
students, faculty, administration and staff together. Since
1908 Senior Investiture and Commencement have been
major milestones in the academic year. An alumna of the
class of 1913 recalled that on the day before her investiture she
and her classmates dressed in gingham dresses and let their
hair down in an impromptu effort to celebrate the end of
childhood. Since that day and until 1962, when interest in the
tradition waned, seniors symbolically bid farewell to their
childhood on the Friday before Investiture in a custom called
Little Girls' Day. Wearing pinafores and pantaloons and
carrying toys, the seniors would frolic about the campus

singing children's songs. In the 1930s seniors marked Little
Girls' Day by marching around the campus singing "Shoo,
fly, don't bother me, I'm going to be invested,"and in 1959 the
"little girls" danced around Professor Walter Posey singing
"Ring around the Posey."

Like Little Girls' Day, another fall tradition Black
Cat developed as an outlet for student energies that might
otherwise have been spent on pranks and hazing. In 1915, Dr.
Sweet became concerned that sophomore hazing of the
incoming class during Rat Week might result in emotional or
physical harm. She suggested that the two classes compete in
producing skits, and the winning class would be able to bell a
small ceramic cat. The event was named Black Cat after Dr.

Black Cat, begun in 1915, remains one of the oldest, on-going festivals on campus. Originally involving only first and
second year students, it became a campus-wide event in 1951. Today it is celebrated in games and dance, with the song
competition playing a central role.

Sweet's own cat and has existed in some form ever since.

In 1951 the traditional Black Cat contest between
first and second year students expanded to a campus-wide
celebration for the new students. Each class presented its own
skit and songs, and at the end of the program the sophomores
would present the Black Cat to the new class to welcome
them into the community. Today, the weekend begins with a

Vdiniimci BlatM {W
5m 5' lqs4 When ik L<^ Tum P*

P jfr, , ,i\ , El

&

feS

;

h I r>.

2

co*^ to o"' 1 !->-. t+l 1-1 f f J- jl-i A Utle ""'

fei

*

Jure + ~twt wliicl -pub St*f-~ biCT oil
53 . \M

*

i^

j

^

? j.- 'g

ns.

j: j / 1 p % m

J |j Jlj-

g h

* v

J* 1 J: 1 I

S lov - 1 M "t^lt erou) 4^4 I

.3. hop

re- ^iewJe*( *l '

S5L

_ uAi*, >. ^-n-sff.! P L^f""' l"" 1 ^ rt-.o^i

^'rdLr-"^ lM ^

yo^-

-to mk. o"V

(beaws u>t^. -fftt

4t= ma W our drii^ s com -irut.

bonfire at the amphitheater; all four classes compete in
games, campus decorations, and songs. A junior class skit and
a formal dance traditional since 1955 close the weekend.

From 1914 until 1968, a group of seniors would
write and present an opera parody to the rest of the commu-
nity in the spring. Known as Seniorpolitan Opera, these per-
formances had become annual events held the week after the
Metropolitan Opera would bring its touring series to
Atlanta. Seniors performed Luci de Lawnmower in 1923 as a
parody of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Read-a-Letter
(Verdi's Rigoletto) in 1926, O-Hello (Verdi's Otello) in 1931,
and Alarmen Carmen (Bizet's Carmen) in 1949. In 1963
President and Mrs. Alston appeared wrapped in sheets play-
ing the roles of the priest and priestess of Dionysus in Orkin
and Eureka (Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice).

As the academic year came to a close, several
traditions marked the end of classes and the coming changes
in campus leadership. For many years, the seniors celebrated
Class Day on the day before the Baccalaureate Service that
opened Commencement festivities. On Class Day seniors
would read their class history, prophesy, and will, and would
then move to the front of the campus to observe Book
Burning by casting their most despised book or class notes
into a bonfire. A member of the class of '23 recalled that in her
senior year students held Book Drowning because of the con-
stant rain that spring. Sometimes seniors read poems to com-
memorate the death of a hated course, such as the one that a
member of the class of '44 wrote about her genetics class:

Ode to a Chromosome

This gruesome genetics had ruined me!

What do I care for the breed of a flea?

The one thing I know and do despise,

I'm dead tired of raising flies!

In 1942 the seniors burned notes only and brought
books to donate to the Victory Book Campaign as part of the
war council efforts. Class Day ended with the solemn and
secret rite of Capping, when seniors gave their caps and
gowns to juniors as a way of symbolically granting them
senior status. This tradition has survived, though it is now
held earlier in the spring on the evening of the Junior-Senior
Banquet.

Since 1890, Commencment has closed the aca-
demic year at Agnes Scott. The first commencement that
spring was as much a celebration of the school's success as a
graduation ceremony. Activities on that day included dem-
onstrations of free calisthenics, dumb bell routines, songs.

S4

duets, recitations, and broom and regimental drills by the
students. School officials announced awards of distinction in
academic work, as well as the winner of the writer's prize.
Parents and Decatur residents came to join in the occasion,
and over 200 spectators had to be turned away.

By the time the College awarded the first B.A.'s in
1906, Commencement had become a colorful and important
occasion including an academic procession, speakers, and
the awarding of several prizes. Rebekah Scott Hall. Bucher
Scott Gymnasium, and Gaines Chapel in Presser Hall all
hosted the ceremonies, but in 1970 Commencement was held
outside for the first time, a tradition that continues today.

Senior Investiture recognizes the special status of the graduating class
and marks their assumption of their senior privileges and responsibilities.
Beginning in 1908, Investiture was a private ceremony held in President
Gaines' study. At the time, intense class competition encouraged pranks,
especially during otherwise solemn events, and it soon became
traditional for the juniors to steal the seniors' caps and gowns before the
morning of Investiture. In 1913 the ceremony was made public to
discourage such pranks.

For many years sophomores honored their sister class, the seniors, by
presenting them with a Daisy Chain on Class Day which was part of
Commencement activities. This tradition faded in the late-sixties.

'/*

MAR VIN BANKS PERRY, JR., 1918-

Marvin Perry served as Agnes Scott College's
fourth president from 1973 to 1982. With degrees from
the University of Virginia and Harvard University, he
taught English at the University of Virginia and
Washington and Lee University. From I960 to 1967 he
was director of admissions
at the University of

Virginia, after which he became president of Goucher
College. He came to Agnes Scott in 1973. A ccording
to College Trustee Donald Keough, President of the
Coca-Cola Company, Dr. Perry's aim at Agnes Scott
was "to demonstrate to a new generation of students the
value of liberal learning and to give to them not just
skills, but the values, the ideals, the insight they will
need to solve the problems of life today and tomor-
row." m In 1981 President Perry reiterated his own
beliefs in the College: "We at Agnes Scott are con-
vinced that we can still encourage and promote
among women the pursuit of any kind of
intellectual and career interest, including those
traditionally dominated by men. We can pro-
vide successful role models among women
faculty and administrators." m President Perry
inaugurated innovative programs for Honor
Scholars, Return to College students, dual
degree candidates, and faculty governance
during his tenure. In addition, he provided up-
dated facilities for learning and planned the
renovation of three academic buildings.

56

CHAPTER FIVE

c

OMMUNITY OF COOPERATION:
Life on Campus

From the very first meetings in Dr. Gaines' manse
to plan the fledgling school in Decatur, Agnes Scott College
established itself as a community based on cooperation and
regard for the welfare of others. Faculty, administrators,
staff, and students valued the intimacy of the campus and
tended the atmosphere in which such relationships developed
with the same attention they gave to the academic program.
The students who attended the Institute were younger than
today's undergraduates, and many had come a long way
from home to get their education. The school bore almost

complete responsibility for these young women, and in those
days controlled their conduct, dress, visitors, and daily sched-
ules, as well as every detail of their academic programs. The
establishment of student government in 1906 began a process
by which students gained a greater role in managing their
lives outside the classroom. Since that time, the activities of
honorary and service organizations, the easing of social regu-
lations, and increased student participation in college deci-
sions have demonstrated the importance of maturity,
responsibility, and leadership to an Agnes Scott education.

Students at Agnes Scott Institute circa 1895

57

Agnes

SCOTT INSTITUTE,

DECAT^I

Georgia Railroad.

Six Miles Ea S t_of ^-rC Electric Line,

elegant

3- with City *

/emeGlS:

w

5 ClETiriC, UTtMM ,

A Art specially fine.
Advantages in Musk and A P address

F- H. G

pRESl

,ciDENt,

gE ob^ a -

4 College

advertisement in

the 1897 Au' ora

58

Late night snacks were as popular in the 1890s as they are today. In the early years, the school discouraged parents
from sending their daughters food, as "eating imprudently" was a serious breach in an otherwise healthy regimen.

59

Students posing on the steps of Main in the early 1900s

60

<,0

Built in 1905 and named for Rebekah Bucher Scott, Colonel
Scott 's wife, "R ebekah " originally housed students and a
chapel. In the 1950s, a group of students formed the Second
Rebekah Garden Club, which met weekly for long
discussions on the health of their flowers. Club members
were likely to turn up for campus events elaborately dressed
in flowered hats and white gloves.

Carnegie Library, 1910-1986, was the

first separate library building on

campus. In 1936, when a new library

was opened, the older structure was

renamed the Murphey Candler

Building and designated as a student

center. Affectionately known as the Hub

for many years, it was the scene of

thousands of bridge hands and other

student gatherings.

61

Cookouts, like the one pictured here, were a popular activity in the twenties and thirties. Later students enjoyed
similar outings. In 1968 the students in McCain Cottage invited Dr. Alston to a backyard barbecue. Coming over
from his home next door, he enjoyed the hot dogs and s 'mores along with the rest of the party.

62

For many students, relationships with peers and
faculty both in and out of the classroom become the most
important memories of their college years. As a women's
college, Agnes Scott provided an especially supportive
atmosphere for the development of female friendships. Stu-
dents of the Institute delighted in sharing food packages from
home with a group of close friends. An alumna from the
thirties remembered "bull sessions in Rebekah"as among the
highlights of her college experience. These friendships lasted
and provided ties to the campus long after graduation and
even when students moved far away. When one alumna
returned to the College for the first time in twelve years, her
classmates and friends gave a party for her at the Tea Room.
Members of the Class of 1941 who live in the Atlanta area still
gather each month to have lunch on campus. Other classes
including 1979 and 1983 graduates fly their families to loca-
tions around the country for annual get-togethers.

In the early days, when most faculty members
lived on or near campus, their lives were very much inter-
twined with those of the students. Professors often enter-
tained students in their homes for club meetings, class parties,
or other informal gatherings, and faculty wives frequently-
held afternoon teas and receptions. Professor Emma May
Laney sponsored the Poetry Club and invited the group to
meet in her home for many years during her tenure at Agnes
Scott (1919-1956). President McCain's freshman Bible class
held an annual candy pull and corn popping at his home. In
the forties, faculty-student "Bacon Bats," or picnics, were the
rage. After C. Benton Kline became Dean of the Faculty in
1957, he and his family held a series of Sunday afternoon
open houses each year so that every student had an opportu-
nity to visit there informally. President Wallace Alston also
entertained groups of students at his home each year. By the
1980s it had become traditional for professors to invite their
classes over for dinner or dessert towards the end of the term;
the difficulties of scheduling these events in the busy weeks
before exams led many faculty members to hold their "end-
of-the-year" parties earlier in the semester.

In the College's early years, male professors could
not always mingle freely with students outside of classes. The
administration set aside a table in the dining room for the
male faculty members, for example, and as late as 1928
explicitly requested that they not attend student ball games
or dances unless invited. Although these rules disappeared in
the thirties, male faculty members were sometimes a minority
on campus. C. Benton Kline remembered that when he
arrived in 1951, the male members of the faculty met for lunch
on Tuesdays in the president's dining room, forming in effect a

male support group long before such groups were fashionable.

By the 1930s faculty members of both sexes joined
in many student activities, including hockey, basketball, and
baseball games and other special events. The Brown Jug
Tournament was an annual basketball competition in which
faculty and alumnae participated. At an Athletic Association
carnival in the 1940s, a faculty member standing on the
sidelines observed that only persons with "empty heads"
would ride the rickety carousel; just as he spoke. President
McCain dismounted and walked coolly through the crowd.

From time to time the faculty would play cameo
roles in student performances or present an amusing skit to
the campus community. Professor Paul Garber, an ordained
minister and Bible instructor, recalled that in one such skit he
portayed a devil. During the performance someone
prompted his young son to stand up and call out,
"That's my daddy," to the merriment of the audience. In
1957 when several years had passed without a faculty skit, the
students requested that their professors resume the
tradition as

an outstanding example of that special characteristic
of Agnes Scott, that close relationship betweenfaculty
and students, that willingness of the faculty to be a
part of the campus as individual human beings
beyond the classroom.

In 1964 another skit based on the Winnie-the-Pooh stories
starred Professor Edward McNair in the role of Eeyore, and
he was ever after known as Eeyore among the students.

Faculty members present a skit as a spoof on Winnie the Pooh,
circa 1964-65.

63

Students always love to tell tales about their
teachers, and the intimate atmosphere at Agnes Scott has
long fostered such mythologies. Between 1927 and 1938 there
were two faculty members named Smith, Miss "Latin" (Lil-
lian S.) Smith and Miss "History" (Florence E.) Smith. Miss
Latin Smith had begun teaching in 1905 and was always a
proper lady. Each morning, she came to class in hat and

The Fire Brigade in 1912, when students bore some
of the responsibility for protecting the campus.

gloves and busily adjusted the transom in her Main class-
room. This concern with ventilation always amused the stu-
dents because there was no glass in the transom. When Miss
Latin Smith waxed enthusiastic about a point she was mak-
ing, the flowers in her hat bobbed and bounced as her
students tried to contain their giggling. English professor
Margaret Pepperdene, who taught at the College from 1956
to 1985, was also famous for her enthusiasm. She usually sat
on her desk as she taught, but when she got to an exciting
part of her lecture, she would leap down from the desk and
sometimes land with one foot in the trash can.

The spirit of community extended beyond campus
life at Agnes Scott and included physical plant and custodial
employees as well as faculty, administrators, and students.
When Dean of the Faculty S. Guerry Stukes was preparing

to retire in 1957, he planned to give his Biblical Commen-
taries to Riley Anderson, one of the College carpenters who
was also a Baptist minister known for his moving prayers at
College functions in which he would sing and pray for every
person on campus by name. Dean Stukes changed his mind
when he discovered that Mr. Anderson couldn't read, but
soon afterwards, another physical plant employee reported
to the dean that Mr. Anderson had his grandson read every-
thing to him. The commentaries went to Mr. Anderson. Elsie
Doerpinghaus, wife of biology professor Leonard Doerping-
haus, thought of Agnes Scott as a "community of coop-
eration." She remembered that, when they arrived in Decatur
in 1958, College people were there to help them move in. "It
was," said Mrs. Doerpinghaus, "as if Doerp was here to use
his mind rather than his hands."

Today Victoria Lambert and her crew of grounds keepers devote themselves to maintaining the beauty of the campus
through the changes of the seasons. Their efforts are particularly appreciated on snowy days when they are out early
spreading sand on icy roads and sidewalks.

65

Through the years, many lawn parties and receptions have taken place at the Alumnae Garden and Pool. According
to tradition, newly engaged students are ceremoniously dunked in the pool.

66

The early generations of Agnes Scott students
found it easy to cooperate with the regulations and practices
the College established to govern their lives, for college life
gave them a sense of freedom even when the rules resembled
those at home. A sample of some rules from the 1892 cata-
logue demonstrates the College's concern for the health of
students, as well as for their mental and moral well-being and
for a high standard of propriety:

No pupil is allowed to appear in a wrapper out of her
chamber. Pupils will not be allowed to go to Atlanta
more than once a quarter for shopping purposes, and
then only when accompanied by a teacher. Unless
specially excused, pupils must repair to the Study Hall
at 7:00 p.m.; at 10:00 the house must be quiet. Pupils
are permitted to correspond only with such gentlemen
as are specially named in writing by parents. Visitors
will not be received during school study hours: nor the
visits of young men at any time.

A student made fun of the College's concern for health in
the Aurora of 1899:

You know that among the many qualities men are said
to admire in women, are those of a beautiful complex-
ion and a fine and healthy figure. It is also a known
fact that exercise is one of the best means of obtaining
these happy results. Whether the faculty here are train-
ing us up especially to become pleasing to the eyes of
the other sex, we dare not presume to know, but we
are certainly forcibly convinced that they approve of
exercise as a means of promoting good health.

A daily happening in all eras was the excited rush to check mailboxes.

A tower room in Main reflects the

tastes of students in the 1980s.

(Photograph courtesy of Flip Chalfant.)

A street dance behind Rebekah Scott Hall in the 1960s. For fifty-seven years (until 1947) dancing with
men on campus was forbidden.

Attendance was required at chapel six days a week
during this period, and on Sunday students had to be present
at both Sunday school and church services. Over the years.
College rules evolved to meet changing customs, needs and
perceptions of students' maturity. In 1919 students could go
to Decatur unchaperoned in the daylight, but freshmen and
sophomores were forbidden to talk with a man met by
chance for longer than three minutes; older students were
permitted to attend afternoon movies with men. By 1930
seniors could date until 11:00 p.m. and freshmen could
double-date in cars instead of having to depend on public
transportation.

The rules were especially strict about riding in cars
with men. Shortly after Professor Walter Posey arrived at
Agnes Scott, he was driving from Decatur to the campus
when he noticed an Agnes Scott student walking back to
school weighed down by several boxes. He pulled up beside

her and offered her a ride back to the campus. She ignored
him and walked on. Dr. Posey pulled up to her again and
repeated his offer, and the student continued to ignore him.
Finally he stopped along side of her for the third time and
said sternly, "Young lady, I am the chairman of the History
Department at Agnes Scott. Would you like a ride back to
the campus?" "Oh no sir," she replied, "but my boxes would."
In another incident demonstrating the College's strict train-
ing about men and cars, two freshmen were expecting to
meet one's uncle at his black Buick in an Atlanta parking lot.
Upon arriving they spotted a black Buick, but since they
weren't sure if it was the right one, they began rifling the
contents of the glove box for the owner's name. Suddenly a
familiar voice behind them said, "Young ladies, may I take
you back to school?" The two embarrassed freshmen ran for
the trolley line, leaving a bewildered President McCain stand-
ing beside his car.

68

For many years Agnes Scott students had to
comply with a variety of strict "signing out" procedures when
they left the campus or went out at night. These procedures
were gradually liberalized, but until then students and admin-
istrators tended to take them very seriously. One day in 1941 a
student received a funeral wreath from her date, who had
brought her back to campus thirteen minutes late the evening
before. She was, as expected, "campused" for the infraction.
A few years later Mary McConkey Reimer '46 was stricken
with appendicitis and taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
On the way, and in spite of the pain, she had only one
thought: there she was riding in a car with two men and she
hadn't even signed out!

The rules governing on-campus dancing with men
were also strictly enforced for many years. Students danced
with each other at campus parties or with men in the private
homes of the few of their friends whose parents allowed it. In
1946 President McCain decided to allow dancing with men
on campus as long as alternative entertainment was offered
for students without dates. A committee with representatives
from student government, the Social Standards Committee,
and the Cotillion Club drew up the rules that governed
dancing on campus, including one that banned jitterbugging.
The first formal tea dance was held in the Murphey Candler

Building from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. in April of 1947, and the
following fall the Cotillion Club sponsored the first formal
evening dance on Thanksgiving weekend.

More widely resented and more frequently broken
were the College's rules governing bedtime and lights out.
During the early years, the main power switch was thrown at
10:00 p.m. after a warning whistle, and students were
expected to be in bed. The faculty normally met from 7:30
p.m. until lights out, and Dean Stukes recalled that the
minutes of the meetings often closed with "the whistle blew
and the faculty meeting adjourned." As with other rules,
seniors were granted special privileges, and by 1921 they had
unlimited "lights." In 1930 all students could keep their lights
on until 11:00 p.m. on Saturdays, and in 1955 all rules con-
cerning lights were eliminated.

Some rules grew out of faculty members concern
for students' development. In 1920 Professor C. W. Dieck-
mann of the Music Department asked the faculty to urge
students not to play jazz and ragtime music. He worried that
such music could have a depressing effect on students' char-
acters. In 1927 victrolas could only be played from 4:10 p.m.
to 7:30 p.m. and from 10:00 to 10:30 p.m. during the week,
from 1:10 to 10:30 p.m. on Saturdays and after dinner on
Sundays. Jazz was still prohibited.

Students often wore skirts and middle blouses circa 1912. The presence of the chicken is a mystery.
69

Although an official dress code did not appear
until 1955, the College assumed authority over student dress
as part of its efforts to graduate accomplished and proper
young ladies. Approved sports attire in 1891 included a floor
length grey flannel suit with a divided skirt; in the mid-
twenties the official costume was a middie blouse, bloomers,
and long black hose. Students protested the ban on anklets
and wore them over their hose until the ban was lifted in
1933. When the hair-bobbing craze hit the nation in 1921,
Agnes Scott students were intrigued by the forbidden style,
as the following verse from The Agonistic shows:

Mama is shocked,

Grandma is grieved;

Papa sighs deeply.

Auntie's bereaved;

Sister scolds loudly,

Bud doesn 't care

All have donned mourning.

Since I bobbed my hair.

By 1924, more than half of the students had succumbed to
temptation and cut their hair.

Agnes Scott established its first formal dress code
in 1955 as students attempted to push the limits of what
constituted appropriate dress for College events and daily

life. The seniors in that year made fun of the College's
concern when they cautioned the freshmen:

Girls, this dressing up for affairs must cease. The
approved costume for concerts in Presser is loafers
with or without socks; whatever you happen to have
worn to class that day; and a raincoat. The raincoat is
essential. It makes you feel anonymous as you crawl
into the balcony fifteen minutes late.

The dress code survived in various forms until 1970 when
specific regulations were dropped, but the administration
continued to urge that students "dress neatly and appro-
priately for all occasions."

During the 1950s and 1960s, Agnes Scott students
began to question the College s authority over every aspect of
campus life, including dating, chaperonage, and dress. In
1957 Dean of Students Carrie Scandrett explained that the
College was simply exercising the authority of parents or
acting in loco parentis:

In so far as it is possible, our social procedures are
those of a well-ordered home. They are designed with
the welfare and the good times of all the students in
mind. Agnes Scott students come from homes where
love, care, and interested concern for fine ideals and
high standards of conduct are felt and taught.

70

The Silhouette Tea Room was located in the basement of Lowry Science Hall. It was moved to the new A lumnae
House in 1921. The Tea Room was a favorite gathering place for students and teachers.

But the students continued to challenge the idea of
in loco parentis, and gradually they won a number of conces-
sions in the relaxing of the rules. Occasionally, something
happened to remind them that accessible and concerned
administrators and faculty contributed much to the campus
community. One Sunday in 1963, some students found a sick
collie lying in the bushes near the colonnade and called on
President Wallace Alston for advice. "With characteristic
kindness and special concern for whatever concerns us, he
immediately took the time and trouble to have the dog cared
for," one student wrote, pointing out that in this case, in loco
parentis worked for the students' benefit. Similarly, during
the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, many students sought
consolation in the president's home, and Dr. Alston calmed
their fears without showing his own anxiety.

At other times, students found refuge in a succes-
sion of campus hangouts. The Silhouette Tea Room was one

of the most beloved of these social centers. Located first in
the Lowry Science Hall, it moved to the Alumnae House in
1922. Catherine Wood Marshall LeSourd '36 wistfully
recalled "trailing to the Tea Room in pajamas and robes"
with her friends. The Tea Room specialized in soup, dough-
nuts, and fifty-seven varieties of salad. The most popular
meal was breakfast, when cinnamon toast and coffee could
be bought for a dime. Faculty members liked to gather at the
Tea Room in the evening for coffee parties, since the College
physician had banned the serving of coffee in the dining hall.
The campus mourned when the Tea Room closed in 1951 due
to financial problems and the opening of Evans Dining Hall.
During the 1950s the Murphey Candler Building came in to
its own as a student center, and students began calling it the
Hub in 1954. Today students congregate in the Wallace M.
Alston Campus Center, drawn there by the snack bar, rac-
quetball courts, and a television lounge.

71

The dormitories were the center of most students'
lives outside the classroom. Each student expressed her per-
sonality and interests in the careful decoration of her room,
and during the forties, fifties, and sixties there were annual
room decorating contests. Until the seventies the College
provided laundry service for the students, and much of dor-
mitory life was spent filling out laundry slips and rectifying
embarrassing mistakes.

The panty raid, symbol of campus social life in the
fifties, threatened Agnes Scott in 1951-1952, as told in the
Class of '55 history:

For weeks the campus shuddered under the threat
of a panty raid by Emory and Georgia Tech youth.
The Decatur and Atlanta police and the Georgia mili-
tia must have surrounded the campus, and Dr.
Alston and Mr. Stukes walked a nightly beat in front
of Main. With policemen playing cards on dormitory
porches and having parties in the basement of the
dining hall, with threatening calls telling that a line of
1,000 cars filled with hopeful boys was en route to
Agnes Scott, and with the advice of the Dean's office
to please not wave "things " out of the window, there
was a reign of chaos that ended in absolutely nothing
but relief for the girls who had sat up all night from

fear, and disappointment for those who had sat up all
night in anticipation.

In 1956 a student government project to make
students more aware of neatness and manners briefly threat-
ened the pleasant atmosphere of the dormitories. Student
leaders conducted secret room surveys and published a list of
those who failed inspection under the title "Poor Wives." The
campus revolted, and angry students attacked the project,
charging that it violated privacy, good taste, and courtesy.
The mind-your-manners plan was not continued.

In 1970, when the College's social regulations were
liberalized, Interdormitory Council was introduced to gov-
ern and enhance life in the residence halls. Because the Col-
lege requires that most traditional-age students reside on
campus, Interdorm largely sets the tone for campus life. The
entirely student-run organization builds morale within the
residence halls and provides educational programs regarding
cultural differences among residents and awareness for per-
sonal safety. Dorm Councils and Interdorm have judicial
responsibilities and govern most cases of rule violation.
These organizations and others like them serve to improve
communications among students and the administration and
contribute much to life on campus today.

Dorm life in the eighties. (Photograph courtesy of Ron Sherman.)

72

A

m

Dormitory life in Main in 1910.

Students romp in an unusual Georgia snowfall in the 1960s.

74

The Agnes Scott College community in 1940.

Many alumnae remember kneeling on a small

stool during Investiture, when the dean placed the

mortar board on the head of each student, and

Commencement, when the graduating student

received her academic hood. This custom began in

1932 when one of the seniors had been ill and

could not kneel to the floor as had been the

practice. Students rebelled against the symbolism

of kneeling in the 1970s, and since then each

senior has stood before the dean.

RUTH SCHMIDT, 1930-

Dr. Schmidt assumed the College presidency
in 1982. A native of Minnesota, she graduated summa
cum laude from Augsburg College in Minneapolis. After
earning her M. A. from the University of Missouri, she
taught Spanish at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois
and taught at the State University of New York at Al-
bany. In 1978 she became provost and professor of
Spanish at Wheaton College in Massachusetts where
she was acclaimed for her pioneering work in estab-
lishing a "gender-balanced" curriculum that integrated
information on women into all courses of study. As
the first woman president of Agnes Scott
College, Dr. Schmidt has expanded
interest in international areas by

establishing the Global A wareness Program. President
Schmidt 's interest in fine teaching led to her establish-
ment of the prestigious Presidential Award for Excel-
lence in Teaching. Under her leadership the College
successfully completed a thirty-five million dollar cam-
paign and actually surpassed that goal. The completion
of the Centennial Campus during her tenure included
the renovation of residence halls, the transformation of
the Bucher Scott Gymnasium and Walters Infirmary
into the Wallace M. Alston Campus Center, and the
construction of the Robert W. Woodruff Physical Activ-
ities Building and the Lawrence L. and Mary Duck-
worth Gellerstedt Track and Field, m President
Schmidt is active in local, regional, and
national educational associations. She
has chaired the Women's College
Coalition and presided over the
Association of Private Colleges
and Unh'ersities of Georgia. She
has serx'ed on the Commis-
sion on Women in Higher
Education of the American
Council on Education, the
executive committees of the
Southern University Con-
ference and the Association
of Presbyterian Colleges and
Universities, and as a board
member of the Association of
American Colleges. She currently
ser\>es on the Commission on Col-
leges of the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools and on the Com-
mittee on Higher Education for the Pres-
byterian Church U.S.A.

76

CHAPTER SIX

ISIONS FOR THE FUTUR E.-
Agnes Scott College at 100

During the 1980s, Agnes Scott College anticipated
the Centennial Celebration and changes in the student popu-
lation and their educational needs with extensive planning
activities. The renovation of College buildings and facilities
responded to new curricular emphases, as well as to concerns
with energy efficiency and with restoring the historic charac-
ter of the campus. In 1984-86 the decision to change the
academic calendar to the semester system occasioned a re-
examination of the curriculum that resulted in the faculty
reaffirming their commitment to the liberal arts and sciences,
while offering students increased opportunities for choice
and some new academic goals. These goals included a revital-
ization of the fine arts at the College, the development of the
Global Awareness program, the expansion of the physical
education program, the study of the formation and transmis-
sion of values, the design of a program that would encourage
women to enter and excel in the sciences, a new focus on the
study of women, and a renewed commitment to the teaching
of writing.

The renovation of Dana Fine Arts Building,
Presser Hall, and of the dance studio in the Wallace Alston
Campus Center enhanced the gallery, studio, and perform-
ance facilities for the fine arts programs on campus. In
addition, an expanded college events series and a visiting
artists program brought internationally known performers
and artists to teach and work on campus.

Building on a long tradition of international con-
nections, Agnes Scott entered its second century with a new
emphasis on global awareness. Several new programs offer
students opportunities to live and study abroad for college
credit and give increased attention to international issues and
cross-cultural studies on campus. In 1986 students partici-
pated in a summer program in India. A member of the class
of 1988 remembered her impressions of that trip:

77

/ was shocked and horrified by the disease and the
poverty about which I had only read or seen pictures. I
had never grasped the reality of it, the vastness of it, or
how slim are the chances of escape from such a perpet-
ual state. I was overwhelmed by feelings of futility and
compassion, wondering so often how it is that I find
myself living so secluded a life and in such compara-
tive opulence.

President Schmidt emphasized that each student should have
the opportunity to live and study in a culture other than her
own. "A liberal arts education liberates us from the slavery of
place by curing us of cultural myopia." Since the early travel
programs, many students and faculty have participated in
Global Awareness trips to a variety of countries on five
continents, including Mexico, Germany, England. France,
Burkina Faso, Peru and the Galapagos Islands, Greece,
Nicaragua, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The students who
study abroad in these programs bring their experiences back
to campus through formal and informal means.

The number of international students who come
to Agnes Scott has increased over the years, and new coun-
tries are being represented. Whether they come for a year or
for their entire undergraduate education, these students bring
valuable cultural perspectives to the campus community. As
Amna Jaffer '90 from Pakistan said of her experience of
being an international student at Agnes Scott:

/ realized that I can 't help but let my identification as a
Pakistani come out in everything I do and say. Agnes
Scott is a small school a community. So as interna-
tional students in this small community, I know we
must be making some sort of mark.

Because today's women have a greater commit-
ment to physical fitness and more opportunities to participate

in sports competitions, the College decided to revitalize its
physical activities program. The Woodruff Physical Activi-
ties Building opened in March of 1988 with festivities that
included a five kilometer race and an appearance by Olympic
Gold Medal winner Joan Benoit Samuelson. The new Law-
rence L. and Mary Duckworth Gellerstedt, Jr. Track and
Field provides facilities for the intercollegiate soccer team, as
well as for students, faculty, and staff who run or walk for
recreation. The gym houses a basketball court and a swim-
ming pool, weight rooms, and offices and classrooms for the
Physical Education Department and the newly designated
Director of Athletics.

Agnes Scott has always found central to its mis-
sion the communication of religious, personal, civic, and
educational values and the enabling of students to develop
values for themselves. Recognizing the fundamental role of
faculty in this process, the College sponsored a National
Endowment for the Humanities seminar on Teaching Values
in the Western Tradition for the faculty during the summer of
1988. Implicit in their deliberations was the belief that educa-
tion is more than the transmission of knowledge: it must
challenge students to use their knowledge and talents wisely
and with care for others.

In planning for its second century, the College also
undertook a major commitment to becoming a center for the
education of women in the sciences. The early stages of this
program included the renovation of Campbell Science Hall
in 1982, the establishment of academic computing with sev-
eral new computer centers on campus, joint programs in the
sciences with Georgia Institute ofTechnolgy and Washington
University in St. Louis, and faculty grants that increase oppor-
tunities for students to participate in research on campus.

Plans to expand the writing program within and
beyond the Department of English began with the establish-
ment in 1988 of the Writing Workshop, where students come
to work collaboratively on their writing assignments with
trained student tutors. The Agnes Scott Writers' Festival,
begun in 1972, continues to bring nationally known poets,
fiction writers, and playwrights to campus to read their
works and to judge a statewide literary competition. In the
past ten years Margaret Atwood, Denise Levertov, and
Michael S. Harper have participated in the festival along
with published alumnae Memye Curtis Tucker '56 and Jane
Zanca '83. The finalists' works are published in Festival, an
annual magazine issued by the Writers' Festival.

Formal interest in women's studies at Agnes Scott
began in 1974, when the College joined with other Atlanta
colleges and universities in forming a discussion group to

examine and promote the study of women across the curricu-
lum. The faculty designed and put in place a number of
courses to begin to accomplish this goal, and with the interest
and efforts of students, an interdisciplinary program in
Women's Studies began in 1989. Today students may minor
in Women's Studies, and plans are under way for further
course development and for increased opportunities for com-
munity service in areas of special concern to women.

Many aspects of this academic plan for the future
touch on differences within our global world. In recent years,
campus organizations, classes, and faculty and adminstrative
groups have addressed diversity and its importance in a
number of areas of the liberal arts setting, such as hiring,
admissions, curriculum, culture, and values. In 1987, Presi-
dent Schmidt responded to the community's concerns
regarding this issue and to the need for affirmative action in
the broadest sense when she created the President's Commit-
tee on Community Diversity. "This committee," according to
the President, "is charged with recommending . . . steps which
will enhance the goal of unity of spirit and diversity of
people." In addition to addressing the recruitment of minori-
ties within the staff, faculty and student body, the committee
seeks to restructure aspects of campus life in ways that will
reflect the experiences and contributions of many racial and
ethnic groups. The College Events Committee incorporated
the cultural diversity theme into programs planned for 1989-
1990. During the summer of 1989, the Committee on Com-
munity Diversity sponsored a workshop entitled "Undoing
Racism" in which administrators, faculty, staff members,
and students shared their ethnic and cultural heritages; dis-
cussed the nature, causes and results of racial discrimination;
and set goals for expanding the achievements of the work-
shop to the rest of the community. In January and February
1990, a series of seminars and presentations for the entire
campus addressed issues of race, gender, and ethnicity in the
design and teaching of college courses.

From 23 September 1988 to 24 September 1989,
Agnes Scott College celebrated 100 years of educating
women. The year-long Centennial Celebration honored
Agnes Scott traditions and explored directions the College
will take in its second century with a variety of public and
private events. At Opening Convocation on 24 September
1988 former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, Distinguished Cen-
tennial Lecturer for the year, spoke to the College commu-
nity on the "Promise of a Changing World." Throughout the
year, Mrs. Carter brought her unique perspective on world-
wide social and political conditions to Centennial events,
classes, and social occasions at Agnes Scott, where global

7S

awareness has become an increasingly important theme in
academic and campus life.

During the Centennial year, distinguished alum-
nae from a wide range of fields returned to campus to lecture
about their postgraduate experiences. Bertha Merrill Holt
38, a state representative in the North Carolina legislature,
addressed the campus in October on "Women and Politics:
The Power The Responsibility." Carolyn Forman Peil '40,
the first woman president of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, Frances Anderson '63, a professor of art and
author of several books on art and art therapy, Mary Brown
Bullock '66, Director of the National Academy of Science,
and Priscilla Sheppard Taylor '55, editor of the Phi Beta
Kappa newsletter, all returned to Agnes Scott to lecture on
their areas of expertise.

(Photograph courtesy of Paul Obregon.)

A view of Rebekah (left) and Main (right) across the Woodruff Quadrangle. (Photograph courtesy of Flip Chalfant.)

so

Many alumnae came home to Agnes Scott during
the Centennial year by attending an exhibit of artifacts and
photographs held at the Atlanta Historical Society. Encom-
passing different aspects of campus life such as academics,
community connections, global awareness, social service, the
fine arts, and science education, the exhibit brought past,
present, and future together by portraying the history of the
College as well as alumnae who have excelled in these areas.
In addition to the displays, the architectural details of the
exhibit created a sense of being on campus. Over eight
hundred alumnae and College friends attended the opening
gala, and thousands more viewed the exhibit during the
following months. After the exhibit closed, a number of the
displays were placed in campus buildings.

The Centennial planners agreed that Agnes Scott
should look to its future, as well as to its past, and Founder's
Day 1989 was celebrated with the opening of a symposium
entitled "Values for Tomorrow: How Shall We Live?" Martin
Marty, a historian of modern Christianity from the Univer-
sity of Chicago, Robert Coles, Professor of Psychiatry and
Medical Humanities at Harvard University, Rosabeth Ran-
ter, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Busi-
ness School, three presidents of women's colleges, and others
discussed the development and transmittal of values in busi-
ness, education, government, and theology.

On a Global A wareness trip to Nepal, Elizabeth Buck listens
to the children. (Photograph courtesy of Jeremy Green.)

81

A student trains in the pool in the new Woodruff Physical Activities Building. (Photograph courtesy of Bill Denison.)

(Photograph courtesy of Flip Chalfant.)

In April, the Centennial Celebration turned to the
fine arts with a week-long series of events called "Arts Syn-
ergy" that examined the influence of arts on each other.
Commissioned on-site sculptures by Mary Jane Hasek,
Mimi Holmes 78, Lynn Denton '63, and Elaine Williams 77
explored themes from women's lives. Music and dance per-
formances were scheduled throughout the week focusing on
the world premiere of Echoes Through Time, a commis-
sioned musical drama by composer Thea Musgrave and
librettist Christa Cooper.

The Centennial Celebration built to a climax on 23
September of 1989, the eve of the College's one hundredth
birthday. Alumnae, current students, faculty, staff and
friends of the College attended one or more of three dances
a tea dance in the Rebekah Reception Room representing the
forties, a sock hop in the Robert W. Woodruff Physical
Activities Building representing the sixties, and a street dance
in front of the Wallace M. Alston Campus Center represent-
ing the eighties. A spectacular fireworks display at the track
entertained guests at the celebration and residents for miles
around. The next morning one hundred years to the day
since Frank H. Gaines, George Washington Scott, and their
fellow churchmen had founded the school for girls in
Decatur members of the Agnes Scott community formed a
procession from the College to Decatur Presbyterian Church
to attend a worship service led by Dr. Wallace M. Alston, Jr.,
son of the College's third president. A picnic under the trees
in front of Agnes Scott Hall with a giant birthday cake in the
shape of that building brought the Centennial Celebration to
a splendid close.

82

83

irker on Agnes Irvine Scott's grave in Alexandria, Pennsylvania, testifying
the connection between the College and the family.

K *

V

CZ2

Snack bar in the renovated Alston Campus Center
(Photograph courtesy of Daniel Henninger.)

w>rr or
JD vy SCOTT.

BOM JVK- > S ' ,7 ' C

m o October Mrr*

(Photograph
courtesy of

. Cotten Alston)

hue ?fCWfRMd

1

The

Robert W

WOODRL1FF

Physical Activities

Building

GeUerstedt
Track and Field
(Photograph
courtesy of
Jeremy Green.)

Entrance to Woodruff
Physical Activities Buil
(Photograph courtesy of
' "enninger.)

... >- ".'

^21 \

m^ u

tBESP

/

v^H

jfl

It

Unity through diversity is one of the strengths that
Agnes Scott seeks to build on as members of the College
community envision a second century of educating women.
This theme, though stated in many different ways, has long
been a part of the College's sense of purpose as each class of
women has brought its diverse experiences and abilities to the
campus and. four years later, graduated to fulfill a wide
variety of dreams in every corner of the world. In 1986
Eleanor Hutchens, a member of the class of 1940 and a
professor of English at the University of Alabama in Hunts-
ville, articulated her own views on the strengths of Agnes
Scott graduates:

Through the amazing changes that have transformed
the world since the late nineteenth century, the lives of
Agnes Scott alumnae have shown that liberal educa-
tion of sound quality is the best preparation for the
unpredictable. They have made and maintained
homes through wars and economic crises, they have
succeeded in business, the professions, and the arts,
and they have enriched their communities with volun-
teer initiative. They have met the unexpected with
self-confidence, self-reliance, and resilience. Newly
diverse opportunities for women have found them
ready to choose and carry out new kinds of responsi-
bility with distinction.

Like their sister graduates of the College's first hundred
years, Agnes Scott women of the twenty-first century will be
"ready to choose" from a world of opportunities.

The original entrance gate to the campus came down in 1950
when Frances Winship Walters funded a new arched
entrance in honor of President McCain. Left to the weather
for many years, the old gate was recently set up over the
pedestrian entrance to the campus off South Candler Street.
(Photograph by Bill Denison.)

^^^^MH

86

The book is written by Archivist Lee Sayrs '69
and Dr. Christine Cozzens, Assistant Professor of
English, Director of the Writing Workshop, and
Director of Women's Studies.

Agnes Scott College Decatur, Georgia 30030 (404) 371-6000