To the Editor:
An item in the December 1998 Bulletin boasted that although "GPAs at other schools ... have increased significantly," Swarthmore has managed to "avoid grade inflation." The article noted that Princeton's grade-point average has risen from 3.08 in 1973 to 3.42 in 1997, and Swarthmore's collective GPA in 1997 was 3.24.
In fact, there has been far more grade inflation at Swarthmore than at Princeton during the period mentioned. According to a 1974 Swarthmore report, cited in a Phoenix article written by Ann Cudd '82 and Jonathan Franzen '81 in 1979, the average grade at Swarthmore in 1973-74 was 2.83. Therefore, although the grade at Princeton has gone up 11 percent, the increase at Swarthmore has been 14.5 percent--nearly 30 percent greater.
If this trend continues, Swarthmore can expect to pull ahead of Princeton about the time the Class of 2020 receives its diplomas. That's nothing to boast about.
Richard Slattery '80
Vienna, Va.
Editor's Note: The Bulletin article cited by Richard Slattery was a summary of a report that appeared in U.S. News & World Report last fall, praising Swarthmore for its low grade inflation. U.S. News relied on a different set of statistics than The Phoenix article mentioned. Information provided to U.S. News by the College not only included current Honors grades (there have been grades in the Honors Program since 1996) but also a control factor based on the number of students receiving Honors, High Honors, and Highest Honors in the past. This factor, which was added to previous (all-Course) GPAs, raised the baseline on which U.S. News comparisons were made and had the effect of flattening the slope of the increase.
The ad-ministration thought that it was important to control for this because the relatively high number of students in Honors in the past tended to lower the reported GPA of the entire College--which did not include their grades because there were none. The assumption was that had these Honors students been in Course, they would have raised the overall Swarthmore GPA. In fact, it seems clear that the precipitous decline in the number of students in the Honors Program in the 1980s and early 1990s (which has now been reversed) was a factor in the gradual inflation of grades in Course.
Swarthmore has experienced some grade inflation in the last 25 years, but we believe that the College has maintained its high standards and deserves the attention it got in U.S. News.
To the Editor:
Here we sit, in the midst of hypocrisy ("College Ranks High With Black Educators," Collection, March 1999), and we cry "freedom." England wished to end the slave trade not to redress past crimes against humanity but to protect her economic interests. The North engaged the South and began the Civil War for the same reasons. Now Swarthmore touts its "increase of students of color" as an em-brace of equality, liberty, and freedom for all. Nothing could be further from the truth. I ask you once again: Swarthmore, are Africans as fully human as everyone else? If so, why do you force us to act different just to be accepted by your "community"? Why can we not bring our own culture, our own values, our own desires? Why must we jump through the same statistical shenanigans that are designed to benefit white males simply to be invited to attend? Why, if Swarthmore is not designed for the sole benefit of white males, must we be more white male than the white males to attend? Why are you judging us by standards set up to judge white males?
Let's compare numbers of African Americans in the 1960s, 1980s, and now. How many students and faculty are there? What is the economic makeup? How much money is spent recruiting middle- and lower-class individuals? We talk so easily of progress. I propose that the first step of "progress" must be an admission of guilt. Swarthmore must publicly state that it treated Africans unjustly in the past--specifically because they were Africans. It is only after this acknowledgment that we can be invited to the table for meaningful discussions on change. Otherwise, what are we talking about redressing? Justice is not accidentally arrived at. It is not inevitable. It is not determined by fate. Justice must be worked at to redress past wrongs. Justice must be hammered out with solutions involving the offended parties. Justice is a process where the former aggressor must acknowledge the pain of its victims and attempt to make amends. Swarthmore must stop blustering its way along the course of dialogue for the sake of discussion among high-minded, unaffected individuals to salve some intellectually perceived guilt. Swarthmore is guilty, and it must say so. Only after stating that it committed past wrongs and inviting an open discussion on how to redress them can Swarthmore begin to claim that it is, in fact, a good place for African-Americans. Anything less is just a continuation of the past.
Ulan McKnight '87
Albany, Calif.
To the Editor:
I was pleased to see that Swarthmore now provides psychological counseling to students, as described in Dr. David Ramirez's essay ("The Geometry of Change") in the March 1999 issue. How I wish such services had been available when I was a student 20 years ago. At that time, a sink-or-swim atmosphere prevailed, and many of us were afraid of sinking. The damaging mentality Ramirez identifies--"I should be able to figure this out myself"--was mine in spades. I suffered terrible stress during my last two years at Swarthmore and never once sought help from anyone.
With a stubbornness that now seems merely immature but that I suppose was not unusual for an intense and insecure Swarthmore student in the throes of late adolescence, I just kept trying to study longer and harder. I fainted the morning before my first Honors exam and graduated feeling let down because I "only" got Honors. It was only after I sailed through law school that I regained confidence in my intellectual ability. Although I had many wonderful times at Swarthmore, made lifelong friends, and loved the majority of my classes, my memories of those last two years are tainted by recollected depression, stress, and self-castigation.
I have always resented the College's relentless cheerfulness about the wonders of its academic program and what has seemed to me to be its utter failure to acknowledge that some of its students, however talented they may be, carry crushing burdens of stress and self-doubt. The fact that one-third of the last graduating class had consulted Psychological Services confirms that the school is meeting a pressing need. I only wish it had started sooner.
Sharon Conaway Rutberg '81
Washington, D.C.
Editor's Note: The College appointed its first full-time director of psychological services, Dr. Leighton Whitaker '54, in the fall of 1980.
To the Editor:
I read with interest the essay by David Ramirez. Although I am happy to hear that the emotional life of Swarthmore students is being taken seriously, I would like to point out that this has not always been the case. In 1982, the budget for Psychological Services was going to be cut. I and a group of other concerned students went to speak with then-President David Fraser. His response was, more or less, that Swarthmore is not in the business of dealing with your "problems," and that College money should be spent on academic pursuits. We had no other avenue for protest.
Looking back on that time from what I now know about myself, I see the problem as much deeper. Ramirez notes that many students now choose to "become full participants in the 'life of the mind'" and that stress can be relieved by talking. Not once does he mention the very real and serious struggle of students who face mental illness. This is not stress; mental illness is a tangle of physical and psychological symptoms that frequently requires years of treatment. Often, mental illness surfaces in people in their early 20s, those of college age. Although there are many new medications to treat various types of illness, there is no consensus on how these medications work, which ones and how much to try. Patients may go through a series of eight (as in my case) or more medications to find the best alternative, suffering from serious side effects along the way. Graduating from the structured environment of college can lead to a complete loss of focus and inability to manage life; these students often need counseling to learn basic coping, living, and interpersonal skills.
Mental illness is a disability. Early recognition of symptoms may prevent years of suffering. Although I'm sure the College is quick to make all areas accessible to students with challenged mobility, do you really accept, welcome, and understand students with challenges to their minds?
Pamela Dorries '83
Chicago
To the Editor:
Your "Parlor Talk" column on Courtney Smith referred to the "now-quaint idea that colleges and universities should take on the role of surrogate parents." You claim that the demise of these standards "made possible the freedom, openness, and diversity that characterizes the best of higher education today."
President Smith came to Swarthmore when I was a junior, and we still had curfews for women, restricted dorm visitation, a dress code for dinner, and a "no alcohol" policy. Although we may have chafed at the rules, none of us felt they prevented us from receiving the quality education Swarthmore has always offered.
The proponents of "no restrictions" believe that because most college students are no longer "minors," they should be allowed to adjust to the freedom of the "real world" at the same time they are getting their formal education. But does a lack of restrictions truly enhance the educational experience? Or just add to the temptations that have always distracted adolescents from their studies?
Today, I see college administrators trying to deal with increased alcohol abuse, parents concerned over their children's promiscuity, and employers coping with new graduates who aren't prepared to accept their standards of behavior. Although colleges can't be assigned all the blame, they should not brag that eliminating their social restrictions has led to "the best of higher education today."
Jack Hughlett '55
Lancaster, Pa.
To the Editor:
I was born on Nov. 21, 1961, at Taylor Hospital in Chester, Pa., and given up for adoption. My adoptive mother (now deceased) told my aunt that my birth parents were two Swarthmore College students. I would like very much to contact my birth parents. Persons having information may contact me in care of the Bulletin.
Jack Gorry
San Francisco
Editor's Note: Correspondence addressed to Mr. Gorry in care of the Bulletin will be forwarded unopened and in confidence.
To the Editor:
Jeffrey Lott's warm and entertaining interview with Barbara Pearson Lange Godfrey '31 (March 1999) brought back many good memories. I especially enjoyed her description of a committee discussion of dormitory open house hours. Actually, this wasn't a special committee on that subject but, as I recall, a standing committee called something like the Student Advisory Committee, which considered a range of current College issues relating to students. The committee consisted of the deans, a couple of faculty members, and several students.
Given Barbara's background in drama, Bulletin readers could be forgiven for thinking the story was apocryphal, but it's not. On the occasion described by Barbara, we were indeed discussing the student body's request to double the Sunday afternoon parietal hours, as they were then known. In a moment of frustration, I burst out with the unspoken thought that was certainly on the mind of several of us. Susan Cobb's response was even better than Barbara remembers.
"Miss Cobbs," I said, "what are we going to do in four hours that we couldn't do in two?"
"Alex," she replied in her Southern drawl (pronouncing my name Ay-lex), "I'm not worried about what you're going to do. I'm worried about what you're going to do again."
Anyone as steeped in the classics as Dean Cobbs was obviously not going to be fazed by a smart remark by some puerile college senior. I momentarily wondered whether she thought that Swarthmore students lived so much in their heads that they really wouldn't get in trouble in two hours (with the door kept open the mandatory six inches, another feature of parietal hours at the time). Of course, she'd have been wrong about that, but she had accomplished her real goal, putting an end to that discussion, at least for that day. Like the dress code for dinner, it does all seem part of another world, not just another generation.
By the way, Barbara Lange should also know that although she may have felt shackled by her role as dean, many of us in the 1960s still felt her presence as someone supportive of and engaged with the theater at Swarthmore and esteemed her for that.
Alexander M. Capron '66
Santa Monica, Calif.
To the Editor:
Jim Smith '67, later president of the Student Council, was one of six black students (three male and three female) admitted to Swarthmore in the fall of 1962, a threefold increase from the fall before, when there were just two.
Jim told me at that time how President Courtney Smith went out of his way to make him feel welcome at Swarthmore by greeting him by name as the two passed on the walk between the president's house and the campus during freshman orientation. After telling this to Al Chappell '66, another black freshman that year, Jim said Al told him that the president had gone out of his way to greet Al too--only he was also greeted as "Jim."
I thought at the time I heard this anecdote that it meant Courtney Smith, although well meaning, had trouble distinguishing between these two black students. I figured that those who said his death by heart attack during the black students' takeover several years later was a result of this were probably right.
But then in the March issue of the Bulletin, you carried an interview with Barbara Pearson Lange Godfrey in which I found a different context for understanding Courtney Smith's death. She told of being in awe of Smith and once, sitting next to him at the meetinghouse, getting ready for freshman orientation, she put her hand on his arm and suddenly "realized how tense he was. The calm he evinced was not real--it was just self-control."
Could that have been in the fall of 1962, when he was trying so hard to welcome the initial vanguard of black students, however small in numbers? Or was it at a later orientation, when there were even more "Jim Smiths" to greet? Maybe his heart attack had nothing to do with race, and he was just a tense man in a difficult crisis. But maybe it had everything to do with it. Probably both.
Ellen Langenheim Lawson '66
Arlington, Va.
The Children's Scholarship Fund, managed by new Young Alumni Manager Michael Kuh '94, has $170 million in capital, not the $2 million reported in March. In addition, the fund's scholarship awards are not necessarily restricted to children attending public schools.
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