Regarding the cover story on President Alfred H. Bloom’s tenure (“A Transformative Presidency,” April Bulletin), author Lawrence Schall’s [’75] hagiography attempts to enshrine the outgoing president among the pantheon of past Swarthmore leaders, comparing Bloom’s vision and accomplishments with those of his storied predecessors. The author pauses to give passing notice to the seminal moment [...]
The April Bulletin article “A Transformative Presidency” by Lawrence Schall ’75 states that “the number of African-American and Latino students in the entering Class of 2000 jumped from 26 to 94—an astonishing 400 percent increase.”
While the proportion of the numbers approaches 4 to 1, the increase (68 more than 26) is about 260 [...]
Contrary to popular belief (and what was reported in the July 2008 Bulletin), Swarthmore has not been continuously without a mascot until the recent selection of the Phoenix. In 1968, a time of sweeping social change by any measure, a movement of another type also arose—principally among winter off-season jocks—to provide greater support to those [...]
We admit that we have not read the bill passed by the Philadelphia City Council concerning the licensing of tour guides in the city’s historic district. As Professor Timothy Burke notes in “License to Imagine” (April Bulletin), the “legislation created a requirement for guides to be periodically tested on their historical knowledge.” He further voices [...]
I enjoyed reading in the April Bulletin (“Letters”) the observations of my old friend Leo Braudy ’63 regarding the difference between the relatively harsh justice handed out to miscreant male students by Dean of Men William C.H. Prentice ’37 and the genteel admonishments Dean of Women Susan Cobbs gave to wayward women. In the late [...]
The article “Swarthmore Says” (October 2008 Bulletin) inaccurately attributes the 1972 text of the Equal Rights Amendment to Alice Paul (Class of 1905). The text of the original Equal Rights Amendment, as written by Paul in 1923, was “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its [...]
In the April Bulletin letters, Judy Fletcher ’72 responded to conservative academic Robert George’s (’77) view on those in government who are “pro-abortion.” Fletcher stated: “No one is pro-abortion. They are pro-choice.” She went on to add that this issue should only be determined between a woman and her doctor. However, the vast amount of [...]
The photo of the women’s chorus from the 1965 production of The Boyfriend (April Bulletin, p. 46) was mislabeled. It was not a Little Theatre Club production but one of a series of faculty plays including, among others, The Mousetrap, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Eva LaGalliene’s Alice in Wonderland.
The Boyfriend was directed [...]
