University of Kansas - Jayhawker Yearbook (Lawrence, KS)

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OCTOBER, 1935 55 Wide open house A representative of the male element discusses the perennial social plague I [ N the past few weeks many of the K. U. sororities have held open houses for the purpose o f introducing their new pledges and many of their actives to the Hill ' s men- folk. To those who were fortunate enough to stay home and study instead of attending these merry-go-rounds a few words of enlighten- ment are in order. At the average sorority house the gates open at 9:00 and the early comers flock down a long receiving line shaking hands with housemothers, club presidents, and blushing, gushing neophytes. Then after the boys have been thus far snared the fun starts. Red Blackburn, Wayne Wright, Louie Kuhn, or one of the other top- notch Hill bands, play good music which is too bad because nobody dances. The boys that are in the first line trenches choose partners and advance toward the open space. Standing with a girl thus wedged in most of us look for help and find men like Frank Warren, Bud Ranney, or someone else and, alas, find them in our same predicament. Soon someone cuts in as a matter of course and we scamper to a corner to sympathize with our friends. After this goes on for too long a time the party is over and the boys tell the house-mothers what an enjoyable evening it was. Now you see why anyone is smart to stay home and study on open house night. Why this custom continues to exist among the other sane traditions of the University of Kansas is a mystery. So many better plans for introducing the girls could be substituted for the present method. For example, why not let the Women ' s Pan- Hellenic rent the auditorium for the eve- ning and allot fifteen minutes to each sorority. The boys could sit on the ground floor and see everything. Then in alpha- betical order, the Alpha Chis first and so on, the sororities could take the stage and have each new girl come forward and present a short bit of entertainment. For instance, can ' t you picture Dorothy Fry saying, And now boys Tib Car- ruth will recite The Vil- lage Blacksmith ' . Or perhaps Frances Bruce would introduce: Mary K. Frith will now play ' The Old Grey Mare ' for you on the piano. Cer- tainly the boys would learn who the girls are this way and everyone would have a good time. The new girls never seem to remember the names of the boys they meet anyway so why should they be for- mally introduced. Admission might even be charged and the receipts used to bribe off housemothers when the actives get in late. Another plan is not to do away with open houses, but to have them literally. The girls could advertise their open house and then on the chosen night all of them leave town for the evening. When the boys arrived they would find the sorority house deserted and cheese, cold meats, and other delicacies in abundance. The evening could be spent playing cards or singing songs and a good time would be had by all. Certainly this would build up the sorority in the eyes of the get-around boys. Still these plans will I T go for naught. A K 5 v campus such as ours, crowded with Joe Col- leges and Esquire copy- cats cannot get along without these feminine mad-houses. Some of the gluttons for this sort of frivolity ' even go so far as to have hour dances for girls in their fraternity houses. This practice certainly calls to mind those dashing, romantic, hey-hey college movies. That ' s probably where the boys goth the idea which is bad enough. At any rate there are enough of this type of college men in circulation to make the sorority open house a permanent menace. In the year 1940 the P. S. G. L. has already made plans to hold forums on open house night to draw the crowds away and make these plagues die a lingering death. Such topics as The Love Life of the Paramaecium will be used to lure the easy marks to the forums. Picket lines will be formed around the sorority houses and the P. S. G. L. will station very glib takers in the paths of any sorority-minded young men. Such will be the sorry fate of the open house if all reasonable by LLOYD MORGAN j ( means fail. Even if the i institution of the open house were done com- 7 pletely away with, ninty- s five per cent of the mas- y culine faction could manage very easily with no substituting plan. The other five per cent probably would suffer the ill effects of a definite personal loss. Everyone knows this five per cent there is no need to steal the Sour Owl ' s stuff and print their names. They like to see their names in print anyway. Those of you who have never been to an open house should by all means attend one next year to satisfy your curi- osity. Remember everyone is invited the more crowded it is, the better the girls like it. Yet when your first open house is over you will unconsciously associate it with packed street cars or circus crowds and your natural curiosity ' will be forever abated. No ordinary stay- at-home individual could enjoy an excur- sion into a sorority house at such a time. When you have attended your first open house you will undoubtedly fall into line with the anti ' s unless you are one of the unfortunate five per cent pray it isn ' t so. Next fall there will probably bs no change in the system. Nothing that had been proposed will be done and the open houses will draw the same large crowds they always have. So bear up, men, and let your pledges next year fall into the same abyss of long receiving lines, blaring bands and sardine-packed dance floors. Some day, and the time is not far off, the open house in its present form will cease to exist and nearly every- one but the girls will be happy. Let us all look forward with eager jf pleasure to the passing of this I J?T old and pointless institution A -S so little can be said in favor r ' i P en houses and so much C against their very underlying principles.

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Prominent profs THE JAYHAWKER DR. FRANK TENNEY STOCKTON, dean of the School of Business, was born at Mosiertown, Pennsylvania, Octo- ber 22, 1886. He received the degree of DR. FRANK T. STOCKTON- Bachelor of Arts at Allegheny College in 1907. While he was at Allegheny he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and played on the varsity football and basketball squads, and in addition was a member of the varsity debating team. He received both his A. M. and Ph. D. degrees at Johns Hopkins University, graduating in 1911. In his first and second years at Johns Hopkins he held the university scholar- ship in political economy, a fellowship in his third year, and in his fourth year he was appointed fellow ' -by-courtesy . and graduate assistant. During his first two years at Johns Hopkins he departed from the course usually pursued by graduate students by playing on the varsity foot- ball team at right tackle. He was captain of the team in 1908. Following his graduation from Johns Hopkins he was instructor of economics and commerce at the University of Rochester, a position which he held until 1913. In the winter of 1912-13 Doctor Stockton had charge of the educational work at the Rochester chapter of the American Institute of Banking. In 1913 he was made assistant professor of eco- nomics and sociology at the University of Indiana, where he remained until 1917, excepting the first semester of the year 1915-16 when he was granted a leave of absence to become a lecturer on labor problems at the University of Michigan. From 1917 until 1924 he was head of the department of economics and was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of South Dakota, coming to the University of Kansas as dean of the School of Business in 1924. Doctor Stockton is the author of two monographs which were published in the John Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science and is also the author of numerous bulletins, articles, and notes on the subject s of labor, taxation, and marketing. He is a member of Alpha chapter of Delta Tau Delta, national social fra- ternity, and a charter member of Delta Sigma Pi, national economics fraternity, at South Dakota. He is also a Master Mason, and a member of the Episcopal church. Doctor Stockton is married and has one child. DONALD M. SWARTHOUT DONALD M. SWARTHOUT, dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas, was born August 9, 1884, at Pawpaw, Illinois, to Teal and Ella G. Swarthout. He attended the pub- lic schools there, graduating from the high school in 1902. During the winter of 1898-99 he studied in Chicago at the Balatka College of Music and with pri- vate teachers. In 1902 he went abroad and entered the Royal Conservatory at Leipsic, Ger- many, taking the full course. He remained there until 1905, when he went to Paris and studied piano under Isadore Phil- lippe. He returned to the United States in 1906, again going to Europe in 1910 to re-enter the conservatory at Leipsic, from which he graduated in 1911 with the pruefung. From 1906 to 1910 he was associate director and head of the piano depart- ment at Oxford College, Oxford, Ohio. From 1908 to 1910 he was university organist at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Returning from Europe in 1911, he was assistant director and head of the piano department at the Illinois College for Women until 1914. From 1914 to 1923 he was assistant director and head of the piano department at James Milli- ken College, Decatur, 111. In 1923 he came to the University of Kansas as dean of the School of Fine Arts, and has continued in that position since that time. DR. PAUL B. LAWSON was born in India, August 18, 1888, and was the third in a family of six children. His father and mother were at that time engaged in missionary work in India. At the death of his father in 1903, Dean Lawson, accompanied by his mother, a brother and a sister, came to the United States and settled at Oberlin, Ohio. Dr. Lawson entered Oberlin High School, and with the completion of his high school course he entered Oberlin College. It was during his year in that school that he was won over to ento- mology when he discovered it was a new science. Most of his undergraduate days were spent in John Fletcher College, Oskaloosa, Iowa. He was graduated there in 1909, and taught biology in the same school until 1915. (Continued on page 67) DR. PAUL B. LAWSON

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5(5 THE JAYHAWKER The chancellor ' s reception A Play by Play Account of the Chancellor ' s Yearly Party for the Students and Faculty by BETTE WASSON WELL, the annual Chancellor ' s Recep- tion has gone down on the pages of K. U. history. A fine reception it was too. That is, as fine as receptions go ; but you know receptions they are none too good at their best! But nevertheless, I believe that all the students who braved the mob to meet our dear chancellor (or to keep peace with the actives who said they had to or else) will agree with me that a good time was had by all, even if you didn ' t do anything but shake hands and stomp time to music. Most of the new students who usually think of receptions as quite formal and sedate affairs probably received a shock when they found the front door locked. The ones who weren ' t too easily dis- couraged (and from the looks of the ' crowd there were quite a few) prowled around and found that they were to use the side entrance. For the benefit of the timid souls there was a welcoming committee. It was here that you met the first line. I see now why they had you stand in all of those lines for registration and enrollment it was just to break you in gently for the Chancellor ' s Reception. Well, we can take it I hope. After hours and hours of talking about the weather to your date, and staring at the back of the person in front of you, you finally arrived at your destination, the aforementioned desti- nation being a long table where a few obliging men and women endeavored to make out name tags for the people who desired to be recepted. I wonder what they ' d do if many people had names like Pfuetze or Stoltenberg. Well, you guess, ' cause my feet are still tired. All this writing of names business took place in the cafeteria, and from there you wandered up into the lounge that is if you were lucky enough to squeeze in. Here everyone was milling around like a bunch of walking place cards. I don ' t know if I was overcome by the heat or just what, but I just stood still and looked around, not really knowing what to do. I must have looked pretty dazed because pretty soon one of the helpful Jay Janes tripped over to me and asked me if I was looking for the end of the line. I told her that I thought I was. Well, she said, I think you ' ll find it behind that gentleman in the gray suit. Gentle- THE DANCE FOLLOWING THE RECEPTION man. Ye Gods, I never knew that there were so many gray suits in the state of Kansas. I finally gave up looking for the end of the line and concluded that the room was just one long line full of twists and turns. Upon a little investigation this proved to be true. I thought that I would wander around until the line got a little shorter, but every way I turned I seemed to be cutting through the line. And talk about dirty looks ! Everyone seemed to think I was trying to chisel a place in line. I was nearly at my wits end when I finally spied a deserted divan. I took my life in my hands and tore madly over to it, regardless of looks, lines or any- thing else. From the divan I had a pretty good view of all that was going on. It was quite a surprise to find that the boys outnumbered the girls about three to one. You know boys don ' t usually go in for these functions. I guess they were just tuning up for the open houses. Well, if tuning was all they needed, they sure got their A ' s sounded on this deal. From my haven of rest I could also watch the receiving line. You know I ' ll bet that receiving was hard on the pro- fessors, because, they didn ' t have the registration and enrollment lines to lim- ber them up. However, they seemed to get along O. K. and most of the men even looked pretty comfortable in their tuxs. From the length of time some of the students spent talking to some of the profs I judged that apple polishing had started already well, there is no time like the present. About that time I started looking around for the end of the line again. You know, I actually don ' t think that the line was one inch shorter. I began to wonder if some of the stags were going through the line twice from force of habit. Just then I heard faint strains of music. Aha, I thought, I ' ll show them, I ' ll fix their wagons I ' ll amble upstairs and enjoy a few dances before the crowd sets in. But was I ever wrong? Just ask me. Well the answer is yes with a capital Y. The crowd downstairs wasn ' t any smaller, and yet the crowd in the ballroom was larger than the one I had just left. I ' m sure I can ' t figure it out, and I shan ' t try, I ' ll leave such problems to Ripley. Crowd or no crowd, the dance was plenty O. K. It was a lot of fun seeing people you hadn ' t seen since last year, and meeting people that you never dreamed you would meet. Somehow at a thing like (Continued on page 74)