Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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Ill CALHOUN COLLEGE Stuart H. Clement, Acting Master

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Bill Porter ' s room, Bud Harris ' parakeet, shower sopranos Morgan I that lad with many lasses) and Heed (life of Riley) and pleas for Wangman to leave Lane alone and diet in quiet insured that Dwight was never quiet. The entry ' s one productive effort was a vigorous production, a Christmas passion play, directed hy Moses Mitchell. Poignant portrayals by the cast of thousands thrilled the audience, Dick Smyth. Conspicuous by their absence at the spectacle were thin John Minney, Pete Cameron, sleek torpedo of the Branford swimming team, and Mark Mel- cher, conspicuous under any circumstances because of his lovely sister-in-law, Doris Day. But as wonderful as the winter has been, we all await the approach of spring, with the recovery of Branford Court from its an- nual winter blight, when once again will the magnolia and wisteria be in bloom. The spring season, gayest of those of the college year, will be on us before we know it. with its round of parties and the last of this year ' s long-to-be-remembered weekends. We look forward to the Junior Prom in March, fol- lowed closely by Spring Vacation; then, ' round the first of May, for College Week- end, with its dance in the court and the out- ing at Pine Orchard. After exams, taken in their stride and fin- ished with a flourish, some will wend their way home for the summer, secure in the realization that they will return shortly: oth- ers, however, must face graduation. For them, the interim between examinations and gradu- tion will afford time for thought and reflec- tion: the Branford man will then, probably for the first time, come to realize what his College has come to mean to him. He will know that here he has found opportunity for study and thought, for companionship and conviviality, and for the fulfillment of pos- sibly the happiest three years of a man ' s life. — Nigel S. MacEw. j — Carl A. Wangman 53

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PERHAPS it is in the scheme of things (hereafter referred to as the SOT) that Yale Seniors should look backward with a slightly jaundiced eye. The dull pensiveness that is reflected in graduation writings tends to confirm the assumption that this is a gen- eral, and not an isolated, feeling. The taste of ashes in one ' s mouth is not an individual supersensitiveness. So when we approach Cal- houn College, it is with a rather wistful air. This wistfulness in Calhoun was at the loss of a long and exciting tradition. In the last three years the college has lost its tradition of leadership in the University. The class of 1955 is the last to know anything about it; for a student generation lasts only three years in a college. The new method of college allo- cations will obliterate all traces of traditions in the college, as it obliterates any special motivation for participation in a person ' s own college. Particularly in Calhoun the sense of disruption is strong this year. Mr. Schroeder ' s death deprived the college not only of a personal friend, but of the con- tinuity which it needs so desperately now, and will need even more in the future. With- out him our motivation has become dispersed and dissipated. College activities this year have been the last mechanical vestiges of a pattern which has lost most of its meaning. This disintegration is our class ' s contribu- tion to Calhoun College. Where but in the college, with which his name had been associated for all these years, should the sorrow for The Schrod be felt the most? His meaning for the whole Uni- versity was only a glimpse of the devotion with which he served and loved the college. John and Katherine Schroeder made the col- lege life here a profound experience. It was here they found their reward in their serv- ice; here that they received their true iden- tity. John Schroeder had the ability to unite college life. His spirit was big enough to contain the whole college; no one has gone away empty from Calhoun. His was a life which gave of itself. He was always speaking the truth, as he saw it, with the bluntness of a servant of God, so that we revere and honor his memory for what he was. This is within our experience, for we knew Mr. Schroeder. The effects of the new plan for college applications are not. But we see democracy in the abstract invading Yale. The last strongholds are falling to this strict egalitarianism. The final wave of oblivion is in sight for any distinction in college life; for the differences in college life have be- come equated with privilege, and privilege is always opposed to the AWOL (American 55