Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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houses, but that the dormitory life itself at Jackson is the more satisfying. It is both noteworthy and gratifying that very few of us replied Don't known to ques- tions concerning the extra-cur- ricular program, here we have a good indication of our parti- cipation in activities. And, though we may have joined them just for fun, three-quar- ters of the L. A. respondents, 78? of Jackson and 65? of the Engineers find that their activities have to some degree contributed to our maturity. The personal faculty con- tacts we made also helped us to mature, according to the state- ments of 73? of Liberal Arts, 72? of the Engineers and 71 Z3 of Jackson. The very fact of living away from home, which many of us did, seems to have had a large effect on the maturing process. Again recalling those who com- muted from their homes, we see that 70? of Jackson, 46? of Liberal Arts and 44? of the Engineers considered the separa- tion from parents and home beneficial. College has of course caused certain changes in parent-child relations to come about, and these have mainly been for the better. Without a doubt we be- came more independent of our parents, 78? of Jackson, 74? of Liberal Arts and 60? of the Engineers agreed on this. The fact that 92? of the Engineers, 83? of the L. A. respondents and 59? of the Jackson girls, or a total of 249 students, have Worked to earn part of their way through college, has prob- ably been a major factor in our establishment of ourselves as independent individuals. Along with a growing free- dom, 88? of Jackson, 79? of the L. A. respondents and 77? of the Engineers have also become closer to our parents in the sense of being more able to enjoy their company at an adult level. College seems to have had very little effect on our reli- gious beliefs. Though some measure of change did occur, we tended to remain pretty much as we were when we en- tered Tufts. 46? of Liberal Arts, 40 ? of Jackson and 39? of the Engineers are not at all more religious, and 45? of Liberal Arts, 44? of Jackson and 51 721 of the Engineers have not become at all less religious while at college. OLLEGE afforded us a wonderful opportunity to do the things We most en- joyed and to find other people to share them with. We de- veloped many new interests here and discovered for our- selves things we'd only read about, while we were at Tufts. Music hath charms it is said, and we all succumbed. Though our taste for its different forms varied widely, uclassicaln sym- phonic music was enjoyed by the largest number. The more modern symphonic music was enjoyed a great deal by about half the seniors. Opera was ap- preciated more by the girls than the men, and the same was true of ballet. Jazz, especially Dixieland, caught the fancy of much of our class, and here the men were more enthusiastic. Progressive jazz was less popular, fewer than one-third of our class were devotees of this brand, and folk music, the original jazz form, was enjoyed to a high degree by about the same number. The ever-changing popular songs of our four years were a source of pleasure to over half our class. Theater was a very popular form of entertainment to us at college. The girls enjoyed drama more than the men, but all bore out the adage that people go to the theater to be enter- tained, for comedy plays were rated the highest and musicals ranked next. Dramatic plays too were enjoyed a great deal by the majority of Tufts and Jackson. Whether better than ever or not, we liked going to the movies. Particularly we en- joyed dramatic pictures, and about three-quarters of the students found historical, musi- cal, and comedy movies very enjoyable. Foreign films were

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V percent of Jackson and 54 per- cent of the Engineers found this to be true. Getting to know the faculty was another factor of our ed- ucation. 63 percent of the En- gineers found this easier to do than did the L. A. men Where half found faculty fairly easy to meet on a personal basis, or the Jacksonites, only 37 per- cent of Whom felt the faculty were at all easy to get acquaint-- ed with. More of the Engineers too, 71 percent, were satisfied with the number of faculty acquaintances they were able to make, while of the L. A. men 54 percent got to know a satis- factory number of their pro- fessors, and at Jackson 47 per- cent of the respondents were satisfied with the number of faculty contacts they made. RATERNITIES and S0- rorities were, for many of the class of '55, a major aspect of college life. A total of 133 of the respondents to the poll, 43 percent of Liberal Arts, 43 percent of Jackson and 23 per- cent of the Engineers, belonged to the thirteen Greek letter or- ganizations at Tufts. The prevalent feeling of all the students though is that these societies are not at all important for an adequate and enjoyable collegiate life. 23 percent of the L. A. men, 38 percent of the Jackson respondents and 32 percent of the Engineers in- clined to this point of view, while 30 percent of the L. A. respondents, 13 percent of the Jacksonites and 10 percent of the Engineers feel they are very important. We find a similar distribu- tion regarding membership in fraternities and sororities as contributing forces to personal maturity, though these per- centages are tempered by the non-members who do not know about this aspect. 16 per- cent of the L. A. men, 23 per- cent of the Engineers and 27 percent of the Jacksonites said that fraternity did not at all add to their maturity. On the other hand, 24 percent of the L. A. men, 8 percent of the Engineers and 13 percent of Jackson felt that membership in these groups did contribute very much to their growing-up process. Considering the contribu- tions of fraternities and sorori- ties on a larger scale, 617i of L. A. respondents, 5475 of the Engineers and half of those from Jackson feel they aid school activities and spirit. The much discussed question of the justness and unjustness of fraternities and sororities arises, and there is a general point of agreement in our class that these societies as presently constituted are very little if at all detrimental to collegiate life. S975 of Liberal Arts, 547' of the Engineers and 72 CW of Jack- son responded in this way. HE backwards glance at our college life has seen some of the external influences on the class of '55. But throughout those four years we have developed internally as in- dividuals and many changes in our outlook and opinions have taken place. The problem of maturity confronts us all our lives and perhaps the biggest advance toward it which we will ever make occurred in the time we spent at Tufts. Reading has in general made quite a large contribution to our personal maturity. 59? of the L. A. respondents and 74W of those at Jackson were in- fluenced by the books they ab- sorbed. The Engineers were somewhat less affected in this way, only 36W of them found reading contributing to matu- rity, but this is probably due to the type of curriculm and the lack of emphasis on reading. The majority of all students, 69? of Liberal Arts, 73122 of the Engineers and 74? of Jackson found in their courses a large contribution to matu- rity. Administrative rules have left something to be desired ac- cording to our class, of which 59W of Liberal Arts, 6072 of the Engineers and 77? of Jack- son rated them as contributing very little or not at all to matu- rity. The general attitude here stems from the fact that not enough responsibility is given to the students. Keeping the number of off- hillers in mind, we find that a good percentage, one-third of Liberal Arts, 19W of the Engineers and 70? of the Jacksonites, are Well pleased with the effect dorm living had on our personal development. It appears also that not only do fewer Jacksonites live off hill, probably because more men are allowed to live in boarding ff N.: wp v, ,,n xii... ,P ' vyik .. . J . ki X i s

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preferred more by the girls, but the Jacksonites had quite the opposite feelings regarding Westerns, which were preferred by twice as many men as girls. Museums afforded more pleasure to the females also, who enjoyed both art and science exhibits. The boys showed a definite preference for science museums over art galleries. Sports were an important part of our college lift. Most of us were spectators to all-school athletics, and football was by far our favorite. Basketball drew us in large numbers also, and the majority of our class found baseball attractive. Hockey was popular too with the men and with some of the Jacksonites, while soccer and lacrosse had followers in about a third of the class. We liked to participate in sports too, not just on teams but for our individual pleasure. Swimming was the favorite sport, especially among the girls, and tennis ran a close second. Sailing was very pop- ular with more than half the respondents. Golf was enjoyed more by the men and horse- back riding was enjoyed by about half of all the students. Of the winter sports ice- skating ranked first, and al- most SOW of our number liked to take off to the mountains for skiing. Fishing and hunting stand out clearly as men's sports and they enjoyed quite a bit of pop- ularity. When we moved indoors bowling was a favorite activity and about a third of us rated roller-skating highly. Dating was a very big part of our college life and best of all We liked to don our dancing shoes. We danced a lot while we were at Tufts, at all the school affairs, at the hotels and clubs in town and the more artistic souls among us footed it in leotards and tights. The foxtrot was far and away our favorite dance with the old- fashioned waltz not far behind in popularity. The girls in our class were lots more adventurous on the dance floor than their somewhat conservative Tufts partners, and it was not an un- common sight to see the men standing self-conciously on the sidelines while their dates tap- ped impatient feet to the South American rhythms they liked so well. Nearly half the girls liked to Charleston too, but few of the boys would try it, and though a third of the Jack- son gals were eager to jitterbug they could only find partners in a very small number of the males in our class. The Bunny Hop and the Mexican Hat Dance were played at all the dances, and more than half of us enjoyed these a great deal. Passing from the ballroom to the studio or stage we showed some interest in modern dance, but here again the Tufts men were more reluctant. Going to the theater on a date was also rated highly by the large majority of our class, and movie dates were very much enjoyed. A musical even- ing was the choice many of us made, either at symphony or, for a different type of ear en- tertainment, listening to jazz. Sports events were considered good date destinations by most of us too. The picture of the college student spending the better part of his time drinking, proved to be a false one, for only about one-third of us cared to spend an evening with a date in that way. Most of all we enjoyed being with people, though the craze for big wild parties was tem- pered by desire for pure talk by the time we reached our Senior year. Few of us rated fraternity parties high on the list of what we liked to do on a date, though a large majority greatly enjoyed parties at the homes of friends. Perhaps it was a sign of maturity that, as Seniors, our ideas of good times had developed to a stage where the evenings we most enjoyed were those we spent just sitting and talking with people we liked. S we reach the end of four years of living within our college it is difficult indeed to give an objective an- alysis of what it has meant to us. At best we can abstract a generalized feeling about our school, and that feeling is a good one. The great majority of all students, 707 of the L. A. respondents, 78W of Jack- son and 877 of the Engineers, have been highly satisfied with the total picture of four years in retrospect. The degree to which we were satisfied with our own college training is reflected in our feel- ings about sending future children to Tufts and jackson. On this account we find that among the L. A. students 5575 would encourage a son to at- tend Tufts assuming he would want to go and 4-255 would encourage a daughter to attend Jackson. Among our female re- spondents 477f would encour- age their son's attendance of