Florida State University - Renegade / Tally Ho Yearbook (Tallahassee, FL)

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A FAREWELL TO THE DEAN This year, 1944, marks an end to the career of one of our most beloved professors, Dean Dodd, whose very name is a tie to graduate generation unto graduate generation. He retires with a secure place in that list of personalities — people, buildings, and trees — which make the soul of a college. Dogwood, Bryan, Conradi, and Dodd — these are names with which to conjure the sweet, sweet ghosts of the past. Why? We leafed into the past itself to find out why. We found that in 1914, the date he received his first annual dedication, he had already won a firm place in the hearts of the student body. Old timey yearbook that it is, it is packed with classroom anecdotes in which he plays a prominent role, indicative of already strong ties of affection. Twenty years later he received his second dedication, inscribed to him as Dreamer, builder, friend. Then we knew we had found our answer. He is what he is because of what he is. You have seen him smile at the students, known and unknown, who hurriedly knocked against him in the post office. You have watched him pore over student schedules, perhaps your own, as though that work were the most important thing in the world to him. You remember him as the narrator in Our Town and as the man whose clever hands could make the cold ivory keys so emotionally artic- ulate. That is what he is, that and so much more. He came to this campus in 1910 as professor of English, and only shortly after was made Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; that college is the core of our campus and the keystone of our high-standing. That is what he is. He has taken an active interest in our campus life from the very first. One of the most beautiful school songs that we have, he wrote; some of the best remem- bered college addresses that we have heard, he spoke; our very loveliest traditions, he has been most active in perpetuating. That is what he is. It is because of what he is that we cannot see him go without some tinge of selfish regret, but he retires with a need for rest. The thirty-four years he has served the college have been long years, and many have been hard. For us has been the weary labor, and what can we offer in exchange? Only this goodbye: To Dean Dodd — much happiness on the long road with the knowledge that we know and appreciate all that you have been to us— Dreamer, builder, friend. 27

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MARY RUTH WEAVER ORIENTATION Introducing freshmen and transfers to the college, its ideals and traditions, and mak- ing clear to them their duties and re- sponsibilities as citizens of the college com- munity is the task of the Freshman Advisor, Mary-Ruth Weaver, and the assistant Dean of Students, Miss Katherine Warren, aided by a staff of sixty-four student counselors. Throughout the first semester special pro- grams built around the theme of the Three Torches — Vires, Artes, and Mores — are held each week in the parlors of the freshman dormitories, for the purpose of acguainting the new students with the whys and where- fores of life at Florida State College for Women. At these meetings various student officers and members of the faculty give in- formal talks. Student counselors living on the halls with the freshmen serve as bureaus of general information, departments for the filing of complaints, and sympathetic listen- ers and helpers for those in dire distress, or a chatty companion. 26

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FACULTY Outward signs of the inward spirit though they ore, buildings do not make a great college: lofty towers do not necessarily propagate lofty thoughts, nor a broad physical expanse of grounds a broad mind. A college is as great as the minds that make it — as greot as its faculty. Not only are we influenced by what our faculty says; we are influenced by what it does. Those of us who become teachers will unconsciously imitate their methods,, those of us who will become research workers will imitate their techniques; right here and now we are influenced by their philosophy of life. If they avoided facts, we would avoid facts; as always to find the truth is important to them, it cannot fail to be important to us. We are in our impres- sionable years. Now could our faculty make or break our personalities. We believe they make them. But teaching is never an easy task. The school stands at the loom of time, weaving yesterdays into today and tomorrow. We could not by ourselves trace the tiny thread of cause and effect through the patterned maze. That is the responsibility of the lecture, but for the faculty it is not the sole responsibility. Each faculty member has also a social responsibility — the responsibility to place the single subject matter area against the general backdrop of society. No field of knowledge stands in isolation by itself; none has a life of its own apart from social heritage. Our faculty is aware of the importance of easy and unforced correlation. Each faculty member is responsible for our life here on this campus. What sort of citizenship ore we practicing herei 5 Do we keep up with the times? Do we show intelligence in our campus management? What form of government models our campus organization? Our faculty concerns itself with these questions. They are teaching the whole of us, not just our minds in one specific area. Our faculty has been generous with its time — has entered student-faculty dis- cussions, attended student programs, acted as kind and patient advisors. Our faculty has been sympathetic with our personal problems. Our faculty has respected student ideas, even when still half-inarticulate with the rawness of immaturity. Our faculty has played the link that joins passing generations of graduates, unifying campus ideas and actions into a solid, progressive continuity. For each of us there is some particular faculty member to whom we feel es- pecially indebted, but for these qualities do all of us owe to all of them our gratitude and our appreciation. We will not forget. 28