Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

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FACULTY RALPH M. SARGENT JOHN A. LESTER, JR. JOHN ASHMEAD, JR. KENNETH S. WOODROOFE ENGLISH It is quite fittmt; that the chief port of call for English majors, and the English interdepartmental communication — or at least communiques — should he located in Haverford ' s Pentagon, one-sided Whitall. Just above the marble halls lined with traffic viola- tions is a more homey den, lined with books. The cus- todian frequently chagrined by the treasures unearthed from his shelves, such as Poetry, Scientifically Analyzed, is a genial, crop-headed figure, scarcely awesome enough to be a department head. Yet Ralph Sargent, benign as he appears, partakes of the building ' s spirit of authority. Specializing in the Elizabethan era, he is himself somewhat of a Renaissance figure, frankly de- lighting in Shakespeare ' s franker passages, pointing out at some length the less spiritual implications of Donne ' s use of die and rise. In a more general sense, though, the Renaissance man ' s diversity of interests and the eclectic character of his bookshelves are embodied in Mr. Sargent ' s innumerable pursuits and project courses — creative writing, current literature, and the Philadelphia try-out season. In an equally fitting fashion, the majority of the department ' s underlings are housed in the upper reaches of the Library, their offices appearing, quite literally, as extensions of the stacks. The personalities of these men are as various as the Library ' s architectural styles, diverging from the cheery pedantry of the department ' s amateur cartographer and conventionaire, poet Gerhard Friedrich, to the sten- torian Spencerian, Alfred Satterthwaite, whose fright- ening resonance and unpronounceable name are made less terrifying in the trembling freshman conferee by the jauntmess of the prof ' s glistening brush cut. Satterthwaite is a Harvard grad, and prone to remi- nisce of the wondrous stable of Harry Levin et al; but while no crimson banner hangs from his door either, the John Harvard zealot extraordinaire is Mr. S ' waite ' s (standard abbreviation) neighbor, John Ashmead. This eternal booster returned to the campus after an extended sabbatical spent in Greece and his spiritual home, the Far East. For. as all his paper writers know, Ashmead is a mystic of sizable proportions, a necessary compensation for the slightness of his grades and sta- ture (physical, of course) . His absence, on good re- port, was craftily arranged, for in the intervening span he acquired an envied legend, that of the cultivated ogre, the demon of the tutorial, the remolisher of over- sized reputations among senior majors. Some found, to our dismay, that the legend was not a total piece of fabrication, and students of his 18th century course will long remember his definitive lecture on the subtle- ties and atrocities of hokum and balderdash. Ten

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STUDENTS COUNCIL The work of the Students Council has been de- scribed as drudgery, and for the most part this is true. The time-consuming job of hammering out student organizations budgets (this year s keynote — austerity), the numerous little items of business which come up constantly (e.g., Who w-ants to handle the room search this week? ), and the listening to complaints about the injustices ' of the Comptroller ' s office are routine but necessary to the functioning of student government at Haverford. Through conscientious ac- ceptance of this work and willingness to remain acutely aware of all shades of student body opinion, this year s Council achieved a significant position in student life. The Council became a closely knit body during the tense, feverish, three-day session required by the honor system trials at the beginning of the year. Faced with the responsibility of making decisions on those difficult cases, the Council members learned to work together. Later it was kept busy, if not swept otf its feet at times, by conflicting opinions over the fraternity ques- tum. Too, it had been jarred by the student attitudes toward the inauguration of the president. Due to past difficulties in student-administration re- lations, the Council and the administration agreed that the general area of discipline should he re-e.xamined by both parties. A joint student-faculty-administration committee undertook this inv ' olvcd task. President John Crawford got through the trials with- out mishap, devoted himself to the responsibilities, and generally did an admirable job, despite a cavalier dis- regard for Roberts Rules in Students Association meet- ings. The minutes of Secretary Hans Englehardt were a surprise addition to the literary ' output of the cam- pus. Treasurer Curdon Brewster notified the students of fantastic appropriations for damages. T ine

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FRANK J. QUINN GERHARD G. FRIEDRICH EDGAR S. ROSE ALFRED W. SATTERTHWAITE The 200-keeper, proprietor of the stacks cubbyhole menagerie, is John Lester, whose office is the Library. Lester, despite his youth and hardiness became the most titled member of the staff as Librarian, coach of track and soccer, and temporary dean, during the second semester dcp.irturc of the administration ' s med school officer. He brings his athletic enthusiasm to the class, his I ' th century course taking on the qu.dities of a brisk training regimen, an invigorating skull session with the bones of Byron as subject for dissection. Tucked away in Founders, temporary residence of traveled Philips Visitors, are those perenially enthusi- astic intellectual tourists, the Cockney and the Scot, both products of the liberal Oxford punting seminars. The former. Ken Woodroofe, gained n o legendary status during his year spent at Reed, the Liberal ' s Western retreat. He returned in much the same state, rumpled and cherubic, his comfortably dishevelled ap- pearance achieving sartorial splendor among the ragged costumes of the students. Ken is seemingly the friend of every student. His informality and all-day office hours in the Coop attract all sorts of stray pets, lured on by the engaging prospect of his boisterous harangues. Many have tried to characterize him as zany, fey, or the eternal youth, and his enchanting performance in the year ' s well-remembered Waiting for Godot indi- cates that all of these appelations have considerable validity. He also teaches Dostoevski. Frank Quinn, the Scotsman, the snared bachelor and more sober of the pair, handles probably the most di- verse range of courses, from Chaucer to 20th century ' British lit. He stresses the individuality of each of the literary figures the course tackles, and if D. H. Law- rence and ' Virginia ' Woolf seem to be writing the same book, it is largely because of the strongly humanistic framework which Frank finds underneath the books seemingly disparate overtones. Quinn is the original master of the subliminal pene- tration techniques now coming into vogue among the Madis(5n Avenue set. His ability to produce the de- sired answer from the dumbfounded student is a rare feat, and one that has earned him the rightful admira- tion of a host of devoted pupils. Behind the bowl of Edgar Rose ' s pipe is one of the quieter members of the department. Despite his Lan- caster rearing, he is not exactly a Pennsylvania Dutch- man. Instead, he is an aesthetically inclined arrive from the University of Chicago who peacefully ripostes some of the fevers in freshman tutorials and raises provocative questions in the smog of Chase seminars. When he succeeds in getting away from the frosted glass of Whitall ' s hollowness, he lectures of James Gib- bons Hunecker, uses his faculty experience at Chicago for some Softball, or caters to his past as organist and music critic by sitting down at a piano. Eleven