Haverford College - Record Yearbook (Haverford, PA)

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out, they occupy a position indefensible on intel- lectual grounds, and the ultimate result of this condition will be a decrease in Haverford ' s stature as a college. Further argument insists that Quaker piety (but not pietism) has largely disappeared at the College, and that Friends wish to continue in power here mainly for reasons of personal expediency and doctrinal pride. Haverford ' s aca- demic environment would, by this argument, not deteriorate as a result of withdrawal of Quakers from the Administration. Liberals contend that, if appointments to central authority at the College were made on the basis of individual competence, without reference to religion, the number of able candidates for the College ' s administrative posts would immeasurably increase. Haverford would be less restricted in its choice of leaders, and there- fore enjoy more competent administration. Wails and platitudes greet suggestions to the Administration that Friends relax their absolute control of Haverford ' s Corporation and Board of Managers. The Society of Friends has groomed Haverford as its own son, and in return it seems to demand the gratitude of alliance and control. Such protective, possessive exercise of self-assumed social power is perhaps part of the Quaker tradi- tion. A history professor at William Penn Charter School once contended that Quakers held political control of Philadelphia for one hundred twenty-five years after they ceased to be a voting majority; he argued that they accomplished this control by means of their continued position of financial dominance over the city. This argument seemed to indicate that it was a tradition for Quakers to cling to social institutions established according to principles of the Society of Friends. The ques- tion whether Quakers reahze that their achieve- ment in Haverford College will be enhanced, rather than harmed, by a lessening of their clench on the College at a time when it does not profit from their monolithic control, is likely to decide the educational importance of Haverford College in the future. J. B. Sunderman

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broad capability, few people can reasonably con- sider the formal management of the College monolithic. The atmosphere of this management, however, is decidely friendly. The Administration customarily shows Quaker independence in its decisions. The usual official directive to the College community is signed by just one of several people. The one person is, perhaps with consultation, responsible for the decision involved. This condi- tion represents a rather unequivocal division of authority. Education in America has become the only na- tional institution that forges the parameters of its own integrity. Other social structures (Army. Church, Government, etc.) experience external philosophic and political pressures. Undergraduate education now responds, with respect to its meth- ods and principles, chiefly to the level of scholarly achievement in graduate schools. M.D., L.L.B., and Ph.D. candidates are Academe ' s front-line troops and they determine the training that hordes of collegiate reservists receive. Haverford ' s Adminis- tration acknowledges this chain of educational causality by preserving Haverford as a preparatory school for graduate education. This status seems ideal for the College. Universities in general must subconsciously preen students for the graduate facilities located on campus. In this situation, many institutions through grandiose myopia have under- graduate facilities inferior to their graduate ones. By contrast, Haverford ' s relationship to grad- uate education now is similar to the situation of a first-rate prep-school facing colleges. The natty slogan a concern for quality shows that the Haverford Administration likes the idea cf hand-crafted, forward-looking scholars. Recently- added collegiate bureaucracy suggests, however, Haverford ' s regrettable swerve toward the environ- ment of a thorough, apotheosized Military Acad- emy. The men who, in effect, sail the S.S. Haverford into the future occupy Roberts Hall. With their deathgrip insistence on Quaker officers and a chart-room filled with inner light, this Adminis- tration guides its vessel through endless fund-rais- ing, continually avoiding the perils of foundation grants. The College ' s pre-emininent captain, milk- chocolate in name, is substantial in action. Com- petent first mates choose for him the ship ' s yearly hundred-odd apprentice seamen. One admiral from Japan keeps planning-apparatus, naught-ical com- passes, and foreign-sounding speeches in his cabin. He repeatedly announces his tactical conclusions to the seamen, who generally never learn what cosmology he is using to chart their course. Below decks, a diligent stewardess aids her Southern labor-force toward fulfilling someone ' s vision of a troop-canteen. The learned crew, on watch along the railings of the ship, bounce their opinions off the superstructure ' s armor-plate and hope that some ideas will pierce to the ship ' s internal guidance- system, installed Icng ago by Rufus Jones in metaphysical collaboration with George Fox. But, under continual kamikaze-attacks by liberals, the Administration ' s bulkheads do not fall. Neither does the Administration fire anti- aircraft responses at the student-pilots who harass it. The Administration, like a battleship, is a standing target, while its opponents have flexibility of approach and can drop bombs and leave. This military situation is analogous to gants ' annoying a swimming lion. The Administration ' s deferise, like the lion ' s, has been partially to deny the im- portance of the criticism it receives. Somehow the kamikaze-attacks seem necessary expressions of students who want to smash their bodies on their intellectual aircraft against the world. The Admin- isrative battleship or lion is influenced by these attacks, but rarely forced to negotiate significant self-change. What piques the attackers (and this is an undeniable shortcoming in the defenders ' posi- tion) is the defense inability to counter as decisively as it is attacked. Inevitably, student- pilots and student-gnats are more clever and limber-minded than their targets. Any serious in- tellectual-radical will force himself to assimilate enough education and verbal technique to make this so. This truth (which liberals may hotly dispute) does not in itself suggest which side contends justly. If it is granted that either in- telligence or intellectual achievement is associated with moral truth, then hardly anyone can assert the moral correctness of Haverford ' s Administra- tion pitted against the mental weight of faculty and student protest. An educational environment forces respect for scholarship, and this is one reason campus liberals are listened to much at all. These liberals are, almost by definition, intellect- ually capable, although it must be recognized that not all the most liberal r scholastically superior of them oppose the Administration. Conservative forces in power at Haverford do not generate enough intellectual wattage to answer liberal objections knowledgeably. The liberals, too, do not want intelligent opposition to their ideas (though liberals seem perversely grateful to find refutation) as strongly as they seek the corrective action their ideas demand. The liberal position toward the Administration is, to quote one liberal, If they (Administration) do not change or get

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Until last year there was no question who was the most unpopular figure in the Haverford com- munity. Almost any student would have nominated Aldo Caselli for that distinction. If this role has now been usurped by a more appropriate candidate, Mr. Caselli unfortunately still runs a close second. Disliked by many students and feared by all, he is resented primarily for the seemingly unreasonable decisions that issue from his office and reflect his absolute power over matters financial. Over the years this refentment has fostered an unwarranted view of Mr. Caselli : he is thought of as an inscrut- able alien who commands maliciously from on high. This legenary monarch of Whitall is supposedly a living exponent of injustice and tyranny, as the name he is sometimes dubbed reflects : IL DUCE. Few are willing, in the adamant self-righteousness of petty complaining, to grant that there may be more to Aldo Caselli than their prejudices admit. In his administrative capacity Mr. Caselli has the thankless task of controlling the financial operation of the College. Any project involving money, whether it emerges from the table of the Board of Managers, from a student organization, or from any other source, must pass through the Comptroller ' s hands, where it is pragmatically evaluated in terms of the financial state of the College. Given Haverford ' s chronic financial di- lemma, it is imperative that plans be cut and channeled to conform to the practical situation. Mr. Caselli does precisely that, in true European style. He has managed to run this college on a proverbial shoestring, shunning the principles en- shrined in the American committee system : low efficiency and high waste. With such a centralized system it is axiomatic that various factions will be dissatisfied. But t is equally undisputed that the business world is characterized by a perpetual cut-throat struggle for success or at least for sur- vival. It is Mr. Caselli who mediates between this world and our quasiutopia, and we fare quite well by him. But the nature of his job, due in part to the Administration ' s impressive talent for fund- raising, and in part to the incessant destruction of College property by unidentified students, de- mands that internal financial policy be conducted with the same standards of stringency. It is easy to see how people who are not acquainted with such methods will be offended by their impersonal coldness. Yet Mr. Caselli is hardly misanthropic; the spontaneous warmth of his Mediterranean spirit is obvious to all who know him. The accusation that he dislikes students is not only incorrect, but quite irrelevant to any criticism of him ; our new Dean of Students thinks himself the friend and perhaps the father of all students . . . Mr. Caselli certainly expects a lot of the stu- dents. As Comptroller he invariably sees all the adverse and for the most part immature mani- festations of their character. When constantly confronted with expensive repairs due to destruc- tion of College property and nobody willing to stand up and assume the responsibility, he has little choice but to blame the entire group. This is heartily resented by innocent and guilty alike. In this light it is not too difficult to conceive why Mr. Caselli thinks the students are immature. But of course, he belongs to an unenlightened generation of bourgeois ethical principles and can- not be expected to understand that to throw food or destroy property is not to signal immaturity, but only to exercise inalienable rights, manifesta- tions of freedom and individualism, which have nothing to do with intellectual character. What is more, he adheres to the taboo belief that each individual is a member of society and must there- fore conform to certain standards of decorum and assume responsibility for his behavior. If Mr. Caselli is critical of student shortcom- ings, he is equally cognizant of academic merit. Because of his administrative position, he does not often come in contact with students on an intellectual level, but if sought out, he is exceed- ingly happy to share his knowledge. Those who have attended the Italian Opera courses in the Arts and Services program are well aware that Mr. Caselli is more than a college administrator. Few people realize that our Comptroller is a prolific and enthusiastic contributor to the intel- lectual productivity of Haverford. Mr. Caselli has an innate passion for teaching and discussing his culture that can only be understood if one realizes his personal commitment to the humanities. His 10