Rhode Island School of Design - Portfolio Yearbook (Providence, RI)

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The Student Council The thriving and businesslike association that we know today as the Student Council was not always in existence. Although the School of Design is sixty-six years old this semester, it was not until the year of 1941-1942 that our first Student Council was elected. Until that time our students had been long on art ability but short on sociability. Perhaps it was the influence of war times that made them realize that there is something else to studying art besides slaving away in a cold garret. That something is living in harmony with other people. Whether the realization of this or the fact that supervision was needed for the newly formed extra-curricular activities, plans were made for the first Student Council in a school assembly. This year’s class of seniors will remember Herman Tikotsky, better known as ““Hank’’, who was elected the first president. ‘Hank’ was a student in the industrial design department, but he left here at the mid-term for defense work. This left a space in the roster which was capably filled by the Vice-President, Jack Bessel. Besides being a good painter (witness his frescoes in the Freshman build- ing) , Jack was also a good leader, for he organized the Council into a compact group which gave strong moral support to all the activities of the classes, the now defunct ‘Trek Club, and the Dramatic Club. The year of 1942-43 marked the beginning of a matriarchy among presi- dents, since mostly all the men students that were registered here at that time were enrolled in the Navy under the V-7 program. ‘The first lady of the Council was Avery Rogers who had served as Vice-President under Jack Bessel. At first glance Avery would seem to be a demure and shy person, but she knew what the School needed, and she also knew how to spur the Council members on to greater heights. Succeeding Avery for the summer term as President was Eileen Forrest, who also had had experience in the Council as Secretary. Hers has been a difficult position because the excessive heat put a damper on enthusiasm for many activi- ties. Again the manpower situation enters the picture, because it would have been difficult to stage any co-educational affairs. Eileen is a student in the de- partment of education and has had ample opportunity to exercise her pedagogical ability over us, but she couldn’t keep after school the members who found it more enjoyable to stay in the cafeteria rather than attend meetings. At this writing our new President, Elizabeth Underwood, has just taken office and we know that she will carry on as well as have this list of forbears. Working along with her is Jane Taft as Vice-President. Abby Tonge as Secretary has the work of keeping attendance records, weekly reports, and all the correspondence. The person who has safe-keeping over your Council fees is Gerry Cohen, and Chairman of all committees is Shirley Wooddell. According to the Council Constitution, the purpose of the Council is: 1. To organize and supervise definite social, athletic, and cultural activities by and for the student body. 2. Torepresent all students within a governing body. 3. ‘To foster a nd promote a greater unity between the faculty and students. 4. ‘Tocreate and maintain a school spirit. The yearbook which you are now reading is this year’s contribution toward “organizing definite cultural activities.” There was no yearbook published last

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From Our Executive Vice-President Platitudes of years gone by have suddenly become statements of vigorous and challenging force. ‘The world is at your feet,” “You now go forth on life’s un- charted sea,” “The world needs you,” are phrases that had too little significance as students left their Alma Mater ten and twenty years ago, for their world usually was bounded by the environs of their community or at best by the two oceans that border our country. Today it is literally this whole earth on which we live that is our world, with no part of it, we are told, more than sixty air-hours away. What a challenge this is to our thinking, to our talents, to our future service! Whatever we may do, it is like touching a magic spring which sets going vibrations, like Radar, that may strike distant invisible forces with world reverberations. Meantime you have added professional training to your previous education equipment and now, as in our Military Intelligence Service, the problem is to correlate and integrate this knowledge for immediate action at the front and for long-range use as action develops. Many of you may not continue long in active professional work. Home- building will take its place. But your knowledge and understanding and influ- ence can and must still play its indirect part in world affairs. Others, however, will be called upon immediately to exercise their best abilities and technical skills in the world’s work. You must play a combination of jigsaw and cross-word puzzle. This means fitting together the right pieces of your educational experi- ence and reading from the left across or the top down, or perhaps from right to left or the bottom up, to find the correct solution. For, as you know already, the game of life is nothing but a problem-solving job. How well you solve it, is wholly up to you. So now, as the coach says, after his pep-talk to the squad, “Let’s gol” Roya.L B. FARNUM

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year, so it is hoped that this effort will be appreciated twice as much. Instead of leaving all the work to the Council members as in other years, all the students who were interested have contributed their work, and volunteers from each class have served on the staff. That Council fee with which you parted on registration day is doing its part right now, for the combined efforts of all the students have gone into making this book a financial success. Throughout all the time we were working on this edition the Student Council has stood in back of us, giving us a helping hand whenever the need arose. Your Council fees have also served their purpose in the Dramatic Club pro- ductions. These fees do away with the bother of collecting dues every week. Instead of this, the Dramatic Club applies to the Council and is given a stipu- lated sum each year for any project which the club desires to undertake. We have seen the fine results of this plan in the staging of such plays as “The Thrice Promised Bride” and ‘““The Man Who Thought of Everything” which were pre- sented during the summer. Another “cultural” activity which was put in for the student body is the “juke box”, although we say “cultural” with a slightly elevated eyebrow. At one time the box was being rented weekly, but an arrangement has been made whereby we have the use of it free, but all the excess profits go to the distributor. The box has been very popular during lunch, for it keeps alive the eternal feud of Sinatra vs. Crosby. The second purpose of the Council is “to represent all students within a governing body.” In this capacity the Council generally acts as a complaint or “squawk” department. Whenever any student in the school wants something remedied or suggests a new activity, it is his privilege to talk it over with the Council member from his department. It is presented at the next meeting of the Council where it is discussed and put to a vote. There are many suggestions of this nature during the course of a term. For example: the juke box had become so popular that students were drifting over to the cafeteria at all times of the day for a friendly confab and a tune. As a result classes were being disturbed in the adjacent College Building even during examinations and painting ses- sions. Some conscientious Council members suggested that the noise be confined to only the lunch hour. Soon a placard to that effect appeared above the juke box and the history of art classes settled back to enjoy their slides in peace once more. Another complaint similar to this came from the painting department which was being annoyed by the continual ringing of the telephone. Being true artists, the members of the department wished to be left to more aesthetic pur- suits than running to answer a call for a person who wasn’t there. This subject was broached to the Council and lo—there were no more needless telephone calls. Oftentimes the Council’s work is of a more constructive nature. The school seemed so completely devoid of young men that it was suggested that a list of the men in service would serve as a small particle of tribute to those among us who had found a more important job to do than wield a paint brush. Secretly, perhaps, it might also have served as a reminder to us that there had once been a species of human being which roamed the wilds of our campus while wearing the odd garb of corduroy trousers, tweed jackets, and soft hats. Anyhow, you can now see for yourself the product of the Council’s efforts, and, all jesting aside, we really are proud of our boys who have left us. Sometimes the Council finds a chance to be a good Samaritan. One of our sophomore graphic students was stricken during the summer with infantile paraly- sis. Her friend, a Council member, brought it to our attention and we were only too glad to send her the biggest bouquet of flowers that we could find as an ex- pression of the feeling of not only the Council but of the whole school. 15