Stephens College - Stephensophia Yearbook (Columbia, MO)

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The Libraries Stephens College has developed a unique plan for distribution of library books according to departmental needs. Thus libraries have been provided in twenty- seven buildings throughout the campus. The depart- mental or divisional libraries include general science, communications, home and family, social studies, and language. Dr. B. Lamar Johnson, dean of instruction, is head librarian. The language library is unusual in itself, for it includes not only reading material, but also listening records as practical audio-aids for language students. The Audio-visual service of the library is under the direction of Dr. Robert de Kieffer. The purpose of the department is to supply projectors and to circulate films and records for clubs, campus meetings, and class- room work. The communications library, which includes the Hattie Jean Falk memorial collection, offers a large number of volumes to students interested in journalism and creative writing. It has become a resource center for all work in communications. The general library includes two listening rooms and a complete file of records that provide everything from boogie-woogie to Beethoven. It contains also the personal library center where girls can borrow books to keep in their rooms all year. This plan has helped to stimulate reading interest and to make recreational reading an important part in the life of every Stephens student. The College subscribes to 300 magazines and nine newspapers, which are distributed among the divi- sion libraries. In addition to providing books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and records, this library also has pictures, slides, films, radio transcripts, and a micro- film edition of the New York Times. Dr. B. Lamar Johnson Librarian and Dean of Instruction The method of placing books where they are needed has greatly increased the number of books borrowed from the libraries. During the years from 1927 to 1932 each Stephens student borrowed an average of 9.27 books per year from the Stephens general library. With the decentralized system, however, the average number of books borrowed by each girl per year is now 35.00. This is convincing proof that the system is suc- cessful. P. R. M. ARMblRO.NG Registrar In the Travel Office Virginia Payne Secretary of Permissions Page 19

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Dean Marjorie Carpenter T here are just two reasons for the existence of Administrative officials. They are supposed to render service to both students and faculty by caring for details connected with the running of a college. They are also expected to furnish some leadership in establishing policies. Neither one of these functions amounts to any- thing unless the students are aware of the importance for all of us in cooperating with administrative rulings. Administration Sometimes this cooperation needs to take the form of recommending needed changes. And always, in a democracy, it calls for free discussion and the recogni- tion of established law. In an experimental college like Stephens there is an unusual opportunity for working with a type of education which is different. This does not mean that we abandon the standards of academic achievement. On the contrary, it means that those standards are kept unusually high because every indi- vidual girl realizes for herself that the quality of her work is important for her and for society. The Administration has set up a framework within which each Stephens girl has an opportunity, with her adviser, to think out her own goals. She has an oppor- tunity in her dormitory to experience group living. She has an opportunity in her classroom to acquire skills and knowledge. Student officers and faculty adminis- trative officials stand ready at all times to make the framework strong. It is our hope that, as a result of her campus experience, each graduate goes into her com- munity equipped to be the sort of citizen who under- stands the purposes and methods of democratic ad- ministration, who understands herself, and who is ready to take on whatever responsibilities are demanded in serving her community. — Marjorie Carpenter Mary Bigelow Assistant to the Dean Alumnae Office Staff Mary Coleman Atumnae Secretary Page IS

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Dr. W. W. Charters Fc OR twenty-five years the Research Service has been quietly working on the Stephens Program. In 1Q21, President James Madison Wood proposed that we build a college which would be based upon the needs and interests of women. This was a new idea that pro- gressive educators at that time were merely talking about, but which they had not as yet applied practically to the actual development of the curriculum. The Research Service accepted the challenge and has been steadily working on courses, methods of instruction, Research Service advising, and administrative procedures to make them meet faithfully the needs and interests of the students. Members of the faculty in every division of the College make contributions. The students, year after year, experiment with many ideas and improved meth- ods of organizing and conducting their activities. The small staff of what is known as the Research Service has found its main function to be that of coordinating and stimulating the efforts of the faculty and the student body as a whole. Conspicuously the students of the College have caught the spirit of efficiency and improve- ment from the Research Service and from the faculty as a whole. The College by tradition has made the extra-cur- ricular life of the students an agency for training in im- portant areas not covered in the classroom. By means of manuals of procedure and in-service training each new set of officers is trained by its predecessors. A sub- stantial list of campus projects is initiated and devel- oped each year. Team work is emphasized; dependa- bility in performing assignments is developed; and initiative in proposing new ideas is encouraged. More than one-half of the graduates have had experience as officers of clubs, sororities, and committees and thus have learned in college how to assume responsibility. Later they will find this training highly important in their work in women s civic groups and other organi- zations in their own communities. The Research Service has watched and aided this development over the years. It has taught the girls how to study their problems and collect data necessary for reaching decisions. It has been particularly inter- ested in helping them to develop methods of evaluation in judging the efficiency of their organizations. In the spirit of research, the officers of the campus organiza- tions continually study their methods, watch for new ideas which make for improvement, and pass their recommendations on to their successors. Nothing that has happened in the evolution of the College is more interesting or important than the devel- opment of the scientific attitude among students in handling extra-curricular alfairs. Dr. Charters Miss Ytell Miss Dudley Mrs. Deimund Miss Omer Page 20