University of Wisconsin Madison - Badger Yearbook (Madison, WI)

Page 27 text:

' THE LARGEST JACK POT IN HISTORY . . . 119]

Page 26 text:

A Jack Pot ior Stuclt-nts For the second ma|or const.tuent of the umvers.ty commumty-the student body-depres- s.on bl t . con.plex.ty and diversity of problen s wh.ch hardened and n.atu.-ed young n.en nd ZJn bevond the. years. Never before on such a vast scale had a great modern un.ver.ty bl con.pelled to broaden ks role as educator to become provider ot the necessmes of hfe The lalstTckpot in un,vers.ty h.storv-well over half a milUon dollars-was thrown together by he ed ral .overnn.ent, the state, alun.n and student organizations .n a concerted can.pa.gn to ke P students .n school. Jobs, loans, meals, and clothing were parcelled out to an eve :n- eaZg thlg, whose contLed residence .n the un.vers.y depended m part or .n whole on assistance which they could not expect from their parents. The studv of student behavior durmg the depression leads along many cunous paths and intertwmmg roads, but most of all the anxious investigator vainly throws his quest or exa t information against an impenetrable wall of haphazard and inefticient recording - a But where the facts ar. available the following paragraphs are intended to tell the extent which students fought back the effects of depression on a dozen fronts. Examine, for instance, the employment situation. In the academic y ' l - ' l ' f ] per cent of he student bodv was wholly self-supportmg, and in 1933-194 the hgure had Lcreased by only one per cent. Obviously, as every university official J -. ; ; f Z a far greater number of dependent students today than there were in the dividend da, s of 19 9 The atiswer lies in the fact that many students who must have work cannot secure a ,ob and are thus thrown on the mercies of the loan fund and their house mother and do no app a on the meager records as working students. In 1929, for insnmce, the university emp oyn en office placed students in 4,640 iobs, ranging from a Saturday afternoon of window washing o regular part time iob. whereas in the academic year of 1932-1933 only 3,225 part time ,obs weie fiUed bv students, despite the greater demand for work. That the demand for work rose to an unprecedented height is indicated in the type of emplovment students were willing to take to stay in school. Consider some of the followmg lines of activitv which Dr. Jeykl the student was willing to pursue as Mr. Hyde b-dwinne. One medical student picked up stray cats, piled them into a gunny sack, sold them to the hospital, and collected fifty cents apiece. Several students applied for jobs as gigolos, some of them were willing to dispense with remuneration if the young lady paid .all the expenses of the evening. An ambitious English major asked for part time jobs writing sentimental sonnets and love letters for students who felt but could not express their love. A sophomore engineer gave birth to the idea that there was money in breaking in new pipes, and offered his patience at twenty-five cents per pipe. One extremelv versatile voung man taught tap-dancing classes, adagio dancing, played the piano tvped, rode horseback, taught figure skating, pressed clothes, and worked in a museum because he knew all about insects and beetles. Apparently, however, he forgot to go to classes in his spare time, and flunked out of the university. , ,■ r „„l The novel task of making tow ropes and wandering around highwavs looking for peop e whose cars were stuck and then offering to sell them a rope was the woJus operand, of a hard- pressed sophomore woman. [18]

Page 28 text:

Another girl offers her services teaching jiu jitsu and managed to pick up a few badly needed dollars now and then. Elsewhere there are students serving as policemen, detectives, night watchmen, asylum guards, gardeners, food caterers, salesmen, dish washers, waiters, janitors, clerks, reporters, mush- room growers, flagpole painters, chimney sweeps, tree surgeons, embalmers, undertakers, opticians, bee keepers, finger print experts, barbers, night club bouncers, musicians, firemen, housekeepers, maids, ushers, druggists, repairmen, and blood givers. Odds and ends all of these, but pieced together after extracting them from the authentic records of the university employment office, they constitute a tremendously absorbing drama of 4,000 young men and women trying so desperately hard to pull both ends together and con- tinue their university education. Manv, however, failed to secure employment, and hundreds of them turned their heads hopefully to the loan fund as their last chance to remain m school. Nor were many of them to be disappointed. The student loan fund pumped thousands and thousands of dollars, m fact well over $100.00, into emptv student pockets during the past four years. No exact figures are available, for the university has never completed an official calculation of the total amoimt of cash available for loans in the several score different funds set up by alumni, outside organizations, and student groups. Upwards of 4.000 students borrowed from one or another of the funds, and in the school year 1934-1933 the scattered records showed the total principle outstandmg to be $123,5 97.94. Hampered bv the inabilit ' of those who did borrow to repay their loans following graduation, university officials sought to create new funds by asking alumni and student organ- izations to donate their meager earnings to the loan fund. The response was instant and wide- spread. An alumni drive netted upwards of $8,000, and student tag days, senior class donations, junior prom funds, and a host of others were pooled to provide the wherewithal for student life. Nor did the state itself fail to grapple with the increasingly intense privation of university students, and in its special session this year set aside a chest of $150,000 to aid students in Wisconsin colleges and universities who are state residents. A new collaborator entered the now widespread drive to aid college students when the federal government announced in March its intention to provide funds to finance the employment of needy students in jobs which the colleges and universities might create. Quick to install the machinery of job-making and comply with federal specifications, university officials speeded the spade work and in a brief fortnight had set up the mechanism by which upwards of 700 students were emploved at a monthly payroll of $11,500. which was to have continued up to the close of the semester in June. Faced with a crushing burden of worry and outside work besides classroom activities, student health, clinic reports reveal, stood up amazingly well during the four year period. The clinic was far more widely used as students became more careful of their condition. Sporadic cases of malnutrition were treated, several undernourished students arriving in such weak condition that they could scarcely take food; and tuberculosis became a bit more widespread than in former years. But on the whole, clinic officials expressed the certainty that student health was substan- tially on the same level as in pre-depression years. Moreover, the period of depression saw students boosting their scholastic standing. lor the years from 1930 to 1933 student grades have steadily risen. In 1930 the all student average was 1.30. In 1933 it was 1.57. 20