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

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Along wth this considerable rise all things remained equal. Women students contuiued to get better grades than men. In 1930 the score was women 1.43, men 1.21. Two years later in 1933 the score read wonK-n 1.68, men 1.51. Non-fraternky men contu.ued to average above traternity affiliates. Several factors in back of this rise in scholastic standing lend themselves to interpretation hirst, with the enrollment dropping, the university would not afford to flunk too manv and hence grading was considered more lement. In the second place, students applied themselves more assiduously to their studies and with less money available avoided most of the currents of the soc, maelstrom. A social awareness brought with it a more senous attitude toward studies W.th many students hanging on to college at great sacrifice, a singleness of purpose was naturalK- reflected in better grades. The grade figures for the period follow All Students Men Women Non-t ' raternitv Men All Men Fraternity Men Non-sorority Women All Women Sororitv Vi ' omcn First semester ' }0- ' 3 1 1.3 0(1 1.217 1.43 ' ) 1.3 5 1 1.217 1.IS2 1.414 1.43 9 1.48(1 Second semester ' 30- ' 31 1.440 1. 359 1.S75 1.409 1.3 S 9 1.307 1.T81 l.i7i 1.571 ' 3 1 - ' 32 1.3 98 1.334 I.SIO 1.34! 1.3 34 1.316 1.521 1.510 1.5 04 ' 3 1 - ' 32 1.511 1.440 1.63 8 1.471 1.440 1.397 1.650 1.638 1.630 ' 3 2 - ' 3 3 1.459 1.398 1.560 1.42 8 1.398 1.348 1.608 1.560 1.535 ' 32- ' 33 1.570 1.513 1.683 1.592 1.513 1.467 1.686 1.683 1.678 • ii - In the Rattiskeller [21]

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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

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In the Library [22]