University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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ACER MSC

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flash on proud chests: is not the goal worthy of our untiring effort? Thus, we leave Massachusetts State knowing that our training here will make the days ahead not especially easier, but touched with confidence. To the officers and teachers we pay our respect and gratitude. They have administered to our benefit. To the grand 58th itself: ' Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot. ' And so we go. In July, 1944, shortly after the 58th College Training Detachment had been closed, 300 young men 17 years of age, an Air Corps Enlisted Reserve group, were assigned to the College in an Army Specialized Training Reserve Program. This unit was in command of Captain Winslow E. Ryan ' 40. Their training program was much similar to that of the 58th. An article in the Providence, Rhode Island, Journal spoke of it in part as follows : The platoons swinging hungrily across the campus in the general direction of the college cafeteria and a heaping noon- day chow, were made up of boys who will some day be pilots, navigators, gunners and what-not in the Army Air Forces. Right at the moment they are in a pe- culiar betwixt-and-between state: of the Army but not in it, wearing government issue but drawing no pay, eating the Government ' s food but doing it on ration points, living with each other under discipline but not subject to military law, unable to frank their letters but paying no money for tuition or textbooks. In short, they are a combination of Joe College and rookie-boys of pre-military age receiving intensive academic prepara- tion fitting them for training in skills requiring more than a high school educa- tion. Alphabetically, they are members of the ACER — Air Corps Enlisted Reserve. Before the porticoed sweep of college buildings, the platoons dissolved and be- came individual boys, dropping their books by the musette-bagful on sunny lawns or snow-covered steps and relaxing in violent horseplay. ' It ' s the only chance they get to relax during the day, ' remarked Captain Ryan as we strolled across a campus dotted with groups of youngsters somersaulting each other in four-back flips or flinging a friend into the air. Including physical and military training, each student works a 51 to 54-hour week, depending on the curriculum and the term to which he is assigned. Broken down, this week runs to 12 to 20 hours in the classroom, from 4 to 13 hours a week in the laboratory, and from 16 to 19 hours a week in re- quired study. From 6:00 a.m. First Call to 10:30 p.m. Taps it makes for a good full academic day, especially when you sandwich in six hours a week of physical training and five hours of military train- ing. Students who complete the program, without being dropped for academic failure or misconduct go to Army Air Force Training Centers for classification. Because of his introduction to military duties and habits of living the ASTRP graduate has an appreciable edge on other enlisted men during his basic training period. [18]

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Commencement Senior Commencement weekend was held this year from Friday, May twenty- fifth, to Sunday, May twenty-seventh. Friday at eight in the evening the senior class party was held, along with an alumni reception at the Memorial Hall. In normal times, the Soph-Senior Ball was held on this Friday before commence- ment, thereby allowing students to re- main on campus from Friday until Sun- day commencement. On Saturday, May twenty-sixth, the annual meeting of associate Alumni took place in the Memorial Building at ten o ' clock in the morning. At eleven, there was a meeting of the Board of Trustees in the President ' s office. At this time, the traditional Class Day speeches were given in Bowker Auditorium. Joseph Kunces, class president, delivered the Mantle Oration. He advised the class of ' 46 to uphold the traditions of the college and to keep its history unblemished. Roger Richards, junior class president, accepted the mantle and the responsi- bility associated with it. A response to the speech followed the acceptance of the mantle. The highlight of the program was the Hatchet and Pipe Oration de- livered by Rube Allen and Lucille Chaput. 20