Connecticut College Alumnae News, May 1965
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Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Alumni News Archives 5-1965 Connecticut College Alumnae News, May 1965 Connecticut College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews Recommended Citation Connecticut College, "Connecticut College Alumnae News, May 1965" (1965). Alumni News. 155. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews/155 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Alumni News by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. Connecticu t College r!Alumnae :J<..!ws r BOTANY at the College Connecticut College Alumnae News OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CONNECTICUT COLLEGE ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION VOLUME XLll Executive Board of the NUMBER 3 Alumnae Association MAY 1965 President: ELIZABETH J. DUTTON '47 5 Botany at the College / by Betty Flanders First Vice President: Thomson ELIZABETH ROCKWELL CESARE '52 8 The Botany Department Second Vice President: ELIZABETH GORDON VAN LAW '28 11 The Connecticut Arboretum / by Will/am A, Niering Secretary: ROLDAH NORTHUP CAMERON '51 Treasurer: E. ELIZABETH SPEIRS '29 19 CC in the Peace COtpS Directors: JANET BOOMER BARNARD '29 21 Alumnae Back on Campus EDITH PATTON CRANSHAW '41 ELIZABETH PARCELLS ARMS '39 23 The Executive Board Holds an Open Meeting JANE MUDDLE FUNKHOUSER '53 Trustees: 25 The Trustees' Corner / by Mary Foulke CAROL 1. CHAPPELL '41 Morrison WINIFRED NIES NORTHCOTT '38 SARAH PITHOUSE BECKER '27 26 Class Notes Chairman of Alttmnae Fund: Cover by Henry Martin, Princeton, New Jersey PATRICIA WERTHEIM ABRAMS '(,0 Chairman of Nominating Committee: Photos by Philip Biscuti unless indicated otherwise JANET FLETCHER ELLRODT '41 Chairman of Finance Committee: Editor: PRISCILLA PASCO '39 ELEANOR HINE KRANZ '34 755 West Saddle River Road, Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey Chairma1J of Scholarship Committee: SARAH PITHOUSE BECKER '27 Editor for this issue: Executive Director: CORINNE MANNING BLACK '47 182 Western Way. Princeton, New Jersey CHARLOTTE BECKWITH CRANE '25 Connecticut College Editorial Board: MARION VIBERT CLARK, '24, Class Notes Editor Published by the Connecticut College Alumnae As- E. ELIZABETH SPEIRS, '29, Business Manager SOCiatIOn at Sykes Alumnae Center, Connecticut ELIZABETH DAMEREL GONGAWARE '26, Assistant Bditor College, New London, Conn., four times a year in D~cember, March, May and August. Subscription ROLDAH NORTHUP CAMERON '51 pn.ce .$2 per year. Second-class postage paid at RUBY ZAGOREN SILVERSTEIN '43 Princeron, New Jersey. Send Form 3579 to Sykes Alumnae Center, Connecticut Colleee New london PRISCILLA BAIRD HINCKLEY '47 Connecticut 06320. AAe Member~ , • RHODA MELTZER GILINSKY '49 In the College greenhome a botan~' student carefully tucks the sand around a new cutting in her own small garden plot. What should an enlightened lay person know about the world of plants? BETTY FLANDERS THOMSON-In the College green- house Miss Thomson (right), Professor of Botany, scrutin- izes carefully as her students examine the roots of a cutting. The author of the delightful book, The Changing Face of New England (Macmillan, 1958), she is a sensitive and gifted observer of the natural world. She feels that a knowledge of the natural world is as much a mark of an educated person as a knowledge of the works of man. She is working now on a companion volume to her first book which will describe for the lay reader the landscape of our Midwest and its evolu- tion and meaning. Miss Thomson received her Ph.D. from Columbia after earning her B.A. and M.A. at Mt. Holyoke. In 1943 she joined the faculty of Connecticut College and this year is Acting Chairman. Her work on "The Role of Light in Histogenesis and Differentiation in Angiosperms" was spon- sored by a grant from the National Science Foundation. BOTANY a subject • for professional use • for understanding and enjoyment OR twenty years and more the introductory statement F in the College catalogue about the Botany Depart- ment's offerings has said, "Courses are designed both for students who wish to make professional use of their training and for those who desire to increase their under- standing and enjoyment of their naturah surroundings." As the world and the College have changed. in that time, this "There is so much ... rwo-fold approach seems co have increasing relevance, and our major students usually choose courses for both purposes. that is new, exciting, Although this is a small department, we manage to and thought-provoking ... " offer a choice of subject matter by giving a1l our advanced courses in alternate years, so that teachers have reasonable schedules and course enrollments are adequately large, and by designating certain courses given in the Zoology De- partment as part of our major. These are identified by listing them in the catalogue under the title of Biology. As background for professional scientists we offer the classical courses in taxonomy, anatomy, physiology, micro- biology, and evolution of plants. These are augmented by Dr. Bernice Wheeler's Genetics and Dr. John Kent's Rad- iation Biology, both taught in the Zoology Department. Rules for laboratory procedures in the latter are spelled Out in detail by the Atomic Energy Commission. For obvious reasons, no one whose technique is in the least clumsy or BY BETfY FLANDERS THOMSON careless can be allowed to handle even innocuously radio- ACTING CHAIRMAN active materials, however brilliant her intellectual perform. DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY ance may be, and this remains the only course in the College that always requires permission of the instructor to register. A truly interdepartmental course is Bioecology, taught ing aspect of reaching an advanced level of scientifi d jointly by botanist William Niering and zoologist Bernice f CStu y' A ' bi , Wheeler, It is organized on the basis of habitars, and field n ~mport~t. 0 J~t1ve 0 the seminar, in additionto~ trips co such places as tidal marshes, old fields, woodlands, commg familiar WIth the technical literatureand j earnmg , and bogs are the heart of it. This is a subject that provides more about the current status of the frontiersof Ian biology, is the development of a sound critical jud p t desirable perspective for both the budding professional 'l' I groen<, and the interested amateur. As you can imagine, the field teah b1 ICy to eva uate a piece of research,to see whatIt ' work generates a certain number of legendary adventures. does or does not contribute to an understandingof I di ish I P anrs and to isrrngurs' c early between what has actual!y ceenb Sophomores usually begin their major sequence with a demonstrared experimentally and what is inferredorex- course currently named Plant Growth and Propagation. Its trapolated from known facts, objective is to make students thoroughly familiar with the , Students tell us that they find the experienceof speak, derails of how plants grow and what influences their rag at some length before the seminar groupat first growth, and so far as I know, there is nothing quite like frightening but in the long run valuable, as the usual run it elsewhere. It is a direct descendant of Dr. George Avery's of college work offers little or none of this, WatChingthe Horciculrure course, with a shift to more emphasis on the progress of a student as she learns to come to gripswith Largeamount of recent scientific research on plant growth, a subject entirely on her own and to standup anddeliver and with many horticultural and natural history matters to her classmates and teachers is one of the largesarisfac- coming in as examples and by-products of the main topics rions of the professorial life, and a first seminar isprobably considered. The class regularly includes a student or twO the place where this happens most obviously, who is majoring in some widely unrelated 'subject and is just curious to learn about this aspect of plants. There is Although the department is deeply concernedwith the a good deal of planting of seeds, making of cuttings, and work of its major students, the largest numbersthatwe general caring for growing plants in the greenhouse, deal with are those taking the beginning course to fulfill as well as measuring, weighing, dissecting, and assorted a general graduation requirement. Here the criterionfor experimental manipulation of the planes grown. what a course should include must be the role of biology and especially botany in a liberal arts education, Wlut Another somewhat unorthodox course is one on Orna- should an enlightened lay person know about the world mental Plants and Landscape Design. Here students learn of plants? the identity and characteristics of the plants they will see around them all their lives in this era of urban and ur own answer to this question is irnplicit inourin- suburban living. They learn that there are many more troductory Statement in the catalogue.Thestudyof interesting and beautiful plants ro be had than the familiar O botany should convey an understanding of the specialna- old standbys like barberry, blue spruce, and Norway maple; ture of the scientist's way of pursuing truth,his useof ob- and they learn s.offiething about arranging plantings with servation and experiment to establish empiricalfactandhis an eye to aesthetic as well as utilitarian considerations. The drawing of generalizations and constructionof theoryto set campus, including the Caroline Black Garden has a really the facts into a rational, organizing framework.Oneof the .fin~c?llection of ornamental trees and shrubs, ~owhich new roughest nuts to crack in teaching an elementaryscience vanenes. are added from time to time 'and th e Ar b oretum course is to devise laboratory work that will set thegen- provides samples of all the native vegetation.