Connecticut College Alumnae News, March 1956
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Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Alumni News Archives 3-1956 Connecticut College Alumnae News, March 1956 Connecticut College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews Recommended Citation Connecticut College, "Connecticut College Alumnae News, March 1956" (1956). Alumni News. 118. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews/118 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. Connecticut College Alumnae News HARKNESS CHAPEL IN EARLY SPRING March 1956 REUNION WEEKEND: CLASSES OF '31, '26, '27, '28, CONNECTICUT COLLEGE SCHOOL OF THE DANCE: '45, '46, '47, '48, '55. Members of Non-Reunion July 9 to August 19, 19S6. Classes are also invited to come to the campus American Dance Festival: To be presented during for the festivities. the week of August 13, 19S6. College Calendar 1956 Executive Board of the Alumnae Association April 20, 21: Wig and Candle Play: First Vice-President: Margaret Royall Hinck '33 "Blithe Spirit". May 2; Competitive Sing, Melodrama. Second Vice-President: Margaret Kerr Miller '41 May 19: Fathers' Day. Recording Secretary: Ann Small Burnham '42 May 20: Outdoor Vespers. Treasurer: Carol L. Chappell '41 May 27: Musical Vespers. June 8, 9, 10: Commencement Weekend Cbmn, Alumnae Fund Conim.: Artemis Blessis Ramaker '50 Class Reunions. Chmn. Nominating Com m.: Lois Ryman Areson '36 JUNe 9: Annual Meeting of Alumnae Ass'n. Chmn. Finance Comni.: Edna Smith Thistle '26 Editorial Board Alumnae News Ch ....in, Personnel Conim.: Marjory L. Jones '28 Marion Vibert Clark '24 Directors: Mildred Howard '20, Alison Jacobs McBride '34, Gertrude Noyes '25 Henrietta Owens Rogers '28 Mary lee Minter Goode '46 Carol 1. Chappell '41 Alumnae Trustees. Catharine Greer '29, Roberta Newton Blanchard '21, Mary A. Clark '50 Natalie R. Maas '40 Roldah-Northrup Cameron '51 Kathryn Moss '24, Editor. Exeaaioe Secvetery: Kathryn Moss '24 Gifts to Connecticut College You have been informed of the Crozier bequest to the because, said the Foundation, "They led the way in their College, which will be at least $500,000, and in connec- regions in improving the status and compensation »f tion with which plans for the Student-Alumnae Center American college teachers." are being considered. Announcement has also been made of other important gifts which will come from the Larra- For these splendid gifts all alumnae are indeed grate/ttl. bee bequests from the estates of two Groton, Connecticut, They carry with them a challenge to alumnae. Quick sisters. The amount of these gifts is as yet unknown. calculation as to investment rates on endowed funds, the number of faculty, toe cost of building today, indicates that we cannot now relax. Artemis Blessis Ramaker, Chair- Through the news sheet sent from President Park's man of the Alumnae Pend, well says: "The recent large office, as well as through the public press, alumnae have bequests to Connecticut were made because Connecticut is been informed that Connecticut College will receive at vital, is self-reliant. Help to those who help themselves!" least $632,500 in grants from the Ford Foundation, the major portion of which must be used for increasing facul- And! 10 underline the urgency! the necessity, of strong ty salaries. The accomplishment grant from the Founda- higher education in the United States! we ask you to con- tion may be used to increase faculty salaries or to meet sider seriollsly the significance of Miss Betbur urn's, Miss other urgent needs of the College, Connecticut is one of Dilley's! and Mrs. Benton! r articles in this issue of the 126 institutions which received accomplishment grants, Alumnae News. Published by the Connecticut College Alumnae Associano C . C00n., four times a year in December, March, Ma and IAn at onnectl.CU! ColI~ge, 751 Williams Street, New London, u matter at the Post Office, New london Conn under th gtostf' ,S1ubscnptlOn pnce $2 per year. Endorsed as second-class ,., e ac 0 L\ arch 3, 1879. NEW LONDON PRINTING CD., INC. Connecticut College Alumnae News OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CONNECTICUT COLLEGE ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION VOLUME XXIV MARCH, 1956 NUMBER 2 More Than a Bread - and - Butter Interest By WINIFRED NIES NORTHCOTT '38 WITH Winifred Northcott's statement, "Work for the deaf is more them a bread and butter interest to me," we do agree. Her distinguished career in the teaching of deaf children is to be expected, as on the maternal side of her family she is the fifth generation of educators for the deaf, Dr. Harvey Prindle Peet, her great-grandfather, founded the school for the deaf in White Plains, New York, where her mother completed thirty years! of teaching in 1954. Dr. Elizabeth Peet, her great aunt, was long Dean of Women at Gallaudet College for the Deaf in Washington, D. C. Winnie's father, Dr. Edwin W. Nies, has been totally deaf from the age of 7. After graduating from Gallaudet, and later receiving his degree of D.D.S. nt the University of Pennsylvania Dental School, Dr. Nies in 1950, still a practicing dentist, was ordained to the priesthood in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The ceremony was performed by Bishop Donegan and took place at the historic St. Mark's-In-the-Bouwerie, New York, where St. Ann's Church for the Deaf meets for worship. Winifred herself has taught at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York, at the Aggasiz Deaf School in Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Hearing Society, and the University of Minne- W illifred Nortbcott sota. Since November 1955 she bas been the Director of the Nursery School of the Minneapolis Hearing Society, a Commu- nity Chest agency. There she works with twelve deaf children blackboard, and wait until the magic 'Steve' or 'Cindy' from the ages of 2 to 4. brings them to the Teacher's side to obey the 'Run; In the pattern of good wives of the period, Winne followed 'Jump' or 'Fly' commands." her husband John from place to place while he was in military service. After the war the Northcotts moved to Minnesota, where These children range in age [rom two to four, and son Hal in 1949 and daughter Heather in 1952 were adopted. you might think- Ho, Hum, another routine report of Winifred is the president of the Connecticut College Club of the a pre-school nursery group. But this is a quotation from Twin Cities. the monthly magazine published by the Minneapolis Hearing Society, and Steve and Cindy, along with the " 'VTWEare moving ahead on all fronts," the first other frisky little, precious little children who make up Nursery News and Views report to parents read, "the the dozen, are profoundly deaf. They came to us not chi ldren take off their own snowsuits and either shake being able to say a single word, not even knowing what hands with the grown-ups, as Buzz has taught them, say a word is. Think about that for a moment - here are "Hi," or just grin their hellos. We notice they settle children scarcely more than babies, far too young to be down to work readily and every child can match colors psychologically ready for formal teaching, who are ex- easily as we move into the second month of schooL Linda pected soon to be letter-perfect in producing sounds and has an infectious laugh and finds much merriment in words. Natural and appealing in their play? Certainly. deliberately mismatching a color, while Teacher pretends But to them it is a world of complete silence, and we are to be shocked, then putting it in the right spot." on hand to help make it meaningfuL "We are encouraged with the progress in group work, It is so undramatic to be deaf, and only four years too," the Report continues, "the children can find their old. There is no leg brace or Braille book to give visible own name card, match it with the proper name on the warning to the world that here is a little girl or boy who 3 can't say a single word. "Can P" "Why?" "Where?" As we talk, talk, talk we tie up the spoken word they would like to ask as the panorama of daily experi- with the written. After the children recognize their own ences swings into focus. Gestures and pantomime, yes names, through lip-reading, and by identifying their name they give clues to their state of mind. But what of the on the blackboard, we write simple news on the black- curiosity, frustration, the fears that pound inside. Our board. "Cindy has on a new red skirt." In turn, the pupils can only spill over their feelings in behavior-ex- children sitting in a semi-circle identify Cindy as the cessive shyness, tantrums, or just passive resistance. word is pointed to, draw a skirt over the word to show they know its meaning, and find the red chalk to color a And then their first formal teaching begins. Our square over the appropriate word. little group of pre-schoolers who come to us three morn- ings a week from 9:30 to 11 :30 run the gamut from lazy We move ahead on all fronts, not just casual lip- to ambitious, from dull to brilliant. They have one thing reading. We have the children match pictures to pictures, in common, an inability to hear spoken words through the and objects to pictures, for we always tie up the spoken naked ear (though they have a perfect speech mechanism, word to something concrete, and as time goes on we use organically speaking), and therefore there is no intelli- pictures more and more.