Macalester Today February 1988 Macalester College

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2-1-1988 Macalester Today February 1988 Macalester College

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This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communications and Public Relations at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester Today by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MACALESTERTOQ\Y LETTERS We welcome readers' opinions of recent in it must learn a significant amount. Nev- Bright ideas articles. Please send letters intended for ertheless, the claims in the article as they publication to Letters to the Editor, Mac- stand require more substantiation than I enjoyed the November 1987 issue of alester Today, Public Relations and Pub- they are given. I am willing to be con- Macalester Today. I am sharing the article lications Department, Macalester College, vinced, but I will need more evidence. ("Gerunds and Geography") full of bright 1600 Grand Ave., Saint Paid, MN Bruce Alan Wilson applications of Fulbright awards with 55105. We reserve the right to edit letters (son of M. Glen Wilson, other staff here at CIES, including Robert for conciseness and clarity. emeritus professor of speech Burnett, who manages the Scholar-in- and dramatic arts) Residence program for Western Europe. Heber Springs, Ark. I recall that a dozen years ago at Carleton College, when I was an under- Just the right words We stand by the article's statement (based graduate, Professor Paul Riesman used Many thanks to Professor Thomas Hill on the research and beliefs of the professors to teach his introductory anthropology ("Letters," November) for expressing so conducting the program) that the bridge course in French occasionally. Macales- well the thoughts many of us had upon programs particular xn-class focus— ter's coupling of subject with language learning of the death of Professor Hugo courses taught by foreign scholars in their courses, and in several languages, is Thompson. He was indeed "loved by areas of expertise and in their native lan- impressive. those who knew him." guage— is ''probably a unique offering Frederik Ohles, John B. Lilja '56 among U.S. colleges." Program Officer, Minneapolis As a former teacher, Mr. Wilson is nat- Council for International urally interested in statistical quantifica- Exchange of Scholars tion—finding out how much students Washington, D.C. learn under Macalester's bridge program How unique? How fluent? compared with students of other colleges' "Gerunds and Geography" (November) language programs. We know of no such was interesting. However, I have certain comparative statistics. Nor, as we see it, Correction doubts regarding some of the claims are they necessary. Because the November issue's article on made. The point is not that Macalester stu- language teaching was researched and I have had training and experience in dents end up more fluent than participants written while one of the five professors it language teaching, both at the secondary in other institutions' language programs, names was out of the country, it inadver- and postsecondary levels; accordingly, I but that the bridge classes combine two ele- tently misspells the name of Fulbright speak of what I know. It seems unlikely ments not usually brought together on the scholar Rainer Vollmar. Macalester Today that a student who has studied a language campus of a synall college: a non-language deeply regrets the error. at only the intermediate level would be subject (geography, economics) taught in a able, even with a concurrent special lan- foreign language. —Editor guage class, to effectively participate in a college-level content class conducted in the target language. I can believe that the student's knowledge of the target language might be significantly augmented, but not that the student could achieve native or near-native-speaker fluency. Nor is it credible without further evidence that the student would learn the same amount of the content-subject as s/he would have in a similar course taught in English. Archivist Harry Drake '50 would love to see Skjold '26; (third row) George Roberts '27, The Macalester program is said to be more gifts like the one pictured above—a Allan Pelson "26, unknown, Thomas Ross unique. May I point out, just for a few 1924 photograph, recently donated by Ray- Paden '26, three unknowns, Rolland Zellar examples, Middlebury College in Ver- mond Lindquist '27, of Macalester's '26, unknown, Elsworth Heed '27, Albert mont, Miilersburg University in Pennsyl- Athenaean Society (a literary organization) Haakinson '27. Among the archives depart- on the steps of Old Main. Pictured are (left ment's current needs are 1974—75 Spot- vania, the Monterey Institute of to right, first row): unknown, Gordon Uhley lites, baccalaureate programs (just about International Studies in California, and '26, Paul Skiff '24, Joe Dugan '24, every year from 1889 through 1926), and Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.? unknown, Rudolph Keller '24, William Baldwin School Commencement invitations These programs offer out-of-class re- Williams '24, Milton Olson '24, unknown, and Class Day programs. To donate any of William Paden '26, Lindquist; (second row) the above, or to inquire about other needed enforcement of language learning; stu- unknown, Luverne Tanglen '25, Fenwick items, write to: Harry Drake, Archivist, dents participating in them promise to Taylor '26, Lester Wilcox '26, Victor Weyerhaeuser Library, Macalester College, use only the target language for the dura- Ziebarth '25, Clinton Beresford '25, Ray- 1600 Grand Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55105. tion of the program. mond Griffith '26, Robert Barr '24, Lyle Bonham '24, Chester Hamblin '27, two Macalester's program is an interesting unknowns, Herbert McQuillen '26, Arthur one, and I do not deny that the students

MACALESTER TODAY ABOUT THIS ISSUE 2 At Macalester Students build a 'mitten mountain'; a Russian-flavored conference reaches a nationwide audience; and the library campaign mars its close. 6 The '60s Meet the '80s Did 1960s activism change the world? Five alumni ami three students explore the personal impact of that gaudy and volatile decade. by Rebecca Ganzel A 1988 photo of attorney Faith Ohman '64 appears on the cover—here she is (far right) as a student at Macalester in the 11 'You Need Strong Moral Indignation' early 1960s. Cover photo by Jim Hansen. A black activist, now a judge, muses on the continuing fight for Our story on the legacy of 1960s alumni begins on page 6. human rights. MACALESTER TODAY 13 Forty Years of Freshman Faces Editor With or without a cause, Prof Roger Blakely '43 loves rebels. Nancy A. Peterson Managing Editor Rebecca Ganze\ 14 The Opening of the Contributing Editor Randi Lynn Lyders '83 American Mind Art Director How does the education of today's Mamie Lilja Baehr students differ from our own? Seven Class Notes Editor Macalester professors present the Eunice F. Sandeen changing face of knowledge. MACALESTER COLLEGE byJonTevlin Chair, Board of Trustees David A. Ranheim '64 18 The Weil-Travelled President Robert M. Gavin, Jr. Rhodes Vice President for Development Spanning 84 years, Macalester's Catherine Reid Day seven Rhodes Scholars have taken Alumni Director Karen McConkey diverging paths to and from Oxford Associate Alumni Director University. Mary Winston Smail by Micheal J. Thompson President, Macalester Alumni Association Christina Baldwin '68 23 Alumni News Alumni Director Emeritus A. Phillips Beedon '28 A reforgedlink in the alumni- admissions chain. Macalester Today (Volume 76, Number 2) is published by Macalester College. It is mailed free of charge to alumni and friends of the College four 25 Alumni Profiles times a year. Circulation is 24,000. Novelist Tim O'Brien '68; and Gilbert For change of address, please write: AJumni Office, Baldwin 71, a man for whom nuts Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105. and bolts are bread and butter. To submit information for class notes section, please write: Class Notes Editor, AJumni Office, Macales- 27 Class Notes ter College, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105. Of saints and sinners, mommies and To submit comments or ideas concerning other sec- tions of Macalester Today, please write: Macalester daddies, lawyers and Today Editor, Public Relations and Publications mathematicians—and at least one Department, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Ave- nue, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105. 'Teacher of the Year.'

FEBRUARY 1988 ATMACALESTER in their knowledge to protect themselves the residence halls were also part of the Conference on AIDS part and discuss the facts openly. week-long program, which Coffin sees as "People have a very superficial knowl- part of a continuing drive to educate the of wider education effort edge, and that's enough to make them community about AIDS. Several students "AIDS Awareness Week" provided only a not really think about it," he said. completed training sessions at the Saint few of the thought-provoking speeches and "There's a lot of hesitance to admitting Paul public-health department during the public addresses given at Macalester last that we're all vulnerable." week to become volunteer AIDS educa- fall In other programs, three Nobel Prize- False rumors about catching AIDS tors in the city's public schools, Coffin winning scientists addressed the commu- through mosquitoes, handshakes, and said. nity on separate occasions, each funded by kissing contribute to misunderstandings Associate philosophy professor Martin the Wallace Distinguished Visitors Pro- and fear about the disease, physician Gunderson spoke on AIDS and the right gram; in late October, the minority-pro- Scott Strickland said in his Nov. 2 to privacy on Nov. 5, arguing that "pri- gram office sponsored several talks on the address. Strickland, director of the Hen- vacy is being balanced against health con- 19th-century Dakota Conflict and its nepin County Special Disease Clinic, has cerns." Gunderson said that the virus impact on present-day Native Americans; seen two recent Macalester graduates opens two new areas for potential litiga- and the college hosted an international die of AIDS. He said the disease is a station: Someone who gets AIDS from a conference on Soviet policy (seep. 3). tistical reality that must be faced by the wider community. During a week of special forums and Fear of the disease is a negative force speakers last November, the attendance as well, Coffin said. was small but the message was clear: "Fear is a two-edged force. It can AIDS is a threat to everyone, including motivate us to confront—[or] to flee," he the Macalester community. said. "The education process is going to be Richard Danila, director of the Minne- much more difficult than we thought it sota Department of Health's AIDS unit, would be, but we've got a good start," enlarged on this point in his Nov. 3 pre- chaplain Brent Coffin said following the sentation. Nov. 2-5 "AIDS Awareness Week" he "Half my time is spent dealing with organized. AIDS. The other half is spent dealing Coffin said he was initially disappointed with AIDS hysteria," Danila said. He by the low turnout at the eight events. painted a sad picture of the U.S. AIDS Most people assume they know all about epidemic, noting that between 1 million acquired immune deficiency syndrome and 1.5 million people have contracted (AIDS' full name) through the media, he AIDS and are capable of spreading the said, but few people are confident enough fatal disease. Informal discussions on campus and in A woman listens to philosophy professor Martin Gunderson speak on the legal implications of AIDS. sexual partner may decide to sue that partner, and a physician could conceivably be sued by an AIDS patient for informing others of the patient's status. Litigation itself, Gunderson said, constitutes a major threat to privacy. Coffin later said that, in the event of a Macalester student getting the disease, the college would uphold that person's rights to privacy and confidentiality. 'The community would provide whatever resources are necessary to complete the person's education, so they can live as full a life as possible," he said. "This AIDS Awareness Week is a launch pad for something that should be In an informal discussion, a student group led by chaplain Brent Coffin (far left) an ongoing part of this community," Cof- explores the "two-edged force" of the disease AIDS. Events like this were part of a fin said. "There's no reason to be fatalis- week-long conference sponsored by the chaplain's office last November. tic about this disease. There is no excuse [for getting] it. We know how to prevent it. We know how not to spread it." —Katherine Rowlands '88

MACALESTER TODAY Overlooked in U.S. News, Macalester ranks well in guidebooks, statistics "We are disappointed but not surprised" that Macalester was overlooked in a newsmagazine's listing of top American colleges, says President Robert M. Gavin, Jr. Macalester was not among the top 25 "national liberal arts colleges" in the Oct. 26 issue of U.S. News and World Report. The annual rankings are based solely on the opinions of college presidents, Gavin points out, and rely on their knowledge of other colleges. Other, more objective indicators such as SAT scores and admissions rates are not reflected in the rank- ing. For example, at six of the colleges on the list, average SAT scores of entering freshmen are lower than those at Mac- alester (1218), and at five more they are This Oct. 11 panel discussion brought a New York Times columnist, a Princeton pro- within two to twelve points. Eight col- fessor, the chair of PepsiCo, and a former statesman to answer students' questions in leges on the list are less selective in their Weyerhaeuser Chapel. The discussion, part of a three-day conference of the New York- admissions process—that is, they admit based East-West Institute, was broadcast live over American Public Radio. a larger percentage of applicants than does Macalester at 50.8 percent. Macalester is working to communicate Worldwide visitors convene for 'glasnost' conference its strengths to the public nationally, Hundreds of foreign ministers, adminis- to hear and ask questions of several con- including education leaders, Gavin notes. tration officials, and scholars from the ference participants in a public forum on One indicator of the college's success is West and from Eastern-bloc countries Oct. 11—a program produced by Minne- the descriptions of Macalester in various convened at Macalester in mid-October sota Public Radio and broadcast live by college guidebooks used by prospective for a conference on the new Soviet policy American Public Radio. Panelists for this students and their parents in selecting a of glasnost (usually translated as "open- radio program (Donald Kendall, chairman college. These guidebooks, such as ness"). of the executive committee of PepsiCo Selective Guide to Colleges by Edward B. The conference, sponsored by the Inc.; Flora Lewis, foreign-affairs colum- Fiske, education editor for The New York New York-based East-West Institute for nist for The New York Times', Richard Times, have described Macalester in Security Studies, focused on the putative Ullman, professor of international affairs increasingly favorable terms over the failure of the U.S. and other Western at Princeton University; and Kenneth past several years. countries "to respond creatively to the Dam, former deputy secretary of state) The importance of the guidebooks in opportunities offered by the new direc- responded to questions from the Mac- admissions is emphasized in a Dec. 2 tions in Soviet policy" under Mikhail Gor- alester audience and, by telephone, from Times article, which also quotes Macales- bachev. students listening across the country. ter dean of admissions William M. Shain. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John The Institute for East-West Security "Nobody ever describes you as you Whitehead, U.S. Senator Bill Bradley (D- Studies is a non-profit organization that would describe yourself," says Shain in N.J.), New York Times editorial-page edi- promotes study and dialogue on issues the article. Nevertheless, he tells Mac- tor Leslie Gelb, former vice president affecting countries of the NATO and War- alester Today, the college is being por- Walter Mondale, and West German for- saw Pact alliances. This was the first trayed very positively in the books. eign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher institute-sponsored meeting to take place were among the speakers in the confer- west of New York City; seeking a Mid- ence's series of private discussions. west site for the conference, the institute Although much of the three-day confer- chose Macalester because of its reputa- ence was closed to the public, several tion for fine scholarship and long-standing faculty members and administrators were internationalism, according to institute invited to be part of the deliberations. director John Mroz. —N.A.P. And the Macalester community was able

FEBRUARY 1988 Computerized catalog transforms library research The physical changes in Weyerhaeuser Library's reference room aren't enor- mous: the old wooden card catalogs have been rearranged (the "authors" and "titles" have moved to the reading room across the hall), and a table with some computer terminals has been added just by the door. But these small alterations represent a revolution in library use. The sign on the card catalog gives you a clue: "This is a CLOSED catalog." The old catalog, with its paper-intensive system averaging around seven cards for every book, magazine, microform, rec- ording, map, or government document in the library's collection, is—in a word— obsolete. Weyerhaeuser's two catalog librarians (and 10-12 student cata- A "mitten sale" sponsored by MacTION, a student volunteer group, filled the student loguers) stopped adding cards to it on union with color on Dec. 1. From left to right, seniors Sarah Loper (Minneapolis) and July 1. The old catalog is still available for Darlene Walser (Rochester, Minn.), freshmen Brigette Alschuler (Amherst, Mass.) and use, but researchers are finding it's faster Abigail Frost (New York, N.Y.), and senior Christopher Gerrard (Sharon, N.H.). The money raised by the drive went to a local women's shelter; the mittens themselves and more thorough to bypass it alto- were given to the homeless. gether. With the library's new Carlyle computer terminals (five in the reference Why the change? User-friendliness room, two in the downstairs periodicals plays a big role. Freshman-to-sophomore room, and, early next month, one each in "The new system frees you from a Olin Science Library and the Humanities straitjacket," Clemmer says. "The old rate hits 91 percent Learning Center), it takes only seconds card catalog locked you into a strict word College admissions isn't just about to search through not just everything in order; it locked you into alphabetical attracting students—it's about keeping the Macalester library's collection, but order." them after they enroll. And this year's everything in the libraries of seven other Not any more. And this summer, if all Macalester sophomores sport some Twin Cities institutions as well. goes well, CLICnet will include circula- impressive retention figures. Macalester has joined with Augsburg tion records—telling users not just the According to the registrar, the overall College, Bethel College, Concordia Col- names of the books they're looking for, percentage of students "retained" lege, Hamline University (including the but whether or not they've been checked between freshman and sophomore years law school), the James J. Hill Reference out. Eventually, the inter-library loan for the class of '90 (a total of 435 stu- Library, the College of St. Catherine, and process will be computerized as well, but dents) was 91 percent; for the 25 minor- the College of St. Thomas to form an he estimates that this will take a year or ity students in the class, 92 percent; and organization called CLIC — Cooperating more. for the international students, 94 percent. Libraries in Consortium. The computer CLICnet sports a $1.1 million pricetag. This is the highest freshman-to-soph- network that links all their libraries Of this, $340,000 (plus all annual operat- omore retention rate in the 23 years that (called "CLICnet" for short) is housed in ing and maintenance costs) is being Macalester has kept retention records, Macalester's computing center. Alto- shared by the eight participating institu- and the first time the rate has exceeded gether, 2 million items are catalogued in tions; the remainder has been raised from 90 percent. Over the past five years, an this computer's memory banks. foundations and corporations. average of only 85 percent of freshmen Thanks to years of backstage data- Although many library users (this wri- came back to Macalester for their soph- entry work ("It was going on long before ter included) look on the old wooden card omore year—and for minority students, I got here," says library director Joel catalog with great affection, Clemmer the average figure has been 75 percent. Clemmer, who was hired in 1985), all doesn't expect nostalgia to get in the way In addition, the freshman-to-senior Macalester's bibliographic records — of enthusiasm for the new system. retention rate for the class of '88 is 74.5 barring a few hundred of the most recent "Nationwide, the acceptance of on-line percent, 10 percentage points higher than acquisitions—are now stored in com- catalog systems has been phenomenal," it was four years ago. puter-readable form. The computerized he says. "It's simply a more flexible and records will be updated regularly. appropriate approach to an academic library." —R.L.G.

MACALESTER TODAY Calendar Since this schedule is subject Lo last-minute changes, we urge you to double-check dates and times before making plans. Most events are free, but it's a good idea to call for ticket prices. A T in the listing indicates the theater box office, 612/696-6359; a C, the campus programs office, 612/696-6297.

Fri., Feb. 12, 8 p.m. Cultural music show. Call minority programs, 612/696-6258, for information (Cochran Lounge) Tues., Feb. 16, 8 p.m. Mayor Raymond Flynn of Boston speaks as part of Macalester's Mayors' Forum, co-sponsored by the geography department, 612/696-6291 (Weyerhaeuser Chapel)

Thurs., Feb. 18, 11:30 a.m. Marbrook Visiting Professor Robert Sonkowsky (Weyerhaeuser Chapel) Towards the end of fall semester, the new library building was shrouded in plastic to facilitate the bricklayers' work—behind the plastic, propane heaters kept the tempera- Fri., Feb. 19, 8 p.m. ture above 45 degrees, the minimum at which bricks can be laid. By mid-December, Civic Orchestra of Minneapolis (Concert Hall) workmen had completed the Romanesque building's 12-foot-high limestone skirt and were nearly done with the windows. Sat., Feb. 20, 8 p.m. Harmonia Mundi performance (Concert Hall) of Saint Paul and a $500,000 gift from the Mon., Feb. 29, 8 p.m. Library ftindraising Kresge Foundation of Troy, Mich., will Mayor James Durrell of Ottawa, Ontario, will nears completion bring the library-fund total to $10 million. speak on "winter cities" (Weyerhaeuser Chapel) Reaching that goal, in turn, will earn a $5 Sun.-Mon., Mar. 6-7 Fundraising for Macalester's new library million matching gift from the Wallace Admissions sampler. Call the admissions office, surpassed $8.55 million by mid-January, Funds of the Readers' Digest Associa- 612/696-6357, for information and a trustee task force is working to tion. Tues., Mar. 8, 11:30 a.m. raise a final $200,000. The combined total of $15 million will Wallace Distinguished Visitor William Schopf When they do, the college will earn cover library construction costs and (Weyerhaeuser Chapel) three additional gifts. First, a $750,000 endow maintenance and the book collec- Sun., Mar. 13 capstone gift from the Bush Foundation tion. Gallery opening: "Best 100 High School Art Show." Call the art department, 612/696-6279, for information Oanet Wallace Fine Arts Gallery) Wed., Mar. 16, 7:30 p.m. Wayne Angell, governor of the Federal Reserve Board, speaks as part of the Cargill lecture series (Weyerhaeuser Chapel) Tues., Apr. 5 Health Fair C (Cochran Lounge) Fri., Apr. 8 Gallery opening: "Macalester Art Majors Senior Exhibit." Call the art department, 612/696-6279, for information Qanet Wallace Fine Arts Gallery) Sun.—Mon., Apr. 10—11, and Sun.—Mon., Apr. 24-25 Admissions sampler. Call the admissions office, 612/696-6357, for information Tues., Apr. 12, 11:30 a.m. Wallace Distinguished Visitor Freeman Dyson (Weyerhaeuser Chapel) Sat., Apr. 23, 8 p.m. Harmonia Mundi performance (Concert Hall) Sat., May 7, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Look for him in Sam Shepard's new motion picture "Far North": Junior Timothy Han- Scottish Country Fair C rahan makes a brief appearance as "Boy in Back Seat." The movie was filmed on a farm —David Eddleston outside Duluth in December. Here, Hanrahan clowns around in the snow outside the Macalester student union.

FEBRUARY 1988 meet the '30s

A 20-Year Roll Call Christina Baldwin '68, now a writer liv- Donald Schwartz "71 is a self-described ing in Golden Valley, Minn., and president "Goldwater conservative" who is a senior of Macalester's Alumni Association, helped partner in the Chicago firm Sidley & Austin found the Minnesota chapter of Clergy and —one of the largest law firms in the world. Laity Concerned about the War in Vietnam In high school, he was active in Youth for in her junior year. She has traveled consid- Goldwater; at Macalester, he was vice-chair erably, both as a student and as a staff (as a junior) and chair (as a senior) of the member for a national Quaker organization, Republican Club; and, during law school, he the American Friends Service Committee. was first vice-chair of the Wisconsin Young Republicans. He and Susan, married since Tina Edwards '89, a member of a Choc- 1971, have twin daughters. taw Indian band in her native Alabama, is chair of Community Council, Macalester's student-government organization, and one Susan Dunst Schwartz '71 is an attorney of two student representatives for the with the First National Bank of Chicago. She Bemidji-based Minnesota Indian Education chaired the Republican Club in her junior Association. She is majoring in year—the year Donald was vice-chair— anthropology. and, as a senior, served on the National Col- lege Republican Executive Committee.

Faith Ohman '64, a member of the Board of Trustees, began her long involvement with the civil-rights movement as a Macales- ter student, when she participated in voter- Douglas Selvage '88, who calls himself an registration projects in Minneapolis and in "outspoken" reporter and columnist for the Atlanta. Now a partner in the Minneapolis Mac Weekly, is chair of the Community law firm of Dorsey & Whitney (specializing Council's education commission. A German in estate planning), she says she's moved major with a political-science core, he char- from "the foot-soldier work" of politics to acterizes himself as "progressive I also serving on organizations' boards: Minnesota could be called a post-Marxian theorist, Women Lawyers and H.E.A.R.T., Inc. (a since I'm alive after Marx and I think." chemical-dependency organization), for instance. Jodi Vandenberg '88 has won a number of distinguished Macalester scholarships and Thomas Saunders f68 runs a dairy farm awards. Last year, she was one of 50 col- in Wisconsin and has been active in the lege juniors chosen to participate in the first national farm movement since 1982; he is on year of Leadership America, an intensive the executive board of the national "Save 10-week development program. She is a the Family Farm" coalition, which he helped volunteer tutor at a local community center, found. He is also a stoneware potter. He a member of Hebrew House, a varsity and his wife, Pamela Hendrickson Saunders swimmer, and an international-studies 70, have four children. major. —R.L.G.

MACALESTER TODAY thought the world could be made perfect

by Rebecca Ganzel

Last October, 11 people gathered in the Fine Arts Lounge on the Macalester campus at the invitation o/Macalester Today to discuss the impact of the 1960s on their lives. Of the six alumni in the room, all had graduated betiveen 1964 and 1971, and all had participated in the political activism that colored the decade. For the three current students there, who were in grade Macalester students gather to school when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam in 1976, mourn Martin Luther King, Jr., the 1960s is an era of myth and saga, a period to study at the Minnesota state capitol. (as several had) in class. Aside from two Macalester Today editors, the only person present who had never been a student at Macalester was political-science professor Charles Green, who helped plan the discussion. By coincidence, he had taught all the alumni and student participants during his 22 years on campus. What follows is a much-abbreviated transcript of their discussion.

FEBRUARY 1988 meet the '80s

Baldwin: We do need to talk about what happened Pluralism is a burden. I'm hungry for the sim- in the '60s. I don't mean to the extent that we plicity of the way it used to be. talked about it then, when all we did sometimes was talk. We had no theoretical base then, and we D. Schwartz: But that was my frustration in the had to bring it into consciousness by talking. '60s—the naivete of the activists. They didn't realize that you couldn't just stop the war, or expect Ohman: We really thought the world could be people to overnight change their attitudes about made perfect. race by passing a law. Today, students have a better understanding of the complexities of the world. Selvage: I guess people are more cynical now. They're realizing how pluralistic our society really is. D. Schwartz: What you call 'cynicism' could also be realism. We're realizing that two or three people Saunders: I think you're right about the 'naivete.' can't turn society around— You take a bunch of middle-class white kids— which is what we were—and put them in this new Baldwin (sotto voce): But they do.

D. Schwartz:—that you've got to focus on something that's practical. When we were in college, the conservative movement was virtually nonexistent. I was involved in Young Americans for Freedom and the College Republicans, but most [other] students' activity focused on being against the war. Conservative students' big goal was not the political agenda. Our attitude was that we were there to get a good education, despite what was going on.

S. Schwartz: There was no real intellectual debate about issues. I took a class from Dr. Mitau, who had left Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and I agreed with Mitau about everything that was going on. Dr. Mitau gave speeches about how he had seen Nazism and fascism, and student activism was just 'student fascism.'

D. Schwartz: When students heard Hubert Humphrey was going to be on the faculty, they sur- rounded his office with barbed wire to keep him out. The chair of the Young Democrats was one of my closest friends, and together we made a small move to 'liberate' Humphrey's office by clearing away the barbed wire.

Ohman: In fighting for civil rights [in the '60s], I had absolutely no tolerance for any other point of view than my own. I was ready to die for it. Then the war came along, and I started out being against the war in the same way. Later, I found I had On May 2, students "liberate" the office friends on both sides of the issue, and I wished it 1970 of former U.S. vice president Hubert were possible to be as single-minded as I had been Humphrey—then teaching at before. MacaJester—on the third floor of Old Main.

MACALESTER TODAY Four Years That Shook the World intellectual environment, then throw in the draft— For the 364 members of Macalester's class and you'll see what we saw. of 1970, the four years they spent in college marked tremendous changes in the off- Baldwin: Remember the "Caravan to the South" campus world. Here's a sampling, with that the Mac [chaplain's office] organized in 1964? information drawn from The 1987 Informa- You came back from that saying, 'I have seen the tion Please Almanac (Boston: Houghton South, and it's all true.' We had one white student Mifflin, 1987): from Mississippi in my class, and he felt like the minority, trying to give us the white—not racist, ^ p^ s _ The spaceship fire that killed white—perspective on the South and the real cul- JO / tnree Apollo astronauts in Janu- tural upheaval that was going on there. We didn't x y u / ary. In the Middle East, the Six- have the facts. We didn't realize the culture that Day War (May-June). Summer race riots in was being disrupted by the peace movement either. Detroit, Newark, Birmingham, New York, and Connecticut. Thurgood Marshall's Oct. Selvage: But what would have happened if stu- 2 swearing-in as the U.S. Supreme Court's dents hadn't interested themselves in the war? first black justice. In South Africa, the What if they had just gone along with it? That war world's first successful human-heart implant might still be going on. (Dec. 3). Beatles' release of Sergeant Pep- pers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Baldwin: It is going on. It's going on in the Per- sian Gulf today. ^ r\f f\^n Vietnam, the Tet offensive r. L)r\X0anuary-February). Martin Saunders: It's going on in the Philippines today. X J U^ Luther Pong, Jr. 's April 4 assas- sination in Memphis. Bobby Kennedy's June Selvage: I know. But still—I guess I'm a believer 5 murder in Los Angeles. The U.S.S.R.'s in progressivism. I think that the peace movement invasion of Czechoslovakia (August). did have an impact. Maybe it was just that the hopes were too high; you thought that you could do -% r\/* r\ Richard Nixon's Jan. 20 inaug- it overnight, and it didn't occur overnight. But it did I vjy\Lj uration. Beginning of U.S. troop happen. J ^ J withdrawals from Vietnam in June. The "one small step for a man" on the Edwards: The 1960s directly affected my life. If it moon on July 20. Woodstock rock-music weren't for people going out and pushing for civil festival (August). North Vietnam president rights, I wouldn't be here. I live what people Ho Chi Minh's September death. pushed for. The people of the 1960s had ideas, and they worked. I'm not stuck in southern Alabama 1 A-7A Rhodesia's final severance from I ) / ( ) Great Britain's colonial ties with two or three kids and a third-grade education. X V My grandmother learned how to sign her name— J I (March). Sending of U.S. troops that's it. to Cambodia in April. The Kent State kill- In the South, the average age to be married is ings (May 4). —R.L.G. 17. By the time I reached 21, I was an old maid. But I didn't get this education to get married and raise kids.

Ohman: I'm surprised that you still feel that it has Edwards: My mother has, what, nine brothers to be a choice between having a family and being and sisters—it's a really big extended family. I will involved. be the first one out of a hundred people on [my mother's] side to graduate from college. Edwards: Where I come from, it is a choice. When you get married, you have babies— S. Schwartz: What about you, Jodi?

Saunders (agreeing, sotto voce):—one-two-three- Vandenberg: I'm in a very serious relationship four. right now, and having kids is very important to both

FEBRUARY 1988 ife'60s meet the '80s

of us. I would Like to set aside time in my life to leading, [because those activities] are inherently stay home and be a mother—and my boyfriend exploitive. But guess what Terry's interested in! would like to do the same, to stay home and be a (laughter) And I can see that she could go through father. Then I can go out and be a public person. high school, and get married, and have kids one- two-three-four. She'd probably do just fine at it. Edwards: But I'm talking about rural Alabama. Every time I talk to my mom—at least, once in Ohman: I was encouraged to go to law school awhile—she asks me, 'Are you going out with any- because, frankly, there were ill-paying jobs out one?' there that men simply would not take. Women who 'Well, no, I don't have time.' cared about activism in the '60s had decided that 'Well, you better start making time, or you're the one thing we needed was power. That was the just going to lose your chance! You're graduating in issue in voter-registration drives, too: We went out May!' (laughter) and found ordinary, everyday people with power— in particular, women. Power was a significant part Baldwin (laughing, as if quoting her own mother): of the women's movement. There are no men beyond college!' That I didn't get married right out of college was a puzzlement S. Schwartz: A lot of our generation went to law to my parents and friends. school with the same idea—power.

Selvage: I come from a very conservative small town in Ohio LJeromesville], where men have pressure on them to marry, too. It's not as great as it is on the women. It's like— Sometimes, when I get home, people say, 'When are you going to get a job, get married, and settle down?' Not many people in my community have been able to go on to higher education. They're mainly farmers who've lived there all their lives [and expect] their sons and daughters to take over the farm. So there's that traditional pressure there still. They can't understand—'Why should education TKAJIOA/ take so long? It's been years—years!1 They ask, 'Why are you going to all these foreign countries?' The way they see it, you're just going on vacations.

Edwards: Every time I go home, it's a totally different world. I have to prepare myself weeks in advance before I leave. And then when I leave there, I have to prepare myself to come back here. It's getting used to two totally different cultures.

Saunders: What Tina is talking about is not just the South, it's the North too. Our daughter, Terry, is 13, and she's going to school in a small [Wiscons- in] town. We raised our kids to see things in a little different way. We made a commitment not to have TV, because of what it does to our kids. One thing was clear—if I could do anything about it, my daughters weren't going to do tap dance and cheer-

Sign on Macalester door documents the chapel's spring-break "Caravan to the South" 1964

10 MACALESTER TODAY 'You Need Strong Moral Indignation' In September 1966, then-entering fresh- more subtle barriers. Before he was man Edward Wilson was out of his element appointed to the bench this past fall, his 12 in two ways. By his estimation, he was one years' work as a Twin Cities attorney was of "no more than 30" black students on the spent at the Legal Aid Society and the Macalester campus. And, perhaps more sig- Neighborhood Justice Center, which serve nificantly, his upbringing in Chicago's South "mainly people of color," he says. Side slums was considerably at odds with "At both places, I probably represented the backgrounds of most of his fellow stu- more black people than I did anyone else," dents. Wilson says. "And always, my clients were "It was quite disconcerting at first," he poor. You had to be low-income to qualify says. "It was very difficult to get used for services at both places." to— And, let's face it, people just were In American society, being poor is more not as knowledgable back then about black of a liability than being black, Wilson culture—and about just plain racial tact. believes. "It was a much more rigorous education "The majority of people who go through situation than I'd ever been accustomed to," our criminal-justice system are people who Wilson adds, then smiles. "But I began to don't have much money, and that is essen- get the hang of it by my senior year." tially the reason why they're there," Wilson He had also begun to get involved in on- says. "People who are poor find themselves campus activism, helping to found ("in the in positions that they would not find them- general sense," he says) the Black Libera- selves in [if they weren't] poor. There's tion Affairs Committee, a still-extant student always that frustration. organization. "I have never seen a rich person in court Wilson had grown up at 54th and Dear- for possession of cocaine," he says flatly. born in Chicago, a neighborhood that he "It's not because they don't use it; it's says made nearby Hyde Park look good. His because they can use it in circumstances family put a high value on education: "My under which they won't be penalized.... mother was pressuring me to go to college "And more well-to-do people, it doesn't Edward Wilson for as long as I can remember. You know, often happen that their kids are taken away '70, a judge in the Ramsey County 'You need to go to college so you can make from them. Now does that mean that they District Court. a better life for your kids.' " are better parents, per se? I don't think so. While he was a sophomore, Wilson I think it means that when you're poor and decided his Macalester education would be you're on welfare, the government has an the prelude to a law degree. Becoming an opportunity to invade your privacy." attorney was his way, he says, of dealing As a judge, Wilson isn't allowed to pub- with the anger of the decade. licly express political opinions, but he makes The riots in Detroit and Newark, the it clear that there are some present-day summer before his sophomore year, were issues, like South Africa apartheid, on which "the catalyzing event" that propelled him he feels as strongly as he did about civil into law, Wilson says. rights in the 1960s. And while he calls his "I distinctly remember how television devotion to the 1960s civil-rights cause programs talked about the need for attor- "narrow-minded," he has no regrets. neys to represent all these people who were "You ended up tolerating only the people being arrested—thousands of people," he who identified with the causes you identified says. "I basically felt the same kind of with," he says. "[But] that was exactly what anger, but on a different level. I guess I had was needed at the time. Issues like civil the sense not to go out and go up against rights are very clear cut. You need to have police and armored vehicles." strong, uncompromising moral indignation to Instead, as a judge in the Ramsey County fight for those kinds of issues." —R.L.G. (Minn.) District Court, he now confronts

FEBRUARY 1988 meet the '80s

Ohman: I always felt that Macalester was the first Vandenberg: Are you disappointed in our genera- place where I was expected to do the best I could tion? all of us Yuppies? do. Baldwin (laughs): You're too young to be a Yup- Baldwin: But I don't remember any professor pie! I'm disappointed in my own generation, not in ever talking to me about developing career plans. I you. A lot of them seem to be saying, 'We tried was part of a group in the English department who something in our 20s, and it didn't work out.' were highly regarded in that department, and the I don't feel very satisfied with what we accom- men I went through with are all in academic posi- plished. Having put all that energy into the peace tions now, with Ph.D.s in English. But nobody ever movement, I remember exactly where I was on the told me about graduate school. When I became so day that we pulled out of Saigon. A Vietnam vet politically involved that I backed out of the honors who lived down the street in St. Paul came running program, it was considered no great loss to the over to my house, leapt over the balcony of my program. So there was still that gender bias here; apartment, and said, 'Guess what! We're pulling out for a woman, a B.A. was enough. I hope that that's of Saigon!' And the first thing I said was, 'Were we changed for women on this campus. still there?' That's how far I had drifted from '68 to 76. And then I went and stood on the bluff over- Saunders: That's the way all colleges were in looking downtown and just felt this tremendous those days. But when I went here it was a good despair at my own political process—that we were school, and it was cheap. Eleven hundred dollars a not successful in important ways. year, and there was a cap on it. But the point is, [having attended Macalester is] Saunders: In a sense, the '60s didn't jell because a burden. It's a debt. That's why my wife and I are it didn't allow room for working-class people. It was doing what we're doing. The only reason that we're too intellectual, too collegic, too one-dimensional. It able to choose between activism and another career was without working-class wisdom. And it doesn't is because we had that opportunity. seem like that's changed. The farm movement and the labor movement don't have the time to take D. Schwartz: I don't think there's anything special their people and say, 'Okay, this is our college about '60s people. Traditionally, by the time people agenda. This is what we're going to do here.' And get out of school and make sure they can afford to the colleges don't say, 'Okay, this is how we're eat and they've got a house to live in, people start going to involve these movements.' It's not looking back and say, 'Cheez, we got a lot out of articulated as part of the problem. our education, and somehow or other have to put something back into society.' Look at the endow- Baldwin: I am truly glad Tina said she's here ment history of private colleges. Statistically, I because of what happened in the '60s—that there think people from the '60s and 70s are on the weak were ways in which the '60s were successful. But side of financial support. Tom's right—we just didn't penetrate the culture.

Baldwin: But how about paying back society? Saunders: I hope what we're about today is, 'How do we do it better next time?' And the way you do Saunders: I wasn't talking about finances, really. that is by being critical, analytical, about what's It's more like—I feel a real sense of wasted time. I happened. If all of this higher education means any- wish I had applied myself a lot more carefully when thing, it has to be about sorting through and throw- I was here. This was a privilege, and we were gain- ing out those things which are clearly wrong. And ing experiences here that could benefit all of soci- there were things that were clearly not okay. I ety. We are members of a democracy, and most of mean, we don't need to be so openminded that our us simply take. We need to give to a democracy as brains fall out. members. Ohman: And remember, we did accomplish this: Baldwin: And my sense is that there are a lot of Now, you are not unpatriotic purely because you people who are doing just that: They are not criticize what your government is doing in a time of involved in paying back; they are very isolationist. war. I don't know if that sounds like a whole lot to you, but it's important. ^

12 MACALESTER TODAY Forty years of freshman faces Prof. Roger Blakely muses on Macalester activism over the years.

by Rebecca Ganzel Having taught English to three generations college. On the other hand, college of Macalester students ("tvhich makes one expenses weren't what they are now, and feel quite aged," he says), Roger K. Blakely kids didn't graduate with the kind of indebt- '43, a veteran of World War II, has a long edness that many of them now face. So perspective on the "typical" Macalester stu- there's more economic realism currently. I dent. Twenty years ago, Blakely says, activ- don't think it means more selfishness or ist students got the spotlight, but he adds self-concern; it means a more practical and that there has always been a quieter, more knowledgeable grip on the world outside. conservative faction in the student body. In some ways the 1960s people were a lot Both kinds of students, he says, are equally of fun to teach. They were vigorous and fun to teach. lively and unconventional. Of course, many of them thought that protests in gesture Macalester has always had a core of stu- were meaningful even if not backed up by dents who are very reliable, very valuable, solid information. But their protests were solid citizens, but not given to lively vocal effective, although they were scattered and enthusiasm and protest. They tend to be a got a bad press. Responsible people in poli- little bit more establishmentarian; many of tics [were led] to question the Vietnam War, them major in the sciences. Then, I think, and the whole idea of a war conducted by you'll always find the wilder, more specula- presidential fiat rather than based on public tive students who are interested in politics, decisions. interested in the problem of power, and are I like both kinds of students. The steady incensed by injustice wherever they see it. souls you can depend on to finish a piece of In the '60s there was a whole generation Roger Blakely '43, work that they start, to be regular in their who has taught of students who were very much involved in assignments, and in class discussions to be a English at politics and protest. Many of them didn't kind of moderating force or anchor. The oth- Macalester know what their major was going to be, or ers are apt to be wild and intuitive and imag- since 1946. majored in a field close to these temporary inative, and often they can be undisciplined enthusiasms and concerns of theirs, such as —they can talk fluently about a book after political science. Some of them even reading half of it, but they won't have all the neglected their studies for the sake of pro- facts right. Ideally, I guess, this is the kind test—community activity, and marches on of mix we have in life too. And since both Washington, and so on and so forth. groups probably can learn something from Students were not as career-oriented each other's qualities, I would say let's have then as they are now. They probably didn't both. feel the kind of competition for jobs that they think they feel now. They were per- Rebecca Ganzel is managing editor of this haps a little more willing to risk going magazine. without employment for a year or two after

FEBRUARY 1988 13 The Opening of the American Mind by Jon Tevlin

s a scholar educated during and after the social explosions of the 1960s, Macalester anthropologist Anna Meigs shapes her courses around current social issues rather than classic old texts. She believes this approach helps her students better understand and apply the principles she teaches. That seems to be just the sort of approach author and education critic Allan Bloom has in mind when he says educators have abandoned the old standards of excellence in favor of a new and empty "relativism." Bloom, a

14 MACALESTER TODAY University of Chicago professor, is the most "Some say we are losing our standards," prominent among a new group of conserva- Stewart says. "I say just the opposite. tive critics who claim that the forces of the "[Before the '60s,] there was a certain 1960s have changed scholarship and teach- trust in the standards and views of the past, ing for the worse. and teaching was done along fairly traditional In his 1987 book, The Closing of the models," he continues. For example, most America)! Mind, Bloom argues that the clas- historians explored black culture by employ- sical education has been neglected, and that ing the "hero model" method: finding indi- its basic building blocks — history, mathe- viduals to exemplify the struggles or suc- matics, science, grammar — have been cesses of black Ajnerica. allowed to deteriorate. "But over the '70s and '80s, I think we've Anna Meigs and many other Macalester become more sophisticated," Stewart says. faculty members agree that teaching and "We're not looking for role models; we're scholarship changed as a result of the 1960s. trying to see people in terms of race, cul- But unlike Bloom, most of the faculty we ture, ethnicity, and environment. One of the interviewed welcome those changes. 'I was fed to the big developments of the decade was the hile Bloom and conservative importance of knowledge as a set of self-lib- educators decry the winnow- eyeballs on the erating philosophies." ing away of educational stan- Norman Rosenberg elaborates: "Basi- dards, the professors with classics. I didn't cally, the traditional approach to the pursuit whom we spoke see an think it was a very of knowledge was based on Western Euro- Wexpansion of opportunities, a broader inter- pean knowledge, and in many ways it utterly pretation of their disciplines. The issues that good way to educate failed to address what a really educated per- emerged into the public consciousness 20 son needed to know," he says. Arguments years ago — civil rights, free speech, Viet- me then, and I don't like Bloom's are dishonest, he says, because nam, feminism—are still important to them. now. So one of my "they assert that tradition was saving us In fact, it was these concerns that drew from barbarism," when in fact it encouraged many of them into their chosen disciplines. goals is to teach a kind of boiler-plate education. Provost and history professor James Says J. Michele Edwards, an associate Stewart, for example, studied history partly anthropology professor who joined the music department because of his interest in race relations in full-time in 1978: "I certainly don't think his native Cleveland. As a graduate student through issues. I something has to be written in a previous at Case Western Reserve University in teach about era to be valid, or written in German or 1967, Stewart says, he possessed a healthy Latin to be valuable.... I'm not prepared to skepticism of the old standards — or, to put Micronesia, which is disregard our past — but I'm also not willing it in '60s vernacular, The Establishment. to remain there." Meigs, assistant professor of anthropol- a U.S. test site for nna Meigs sees her own education ogy, says it was the 1960s "do your own nuclear weapons. I as a case in point. Undergoing a thing" trend, coupled with her fascination "traditional" education made her with other cultures, that lured her into think [students] resolve to teach her students dif- anthropology. ferently, she says. As an under- And history professor Norman Rosenberg have a responsibility Agraduate at Wellesley, from which she grad- came to see his peers' struggles for civil uated in the mid-1960s, "I was fed to the rights and free speech in the context of his to know about it.' eyeballs on the classics," Meigs says. "I chosen fields, American history and popular ANNA MEIGS didn't think it was a very good way to edu- culture. cate me then, and I don't now. They never This same passionate involvement with asked me what / wanted to learn. issues, 20 or so years ago, led today's pro- "So one of my goals is to teach through fessors to approach their teaching in new the issues," she says. "Instead of teaching ways. "In the '60s, people did not come into like I was taught in grade school, I work on their disciplines with any sort of notions of where I think the students are coming from. established theories and postulates," Stew- Instead of teaching [an anthropology stan- art says. "The idea was to come in with new dard like] Malinowski on the Trobriand insight and new ideas" — ideas that chal- Islanders, I teach about Micronesia, which is lenged traditional ways of doing things. a United States test site for nuclear

FEBRUARY 1988 15 weapons. I think [students] can not only "[The feminist movement] has had a pro- relate to that better, I think they have a found impact on the way I teach," Michele responsibility to know about it. There is Edwards says. "I cannot now even think of nothing they can do about the Trobriand teaching a course that did not include Islanders; there is something they can do women; that's beyond comprehension." about nuclear testing in Micronesia." In fact, Macalester's gender-studies pro- While liberal arts courses offered consid- gram, which Meigs heads, uses gender to erable leeway to try different approaches examine the treatment of nearly every disci- and alter content, the sciences were "rather pline. fixed, almost formal in presentation," s subject matter changed, so did according to Kathleen Parson, acting chair the relationship between student of the biology department and associate pro- and teacher. For instance, Meigs fessor of both chemistry and biology. She says, there's less emotional dis- believes science teaching has changed less tance between the teacher and the dramatically as a result. Astudent. Meigs attributes this in part to the 1 sense a desire in Parson has seen MacaJester life from both feminist movement. sides of the lectern. Before she graduated academia, and on "There's a dramatic difference between from Macalester in 1967, "I walked through the way I was taught and the way I teach," the tear gas on the way to class," she says. the outside, to turn she says. "As a woman professor, I was Parson says that science students of the extremely uncomfortable in the role of '60s (she majored in chemistry) often com- the clock back. But I authority, in which I was supposed to come plained about the protests — "they kept us don't think the into the room and say, This is the way it is.' from getting our work done," she says with The '60s, and especially the feminist move- a laugh. pendulum really ever ment, legitimized authority roles that were That disciplined and pragmatic approach less authoritarian, and less distanced." seems to fit Parson's personality today. The swung. Remember, Professor Charles Green, who joined the study of science, she says, often demands at the very height of political-science department in 1965, says so much "day-to-day attention" that the professors' increased contact with students greater problems of society become second- the '60s, the outside the classroom also helped knock ary. down the formal barriers between students That's not to say that the social issues American people and faculty. rooted in the '60s have been missing from "One of the things the '60s did was to get the sciences, Parson hastens to add. At elected Richard you to see a lot of students in a nonacademic Macalester, she teaches an elective course Nixon, and all he setting," Green says. "You also saw them on genetic engineering, which explores sci- work well on civil-rights issues, women's ence's political and philosophical implica- stood for.' rights, and in political campaigns, and in tions; the course also examines academic some cases they were doing a better job vs. industrial use of science breakthroughs, RONALD ROSS than you were." the role of government agencies, and reg- With his wide-open office door and easy ulation. manner, Green himself encourages students "I do attempt to bring in the social to drop by outside the classroom. He says aspects as well as the purely scientific," she he's come to treat his students as adults. says. "My generation didn't think of students as The emerging feminist movement has children any more. played a significant role in expanding curric- ula, edging education away from the clas- tudents at Mac today negotiate a sics, Meigs says. Traditional, pre-1960s whole lot," says Green. "They [ask education was geared toward white males. for extensions, ] miss deadlines; One mark of the change education has there's a little squiggling about endured is that a feministic viewpoint is no everything. I know I shouldn't say longer seen as radical in academic circles, Sthis, but I kind of see this as a good thing. Meigs points out; it's become part of the Yes, it can be interrupting, but we don't accepted standards. have to give in. It's legitimate. This feeling

16 MACALESTER TODAY that learning is partly under their control is covered Vietnam as a newspaper correspon- positive." dent and who teaches an Interim course on Some professors think the breakdown of the Vietnam era, notes that the the Vietnam traditional student-professor roles went too War and Watergate disillusioned a lot of peo- far in the '60s. Rosenberg, for example, ple. characterizes as "blatant dishonesty" the "I think it's led to a lot of questioning of practice of having classes sit in a circle to money for government research on cam- signify complete equality between student puses," he says. "Professors [at some uni- and professor. In fact, he says, it often versities] are now turning down money for inadvertently underscored inequalities: 'The Star Wars research. I think that's threaded ones who thought fastest and spoke loudest back to the '60s." participated more." In short, the decade introduced "a set of The idea of complete academic equality sophisticated ideologies that came to influ- was also "phony," Edwards says. She says ence all areas," Stewart says. "The best people ended up valuing any opinion for its 'Students work to part of the '60s legacy that has remained is own sake, rather than learning to distinguish the idea that we're not hidebound by tradi- between informed and uninformed opinions. make the tion. [We retain] the notions of equality and Edwards agrees with other members of sharing and somehow being a community." the academic community that the 20 inter- administration, and The Closing of the American Mind has vening years have tempered the era's edu- become a convenient target of some educa- cational informality. Professor and pupil themselves, make tors' outrage at the rebirth of traditionalism, have shifted back into clearer, more com- morally responsible Ross says, but in some ways it has deflected fortable roles. Still, the 1960s left its mark what ought to be colleges' real goals. Aca- on classroom teaching. As journalism pro- decisions. That's demia's task, he says, is to reassess the fessor Ronald Ross puts it, no one wants to educational innovations of the 1960s and go back to the time "when students stood something you could stick steadfastly to those that worked. up and saluted when the teacher came into "I think we have to try to make sure that the room." never see happen American colleges continue as living things," he idea that students should par- now if not for the Ross says. "We have to make sure our ticipate in their own education led arteries don't harden. to more experimental avenues of reference point of arson says she feels a sense of learning in the '60s and 70s. the '60s.' deja vu when she hears talk of Internships, Macalester's Interim requiring students to read texts Tterm, and individually designed majors — all JAMES STEWART and study ideas popular in the evolved from the elevation of the students' 1950s and before. Ross, too, role in the college. And, significantly, all Pwonders if the legacy of the '60s is secure. paved the way for the institution and the "I sense a tremendous pessimism and a student to become more involved in the desire in academia, and on the outside, to community around them. turn the clock back — to return to the kind Another legacy, Stewart adds, is the habit of cookie-cutter mode of people like of soul-searching that grew out of the activ- Bloom," Ross says. ism of the era. Today's hot topics on cam- "But I think the pendulum analogy is dan- pus— such issues as divestment of stock in gerous, because I don't think the pendulum South Africa — are direct descendents of really ever swung. Remember, at the very concerns voiced 20 years ago, Stewart says. height of the '60s, the American people "They are student efforts to make the elected Richard Nixon, and all he stood for." administration, and themselves, make morally responsible decisions," Stewart says. Jon Tevlin, who graduated from the eighth "That's something you could never see hap- grade in 1972—two of his English teachers pen now if not for the reference point of the were coyiscientious objectors during the Viet- '60s." nam War—is a free-lance writer based in Journalism professor Ronald Ross, who Minneapolis.

FEBRUARY 1988 17 Hie Well-Trilled n 1904, Macalester sent its first Rhodes Scholar Rhodes across the Atlantic. Since then, and especially in the past two decades, the For Macalester's seven 5,500 miles between Old Main Rhodes Scholars, 'smug' and Oxford University have and 'unctuous' became been a well-trodden path for Macalester graduates. words to live by. The world's first Rhodes Scholars—two Rhode- sians, five South Africans, and five Germans (all white)—were chosen in 1903. The next year, 43 byMichealJ. Thompson '81 Americans were among the 72 recipients, including Macalester College's Benjamin Wallace. Wallace, the son of then-Macalester president James Wallace and the brother of Reader's Digest founder DeWitt Wallace '11, went on to become a prominent economist. But when he died in 1947, Macalester was still 20 years away from its second Rhodes Scholar. Finally, in 1967, philosophy and English major Michael Fredrickson took the prize. Since then, five more Macalester seniors have

18 MACALESTER TODAY won Rhodes Scholarships—a record that surpasses Together, Macalester's seven Rhodes Scholars all but a handful of other liberal arts colleges. follow an 84-year tradition of all-around excellence. Macalester's recent Rhodes Scholars are: ineteenth-century British colonialist and D Michael Fredrickson '67, an attorney with the philanthropist Cecil Rhodes intended the Boston firm of Hill & Barlow who studied medi- Oxford scholarship he founded to go to eval literature at Oxford on the Rhodes. "decent fellows, because decent fellows are the best fellows for composing the D James Braden 72, the only one of the five we world,N" he wrote. To assure the selection of these were unable to track down. He was most good men, his 1902 will mandated some qualifying recently a lawyer in San Francisco; his field at characteristics. In short, successful candidates Oxford was the human sciences. were to be distinguished generalists. • Daniel Lips 77, a Missouri physician whose "You know," Rhodes wrote to a friend (British Rhodes fields were psychology and physiology. journalist W. T. Stead), "I am against letting the scholarships merely to people who swot over D Douglas Tilton '82, completing his doctorate at books, who have spent all their time over Latin and Wolfson College, Oxford. Greek." So Rhodes' will instructed selection com- D Lois Quam '83, currently a research analyst with mittees to choose candidates excelling in four Partners National Health Plans in Minneapolis. quaintly named categories: "smug" (academic Quam completed a master's degree in economics achievement); "tact and leadership"; "unctuous rec- at Oxford. titude" (character); and "brutality" (sports). Though the vocabulary has changed, the catego- D Eric Olson '86, who spent last summer teaching ries that Cecil Rhodes specified in his will still pro- English in Leningrad and is in the middle of his vide the basis for selecting scholarship winners. (It second year studying Russian literature and took an act of the British Parliament in 1975 to social history at Merton College, Oxford. When open the "decent fellows" brotherhood to women.) he returns to the United States this spring, And the 78 students across the world—32 of them Olson plans to enroll in medical school. Americans—who win the scholarship each year still get two expense-paid years at Oxford University, where they can study just about whatever subject they choose. 'You really have to One reason for Macalester's 20-year string of successes, says A. Truman Schwartz, DeWitt congratulate the Wallace professor of chemistry, is that the college Macalester turns out well-rounded students, a vital characteristic in the stiff Rhodes competition. "The best candi- admissions office dates," Schwartz says, "are well-rounded with a bulge." for picking people Schwartz, himself a 1956 Rhodes Scholar from the University of South Dakota, has served on sev- who are interesting eral Rhodes Scholarship state and regional selection and unusual. That's committees in the past 25 years. So has associate professor of English W. Harley Henry, who won his really why we do so Rhodes as a senior at Kenyon College in 1959. Together, the two professors advise Macalester well; seniors on the process of applying for the Rhodes. According to Henry and Schwartz, the committees are careful to follow Cecil Rhodes' mandate in selecting candidates who are well-prepared in three categories, and outstanding in at least one. A prime example of Macalester candidates' ver- satility is the career of Minnesota native Michael Fredrickson '67, now an attorney with a Boston Eric Olson '86

FEBRUARY 1988 19 firm. At Macalester, he was involved in dormitory (In the U.S., there are eight regional committees government, the Toastmasters' Club, the "Ambas- that choose up to four winning scholars apiece.) sadors for Friendship" program, and—"to my hor- ccording to Eric Olson '86, the most ror/' he now says—the Young Republicans. Like recent graduate to receive the award, many Macalester students, he had spent some time Macalester's small size has a lot to do abroad (in Yugoslavia), but he was hardly an exam- with the college's remarkable Rhodes ple of Cecil Rhodes' "brutality"; in fact, he failed record. It all comes back to Truman P.E. one semester. ASchwartz's idea of the "bulge." "Well," he says, "it was Social Dance at 8 a.m." "Macalester has a great tradition of personal He credits English professor Patricia Kane with accountability," Olson says. It's a simple equation, encouraging him to apply for the Rhodes, although he adds: Macalester provides a broad education at the time they both considered his interview to be while inculcating concerns for social, political, and simply "good practice." philosophical issues. At Macalester, ideas matter— "I don't think anyone thought there was a and the college's flexible program helps students chance," he says. "I was no jock—I wasn't develop the discipline to put those ideas into action. involved in any varsity sports. And I had a beard." That discipline helps Macalester students per- In winning the competition, Fredrickson believes, form well in the difficult application process, Olson he may have become the world's first bearded says. It also becomes important in Oxford Univer- Rhodes Scholar. After his two years at Oxford, where he earned an honors B.A. in English, Fredrickson returned to the United States at the height of the Vietnam War. As a protest against the war, Fredrickson mailed Since 1967, six back his draft card to the Selective Service. "Hav- Macalester seniors ing no sense of humor," he says, "they drafted me anyway." have won Rhodes o Fredrickson moved to Canada, where he enrolled in a master's program in English Scholarships—a at the University of Toronto. He went on record that to teach at a university in New Brunswick. "I disliked it quite a bit; it was a third-rate surpasses all but a Splace," he says. He quit in 1972 to become a farmer, mechanic, construction worker, and wood- handful of other cutter. Five years later, he moved back to Minne- apolis, where as a guitarist and singer he played liberal arts colleges. many West Bank bars and coffeehouses. There, he also started what he describes as the state's first singing-telegram service. "Being a Rhodes Scholar certainly made career moves easier," Fredrickson admits. After two years and 2,000 "Sing-O-Gram" songs, which included a 1978 appearance on NBC's "Today Show," Fredrickson embarked on yet another career by enrolling in Harvard Law School. From 1982 to 1983, he worked at the U.S. Court of Lois Quam '83 Appeals in Washington, D.C.; he is now an attorney with the Boston firm of Hill-and Barlow. As Fredrickson and his Macalester Rhodes sity's eccentric and rigorous academic environment. descendants discovered, the Rhodes application and "Many of the North American students at Oxford interviews can be harrowing. Before advancing to are amazed at the tutorial system there, which the final interview, students must successfully com- demands a great deal of originality and self-disci- plete three levels of competition. First, candidates pline," he says. He notes that adapting to Oxford's must write an essay detailing "why they need tutorial system is easier for students who are used Oxford to achieve their ends," as one scholar puts to working very closely with their teachers. it. They also need no fewer than eight personal rec- "Mac's small classes gave me and my professors ommendations. Then follows a grueling series of the chance to really see what I could do," Olson interviews at the college, state, and regional levels. says.

20 MACALESTER TODAY nglish professor Harley Henry says Mac- alester students are successful candidates primarily because of their community 'Macalester seems awareness. to breed a special "Students at Mac become consciously Eaware that their abilities and educations can be put kind of character: to some coherent work in the world," Henry says. 'The emphasis of the institution is carrying out the not so much more responsibilities of an educated person. And when you become involved in the community around you, intelligent, but more you tend to have higher expectations and ambitions unusual Mac for your life beyond the college." Henry, Schwartz, and Olson agree that when it students do well in comes to Cecil Rhodes' four categories, Macales- ter's strength seem to be in the area of "unctuous the Rhodes because rectitude," or character. Fortunately, both they aren't all doing Schwartz and Henry say, this is the most important criterion that Rhodes committees consider. the mainline "The committees try to pin one thing down," Eric Olson says. "They want to know if their things.' money will be wisely spent. Macalester seems to breed a special kind of character: not so much more intelligent, but more unusual. Mac students do well in the Rhodes because they aren't all doing the mainline things. They combine a lot of outside Douglas Tilton '82 interests with their curricular interests, and they take advantage of the flexibility of the program. "You really have to congratulate the Mac admis- says, by demystifying the process for the students sions office for picking people who are interesting who apply. and unusual," Olson adds. "That's really why we do "We try to help our candidates become so well." informed," Henry says. "There is no reason for Schwartz says that building character is an inte- them to be scared. The competition is tough, but gral part of Macalester's institutional values. the fact is that the Macalester candidates are some "If there is one area in which Macalester stu- of the best in the country." dents have an edge in the competition, it's here," acalester students tend to be intellec- Schwartz says. 'There's a definite difference about tually "agile," he adds — they can Mac—our program inspires experimentation and move comfortably from one subject creative thinking." to another. "They can think on their Macalester encourages "demonstrated caring" on feet, and they can think for them- the part of its faculty and students, Schwartz says: Mselves." "The place nurtures an environment that attracts "My interviews were very intense," Olson and encourages people with broad interests and explains. "The committees kept asking questions social concerns." He adds that Macalester's candi- that were obviously designed to force me to reveal dates can point to specific instances that demon- my values and then defend those values. I couldn't strate their "unctuous rectitude"—tutorial have done very well if I hadn't been put into similar programs, volunteer work, and other community situations many times as a Mac student." and personal involvements. Although Macalester seems to build the requisite "To win," Henry says, "you've got to like to character in its students, the college's candidates compete. In many ways Macalester is a pretty laid- are also capable in academics, leadership, and back place, but our students are highly competitive. (sometimes) athletics. They want to win." As for academic achievement, Schwartz says, Not only do Macalester students win a lot of the selection committees look for students "who Rhodes Scholarships, Schwartz and Henry say, but really think about things.... They're more inter- Macalester is by far the most successful college in ested in the breadth and depth of the student's aca- Minnesota in placing students in the state competi- demic interests than in the simple grade-point tion, a major step on the way to the award. average." Macalester's very success in the competition Macalester candidates' broad interests might be gives present-day candidates an advantage, Olson one reason for their success: Michael Fredrickson

FEBRUARY 1988 21 was a double major in English and philosophy. Dan- iel Lips majored in both biology and psychology. Lois Quam excelled in political science, taught an Interim course as part of her honors project in public policy, and was active in student government, community issues, and the American Lutheran Church. Doug Tilton double-majored in history and political science, served as Community Council president, cofounded Macalester's Anti-Apartheid Coalition, and was active in the United Presbyterian Church, Amnesty International, and other organizations. Eric Olson studied both chemistry and Rus- sian, worked as a researcher in a University of Minnesota physiology lab, and was a disc jockey for Mac's student radio station. As Schwartz says, Macalester's Rhodes Scholars, like many Macalester students, "are more than just good grade-getters." The leadership criterion requires selection committees to examine candidates' motivations and nonacademic interests. "Does this person have a genuine desire to be of some service?" Schwartz asks. "Does the candidate have a balance of per- spectives? We try to ascertain whether the person has some potential for leadership. "Not many Rhodes scholars, for instance, are introverts," Schwartz continues. "Most of them are willing and able to make themselves heard, which is a characteristic that they share with most Macales- ter students!" nd as for "brutality" — well, Schwartz and 'To win, you've got the Rhodes committees are sanguine about their broad interpretation of Cecil to like to compete. Rhodes' athletic mandate. In many ways "Not too many All-America athletes become Rhodes Scholars nowadays," Schwartz Macalester is a says. "Most of those people are too busy with their sport to be really well rounded." And though the pretty laid-back public perception of Rhodes Scholars as outstanding varsity athletes lingers, reality is somewhat less place, but our glamorous. students are highly "I take a practical viewpoint," Schwartz explains. "Does the candidate have sufficient vigor and competitive. They stamina to make it through an Oxford winter? The weather is lousy, you know." want to win.' With standards like that, perhaps Macalester's snow-swept students have a natural edge over the competition. ^

MichealJ. Thompson '81, whose Macalester career included a stint at Cambridge University, contrib- uted a review of a novel by Charles Baxter '69 to the November issue. He teaches English and journalism Daniel Lips '77 at Johnson High School in Saint Paul.

22 MACALESTER TODAY ALUMNI NEWS Alumni will gather during choir's concerts in west Macalester's 30-member Concert Choir will tour western states from March 24 to 30. Alumni in Sacramento, San Fran- cisco, Portland, Eugene (Ore.) and Seattle will receive information on Mac- alester concerts and alumni gatherings. Alumni and parents in these areas willing to help plan events and host visiting Mac- alester students are asked to call the alumni office, 612/696-6295. Denver alumni, parents, and friends recreated a down-home "Prairie Home Companion" evening, complete with potluck supper, in January. Club contact: Matt Flora 74, 303/388-3476. Boston area alumni have planned a weekend of skiing and winter fun at a country inn in the Berkshires. They are gathering at the Charlemont Inn Feb. 5- 7. Earlier this year, Boston's historic Parkman House was the setting for an elegant and animated gathering of alumni, Rose Nott Anderson '56 and Arno Anderson visit their grandson (center), freshman Andrew Brantlinger (Bloomington, Ind.), in front of Carnegie Hall during Parents parents, and friends. Attendees' connec- Weekend last October. Some 500 parents and students—200 more than in 1986— tions to Macalester spanned the years participated in the 1987 Parents Weekend, attending classes and weekend events. 1931-1986. Club contact: Anne Harbour '63, 617/236-4628. March 12. Club contact: Deb Walker 73, you get started, and a new committee of History professor Norman Rosenberg 201/828-4463. the Alumni Association board will lend a was slated to explain the workings of the Against a background of holiday hand. The committee is especially inter- U.S. Supreme Court at a January gather- greens, Macalester tartans, and superb ested in areas where 200 or more Mac- ing of the new Minneapolis alumni club. music, Saint Paul and Minneapolis alester alumni live; these areas include Early December found Chicago alumni clubs gathered in December to Seattle, Los Angeles, and Saint Louis. alumni and parents at the famed Newber- enjoy the festive music of the Macalester In addition to helping organize new ry Library; Macalester English professor Concert Choir under the direction of alumni clubs, the committee will help Susan Toth, acclaimed for her two auto- Kathy Romey, director of choral activities existing clubs plan programs that reflect biographical books, read from her newest at Macalester. current alumni interests. The possloilities work. In September, Saint Paul alumni met are as diverse as are the alumni of Mac- Alumni from all over Texas gathered in for an old-fashioned potluck supper and alester College. Clubs from Seattle and San Antonio in November to cheer as "singdown" in Macalester's Alumni San Francisco to Boston and New York Macalester defeated Trinity University in House. This lively group has developed a are organizing job networks, setting up football. At a reception and dinner follow- newsletter to let local alumni know about community involvement projects, hosting ing the game, alumni were joined by the club and college happenings. Club con- speakers on a variety of topics, and intro- players, coaches, several players' par- tact: Jim Horn 74, 612/690-3051. ducing a lot of interesting people to one ents, President Robert M. Gavin, Jr., another. and vice president Catherine Reid Day. To receive a packet of information Attendees came from Houston, Dallas, Alumni Clubs take shape; about starting an alumni club, contact the Fort Worth, and Austin as well as the San alumni office at 612/696-6295. Antonio area and Minnesota. start-up hints available —Julie Stroud }81, Saint Paul Chef Leslie Revsin '66 invited New Would you like to get together with other chair of alumni clubs committee York area alumni, parents, and friends to Macalester alumni—perhaps to talk Committee members: her new restaurant, Peccavi, in October. about career paths, to discuss a thought- Regina Cullen 73, Seattle • Matt Flora Attendees had a chance to visit with provoking book, or to enjoy a purely 74, Denver • Betty Haan '43, Saint President Gavin and Provost James B. social outing? Paul • Dianne Phillips '58, Cambridge, Stewart and to renew acquaintances with If you live in an area with no Macales- Minn. • Charlotte Sindt '34, Afton, classmates. Another event is planned for ter alumni club, the Alumni Association Minn. • Kurt Winkelmann 78, will help you organize an event or start a San Francisco club. A packet of "helpful hints" will help

FEBRUARY 1988 23 Applications at Macalester have dou- alumni recruitment program in 1974, A reforged link in bled in the past five years, and the col- said, "It's simply fun to talk to high- lege receives an average of 20,000 school kids. They give you faith in the aluniiii-adniissions chain inquiries annually from prospective fresh- future." Macalester alumni aren't only the col- men (up from 14,800 for fall 1983). Schoolteacher Wendy Butler-Boyesen lege's best boosters—they're often the That's put increased pressure on the 72 coordinates Macalester's recruitment school's best recruiters. admissions office, prompting the college efforts in Oregon, where she lives. A With that in mind, Macalester's Alumni to involve more alumni in recruiting. longtime member of the alumni-admis- Association and the admissions office's The off-campus interviews are just one sions committee, Butler-Boyesen now alumni-admissions committee have example of that, Shain said. Last fall, for also serves on the Alumni Association recently embarked on a joint effort to the first time, Macalester wasn't able to board. increase alumni activity in recruiting new provide on-campus interviews for all pro- Being involved in the program is "one students. spective freshmen who asked for them. of the best ways for recent graduates to Alumni have a long history of helping to As a result, college alumni conducted give something back to their college," recruit Macalester freshmen. An alumni- about 25 interviews; the number will dou- she said, recalling her first years out of recruitment program that began in 1974 ble annually, he said. Macalester as a graduate student at the now has about 500 members in all 50 Shain welcomes alumni involvement in University of Boston. Like many alumni states and in some foreign countries. The recruiting efforts, saying alumni "provide just finishing college, Butler-Boyesen program is headed by 65 regional coordi- a visible local presence" for Macalester. found it easier to give time, rather than nators, who provide members with up-to- They also provide a service for high- money, to the college. date information on the college, as well as school students and their families, he "[Recent graduates] are often the best names of prospective freshmen in their said. and most enthusiastic recruiters," she area. "People should feel like they've had a said. During the program's early years, the good hearing and a good experience," Shain hopes alumni recruiters' positive committee members' role was primarily Shain said of the discussions between experience will rub off on prospective to tell prospective students (usually by high-school seniors and college alumni. "I freshmen—spreading the kind of school telephone) about the college and their would hope alumni would talk to all kinds loyalty and friendliness for which Mac- experiences while at Macalester. But of students, even those who don't get alester is known. recently, some committee members have in." — Christopher Herlinger '81 taken a more active part—participating in Alumni who have assisted in recruiting on- and off-campus events with prospec- say it's a worthwhile experience, and Alumni interested in information on the tive students, and even conducting inter- they cite a number of reasons for their alumni-admissions program should write views for the admissions office. continued involvement. Alumni-admis- Nancy Mackenzie, Alumni Ad?nissions In talking to prospective students, sions coordinator Nancy Mackenzie '69, Coordinator, Macalester College, 1600 alumni volunteers give their perspective one of the founding members of the Grand Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55105. on the college and encourage those who might do well at Macalester to apply. They also make follow-up phone calls to students who've been admitted, and often host summer gatherings of new and current Macalester students. The two organizations—the committee and the Alumni Association board— met together for the first time last fall, when they held a weekend training workshop at the college. (Other activities of the Alumni Association and the alumni- admissions committee remain separate, alumni director Karen McConkey says; the groups are "holding hands" to help the school in its burgeoning recruitment efforts.) The meeting marked the first phase of a high-profile drive to promote alumni leadership both in recruitment and in Alumni Association activities. The changing role of alumni recruitment efforts reflects the changes facing Macalester's admissions program, Volunteers for Macalester's 1987-88 Annual Fund are well on their way toward a goal of $600,000 (by May 31) following a highly successful Annual Fund Phonathon in according to Macalester dean of admis- November. During nine nights of phoning (above), 300-plus alumni, student, faculty, sions William Shain. staff, and parent volunteers raised more than $200,000 in gifts and pledges from alumni and parents. That figure eclipses last year's record of $177,000.

24 MACALESTER TODAY ALUMNI PROFILES Excursions into memory inspire award-winning novelist

Copyright October 1987 by the Minneapolis Star Paul Berlin, as he endures a long night on Tribune, This excerpt from the longer article is reprinted with permission. watch. "Reality" is divided in this book between a soldier's tough world and the by Jeremiah Creedon fantasies the same soldier entertains to escape his misery. Neither realm, as The man who might be Minnesota's best O'Brien constructs them, can lay sole living writer lives here only part time, claim to being the one in which people and even then only in his imagination. live. He is Tim O'Brien ['68], the foot sol- This divided reality and the divided dier turned novelist known by many characters who populate it are recurring readers for his writing about the Vietnam fascinations for O'Brien. He constantly war—works like Going After Cacciato, explores the tie between the real and the his second novel, which won the National imagined—how people determine their Book Award in 1979, or 'The Things future and how they order their past They Carried," a short story given [the through fantasy and remembrance. Along 1987] National Magazine Award in fiction. with his interest in people's nature as O'Brien's excursions into memory are social beings, it roughly describes what not limited to the mountain jungles of O'Brien calls the thematic "matrix" of his Southeast Asia. From his home in a small work. town north of Boston, he's recently been These themes reappear in his third travelling back to the northern lake coun- novel, The Nuclear Age, published two try of his native Minnesota—the setting years ago. The main character is another of his novel-in-progress. Author Tim O'Brien '68 says the conflict man torn by conflicting loyalties during "What I write really isn't about 'poli- between duty and survival has shaped his the Vietnam war. But unlike Paul Berlin, tics' or 'society' on a grand scale, but books (including the acclaimed novel Going After Cacciato) and his own life. or O'Brien himself, this character about how these forces have a great chooses to dodge the draft and go under- impact on individual lives," O'Brien says. ground. O'Brien intended the book to be "These concerns are probably going to be After his military tour ended in comic—a goal made difficult by the main a constant throughout my life. 1970, O'Brien attended graduate school character's obsessive fear of nuclear war. "It may be a function of growing up in at Harvard. He interrupted his studies in O'Brien has been working two years Minnesota and going to a college like government in 1973 to work for a year as on his new novel, which he said would be Macalester, where there's a strong tradi- a Washington Post reporter. He returned a departure from the Vietnam-era milieu tion of viewing man as a social animal," to school in 1974, then gave up his formal that dominates Cacciato and influences he says. "Everything I've written, and studies less than two years later to write The Nuclear Age. Set in northern Minne- anything I could imagine writing, will be fiction. sota, it's the story of a man whose politi- connected to how individuals fit into By then O'Brien had published a collec- cal ambitions have been thwarted. The larger social relationships—usually gov- tion of war anecdotes: /// Die in a Com- author will say little more. ernmental relationships—but I'm also bat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, Seven or eight years ago, O'Brien interested in how people get trapped by Parts of the book had appeared as looked harshly on attempts to put the them, as in the case of war." sketches in Playboy magazine, the Minne- Vietnam war on film. Since then, there The conflict between social duty and apolis Tribune, and the Worthington Daily has been a wave of movies set in Viet- saving one's skin appears throughout Globe. His first novel, Northern Lights, nam, including [1987]'s "Platoon" and O'Brien's work. It has also shaped his was published in 1975. It is the story of "Full Metal Jacket." He hopes to see life. two brothers struggling against the ele- them someday, he said. Hollywood O'Brien, 41, was born in Austin, ments and each other for survival in Min- recently bought the film rights to both Minn., and moved with his family to nesota's northern forests. Cacciato and The Nuclear Age, and his Worthington some years later. [At Mac- O'Brien fulfilled the literary promise in opinions on those projects are less eva- alester,] he studied political science and these early works with the award-winning sive. was elected student-body president his Going After Cacciato (1978), a novel "The three scripts I've seen for 'Cac- senior year. Shortly after graduating in many critics say is the best written about ciato' were just awful," O'Brien said. 1968, he was drafted into the Army. the Vietnam war. O'Brien has said it is "But as long as they keep sending option Despite doubts about the war, O'Brien also a novel about peace, and even about checks and as long as they never make felt driven by honor and obligation to the process of writing a novel. the film, that's great." enter the service. He has said he naively Cacciato is the name of an American thought his college degree would keep soldier who deserts and heads overland him out of combat. for Paris. His story is sort of a sustained It didn't. O'Brien soon found himself reverie concocted by another soldier, fighting.

FEBRUARY 1988 25 I The nitty-gritty of nuts and bolts

by Terry Andrews Like many college students in the 1960s, recent computer frame involved 32 "I thought I'd stay two weeks," he Gilbert Baldwin wasn't sure what he design changes. says. "I stayed five and a half years." wanted to do once he graduated from col- "We have to hold tolerances that are It was his entree into a whole new way lege. At Macalester, he settled tem- very close, like .005 inch; the human hair of life. "All of a sudden I walked into a porarily on a sociology major, but he kept is .007 inch," Baldwin says. "The diffi- world I knew nothing about," he says. "I searching for a career that would satisfy culty is that while what we're doing is a didn't know an oxide tank from a zinc his growing ambition. science, the employees themselves often tank." His job was strictly manual labor, The summer after his junior year, he have to be artists. Paul and I are sticklers but Baldwin made it his business to learn found his niche—managing a small busi- for good workmanship. We'll only sell everything he could about the business, ness—through a DeWitt Wallace scholar- what we'd want to buy Our buzzword even enrolling in a vo-tech class on blue- ship to attend a six-week summer is 'zero defects.' That's what we strive print reading to enable him to identify program in Utica, N.Y. for." machine parts after they were made. "It was for up-and-coming busi- "I wouldn't have gone to a college like nesspeople," Baldwin recalls. "We were Macalester if I didn't have some brains," given a simulated business with a product he says, "so I used my brains to learn to sell and were taken through the whole about the metal shop and the related field process, from packaging to selling. It was of machining." a hands-on experience/' He also began to make friends with When he looks back now, Baldwin calls people in the industry, which led to his the program "the seed that started me meeting Paul Mann, "the best mill man in thinking about a career in business." town," Baldwin says. At the time, Mann Several years and a few careers later, was running a small machine shop out of Baldwin finally put his experience to work his garage in the Minneapolis suburb of in 1983, when he and partner Paul Mann Burns ville. founded Columbia Precision Machine "I said, 'If you can do that, I can go out Corporation to produce prototype and get customers,' " Baldwin recalls. So machine parts. Baldwin is president of the two established their new firm in the firm. In 1986, because of the firm's Burnsville. success, he was named Minnesota's Machinist Gilbert Baldwin '71. With 700 machine shops registered in Minority Small Businessperson of the This attention to quality has made the state of Minnesota, competition is Year by the Minneapolis district office of the company grow, Baldwin says. The keen. But Baldwin has been willing to the U.S. Small Business Administration. first year, he remembers, their gross work hard to make the business grow. The 38-year-old Baldwin is self-effac- revenues were $18,000 ("I wondered He routinely puts in long days; this win- ing about recognition, quick to point to where the closest bridge was where two ter brings his first vacation in more than his partner and to the contributions of his people could jump off," he says ruefully). four years. firm's five employees. "Paul Mann is an By last year, however, the company had "When you start a company, you don't excellent partner. He's one of the most gross revenues of $373,000. Projected know whether it will succeed or not. But skilled machinists I know. He's the tech- sales for 1987 near the half-million-dollar I like to put everything together so that it nical end of the business; I'm the busi- mark. does succeed," Baldwin says. ness end. It's a nice marriage." Baldwin did not complete college, leav- His experience at Macalester, Baldwin Columbia makes short-run machine ing before his senior year to try his hand feels, gave him self-confidence. "It had parts for several large corporations, at Hollywood. He wrote scripts for "Ses- such a diversity of students, from rich to including Unisys, Deluxe Check Printers, ame Street" and the "Pearl Bailey Vari- smart to not-so- I'd better not say and Honeywell. "We make a few hundred ety Show" for a while, decided he was that. My friends will say, 'Are you talking parts, as opposed to several thousand," too young to make a go of it there, and about me?' Baldwin says. "We make the parts to test returned for one more semester at Mac- "Macalester taught me to relate to designs and the feasibility of producing alester. Then he took a teaching job at all groups of people. When you run a the part." the Performing Arts Center in Saint Paul, business, that's what you do. That's what He pauses for a moment. "Almost teaching drama to high-school students. business is. Mac really gave me the edge everything in this country is made by He left that for a blue-collar job— that has helped me be successful." machine. We [Columbia] make the nuts working on a loading dock—which he Baldwin knows from experience that and bolts for many different machines, remembers for its "great camaraderie." the lack of an established network can hit from computers to carburetors." Driven by restlessness and a still-pres- minorities hardest in his business. "A lot The company usually works with a ent desire to succeed, he went through of what we know is from friends," he design engineer to make changes neces- two more jobs before, as a fluke, he says. "There's no role model to emu- sary for a prototype machine part. One began work in a metal-plating shop. late." He hopes to help change that.

26 MACALESTER TODAY Reunion Weekend June 17-19,1988

A full weekend of education, reminiscence, and fun—faculty-taught short courses, campus and city tours, music, family activities, recognition of distinguished alumni, and much more. Everyone's • welcome! Watch your mail in early April for a full schedule.

At the heart of the weekend, special reunion dinners for featured classes: '23, '28, '33, '38, '43, '48, '53, '58, '63, '68, 73, 78, and '83. Contact old friends and plan now to be on campus for the weekend! You'll hear from classmates about your dinner, and you'll receive a full weekend < schedule in April.

Macalester College Alumni Weekend • June 17-19 ION! • • • J KS LJ O • • • • ••••••••••••

FEBRUARY 1988 33 I '

One snowfall last winter brought this tall visitor to the sidewalk in front of Macalester's admissions office. Accompanying him, clockwise from upper right: Kristin Meyer '90 (Evanston, 111.), Ronda Hedger '87 (Edina, Minn.), Doma Tshering '90 (Thimphu, Bhutan), Pall Hardarson '88 (Reykjavik, Iceland), Sarah Lyman '90 (Madison, Wis.), MarikaArndt '90 (Stillwater, Minn.),

. I Catherine Pierce '90 (Council Bluffe, Iowa), James Carlson '87 (Carolina, P.R.), Kerstin Broockmann '90 (Libertyville, HI.), and Andrew Schmidt '89 (LakeCity, Minn.).

Non-Profit Macalester College Organization 1600 Grand Avenue U.S. Postage PAID Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105 Permit No. 921 St. Paul, MN MACALESTER COLLEGE

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED