Rochester Letters Review University of Rochester Winter 1980-81 Challenging the Whirling Wheel Mt. Hope that in those years racial integration was pretty of Change Rochester Review is always worth reading, but much in the future. But Warfield's personality An interview with the Fall 1980 issue was of special interest to and talent overcame the prevailing attitudes, Provost Richard D. O'Brien me because of the fascinating article about Mt. and he was by far the most popular person in Hope Cemetery. the choir. Page 1 My father, the late Arthur Cowell '03 Cor­ During the following season, when Bill was Lighting a Sun on Earth nell, head of landscape architecture at Penn a freshman at the Eastman School, he often Laboratory for Laser Energetics State from 1915 to 1926, took his graduating sat in the back during Inter-High rehearsals class each spring to see Highland Park and and almost always was asked to sing for the Page 8 Mt. Hope Cemetery. He later designed the choir. The Great 'Removal Project' lovely Wintergreen Gorge Cemetery in Erie, When the choir held a twenty-five-year one of the early ones that prohibited large reunion, Bill Warfield was there, although it Conclusion: A Dream Attained monuments in the belief that cemeteries should is likely that he had barely known most of us Page 10 be parks for the living. It was the money by sight twenty-five years earlier. earned from this work that kept me at the Despite the extent to which he has become Wall Street's 'Riverboat Gambler' Eastman School during the Depression years. known in music circles, there are many of us Profile of Guy Wyser-Pratte '62 I am sorry to admit that I have never visited who feel that his phenomenal talent has not Page 16 Mt. Hope but I shall do so when I attend my received the public recognition that it so richly fiftieth reunion soon. deserves. Aaah, Cheesecake! Jane Cowell Krumrine '32E Harry C. Wiersdorfer '43 Including recipes for same State College, Pennsylvania Hamburg, New York Page 19 I'm bewildered by the rapturous exaltation More theater lore of Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rowland Collins's My husband and I felt a personal identifica­ Departments essay "Our Quietest Neighbor" in the Fall '80 tion with the article "Mr. Eastman's Theatre" issue of the Review. Surely there is no political (Summer 1980), especially the paragraph that Rochester in Review 21 reward to be harvested from such praise, and, began, "The oddest feature of the restoration Alumnotes 27 although he points to some picturesque archi­ was probably also the least noticeable," and tectural delights (pardon my necrophilia), Travel Corner 38 went on to tell the story of the two metal Mr. Collins must be aware of what all my washtubs metamorphosed into light fixtures by In Memoriam 39 teachers, friends, and acquaintances at UR "an ingenious artisan." That person was my Photos in this issue illustrating the felt about Mt. Hope: It is solely responsible father-in-law, Thillman F.J. Fabry. Our fam­ University's past were lent by the for causing the necessary but unfortunate clut­ ily has always relished the tale of the tubs as University of Rochester Library and tering of the campus since the 1960's. he related it to us. Northrup, Kaelber and Kopf, architects. It is too late in this or the next millennium We remember another favorite anecdote to change this situation, and it is "nice" that connected with the theater. The statue of a we have made the best of it, but such effusive small, naked boy graced one of the corridors praise seems forced to this reader. Come on near the mezzanine. When a strait-laced but now: Wouldn't there have been much happier influential dowager complained about its "in­ ways of preserving "the quiet and beauty of decency," Mr. Fabry was consulted. He sug­ the campus"? gested a simple solution-the proverbial fig Roger Silver, '60 leaf. After taking a plasticine impression, he San Francisco carved and applied the requested cover-up-a Warfield remembered far cry from his carvings in Kilbourn Hall! The Eastman and Warfield articles (Sum­ Many buildings and private homes here and mer 1980) combine to revive metnories of my in other cities attest to his talents as a wood ROCHESTER REVIEW. Winter 1980-81; pre-UR days. Growing up, I dressed for carver. He was a truly remarkable man and Editor: Margaret Bond; Copy Editor: Ceil school to the stentorian blast of the old Kodak we, his family, revere his memory. Goldman; Staff Photographer: Chris T. Park whistle, which must have awakened Marion Fleck Fabry '25 Quillen; Staff Artist: Shirle Zimmer; hibernating animals for miles around. It was Rochester Alumnotes Editor: Janet Hodes. Published probably inevitable that Rochester public Unaccountably, in my earlier letter (Fall quarterly by the University of Rochester and school curricula included music using Eastman 1980) about visits to the Eastman Theatre as a mailed to all alumni. Editorial office, 108 School techniques. William Warfield also grew child during the twenties, I forgot to mention Administration Building, Rochester, New up in this atmosphere, although not as close to the goldfish! In the main lobby, just off Main York 14627. Second-class postage paid at that whistle! and Gibbs streets, there was a large, centrally Rochester, New York 14692. Rochester Senior Inter-High School Choir located, built-in table that stood about four USPS 715-360. rehearsed Saturday mornings in the basement feet off the floor. Marble-topped. Heavy tuning room of the Eastman School. (I can metal legs, bronze or brass. In the center of Opinions expressed are those of the authors, still recall the crowd of teenagers stoking up on the marble top stood a giant urn-shaped glass the editors, or their subjects, and do not nickel White Tower hamburgers behind the aquarium. The top of the urn, which was necessarily represent official positions of the school during rehearsal breaks.) The 1937-38 enclosed with the same metal as the table legs, University of Rochester. choir chose Warfield as its president. For the (continued on p. 40) sake of younger readers, it should be added Challenging the Whirling Wheel of Change An Interview with Richard D. O'Brien During the decade of the Eighties, colleges and univer­ sities are faced with what Edmund Spenser called "the whirling wheel of change": Costs, tied to an inflationary .economy, are spinning upward. The pool of available students is draining away sharply. And an in­ creasingly specialized job market is casting uncertainty upon the value of a traditional "general education~' The Review recently talked with Provost Richard D. O'Brien about the University's educa­ tional philosophy and its readiness to survive the next ten years with its image-and reality-of educational quality intact. You Jve been provost for two years now. How does the actuality of the University of Rochester square with the impressions you had before you got here? If I had been stopped on the street~ of Ithaca several years ago and had been asked about the University, I would have said that it was a small, "Here at Rochester we are a 'bottom-up' institution, not a 'top-down' institution." Provost Richard D. O'Brien meets regularly with members of a student advisory committee "who quality institution that was not par- can tell us about things they think need looking into." (continued on p. 2) ichard D. O'Brien left his native winner of the American Chemical game of tennis, and indulges his taste R England in 1950 to take a doc­ Society's International Award for for nineteenth-century romantic torate in chemistry at the University Pesticide Chemistry, O'Brien is a opera and twentieth-century music of Western Ontario. Through the scientist of formidable credentials. generally. thirty years since then (during which But he remains an outspoken He came to the University as pro­ he became internationally known as a advocate of education in the vost (chief academic officer) in 1978 scientist, scholar, and university ad­ humanities who has practiced his own after a number of years at Cornell ministrator) his voice has remained preachings by following up his Ph.D. University, most recently as director distinctively British, with clipped con­ in chemistry with his second of the division of biological sciences sonants and broad vowels. bachelor's degree, this one in general and Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Author of more than 200 scientific arts. In his off-campus hours he col­ Biology and Society. articles and four books, and 1972 lects Japanese prints, plays a vigorous ticularly well known, other than for absolute excellence in music, and with a fine medical school. I would have said it had a quality academic image, but that I didn't know much about what was going on there. Historically, for the first 100 years, the University of Rochester was a small place, without a strong national reputation except in medicine and music. Immediately after World War II, growth was planned with the specific object of making the rest of the University nationally recognized. Now I would say there isn't a college on the campus that should not aspire to this kind of reputation. Our University motto, after all, is Meliora: "better things." Where do you think the University stands at this point? "I believe that freshmen must be exposed to senior faculty." Noted scholar and chairman of In some ways, our natural tenden­ the fine arts department Diran Dohanian-his face veiled in a projection of a northern cy here at Rochester is to be a heavy European landscape-discusses concepts of art with a small group of first-year students in a science, heavy technological school.