University Magazine Fall 2014 NEW DAY the NEW RESIDENCE HALL IS DONE and FRISBEES FLY AGAIN on the RENOVATED QUAD
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University Magazine Fall 2014 NEW DAY THE NEW RESIDENCE HALL IS DONE AND FRISBEES FLY AGAIN ON THE RENOVATED QUAD. p.28 PLUS Kenya and France anniversaries, NCAA triple jump champion, ODK national leader ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY | FALL 2014 Color Coded: As the 2014-15 academic year got underway in late August, members of the various first-year colleges donned coordinated t-shirts and launched themselves into First-Year Cup competition, designed to forge college identity, help the newest Laurentians learn about St. Lawrence, and encourage them to become engaged with University life by earning points for attending events on campus. Fall,14 Features A professor’s now-famous last words as he sent off St. Lawrence’s 16 first students to study abroad: “Don't Mess it Up.” The rhythm you’ll feel when you see this collection is the art whispering 22 “O God of All Creation,” Kenya’s national anthem. Building the student experience alongside our most beloved 28 traditions: “New Looks on the Old Campus” unite then and now. Departments In Every Issue 4 On Campus 2 A Word from the President 9 On Social Media 3 Letters 10 Sports 37 From the Archives 15 Philanthropy in Action 38 Class Notes 34 Laurentian Portrait 77 Final Thought On the Cover: A new residence hall bordering a renovated Quad was not the only change that greeted Laurentians at the start of the fall semester; for others, begin on page 28. Photographed by Tara Freeman Above: “Unwritten Letters” by Tandazani Dhlakama ’11 of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe was part of the show that celebrated the 40th anniversary of St. Lawrence’s Kenya Program. For more, see page 22. To read this magazine online, go to stlawu.edu/magazine ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE | FALL 2014 A Word From the President Letters From granite to green—the Quad’s purpose A memory of Peter Van de Water to create the Adirondack Park Agency In early spring 1972, I received a call to ensure that no large-scale develop- dents stayed at impossible distances from Are You Going?” reminds me of what we from the president of the Horizon Cor- ment such as this would be on the park’s denser, hurried populations. believe St. Lawrence students may appre- poration in New York City. He wrongly horizon. There will forever be a lot of There is much more to this story, however, hend as they come casually into the assumed that I, as director of planning Peter’s spirit in that Grasse than older economies can explain. In fact, Quad from stone steps or a sitting wall: for St. Lawrence County, would be River we fought so hard to the St. Lawrence Quad reflects a deeper pleased at the news of Horizon’s purchase protect. “O do you imagine,” said fearer to farer, and longer perspective about the workings of 25,000 acres of Adirondack forestland Richard Grover | Canton, “That dusk will delay on of a college, something more than a once- in the Grasse River headwaters. Horizon’s New York your path to the pass, quaint remnant of pastureland. plan was to build dams and golf courses Your diligent looking discover the lacking, In the earliest years of building American and subdivide the land into thousands In the days of Your footsteps feel from colleges, the founders always aspired to the of building lots to be sold nationally to housemothers granite to grass?” conditions of paradise. In their design and private investors. I was touched by the remem- purpose, the builders wished to leave bold they are indeed wayfarers, of mind A furor of state and national sig- brance by Jane Wendt Wilson statements to their posterity, though usu- and dream, passing with diligent looks nificance developed over the proposed in the Winter 2014 Class Notes ally without the means of grand architec- “from granite to grass.” And the grass scheme. Local newspapers expressed for 1957 concerning Mrs. Living with Harry ture. No matter what building ambitions becomes a consulate of paradise. unbridled support for the proposal, O'Brien, the housemother at I want to most heartily recommend were imagined, the first colleges reserved College courtyards and university which, it was asserted, had the promise of Gaines House. Daniel Reiff’s book on his father, Pro- in their plans some untouchable, unbuilt quadrangles perpetuate the green imagery transforming this Adirondack “waste- Elizabeth “Bessie” O'Brien was my fessor Henry Reiff, Teacher, Scholar, ground as a central educational necessity. found in the oldest conviction that an land” into a magnet for new home buyers grandmother. She was born in 1892, and Mentor. It is a wonderfully rich book, They gave priority to their green spaces. academy of learning requires a time and and recreation seekers. But a groundswell could remember celebrations marking the full of photographs and letters and The dream that a wilderness contains place of ample leisure. Only in a fleeting of opposition also quickly emerged, and end of the Spanish-American War. In the other documents that give a deep within it “paradise” is very old, actually moment of paradise is it possible for the it was through this controversy that I late 1940s, after raising two daughters, she and wide-ranging sense of Harry and he cherished st. lawrence traceable linguistically and mythologically mind to strive for freedom and, ultimately, met Peter Van de Water ’58, whose death started a career when most people would his multiple achievements and his Quad is curiously undivided, to Assyrian and Persian sources; the word to have a chance of surpassing the mind’s was noted in the summer issue of this be thinking about retirement: she came to personal life. tracing no paths, labyrinths “paradise” itself is derived from an ancient limits. The motive of the Quad in all its magazine. Canton to become a housemother at St. Reading the book, I felt I was living or walkways across its plane tradition of setting aside a park-like royal activities today—whether frisbee games A decision was made to organize against Lawrence, where one of her daughters (my with Harry and his times, culminat- geometry. This square field enclosure. The idea of paradise as a garden or chairs in a circle—is freedom; and once the proposal; Citizens to Save the Ad- mother) had graduated in the Class of 1943. ing in his early years at St. Lawrence, is also notably different from later emerged in the more familiar narra- we have known that, we ought to fear its irondack Park was formed and Peter was The stories recounted in the note certainly bringing the University alive, too. I T the equivalent flat places on tives set down in Jerusalem, Athens and loss. I know this from an office window elected its president. The CBS Evening ring true: Gram had no-nonsense standards, roomed in the Reiff house at 84 Park other American campuses for its unadorned Rome. The belief that in the midst of an overlooking the Quad, for there is no more News ran a story in which a canoe ap- and when she was in charge, she usually Street in the 1950s, when I was an interior and exclusive greenness. Its simplic- incomprehensible wilderness there can be beautiful sight than a student sprinting peared, quietly slipping through still got her way. She eventually retired for real assistant professor of English at St. ity is exceptional. The Quad features no a garden, a place of sanctuary, was a power- across the grass, hands outstretched under water, Peter in the stern, talking about around 1960, and lived well into her 90s. Lawrence, and can testify to Harry’s fountains, statues or structures. There is no ful physical and metaphysical theme of a long-tossed ball. The young legs run the value of the Adirondack wilderness. Thank you for the unexpected reminder devotion to the University. monumental gate or obvious entry point, unexpected variation; it gave hope through as if the earth has no end and the land is It’s the vision of Peter in that canoe that of how people can touch other people's which makes sense because there is no brick centuries of inescapable, hard human forever green. The unbound, measureless lingers most in my mind…a man at lives, even so many years later. Edward Clark | Medford, Massachusetts wall or iron fence defining its perimeter. experience in the chaos of a wasteland. free play of intellect still matters. home in the wilderness environment he The writer is professor of English, It is just an expansive main lawn, slightly Paradise seems a far country, yet never The Quad expresses its paradise motif loved, arguing for its protection. Michael Sheard | Memphis, Tennessee emeritus, at Suffolk University. The tilted to the sunrise. Its unusual subtlety, far from home. From desert monasteries in which students dream of themselves The battle, which we won, played a The writer is Rutherford Professor book about Professor Reiff is available nevertheless, is loaded with moral signifi- to medieval universities, the quadrangle, as better than they are. The Quad is a huge role in New York State’s decision of Mathematics, Emeritus. from brewerbookstore.com. cance and community meaning. the cloister, and the close were ways of beloved memory for us of other years and Many American colleges were intention- remembering the quest for meaning in for no better reason than it recalls a free- ally placed on the edge of the rural wilder- the wilderness. To find the serenity and dom that for the rest of our lives we are UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE VOLUME LX111 NUMBER 4 2014 ness, often before there were good roads to freedom of a garden, the richly explored somehow trying to regain.