Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Alumni News Archives Summer 1989 Connecticut College Alumni Magazine, Summer 1989 Connecticut College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews Recommended Citation Connecticut College, "Connecticut College Alumni Magazine, Summer 1989" (1989). Alumni News. 249. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews/249 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Alumni News by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. Photo by Kimberly A. Fox Connecticut College'sfirst70th reunion class. Above right: Four of the twelve remaining members of the crass of 1919 were able to come fa reunion inlnne, L fa R. Roberta Morgan Troland. Virginia C. Rose. Sadie Coit Benjamin. Seated, Marenda E. Prentis. The class entered its freshman year in 1914 with nearly 100 students and 20 faculty members. and graduated [out years later with 60 students. Right: Sheet music from the Connecticut College Songbootc was written hy 'he cottege's first president. Dr. Frederick Sykes,for the first graduating class. The Class of 1919 sang it again with gusto at reunion. Warren T. Erickson '74 honored the Class of 1919 in a special way at reunion with a poem he had written. Editorial Staff Editor: Caroline Crosson '82 1 The . Class Notes Editor: Marie Parrish Designer: William Van Saun gonnectlcut Editorial Assistant: Elizabeth Coombs Oll~ Editorial Board Alum i Helen Haase Johnson '66 Benjamin O. Sperry '79 Mag:::xzine Julia van Roden '82 VOLUME 66, NO.4, SUMMER 1989 Kristi Vaughan '75 Caroline Crosson '82, ex officio Women of India, page 2 Kristin Stahlschmidt Lambert '69, ex officio Helen Reynolds '68, ex officio F • Women oflndia: c Their Changing Status The Connecticut College Alumni Magazine (USPS by Heather Turner Frazer '62 2 129-140). Official publication of the Connecticut College Alumni Association, All publication rights reserved. Contents reprinted only by permission of Soviet Union Snapshots the editor. Published by the Connecticut College Alumni Association at Sykes Alumni Center, by J. Michael Harvey '79 6 Connecticut College, New London, cr, four times a year in winter, spring, summer, fall. Second class Reunion '89 10 postage paid at New London, cr 06320. Send form Travels in the USSR, page 6 3579 to Sykes Alumni Center, Connecticut College, New London, CT 06320. CASE member. Doris Merchant Wiener '35: Alumni Association Executive Board Patriotic Pilgrim Helen Reynolds '68, President; Nathaniel William Turner '82, Vice President; Sonia Caus Gleason '85, by Rosemary Battles' 85 15 Secretary; Jane Davis Turchiano '71, Treasurer; Helene Zirnmer-Loew '57, Warren T. Erickson '74, and Mary Ann Garvin Siegel '66, Alumni Trustees; David H. Gleason '83, Andy Crocker Wheeler '34, Round and About and Prudence Regan Hallarman '78, Directors; Campus News and Events 16 Committee Chairmen: Stuart H. Sadick '77 (Nominating); Susan Cohn Doran '67 (Alumni Giving), Jane Davis Turchiano '71 (Finance), Gregg Reunion '89, page 10 National Newsmakers M. Breen '85 (Clubs), David H. Gleason '83 19 (Programs), Kevan Copeland '76 (Minority Affairs), Priscilla E. Geigis '87 (Undergraduate/Young Alumni Affairs), Danielle Dana Strickman '66 Class Notes 21 (Accessibility). Kristin Stahlschmidt Lambert '69, Executive Director, ex officio, and Caroline Crosson '82, Alumni Publications Editor, ex officio. In Memoriam 21 Alumni Office Staff Bridget M. Bernard, Director/Alumni Administra- tion; Anne A. Chappell, Administrative Assistant to Alumni Association Director/Alumni Administration; Susan M. Kolb, Director/Alumni Programs; Carol Geluso, Executive Board News 38 Administrative Assistant to Director/Alumni Programs and Headline Writer; Mary F. Jackson, Alumni Profile, page 15 Administrative Assistant to Executive Director. President's Page 41 One of the aims of the Connecticut College Alumni Magazine is to publish thought-provoking articles, even though they may be controversial. Ideas expressed in the magazine are those of the authors Front Cover: Reunion' 89 sweatshirts and and do not necessarily reflect the official position of bookbag. Photo by Kimberly A. Fox. Back the Alumni Association or the college. Your thoughts UPCOMING EVENTS Cover: A downpour during a celebration of the city of Magnitogorsk's 59th birthday, in and comments are welcomed, as are your unsolicited Homecoming manuscripts, although we cannot guarantee publica- 1988. The monument symbolizes Magnit- Saturday, Sept. 23,1989 tion and reserve the right to edit all copy. ogorsk's steel contribution in WlV/l (half of Communications to any of the above may be All alumni invited all the steel produced for Soviet tanks came addressed in care of the Alumni Office, Connecticut from that city), and depicts a Soviet steel College, New London, CT 06320. (203) 447-7525. Annual Meeting of the Alumni worker passing a steel sword to a Soviet Association Saturday, Sept. 23, 8:15 A,M. soldier. Magnitogorsk had long been closed Production by Integraphix International, Inc., New Executive Board meets Sept. 21-24. to the West, and was alumni writer 1. Haven, CT; Printing by The Waverly Printing Michael Harvey's first stop on his trip. Company, Portland, CT. Photo by Boris Kalugin. 1 As part of a Fulbright-Hays Studies Seminar in 1988, Florida Atlantic University Professor Heather Turner Frazer '62 traveled to 12 cities and several villages throughout 1ndia, and met more than 100 women in a wide variety of occupations. 1n this story she tells of her research into the changing status of India's women. 1. .. Photo courtesy of H. rrczer '62. 2 ------ - -- - --- - - --~-- WOMEN OF INDIA: THEIR CHANGING STATUS M. Forster expressed a BY HEATHER TURNER FRAZER'62 means of support. Our informal pro- profound appreciation of the gram included lots of sightseeing, E• changelessness of India dur- home hospitality, and an ali-tao-brief ing his first visit to the subcontinent exposure to Indian dance, literature, in 1912-13. He described in his film, theater and religion. diary the startling vistas of rural What did I Jearn about the current India and the beauty, grace and indi- status of women, and how does it viduality of the Indian people. At compare to the position of women in the same time, he decried the isola- 1975? My preliminary observations tion of the British from the people suggest that the current status of they ruled and the resulting "dishar- women in India reflects the contra- mony" in human affairs. Forster dictions of the country itself. incorporated these observations India was the first country outside gained during his first visit to India the industrialized world to design in his classic novel, A Passage to and construct a general purpose India. satellite, the INTELSAT-2, which As I returned to India in the sum- will have operational launch capabil- mer of 1988 after an absence of 13 ities by the early 1990s. India's years, Iempathized with Forster's nuclear power program has con- perceptions of India. Indeed, tributed to a tenfold increase in per although there were more vehicles of capita electric power consumption all sorts, more cows, and more peo- since independence in 1947, and ple in the streets of Delhi, Bombay burnt. to dEat.h India feeds itself and is a net agricul- and Madras than in 1975, rural India II '"'11 <:111£:1 "fTtt II tural exporter. India ranks tenth continued to reflect the qualities of among the industrialized nations of timelessness and beauty. Photo courtesy of H, Frazer '62. the world, third in the world in her Rural India may not have experi- total number of scientists and engi- enced much change, but my second neering and Urban Planning." Our neers, and first in film production, "passage" to India was markedly dif- six-week program took us to 12 with more than 800 films per year. ferent from my first. In 1975 I spent cities and several villages throughout India's armed forces rank fourth in three months engaged in independent India. the world, and India's middle class is research on the administration of the We met more than a hundred larger than the populations of British Raj in India, and I traveled women in all fields of endeavor, England and France combined. alone throughout the country. In ranging from editors of feminist and The bullock cart, however, contrast, in 1988 I was part of a women's magazines to construction remains the country's principal Fulbright-Hays International workers, from illiterate marketplace means of transportation, and animal Women's Studies Seminar on "The women selling glass bangles, fruits' dung and wood are the primary fuel Changing Status of Women in and vegetables, to women politicians sources. Leprosy, dysentery, and India," and I traveled with 13 female including Shrimati Sheila Kaul, malnutrition continue to exact a colleagues, all affiliated with Florida Member of the Lok Sabha (Lower heavy toll. The population of 818 universities or colleges. House of Parliament), General million is increasing by 50,400 per Our formal academic program Secretary of the Congress Party, and day and is expected to exceed one consisted of individual research pro- Rajiv Gandhi's great-aunt. billion by the year 2000. Per capita jects as well as lectures and seminars Visits to social welfare organiza- income is $290 a year, over half of given by Indian academicians and tions founded and directed by all primary schools lack a permanent professional women on subjects women showed us educational and building, and only 36 percent of the ranging from "Women in Indian training programs for women and population is literate. Mythology" to "Women in Engi- young girls who have no visible Life is difficult for the majority of 3 sums of money, land, costly clothing, VCRs, a video tape of the wedding, automobiles, and motor scooters.