Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Alumni News Archives Fall 1982 Connecticut College Alumni Magazine, Fall 1982 Connecticut College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews Recommended Citation Connecticut College, "Connecticut College Alumni Magazine, Fall 1982" (1982). Alumni News. 220. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews/220 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. Editorial Board: Vivian Segall '73, Editor (13 New London, CT, four times a year in Winter, Faigle '63, Directors / Committee Chai~me~: Main Street, Noank, CT 06340) / Katherine Spring, Summer, Fall. Second-class postage Jeanne Caldwell Raudenbush '69 (Nomlllaung) Gould '81 / Sarah Hargrove Harris '57 / paid at New London, CT 06320. Send form ! Mary Ann Garvin Seigel '66 (Alumni Giving) Wayne Swanson! Marilyn Ellman Frankel '64 3579 to Sykes Alumni Center, Connecticut ! Carole A. Filice '74 (Clubs)! Lee White / Roberta Finley'7l, Class Notes Editor I College, New London, CT 06320. CASE Graham '61 (Classes and Finance) / Warren Elizabeth Damerel Gongaware '26, Assistant member Erickson '74 (Programs) I David V. lves '80 Editor! Helene Zimmer Loew '57 and Louise Alumni Association Executive Board, (Undergraduate/Young Alumni Relations / Stevenson Andersen '41, ex officio Helene Zimmer Loew '57, President / Mary Louise Stevenson Andersen '41 (Executive The Connecticut College Alumni Magazine Ann Garvin Siegel '66, Vice President ! Director) and Vivian Segall '73 (Alumni (USPS 129-(40), Official publication of the Warren Erickson '74, Secretary! Lee White Magazine Editor), ex officio. Connecticut College Alumni Association. All Graham '61, Treasurer / Joann Walton Cover: Blackstone House in November. by publication rights reserved. Contents reprinted Leavenworth '56, Jane Muddle Funkhouser '53 Ellen Wildermann Bodin '80. only by permission of the editor. Published by and Edith Gaberman Sudarsky '43, Alumni Communications to any of the above may be the Connecticut College Alumni Association at Trustees. addressed in care of the Alumni Office, Sykes Alumni Center, Connecticut College, George F. Hulme'77 and Susan Bohman Connecticut College, New London, CT 06320. The Connecticut College Alumni Magazine Volume 60, No. I, Fall 1982 Page 2 Page 14 Frances Nevins '51: Friend, A Human Tragedy , . t······,.... Scholar, Wife, Nun, Mystic By Marjorie Craig Benton '55 • ... By Joan Ward Mullaney The chairman of Save the Chil- ...• ~...- dren Federation writes about the :::::::0. ,., Reflections on an exceptional tragedy of Africa's five million woman, by her close friend and refugees. biographer. Page 4 Page 16 Families in Trouble Books By Robert W. Hampton An important work on four dec- ades of the black struggle for Family violence is an indication equality, and research on the of families in trouble. Looking at Page 8 Mexican poet SOl Juana. stress can illuminate this disturb- Choices for the Future ing problem. Page 18 Members of the Committee on Round & About Connecticut's Future discuss rec- ommendations for changes in Connecticut's academic pro- Page 19 grams, extracurricular life, and In Memoriam admissions policies. Page 20 Class Notes And other items, including the Agnes Berkeley Leahy and Goss Awards, Croissants in Cro, and a talented sculptor. Page 24 Page 6 The Big Weekend Abused Children Alumni Council, the Campaign By Anne H. Cohn '67 kickoff, and Homecoming/Okto- Over one million children will be berfesL President Emeritus Rose- Opposite page: National Campaign mary Park Anastos (looking abused this year, and 2,000 of Chairman June Linsley '50, Vice Chair- them will die. What can be done man Jane Smith Moody '49, and a student marvelous, left) gives a stirring keynote speech. to prevent it? peer into a tree outside Palmer Library. Marjorie Craig benton '55 is committed /0 children and 10 disarmament, and her work in thesefields is nothing short ofastonish- ing, Mrs. Benton is chairman a/the board AHUMAN ofSave the Children Federation and is our ~afjon:~ representative ro UNICEF She serves on The advisory committee for the Agency for International Development TRAGEDY (A ID). \Vas a delegate ro the United Stares mission fa the United Nations special ses- sion on disarmament, and co-chaired Americans lor SA L T. Mrs. Benton was Why are there five million refugees also a Uni!~d Slates commissioner/or [he Internationat Year of the Child. and in in Africa- /978. UNICEF presented her with lis award/or outstanding public service. and why should Americans be concerned Mrs. Benton's volunteer activities take her all over the world. and when the about people in developing countries? Alumni Magazine caught up with her. she hadjust returnedfrom a mission/a Africa. Besides her work on beholfofchildren and peace, she has found time /0 playa major role in the Democratic Party. serving as a delegate /0 every Democratic National By Marjorie Craig Benton '55 Convention and Mid- Term Convention since 1972. In 1976. she was Jimm v Carter's convention floor leader for Illinois. Nev- ada and Oklahoma. Somehow. in addition to this crushing schedule of responsibilities. Mrs. Benton serves on the boards of over a dozen a/her organizations. including the American Woman S Economic Development Corpor- ation and the Carnegie Endowment for tnternanonal Peace. Her interests range from a grass roots neighborhood group like The Woodlawn Organization in Chi- cago to Raben Redford's Sundance lnsti- tute in Utah. In 1981. she was one ofthe founders 01" The Peace Museum in Chi- cago. which presents problems of \\'ar and peace through the visual arts. Among her many awards are /11'0 honorary doctorates. including onefrom the Notional College of Education in Evanston. where she received her B.A. It is estimated that today there are 10 mil- lion refugees in the world. Of this number, S million are located in Africa. Because I have recently returned from a trip to the Horn of Africa for UNICEF, I'd like to concentrate in this article on the African situation. Why are there so many refugees in Af- rica? I believe there are six main reasons. They are: the after-effects of colonialism, the violation of human rights, economic disparity throughout the continent. oppres- sive political regimes, religious intolerance, 2 the refugees would allow a large majority and finally, disastrous climatic changes. To look at a specific case, what happens to return to their homelands, but Somalia Africa is composed of 52 countries with a to a country like Somalia when 1.2 million needs to anticipate that a large number of population of approximately 350 million refugees cross the Ethiopian-Somalian refugees will remain and will have to be people. The continent contains 21 of the border into their country? absorbed into the Somalian economy. This world's 31 poorest countries, with annual Until about a year ago, few Americans effort will be further complicated because incomes of less than $100 a year per person. were aware that there were more refugees the current refugee camps are not suited for One in every five persons is seriously mal- 'in Somalia than in any single place in the long-term development due to inadequate nourished, six out of every 10 persons go to world. The country was a disaster zone. water supplies and poor soil. Large num- bed hungry each night. Population growth Every fourth person there was an ethnic bers of refugees will therefore require reset- is accelerating at a rate of 2.8 percent while Somali or Oromo seeking asylum. A paral- tlement elsewhere in the country. food production is increasing only 1.4 per- lel situation would be the influx of 80 mil- An intermediate phase before the estab- cent per year, a tragic and dangerous situa- lion refugees into the United States in the lishment of integrated agricultural settle- tion. Although 70 percent of the people live space of one year. The strain on Somalia's ments would be the supplying of handtools in rural areas, 18 percent less food will be economy, water, grass and trees was de- and seed to the refugees so they could grow produced in the year 2000 than in 1970, stroying the country. some of their own food. At the same time, because of chronic neglect and overuse of Today, thanks to a coordinated interna- tional relief effort and the extreme generos- food distribution must be a half-rations or the land. a work-for-food plan will have to be Why should we here in the United States ity of the Somalian government (which initiated. be concerned with, what happens in the de- committed 10 percent of its budget), acute If the Somalian government does not veloping countries of Africa? There are starvation among the refugees has been approve a resettlement program now, it several reasons. The first is, simply, a averted. Life in Somalia's refugee camps will be up to the major donors to initiate humanitarian one. To paraphrase a prayer has improved since ApriL when heavy rains and develop model programs that the of Father Ted Hesburgh , president of Notre brought an end to two years of drought. Somalian government can look to in the Dame University: "For those who have The better weather and the lessening of guerrilla warfare inside Ethiopia have near future. This is a necessity not only for hunger, give them bread. For those who the refugees, but for coping with Somalia's have bread, give them a hunger for justice." made it possible for 5,000 refugees each own rural development crisis.