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Title: Beckwith, Cora Jipson, 1875-1955 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Fahnestock, Edith, Smith, Winifred, Brooks, Richard, Sague, Mary Landon, Kempton, Rudolf T.
Description
Date: [After 1955]
Text: coma JIPSON sscxwma 1375 — 1955 Members of the college comunity were saddened to learn of the death of Cora Jipson Beckwith, profes- sor emeritus of Zoology. Following a number of years of ﬂail health she died in Washington on January 9. 1955, in her eightieth year. Miss Beckwith joined the Zoology Department as an assistant in 1900, upon her graduation from the University of Michigan. With the aid of leaves she completed her graduate study while serving at Vassar College, receiving the...
Show morecoma JIPSON sscxwma 1375 — 1955 Members of the college comunity were saddened to learn of the death of Cora Jipson Beckwith, profes- sor emeritus of Zoology. Following a number of years of ﬂail health she died in Washington on January 9. 1955, in her eightieth year. Miss Beckwith joined the Zoology Department as an assistant in 1900, upon her graduation from the University of Michigan. With the aid of leaves she completed her graduate study while serving at Vassar College, receiving the doctorate of philosophy frm Columbia University in l9lh. She was chairman of the department at the time of her retirement in l9hO. Throughout her career Cora Beckwith was an outstanding teacher and member of the college community. She was quiet, dignified and unassuming. She was interested in people. Her lifelong tenure at Vassar was devoted to the well-being of the college in all its aspects. She expected, and obtained, precise thoughtful work from her students; she herself was capable of careful detail, prodigious amounts of work, and withal showed nice qualities of judgment. She contributed much to important comittees, notably those on the curriculum and research. In addition, for three years in her earlier days she served as an associate warden in Strong House. The teaching of histology, embryology and cytology, which she carried on over a long period of years, calls for the training of students in precise and delicate techniques, and at the same time for the development of difficult concepts. »Her natural qualities of dexterity, easiness of movement, and clarity of thought contributed to her success as a teacher. Her own shinin example was frequently the light which illuminated difficulties for the students. Her research was along cytological lines, especially associated with the lateral line organs of Amia calva and the cytology of the germ cells of the hydroids. She was elected to many scientific societies, and was a life member of the corporation of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, where in her younger days she CORA JIPSON BECKWITH (Continued) spent many summers. While in he later years research and visits to Woods Hole were not feasible, she always retained her interest. She encouraged and aided members of her department to share these interests. After her retirement from teaching in l9h0 she con- tinued to live in Williams Hall, and during this period was deeply concerned with the welfare and interests of her friends and associates. Later, in 1950, she moved to Washington to be with her two sisters who had retired also. Those who were able to visit her there sensed her solicitude for her sisters, and realized that this was another manifestation of a principle which had guided her throughout her life. The people with whom she came in contact, the college and the department of zoology particularly, owe her a deep debt of gratitude. Edith Fahnestock Mary Landon Sague Rudolf T. Kempton XIV - 31
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Title: Lockwood, Helen Drusilla, 1891-1971 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Gleason, Josephine, Mace, Dean, Turner, Susan
Description
Date: [After 1971]
Text: 80 HELEN DRUSILLA LOCKWOOD 1891 - 1971 Helen Drusilla Lockwood, Professor Emeritus of English and from 1950 to 1956 Chairman of the Department, died in Seaford, Sussex, England, on March 27, 1971, at the age of seventy-nine. Miss Lockwood had retired from the college in 1956, after teach- ing here for twenty-nine years. Although for the last decade of her life she spent most of her time in England, she returned several times a year to Poughkeepsie, where she kept a residence; and she...
Show more80 HELEN DRUSILLA LOCKWOOD 1891 - 1971 Helen Drusilla Lockwood, Professor Emeritus of English and from 1950 to 1956 Chairman of the Department, died in Seaford, Sussex, England, on March 27, 1971, at the age of seventy-nine. Miss Lockwood had retired from the college in 1956, after teach- ing here for twenty-nine years. Although for the last decade of her life she spent most of her time in England, she returned several times a year to Poughkeepsie, where she kept a residence; and she continued until her death to be interested in the affairs of the college and in the Poughkeepsie community. Her substantial gifts to Vassar's Center for Black Studies in 1969 and 1970, and her confidence that the program was likely to contribute to the whole community reminded those who knew her of her belief in the interlocking concerns of learning in the classroom and life outside. Miss Lockwood was graduated from Vassar in 1912. She returned as a member of the faculty in 1927 after years of study, travel and teaching, which included a doctorate from Columbia in Compara- tive Literature and participation in several sumer sessions of the Bryn Mawr School for Women in Industry. Her published dis- sertation was a study of French working men and the English Chartists in literature from 1830 to 1848. Helen Lockwood had a lively sense of a tradition of great teach- ing at Vassar: a tradition of pioneering and originality. She wrote of an earlier faculty that was concerned not to copy other educational institutions but, and I quote "to recognize the needs of people and to meet them." If at its founding Vassar's first originality (recognizing the need of women to be educated) was "its classical curriculum designed to be equal to that of the best university in the country," the "standard of measure- ment" of these early leaders, she claimed, "was life itself. Maria Mitchell taking her students to Kansas to observe an eclipse of the sun in 1870 was no less characteristic than their reading Plato in Greek." She believed, then, that there was a tradition to perpetuate here, and she perpetuated it in her own way. 4 9i HELEN DRUSILLA LOCKWOOD (Continued) For her the great teacher of her student days was Lucy Maynard Salmon, the historian. "I cannot remember," Miss Lockwood wrote years later, "when Miss Salmon's realism was not a presence challenging all decisions." In l937 she made a dream of Miss Salmon's come true in the Social Museum, which she initiated and directed until economy dictated its end in l95l. The museum was described as "drawing on many departments for direc- tion in research and for scholarly substance, and on the community for raw materials" to produce exhibitions that were "creative exercises in the graphic representation of social facts." Miss Lockwood's course in Public Discussion was announced in the Alumnae Quarterly in 1933 as a development in the Depart- ment of English of its "tradition of social criticism and debate." The particular forerunners were the department's courses in Argumentation, which she had valued highly as a student. And there was her own enjoyable and impressive career in the extra- curricular debates that filled the old Assembly Hall in her student days. l9l2's Vassarion had set against her name the lines: In arguing, the simple heat . Scorched both the slippers off his feet. She liked, too, to think of this course, like the Poughkeepsie Forum in which she took part, as carrying on the American tradi- tion of debate around the cracker barrels of country stores. In the new course there was an explicit shift from argument to an arrival at consensus. But, however steadily held as a goal of discussion, consensus was not a compulsion. A colleague has recalled from faculty meetings and committees that her "incessant and tireless wars against cant and nonsense were perpetual encouragements to those who were weaker and less ener- getic in battle." Old students, too, remember that conviction was not sacrificed to consensus. In the teaching of literature and writing, her view of English as an art that begins in experience and gives form and vision to it was not unique in her department. But in the subjects she taught -- American Literature, Blake to Keats, The Contemp- orary Press -- her strong social interests gave a particular push to her efforts to bring her students to an understanding of the dynamics of a work of the imagination. An examination of language and its implications was, however, always essential to this activity, whether it be Wordsworth's great lines on the French Revolution, or the Declaration of Independence, or the students’ own writing (where she declined to let them be satisfied with easy verbal skills). Her conduct of the coordinating QL HELEN DRUSILLA LOCKWOOD (Continued) gr seminar in American Culture made students press back to the roots of their generalizations through language. One of her favorite images was of the misguided student - or faculty member - jumping from abstraction to abstraction as from tree to tree. Problems of communicating in the modern world; langu- age and imagination; the philosophy of free speech -- formed the context of writing and critical analysis in her famous course in The Contemporary Press, which she inaugurated two years after her arrival at Vassar and taught until her retirement. Miss Lockwood did not o'erleap the bounds of the discipline of English, as was sometimes charged; but in her urgency to con- nect it with large human concerns, she was bold to stretch them. An experimental course, Today's Cities, with New York there to study, probably came nearest to Helen Lockwood's conception of what Vassar should be doing. This course, offered by six depart- ments, under her chairmanship, in 1945 and 1946 engaged the full academic time of its twenty freshmen during the third term of Vassar's wartime curriculum. One characteristic of the temper of the post—war years as these teachers saw it was the growing impatience of young people with the gulf they experienced between the world of the classroom and the world without. Today's Cities, Miss Lockwood wrote, could lead them to "clearer conceptions of how the world works" and how poetry and sciences "when related to each other can illumine its struggles and help to direct them." Helen Lockwood was a stirring and memorable teacher. Coming from her, the not uncommon question, "Well, what's on your minds?" was bound to bring response, and then things began to happen. Some- times a young woman regreted having revealed her mind's contents, knew at once that she could not, would not, arrive at consensus with Miss Lockwood, and went her way, perhaps never to forgive or forget. But for others the experience was tonic. And for many alumnae being in her courses was one of the great events of their college years. There are those who remember Blake to Keats or American Literature as giving them hours of rich, heightened awareness; they instigated the Faculty-Alumnae meetings to revive the experience. And there are those who took from her a measure for their lives (as Helen Lockwood did from Miss Salmon); and those who have counted on her for support as they worked out their crises in talk or letters. Helen Lockwood sought vision and worth for her department as well as for students and for Vassar as a whole. Younger col- leagues, sometimes very different from her in cast of mind and HELEN DRUSILLA LOCKWOOD (Continued) in feeling, often took something from her that enlarged their conceptions of teaching and strengthened their own individual- ity. Her extraordinary intellectual vitality and interest in the world endured to the end of her life, as did her faith in the development of the critical intelligence and its power to do good. This faith was expressed in the phrasing of her will where she wrote that, after certain bequests to friends and to public institutions in Poughkeepsie and elsewhere, she was leaving the "residue and remainder of her estate" to Vassar College without restriction, "with the hope that my interest in the quality of teaching and my concern with pioneering in the reinterpretation and deepening of a liberal education will be remembered." Respectfully submitted, Josephine Gleason Dean Mace Susan Turner, Chairman /7 w 4 k
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Title: Kitchel, Anna Theresa, 1881-1959 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Sandison, Helen E., Mercer, Caroline G., Turner, Susan J., Daniels, Elizabeth A.
Description
Date: [After 1959]
Text: __I Ir \_ \ \ \ C 90 ANNA THERESA KITCHEL 1881 - 1959 From the moment when Anna Theresa Kitchel joined the English Department at Vassar College she was a force in the classroom and in the college community; she was a friend of students, and of colleagues on both the teaching and the non-teaching staff. Warm, open, frank, she immediately gave expression to her vital interest in the people she encountered, whether casually or professionally. One younger appointee to the faculty recalls how, in...
Show more__I Ir \_ \ \ \ C 90 ANNA THERESA KITCHEL 1881 - 1959 From the moment when Anna Theresa Kitchel joined the English Department at Vassar College she was a force in the classroom and in the college community; she was a friend of students, and of colleagues on both the teaching and the non-teaching staff. Warm, open, frank, she immediately gave expression to her vital interest in the people she encountered, whether casually or professionally. One younger appointee to the faculty recalls how, in the anxious hour of being interviewed, she was introduced to Miss Kitchel, who emerged from a classroom to meet her "with so warm a smile lighting her beautiful face that all tension dropped." To this unfailing personal interest her students responded enthusiastically, as they did to the sound scholarship that came to vivid life in her classroom. Honors here and elsewhere marked Miss Kitchel's career. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Smith College, where she majored in history, held several fellowships from the Univ- ersity of Wisconsin, where she took her doctorate in literature, and was the recipient of The Markham Travelling Fellowship to work at the British Museum (1923-1924). At Vassar College in 1946 she became the first holder of The Henry Noble MacCracken Chair of English Literature, established to honor our president- emeritus at the time of his retirement.V These awards recognized her distinction as a teacher at West Division High School in Milwaukee, at the University of Wisconsin, and then at Vassar College (1918-1948). They recognized also her scholarly studies. Miss Kitchel's interests were steadily focused on the Romantic period and the wealth of figures in Victorian England. She brought an unusual richness of historical perspective to her study of the Romantic Poets; and the course in which she taught their works for many years — "English poetry from Blake to Keats" - brought her students sharply up against the currents of philosophy and history from which these poets were shaping their verse. _ But, although Miss Kitchel taught many other periods and subjects her abiding interest was with the Victorians and her special research was always directed towards George Eliot. Her investi-* gation of George Eliot's career as writer, critic, and editor led her to a study of the relationship between that author_and George Lewes. She was the first scholar to show that George Eliot's notebooks and diaries were an important source for Victorian intellectual history. Her pioneer work was acknow- ‘\ \ . 91 ANNA THERESA KITCHEL (continued) ledged by Professor Gordon Haight of Yale University when he brought out the definitive edition of George Eliot's notebooks and diaries. The material in her book George Lewes and George Eliot is widely used by scholars working in the period. Her further research in George Eliot led her to the publication in 1950 of Quarry for Middlemarch. In this work Miss Kitchel made available the record of George Eliot's studies of Victorian medical controversies which gives substance to the characteriza- tion of Lydgate in the novel Middlemarch. Quarry for Middle- march was published by the University of California press in 1950 with the aid of the Lucy M. Salmon Fund for Research. To Victorian scholars,.consequently, Anna Kitchel's name is familiar wherever the careers of George Eliot or George Lewes are mentioned. Deeply interested in Miss Kitchel's senior seminar in Victorian literature, many a Vassar alumna going on to graduate work was encouraged to acquaint herself with the Victorians in an era when such enthusiasm was far from fashionable. With her remarkable capacity for understanding and drawing out people in her own surroundings, Miss Kitchel had a special talent for making the figures of her Victorian friends breathe life. Her depth as a scholar endowed her gifts as a teacher. ‘Keeping both of these attributes humane was a vigilant common sense which did not seem to fail her. It was always ready, not only for herself, but for others. . Helen E. Sandison Caroline G. Mercer . Susan J. Turner .Elizabeth A. Daniels, Chairman XV - 193-194
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Title: Van Ingen, Henry, 1833-1898 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Whitney, Mary W., Leach, Abby, Cooley, Le Roy C.
Description
Date: [After 1898]
Text: HENRY VAN INGEN 1833 - 1898 The Cmmittee appointed to draw up resolutions upon the death of Professor Van Ingen made the following report: Whereas: in the death of Henry Van Ingen who for thirty-three years was head of the School of Art and Professor of Art in Vassar College, and was closely identified throughout this period with its life and varied interests, Vassar College has lost an officer whose efficiency, whose sterling qual- ities of mind and heart, whose uprightness and manly...
Show moreHENRY VAN INGEN 1833 - 1898 The Cmmittee appointed to draw up resolutions upon the death of Professor Van Ingen made the following report: Whereas: in the death of Henry Van Ingen who for thirty-three years was head of the School of Art and Professor of Art in Vassar College, and was closely identified throughout this period with its life and varied interests, Vassar College has lost an officer whose efficiency, whose sterling qual- ities of mind and heart, whose uprightness and manly strength,whose cheerful and healthy interest in all relations of life and whose personal affection for his coworkers have rendered his services of the highest value and have made his loss of no ordinary character: Therefore, be it resolved: that this Faculty here- by express its sense of great personal loss, and its sympathy with the family which has been so sorely bereaved. Also resolved: that a copy of this resolution be sent to the family. Mary W. Whitney Abby Leach Le Roy C. Cooley III - 265
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Title: Nochlin, Philip, 1924-1960 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: McGee, C. Douglas, Starvrides, Ria, Venable, Vernon
Description
Date: [After 1960]
Text: / / \ K \ Q--4, 98 P211 LIP ::oc1:LIs 192k-1960 Philip Uochlin was thirty-five years old when he died; it is hard to keep from thinking of the seed work that never will be done. All of his teachers, all “ his students, ell of his colleagues, all of his friends ~-- at Hamilton where he began his undergraduate work, at Oberlin there he completed it ss a member of Phi Bets Kappa; at Oxford where he took the B. Phil. on e two-year Fulbright sword; st Columbia vhero to corned his U.A. and his Ph.D...
Show more/ / \ K \ Q--4, 98 P211 LIP ::oc1:LIs 192k-1960 Philip Uochlin was thirty-five years old when he died; it is hard to keep from thinking of the seed work that never will be done. All of his teachers, all “ his students, ell of his colleagues, all of his friends ~-- at Hamilton where he began his undergraduate work, at Oberlin there he completed it ss a member of Phi Bets Kappa; at Oxford where he took the B. Phil. on e two-year Fulbright sword; st Columbia vhero to corned his U.A. and his Ph.D.; at Duke, Hunter College end Lone Island University there he tauoht before semis? to Vssssr nine yesrs ego -~- all *to knew him knee that philosophy should gain by his life. We shall never know‘ ell that has been lost by tis death. His book on ses- thctics, started while Philip was on American Council of L Learned Societies Fellow in l9§§»§9, remains unfinished,e A? publisher's request that Philip write s losie book will not be not. The draft of on srticle on the philosophy of lsnru; are lies on his desk; there, also, awaiting Philip's scru; 1 pulous revision for publication is s paper on ethics he read to the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical i- ~ Association. 1 - O I'- ‘-4 -__ , " 3 soc _* use seldom free of psin,but he never stoppod§s sing,ene he never stopped working. His side-ranging A sensitive mind was never for from the technical problems of philosophy; the seriousness and purity of his concern with ptilosopby was felt by his students, and helped make him the effective and respected teacher that he res, es did his utter generosity of time in behalf of students. He was unable to- ssy no to any opportunity to teach, and in sddition to numerous lectures to classes in other departments, he constantly under~ took regular teaching loads well beyond the call of duty.- Her was he respected only: he was loved. He was loved for his; c gentleness, his unfailingly generous coed-will, his deep humanity, and not least for that rich humor which hid his pain, and Z brought to the most serious subjects the unmslicious laughter which saves us from solemnity, utich shows all thines in their " clearest light, which preserves us from pedantry and dispro-2 portion. 1 ’ P3 C?’ *5; 13 7'." Q‘ yd; {~31 C5 F4 w J. ‘U -4 -1 .-Q, 14 ‘J }-fa U Philip Hochlin's life was very short; new we have only his = unfinished work, and his memory. New we must carefully re- E member the short life of this accomplished teacher, this 1 dedicated philosopher, this tell, stooped, laughing, gentle 5 human being. If we hold to the memory of his richness we 1 * ' \ I ,»( um‘ D FEILIP HOCHLIH (Continued) ' may nope that the thcufht of Philip ﬁocblin @111 Work in _ our lives like a seed, will grow into some worthy consequence, and will in some part redeem his loss- C. Douglas ¥cGeo ’Ria Stavrides Vernon Venable XV- 8% .F‘ 1*
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Title: Christie, John Aldrich, 1920-1987 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Bergon, Frank, Brisman, Susan, Gifford, William
Description
Date: April 6, 1988
Text: i k » z § VASSAR COLLEGE POUGHKEEPSIE -NEW YORK 12601 At a Meeting of the Faculty of Vassar College held April 6, 1988 the following Memorial for John Aldrich Christie, 1920-1987, was unanimously adopted: When John Aldrich Christie died last September, he was where lm wanted to be—-at his home in Vermont with his family. Born in Mmthampton, Massachusetts——the son of a Congregational minister—— MM reared in Connecticut and southern Vermont, John was an inveter- Me New Englander. Away at...
Show morei k » z § VASSAR COLLEGE POUGHKEEPSIE -NEW YORK 12601 At a Meeting of the Faculty of Vassar College held April 6, 1988 the following Memorial for John Aldrich Christie, 1920-1987, was unanimously adopted: When John Aldrich Christie died last September, he was where lm wanted to be—-at his home in Vermont with his family. Born in Mmthampton, Massachusetts——the son of a Congregational minister—— MM reared in Connecticut and southern Vermont, John was an inveter- Me New Englander. Away at college in Oberlin, Ohio, he read Ihnry James's Roderick Hudson as a cure for homesickness. He returned to New England to earn two M.A.s, the first at Wesleyan mm the second at Yale. In January 1946, as he was fond of say- hg, Helen Lockwood "plucked him out of Yale" to teach at Vassar. Heliked being close to Vermont. He jokingly told friends that lw had wanted this written into his Vassar contract: in the spring, ﬁning maple sugaring time, he would be permitted to leave for two weeks in Vermont. John received his doctorate in English and American literature hom Duke in 1955. Four years later as a Vassar associate pro- kssor'he was featured in a Pageant Magazine article entitled, ‘Q Professor to Remember: What Makes a Dynamic Teacher?" The wption under one photograph read: "Rapt meeting of minds: Freshman dass, teacher Christie, and poet Milton." With Yankee resignation ad good humor, John characterized the article as "a spoonful for Hm educational cause." "While not stirring me to my professional mes," John wrote, it "does Vassar and teaching no harm." V In his courses on American literature John relished teaching ﬂmt pantheon of New Englanders--Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, hmrson, and especially Henry David Thoreau who was the subject of hhn's book, Thoreau as World Traveler, published by Columbia Mdversity Press and the American Geographical Society in 1965. H was Thoreau's sense of the adventurous relationship between wserved and imaginative experience that stirred John's own sense ofhimself as a teacher and a person. The first principle of his waching was always that knowledge is not knowledge until it is uwerienced on the pulse. To him, as to Thoreau, the individual uwerience was primary. "No matter how mild the human adventure," hhn once wrote, "it can be made inestimable" by what one imagina- ﬁvely brings to it. _ 2 _ John's appetite for the human adventure was hard to forget, reflected again in his love of maple sugaring. When one visited him, in Vermont, during sugaring, the air was full of the smell of simmering maple sap. Maple syrup was used on and in everything-— toast, cereal, coffee, ice cream. The sheer energy and physical capacity of the man drew comment, especially if one should also happen to notice he had only one arm. A fall from the rafters of a neighbor's Vermont barn when John was a boy had left his arm badly broken. Infection and the lack of penicillin led to its amputation. John never considered himself handicapped, and neither would anyone who ever saw him splitting logs. Once, as he and a friend approached a toll booth while John was driving, the friend realized that before he could help in any way John had gotten out his wallet, paid the toll, shifted gears, and was leaving the toll booth while simultaneously putting away his wallet and steering with his knees. "Well," the friend thought, "if John is doing it, it must be all right." At Vassar John seemed to serve at one time or another on virtually every faculty committee on campus. He was president of the Faculty Club, when there was a faculty club, from 1947 to 1949. With his first wife Dorothy Sexton Christie, and their three sons, David, John, and Roderick, he brought visiting writers together with students and faculty in his home. In 1951 when he became a Cushing House Fellow, his family became the first faculty family to live in the dormitories. The classes of 1951 and 1963 chose him as their Class Advisor. For nine years he served as an officer in the American Association of University Professors, ranging from president of the Vassar chapter to member of the National Council. He was one of a three—man AAUP investigating team which in 1966 charged the trustees and administration of St. John's University h1Jamaica, Queens, for violation of academic freedom in their dis- missal of thirty—one professors. He enhanced Vassar's financial aid program by creating the position of student research assistant, initially training students himself and paying them out of his own pocket. When John joked about getting money for such projects, his friends could recognize his deft ability to poke sly verbal fun at himself or the institution he was so devoted to. When he was serving as a consultant to Nyack High School in the early sixties, he told Vassar he would need traveling expenses. "How much?" he was asked. '%etween twenty and thirty dollars," he said. Then, John would say, ‘T got a check for twenty—one dollars." John felt proudest of his contribution to multidisciplinary education at Vassar. From the time of his arrival at Vassar he was involved in what was then called the Related Studies Program h1American Culture, a program which collapsed in the mid—l950s for hck of funding. In 1972, John was able to regenerate the program by successfully directing a portion of Helen Lockwood's bequest wward its financial support. As the first director of the v > K 1 V I 1 > k \ 1 k _ 3 _ multidisciplinary program in American Culture, John gave shape to many of the distinctive goals and innovative principles of team- teaching that now mark multidisciplinary education at Vassar. He saw the College as being at the forefront of this experiment in education, and twelve years after forming the Program, he saw ‘genuine multidisciplinary teaching" now quite "come-of-age" at Vassar. In the summer of 1977 John married Elizabeth Garrettson Warner and set off the following year for Greece where he taught as a Fulbright professor. He had previously made two extended trips to India, serving as a consultant to Indian universities on establish- ing graduate programs in American studies, and helping the Univer- sity of Delhi establish India's first doctoral program in American literature. He also visited the University of Kyoto and lectured in northern India, Nepal, Italy, and England. His appetite for new experiences remained strong. When in India, he lived in old Delhi, not the protected atmosphere of New Delhi. In Greece he learned Greek. It was in Greece that a melanoma was discovered on John's shoulder. He was subsequently given a fifty—fifty chance of sur- viving the year. Back in Poughkeepsie, a year later in 1980, his son Matthew was born. For the next five years he energetically continued teaching until he retired, on schedule, in 1985. After ﬂdrty-nine years of service to Vassar, or thirty-nine and a half, as he reminded everyone at his retirement dinner——no detail is too nmll for a scholar, he once said——he moved to Vermont where he and Mizabeth shared their love for the details of life in the house Hwy planned and built together. Visitors heard talk of books, maple sugaring, and music. He and Elizabeth had sung together in Um Christ Episcopal Church choir, and John group that sight—read madrigals. In one of he is happily watching his son Matthew play ﬂit to a colleague was a marvelous plastic Ms last advice, where to get another. His had the the bag sung in a Vassar last photographs piano. His last to collect maple sap last letter, dictated hlthe hospital, was his response to another colleague's book, ﬂﬁth he had just read in galleys. His last wish was to be at home Nth his family. "Our experiences tell us all," John once wrote, _ 'We'are the makers, the poets of our own experiences." Respectfully submitted, Frank Bergon, Chair Susan Brisman William Gifford
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Title: Thelberg, Elizabeth Burr, 1860-1935 -- Memorial Minute
Date: [After 1935]
Text: ELIZABETH BURR THELBERG 1860 - 1935 In the death of Emeritus Professor Dr. Elizabeth Burr Thelberg, Vassar College has suffered the loss of one of its oldest and most distinguished faculty members. Her love of teaching and preventive medi- cine endeared her to generations of students and patients whose naes and personalities she never forgot. Dr. Thelberg's resourcefulness, delightful wit, and rare versatility made her greatly sought and thoroughly appreciated. Her love of literature--...
Show moreELIZABETH BURR THELBERG 1860 - 1935 In the death of Emeritus Professor Dr. Elizabeth Burr Thelberg, Vassar College has suffered the loss of one of its oldest and most distinguished faculty members. Her love of teaching and preventive medi- cine endeared her to generations of students and patients whose naes and personalities she never forgot. Dr. Thelberg's resourcefulness, delightful wit, and rare versatility made her greatly sought and thoroughly appreciated. Her love of literature-- we can picture her now with her basket of books going from library to garden, her interest in pure science, her skill as a physician, were character- istics rarely canbined. Dr. Thelberg's contacts in the community were quite as close as on the campus. She was active in various local organizations and president of many of them. She was not only recognized here and in the community but by medical associations in the state and in the country and finally by international societies on whose cm- mittees and boads she served. Jane North Baldwin IX - 271-272
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Title: Cooley, Le Roy Clark, 1833-1916 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Leach, Abby, Moore, J. Leverett, McCaleb, Ella
Description
Date: [After 1916]
Text: LE ROY CLARK COOLEY 1833 - 1916 In recording the death of Le Roy Clark Cooley, for thirty-three years Professor of Physics or Chemistry in Vassar College, the Faculty desires to express its appreciation of the man and of the teacher. His strict fidelity to duty, his high ideals of life and scholarship, his deep sense of moral responsibility, impressed all with his strength of character, while his justice, sympathy and kindly spirit won for him the confidence and affection of those with whom...
Show moreLE ROY CLARK COOLEY 1833 - 1916 In recording the death of Le Roy Clark Cooley, for thirty-three years Professor of Physics or Chemistry in Vassar College, the Faculty desires to express its appreciation of the man and of the teacher. His strict fidelity to duty, his high ideals of life and scholarship, his deep sense of moral responsibility, impressed all with his strength of character, while his justice, sympathy and kindly spirit won for him the confidence and affection of those with whom he lived and worked. During his long term of service in Vassar College, from l87h to l907, he rarely failed to meet a college engagement. His career as an edu- cator covered a unique period in the development of science. He was among the first to introduce labora- tory method in the college course. His researches in the field of radiant energy brought him to the thres- hold of discoveries that have made others famous. His clarity of expression, devotion to truth and im- partial attitude of mind, comanded the respect and admiration of many generations of students and made a potent influence in their lives. Though Emeritus Pro- fessor he continued to be identified in many ways with the Faculty so that by his death the college mourns the loss of a devoted officer and a loyal friend Abby Leach J. Leverett Moore Ella McCa1eb VI - 121
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Title: Cummings, Louise Duffield, 1870-1947 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Northrop, Paul A., Wells, Mary Evelyn
Description
Date: [After 1947]
Text: i 4 I ! / I LOUISE DUFFIELD cmmlncs 1870 - 19h? Louise Duffield Cummings, who died in Wayne,Michigan, on the 9th of May,19h7, at the age of,77, brought distinction to Vassar College by her unusual accom- plishments in her field, during her 33 years of ser- vice here. In her undergraduate work at the Univer- sity of Toronto, and in graduate study and research at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago, as well as at Bryn Mawr where she took her doctorate, she won recognition through...
Show morei 4 I ! / I LOUISE DUFFIELD cmmlncs 1870 - 19h? Louise Duffield Cummings, who died in Wayne,Michigan, on the 9th of May,19h7, at the age of,77, brought distinction to Vassar College by her unusual accom- plishments in her field, during her 33 years of ser- vice here. In her undergraduate work at the Univer- sity of Toronto, and in graduate study and research at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago, as well as at Bryn Mawr where she took her doctorate, she won recognition through various honors and awards which culminated in the honorary Doctorate in science at Toronto. Her many researches which were chiefly in number systems, correspondencies, systems of configurations, nets, and group theory, appeared in mathematical Journals published in the United States and abroad. This research of many years which contributed to Vassar's name beyond our area, de- creased only when she retired, in 1935, because of poor health. The clarity of Miss Cummings’ teachin and the friend- ly atmosphere she created in her class room were well appreciated by her students who knew her to be a friend as well as teacher. She was enjoyed by the whole community as a happy, active member of the social group, contributing pleasure through her pun- gent wit and delightful humor. In all situations she was resourceful and helpful, creating in others a repose of soul by her own quiet and unworried re- sponse to life's disturbances. All who knew her counted her a most generous, loyal friend in whose welcome lay wannth, and in whose companionship were both stimulus and happy comfort. Hers was a large and rich soul. Paul A. Northrop Mary Evelyn Wells ' XII - 158
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Title: Washburn, Margaret Floy, 1871-1939 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: MacCracken, Henry Noble
Description
Date: [After 1939]
Text: MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 1871 — 1939 __..__TI‘ib"‘€£.A1£L F-as _F'_1Z1.°;11d Margaret Floy Washburn was as completely a New York State product as Florence Cushing was a child of the Back Bay. A great uncle of hers, Michael Floy, a graduate of Columbia in the 1820's left behind him a charming manuscript diary which should some day see the light; it is tender, introspective, and withdrawn; the manuscript ends happily in a honey- moon on the Morris and Essex Canal. Many of the...
Show moreMARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 1871 — 1939 __..__TI‘ib"‘€£.A1£L F-as _F'_1Z1.°;11d Margaret Floy Washburn was as completely a New York State product as Florence Cushing was a child of the Back Bay. A great uncle of hers, Michael Floy, a graduate of Columbia in the 1820's left behind him a charming manuscript diary which should some day see the light; it is tender, introspective, and withdrawn; the manuscript ends happily in a honey- moon on the Morris and Essex Canal. Many of the characteristics of Michael Floy I could see in Margaret Floy Washburn, and often I thought of them as I watched her striding meditatively along the paths of the Vassar campus, stopping to play with my dog's ear, to chat with one of the children, or to tell the latest anecdote of her animal laboratory. Equipped with superb mental powers, excellently trained in philosophy, and knowing exactly where she stood as to her own philosophical basis of life, Margaret Washburn was always a positive force. Her concentration was prodigious. As I think over her many activities as researcher, writer, editor of psychological journals, correspondent with most of the great psychologists of her day, encourager of her students, closely attentive to every need of the psychological laboratory, I wonder how she could have done so much. But Margaret Washburn was no narrow specialist. She loved music, and played the piano for her own pleasure. She learned to paint, and completed a number of creditable landscapes. She loved to act, and took leading roles in play after play of the faculty or the Experimental Theatre. Her work in the part of the nurse in Hi ol tus was a notable achievement, as was her comic rendigion of the wife's role in Dou last The role in Hi ol tus was performed at a temperature of 102 degrees Eecause Miss Washburn would not dis- appoint the cast and audience by obeying doctor's orders. She organized and led faculty dances, and was excellent in waltz and two-step. Margaret Washburn was a great favorite among the men of her profession. They loved the give and take of her ready wit, and her vigorous and incisive logic, even MARGARET FLUY WASHBURN ggibyte of a Friend (Continued) when it demolished their pretenses. Margaret Washburn knew what she knew and knew what she be- lieved; she had no patience with the mind that tolerates because it is too lazy or too timid to affirm its creed. "We all know what the open mind is," she once said. "It is a mind with nothing in it." At a faculty party I was once analyzed by Miss Washburn. It was all in fun, but the analysis was so keen and so true as to leave me tingling. We differed on many subjects, but were always the closest of friends. with all her loyalty to psychology, her first thought was of people. She was given by her pupils an endow- ment fund, the income of which she was to use as she pleased; she always used it to aid aspiring students. Once when she thought she had made an error in such an award she refunded the money frmm her own pocket, though under no obligation to do so. The soul of loyalty and gallantry, Margaret Washburn will be remembered as among the first women to attain the highest honors in her chosen field of science. She will long be honored at Vassar College as one of our great teachers. Henry Noble MacCracken Vassar Alunae Magazine January l9h0, Page 5
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Title: Haight, Elizabeth Hazelton, 1872-1964 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Erck, Myrtle Soles, Erck, Theodore Henry, Ryberg, Inez Scott
Description
Date: [After 1964]
Text: :22 ELIZABETH HAZELTON HAIGHT 1872 - 1964 Elizabeth Hazelton Haight was born in Auburn, New York on February ll, 1872. She was graduated from Vassar College in l894, received the master's degree here in 1899 and the Ph.D. from Cornell in 1909. Following her graduation from.Vassar she taught Latin for a year at Rye Seminary, for six years at the Emma Willard School, and a year at Packer Collegiate Institute. She returned to Vassar as Instructor in Latin in 1902. For the forty years until...
Show more:22 ELIZABETH HAZELTON HAIGHT 1872 - 1964 Elizabeth Hazelton Haight was born in Auburn, New York on February ll, 1872. She was graduated from Vassar College in l894, received the master's degree here in 1899 and the Ph.D. from Cornell in 1909. Following her graduation from.Vassar she taught Latin for a year at Rye Seminary, for six years at the Emma Willard School, and a year at Packer Collegiate Institute. She returned to Vassar as Instructor in Latin in 1902. For the forty years until her retire- ment in 1942 she served in the successive ranks from Instructor to Professor and Chairman of the Department. An outstanding Classicist and feminist Miss Haight was among the last of a generation of dedi- cated women who comprised a distinguished company of women professors at this and other comparable colleges, a company which chose the pro- fession of college teaching in an era when the choice was likely to preclude marriage and home life in the ordinary sense. Miss Haight made Vassar College her home and her life. She was a gracious lady and an impressive teacher who comanded the loyalty of generation after generation of students. As a member of the faculty of Vassar College, Miss Haight was inde- fatigable in her effort to build up a strong department of Latin and to maintain for Classical studies the important place she believed they should occupy in higher education in the Liberal Arts. One of her many achievements for the Department and the College was the transformation in 1937 of one of the dingiest of Avery Hall's classrooms into the present handsome Classical Museum, which serves not only to house and display Vassar's valuable collection of anti- quities and coins in an attractive setting, but also as a comfortable classroom and small lecture room. Miss Haight had a firm.grasp of both immediate and larger college problems. To the younger members of her own department she was both inspiration and guide, more zealous in emphasizing what could be praised in their work than in pointing out shortcomings. She was unsparing in her efforts to secure for all serious young scholars both opportunity and support for research, and unflagging in her interest in their efforts and achievements. In meetings of the faculty it was often Miss Haight who summed up the sometimes tangent- ial discussion and defined the issue, clarifying the crucial ques- tions and bringing the objective into focus. Presidents, trustees and other department chairmen talked over their diverse educational and administrative problems with her and went away aided by her experience and wisdom and strengthened by her unswerving devotion to the good of Vassar. I ' X3 ELIZABETH HAZELTON HAIGHT (Continued) In the mid-thirties, when scholars were fleeing Hitler's Germany, Miss Haight was chiefly instrumental in organizing a program of visiting scholars, which brought to Vassar a series of distinguished professors as guests, free to give open lectures and to meet with advanced classes and student organizations. Many of these were enabled through their visit to Vassar to secure appointments in American colleges and universities. Miss Haight was a vital force not only in the development of Vassar College but also in the larger field of Classical studies in America. Choosing as her special field the poetry of Horace and the Augustan Age, she published in 1925 her book on Horace and His Art of EnJoyment This was followed at frequent intervals by books on Apuleius and His Influence, Romance in the Latin Elegiac Poets, Essays on Ancient Fiction, The Roman Use of Anecdotes, and a number of others. Earlier, in the years from 1915 to 1919, she had collaborated with President James Monroe Taylor on a book about the College called simply Vassar, had edited the Autobiography and Letters of Matthew Vassar, and then in his turn The Life and Letters of James Monroe Taylor. Miss Haight's books on the Classics were written for the student encountering the Latin texts of her Roman authors rather than for the specialized scholar, and many generations of Vassar students found through her a view of life seasoned by Horace, which became for them the "robur et aes triplex" of their lives. Her eminence as teacher and scholar was recognized by her election as president of the American Philological Association in 1934 - the first woman to hold that office since the founding of the Association in Pough- keepsie in 1869. On the iniative of a group of alumnae, the Trustees established in 1952 the Elizabeth Hazelton Haight Fund for Research in Classics, in honor of her achievement in research and her tenth year as Professor Emeritus of Vassar College. Elizabeth Haight was one of the great builders of this College. Her name will always occupy a significant place in its history. Myrtle Soles Erck Theodore Henry Erck Inez Scott Ryberg XVI 216-21?
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Title: Linner, Edward Robert, 1899-1983 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Christie, John, Mucci, Joe, Beck, Curt
Description
Date: May 8, 1985
Text: I ~ EDWARD ROBERT LINNER (l899 - i983) an instructor in chemistry. Born to Swedish parents Ih»J\vu¢~\+ *4 Edward Robert Linner joined the Vassar faculty in l9§h in alo in i899, he had put himself through the University Buffalo by holding a full-time job as chemist for the son Graphite Company. His graduate studies, begun in 25 at the University of Wisconsin, were interrupted by need to take a teaching post at Lafayette College. l93l an appointment as instructor of biochemistry at sued his...
Show moreI ~ EDWARD ROBERT LINNER (l899 - i983) an instructor in chemistry. Born to Swedish parents Ih»J\vu¢~\+ *4 Edward Robert Linner joined the Vassar faculty in l9§h in alo in i899, he had put himself through the University Buffalo by holding a full-time job as chemist for the son Graphite Company. His graduate studies, begun in 25 at the University of Wisconsin, were interrupted by need to take a teaching post at Lafayette College. l93l an appointment as instructor of biochemistry at sued his research interest in physical biochemistry, t . . _ . . p nd a study grant from the American-Scandinavian turn to his class to ask: "Isn't that beautiful. d. He would derive a complex equation on the blackboard 7“ An the versity of Minnesota allowed him to resume graduate work to bring Celestia Davidson of Buffalo west to be his .During his 3l years on the Vassar faculty, Ed Linner ably in adsorption phenomena One of h|s happiest years spent in l9h9-50 under a joint Vassar Faculty Fellow- a . . . tion, at the Biochemical Institute in Upsala in Sweden re he worked with Arne Tiselius who had the year before the Nobel Prize in chemistry. But Ed's deepest commit- t was always to his students and his greatest talent was t of a remarkable teacher. He saw no contradiction in rous mathematical thinking and an undisguised awe at .beauty of the workings of nature laid bare by the human d had boundless patience in conveying to his students an a subject that those who do not know and love it may ider dry. His love for his students, his colleagues and, yea, for administrators combined in a love for Vassar one of bricks and mortar, of administrative bureau- t to the College in all ways. That is what Ed un- rstanding and an appreciation of the stark aesthetics lege that was as right as it is rare. He knew how to an institution, knew what that meant. His Vassar was y or of tradition writ large in sacred letters; it was sum of all the lives given to it. A fitting gratitude those who have gone before;and a proper responsibility those who will come aften demand‘ that one give one's Hingly did, and most visibly during his seven-year ser- e as chairman of the Committee on Admissions. At that me--in the fifties:-the appointed faculty chairman was chargesof the College admissions policies and practices, .H\the Director of Admissions serving under faculty di- tion. For the last two years of that period, Ed was l students. Chairman and Director of Admissions. Under his aegis r changed from a college drawing its students primarily a well-defined group of private schools to one that t together a nearly equal mix of private and public -we Q -2- _ . . . ' h d always incl d Ed L'"“e"S def'“'t'°“ of educat'On OZ lished music? ed th. He was an acc p an Rfeggif agngetheie 2:2 have been few concerts at V95Sar '“ lm > . L in th h Ed d Celestia were n0 _e a\m?St 50 years atwigei reaanin English history and litera- audience. He was Y t d f th h-_ tura and in his later years embarked an a s ulgtg Ceni IS late l8th an ear Y "fies iﬁ2’e3§uZ“§Z;S§£’ sirtnﬁmphrev DavY»ha @aQ a§§§[S5‘?n3§Qd heart. Davy was a close friend of t e 8 e _ » , Wordsworth turned to him for help Wlth $“ECt$?gLOEéie2€Ygt also worked with a number of influentia Bngdoes and Tho & including William Hyde Wollaston, Thomas] e _ I63/6“ mas Wedgewood. Ed spent his second F8CultY egve '“ b t , ‘n the Reading Room of the british Museum Li raryg u in the course of that proJect, his mind took another CIGTECEGFISUC turn. In the Vassar Library he found an early-89t century textbook of chemistry by Thomas Thomson (1773-I 52) that I had belonged to Matthew Vassar. Intrigued by the founders interest in his own SUbJ€Ct, Ed made a study of Matthew Vassar's library and, after his retirement in lQ65, went on to write four long essays on the formative history of the College. In this work, he profited from the advice and encouragement of Betty Daniels and of other colleagues who shared his interest in the College's history. After Ed's death in i983 it was Betty who edited those essays and saw to their publication in l98h under the title, Vassar. the Remarkable Growth of a Man and His College. I855-1865. What remains to be said about Ed Linner is the most important and the most difficult to convey to those who did not know him. He was a man of simple manner, but he was not a simple man. He had a great and irreverent sense of fun: life was fun, work was fun. But he was more serious than most in his commitments and in his values. His sense of rectitude and honor was so deeply embedded in his char- acter that he took it to be natural and universal. When Peeple behaved badly, he might have to admit that they were imperfect, but he refused to think them worse than that. He loved to tell stories but would not traffic in gossip. He had a sharp eye for the difference between dignity and stuffiness. He detested posturing and pomposity and took deliget '“ Pu“¢tutins it, but he had much affection and aff'n'tY for genuine eecentricity. Most remarkably, he seemed to be unaware of anyone's age, including his own He treated small children as equals en'o ed th ' om any _ _ , J y eir c P ??2O??Eggndeﬁ them bY eating his shoelaces (which were of . e never forgot the welcomin ' ' - . g attention given 3;?ha; a Yeah? instructor by the senior faculty, starting 1] FQXY § Feehen, and he returned it to newly arrived co eagues with disarming warmth and directness He liked people without having to make them over t h‘ ' 'f'catimﬁ And he maintained his - - O IS Spec‘ ' t Without relin ui h_ OWn uncompromising standard of eenduc q 5 ‘n9 hie generosity of mind and spirit. John Christie 8, 1985 é3*:."a::.L
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Title: Ely, Achsah Mount, 1846-1904 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Whitney, Mary W., Cooley, Le Roy C., Wylie, Laura J.
Description
Date: [After 1904]
Text: I P I I ACHSAH motmr E13! IBM6 - 190k The Comittee appointed December 15 to draw up resolutions upon the death of Professor Ely re- ported as follows: Whereas: by the death of Professor Achsah Mount Ely Vassar College has lost a valued and efficient friend, who for many years both as alumna and of- ficer has been devoted to the interests of the Col- lege and has worked for its advancement with zeal, enthusiasm and large-minded generosity, and who has represented to a pre-eminent degree among...
Show moreI P I I ACHSAH motmr E13! IBM6 - 190k The Comittee appointed December 15 to draw up resolutions upon the death of Professor Ely re- ported as follows: Whereas: by the death of Professor Achsah Mount Ely Vassar College has lost a valued and efficient friend, who for many years both as alumna and of- ficer has been devoted to the interests of the Col- lege and has worked for its advancement with zeal, enthusiasm and large-minded generosity, and who has represented to a pre-eminent degree among the college graduates the spirit of ambition and pro- ductive helpfulness that has characterized their activity: Therefore, be it resolved: that the Faculty hereby express its deep sense of loss and its sympathy with the family in its bereavement. Also resolved: that a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family. Mary W. Whitney Le Roy C. Cooley Laura J. Wylie IV - 289-290
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Title: Wick, Frances Gertrude, 1875-1941 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: Wells, Mary Evelyn, Northrop, Paul A.
Description
Date: [After 1941]
Text: FRANCES GERTRUDE WICK 1875 - 19u1 In the death of Professor Frances Gertrude Wick, on June 15, 19hl, Vassar College suffered a severe loss which brings grief to the whole community. Her passing will also be felt by scientists and friends in many foreign countries which she touched in her extensive travels for she habitually visited the institutions where distinguished work was being done. In several of the most noted laboratories of the world she was invited to conduct her researches. Further...
Show moreFRANCES GERTRUDE WICK 1875 - 19u1 In the death of Professor Frances Gertrude Wick, on June 15, 19hl, Vassar College suffered a severe loss which brings grief to the whole community. Her passing will also be felt by scientists and friends in many foreign countries which she touched in her extensive travels for she habitually visited the institutions where distinguished work was being done. In several of the most noted laboratories of the world she was invited to conduct her researches. Further recognition of her unusual interest and ability in research was shown by the large number of awards she received for this purpose from various learned societies. Many of her investigations are pioneer studies carried forward in a period during which physics has been experiencing its phenomenally rapid development. In this invigorating atmosphere her natural interest and enthusiasm were spontaneously comunicated to her colleagues and students. Indeed it was one of her special talents that she could inspire in her students an enthusiasm like her own, and see that enthusiasm sustained. In the minds of all who knew Miss Wick she will live as a remarkable example of contagious happiness and constant devotion to her chosen work. Mary Evelyn Wells Paul A. Northrop X - 270
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Title: Taylor, Kate Huntington, 1850-1935 -- Memorial Minute:
Creator: MacColl, Mary
Description
Date: [After 1935]
Text: 1 a \ \ I 1 \ KATE HUNTINGTON TAYLOR (Mrs. James Monroe Taylor) 1850 - 1935 In memory of Mrs. Kate Huntington Taylor we gratefully record her valued contribution to the social life of Vassar College. The influence of her sincere dignified personality, the wisdan'with which she conducted her family life, and the interesting hospitalit£ which with President Taylor she dispensed from 18 6 to l9lh, impressively indicated her worth. People who met Mrs. Taylor at home or in her zestful travels...
Show more1 a \ \ I 1 \ KATE HUNTINGTON TAYLOR (Mrs. James Monroe Taylor) 1850 - 1935 In memory of Mrs. Kate Huntington Taylor we gratefully record her valued contribution to the social life of Vassar College. The influence of her sincere dignified personality, the wisdan'with which she conducted her family life, and the interesting hospitalit£ which with President Taylor she dispensed from 18 6 to l9lh, impressively indicated her worth. People who met Mrs. Taylor at home or in her zestful travels were refreshed by her strength and balance, her realistic attitude to life, and the savor of her good wit. To the members of her family now saddened by her death the Faculty of Vassar College expresses its deep sympathy. Mary MacColl IX - 271
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