Search results

Creator: Sague, Mary, Monnier, Mathilde
Date: [After 1941]
Text: 1 J \ 4 1 x MARY MacCOLL 1877+ - l9lpl The Faculty of Vassar College with deep regret records the death of Mary MacColl on February lh, l9hl. For the past twenty-five years her life was wholly devoted to the well being of the college which she served in the triple capacity of teacher, resident, and active member of the community. Fro the time of her graduation from Vassar she was as- sociated with educational work, first as a teacher at Stratford, Connecticut; later, when a graduate student...
Show more1 J \ 4 1 x MARY MacCOLL 1877+ - l9lpl The Faculty of Vassar College with deep regret records the death of Mary MacColl on February lh, l9hl. For the past twenty-five years her life was wholly devoted to the well being of the college which she served in the triple capacity of teacher, resident, and active member of the community. Fro the time of her graduation from Vassar she was as- sociated with educational work, first as a teacher at Stratford, Connecticut; later, when a graduate student at Columbia University, as secretary in a Barnard College dormitory. Having been granted the degree of Master of Arts in 191S,sshe returned to Vassar in February 1916. As Associate Warden and Resident she was an untir- ing and valued liaison officer between the students, the parents, and the Faculty. With patience, human understanding, unfailing tact, and sound judgment, she gave herself gladly and.generously to the ad- justing of the problems forever arising in a complex comunity. These same gifts were brought to bear on her duties as social head of the Vassar Nurses Train— ing Camp in 1918 and for the Vassar Summer Institute of Euthenics from 1926 to 193h. Guests, alumnae, members of the college pay grateful tribute to Mary MacColl, hostess of Main Building, for her ever kindly, gracious hospitality. Her as- sociates in Poughkeepsie and in Dutchess County too pay tribute to her, for her well-known constructive interest in civic affairs. For all her friends the regret for her going will always be tempered by gratitude for having known her gay kindly wit, her loyal gallant spirit. Mary Sague Mathilde Monnier x-211;
Show less

Creator: Campbell, Mildred, Linner, Edward, Sague, Mary, Asprey, Winifred
Date: [After 1965]
Text: 3i MARY EVELYN WELLS 1881 - 1965 Most of you present today never heard of Mary Evelyn Wells. Few of you knew her personally. Some of you remember her as a distin- guished senior colleague, for you were but young instructors when she became Professor Emeritus of Mathematics in 1948. Yet Vassar College owes much of its present distinction to women such as Miss Wells. Miss Wells was first and foremost a mathematician, "Euclidean in her approach to life," as one friend characterized her...
Show more3i MARY EVELYN WELLS 1881 - 1965 Most of you present today never heard of Mary Evelyn Wells. Few of you knew her personally. Some of you remember her as a distin- guished senior colleague, for you were but young instructors when she became Professor Emeritus of Mathematics in 1948. Yet Vassar College owes much of its present distinction to women such as Miss Wells. Miss Wells was first and foremost a mathematician, "Euclidean in her approach to life," as one friend characterized her. Her pre- sentation of mathematics had depth and was sound, with that nice blend of scholarliness and integrity that students are so quick to recognize. But it was something more; for in its own way it was a work of art -- the work of a master-teacher. How many of us, like Mary Wells, can so enthrall students that they do not hear the sound of the bell at the end of the class hour? Her gift of humor, fairmindedness and inexhaustible energy, her discretion, loyalty to colleagues, selflessness, sense of the "wholeness" of the Vassar com- munity and what it worked for are the qualities that gained for her the respect and confidence of her colleagues and inevitably led to service on committee after committee. As a long-time member of the Committee on Admission, Miss Wells was adamant in her rejection of candidates unfortunate enough to have acquired even one low score, whatever the field. To quote her: "Vassar College is able to get students who can; why take those who can't?" President MacCracken comments that perhaps this was one of the times in which numbers really got in Miss Wells‘ way. Though a person of strong convictions, she was a firm believer in democratic processes. vShe fought for her beliefs, but when defeated, worked with equal vigor to uphold the decision of the majority. Miss Wells came to Vassar College in l9l5, the year in which President MacCracken was inaugurated. A graduate of Mount Holyoke, she held both the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago where she had worked under Professor E. H. Moore, a rare distinction for any young mathematician, especially a woman. She had already taught for five years at Mount Holyoke, and, as acting Associate Professor, for another year at Oberlin. She was, however, appointed to and accepted an instructorship at Vassar, a rank which she held for five years. At this time mathematics was a required course for freshmen, and Miss Wells was assigned to teach six of these sections. Later promotions came rapidly for that era; at the age of forty-seven she became a full professor and served the college in this capacity for twenty more years. <32 MARY EVELYN WELLS (Continued) Along with her dedication to mathematics and to teaching, Miss Wells had interests beyond the confines of the campus. Perhaps her greatest enthusiasm outside Vassar was centered on India. In 1926, she was invited to the University of Madras as Head of the Department of Mathematics. This experience gave her a last- ing love for that country and an awareness of its problems. She returned to Madras in 1936-37 and continued to serve actively as a trustee of the University long after her retirement from Vassar College. Almost certainly, it was only love for her family and sensitivity to their needs that kept her from going back to India. Indeed, her devotion to her family was marked throughout her life. A younger sister and lively nephews enjoyed many a summer at her home in Maine. This, then, is the woman to whom we pause to pay tribute: a woman whose stern sense of devotion to her profession led her to great distinction as a mathematician and teacher; a person committed to the highest ideal of a Vassar education; and one whose dynamic influence still remains with many associates and students. Mildred Campbell Edward Linner Mary Sague Winifred Asprey, Chairman xv: 323
Show less

Creator: Ellis, Ruth, Richey, Elizabeth, Sague, Mary, Drouilhet, Elizabeth
Date: [After 1960]
Text: ‘>5’ ” ALICE HLYILTGH BELDIKG _( 1ese;1eeo Alice Seldisg's some still vividly recalls to those wto knew Per an imaginative person full of enorsy, truly generous, and with s contagious enthusiasm for all sports. i ._ -JO Born in Poughkeepsie in l8$6, Fiss Beldinp received her A.8. degree from Vosssr is 1907 and her training in Ptysicsl Educa- tion ct the Ssrsent sctool the following year. In 1908, she west to Rssdclpk-Tscon College wtere she served es Frofessor of Ftysicel Education,...
Show more‘>5’ ” ALICE HLYILTGH BELDIKG _( 1ese;1eeo Alice Seldisg's some still vividly recalls to those wto knew Per an imaginative person full of enorsy, truly generous, and with s contagious enthusiasm for all sports. i ._ -JO Born in Poughkeepsie in l8$6, Fiss Beldinp received her A.8. degree from Vosssr is 1907 and her training in Ptysicsl Educa- tion ct the Ssrsent sctool the following year. In 1908, she west to Rssdclpk-Tscon College wtere she served es Frofessor of Ftysicel Education, Chairman of the Deosrtment, and else as Counsellor of Tones. In 1926, ste returned to Vesssr es Pro- , fessor and Chairmen of the Department of Physical Education. In i937, she retired end spent her recent years at Yellfleet on Capo Cod. tiss Eelding was lsryely responsible for the desiqn of Kenyon Fell. ﬂaring e semester's losve, she visited new cysessiums . throughout the country; then worked with the Trustees and architect to plan Kenyon to meet the needs not only of the Eepertmcnt but also of recreational sports for students and their guests, a new ides st that time. If not the first, Kenyon was certainly one of the earliest of women's gymsssiums to provide dressire rooms for men, sod shoes and equipment for their use. This was enough of an issovstion for the §etIYerk Herold Tribune to quote her: "In mixed recreation the college egsin approximates the condition of society - - ~ men like women who are in sympathy with their sports interests." Fenyon pro- vided not only facilities for men, but also en opportunity for ﬁiss Balding to extend the departmental program to include more of the individual sports which students could continue to enjoy after college ~ bowling, squssb, badminton. Ste started "Faculty Eights" in Kenyon, end for many years had the faculty competing in badminton for a Trophy she presented. As Secretory, Vice President, and President of the Eastern ﬁssocistion of Physical Education for Colleqo tomes, she was sole to extend her influence beyond Vassar, and sfter her retirement elected to honorary mem- bership in the Association. A Eiss~3elding's extracurricular activities, too, were not confined to the campus. In Poughkoopsio in 1933, she organized a series of lectures for the unemployed in cooperation with the Yayor's i Committee; she was closely associated with Lincoln Center, giv- ing full—timo to this work during 1937-33; in tellfleet, where she directed a summer camp from 1913-1925, she later organized a summer recreation program and was instrumental in establishing‘ "tellflcet Associates" to develop better relations between the tOWﬁSpGOpl6 and summer residents. 7 ;LIc"s: HAYZ? ~ BELDIZTG (Continued) _ ( “‘ ‘"3->~ -=1. .-.1‘ ¢-w-¢~. Z ; l I I v 1 1 l ,- '~ I . 1 _.--¢-- .1-. Q \ S \ 95 r -l £1 9 A popular teacher arousing interest in her field even among the most nonatbletic; an atklote whose baseball throw record remained unbroken for many years; a friend and cqlleague skar- in: For boundless energy and lively imayination; a citizﬁn continuously verking ta improve conditions and relations among people, Alice Gelding ttrougkout Yer life gave qoncrously of herself to family, to student, to friend, to collége, and to community, ‘ - Ruth Ellis l Elizabeth Rickey Kary Segue Elizaboth Drouilhet 1 ‘ XV - 2&1;-2145
Show less

Creator: Lockwood, Helen, Sague, Mary, Swain, Barbara
Date: [After 1952]
Text: ROSE JEFFRIES PEEBLES 1870 - 1952 Rose Jeffries Peebles came to Vassar College in 1909 as Instructor in English. She had graduated from Mississippi State College for Women, and had taught there as well as in preparatory school and in junior colleges in Arkansas and Kentucky. At that time she was completing her doctorate at Bryn Mawr. Twenty—nine years later, in 1938, she retired from the college as Professor of English and, for the five preceding years, Chairman of the Department. Her field...
Show moreROSE JEFFRIES PEEBLES 1870 - 1952 Rose Jeffries Peebles came to Vassar College in 1909 as Instructor in English. She had graduated from Mississippi State College for Women, and had taught there as well as in preparatory school and in junior colleges in Arkansas and Kentucky. At that time she was completing her doctorate at Bryn Mawr. Twenty—nine years later, in 1938, she retired from the college as Professor of English and, for the five preceding years, Chairman of the Department. Her field of special scholarly interest was prose fiction, medieval or modern. Her doctor's dissertation on the romance of Longinus was part of the wide-spread work of interpretation of Arthurian legend which went on in the first quarter of this century, and remains the authoritative study on its subject. Her work on the romance cycles never ceased, and occasional articles - A Note on Hamlet, 1916, The Children in the Tree, I927 - found their imy Into print. Uthers were written and never published. The real outlet for Miss Peebles' scholarship was the classroom. There her activity as scholar and teacher, through three decades, brought into existence our present courses in prose fiction and together with her wide European contacts supported the interest in comparative literary studies which her colleagues Professor Marian P. Whitney and Professor Winifred Smith were developing in their fields of German and Drama 0 Even her first years of teaching at Vassar were notable. The richness of her inquiring and fear- less mind, and the unique balance of warmth and detachment, serious grace and humor in her per- sonality brought new life to basic required courses. In 1912-13 she first offered a course in "English Metrical Romances, especially those of Germanic origin, and the development of the Arthurian legend". This course changed gradually first into "The Romance in English Literature 8 ROSE JEFFRIES PEEBLES (Continued) from its beginnings to the present time", then into "The Romance..with emphasis on its importance in the development of the novel". By 1923-2h three courses had grown from the original stock: "The English Novel from its Beginning to George Eliot", "Prose Fiction" - an advanced course, and a seminar: "Studies in English Romance". Alumnae of the mid- twenties remember with excitement the sense of independent adventure and creation which radiated frun these courses. The seminar especially represented Miss Peebles' deep con- viction of the rightness of sustained, advanced, independent work for all students, the plodding as well as the brilliant. From the belief in this kind of work throughout the college, and from the students’ response to it, came the incentive for the publication of the Vassar gournal of Undergraduate Studies; from it too came in part the plans'?or the new curriculum of 1928 with its assumption of the students‘ maturity and readiness to carry on specialized study with a background of adequate knowledge. Miss Peebles' interest in romances and novels and in her students‘ responses to them and to life was not a secondary, trained and academic matter but a primary and temperamental taste. All human activity - thoughts, feelings, doings - absorbed her. Everybody's story, anybody's story, received her sympathetic scrutiny; her patience with student-problems and story-problems alike seemed endless, in spite of the incisive criticism with which she could, when she cared to, terminate stupid or egotistic talk. But those who worked with her knew that much of her tolerance was simply one aspect of her irre- pressible zest to "explore further", no matter what the fatigue or the disagreeable results of that exploration might be. She gave no impression of physical daring or of unusual energy, but her appetite for experience, direct or vicarious, her delight in life and her power to receive it through her senses and imagination was inexhaustible. Her classroom connections with her students and colleagues were only a small part of her relations with them. She gave them hospitality with unlimited ROSE JEFFRIES PEEBIES (Continued) generosity; the house at 123 College Avenue where she and Professor Edith Fahnestock kept open house for successive college generations of Vassar students and teachers stands for an often neglected aspect of the academic life - the illustration of the intellectual life as a way-of-existence, rather than the precept alone. There was good fortune in that house, to be sure; but there was also knowledge of the world, and involvement in many kinds of non- academic work; there were people comin back with the results of their lives‘ joys and sor- rows, and there was always harty and profound laughter to set the perspective right. These friends lived so that it was plain to see how the academic life, lived with eager minds and rich sympathies, makes its followers deeply human, fruitful, and satisfied. At the end of her life, after fourteen years of retirement, Miss Peebles was able to say clearly that her life had been happy, that she had done what she wanted to do. This ripeness it has been Vassar's privilege to share in. Respectfully submitted, Helen Lockwood Mary Sague Barbara Swain XIII - 306-307
Show less

Libraries

Today's hours:

Vassar College Digital Library