FIRST WOMEN OF LAFAYETTE REUNION
I read with great interest “First Women Reunion” [page 38, Summer 2011]. I graduated from Lafayette in 1969, the year before the first women were admitted. During my senior year, I served on an informal committee of students, organized by Dean Cole, to consider the move
to a co-educational student body. I was included in the committee because I was a commuting student, living with my family in Easton while attending classes.
I supported the change first and foremost because I believe diversity greatly enhances our experience. In addition, I suggested to the group that the presence of women students would mitigate some of the tensions between the College and the Easton community, especially with those in the community who were fathers with daughters in their families.
—Edward Barrese ’69
Arlington, Va.
GORBACHEV’S VISIT TO LAFAYETTE
Congratulations on the announcement of the planned speech by Mikhail Gorbachev at the College and of the initiation of the new Oechsle Center for Global Education. It’s vitally important for the student body and the community surrounding the College to be exposed firsthand to elements of recent history such as those which Gorbachev initiated and in which he participated. Our world would be markedly different without his pragmatic yet visionary leadership.
—David Fetzer ’69
Rochester, N.Y.
Although born and raised in Phillipsburg, N.J., I have lived in the south since 1963 and have retired from being a professor of mathematics in the University of Georgia system. I enjoy reading (some of) Lafayette Magazine each season. Why some of it? Well, I am thinking of the planned Oct. 19 address by Mikhail Gorbachev.
First, let me say that in 1946-50 there were no opinion makers in our mainstream media, academic, or legal system. No political “correctness.” We had a conservative-liberal balance—Professors John Markarian and William S. Lasor in the religion department versus Herbert W. Rogers, and others in the psychology department. Not so, today, in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and most other systems of higher education.
The caption on page 17 [“Mikhail Gorbachev Will Speak as College Celebrates New Oechsle Center for Global Education,” Summer 2011] says Gorbachev is a “towering international figure who played a courageous and pivotal role in transforming our world.” There is no mention of President Ronald Reagan! It was his courageous and pivotal ‘Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’ that helped transform our world.
—Bob Morris ’50
Atlanta, Ga.
PATRIOT LEAGUE ATHLETICS
Your identification of schools with teams in the Patriot League [“Patriot League Showcases Academics,” Summer 2011] was helpful, but football is an exception. If I am correct, Army and Navy play separate schedules, and American University does not participate because it does not sponsor football. I believe Georgetown and Fordham fill two of those spots, but I don’t know what college is in the third vacancy.
—David S. Arnold ‘42
Falls Church, Va.
Editor replies: The list in the article includes the eight schools that are full members of the League, whose teams participate in all league sports with some variations. Army and Navy are independents in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision. Georgetown and Fordham are associate members for football; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, associate member for women’s rowing. There are only seven schools for football.
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