Volume 15 - Issue 5

"I

...

DASr-TOOB . lntramurals' hottest winter sport

by Geoff Hayware! ~

The Ar:t School on trial ThJt ROTC tradeoff

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Publisher Ed Bennett Editor-in-ChiLJ W. Hampton Sides• Designer Matthew Bartholomew Business Manager Barbara Burrell Managing Ediwr Jim Lowe• Production Manager Hilary Callahan Associate Business Managers Darren Gersh Jane Kamensky Robert Moore Associate Editors Geoff Hayward Paul H ofheinz Morris Panner Lelia Wardwell Associate Production Managers Alex Savich Christianna Williams• • Staff Tina Kelley Katie Kressman Tom McQuiUen• • Mike Otsuka Laura Pappano Peter Phleger• • Lauren Rabin•• Marilynn Sager Vanessa Sciarra• • Katherine Scobey Sally Sloan Lisa Yun •e!ectedjanuary 25, 1983 • • elected February 1, 19R::J (Volume 15. Number 5) "r!t~ N~w joumal is publi~ht.-d six times during the school year by the New .Journal at Yale. Inc .. Post Office Box 3432 Yale Station, New Haven. CT 06520.

Copyright C> 1983 by the New Journal at Yale.

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Volume 15

Mmtbers and Direc/Qrs

Henry C. Chauncey, Jr. Peter B. Cooper Brooks K elley Peter Neill Michelle Press Thomas Strong

4

Number five

Comment

February 25, 1983

A challenge to the post-feminists A redefinition offeminism and its role in our time.

by Renata Gallagher

6

NewsJoumal

Board of Advisors

Have football, will travel Stellar fellows

John Hersey Roger Kirwood Elizabeth Tate

Corporate jocks

Executive Board

Ed Bennett W. Hampton Sides• Matthew Bartholomew Barbara Burrell Jim Lowe• Hilary Callahan Paul Hofheinz••

8

Major stories

Yale~ complic~d past involvemmt with the military mak.s ROTC~ return a question of pn·ncipks and prion'ties as well as cash.

by Jack Bishop

•emtedjanuary 25, 1983 ••etec~d February I, 1983

The Art School on trial

12 Frimd.s: Anson M. Beard, Jr. tt Edward B. Bennett, Jr. Nancy R. Bennett Jonathan M . Clark Louise F. Cooper James W . Cooper Peter B. Cooper t t J erry and Rae Court t Geoffry Fried Sherwin Goldman Brooks Kelley Andrew J. Kuzneski, Jr. Lewis E. Lehrman Mr. & Mrs. E . Nobles Lowe Fairfax C. Randall tt Nicholas X. Rizopoulos Dick and Debbie Sears tt Richard Shields Thomas Strong tt Alex and Betsy Torello Allen and Sarah Wardwell Daniel Yergin

f IUWjriend

tt lu.u given a second time

The ROTC tradeoff

In the light of a recent New York exhibit, students and alumni ta/Jc about the Yak School of Art-a school which is ckarly not for everyone.

by Lelia Wardwell

Another New Haven

16

Liz Shaw~ alternative tour bnngs people face-to-face with poverty and shows them ways to help.

by Katherine Scobey

24

Sports

DASTOOB six men, six women, a dtJun tubes off a Mack truck, and an unvarnislvd lust for victory.

It~ just

by Geoff Hayward

28

Theatre

A Ben Franklin in blue jeans

Ed Meyer of Stage Li~hting Rental &rvice is an in~gral pari of a theatrt world thaJ. never stops.

by Laura Pappano

~Photo Jim Aye<

The New JournaVFebruary 25, 1983 3

Comment Feminism and its discontents

Renata Gallagher

the education o f women persists to this day.

It is accepted as fact at Bry n M awr that women can be intelligent , ar· For years I took a dim view of ticulate and multi -tale n ted . The feminism . I considered myself an in- history of the school was shaped by dividual first and a woman second. I such womer.; the administration , intended to succeed in my chosen field the faculty and the students provide on the basis of my merits as an in- ample additional proof. Amo ng these dividual, and it made little difference women I found role models, m entors to me whether that field had tradi- and friends . At a wome n's school more tionally been open to women or not. I women learn to take charge and to was not interested in preparing the speak for themselves. M y classm ates way for women to follow me, nor was I and I took for g rante d that wo men can particularly interested in the struggles be leaders and that each sho uld do of those women who had preceded me. whatever her talents allow. There are I expected to encounter difficulties jug- certainly talented and assertive women gling a career and a family , but I felt at Yale, but they have succeeded in an that I would be capable of handling environment defined largely by men. these. I was concerned with my future At Bryn Mawr I felt part of a continu· and my needs, not with those of wo- ing tradition of bright a nd dete rm ined men in general. women . Until I left I did not realize Women in our circumstances may .how supportive that traditio n can be. easily adopt this attitude. With the ad· My decisio n to tra nsfe r to Yale was a mission of wqmen to Yale College 13 diflicu1t one, dicta ted b y a var iety of years ago, the facilities here that had factors. I was warned that I would en· been available only to men were op· counter male chauvinism , but I have ened to us. Our generation of women found less tha n I expected. I am more , is fully integrated into college life. disturbed by the lack of female Female undergraduates participate in chauvinism. There are many extraor· most facets of Yale and at many levels. dinary women at Yale, but few seem to It seems possible to reject feminism as identify strongly with other women. obsolete.

Some appear unaware of the ac· But my own feelings have been complishments and potentia l of changed, not strengthened, by my ex· women. Our presence a t Yale is the periences at Yale. My view of Yale is legacy of others who had to fi ght for colored by the years I spent at another opportunities in ways that we do not, college. Bryn Mawr was founded in but we know little of their efforts. There the late 19th century because there was has not been e nough time to establish a an urgent need to provide women with tradition of women at Yale that we may feel part of, and there are few the educational opportunities that schools like Yale provided for men. As traditions in the formal sense that bind a women's college, Bryn Mawr was us together. forced to prove itself to men who Some Bryn Mawrters m ay scoff at claimed that the students would step-sings or Lante rn Night, but these become invalids. Some urged that the are part of a shared experience that school be dosed. These "authorities" unites students past and present. Bryn Mawrters re turn for Lantern Nigh t the believed that women could not and way Old Blues come back to r football should not be educated as men were. games. There is plenty of tradition at Bryn Mawr responded by setting stan· Yale, but most of it involves Yale's condards that were at least as high as those of the men's colleges. The outstanding tribution to the ranks of the men who have shaped this country. There is lit· achievements of numerous graduates, together with empirical evidence of the tie with which women can feel co mfort· able. Th,. formal traoitions that still ., increased physical strength of Bryn Mawr students, disproved the college's dominate Yale-secret societies, sing· challengers. Bryn Mawr's dual com- ing groups and Mory's- are no~· mitment to academic excellence and to open to women, but they are still insn· I do not want women to have power over men, but over themselves.

-Mary Wollstonecraft

4 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

tutions developed by men and for men.

We have yet to establish our own traditions. Hut even a change in th1s situation will not be enough as long as the faculty and the administration of the university remain predominantly male. Our greatest disadvantage here is that there are few women outside our own age g roup to whom we can turn for advice and support.

The lack of role models, mentors and traditions for women at Yale has made me realize the strength I derived from those at Bryn Mawr. What was taken for granted there is not made explicit at Yale. I feel bound to prove that women do have an enormous range of capabilities. I rejected feminism because I felt it asked me to be a woman first and an individual second.

I could not accept that demand. But I no longer feel that it is possible for me to consider myself an individual first and foremost. I am a woman and an individual, and to separate the two, to emphasize one at the expense of the other, is a distortion. I was admitted to Yale as an individual, but as a woman( feel somewhat out of place here. M y experiences as an individual are shaped by the fact that I am female.

I will always have difficulty labeling myself a feminist , but terminology is not important to me. It is important that I not lose sight of the fact that I am a woman and of the responsibility that entails. I must continue to build on the foundations laid by others. We are no longer confronted by many of the problems that faced previous generations, but there are more subtle challenges. We must not stop proving ourselves now that we are at Yale. The struggle to get here is over. But the struggle to become established has just begun. If we neglect this respon.sibility, we deny the tradition that brought us this far, and we cheat ourselves.

â&#x20AC;˘

Rnt~UQ C.

Gallagher is a senior in Berkeley.

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The opinions expressed in thi s section are those of the individual writers. Tlte Nnv jo~~or~UJI c:ncouragÂŤ leuers to-the editor and comment on Yale and New Haven issues. Write to Mor-ris Panoc:r, Editorials, 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, CT-06520. or contact him at +32-2995. All leuers for publication must i.ncludc: address and signature.

The New Journal/February 25, 1983 5

February 25, 1983

Corporate Jocks?

Seniors have been known to wait in line at Career Advisory (CAPS) for hours to get an interview, but recently one company turned the tables.

Procter & Gamble's Sales Division, which recruited here earlier this month, has long operated on the theory that students who row, throw or run for a varsity team are the kind of people who can make a good sale.

And so, the makers of such household notables as Crest, Orange Crush a nd Tide have once again solicited student recommendations directly from the Eli coaches. "Over 20 years ago a Yale ex-varsity player decided that a sound body would make for sound peace of mind in the P&G sales," explains Ted Noyt·s, director of CAPS and surrogate father to Yale's buckling business magnates.

"He thought that participation in college athletics would give an individual the competitive edge needed for P&G." But how many new Yale lettermen and women will fill the ranks of P&G's Sales Division next year? Not many. Maybe it was the rumor that swept the country last year that Satan worshippers controlled the company (the P&G logo with 13 stars was adequate proof for some), or maybe it was simply that the corporate hea-d6 The l\"ew Journal/ February 25, 1983

quarters are located in Cincinnati.

But for whatever reason, the Elis haven't been nocking to P&G as they did in previous years.

Several overtly competitive athletes were pleased that their coaches had nominated them for interviews, but most of them didn't take the Head & Shoulders manufacturer too seriously.

"I just used it for a practice interview," says one letterman, explaining that he dreaded the idea of living in the Midwest. But the rumor about devil worshippers didn't deter me at all."

- Scott Bessent

•

Stellar fellows Breakfast with Steinbrenner. Lunch with Liv. Tea with Prime Minister Lee and dinner with Dreyfuss. These celebrities, together with Paul Newman, Gloria Steinem, Isaac Asimov, Norman Mailer and numerous others, comprise a starstudded list of Yale residential college associate fellows.

Although some, like George Bush (Davenport), Dick Cavett (Saybrook), Gerald Ford (Timothy Dwight), and former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (Berkeley), are Yale alumni, more often the; affiliation grows out of a personal relation-

ship with the master, o r simply a visit to the college.

Each college m ay take on as many as five new associate fellows each year. "Most of us treat it like a club, usually waiting for someone to resign before making a new appointment," says Berkeley Master Robin Winks, who is also Chairman of the Council of Masters.

Most fellows make generous financial gifts every year. Others, like Prime M inister ·Lee Kwan-Yew o f S ingapore and Kin g Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of the Belgians, extend the ir hospitality to v isiting college members. Man y fellows visit on occasion . Calhoun Master Davie Napie r believes that "most of them truly value the association and would be disappointed if they were d ropped from the rolls."

H owever, the relationship often wanes, as in the case of L iv U llman n whose Calh oun affiliation was the result "of her frie ndship with a previous master. "We probably should do more to make sure th at these associate fellows want to maintain their affiliation at the e nd of their five year terms," Napier admits.

Winks recently wro te Senator George McGovern, who was appoin ted in the midst of his presidential campaign and has since, "done nothing for us whatsoever." The letter reminded the senato r of the responsibility which accompanies his Ber keley fellowship.

"That's usually all it takes," says Winks, who believes that the fellows' a pathy often stem s from their lack of fa miliarity with the college system .

"Sometimes they just don't know how they can help us," h e expla ins.

Not all associate fe llows are world renown ed. Some, like Berkeley's William Zimmerman n, are local celebrities. Zimmermann, 86, is the oldest ticket-taker at the Yale Bowl.

The fathe r of a Berkeley graduate, Zimmer man n often ate a few meals in the college, p rompting several studen ts to ask Winks to name him an associate fellow. H e happily agreed and led Zim mermann into a dining h all fu ll of cheering Berkeley students. He now faithfully attends fellows' meetings, and ch a rges h is meals a t th e exclusive "Berkeley C lub."

•

-Lauren Rabin design, Tom McQuillen

~\)\..LDoa PIZZA

Have football, will travel What do Zimbabwe and Ireland have in common? Internal conflicts, violent histories and the Yale Rugby Club, which visited the African nation two years ago and will travel to Ireland this spring break.

"We didn't know what we were getting into," said captain Paul Carbery '83, of the trip to Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia. "We were told that we would play two white teams, two b lack teams, and one mixed one. We played only one team with one black player, and he was only a token."

The group went to Africa as corporate representatives of Union Carbide, which sponsored them. They stayed in first class hotels and "palatial" country homes.

The Yale team was the first foreign group to play in Zimbabwe in 15 years, and they played some of the best teams in the country. "In one game we played a team with five internationals on it," said coach Scott Kelso. The team learned a great deal about rugby, but couldn't beat the world-class teams they faced.

Kelso sees the Ireland trip as another ch ance for the team to learn from more experienced players. Most Americans do not have a chance to play rugby until college. "A large part of my activity is teaching the basics," said Kelso, who played for the U.S.

team from 1973-76, and now volunteers his time to the club. Although it finished the fall season with a 10-3 record with victories over Harvard, Princeton, and Brown, the club may still find international standards difficult to meet.

In Ireland the team will stay mostly with players in Derry, K elso's h ome town. In its search for a spon.: sor the .club wrote to 150 U.S. companies doing business in I reland.

Labatt's Beer has helped by sponsoring the weekly Rugby N ight at the Anchor Bar, but the club members will have to pay all their expenses which cannot be covered by fundraising.

"The wonderful thing about rugby football is that it's the o nly spor t played by all Irishmen, regardless of their religion," said Kelso. T he team will travel through both northern and southern Ireland. On the last day of the tour, after playing a Dublin club, the Yale footballers will go to Lansdowne Road to watch a team of Irishmen play the English national team.

"We're going to a troubled country," said Kelso . "We learned a lot about the relationship between blacks and whites in Zimbabwe, and we'll learn a lot about the relationship among people of different religious persuasions in Ireland. But mostly we'll learn a lot about rugby." â&#x20AC;˘ - Da"m Gersh

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The New Journal thanks: Anne Applebaum Jim Ayer Joyce BanerJee Chris Berti Laura Boyer Pamela Cobb Sta" Collins Tim Cotton Eduardo Cruz Temma Ehrenfeld Larry Goon Lynn Guggmheimer Richard Hackman Lisa Hintz Laura Hoffman Jef Kaplan David Kipm Kate Levin Lisa Levine Sally McKee Lisa Melfi Catherine Pratt Chris Ryan Beeper Schia()()ne Steve Sherman Ted Slate Amy Stevens David Sullivan Claire Ting Corrine Tobin Andy Vas9 Andi Vayda Amy Wei/ Ador Yano Sylvia Yu

Rugby at Rudy's The New J ournal/February 25, 1983 7

The ROTC

tradeoff

programs the academic credit they had enjoyed for decades. During the turbulent year of 1969, Yale's ROTC unit, the oldest in the nation, was essentially killed.

As anti-war feelings subsided ROTC slowly made its way back onto Ivy League campuses. At the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell and MIT, where ROTC never left, both Army and Navy ROTC are offered. At HarJack Bishop vard over 70 students, the most in a decade, now participate in an ROTC program through MIT. Princeton offers Army ROTC as an extra"What ROTC and the American government curricular activity. But ROTC has not do to the Vietnamese and to the black people returned to Yale since it left in the early 1970s. A few students train of this country are not academic questions.

We demand the ROTC be tctally abolished elsewhere, but essentially Yale has divorced itself from the military. at Yale."

One of the few Yale students ¡ who These harsh words appeared 14 years train elsewhere is TO junior Rob ago in an SDS (Students for a Dem- Morrow. Morrow completed his first ocratic Society) policy statement only two years of ROTC training over the two months before the Yale faculty two summers prior to attending Yale. decided to strip ROTC (Reserve O f- For two more years, Morrow traveled ficer Training Corps) of academic once a week to Bridgeport and once a standing. Throughout the Ivy League month to Storrs, making- a car a necesfaculties were voting to del}y ROTC sity to complete his training .

8 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

But aside from the matter of inconvenience to students, the issue of ROTC at Yale raises interesting questions about the nature of a liberal arts institution and Yale's role in society .

There is also the question of financial aid. ROTC students receive a monthly stipend of $100, and many also receive full tuition scholarships. With sources of financial aid drying up and government loans becoming h arder to obtain, ROTC is now a logical choice for many students across the country. Will Yale have to sacrifice some of its independence in order to secu re financial aid money which enables lower and middle income students to attend?

While many people argue that Yale should once again have a unit, Yale's complicated past involvement with ROTC makes its return a question of principles a n d priorities as well as cash.

A volatile history In 1916 the Army chose Yale as the site of the first ROTC unit in the nation.

With an impend ing -war and the need for trained officers steadily increasing, the ROTC was designed to commisdesign, Andy Vasey

"You won't have the at¡ titude that everyone In uniform is a monster."

sion young men into the military while allowing them first to attend college.

Througn ROTC the services hoped to attract well-educated officers, the socalled "civilian soldiers" who would have knowledge in the humanities as well as expertise in military strategy.

By 1926 the Navy had opened an ROTC unit on campus, establishing Yale as one of the foremost suppliers of civilian soldiers.

During the late 1960s relations between Yale and ROTC became increasingly strained. The problem of giving Yale credit for ROTC courses which had plagued the program since its inception finally was resolved in the 1969 faculty vote which stripped ROTC of its academic standing. The year before, the faculty had lowered the number of courses needed to graduate from 40 to 36. With this lightened workload, they thought that students interested in ROTC could train on their own time. By a 4-1 margin the faculty voted to change ROTC's status to an extracurricular activity without credit. They also denied the military officers who taught these courses the professorial rank they previously had enjoyed.

Secretary John Wilkinson, Dean o f Undergraduate Affairs in 1969, was a member of the Course of Study Committee which recommended that the faculty take away ROTC's credit.

Wilkinson says ROTC chose to leave of its own free will. He says that the faculty had no control over the courses being taught by the ROTC and therefore decided to deny them credit.

"ROTC courses simply weren't up to the level we expect from Yale courses," explained Wilkinson. But Wilkinson believes the credit issue had less to do with the departure of ROTC than did the change in status of the entire program. He thinks that the ROTC left campus because the services "didn't want to be treated as anything that strikes of second class status." Wilkinson added, "It was rather sad to see them go. They were first-rate guys."

Although the faculty and the University administration maintained that their action wa~ motivated solely by academic concerns, the heightened ami-military sentiments which pervaded most college campuses certainly in-

fluenced Yale's decision as well. Indeed, Yale's problem with ROTC was comparatively mild. At Harvard, hundreds of students in the SDS occupied one of the main administrative buildings on the Yard, University Hall , protesting Harvard's position on ROTC. The takeover ended early one morning when police raided the building with tear gas. Thousands of Harvard students responded by boycotting classes for a week and pressuring the University to act. Backed into a corner, the faculty voted 385-25 to take away academic credit from ROTC. Although the circumstances at Har-. vard differed from the less violent situation at Yale, the faculty actions were very similar.

At Yale, Harvard and elsewhere, ROTC succumbed to both academic and political pressures. "It took the combination of the academic credit issue with the anti-war issue to bring this to a faculty vote," said Kingman Brewster, former Yale president. "If there hadn't been credit given they wouldn't have barred ROTC. If there hadn't been a war a majority of the faculty's support would have b een unlikely." Brewster notes that while the faculty stripped ROTC's academic standing, it nevertheless turned down a resolution that would have barred it from campus altogether. However, as Brewster notes, the political climate surely brought the question of credit for ROTC to a head.

Supporters of ROTC argue that the 1969 decision was prompted by political, not academic motives. John Zornig, an Associate Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department and a 1966 Yale-ROTC graduate, believes that the faculty "made up reasons" to rid itself of ROTC. An active reservist in the Army who is heavily involved with research for the Defense Department, Zornig has helped students obtain ROTC training at Bridgeport and Storrs for several years. "I felt embarrassment at the irrationality of the¡ faculty's arguments," said Zornig. He believes the faculty felt that Yale had nothing to gain from ROTC. And since it was only the focal point of unpleasant political activity, the faculty killed ROTC in the easiest way possible. According to Zornig,

Rob Morrow who was a graduate student here during the 1969 controversy, "The tenor of the time came from Kingman Brewster and he didn't want ROTC on campus for the same reason he wouldn't want anything he felt was evil on campus."

Brewster denies this. He maintains that he has never had any moral qualms about the military or ROTC. He recalls the Ingalls Rink meeting of May, 1969 in which over 2500 members of the Yale community participated in an open debate about the status of ROTC at Yale. The meeting ended with a 1286-1286 deadlock on the questions of abolishing ROTC at Yale. "In '69 I conducted a review of ROTC in the Rink," Brewster remembered. "I thought it was time we respected those who wanted to serve their country. Obviously that got lost in the noise."

Brewster has been a vocal supporter of some kind of compulsory national service. He caused a stir this summer with an editorial he wrote for the Boston Globe calling for "universal public useful service." Many people thought Brewster was advocating a return to the draft, although he insists his proposal was for something different. "It would have to be truly universal, and it wouldn't have to be military," he explained. Although Brewster certainly is not anti-military, he admits that he does not believe that ROTC merits academic credit. "I think people are free to surrender their freedom but I don't think they should get academic credit for it."

The New Journal/February 25, 1983 9

"Yale must not make a commitment to occupa· tlonal preparation."

A question of caah Whatever the combination of academic and political reasons which led to the split between Yale and the ROTC, the fact remains that students interested in Yale do not have the option of turning to ROTC for financial support.

In these strained economic times for both students and the University, many proponents of ROTC's return argue that ROTC could help ease the shortage of financial aid money. As one officer in the New Have n Naval Recruitment Center remarked, "If you go to MIT they'll give you $42 ,000 plus $100 spending money a month.

Who could turn it down?" Students at Harvard and Princeton can have their entire educations paid for and can receive a monthly stipend. The Air Force ROTC paid a year's tuition for o ne Harvard sophomore, Robert Brown, y~t he is under no obligation to serve or pay back the military. Such cases demonstrate the military's willingness to pay good money to attract first-rate officers. A s a Princeton freshman who is involved with the military there remarked, "Princeton students go for it because of the money. If they were serious about the military, there are a lot better programs than ROTC." Matt Countryman, a Berkeley sophomore and active member of CAMD (Campaign Against Militarism and the Draft) dismisses these financial arguments for having ROTC on campus. He questions why any student should feel compelled to choose ROTC simply for financial reasons. "There is no reason why individuals sho uld have to turn to the military in order to pay for their education," argued Countryman. He thinks that it is Yale's responsibility to search out alternatives to the problem of financial aid. "It is unproductive for the government to pay students to train to kill people and to be part of a military system that attempts to solve tensions, yet only incre;ues them," said Countryman.

Secretary Wilkinson says the University is willing to explore the return of ROTC, but only as an extracurricular activity. H e warns that any return must observe the guidelines

established by the faculty about credit and the status of military officers. "If the services had a genuine desire to come o n campus, we could work out a n agreement," contended Wilkinson .

ROTC's inflexibility , not Yale's, is blocking any such return to campus, he says. Although some argue that Yale should solicit ROTC's return to ease the fin ancial aid crunch, Wilkinson believes that "it is very attractive, but one doesn't exchange principles for cash."

Smoke-screens?

Although the financial issue is perhaps the most immediate issue, the question of ROTC can raise a philosophical debate as well. Professor Zornig argues that the exclusion of ROTC from campus is unfair, particularly since Yale is dedicated to the toleration of a diversity of opinions. "Yale should be a safe haven fo r differing points of view," said Zornig. "Eyeryone should be welcome;" Zornig notes that the University provides space for many liberal organizations through Dwight Hall. H e believes that Yale should at least welcome the more a cademically rigorous Naval ROTC , which he is confident Yale could easily support.

While arguments abound in support of ROTC's return to Yale, many people in the Yale community have serious moral reservations about allowing ROTC back. Reverend John Vannorsdall , the University Chaplain , is one of these people. He warns that Yale must guard against intrusions into a student's pursuit of a liberal arts education. "Yale must not make a commitme nt to occupational preparation .

We must protect the value of the liberal arts education at all costs," argued Vannorsdall. H e believes students in ROTC have made a commitment to a career in the military, which he believes intrudes upon the liberal education.

Rob Morrow believes that academic arguments such as these are simply "smoke screens." He contends that the credit issue could be resolved by upgrading ROTC courses in military law, military history and navigation.

And Morrow argues that the criticism of ROTC as preprofessional is unfair.

10 T he New Journal/February 25, 1983

John Vannorsda/1 In his opinion ROTC is more in keeping with the liberal arts than MB&B and C omputer Science. "Military Scienn· is simply the study of human interacuon ." he said.

Presently there are very few military-oriented courses at Yale. Two Political Science courses, "Inte lligence and Covert Operations" a nd "Evaluaung Nuclear Strategy," as well as a College Seminar entitled "The Anatomy of War" are Yale's only courses which stress knowledge of military affairs.

Commitments to the country Tht• question of ROTC's return has led a number of people to consider what role Yale should play in society.

E~onomics Assistant Professor Jennifer Roback, one of Connecticut's leading Libertarians, argued last year in a Political Union debate against the re turn of ROTC to Yale. She believes that it is important for Yale to maintain its autonomy, so that it can take polit1cal stands when it needs to. "Accepting money from the government is a dangerous thing," said Roback. "And from the military it is even more dangerous." Roback believes that by allow-

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ing ROTC on campus Yale is implicitly supporting the military. Roback feels that Yale should do everything it can to separate itself from the government, in~luding placing restrictions on money glVen by the government for research. "The sensitivity of the 1960's toward accepting money from the government is healthy," she added.

Although she has no objections to students accepting benefits from ROTC, she thinks that Yale cannot be involved in any such link.

Others disagree with this attitude and believe that Yale must not attempt to separate itself from society. "ROTC should be on campus because the University is an integral part of society, \ and it has commitments to this society," argued Morrow. "And one of \hese commitments is to the defense of this country and its allies." He believes that Yale has disregarded its obligation to the country to provide the military with "bright, creative people." Morrow points to a time when Yale used to produce some of the nation's finest civilian-soldiers. "If Yale wanted to, it could have the finest program in the country." said Morrow, "better than West Point, because more independent o fficers with more initiative would be produced."

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An ROTC program would not only supply the services with highly trained civ ilian-soldiers, argues Morrow, but a lso would help to combat what pe calls the "military illiteracy" o f most Yale students. Morrow worries that Yale graduates going into important decisio n-making positions lack basic knowledge about the nation's defense.

"Most Yale students don't know the difference between a brigade and a battalion," jokes Morrow. The presence of an ROTC !lnit 0!1 campus would raise the level of consciousness ,about the military , Morrow says. As he puts it, "You won't have the attitude that everyone in uniform is a monster."

•

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The New Journal/February 25, 1983 11

The Art School on trial Lelia Wardwell

--

- each other and we weren 'f allowed "In critiques students were encouraged to back stab and back bite to collaborate."

Yale did not rest peacefully over winter dead leaves. Posters from the Organvacation. In New York City a group of izational Drive at Yale showing supex-teachers, students and alumni port for Local 34 were exhibited on the staged an exhibition of protest entitled, front and rear walls of the gallery. The "On Trial: Yale School of Art." Some bond between these objects was dearly members of the group were under- more political than artistic. graduate art majors. Some were The show was put together by "The graduate students in painting or Committee for Art," a group of about sculpture. A few graduated as early as 20 Yale-associated artists who call the 1960s, and others left only last themselves aesthetic dissidents. The year. The show was held on Wooster purpose of the exhibit was to speak out Street in Soho and ran from December against the administration of the Yale 29 to January 8.

School of Art , which they call "a conTwenty-two Wooster Gallery is a trolling elite that redirects student long room with white walls and var- creative energy toward its own purnished wooden floors. It is a typical poses." The show was to them "an opSoho gallery. The show was unusual timistic endeavor" which would "stimbecause it featured artwork of many ulate the return of youthful energy and styles and forms, by over 50 different artistic daring." They stated that the artists. In the rear of the room was a School's "unbending Euro-centric appainting of a "Y," in white against a proach to art and art history" was royal blue background. Covering part limiting and oppressive. Samia Halof the picture and curving out on the aby, ex-teacher and an active leader of wall was a large red question mark. the Committee, believed that she was The painting was entitled, "You Went denied re-appointment last year to Yale?" In the center of the room because her art, influenced by her stood a large sculpture composed of 11 Palestinian background, was too innometal spikes, rising out of a bed of vative and untraditional . for the ad12 The New JournaVFebruary 25, 1983

mmtstration. Alumni on the Committee criticized the Art School's largely western-European approach. They said in many cases the approach had isolated them from current artistic trends and left them ill-prepared to start a career on their own.

Small size What exactly are the aspects of the Art School which spawned this bitter and energetic protest? Many of the Committee's complaints may stem from the relatively small size of the Art School's administration and student population. There are 26 teachers on the staff, approximately 100 graduate students and 60 undergraduate majors. Many equally prestigious university-connected art schools are much larger than Yale's. Tyler, a prominent art school at Temple University, has about 70 full and part-time taculty members and has over 700 graduate and undergraduate students. The School of Art at New York University employs 75 teachers full time, 130 part time and has over 2,000 students enrolled. design, Tom Mc:Oui!Mn

The comparatively higher faculty/ student ratio at Yale permits small classes, individual attention and constant interaction between students and artists. T enured professors know all of their students, graduate and undergraduate. This intimate environment would seem to be a terrific advantage, because it provides direct and consis¡ tent interaction with distinguished artists.

Members on the Committee for Art, however, often found it oppressive and claustrophobic. Imna Arroyo, who graduated from the Pratt Institute and from the Yale School of Art, felt that the interaction at Yale was based o n a preference system. "The favoritism was very clear," she said, "and the consequence was a kind of value systema preference for certain forms of expression, while other forms were not respected."

Another consequence of the Art School's small size is a feeling of isolation. Alumni on the Committee for Art agreed that teachers did not bring in current artistic trends from the outside. "At Pratt in New York," Arroyo said, "current happenings are available to you. At Yale, there is a sense of isolation, because you become such a part of the Art School."

Students who were not involved with the exhibit in New York express a different attitude. Some are aware of the isolation, but find solutions by seeking greater exposure elsewhere.

They do not expect the Art School to bring outside happenings to its students. "You can always go to New York, said Ruth Santer, an art major who graduated last year. Santer also dealt with the problem of isolation by attending the Art School's summer program in Norfolk. There she learned about new artists which many of her teachers never mentioned.

Others go further, suggesting that art students are responsible for getting what they expect out of art school . "It's up to you whether you come out fulfilled as an artist," said Barnaby Fitz~rald, a second ye.a r graduate student 1 ? p~inting. "It is not solely the respon¡ sâ&#x20AC;˘blluy of the school." Fitzgerald, who ~~~eves greater exposure to recent artistic trends is the duty of the student

W. Richard Lytle, DUS of the Art Department, teaches a class In baalc drawing. who seeks it, does not feel isolated at Yale. He said, "We're not spoon-fed here."

Individual and class critiques, made possible by the small student and faculty population, are a major part of Yale's undergraduate and graduate art programs. The Art School catalogue states, "we attempt to provide an educational context within which advanced students . . . can explore the horizons of their own talents in the midst of an intense critical dialogue . . . generated by their peers and by a faculty made up of experienced artists of acknowledged accomplishment."

This method refines skills and trains the eye of the art student. Every week, several students display their work, allowing other students and teachers to make evaluations.

Some alumni question the value of these "crits." Members of the Committee described them as the worst experiences of their time at Yale. One cartoon in the show was an illustration of one of these sessions: three fat teachers are sitting down an d laughing, while a

secretary takes notes. The student who is presenting his work kneels submissively before them, while the frightened next-in-line dashes to the door. Bird Brenner, '82 , descnbed a friend who started skipping classes regularly because she was terrified of these crits.

"In critiques, students were encouraged to back stab and back bite each other, and we weren't allowed to collaborate," Brenner stated in the exhibition catalogue. "If you didn't shoot down other students, you were later shot down yourself."

Other students see value in these sessions, despite their immediate charring effects. Santer agreed that students were often put down. "You could get ripped to shreds," she remarked. The older teachers at Yale are "career academics," she added, and they prepare students for an artistic career by forcing them to "explain and intellectualize" their work through the crits. These teachers "treat art more like a science by using a traditional system of basic training and firm foundations." While Fitzgerald complained The New Journal/February 25, 1983 13

"If you didn't shoot down other students, you were later shot down yourself."

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Many students not involved in the exhibit considered such close evaluation a valuable privilege, but others found this direct confrontation threatening to their personal style, creativity and morale. But how does a school attempt to teach forms of artistic expression in a structured, disciplined way without stifling individual creativity? The School's catalogue states "the graduate students' primary educational experience at Yale is centered in their own studio activity" and is enhanced by "rigorous and more traditionally structured courses such as drawing or the relativity of color." Alumni on the Committee found this emphasis on discipline and technique oppressive. nique oppressive.

One woman submitted a letter to the exhibit describing her experience in a class where she had spent three weeks learning how to draw an ellipse. The letter was completely covered with perfectly shaped, pencilled ellipses. Arroyo said she usually "avoided teache rs who sacrificed individual creativity for technique," adding that the artist should "know technique, but should not let it interfere with expression."

Members of the Committee criticize Yale's program because they believe firm ly in their individual styles. Others see their creativity in different ways and do not feel threatened by rigorous, traditiona l instruction. "Yale gives you artistic validation," Santer explained.

"People's creativity doesn't always come out best in school- they have to subordinate themselves to the system" while they are learning. She also added that it was nice to have "firm boundaries" while in school, because "the art world at large is somewhat formless."

For Fitzgerald, creativity means "the incentive to produce," and he agreed that criticism of a stud e nt's work could stall this incentive. The Committee members referred to creativity as a form of personal. indiv idual expression, but Fitzgerald said, "This is the

14 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

part I care about least. I don't care about my style or manner."

Euro-centrlsm The School of Art is not explicitly Euro-centric in its approach to teaching art and art history, but Andrew Forge, former dean of the Art School, admits, "There is no attempt to teach African art, for example. This approach is not imposed," he said, "but it is just what the School is about. T~e studio practices in the European tradition." The School, founded in 1869, is the oldest university-connected art school in the country. After more than 100 years of European and New England traditions, this approach m_ay be difficult to c hange, especially wath such a small administration.

Current students do not often speak out against this aspect of the School, although they are aware of it. Some a!e dissatisfied with it, but they realize hJ¡

The bond between those objects was clearly more political than artistic.

tie can be done about it during the two years they a re here. Most people expect all of Yale's departments to be western-influenced .

"It is natural for any school of the western world to be Euro-centric," Fitzgerald said. "It is tremendously pretentious a nd condescending (for a Western school] to attempt to understand the cultures that produce African and Oriental art." C hristine G ist, a second year student in sculpture, said she assumed Yale would be Eurocentric, but added that t h is "could be problematic for people with different backgrounds."

Imna Arroyo is Puerto Rican. While at Yale, she was particular ly sensitive to the aesthetic preferences of the facu lty because of her different background .

She said that many teachers "had a hard time accepting where my work was coming from." She believes that an artist perceives space and makes a com position based on a personal sense of aesthetics. "You have to recognize that there is a multiple set of aesthetics, not just one," she explained. "One's cultural background is characterized by certain preferences . . . When you're on the island, you have a lush, green background , and houses , clothing, appear in primary colors. But a n urban, Northern background is grey, a nd those colors pop out- they get vibra nt." Arroyo felt that many teachers used an emotional basis for criticizing he r work, and because of their own ways of classifying art, could not understand the significance of her background.

Samia Halaby's painting for the exhibit was large, vibrant and colorful. It dearly did not draw from any previous Western European tradition. On the same wall, only a few feet away, was an etching by a graduate alumna, entitled "5th Avenue." The perspective was mathematical, the lines were perfectly straight and the colors were shades of grey and white. Although the School of Art slept fitfu lly during this trial, it had not failed to leave its own mark on those w ho cha llenged it.

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The New Journal/February 25, 1983 15

Another New Haven Katherine Scobey

~ ~

}

i _!'

The tour begins on Saturday morning, whcp the streets are almost empty.

Liz is careful that we stay unnoticed in the neighborhoods. l am disappointed that we will not m eet and talk to people along the way, but Liz is definite.

"There's a lot of hostility toward Yale among the New H aven poor," she says, and she respects that hostility.

"Yale is a rich institution with walls and gates, and it remains closed to the community. Scholars have scrutinized the place and left. The people feel like guinea pigs. People write huge numbers of books, but they don't do anything." Liz does not want to repeat that offense.

Sodom Hill

I don't often leave the blocks between Chapel Street and the D ivinity School, Payne-Whitney and Macy's, because it's not safe. But this Saturday morning I am standing on the Oak Street Connector and heading further out on The Alternative Tour of New Haven. I'll visit the deprl'ssed areas of the city -the Hill, Dixwell_ Avenue, rair Haven. This tour is not a formalized lament and protest of poverty. Liz Shaw, a second-year student at Yale D ivinity ~chovl, has orgamzea a tour to show students the New Haven that exists around Yale- to take them through streets they don't usually see.

It brings them into the midst of poverty. Liz wants to educate students about New Haven and prompt them to involve themselves in city-aid projects. " I hope it will be depressing and inspiring," she says. Her introduction m akes my stomach tigh ten; I wonder what I'll find and how I'll respond.

16 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

In the quiet morning we drive west on College Street. "It used to be called Sodom Hill," Liz says, and we smile at the nickname; the Hill is still notor路 ious . "It's got terribly high crime, high unemployment, and bad drug prob路 lems ," Liz says. We first pass something that looks like a concrete prison. It is Richard C. Lee High School, a product of the urban renewal of the 1950s and 60s. There the school day is as short as legally permitted because of budget and staffing problems and because discipline cannot be maintained.

W e park on Cedar Street outside Columbus House, an emergency shel路 ter for the homeless. Liz estimates that each night, 250 to 400 people in New Haven have no place to sleep. "They spend the day at the Green or the railroad station, and many come to the Hill at night." Columbus House pro路 vides a hot meal and a bed for some of the homeless. "They need volunteers here now," Liz says. "You work in four-hour shifts, and they'll give you a place to sleep."

Liz is slowly pressing a clenched fist design, Ador Yano

An elegant, oval window remains intact ... a special symbol of neighborhood pride.

into the palm of her other hand as she speaks. She does this when she talks about helping the poor. "We have to involve ourselves as inhabitants rather than whiz through as students," Liz says. In a year, she will have both a Master of Arts in R eligion from Yale Divinity School and a Masters in Social W ork from the University of Connecticut. She runs the Alternative Tour as a program of the Center for Human Rights and Economic Justice at Yale Divinity School, which she cocoordinates. The Center provides information- books, periodicals, leaflets, movies- about local, national and international human rights issues.

Housing on the Hill is among the worst of New H aven. Many people are homeless or in unhealthy conditions.

The stately homes throughout the neighborhood have lost their grace.

Now they might house three or four families. Landlords a llow houses to deteriorate; most do not live in their buildings. Yards are unkempt and littered; the paint is dull , chipped and thin. Lattice and shutters are broken.

The problem, Liz says, is "economic drain:" once people make money, they leave. Virtually no one on th e H ill has funds to maintain o r refurbish the old houses .

Yale owns a lot of real estate on the Hill; "In the 1930s it was a slum landlord," Liz says. People resent Yale because it does not pay taxes and because it has a history of buying land and doing nothing with it for a long time. "The medical center stands where St. John's Cathedral used to be," Liz explains. "Yale bought it, tore it down, and built nothing for years.

Some people are still angry about that.

One woman on the Hill has an expression for Yale: she calls it an 'octopus' because it reaches out and grabs land all around it."

Fourteen percent of the housing is vacant. Next to the run-down 20th Century Garage a house stands boarded up. Its porch columns are askew, and the stoop has been k icked in and made a dump for bottles and bags. T he vacant houses are inevitably the site for vagrancy and arson. C ity k ids and landlords seeking insurance money are mainly responsible for the fires.

Across the street stands the shell of a Victorian-style house. But high up on the front wall, an elegant, oval window remains intact, as if it were a special symbol of neighborhood ¡ pride. Next door is a row of uniform, stocky new houses. A woman is shaking a red mat out one of the doors. A young blond boy r ides his minibike around and around the block. Federally-subsidized housing- Section 8, it is called- is bein g constructed throughout the Hill.

They are two-story, tan-colored complexes. They are inexpensive, and waiting lists are long.

A victimized neighborhood As we drive along Congress Avenue, I see a group of six or seven black men lined up in front of a store. They stare into the car. They are not talking or doing anything in particular, just standing, just leaning against the walls. I see group after group like this the entire length of the street.

The streets of the Hill are the ground for an acute drug problem.

Last April 1 the police arrested 45 people in a raid that cleared it up somewhat. Lights were then installed over the main roads, but the effect was mainly to push the drug-dealing and related cr ime into side streets and other neighborhoods. "People on the Hill are frightened, and the neighborhood is the victim," Liz says.

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"But the people living here are less afraid than outsiders,'' Liz says.

"Sometimes our fears come from what we don't know." She tells us about an elderly, Irish Catholic woman who grew up on the Hill and who now is unemployed. "She's a gutsy lady. She's a person who likes people, and she's proud of the Hill . She loves showing you the good side. She told me, 'We have to pick up and care.'" I ask Liz how this woman can still have pride in this degenerated neighborhood: "Well, there's something about being somewhere all your life. Going to the same stores you wept to as a kid. There's a character to the n~ighborhood that still exists, despite the cha n ges."

Seeing the bad and the hopeful in the neighborhood has inspired Liz. "I have a tendency to fall in love with ugly cities," she laughs. She spent much time involved with th e Presbyterian C hurch as she grew up in Baltimore.

"When you're a minister's kid, you've got to be active in the church," she says. Throug h the church she first ¡became interested and involved in urban social work. "I see the gospel as a call to living a lifestyle in solidarity with people struggling to meet daily needs," she says.

But Liz does not want to be ordained. "I am angry ~ith the church," she says, "angry at what I see as inaction. I won't deny the service of pastoral ministry. But I feel the church isn't addressing peoples' needs as it sho uld be. You have to empower the poor to help themselves, and churches aren't doing that enough . And it's very human to tu rn our backs because it's painful to see. But as Christians, a nd as human beings, we are called to d o something, because the dignity of every individual is involved. We have to look, even when it hurts to look."

A nd so the tour brings people face to face with poverty.

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\8 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

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Bright spots stand out in this decrepit neighborhood. The concrete of Lee High School is monotonous a nd desolate, but driving past it, we see all of a sudden a brilliantly-colo red mural covering one long wall. It tells the story of a mass of people, mostly black men and women. The mural starts with a row of broken -down city buildings m a rked "CONDEMNED." The windows ar~ shatte red, and black smoke

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RICHTER'S

The Taft Tap Room 20 The New Journal/Febru ary 25, 1983

LONG WHARF THEATRE STUDENT RUSH TICKETS: and brilliant orange flames shoot o ut from them. A m a n , in color as o range as the flames, rages next to the buildings, restraining a viole nt m ob.

Next to him stretch a rainbow and a smiling man reaching toward three symbols-a pencil, a hammer and a book.

Driving through the Hill, we pass many store-fronts colorfully painted with murals. A unicorn takes flight from a rainbow o n the front of a Mobil station. Across the street, larger-thanlife Disney characte rs play across the walls of the· 6 Corner Lunch. One wall reads, "EAT HERE" in big, black letters. The door opens, and the brawny, Greek proprietor walks out with bags of Cheeze-Doodles for the two small boys playi.n g in the snow bank outside.

A minute later Nick, the owner's son , sticks his head out and calls to me, "Hey, do you want to come inside?"

The 6 Corner Lunch is empty, for it is an ofT-hour. Nick's family relaxes around a formica table. His sister is filling napkin dispensers. Nick's parents cam e to New Haven from Greece in 1923.

"When you're Greek, you work m the restaurant business."

"I know, I'm Greek." "'h yeah, what's your name?"

"Scobey; but my mother's Greek.

Her name is Kondochristos." "'h, yeah!"

"Can you speak Greek?"

"Sure" •Kali mn-a!"

As I left, they teased, "Did you ask her out, N ick? Did you ask her out?"

1 leave the Hill smiling. It's comforting to find some friendliness, something familiar in this ne ighborhood . It can seem so alien, although it is only a few blocks away. But I've left a bit of m yself behind, and I've taken a bit away. Now I might return.

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We pass through Elm Have n , a neighborhood of public housing built in the 1940s and 50s. Low-rise a nd high-rise brick buildings cover about six blocks.

On many, windows stand open or broken, and I know that a good number of these apartments are vacant. Liz says

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that ten to 15 percent are uninhabitable; they have no plumbing or electricity.

We drive along a block of one-story apartments. The tiny front yards are bald dirt, scattered with children's toys. Young black men and women stand in green-edged doorways or stare out of g reen-paned windows. The Dixwell area is the original black community in New Haven. Many came from the South. The neighborhood has not become mixed like the Hill , which incorporates Irish, Italians, Hispanics and blacks; Dixwell is 90 percent black. About 80 percent of Elm Haven is occupied by welfare mothers.

Empty lots break the monotonous line of brick buildings. I n one, paper bags and cans roll with the wind.

Scraps are plastered and frozen to the ground. Driving out Dixwell Avenue we see empty houses and new houses, both boarded up against vagrants.

Some are scrawled over with graffiti. A large black woman stands on a porch, calling to her children down the street.

The house behind her is just a frame. I cannot imagine that she lives there.

P erhaps she lives next door, in an old, but warm-looking house, painted part yellow, part blue, part gray.

Further down the street, the shiny blue and white Olin Research Factory stands enclosed by a tall wire fence. In the back a re two steel factory buildings. Across the street the door of a neat, red-brick facade reads, "U.S. R epeating Arms, One Winchester Street;" it is the old Winchester rifle factory. Olin and U.S. Repeating Arms are major employers in New Haven; the Science Park project, coordinating Yale , the city and Olin, is attempting to revitalize industry in the Dixwcll area. It should improve Yale's relations with the poor around it.

Fair Haven Fair Haven's social problems are less severe than those in the two neighborhoods we've left. Set off by the river and the highway, it has resisted overcrowding because other neighborhoods cannot encroach. The Fair Haven community is mainly Italian, I rish and H ispanic. Liz says, "The Hispanics seem to be doing better than the blacks- perhaps because their skin is lighter, perhaps because they've been in New Haven a shorter time and are Jess cyn ical." Some store fronts along

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the main street are being renovated.

But many "For Rent" signs are up alongside.

The industrial area of Fair Haven next to the harbor is more run-down than the town center. Useless train tracks that met freight ships years ago trail down the streets. L ines of old warehouses, broken, boarded-up buildings, have bright signs. Evidently business goes on in this ghost-town.

Down the street, the wind whistles through a gingerbread-style factory, Brewery Sq.uare. A plaque above the entrance a rchway reads "1896." Above; a new green and yellow sign advertizes the refurbishing of the building.

Walking by the river, I look at a bulky paper bag by my feet; inside are the pieces of a wine bottle. Two young boys holding their fathers' hands pass me, chattering in Spanish. More Spanish voices com e to my ears from the playground across the street·: teenage boys are playing basketball.

The skyline behind them is an uneven iine of cra nes, oil tanks, chimneystacks, an I-95 overpass and a few trees. The smell of petroleum is foul. I head back to the car. Two Hispanic men drive by and leer at me. A girl walks past a nd smiles shyly.

Soon we're heading towards East Rock on Livingston Street. We drive by some of the loveliest homes in Connecticut-only a third of a mile from Elm H aven. The contrast is upsetting, but the tour has not called me to decry wealth, only to work as one with the poor, to strengthen the poor.

It all comes together at the top o f Ea!;t Rock. The city is tiny below. I cannot see the broken gtass and charred brick. I cannot discern ·dangerous from safe, poor from wealthy. It occurs to me that this is what I should see- a city as one community. With this in mind, I return to the streets below.

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Katherine Scobey, ajunior in Davenport, is a reguW.r contributor to TN.J.

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The Alternative Tour is given by appointment: contact Liz Shaw on weekday·afternoons at the Center for Hu man Rig hts and Economic Justice, 363 St. Ronan St. 436-2346.

The New Journal/February 25, 1983 23

Sports DASTOOB

Geoff Hayward

11

You have to wonder what sort of pervert thought it up."

â&#x20AC;˘Jt was pretty incredible. It may be one of my fondest memories of Yale; our big game was against Pierson last year. They had AI Daiman (who was at that time captain of Yale~ wattrpolo team and was a great polo player) and we had Mark Schoofs. We had lost one and they hadn't lost any. We were going into it all out. It was a tough game; we couldn't afford to substitute. They had us by three goals with two minutes left in the game . . . " I. A dirty "tube" schedule taped to the door assures me my pilgrimage is at an end. Somewhere beyond those two inches of Oak is a man they call Cur t Frueh-pronounced "Kirt Free." The name has a Dick Tracy comic-book ring. It belongs to the tuber who now captains the Berkeley team that deflated Pierson in an all-time thriller final last year.

Captain Curt is not as large as I had expected- at most 165 pounds. As he relates the tale of Berkeley's triumph, his speech is slow and calculating. His large aquiline nose spews forth smoke

in two steady, powerful jets. I place him somewhere between Humphrey Bogart and Sylvester Stallone. But then the lighting isn't so good.

Frueh must fill the tube left by last year's legendary captain Joan Rabbits (a woman whose habit of "face lifting" opponents won her recognition as THE CLAW.) Many think he's done it. Berkeley, undefeated in over a year, is odds-on favorite to clinch the title again this year. Ten wins, no losses, no draws and no prisoners; it's an awesome record.

But what is even more awesome is that it belongs to Berkeley. This is a college which has traditionally been in the cellar of virtuaJiy every intramural sport. How is it that Berkeley has come to dominate the inner tube circuit? Intramural director, Ed Mockus could only guess at an explanation, "Maybe these are just the sort of people who are going to do well at this sport."

Berkeley coach Mike Sullivan (also captain-elect of Yale's men's water polo team) explains his side of it, "With other colleges being so good at so many

"Water Is the great equalizer ... " 24 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

design, Tom McQuillen

Super-tuber Curt Frueh takes aim· other sports, and Berkeley not being ~ood ... it's as if we're the ugly duckhogs of sports. It's something to really be proud of that we're good in Inner Tube Water Polo. People take it seriously."

People haven't always taken ITWP so seriously, though, and many stilJ hold prejudices against the sport. "I thought of it as a complete wimp-out sport," admits one varsity crew athlete, "parallel to co-ed touch. You know, smaJI, fat people desperate to get on a'!Y intramural team. Populated by pallid-faced, calculator-toting, pre· meds looking to round out their resumes . . . " . Not only was the sport's legitimacy an ~uestion, but a lot of people thought of tt as some perverted aquatic orgy.

"What an awful game," said Tom Farrell, a philosophy major studying ethics. "You have to wonder what sort of pervert thought it up." A junior in T.O. was less moralistic. "I saw it as a chance to live out my mud wrestling fantasies."

And for many uninitiates, the con· cept of ITWP still conjures an unusual m1x of fascination anci revulsion.

When Mockus proposed the game in 1980, it was over cries of protest from administrators who felt that any co-ed game played in inner tubes was "not a YaJ_e. sport." And when I proposed wntmg an article on the sport, it was to a chorus of jokes about rubber caps, getting wet and scoring. My proposal ~ways appeared at the bottom of story hsts under headings like "Inner Tube Water Orgies," or "Inner Tube Sex,"

and finally under the none-too-subtle header, "Water Sex." Frueh is aware of these fanciful myths about ITWP, and admits to having believed in them himself.

"Yeah, last year it struck me, too. Inner tube water polo? WHAT? It sounds ridiculous- sounds absolutely n"diculous! But it's a real spor t with real field positioning and conditioning, speed a nd q u ickness: all those things that make for a very tough team sport."

Not only is ITWP tough, it is perhaps the most vigorously battled spor t on the intramural scene. Both Berkeley and Branford accuse other colleges of photographing key plays in their games. There's a well substantiated rumor that T.D. secretly video-taped an opposing team's game in order to pinpoint weak spots. Branford cooly

cut the old and the weak from its streamlined six tube machine. The Pierson team has its own set of "designer tubes," and Berkeley's looking at getting specially designed swim caps.

It's not a game where courtesy, mild manners or the ~ial graces are going to get you very far.

Though the first ITWP regular season was only last year, the origins of the game are shrouded in mystery.

Mockus speculates that the game may have originated somewhere in the Mid-West, but admits the trail is faint.

He remembers taking the rules from some old journal which has since disappeared. And so, the first man or woman to connect the scerninl{ly disparate concepts of inner tube and water polo, like the inventor of the

wheel, must remam forever anonymous.

II. Stuffing my clothes in my third floor locker in Payne W hitney, I head out to play my first game. I look up at the rows of stern-faced Yale men who line the hallway. They seem to look scornfully down o n me a nd my Speedo.

NOT a Yale sport, they all seem to say in unison. I parry w ith a defiant gesture.

It's a game of self-exposure. No J-P ress cotton comes between the world and your acne problem. Even your tinted Clearasil washes off in the pre-game shower. It's just six men, six women, a dozen tubes ofT a Mack truck and an unvarnished lust for victory.

You have to get there early if you want to round up a good tube. You want one that doesn't leak, big enough to comfortably englobe your rear end.

If the tube is too big you11 slip too deep in the water and increase water resistance; if it's too small, you'll be top heavy and easy to capsize. Ideally, you want one with a valve that won't leave a permanent scar on your side.

T h ree men and three women make up a team, but many colleges have second lines to replace failing starters.

They sit back in tubes about a yard in d iameter and propel themselves backwards, paddling with alternating arms and using either the "eggbeater" kick tech nique or the more traditional "flutter." Either way, you're not going anywhere particularly quickly.

The New Journal/February 25, 1983 25

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Frueh's 12 years of compettttve swimming have left him the fastest tuber on the water (in the opinion of veteran referee Jamie Kavanaugh).

Going fu ll paddle, Frueh has been clocked at speeds in excess of two miles an hour, and could probably do 25 yards in as many seconds. Not pushing the sound barrier, but considering all the water resistance and "tail-drag" involved, he's in a league all by himself.

5 Tower of Power 6 Manyard

Ferauson 7 Ten Years After with Alvin Lee 8 The Members 14 Lene Lovlch

I am about to interview Jim Celone, captain of Branford's so far undefeated team; a team likely to meet Berkeley in the finals. Branford has a reputation for hard-hitting play, and the reputation is not undeserved .

At the top of an endless spiral of stairs a Michelob Beer memo-board confronts me with big black-lettered words "ALL PLAY + NO WORK." The room is furnished in hard core jock. Jim hovers over a color television set, embroiled in a video-game. A green football shirt with team name "BRANFORD" and a large number 1 drapes a muscular frame. A necklace of black beads grips a thick neck.

Meeting the mastermind behind the biggest and baddest team in the inner tube circuit is like confronting Mr. T .

TNJ: So, what's the key to Branford's success?

JC: I guess it'd be our women. We have some excellent women. [Celone relaxes his grip on the video joy stick, and adds significantly,] And we have a unique strategy which I am not going to divulge.

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TNJ: How about raw aggression?

JC: Oh, we're pretty aggressive. I mean, we're going to play to win at just about all costs. And a couple of our players are a little bit more aggressive than they should be, but it doesn't seem to affect the outcome of the game .

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TOAD'S WATERBURY 26 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

T NJ: I nner tube water polo has a n interesting reputation- somewhat kinky , somewhat perverted. Is that a deserved reputation?

J C: Yeah defi-nitely. Oh, definitely deserved . it's a great sport. I mean

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once you've p layed , you're hooked. It's sort o f like a cult spor t, you can really get hooked on it. Water is the great equalizer a n d everyone can have fun .. . T hat's why I enjoy it.

TNJ : Do you actively recruit?

J C: Yeah, we have. We had to cut this yea r . A n umber of p eople signed up. T hen, we looked them over and cut the ones who [he clears his throat) were not going to be beneficial to our team .

TNJ: Must have been a hard decision.

J C: Well , you know, there are other spo rts they can play.

T NJ: So, how are you going to train for the big game?

J C: Well, we're going to get plenty of sleep, eat right, and at seven o'clock in t~~ morning we'll be at the gym practlcmg . . . .

IV . ~ater, alone in the exhibition pool, I

back in my tube and try to think of all the men and women who died to pu ~ me there. I realize there is a very sen ous side to inner tube water polo.

Pe rha ps E d Mockus said it best: "It's like Dr. J ekyll and Mr. H yde. They're cal~ , sane, normal people when they go m, and next thing you know they've gone absolutely crazy." I recall some of the horrors I've seen. Women- membe rs of my own team- savagely thrusting an opponen t's head in to the Wa ter . Men- members of the other Sit

team - irreverently clim b ing o n ou r women as thou gh they were so ma n y fl oating corpses. O u t in th e real world such thi ngs a re u n thin kable, but he re amidst th at pungent odor o f chlo rine, it all seem s stra ngely normal.

I remember how they ex pla ined it at the philosop hy table. "The tu be is a womb substitute. Half-in a nd h alf out of the water, the ITWP p layer relives the birt h struggle." I t h ad seem ed so obvious th en, but as I lie b ack on this big black rubbe r don ut, th e theories are not enough. My tube ch ar ts an aimless course, and I think b ack to how .Curt Frueh had descr ibed that histo ric ending to the 1982 finals; how the ugly ducklings paddled their way to the first title of in tramurals' hottest winter sport. ". . . So the rif called him on a foul, he was inside the two meter line, two meters from the goal. Mark took the shot and we were down by a point with 30-45 seconds lift to play.

We get the ball out- they steal it! A l Daiman has a clear shot on goal and tries for a looping polo shot, but Kathryn was expecting it. She blocks it, passes it out to me and I look down court and there were M ik£ and Mark, our two best players siuing nght in front of the goal. It went to overtime and Mike Sullivan scored the winner."

A few h o u rs and m an y pitchers la te r at Naples, ITWP had been carved in to a Tong fist o l Yale traditions.

•

Geoff Hayward, a senior in J.Javenport, is coach qf T N. T innertube water/Jolo team.

The New J o urnal/ February 25 , 1983 27

...

Theatre A Ben Franklin in blue jeans

Laura Pappano

An old green bakery truck drives up, and Ed Meyer steps out with the hardware for the next show.

) I

I

Ed Meyer For about 15 dollars a week you can fill your room with bubbles, float a layer o f fog above your desk or shoot cobwebs over the boxes in Yale Station. A 51-year-old ma n with a gray ponytail named Ed Meyer will rent you the equipm ent. H e can also rent you spotlights, pipes, clamps, cables, gels, hats, doors a nd chandelie rs. For any conceivable event- from a H a lloween SAC party to a Bar Mitzvah to a n uncut Shakespeare-Meyer has the tinkertoys to pull it o ff.

Anyone who has worked in theatre at Yale has a t least heard of Ed Meyer and Stage Lighting R ental Services.

Everyone who has walked into a college show has seen his stock. And if you 're a lighting designer , his o ld green bakery truck is probably as fami liar as the family car. You can feel it coming; you can spot it a block away. Finally it drives up, and a softfeatured man with eyeglasses and a clipboard steps out. M eyer loo ks like Ben Frankhn with bluejeans. l-Ie's got the kind of slow and rolling voice that 28 The New Journal/ February 25, 1983

makes you calm down, and there's a precision in his style that somehow assures you the show will come together. H e thumbs through the yellow carbon invoices and finds your order: 50 lighting instruments, a power p ack and the hardware and countless odd-shaped pieces that make it a ll connect. A lot of equipment com es o ut of the green bakery truck when M eyer m akes his rounds\ but it is hardly a sampling of what remains in the SLRS warehouse.

A fun house The warehouse fits Meyer's character.

It's an inconspicuous, unassuming brick building set back from the road.

T here are no signs out front , no lights o r parking lots. Like Meyer, SLRS keeps a low profile. But o n the inside there's a fu ll-scale business in motion.

The cluttered warehouse doesn't seem to make any sense, but to Meyer's curious sense of o rder, everything has a place. There are 820 lights hangin~ in racks. They make up a third of the

~---------------,

I I I ~

warehouse alon e. Other racks hold fixtures and cables. The cement floor is covered with a dozen boxes filled with important-looking metal gadgets of m ysterious design. A crated chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and a couple of strobe lights rest half-hidden in the corner. It's a theatre pe rson's Fun House.

Besides Meyer, several other people work at S LRS. "J" Seaman manages the sh op, a nd D ean Clark makes most of the pick-ups and deliveries. Lenove Sha piro a nd Martha Lasko work as "Theatrical Equipment Service Technicians," which is a way o f saying that they fix the lights. When Clark backs up the service truck and fl ips open the doors, everyone helps unload.

One job is back, b u t another o n e has to go out in five m inutes. And there are two more deliveries to make in the afternoon. That's the way SLRS operates-two hours o f calm, then all at once the squ eeze is on. Quickly, Seaman pulls an armload of lights out of the truck.

"Wow, they're warm, they're warm."

Seaman's breath sh oots out like smoke into the cold air of the warehouse.

"Warm parcans!"

"Well, if they're warm, they don't belong here."

"Everything we do h ere we mark with colored tape."

"I n eed fifteen 50s."

"Where are the 50s living?"

"You're there."

"Okay, fifteen 25s?"

"They must have fifty-foot wrenches down there."

"Just step over the things instead of on them."

"We really need to get this place organized. It usually isn't like this."

C la rk slaps the d oor shut. Delivery time.

Ed Meyer rarely get to make deliveries anymore. H e has to spend most o f his time keeping track of all the paperwork for SLRS. H e works at home, a gray clapboard on Gilbert Avenue across town from the warehouse. Like the warehouse, M eyer's · office doesn't waste space.

There's a lot to look at , a lot to keep a tinkerer occupied. Art books, puzzles. toys, plants a nd a compute r terminal for recording the changing inventory.

And on the countertop, buried under register tape and paper scraps, sits a telephone. It rings every time you look at it. "I'm more organized than I look," says Meyer, "but I'm not as organized as I'd like to be."

From physics to the theatre Stage Lighting Rental Service hasn't always required so much organization.

Meyer took over th e business du ring his last year at th e Yale Drama School in 1968. He had o riginally set out on a different career. After graduating from Carnegie Tech in Philadelphia (now Carnegie Mellon Institute) with a B.S. in physics, he spent n ine years wr iting electronics manuals and doing theatre on the side. Although Meyer had been interested in theatre since high school, he studied physics because "nobod y bothered telling me it was possible to get into theatre. Besides, I think there would have been a major battle at home if I h ad dropped physics for theatre."

While writing electronics manuals, Meyer began putting more and more time into the technical end of theatre.

"It got to the point where I was spen ding more time on theatre th an on my job," says Meyer. After thinking it over, he moved from Long Island to New Haven and enrolled in the Technical Design and Lighting program at the Yale Drama School.

Before Meyer came to Yale and started his business, there was only a small lighting operation run by a handful of drama school students. The

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operation was low-key and served as a part-time job that was passed down from studen t to student. "I didn't get seriously involved with it until my last· year at the drama school," says Meyer.

"The person before me expanded it significantly. He purchased a lot of lights for the work he was doing with a ~ong Island theatre group. Then when he left, he needed to get his money back.

I h ad a little money saved up, so I took over part of it. The Council of Masters bought part of it, thinking they could save a lot of money. They stored their stock in the Payne-Whitney Gym. So I went my way. I did some business at Yale, but not very much. A year-anda-half later, I got a call from the Council of Masters. Nobody had done any maintenance on the equipment, and they ended up selling me the whole package. With it, I inherited the undergraduate business."

Yale shows account for 15 to 20 percent of Meyer's business. SLRS also lights and supplies high school shows, professional theatres, church events, parties and dance recitals. Meyer wrinkles his face when he comes to "dance recitals." "You can tell I'm not enthusiastic about dance recitals," he says. "Most of them don't have anyone dealing witla them who knows what's going on. Their feeling is"- Meyer's voice fl its into soprano range- '"If a ll . the daddies of all the little girls can come in and work for free, why can't you?'"

"A lot of our customers aren't trained," Meyer says. "In the normal sequence of events I will get a call saying, 'I need another somethingorother before the show goes up.' It would be nice if everyone were organized and it were warm all year long and there was snow on the hilltops for the skiers all at . the same time. But 'that's not the way thin gs are. When someone comes in

30 The New Journal/February 25, 1983

with little or no trammg, we try to push them in the right direction."

The personal touch Meyer makes it a point to provide his customers with personal service. He doesn'~ exac_tly have business hours.

He'll come over at 4 a.m. to fix a board or replace a bulb, if it's urgent. "I think there are two parts to this. First, I'm comin g into business h aving done some amateur theatre. There is also the idea that by p r oviding a little bit of service you have a business edge. And having been there, I know the problems that these people have."

Because business doesn't always go at the same pace during the year, there is often time for special projects. "This business has a tendency to have great peaks and valleys," Meyer explains. "If someone comes to us with a project during one of the valleys, we are very likely to get involved. It looks interesting, and •t keeps us doing something."

The doorbell rings, and the delivery man hands Meyer a box. Meyer sets it on the table and slices it open with a jackknife. In the box are six bottles filled with a green liquid that looks like herbal shampoo. " Liquid for. the fog machines," he says, lifting one of the bottles. Besides owning three fog machines, Meyer has cobweb machines, smokeboxes and flashboxes.

His automatic bubble machine produces500bubbles per mmute."She really puts out," he says.

"We have gotten some weird ones," Meyer recalls. "A private individual had the cobweb machine for a couple of days. Someone had been away for an extended period of time. His friends rented the cobweb spinner and cobwebbed his office." Meyer made the cobweb machine himself. He also made the flashboxes, smokeboxes and

"Theatre Is a microorganism. Once It gets Into your body, It doesn't get out."

other special effects for the shop.

"Some of the stuff we made because at the time it wasn't generally available," explains Meyer.

Aside from these specialty machines, Meyer has designed a number of fairly intricate lighting effects as well. This is the end of the business that really gets Meyer going. On a scrap of paper he makes a sketch as he describes his "starburst chase unit," a minor masterpiece of lighting technology.

Several years ago he began building "chase strips," which are rows of lights wired to give the appearance of the movement of light along a line. Meyer has produced several versions of the chase strip. In some, lights will ripple and then bounce back, or chase a black spot down a row of lights, or add and subtract their way up and down a series of lights. He's even made one that can be controlled by a stereo system. "If the music is loud, it will go very fast," he explains, "and if it's soft, it will bounce back and forth lightly."

The chase strips are usually used with h is starburst unit. "It has the effect of a circle of light, expanding and contracting. It is like a propeller spinning."

Like so many of his ligh ting inventions, Ed Meyer keeps in constant motion. He is an integral part of a theatre world that never stops. "Theatre is a microorganism that, once it gets into your body, doesn't get out," he says.

Meyer stands up and moves around the room. He says he finds it hard to sit still for very long. "I think I get tired in a different way now, being in the office," he says, "If I had someone who was capable and I could trust, I would much rather be out at the warehouse making the deliveries myself."

But Meyer has no time auymore to putter around the shop building starburst chase sets and fog makers. Stage L ighting Rental Service, which only last month bough t out its only local competitor, will need more organization than ever. "I guess," he says, "the kind of th ing I've been doing all th e time is not the sort of thing you expect someone .my age to be doing."

•

Laura Pappano, a junior in Ezra Stiles, is a regular contributor to TN].

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