1934
As few will recall, last month's column ended, even more confusedly than usual, with a cryptic question: Any spare cots, Ted? It ended that way because the Editor of the MAGAZINE — who has been out to get me and my fellow-paranoids for years - found it necessary, due to space limitations (ha!), to eliminate some pertinent paragraphs on Ted Gregory. Here they are now, and watch it, Charlie;
Director of Development at Quinnipiac College in Hamden, Conn., Ted recently contributed to "The New York University List of Books in Education" (Citation Press, N Y., 1968). What's that, you ask? The first book of its kind that I know of (as far as N.Y.U. is concerned), answers Ted, to list all current books in education covering all levels from elementary schools through college."
My efforts [Ted continues, in his letter of January 20] were confined to research m Admistration of Higher Education, part of a program leading to a Certfficate of Advanced Study in Education from N.Y.U. awarded to me in 1967. Each book listed m this big volume is briefed, and therein lay the heavy work. It was fascinating, however, to know tne myriad of divergent opinion.
I sometimes wonder what I am doing as Development Director at Quinnipiac. We are building a new college and hopefully, one of quality. Raising funds in the shadow of Yale is not easy, but we are managing to do plenty and we think we will survive.
The world wags very well with me. Our five children make us proud to be parents, and two grandchildren make us realize that we are much too young to be grandparents. We have recently built a log cabin in New Hampshire, where we retreat from the hectic.
Whatever turns you on, Ted. For Tomand Mary Beers, it's Antigua. "The weather was great [Tom wrote on March 24, on their return from 'two wonderful weeks'] and we got in a lot of golf, skin diving, and rum sopping. It rained four times, all at night, and this is essential for there is no source of fresh water available on the Island, at least in the Mill Reef Club. Even though we knew of the water problem, it was surprising to walk into the bathroom and see a sign on the wall - 'Save water, shower with a friend.' We had a great time and can't wait to go back."
Alan Hewitt had an almost equally impelling reason to go back - not to Antigua, but to Hollywood: a featured role in a new Disney movie, which began shooting in March. Alan appeared most recently in "The Brotherhood," while his voice was blanketing the country on behalf of some "impossible cigarette." Back in January, he was interviewed for "The Rampage," a weekly published by Southern Regional High School (Manahawkin, N. J.). The interviewer (a daughter of mine, Susanna) describes "the youngest man in the Dartmouth class of '34" as "a tall, attractive man with a commanding voice" who "finds poor scripts the most challenging aspect of acting."
Alan Hewitt's advice to would-be actors [the interview concluded] is for them to "try to overcome their interest in acting and go into something else. Most actors are waiting for the phone to ring, that's why I can't encourage young people to go into the theater." Would you do it all over again? "I would rather have done something else." Mr. Hewitt said that he had always been interested in music and that if he had had the talent would have liked to become a symphony director.
Conceivably, A.E.H. '34 has now run into Al Baldwin, who was reported by Chuck Cotsworth on March 21 as "visiting rain-swept California; we had a good luncheon visit." Chuck, vice-president of Fireman's Fund American Insurance Companies (San Francisco), reports his outfit is now a subsidiary of American Express - and "who is my new boss but Rollie Morton's big brother Bill '32?"
Further news from California: Bill Adams has moved from La Jolla to nearby San Diego, and has apparently made a new business connection - Phillips-Ramsey, Inc., an advertising and public-relations firm.
From Chicago, we have word that BobEngelman, executive v-p of Spiegel, Inc., has been elected treasurer of the Community Fund. And from upstate New York, under a you've-got-to-be-kidding headline ("Junior College Names 2 Albanians"), the "Times Union" reports Bill Barnet has been named to the operating board of Junior College of Albany (N. Y,), a two-year co-educational "division" of Russell Sage College.
Time now - and possibly even space — for some as-promised quotes from the highly informative letter Fran Ford dispatched from Watchung, N. J., in mid-February:
The latest news about Les Lummis is that he is still in Vietnam and has married [November '68] a Vietnamese girl named Nhung, but has given up his plans to organize a Vienamese Children's Relief Fund. I wrote him last May on behalf of the Alumni Fund, having read a story about him in the MAGAZINE. He rewarded me with a generous contribution to the Fund and a letter outlining his plans for Children's Relief. I replied to Lummis, offering some suggestions that I had obtained from the American Friends Service Committee... . However, I heard no more from Les, and so recently inquired of his mother who said that he gave up the Relief Fund for lack of support. He apparently has an apartment in Saigon but also spends some time at Cam Ranh Bay.
As for myself, for several years now I've been a consultant on rubber and petrochemicals, chiefly concerned with preparation of technical talks and publications in those fields. My wife has a similar job. Other interests in common include our two kids, gardening, Unitarian affairs, civil rights activities, and regional, national, and foreign affairs - working with such groups as SANE. League of Women Voters, McCarthy Volunteers, etc.
Fran goes on to wonder if alumni like ourselves, "as a particularly privileged group," don't "owe a little extra to society." Your Secretary thinks we do, but believes that ways and means of paying what we "owe" must remain a matter of individual option. One way is indicated by Fran himself, in his work for last year's Fund. This year's Fund seems entitled to even wider support. It will have mine - on time, Gail, for once! - and I hope that others who, like me, have "passed" now and again since 1934, will rejoin the group this year.
The need for educated, dedicated men has rarely been greater. This, I suspect, was one reason prompting Fritz Mosher to write his latest book. Herewith the first of two excerpts from his resume for this column:
"Democracy and the Public Service" is a series of essays based upon lectures I delivered at Syracuse University in the summer of 1967. Its focus is upon the appointive officials and employees who work for governments in this country at all levels, and the problems they pose for the ideals and the practices we associate with democracy. I start from two propositions, which seem to me self-evident: first, that governmental decisions have tremendous influence upon the nature and the development of our society; and second, the bulk of those decisions is determined or significantly influenced by administrative personnel who are appointed, not elected, and most of whom are protected by some system of tenure against arbitrary, or political, removal. How do we assure ourselves that such personnel, and particularly those in leadership positions, will be truly responsible and responsive to the rapidly changing needs and wishes of the whole people?
One chapter undertakes to illuminate the evolution of premises and ideology about the public service in America, a set of ideas still commonly held which are altogether indigenous and unique in the world. With the changing nature of our society, its educational system, its occupational structure, and the explosion of scope and problems faced by governments, some of these ideas have become irrelevant or downright inaccurate; they provide a pretty cumbersome baggage to carry into the last third of the twentieth century. Some examples are: the idea that policy can and should be separated from administration; or that personnel decisions should .be removed from the control of politically responsible officers; or that government work is basically simple (the proportion of professionally educated people employed by governments is more than three times the proportion in the private sector); or that entrance and advancement should be determined on the basis of competitive written examinations (such examinations have been abandoned for most professional fields in the more progressive jurisdictions including the national government) .
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