Administration Checks Fraternities While Recognizing Their Importance

Within the Arts college proper, considerable study of the possibility of inaugurating a General Education-type program for liberal arts students has been going on for a year or so under the director of Dean Paul M. O'Leary.

But O'Leary emphasizes that he does not regard the setting up of a program of special freshman and sophomore courses are necessarily the only or even the best solution to the problem of a liberal education. The Cornell examination of General Education, he explains, casts some doubt on the wisdom of establishing special courses which students must take in their first years in college, when they may not be properly prepared to deal with ideas on a high level.

Actually a general synthesizing course to be, taken in the junior or even the senior year might be a far more effective means of leading students toward liberal education, he says. Such a course would be a "drawing together of the threads of thought", as O'Leary phrases it, a study of ideas that students have acquired in their earlier years of more specialized training.

At present, the Arts college relies chiefly on carefully worked out distribution requirements within already existing general courses.

As at all large universities, student-faculty relationships in many of Cornell's undergraduate divisions tend to be on the remote side. Cornell has its full quota of outstanding faculty members, with reputations extending far beyond the college community, like government professor Robert E. Cushman, a leading authority in the field of civil rights, famed physicist Hans Bethe, and philosopher Max Black. Although many of these men may give the large introductory courses and try to make themselves accessible to students, the average student is likely to hold them too much in awe, especially in his early years, to approach them readily.

Probably this impersonality between student and lecturer is not carried as far at Cornell as at some other schools of comparable size, notably, Harvard. Many lecturers, even in elementary courses, make a point of giving a number of sections themselves. Of course, it is impossible to reach a large number of students in this fashion, but any contact, no matter how small, is presumably better than none at all.

Need for Intellectual Stimulation

In general, however, there appears to be less of what might be called conscious intellectual striving on the part of the Cornell student body, even in the Arts college, as compared with its Harvard counterpart. There is, to be as a means of gaining entrance to graduate school, but not so much on intellectual achievement for its own sake. Certain voluntary associations of students in cooperative houses, notably the Telluride Association, do emphasize intellectual ability in choosing their members and attempt to offer intellectually minded students an atmosphere of stimulation. But the existence of these groups is in itself perhaps a sign that such an atmosphere is not wide-spread in the student body at large.

One Cornell instructor, who formerly taught at Harvard, emphasized the willingness of Cornell students to join in classroom discussion, a quality he found somewhat lacking at Harvard because of "inhibitions" produced by the dominance of the lecture system. While admitting that Cornell students often lack the secondary school background and the outward air of sophistication of Harvard undergraduates, he felt that the open-mindedness and "eagerness to learn" of most Cornell students provided a balance.

In a number of ways, Cornell men seem rather less tradition-bound than students at certain of the other Ivy League schools, although individuals, of course, vary widely.

While most Cornell undergraduates are distinctly conscious of the fact that they are college students and hence feel they are expected to act a certain general part, they are perhaps less concerned with how a "Cornell man" specifically should act.

Many are individualistic and non-conformist by temperament, but they are not likely to be belligerently so. While they may feel the need to cultivate an indifference to certain things (most freshmen apparently never put their "dinks" on, once freshman camp is over), they are less likely to make the art of indifference a study in itself. And while they may vent their scorn verbally on hapless little Ithaca College in the town below them, they will probably not vent it on the world in general or on that portion of it unfortunate enough not to be attending Cornell.

In their social and extra-curricular life, Cornell students can be divided fairly readily into a few main groups. The most important of them are: boys and girls, fraternity men and independents.

Co-eds have been at Cornell almost since the beginning. Evidently Ezra Cornell an Andrew Dickson White had it in their heads all the time to admit women to study at their college, although they were afraid to ask the state legislature to charter a co-educational university--that sort of thing just wasn't done in the East at the time. At any rate, they were careful to see that the charter did not specifically forbid co-education.

Scholastically the girls do very well; since only a small percentage of the total number of applicants can be admitted, the admissions office can afford to be highly selective. The result is that the co-eds average three points or more above their male rivals on the Cornell marking system. That invaluable source of comparison, the former Harvard section man, even ventured to say that they are as smart as Radcliffe girls.

If the co-eds are successful scholastically, most of them do even better socially with an almost four to one ratio of boys to girls. While twenty or thirty years ago, the co-eds were held in considerable disesteem and Cornell men in a griping mood still occasionally exalt the merits of "imports" over the home-grown variety, the last real student resistance to co-education seems to have died out with the war.

In most extra-curricular activities girls are now accepted on an equal plane with men students. They serve in most campus organisations and in recent years have even stormed several traditional citadels of male supremacy--a girl has served as managing editor of the Cornell Daily Sun and this year a co-ed attained the ultimate in something by winning the post of sports editor of the Sun.

The presence of both fraternity men and independents in approximately equal numbers is the other major dividing line in the Cornell student body, but the campus atmosphere seems to be one of distinct "peaceful co-existence." Altogether there are approximately 55 or 60 fraternities at Cornell; there is some question as to what actually constitutes a fraternity, so estimates of their number vary.

Importance of Fraternities

At Cornell, there is at least one positive argument for fraternities--at present the University just does not have the dormitory space to house all is male students. Although several dormitories have been constructed and more will eventually be built, large numbers of students must still find living quarters elsewhere. Some room in private boarding houses around the town, but many find the fraternities the most convenient means of solving the problem.

In addition, food can be an expensive commodity if the student must eat his meals in Ithaca or in one of the University's large cafeterias. Even in the cafeterias, he must pay for his meals individually, since there is no contract rate. Thus board rates an be alarmingly high and cafeteria food can be alarmingly bad. Here again, students with an eye on both their pocketbooks and their digestive processes are likely to find the fraternities attractive.

The University places considerable emphasis on the importance of fraternities, grants them a large measure of independence, and deals with them chiefly through the agency of the strong Inter-Fraternity Council.

During the past school year, however, considerable controversy developed on the campus over the faculty suggestion that the fraternities stop rushing freshmen during the first weeks of school and defer their pledging program until the second term.

This eminently logical recommendation was strongly resisted by the fraternities, which claimed that their finances would suffer if they did not acquire new members early in the year. But the Board of Trustees approved the recommendation at a meeting last June and the fraternities accepted the decision with reasonable good grace, especially after the Trustee adopted a resolution which read in part:

"The Board reaffirms its faith in the vitally constructive services which fraternities perform in the Cornell community and is desirous in all its action to strengthen and broaden the effectiveness of the fraternities."

In spite of occasional difficulties, the fraternities do not exert a particularly oppressive influence on the college community as a whole. In fact, they probably figure very little in the thinking of the non-fraternity man. While it would be inaccurate to say that anyone who wants to can get into a fraternity--there are undoubtedly disappointments on the part of some students--the average independent is likely to be an independent by choice and is very largely indifferent to the whole fraternity system.

Spirit of Liberalism

To a steadily increasing extent, the University administration has attempted to maintain close contact with the student body by permitting students to serve in responsible capacities on various policy committees.

The main disciplinary body governing misconduct by undergraduate males, the recently created Mens' Judiciary Board, is entirely composed of students. Three students are non-voting consultants to the now appellate Faculty Committee on Student Conduct.

This effort to allow students a large measure of independence and some voice in University policy matters is one manifestation of a certain liberal attitude that has long been one of Cornell's outstanding characteristics. Extra Cornell and White showed another aspect of it when they struck at current tradition and prejudice by making their university one of the first non-sectarian colleges in the country.

Another manifestation is the striking autonomy of the various schools and colleges at the University and even of the departments within these schools. Yet another is the traditional freedom from University pressure and arbitrary control on which Cornell faculty members have long prided themselves.

Both faculty and students seem to have absorbed a large measure of this spirit. When a popular Cornell faculty member, Marcus Singer, was cited for contempt by a Congressional committee for refusing to name his associates in a pre-war Marxist study group at Harvard, both faculty and student groups defended him. The faculty of Arts and Sciences unanimously expressed its faith in his loyalty and the Student Council added its support for his moral position.

People at Cornell are fond of repeating a phrase, "freedom and responsibility," to sum up their ideal of the University. Unlike Harvard's "Veritas," this one is in English. But that is both understandable and appropriate. It is another sign that Cornell is young as great universities go.