It’s 1944 in our Look Back series, which is a significant
year for Stephens. This is the year the aviation flight program began and the
year the annual student designer fashion show started. The latter is
celebrating its 70th anniversary this weekend with three showings of
The Collections.
Neither is given much attention in the 1944 Stephensophia,
however.
We are told the aviation department has been expanded to include
flight training, ground school training and drafting for use in aviation
manufacturing plants, and that the program is sponsored by an advisory board
composed of the chief executives of the major airlines to assure girls that the
courses are providing real value.
History has proven the courses were, indeed, of value. One
student, a Francis Jenkins—who in 1944 represented the Ideal of Service—would
go on to be Francis Jenkins Holter, would go on to be employed as an
aeronautical engineer by North American Aviation in California and later an
engineer at Bendix Aerospace in Ann Arbor where she was the project engineer of
the Apollo lunar rover and a principle engineer on the Apollo lunar module for
the moon landing program.
Way to serve, Francis.
Among other notable 1944 graduates is Jean Clinton,
president of the Civic Association.
It’s fitting we recognize her this
week, as she would go on to be Jean Clinton Roeschlaub, a former Stephens
trustee and president of the AAB.
This weekend at Celebrate Stephens Reunion
Weekend, the Jean Clinton Roeschlaub ’44 Alumnae Service Award will be presented
to another outstanding alumna.
We’re told Jean, or “Clint” as she’s referred to, “has given
constant and devoted work. She is never too busy to be friendly. Her genial
‘hello’ and her amiable and contagious smile are known to everyone on campus.”
The 1944 Stephensophia is dedicated to the “Stephens of
today and to the Stephens of tomorrow; to the world of the present and to the
world of the future. Aided by expert craftsmen and guided by our Ten Ideals, we
have drawn our personal blueprints of the future. In doing so, we hope we have
contributed to those larger blueprints…the design for the Stephens of the
future and for the new order of the world of tomorrow. As Stephens women, we
look forward with courage and optimism.”
The war has
influenced clubs and classes at Stephens this year. We’re told the foreign
language division is growing and that the study of “foreign language is perhaps
more important today than at anytime in our history. Now that we realize that
our world is really a community of nations, either in war or in peace, we are
living closer to our neighbors in other continents.”
Guests visiting campus this year included Hilda Yen, a
leading Chinese American diplomat and aviator.
War has changed the way Social Studies is taught, as well. Program
head Dr. John A. Decker says: “In the past we have been especially concerned
with the national, state and local problems which young college-trained women
had to face as alert members of their home communities. Today horizons have
expanded. The social problems of American life can no longer be separated from
the problems of the international community. In harmony with the needs of a new
era, the Social Studies Division has been forced to enlarge its aims. Our goal
today is to train Stephens women for citizenship in the new world community.”
A new Army Anchor Brats club is formed for daughters of
military fathers, an organization that began at the University of Texas. The
German Club strives to promote a better understanding of the German culture
with post-war reconstruction in mind, and the senior class is selling war
stamps and hosting “singing suppers” to contribute to the War Peace
Organization’s efforts.
Perhaps the best summary of 1944 at Stephens is found in a message
from W.W. Charters, who is back from his work in Washington, D.C. He writes
from a letter written by a Canadian flight sergeant who crashed to his death in
action a year earlier.
The letter says: “If there is any message which the
coming generation should have from mine, let it be the message from us who have
fought and died to make future generations of human beings possible. Let the
message be this: ‘We have cleared the site and laid the foundation. You build.’”
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