It’s 1946, the “age of science” and the Stephens College
yearbook is dedicated to “the discoverers and users of knowledge in the interest
of human betterment.”
The Stephensophia staff in its foreward writes: “On every
hand we see its effects in terms of new inventions, improved methods of
transportation, increased comforts of living, but to what extent has the ‘method
of science’ been adopted in approaching the problems of social life, the
problems of education, the problems of politics, the problems of peace? In the
presentation of this book, we profoundly hope that this generation will attack
the critical problems of the world with scientific understanding and with
objective and impartial judgment.”
President James Madison Wood also explores the question of
science, writing that the “human personality is the center fact in all
creation.” He questions what the role of science is in the education and lives
of men and women.
And W.W. Charters—in what’s become an annual somewhat somber
address to students—writes: “for a quarter of a century Stephens has
conscientiously sought to use reason and science in attacking all its problems.
It has been alert to improvement in all areas. It has investigated, collected
facts, tried out ideas and adopted those which were found to be good. In such
an atmosphere it is inevitable that Stephens students should learn to apply
scientific methods to solving their own problems. Instead of settling matters
by relying on their prejudices and emotions, they learn to be more objective,
to become more detached, to gather more useful facts, and try out things to see
if they will work. They become thoughtful rather than irresponsible women. They
develop quiet assurance because they have thought things through. Never in the
recorded history of civilization has it been so important as in these years for
women citizens to be trained in the scientific method, to investigate the
complex problems of the world and use their reasoning powers to arrive at
honest, intelligent and well-founded convictions.”
Harvey Walter, who served as director of admissions and was
associated with Stephens for more than 30 years, has died. We’re told he played
an important role in establishing the Stephens stables, introducing the aviation
program and organizing the college store. Today, Walter Hall stands in his
honor.
The Home and Family Division at Stephens has a new
dressmaking shop and is developing a three-year plan to prepare students to
enter the field of fashion design.
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| Diana Gould |
Diana Gould is senior class president this year and writes: “We
must develop ours sense of values, our powers of independent judgment…life has
no ultimate graduation. We must prove continuously that we have attained the real
goal which Stephens has set before us, that we have learned the values, the
methods of living that underlie successful, cultured womanhood.”
If the name sounds familiar, Diana Gould is now Diana Gould
Coleman and was pictured in the Spring/Summer issue of Beyond Stephens.
The Foreign Relations Club continues to bring big names to
campus. This year, it hosted New York Times reporters Harrison Foreman and
Walter Duranty, the latter of whom was a Pulitzer Prize winner.
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| Bettye Maxwell |
Clubs continue to expand on campus with the addition of
Orchesis, an honorary modern dance group, and a Campus Photo Staff made up of
hobby photographers this year. The World
Peace Organization also remains active, managing the sale of bonds and stamps
in connection with the National Victory Loan.
The Best Private Citizen this year is Bettye Maxwell, and it’s
a fitting title. She would go on to become Bettye Krolick, an accomplished
musician who volunteered as a Braille transcriber and would go on to become
President of the National Braille Association and author of the first International
Braille Music Dictionary for the Library of Congress.
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| Jeanne Shepard |
And Jeanne Shepard is Civic Association President. She’d go
on to be Jeanne Vance, a longtime English teacher.
The 1946 Stephensophia for the first time in years includes
a section of drawings and stories from students—mostly memories of the year on
campus, from arriving on the train, to the first formal dinner to more specific
memories such as burst pipes producing a “geyser at the intersection of College
and Broadway.”
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