Spring 2008 Volume 104 Issue 2 : letters
Another Vassar Vet's Perspective
Ralph LoCascio’s ’50 novel Vassar Outlander [“Books Noted,” Fall 2007] is clearly one man’s perspective, and it is unlikely it represents some sort of generic Vassar Vet’s view, I think. It certainly was mostly not mine; although an occasional detail reminded me of some personal observations, such as the clear hostility of some of the older faculty in psychology to males, but not the younger and probably untenured. Some Vassar faculty welcomed the male perspective, and if we want to comment on the positive I could mention many such faculty: Frances Foster, Anne Kendall Scowcroft, and John Christie in English; Maud Makemson in astronomy; Gordon Post in political science; Catherine Wolkonsky in Russian; and Edna MacMahon in economics. Some other women were uncomfortable with the men, and some could not make eye contact with a male in class. A small number of closeted gay men on the faculty were confused about their responses. It was, after all, the ’40s and long before Stonewall.
However, Ralph’s individual response to the Vassar academic world was probably being at least partially replicated in colleges across the country as the G.I. Bill took in masses of World War II veterans who had never dreamed of college, nor been prepared for it in their secondary schools. Both colleges and the veterans were under this unexpected pressure.
I believe it was heightened at Vassar in the ’40s by the fact that some women students at the time were also guilty of stereotyping some of the men, either because of class perspective or because of the somewhat sheltered life of the all-girl boarding or WASP prep school at that time experienced by many of the traditional women students. There was clearly a cultural shock, exacerbated on both sides by stereotyping.
There were, of course, different stresses for the veterans who had either had some college experience before or during service or who had prepared themselves with college prep programs in their secondary education. Returning to the role of student after the sobering adult experiences of war, death, and destruction was clearly personally disturbing at times. Higher educations, however, did not present such a foreign experience for these men and a few women since there were — mostly unnoticed — women vets at Vassar during the 1946 to 1950 period. Some faculty, like Ida Treat Bergeret, encouraged both male and female students to recognize the importance of the particular wartime experiences, as well as the values of the varied cultural understandings/expectations that could be brought to the campus and one’s education.
Ralph’s research has been thorough and accurate concerning the general times and the Vassar events as recorded in the archives and elsewhere. He makes some interesting connections to Vassar and the times. You can see the scholarly evidence of the academic approach to his doctoral field of clinical psychology. He certainly communicates effectively the pain and frustrations of living with the kind of bigotry that he describes. One must admire that skill at local color.
However, I guess my prime response to Ralph’s novel is to repeat that it was one man’s life, college, and otherwise, just as every war is one man’s war, even though battles are fought by multitudes. Think Red Badge of Courage.
Howard Winn ’50
Poughkeepsie, New York