College News, 1941-12-03, Vol. 28, No. 10

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The College Mews
Z-615
VOL. XXVIII, No.  10
BRYN MAWR and WAYNE, PA., WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1941 ,    Br�p$$l T?u.tee. if41  PRICE 10 CENTS
KATHARINE McBRIDE NAMED NEW PRESIDENT
MacKinnon Lauds
McBride's Work
and Scholarship
Her Work in Psychology
Is a Standard in the
Special Field
Miss McBride, who is a native
Philadelphian, was born in Ger-
mantown, the daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Thomas C. McBride. She was
educated, at the Stevens School in
Germantown, and at the German-
town Friends' School.
As an undergraduate, Miss Mc-
Bride lived in Pern West. Her col-
lege friends report that she was
very quiet, friendly, with a strong
sense of humor. She was always
"good with people." According to
one of her friends�"in the twenty
years I have known her, she has
never gone off half-cocked. She
wasn't prudish, but she had a lot
of common sense."
After graduating cum laude from
Rryn Mawr in 1925, Miss McBride
engaged in research and clinical
psychology at Bryn Mawr, Colum-
bia and Philadelphia hospitals un-
der the grant of the Commonwealth
Fund. In 1935 she became a lec-
turer in the Department of Psy-
chology at Bryn Mawr and sub-
( outinued on  l'age  Four
Rhoads, Head of Board of Directors, Announces
The Trustees' Choice for Presidential  Position
Big May Day Decision
Will be Made Dec. 4
After   Hall Meetings
College    Tradition    Awaits
Decisive Freshman Vote �
On   Thursday
� The undergraduate vote on the
question of whether or not there
shall be a 1942 Big May Day will
be taken Thursday, December 4.
Voting will be preceded by hall
meetings in which the problem will
be presented and discussed.
Big May Day, a college tradition
with its origin in an Elizabethan
pageant presented in 1902 to raise
funds for college equipment, has
gradually grown into a gigantic
production of pageantry and plays
involving roughly a turnover of
from $9,000.00 to $25,000.00. Har-
monizing with the Tudor Gothic
architecture of the college it has
become associated with Bryn
Mawr. Since 1902 it has been
given every four years�with some
exceptions.
One such exception was 1940
when Big May Day came up for
the four yearly ratification and
was rejected because uncertainty
in foreign conditions made it im-
possible for the Board of Directors
to underwrite the undertaking.
Last winter the question was again
decided in the negative, partly be-
cause it was considered so late in
the year that it would have in-
volved violent adjustment of a
spring program already arranged.
At that time, however, it was
voted that the whole problem
Continued on Page Fiv�
Large Assembly
Applauds Choice
Appointee Praised as
Scholarly, Executive
At the year's most dramatic
chapel, Mr. Rhoads, President of
the Board of Directors, announced
the appointment of Miss Kathar-
ine McBride as new president of
the College. Faculty, graduates,
students gathered quickly, filling
Goodhart, to hear the announce-
ment, and the atmosphere was
tense, expectant.
There was sudden silence as
Miss Park, Mr. Rhoads, Mr. Cren-
shaw and representatives of the
students and alumnae mounted the
platform. And there was con-
trolled impatience, an undercur-
rent of whispering as Miss Park
began to speak.
"A useful president of a modern
college," she said, "is one of the
forces which steer the course and
frame the plans of the college, to-
gether with its trustees, its fac-
ulty, its alumnae and, increasingly,
its students. She must be far more
than just an executive officer.
Therefore, the choice of a new
president is important, even mo-
mentous."
The rising excitement culmin-
ated in applause when Mr. Rhoads
made the official announcement of
Miss McBride's appointment. Re-
I'oiitinucd on Pago Six
And Miss McBride Says   -   -   -   -
Tickets
Tickets for Vincent Shee-
an's lecture, The Answer
From the Far East, will be
on sale at the Publicity Office
all this week.
By Sally Matteson, '43
"Perhaps you have the wrong
person," said Miss McBride when I
saw her in her office at Radcliffe
last Saturday morning. She was
confused, she said, as to who was
really to be Bryn Mawr's future
president, for in the Boston Herald,
accompanying the front-page an-
nouncement of her appointment,
had been a picture of another
woman entirely.
But, in spite of these doubts, she
did seem to be pleased at the pros-
pect of coming to Bryn Mawr. The
faculty and students are what she
says she has always liked best
about the college and what she is
looking forward most to seeing
again. Much as she has learned to
like New England, two years in a
city, "where everyone builds his
house in everyone else's back yard,"
has made her welcome a return to
Bryn Mawr's spaciousness. Al-
though she is not coming here
officially until July, she hopes to be
able to visit once or twice in the
spring.
Until she can come here to talk
with Miss Park and learn in de-
tail    about    the   problems   which
face Bryn Mawr today, Miss Mc-
Bride said she could not specifically
define her hopes and aims for the
college. Bryn Mawr, she feels, has
always been right in maintaining
and emphasizing its academic
standards�"right in expecting high
scholarship as the norm."
The greatest hope Miss McBride
feels she can have as president is
to take some part in perpetuating
these standards.
The three-college co-operation be-
tween Haverford, Swarthmore and
Bryn Mawr, she said, sounds like
an excellent opportunity for "an
increase in resources and in scope
of study." She also approved of
the college's present program on
defense, which, she thinks, has
struck a good balance/: no reduction
in time given to study, but empha-
sis on defense cours/bs and discus-
sion groups in extra-curricular ac-
tivity. On account df this program
Miss McBride does' not advocate
Big May Day. "May Day is the
grandest thing Bryn Mawr does,"
but now is not the time for it,
"even as an expression of our as-
surance that the kind of work we
like will continue."

In spite of the excitement of the
new announcement, Miss McBride
seemed to be carrying on all her
routine activities as Dean of Rad-
cliffe. The outer office was hum-
ming, and the usual row of students
waited outside. But sitting in her
sunny office, the president-elect
seemed delighted to welcome some-
one from Bryn Mawr, and to hear
about the tense mass meeting and
the banners flying.
Miss McBride has found Rad-
cliffe like Bryn Mawr, especially in
the students' attitude.
At both colleges there is striking
independence. "Students, either
individually or in organizations, ex-
pect to make their own decisions
and do." Miss McBride sa:d she
believes in personal contact between
students and faculty, and is inter-
ested in the possibility of a reading
period at Bryn Mawr.
It was rumored that Miss Mc-
Bride likes to fish. When asked
where, she replied, "In the sea."
It is her omvsignificant "human in-
terest," she said.
Interviews'with undergraduates
in the waiting line showed that
Continued on Page Two
Forum's  Discussion
Of Press Censorship
Backed by Research
Comparison Cited in France's
And England's Censorship
In Wartime
The second Forum of this year,
the first ^to be sponsored by the
newly-formed Alliance, met in the
Common Room last Thursday. El-
len Stone, Nancy Chase, Polly Gra-
ham and .Mil a Eitingon spoke on
the U. S. Press in Wartime, and
their speeches were backed by the
added research of Barbara Hull,
Alice Crowder, Becky Robbins and
Gregor Armstrong.
Led by Ellen Stone the Forum
discussed presidential press confer-
ences, the work of the Committee
of Public Information in the last
war, censorship in France and Bri-
tain today, and the general atti-
tude toward censorship with speci-
al reference to Fortune'* article on
the subject. The consensus of
opinion was that democracy thrives
on free speech, the disadvantages
of which are outweighed by its
general good effect.
They realized, of course, that in
time of war certain technical in-
formation should be withheld. But
the enemy would have geographic
and population statistics as well as
really valuable information from
the Army and Navy manuals, and
news of troop movements is only
important when fresh. Moreover,
what the enemy does not know, it
is not going to rely on the press to
Continued on Page Three