Brown and White Vol. 51 no. 36

              latest draft rules dissolve quota vol li — no 36 lehigh to remain open despite draft president williams announces formation of committee to study program of contraction lehigh university will remain open and will continue to fulfill its contract obligations in spite of the drafting of civilian engineers ac cording to president williams in anticipation of just such a situation as has presented itself lehigh long ago began laying up a fund to carry the university over the re mainder of the war a curtailment of facilities here will be necessary but lehigh will definitely be open in july three deans on committee a committee composed of the deans of the three colleges has been if opposes dorm openings at a meeting held monday night interfraternity council went on record as opposing the general opening of dormitories before the existing fraternity houses still open have been filled sufficiently so that they may continue to exist in an active state the action was taken after dis cussion of the possibility that one or more of the newer dorms might be opened at the beginning of the next semester to house the incom ing men and those men already here that are living in off campus fraternity houses it was pointed out that the fraternities could not weather the storm of decreased enrollment as well as the univer sity mention was made of the fact that normally the fraternities carry more than 50 per cent of the student enrollment in their houses and it was they who gave lehigh the possibility of increasing its student enrollment from 600 to 1600 in the past years the fact was made clear that it would be to the university's advantage to keep as many as possible of the off campus houses open in antici pation of the mass return of stu dents to the university after the war considering a program of contrac tion to be presented to the univer sity board of trustees it is felt in some campus circles that lehigh should padlock its doors hire one or two policemen and janitors and sit back and add up interest from its endowment officially an en tirely opposite attitude in regard to the problem is taken lehigh has many obligations to carry out obligations even more important in war than in peace every bit as important as the army contract are the industrial research projects being carried on in the universi ty's scientific laboratories this in the face of the fact that in spite of similar conditions neigh boring institutions less richly en dowed and without the reputation that this university enjoys con tinue to admit students and carry out there other functions as cen ters of learning would seem to make this decision inevitable as yet there is no legislation or little likelihood of there being any that would force college men who are 4-f to accept jobs in essential industry these men will be able to continue here at lehigh there is a strong possibility that a larger quota of army reservists will be assigned here for the july cycle in regard to the assignment of army reservists senator burnet r maybank of south carolina re vealed after conferences with war department officials thursday the priority of such assignments continued on page 5 by jack carroll the following telegram was received saturday morning by dr c c williams president of lehigh university and seems to clarify for once and for all the draft status of engineering students regret to advise that deferment of college students in the fields of engineering physics chemistry geology and geophysics under quota system has been rescinded by selective service local board memor andum 115 issued in revised form april 4 1944 question of continued deferment for students who can graduate before july 1 1944 and for pre professional students in medicine dentistry osteopathy veterinary medicine and theology now being considered will advise you in full detail as soon as final decision becomes known to us leonard carmichael director national roster of scien tific and specialized personnel eighty-one lehigh engineers only recently deferred under rec ommendation of the war man power commission are now sub ject to draft call and may expect to enter the armed services in the near future the news of this startling re versal of selective service policy came to lehigh saturday morning in the form of a telegram from leonard carmichael president of tufts college and director of the national roster of scientific and specialized personnel to dr wil liams local draft boards through out the country will soon be in formed of this change in the status of engineering students by a se lective service memorandum is sued on april 4 the future of seniors scheduled to be graduated in june is still in doubt as is that of pre-profession al students there is however no question about the future of other men in good physical condition and of draft age according to dean congdon a telephone call received monday afternoon from the chairman of one of bethlehem's local draft boards would seem nevertheless to present some slight hope for lehigh 2-a's this unnamed au thority advises that the engineers will be asked to file statements with their state direcors of selec ive service perhaps there is some hope that induction may be still delayed men drafted now will retain credits immediate induction means no loss of time lehigh men now facing the prospect of induction into the armed services will now leave the university with the loss of neither credit or money assures dean congdon men who are drafted during the course of a semester will re ceive blanket credit proportional to the time spent in class al though such credits are not spe cific and will probably not be honored in other schools they are to quote the dean good currency here subject to post war faculty action these blanket credits may be applied to either arts electives or to other work in which the returning student dem onstrates proficiency the ad ministration will do all in its pow er to speed the graduation of le high men without short changing them in education or damaging the reputation of the university in line with this policy it is ex pected that the accelerated pro gram will continue for some time after the cession of hostilities al though at present lehigh's enroll ment is limited by action of the university board of trustees re turning servicemen studying at lehigh before the war will be given preference in admission the president replies . • • editor brown and white your editorial of april 5 attributes to me a statement so erroneous that i am ask ing you to print this letter of correction although no quo tation marks are used the editorial says lehigh ac cording to president wi 1 - liams has as yet no policy what i said to you was that the trustees would meet on april 14 to determine cer tain matters of policy a statement very remote fac tually from that in the edi torial lehigh has a policy and by virtue of that policy the university is so circumstanced that it can and will meet its financial obl i g a tions and with prudence can continue its educational program in spite of war-time exigencies which have compelled many readjustments the univer sity will close its books at the end of the present fiscal year june 30 free from debt and probably without an op erating deficit in addition as i explained in the 1943 treasurer's report before astp came to the campus the university had set up re serves out of extra income from gifts and from the ac celerated program to pro vide for depleted enrollments which were clearly foreseen as inevitable the trustees have already acted to grant special leaves to faculty mem bers whose class duties have vanished and who to meet urgent manpower needs may take temporary positions elsewhere no one has been pushed out and everyone will be justly paid al though all personal uncer tainties arising from the war may not be resolved doubt less the trustees will author ize other measures designed to keep financial commit ments within the resources available a phase of lehigh policy and otherwise t o maintain the integrity of the university lehigh there fore has a policy and no statement of mine could be properly interpreted to the contrary very truly c c williams other colleges suffer along with lehigh as ast folds ' although lehigh has been hard hit by the removal of the ast unit the other 14 colleges in pennsylvania and 220 in the nation have also been affected in varying degrees by the loss of their units at haverford college like lehigh a school for men the drastic lim itation of the astp left only a few gi medical students and a de pleted student body at westminster college a co-educational school at new wilmington graduating high school students in the state and seeking to influence them to enter alabama poly at present there are on the average 50 reservists at each in stitution like lehigh these schools are fearful of opening their dorms to the civilians since more reservists may arrive at any time these examples of other insti tutions show that coeducational schools suffered a great deal less from the curtailment of the army program than those for men only pennsylvania 300 astp cadets packed their gas masks and hel mets and silently stole away leav ing their slide rules and a de pleted student body of 400 behind the presence of 125 naval aviation cadets helped relieve the situation co-ed schools suffer least coeducational institutions such as the university of maryland alabama polytech at auburn alabama and drexel also lost sizeable astp units but suffered less alabama poly is attempting to relieve the condition of a decreas ing student body by contacting all math society meets students to speak a meeting of pi mu epsilon honorary mathematics society will be held tonight at 7:30 in room 416 packard laboratory an nounced ralph evans e p j-44 president of the society talks will be given by v war ren fox ch e j-45 and maurice bick ch e j-45 on greek geom etry refreshments will be serv ed at the conclusion of the bus iness meeting painting project now well on way in chem rooms the lecture room and class room in the chemistry building have just been repainted the last time these rooms were painted was in 1932 and the renovation will be accepted with great approval the job was done by our own main tenance crew at an approximate cost of 675 dollars sixty gallons of pain were required to complete the project an office room on the second floor scheduled to be repainted this spring will next taste the brush these improvements will greatly benefit the conditions of the chemistry building prof smith tells cosmos club of shelly legend speaking before the meeting of the cosmos club last tues day prof r m smith told his audience that many of the letters which have been used to build up a perfumed shelley legend that would suit victorian standards and tastes are forgeries the discovery of these forgeries professor smith said will lead to important changes in the inter pretation of crucial phases of shelley's biography both forged and genuine shelley letters were shown to the cos mos club members and they were able to see for themselves how the forgeries had fostered the legend of shelley's being the wronged saint of english literature brown and white lehigh university price 5 cents bethlehem pa wednesday april 12 1944 dorm poll called off because of draft last week the brown and white announced that it would poll town men on the subject of re-opening the dormitories in june this will not be done since it is probable that next semester's enrollment will not warrant any gallupingr