WHO, WHAT, WHEN

DANCING IN THE STREET? Where are these students

partying, what was the occasion, and when? If you have an answer, tell us the story at 518-580-5747, srosenbe@skidmore.edu, or Scope c/o Skidmore College. We’ll report answers, and run a new quiz, in the upcoming Scope magazine.

FROM LAST TIME

Skidmore visitors? Judy Parsons ’62 recognizes the exchange students from Atlanta’s Spelman College in 1960. “I was privileged to be ‘partnered’ with Norma Wilson (second from right), and I remember we met with New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller.” (His grandfather John D. Rockefeller, of Stan- dard Oil fame, married Laura Spelman in 1864, and the Rockefeller Foundation was a supporter of Spelman College). Parsons adds, “The visit from these women was a great moti- vation to many of us to get more involved in the civil rights movement.”

The photo evokes “warm and happy vibes” for Claire Hawkins Seaquist ’61. “I got to know and enjoy one of the pictured students, because my roommate Pam White Leighton ’61, through the sociology department, was her hostess. The program was truly successful on the Skidmore end; I trust and hope our visitors would say the same.” Leighton notes, “Coming from Seattle to Skidmore, I had no experience with black people, so race just didn’t register in my mind one way or the other. But I know from my roommate that the ex- change made a big impact on many students.” Barbara Block Zwick ’60, a Memphis native, recalls Skidmore’s

32 SCOPE SPRING 2010

minimal geographic diversity: “We were the foreign students in those days.”

Sandra Blair Ohanian ’60 is reminded of a 1959 exchange with Nashville’s Fisk University, another historically black col- lege. She recalls, “I was one of those cho- sen to visit Fisk. The students were very welcoming and friendly; I remember that experience fondly. But it was eye-opening to see how blacks in the South were treated. Walking down the street with them, I was yelled at as a ‘nigger lover’ from cars driving by.” Karen Kramm Meyer ’60 also participated in a Fisk ex-

change—“quite an avant-garde program for Skidmore to under- take.” She found it “enlightening and somewhat strange to be immersed in the world of middle-class black students. I remem- ber their warm welcome, and their protectiveness when they took me to tour the city.” Coincidentally, just last year Skidmore and Spelman again swapped student visitors. Cori Filson, who coordinates Skid- more’s off-campus studies, was “thrilled to discover we have rein- vigorated an old connection between our institutions.”

BOB HENDERSON Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64