Alma Mater's
'boyhood gate'
under criticism
By JOAN HARDEST\' seem to have no sensitivity to
Colkegian Staff Writer it."
The Penn State alma mater Raffel said this Alma Mater
lately has undergone close stanza may have been ap
scrutiny by campus women's propriate 50 years ago, "but it
organizations. no longer is and Should be
When the alma mater is deleted or modified if it is to
ku
sung at football games, have meaning at all. It's
students who aren't chanting everything like this that adds
- We don't know the goddamn pto equal opportunity for
words," are singing "When women." _
we stood at - boyhood's
gate... Thou didst mold us,
dearrold State, into Men."
According to Association
for Women Students
Presicleat. Marjorie Storch,
"The stanza fails to represent
the women who make up
neaily one half of the
Cniversity's student body.
.Just as social attitudes and
institutions change over time,
so must outdated and
irrelevant traditions."
Norma Raffel, chairperson
of the National Education
Council of the Women's
Equity Action League, said
the stanza is "just out of this
v.orld I can't understand why
class after class- of women
have : it. This , stanza is an
abuse women students who
ale: '73 VW Buggy
"By keeping this stanza
the University has not moved
with - the trend to abolish
sexist attitudes and prac
tices," she said.
The composer of the alma
mater. Fred Lewis Pattee,
anticipated feminine reaction
to the stanza and wrote words
to be substituted in the stanza
hut refused to make the final
change himself.
When the alma mater was
written in 1901 when George
THRIFTY
BOTTLE SHOP
COLD BEER
TO GO
BEHIND THE
TRAIN STATION
Call 237-9836
After 5
Atherton was college
president few women at
tended college. According to
his autobiography, "Penn
State Yankee" (1953), Pattee
said he believed in 1901 that
"a college was for the
education of men."
Pattee wrote that Penn
State always had been a "he-
Man's college" and it became
co-educational only because it
was supported by the tax
payers who had as much right
to send'their daughters to the
institution that their money
was supporting as they had to
send sons. Once the tide
turned, however, it became a
"flood."
"I'm behind theni,!"
Michael Thomas (graduate-
English) said. "It's silly that
we even have a verse likethat
in 1975."
Ann Shelton of the AluMni
Association exprigsed lin
terest in informing the
Alumni Council of the move.
"This may stir up some
controversy among the old
timers," she said.
University President John
W. Oswald has - expresSed
disapprilval of the move.
"The alma mater written over
50 years-ago is a part of long-
Eventually; Pattee wrote, time campus tradition and I
he realized Penn State was no . feel there are more fruitful
longer purely a masculine ways to proceed than to try to
student body and rewrote the alter those words," he said.
stanza as "When we stood at "Its composers, I feel
childhood's gate... Thou didst positive, had nothing
Indignant male students
sent a petition to the trustees
protesting that their college
was becoming "a tea. party
and a dress parade." "Penn
State's a he-man's college,"
they said, "not . a nunnery."
The trustees obliged by
setting a quota of female
students permitted to be
enrolled.
mold us, dear old State, Dear
old State."
"Surely in —this world
nothing is pe,:manent save
only change," lse said. "Mit it
does seem to me Penn State's
mission has been to mold men
for the major jobs in the
world. I hesitate to change the
stanza. Let someone with the
forward look do it."
AWS believes this year,
International Women's Year,
is the appropriate time for the
change.
_1 1,-
discriminatory iii mind when
the verses were written."
One anonymous student
said, "I like it like that. It
sounds nice to me."
A graduate of the
University class of 1937; who
is employed in the Penn State
Room of Pattee Library, said
the "alma mater is a tradition
that many people cherish."
"Women need to get
changes in political and legal
areas, but riot-in alma
maters. Women fooling with
the Alma Mater will turn
people off," she said.
However, o r student said,
"It would be a subtle change
but important enough to
make people notice."
Bob Moyer (9th
psychology) said, "I don't
think the alma mater is taken
too seriously. I had to learn it
when I joined a fraternity." •
"I can see how it'might be
inappropriate though,"
Moyer said. "The girl I'm
going out with is - very much
into women's studies and if I
say 'that stupid woman
driver,' I get clobbered. It
doesn't matter to me whether
they change -the - Ima mater
or not, but if it comes down to
a hassle. I'd say change it."
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Alvo ElectroniL's
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Balfurd Inc. I
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Bicycle Shop
Bill Coleman'
Bostonian Linlited
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Centre For Travel
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Mayaguez affair ok'd
U.S. action condoned
Ily United Press International
Newspapers in England , Spain and Israel
said yesterday the United States was justified
in using military force to retake the American
cargo ship Mayaguez and its crew from the
Cambodians.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Soviet Union's
official Tass news agency reported the
American show of strength without comment
and the mass media in China omitted mention
of it altogether.
Reaction was also favorable in South
Africa, but a French newspaper criticized the
action. United Nations officials Were silent on
the matter.
"This time it would be difficult to blame the
United States Administration for what oc
curred," the London Times said. "This was
clearly an act of piracy—indeed, being
carried out by the naval forces of another
country, an act of war—which no government
could ignore."
The Daily Mail said the Americans "were
justified in going to the limit to rescue their
men and their ship," and the Evening News
said the decision to send in the Marines "was
one of those very rare occasions when might
is right."
The Madrid-newspaper Informaciones said
the American action was wegemed in Europe
as a demonstration that "the Communist vic-
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709 Ridge Ave.
utors
Navy Store
sts Friend
'hop
f Pittsburgh
tory in Indochina has not turned the United
States into a scarecrow."
In a report from Washington, Tass gave the
basic details of the operation against Cam
bodia, mentioning the fighting and the sinking
of three Cambodian vessels.
It quoted the Cambodian allegation that the
Mayaguez was engaged in intelligence ac
tivities, without elaboration.
The main early evening television news in
Moscow did not report the U.S. action at all.
All mass circulation media in Peking omit
ted mention of the matter.
Prince Nordom Sihanouk, the former Cam
bodian head of state living in Peking for the
last five years, remained silent on the note the
American diplomatic mission handed the
Cambodian embassy Tuesday.
In Tel Aviv, the Israeli Labor party
newspaper Davar said the United States was
right to retake, the ship by force.
And the government-run South African
Broadcasting Corporation said the United
States would "benefit from the determination
not to be pushed around by any pipsqueak
nations indulging in criminal acts of vio
lence."
United Nations Secretary General Kurt
Waldheim offered to mediate early in the
dispute • but-- refused- comment on the
American military action.
Sigma Pi would like-to thank the following
merchants for helping to make the
2nd Annual Sigma Pi Open a success.
Nittany Gas & Oil
Nittany News & Book
O.W.Houts and Son
Pathfinder
Pedals
Penn State Travel
People's National Bank
'Petrino's Bridal Shoppe
Rite-Aid
Roland & Hull
Stork Unlimited
Student Book Store
Szeyller Associates
T & R Electronics
Tobacco Taverne
Uncle Eli's Art Supplies
University Travel Bureau
Unlimited Rent-Ails
Waffle Shop
Woodrings
W.R. Hickey
Proceeds to the Centre Couniy
Home Health Service
The Daily Collegian Friday, May 16, 1975-