Celebrating 150 Years  |  Alumni Memories

James A.  Kidney '69

Stentor Editor (1966-1967)

It is tempting for someone who edited the Stentor during the turbulent ‘60s to attempt deep insights into the events of that time as reflected in the newspaper.  Although the public events and issues of the ‘60s certainly affected many individuals on campus in special and important ways, nothing very unusual or profound occurred which was not also happening at campuses across the country, sometimes in ways more urgent and compelling.

But I wonder how many college newspaper editors in 1966 or 1967 caused a professor to hurl an apple against his blackboard in anger?  Or prompted the college president to curse at a young freshman, driving her to tears?  These occasions, while neither weighty nor significant in themselves, reflect much of what is good about Lake Forest College and a small liberal arts college experience.  There really is a “college community” in which actions and reactions by students, faculty, and administrators alike lead to unanticipated consequences.  The small town feel of a campus inside a large metropolitan area allows all voices to be heard, at least by a small audience, prompting quick feedback. The Petri dish of close, sometimes intimate, relations on a small campus is a very important form of education, even if outside the classroom.

The Stentor was the biggest megaphone available to the students. I wanted it used to stir up the small community, and did so on several occasions. I was unexpectedly named the editor at the start of my sophomore year in 1966.  I had spent the summer working in the Washington bureau of United Press International, then a scrappy wire service with a deadline-every-minute, butts-on-the-floor, Scotch-for-lunch atmosphere straight out of The Front Page.  The journalism was solid, if rarely memorable, but the office attitude was strictly Bogart, Chandler, and Hearst, if only in the minds of the people who worked there.  Write the news and damn the consequences!  It was fun for an 18-year-old whose critical facilities were still under-developed.

My UPI experience was reflected in my editorship of the Stentor.  More than once during that year, I was accused of providing “more heat than light.”  It was meant as a criticism, but I took it as a compliment,  not least because stirring up a little trouble (within the bounds of sound journalism, of course) was fun, like UPI.  Lake Forest College was a place for such experimentation.  A less obtuse, more responsible person might have missed the opportunities.

So what about the professor and the tearful student?  After a couple of weeks as editor without printing anything very interesting, someone hinted that the high percentage of PhDs on the faculty advertised in the college catalogue might be inflated by part-timers.  We found some examples and I sent a freshman to the Office of the President to get William Graham Cole’s views.  He did a great deal in his day to raise the quality of the college, and was very sensitive about the school’s reputation. Less than an hour after she was dispatched, the freshman returned to the Stentor office in tears.  Forcing myself to be unusually compassionate, I asked her what was wrong.

“He cursed at me!” she exclaimed.  “The President of the college cursed at me!  And he’s a minister, too!”  And people thought Nixon was tough on the press.  (The story turned out to be pretty weak.  We should have put the cursing part in.)

Later that year, many faculty members were anxious that the college purchase a grand old house – Holt House – located across Sheridan Road from the main gate.  They wanted it for a faculty club.  This prompted a Populist reaction among the students, who were paying nearly $4,000 a year (!) to attend Lake Forest.  I wrote an editorial that was part Samuel Gompers and part Billy Sunday to the effect that the faculty was already overpaid, overstuffed and cosseted, while the students not only strained to pay the bills but had to use South Campus basements for social occasions with “Plasticville furniture”  adorned by, at most, a strip or two of crepe paper.  It was over the top. I was very proud.  I heard later that a senior member of the history department was so angry at the editorial that he talked about it in class and after working up his temper he hurled an apple at his blackboard.  Although I was a professional journalist for a decade, I never received such an accolade again.  It was truly public service journalism!
I enjoyed my sophomore year editing the Stentor, as perhaps you can tell from these recollections.  

After a one year break, I was co-editor of the paper my senior year with John Norton.  Events then seemed more significant – stronger, more violent opposition to the Viet Nam War, a worsening of race relations in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination.  On campus, the Black Student Union was established and pressed hard for black faculty members, North Gym burned down (best guess:  by a local Nazi group) and the hunt was on for someone to replace Cole.  Whether due to maturity or a sharing of responsibility for the paper, editing was a much more serious business in 1968-69 than it was in 1966-67.  It was educational, too.  But it wasn’t as much fun.