Spectrum

From “the old days”

The picture and write-up from Ev Cocallas ’56, et al., prompts me to write for those who remain from “the old days.” I think Bob Cohen ’58 can still remember.

This year marks my fourth retirement (Air Force, judiciary, private law practice, and now consultancy). My son, one daughter, and four grandchildren marked the event with my 21st raft trip on the Colorado River through Marble and Grand Canyons. We also celebrated with a party at our favorite watering hole, a tradition of 46 years.

When I came to Arizona in 1963, the population of the state was less than 800,000. Now, I’m in the sixth (unless Philadelphia has fallen back again) largest city in the U.S., and a state population five times that of 1963. Have a nice winter. I remember those – but prefer to bask in the sun here!

Mike McCarthy ’58

More than a friend

I am concerned about the recent obituary of President William Graham Cole. I don’t think that it belonged under “Friends of the College.” For almost a decade, he was the College.

I did not know him personally, but he was certainly a factor in my decision to enroll in 1966. I met him at a gathering of alumni and prospective students in Los Angeles. I may not have known the word “charismatic” at the time, but that’s what he was. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, wore a bow tie, and smoked a pipe, as a college president should. Despite whatever befell him in his final years elsewhere, he was worthy of more than a few paragraphs. He was also worthy of a photo.

President Cole was an accomplished academician – a Columbia PhD, a former professor of religion, the author of scholarly books – and a Protestant clergyman. Most important, he was

a visionary, who probably did more than anyone to bring Lake Forest into a new era. It was characterized as the “Camelot Years” in the College’s history.

I was particularly drawn to Lake Forest by its highly unusual, three-term, three- course calendar, its non-traditional grading system, and its relatively few distribution requirements. Already impressed by A. S. Neill’s Summerhill School, I knew that learning was not

a set of requirements to satisfy but a student’s responsibility. Such liberalism and flexibility were exemplified by the experimental Program II.

When President Cole’s resignation was announced during the winter of 1969, I was studying in Florence, which was another program established during his tenure. I felt disappointed that he was in some sense (whatever the circumstances) abandoning Lake Forest. Indeed, the College may have been his greatest triumph.

I don’t recall if anything on campus was named in his honor (he did receive an honorary doctorate in 1996). If not, too bad. He meant a great deal to me.

George M. Goodwin ’70