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C00819160 Data. EN EUMRCINERS | PORTS PEA TAO a8 ae a i eI NE NS TE tt rank eS i t l ' Memorandum of February 16, 1956 Profile of Allegheny Collere The first notable cheracteristic of Allegheny College is that it 4s a fraternity- dominated can us. This is true despite the ef/orts in the past few years on the part of certain acabers of the administration and other new students to do avay with or at least aiti:ate to some extent this situation. However, the effects of the efforts over the zest few yeers to provide a nore central and more inclusive focus of allcgi- ance for student activities is that. there is a general avareness or conscisusness among the students, faculty aud administration of the need to denocratire cacrus life. In fact, this bas come about to a considerable extent. fhe Allegheny taderzradutte Copneil an:.enred to be one of the best functioning covernmente which I have yet cbd- s@rved. The Council itself is composed of twenty-five nembers with an executive comzittee of six members and thirteen standing commftrees, all of which seem to be fully active. A valuable adjunct to the Allegheny undergraduste Council is the Associated Yonen's Students. This group is comsosed of a body of officers, a senate, ‘a senior court, an activities board, a coordinator, & residence coordinator, and & fire marshall. And, finally, a further sspect of the total pictmre of student poverm nent is the Inter-fraternity Council. Ag would be expected, a picture of the stracture of the student fovernment givec very little indication of the dynamics of the organisatiomané the relationships of ove grouv to another, or of the relative in-ortance of particular individuals within the groups and vithin the total camms situation. As hes been pointed ont above, there has been an attempt to desocratise the can pus, carticularly by way of lessening the hold of fraternities on camus life. ‘The iaitdative for this action has seemed to stem from certain younger se-vers of the faculty, anparently led by the present Dean of Students who hse come to Allegheny from Muskingum College, Ohio. Yor the past five years, bis srogras of sroviding «4 more central basis for student activities, namely through the Allegheny undergraduate Council, bas appeered to be very succersful. Recently, however, with the azcoint=ent of a new President to the University, there is & grave concern anong these younger tenders of the faculty ae well as anong 8 large number of the students that the pro- ereesive srogram initiated curing the past five years is tc be jeopardized. Thie noticn has cose about partially through the words, oral and written, of the new. President. He has made statements to the effect that he intends to "combine sone of the progressivism of the East with the conservatien of the Midwest," and he bas in private informed other members of the administration and the faculty of his discatis- faction with certain of the younger progressive teachers. : In addciti-n to this, he hae let it be -mown that the contracts of tee of the leaders of ths group are not to be rmewed. On the student sides, as of last year, four of the nors orsminsnt student leaders vho had already been pletgac co one er more of the fraternities on caspus, after a few months of their pre-initiation fraternity life, gave it up ia Cisgust. They formed what ‘Bas since becom: lmown as “The New Group.” I have met all four of these men and find them outstanding in every way -~ scholastically, in terms of personal leadership ability, in.their seriousnese of purpose and general social and m1litical outlook. Although “The Hew Grocp* was originally the four nen concerned, it lms now come to be @ kind of movement with a mumbe- of other so-called independent ‘students aligning themselves with these four individuals to form a re. latively effective and inew camras influence. In sum, what we have in Allegheny is a nediumsised college: ant @ very Conservative part of the country, formerly dom:nated vy the conservative fraternity gfoups, nov undergoing the throes ofa revolution, a: it were, sparked by younger me~bers of the faculty, and aoproach ‘being carried on by a rather asall tat articulate group of stadents. The stadent activities srograms vaich lh ey - . _- FF snare