PAGE 2
THE BELLES
OCTOBER 1984
Chapel undergoes repairs
by Clayton Henkel
This summer, the “heart of the cam
pus” underwent major reconstructive sur
gery. Beginning aimost four years ago, St.
Mary’s began a search for a new Chapel or
gan, and after all these years has finally
received an extremely generous gift paying
not only for the organ itself, but its instal
lation and any future repairs. The donor
was Mary C. Stoney, an alumnae of St.
Mary’s, who In 1979 also contributed the
grand piano in Smedes parlor.
The first step was to remove the old
organ, which as old students will remem
ber, had succumbed to the years. The new
organ, with the exception of the European
pipes, will come from Provo, Utah, and
will be installed by Michael Bigelow. In or
der to enhance the beauty of such an or
gan, the Chapel required re-painting. Easi
er sidd than done? As soon as the painters
began, they realized the plaster was too
, >
'
• t V
. The St. Mary’s chapel undermnt major repairs over the summer both Inside and out.
St. Mary’s welcomes new chaplain
[Continued from Page 1]
Mary’s. They “courted under the trees” of
the St. Mary’s campus. Mr. Davis received
a B.S. degree in Commerce at UNC. For
his theological training he went to the
Virginia Theological Seminary in
Alexandria, Virginia, for three years where
he received a Master's of Divinity degree.
He served in Rocky Mount for four years
and in Durham for fourteen years before
coming to St. Mary’s to be the chaplain the
first time. What made him come here was
the feeling that he had accomplished all
that God meant him to do in Durham. The
fact that his mother and wife had both
gone to St. Mary’s brought him to accept
the offer of being chaplain.
After serving as the chaplain here for a
few years he decided to leave his job here
to pay attention to family business and get
the teaching certificate he wanted. For
three years Mr. Davis went back to UNC
and then beu«ui io teacn at Vance Granville
Community College and Vance Academy.
He also found plenty of leisure time to
spend with his two children, Mary Shuford
Davis Moore, 31, and John William Sut-
phln Davis, Jr., 27.
At the end of the fourth year after he
left St. Mary’s to help his brother sell the
family department store, E.G.DavIs &
Sons Company. When this was done, he
returned once again to become a part of
St. Mary’s life as a chaplain for our chapel.
Mr. Davis is 100 percent behind the
required chapel rule and would like to see
more day students join the boarding
students In going to chapel.
The Davis’ live in a Georgian type
home here on campus. Mrs. Davis loves
her house because she can see girls
walking to classes just like she once did,
and because of the beautiful English
garden in back. About her home she says,
“I like what I see In every direction.”
•r
old to hold the paint and would have to be
removed. This exposed faulty wiring,
which also needed replacement. To add to
the damage, support beams were found to
be deteriorating from excess water and
termites. This sparked the refinishing of
the floor, the pews, and almost all of the
other wood in the Chapel. The major rea
son for all this damage was the slant of the
roof. Apparently it was so steep that the
drainage system was inadequate, leaving
rain water no place to run but down the
sides of the building. This not only weak
ened the support beams but the entire
foundation as well. This problem has since
been alleviated by installing a large brick
gutter and drainage sustem.
And so after many detours, St. Mary’s
will soon have a new organ that can be
enjoyed by the students and the Raleigh
community. Future plans include land
scaping the area.
New faculty
members at SMC
[Continued from Page 1]
Mrs. Martha Stoops
Stoops
tended Purdue University for her PhD. and
got her Bachelor’s and Master's degrees at
Ball State University. She has taught
continuing education at Purdue and at the
University of Wisconsin in White Water.
She also worked at the Carolina Research^
Center as a research analyst on Egyptian
education and fertility. »
Mr. Giacomo Gambino of Durham, who
teaches Political Science, is originally
from Nork, N.J. His parents virere Italian
immigrants after World War II. He was
graduated from Rutgers University in 1980
with a Bachelor's degree in Political
Science. He attended Duke University for
his graduate work and is now working on
his PhD. Mr. Gambino was a teaching
assistant at Duke in American Government
and Political Theory.
completes book HELL
on St. Mary's WEEK
history
ABOLISHED
by Marla Bamdt
There is no doubt that Martha Stoops
is dedicated to St. Mary’s College. She h^
been teaching here since 1960 and just re
cently has finished a book. The Heritage:
The Education of Women at St. Mary’s
College. The content of the book is about
the history of SMC from the past to the
present; 1842-1982.
Believe it or not, Mrs.Stoops acci
dently stumbled over the idea of writing
the book. While studying under Dr. Hugh
Lefler, N.C. historian, he told her that
SMC did not have a documented history;
thus it was a gap in North Carolina history.
Ultimately, during that summer of 1972,
Stoops started on a book that would later
take her twelve years to finish.
Compiling information was not an ea
sy task to accomplish. For example, rec
ords which existed were lost or weren’t
kept at all in the years up to the 1900’s.
Although this was the case, Mrs. Stoops
managed to find old letters, diaries, and a
half dozen reminiscences from literary and
Muse magazines. In addition to attempting
to find information up until the turn of the
century. Stoops footnoted everything, a
task which made the project more time
consuming.
Of course, many people inspired
Stoops. Some of those include Mrs. Davis,
the wife of the present chaplain; the
grandmother of the present chairman of
the board who was bom in the 1800’s; and
especially the last two presidents of SMC.
Mrs. Stoops’ format of the book fol
lows in order of the presidents’ terms. Ot
her topics of interest in addition to the ad
ministration and trustees, include clothing
fashions, daily life, reactions to the wars,
and academic standards in comparison to
other colleges. The conclusion of every era
shows that the Chapel truly is the heart of
the school from the beginning.
Now, after writing the book, Mrs.
Stoops Is convinoed there Is a special stu
dent-faculty relationship, that SMC pre
pares one for what lies ahead, arxJ that the
chapel still plays a significant role in the
school. She also feels the book reflects
how women think of themselves, and how
SMC still keeps Its internal values as times
change.
Mrs. Stoops is confident that her
book will be available in the bookstarxls by
January. She Is planning, however, to sell
gift certificates before publication to stu
dents and administration for Christmas.
After all this work writing a book, one asks
would she do It over again? Her answer
“If I had to do it over I wouldn’t, but I'm
glad I did It.”
by Suzannah HIgby
This year the long-standing events of
hell weekarxl freshman initiation will be a-
bolished. There will be no raids, embar-
assment and general hazing of the fresh
men by sophomores. The administration
feels that hazing has always gotten out of
hand and that hidden animosities always
show through. Also, there is a law against
hazing in North Carolina. So to avoid any
further conflict and parents calling, hazing
is forbidden. Last year students tried a
“controlled hell-week” which didn’t work
out, and Dean Jones has determined that
the only way to end hazing is to forbid
freshman initiation.
Hell week and freshman raids were
designed for sophomores to be shown re
spect. Because they never really have a
senior year with senior privileges, most
girls feel that when they are sophomores
they should have recognition in some way.
This year, the sophomores feel that doing
avray with hell week and freshman initia
tion is breaking a tradition - one that they
suffered through and now will never be ab
le to participate in the more enjoyable part.
Many sophomores have good memories of
last year's hell week. It was a chance to get
to krx)w the sophorrores artd act crazy
without being embarassed. But other
sophOTTKxes have bad memories of last
year because of mistreatment and malice
toward them. For one reason or another,
most sophomores feel they should be al
lowed to have hell week and freshman Init
iation.
The freshmen have a diverse opinion
on rtot having hell week. While they have
heard It is fun, they were apprehensive a-
bout it. They would like to continue the
traditkxi both this year and next. But some
of them feel It Is a good idee to stop if
now. If they don’t go through It they won't
want to continue nekt year.
Dean Jones has come up with several
ideas for the freshmen and sophomores to
get together without hell week. She says
that If the freshmen are In any way goinfl
to show respect to the sophrxrxxes, the
freshmen will choose their method. She
also suggested that both classes QP
through the Outward Bound program that
all the hall counselors and class officers
went through before school started. The
general opinion of the administration is
that the freshmen artd sophomores can get
together without hell week or any othef
type of hazing.