Letters

Faith in action

The story “Faith in action” in the July 2001 issue of Arts & Sciences was moving and thought provoking, as are many articles in this publication. But I was taken aback to find Carolina blue basketball uniforms (even the uniform lettering style is UNC’s!) on the magazine’s cover.

Teresa Rennoe Irish (English ’79)
Atlanta, Ga.

Editor’s note: You’re not the first to note the irony of “Carolina” blue on our cover. In this case, it’s actually “Brahma Bulls Blue,” for the team on which these middle school students play in the Charlottesville youth recreation league.

I enjoyed the article on “Faith in action,” but was curious about one thing. What is the meaning of the hand signal that the young man on the cover is giving? His hand is just above the basketball.

Stephen Holcombe (MA, English ’97)
Knoxville, Tenn.

Editor’s note: The young man in the photograph is making the letter “P” for “Prospect,” the name of the neighborhood in which he lives along with the other members of the youth basketball team that John Kiess helps coach.

The mural of the story

In Arts & Sciences, July 2001, I was pleased to see the article by mrh [Margaret R. Haas], “The mural of the story,” with an excellent colour illustration. Before executing the Virginia murals, Allyn Cox, recently returned from Europe, painted the murals for the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles, later given to UCLA. Like Clark Hall U.Va., the name honors William Andrews Clark, Jr., and his father Senator William Andrews Clark of Montana, the Copper King. Junior, as he was known, was a U.Va. law school graduate, and his father was described by his fellow senator, Robert La Follette, as “one of the hundred men who owned America” at the turn of the 19th Century. The Clark family gave their great art collection to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. Clark, Jr., founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in which he played a violin owned by Thomas Jefferson, since lost, which he picked up when a student in Charlottesville. There are other U.Va./UCLA connections including your present librarian, and successful billion-plus-dollar fundraising drives by both institutions!

Norman J.W. Thrower (College ’53)
Director Emeritus, Clark Library
University of California at Los Angeles

Mirror: The versatile tradition of Easters

I am writing to express my great displeasure for at least one inaccuracy in the article concerning the tradition of Easters. From 1951-55, I was an undergraduate at UVA, and wish to point out that “big” dances were held at Mem Gym, usually employing two name bands during the same weekend over that four-year period, and perhaps longer. Some fraternity houses also hired combos to fill in during lulls in other activities.

Perhaps Mem Gym was later abandoned as a dance site, and fraternities threw their own dances. Inaccuracies as pointed out above, the recent report about cheating, and the fact that backpacks are not permitted in stores on “The Corner” causes alumni great embarrassment and a loss of respect for the institution we loved dearly. Whenever I am engaged in conversation about U.Va. now, I am forced to admit that the place now is certainly not what it once was!

My earnest desire is that everyone there do a part in restoring the dignity the institution so richly deserves by overcoming the decadence for accuracy as well as making the Honor Code effective once more.

John (Jack) Cutler (College ’55, MEd ’69)
Richmond, Va.