Smith's Next

Eyebrows of Yale alumni rose last week like mugs at Mory's; Smith College, prestigious college for young women, had just announced that its next president would be Thomas Corwin Mendenhall II. A 48-year-old associate professor and master of Yale's Berkeley College, Mendenhall is Yale-famed for his classes in maritime and English history, admired for the pungent certitude with which he expresses himself and for his imaginatively disreputable wardrobe. A huge (6 ft. 2 in., 200 Ibs.), slightly stooped man who is bald but manages to look shaggy in spite of it, he ambles into class apparently costumed to stalk moose, was once accused by Yale President A. Whitney Griswold, when they were both young instructors, of aging his sport coats in a manure pile. He has been known, on a winter day, to wear a neckpiece of red flannel underwear.

Tweed & Patches. Teacher Mendenhall is proprietor of the most disorderly office at Yale; at his study, drifted ceiling-high with books in imminent danger of avalanche, one student appeared, asked for an examination paper, got it only after Mendenhall fished it from under a corner of the rug. But Mendenhall's molting-bear disguise hides a man who is no organization-flouting rebel. Since he joined the faculty as a young instructor in 1937--he graduated from the college in 1932, spent three years at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar--the tweed-and-patches professor has risen rapidly, proved to be an adept at faculty-meeting strategy. Masters of Yale's ten residential colleges are among the university's most respected faculty members; Mendenhall became master of Berkeley in 1949, soon won the loyalty of Berkeley undergraduates. Last year he became director of the Office of Teacher

Training program, under which Yalemen and Vassar and Smith undergraduates study in the Yale Graduate School.

Known primarily as classroom teacher, Mendenhall is not a prolific publisher. One of his big contributions to Yale's history department: development (along with his colleagues) of the "problem method," which stresses use of original sources instead of historical texts. Sample Mendenhall problem, fed to one class of freshmen: was the famous mot de Cam-bronne that French General Pierre Cam-bronne uttered near the end of the Battle of Waterloo really "The old guard dies, but never surrenders"--or was it simply "Merde!"? The frosh dutifully turned up evidence to back both mots.

Rowing & Croquet. The outsized history prof was headed for Smith College before he was born; according to family legend his pediatrician mother (class of '95) entered him antenatally. Among his qualifications for running the school: he is the father of three daughters (the eldest is a Bryn Mawr freshman). Among Yalemen, there seems some reason to believe that Mendenhall will modify his wardrobe before journeying to Smith next July, perhaps holding a ceremonial bonfire for the professorial rags on Berkeley lawn. At any rate, publicity pictures passed out by the women's college show him in a neat suit, with matching vest. It is even possible that Yale's pride may come to rival that tennis-playing smoothie among women's college presidents, Harold Taylor of Sarah Lawrence. Mendenhall's favorite sport is rowing--he rowed at Oxford, watches Yale crew practice in all weather--but he has perfected a crushing game of croquet at Berkeley. Students there are agitated about his departure. Picket sign carried last week by one Yalie: "Take us with you, leader."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.