Senior Year
Fall 1966

From the cheers at a football game to the gentle whir of a carrel fan, the sounds of senior year took on a note of detachment, sophistication, and – occasionally – nascent nostalgia. For those who had spent the last three years in fun and frivolity, the ominous reality of the thesis and graduate school came all too quickly. For those who had wonked too heavily before, the reality of road trips and catching rays brought a similar awakening. For both extremes, perhaps, the final realization was that they had missed something important at Princeton, and that they damn well better make up for it in their last year. By and large, they did.

Freshman week was a joke. Seniors didn’t even bother to arrive early – except for Dan Altman, who had just returned from San Francisco State with final plans for an Experimental College at Woodrow Wilson. The college, offering extracurricular courses and mealtime precepts, started off with a bang only to die a quiet death, possibly the victim of traditional Princeton apathy. A new crop of Critical Language girls moved in for their own brand of orientation – against the now-subtle lines of seniors well versed in the ways of the Critical Language program. Ann Wallace, Kathy DeWitt, Pauline Reich, Martha Mundy, Nell Williams, Kathy Rider, Claudia Deverall, and all the rest integrated into the campus with considerable aplomb.

While the football team returned from a rough stint at Blairstown, Stokely Carmichael packed Alexander Hall for an address on Black Power. But the Black and Orange Power proved more formidable that week as the Tigers whipped Rutgers on the strong blocking of Chuck Peters and John Bowers. The game marked the beginning of a bizarre season which would see a remarkable cadre of seniors play a guts brand of ball and tie Harvard and Dartmouth for the Ivy title.

In the meantime, the Steve Oxman-led UGC quietly approached the Trustees for an extension of the Friday night dorm rule to midnight, and the Trustees quietly acceded. Igor Stravinsky conducted the premiere of his newest work at McCarter, making the occasion the biggest musical event on any college campus in the last five years. Alger Hiss made a return visit to campus, but the man’s reserve surprised those who looked upon him as the man who had stirred up the huge campus controversy back in the Red Scare ’50s.

The Fall was also a time for politics. Princeton faculty member Ralph Chandler received help in his campaign from Dick Sutton, John Funk and Paul Christiansen. Kit Roland was assigned an important position in the headquarters of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and continued to be active in state and national politics, announcing his candidacy for Chairman of the College Republican National Committee.

Crane Davis announced that the arts at Princeton were “dead,” and some rightly took the statement literally. This formal announcement did not keep campus literati Peter Delacorte, John Koethe, John Godfrey and Bill Standard from writing for the Nassau Lit. But the rest of the campus came alive when several students were mugged in town on succeeding weekends, one in the supposed safety of his Holder Hall entry. Though town police didn’t really solve the problem, colder weather and Prince publicity did. Bill Beale saw to it that the CFD enjoyed another successful year of collection – this time without too many arm-twisting sessions. Bill Floyd and the SDS protested the arrival of recruiters from Dow Chemical Company for their role in manufacturing napalm used in Vietnam. The group succeeded in spicing up Dow’s interviews and arousing sectors of a campus gone to sleep for the coming winter months, but the recruiters still got their usual complement of signees.

The atmosphere on campus in Fall was noticeably nosier with the return of Tom Peppler – “the only man at Princeton with 139 jets.” American’s Mike Schultz and United’s Kit Roland countered by subjecting students to a barrage of giveaways and promotions. Overnight we became the students of the “Half-Fare Generation.” Suddenly everyone was flying – but no one was ever sure when or how. All of us will remember the long hours spent waiting at airports, learning the ins and outs of the stand-by game.

But before winter hibernation set in completely, the fall party season came to a fitting end on Harvard weekend. While senior club party chairmen, led by Quad’s unbeatable Dave Wright, pulled out the stops for a big Prospect blast and Chuck Berry readied for an appearance at a sold-out Prince-Tiger dance, the gridiron stage was also set: A proud, undefeated Crimson faced the hobbled Tigers in what was to be an easy game. Coach Colman unveiled previously injured fullback Dave Martin for 100 yards rushing and two passes, and Larry Stupski pulled off two key defensive blitzes to set the Cantabs deep in their territory. Doug James went both ways, filling in for Rich Bracken at tailback for another touchdown, and Pete Zeitzoff made fingertip catches. The result of the fine team effort was an 18-14 upset victory and a piece of the Ivy League championship following a similar guts victory over Yale the next weekend. It was a game to remember.

© 1997 by The Class of 1967, Princeton University. Reprinted from the 1967 Nassau Herald.