Wed 9 Apr 2008
1988 Yearbook: Page 146
Posted by Gulielmensian under 1988 Yearbook, Class of 1988
Posted at 6:00 pmClick below for full image. Who remembers the great calendar controversy?
Wed 9 Apr 2008
Posted by Gulielmensian under 1988 Yearbook, Class of 1988
Posted at 6:00 pmClick below for full image. Who remembers the great calendar controversy?
April 9th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Couple things about this image.
1) Although Bostert was a great professor and good man, the calendar controversy was not one of his finer moments. Although the details are hazy, his basic idea was that the College’s 2 day fall break was a bad idea and Thanksgiving Break was too short. So, he shortened the former and lengthened the ladder. Unfortunately, he (and the Calendar Committee) did not do a good job of seeking alternate opinions. The changes went in with little campus awareness and were almost uniformly panned. I think that they were repealed shortly thereafter, leaving Williams with its current calendar: 4 day Fall Break and short Thanksgiving Vacation.
2) Was this the first start of Mountain Day, surely now one of the most successful of Williams institutions. Note that Friday October 16th is listed as “Mountain Day” with no classes. I think that this was Bostert’s replacement for and renaming of Fall Break. I don’t think that there was a day with no classes called Mountain Day before 1987. Does anyone else remember?
We are still trying to track down the history of Mountain Day. When was the day first made dependent on the weather? Did it evolve directly from this calendar experiment which, in its other aspects, was ruled a failure?
Could it be that the only reason that we have a Mountain Day now is because Professor Bostert led the Calendar Committee to make a huge “mistake” 20 years ago?
April 10th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I think this speaks to my desire to avoid work this morning more than anything else, but I’ve found a charming article dating from 1895 in the New York Times archives (gotta love a quick Google search and the now free NYT archives). It references a day off for Mountain Day way back then - and twenty years before. This link will lead you to the Times page where you can click on the pdf of the article.
“Chip Day” was apparently a day off from classes to rake up and burn the chips of wood from a winter’s worth of heating, and “Gravel Day” was a day to gravel the muddy roads and paths around campus. “These useful and helpful days of frolic” were merged into “Mountain Day” and then apparently called “Scenery Day” for a time (”an opportunity for the athletic pleasure of climbing Greylock and offering sacrifices to the nymphs of the Hoosac and the hills”). This was done in the Spring rather than the current Fall, but “the Faculty allowed a day’s respite from books.” I’d be interested to know what happened in the intervening years.
The rest of the (short) article is well worth a read - a lament of the “new” athletics (track), shock that some actually drove up to Greylock for Mountain Day, etc.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:22 am
JG is correct. “Mountain Day” is a revival of an ancient custom. I believe that, when it was first reinstituted, it may have been on a fixed day rather than declared by the President upon finding that the next Friday was likely to be sunny. Although the uncertainty undoubtedly causes problems (think of scheduling outside speakers), I find much of the charm of the event lies in the “magic” of the unknown and the expectation and wondering. Think “snow day” of our distant youths for those of us who grew up where there were such beloved gifts from the weather gods. On a more practical level, not announcing when the holiday will be until the very end probably keeps the focus on Mountain Day events rather than on providing a chance for a long weekend and a trip away from campus.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Plus, the palpable “oh thank god I don’t have to do the reading/write that response paper” feeling of relief when mountain is announced is a uniquely wonderful williams moment.
April 10th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I photographed pages from the most recent (and out-of-print) edition of the Williams Outing Club’s trail guide. These pages give the history of Mountain Day.
You can view the pages on my Flickr page (I wanted to post them here, but I don’t think photos are allowed in comments.)
http://flickr.com/photos/minilaura/2403047927/
http://flickr.com/photos/minilaura/2403048105/
April 10th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Oh! and if you click on “all sizes” above the images, you can view the photos larger and actually read the words.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
oops. sorry if you tried to look at the photos and couldn’t view them. I forgot to make them public. They are public now for your viewing pleasure.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Thanks! That is really interesting. But what is the date of that edition? And what was Mountain Day like during your era?
For those to lazy to click the link, the story goes that Mountain Day was missing for most of the 20th century but then officially reinstated by the faculty in 1981. My (hazy) recollection was that, prior to 1987, this Mountain Day was on a Saturday. This is consistent with the claim in the guide that students were “no longer given the day off from classes” (in contrast to the 19th century).
And so then we had one pre-set Friday that was a Mountain Day in 1987. But what happened in the following years?
April 10th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
As an aside, I understand that the Outing Club is updating the guide and we will have a new one within the year. I am glad.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I believe the book was published in the early 1990s and certainly after 1992.
Otherwise, my experience is similar to Dave’s (considering that my 4 years there came immediately after his, it’s not surprising): Pre-set Mountain Day on a Friday.
More Outing Club and Mountain Day info here:
http://wso.williams.edu/orgs/woc/index.php?page=History
April 10th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
There is a Record article from 1999 hashing out a bit more of the history. As it notes, in 1999 Mountain Day was scheduled (which I also remember). My final fall at Williams in 2000, however, I am pretty sure that it was a “surprise.” Still on a Friday, and pretty much narrowed down by everyone to one of three weekends based on scheduling, but it was still fun to hear those bells pealing that morning! I don’t know if this was motivated by Morty, the faculty, or a combination, but I am glad the tradition returned.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I think perhaps I should give up the day job and just become a Williams historian.
Some more searching turned up the report of the Calendar and Scheduling Committee from 2000-01 indicating that holding Mountain Day on a fall Friday of the president’s choosing was agreed upon by the faculty in December 1999. A review after the “random” 2000 date (good to know I wasn’t misspeaking about that memory) led to a further decision by the faculty in March 2001 to limit it to one of the first three Fridays in October, but still give the president the discretion to pick which one.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
From that Record article:
I love these little history puzzles because they show how hard history is. The Record reporter is sure that Mountain Day was not re-introduced to 1993 even though we know otherwise. How many other things that we read in past Records are not as true as we think they are?
Here is the key portion from the WOC page.
I could be wrong but I have no memory of th week-end Mountain Days of the mid 1984-87 drawing “250-300″ students, but, then again, I never went to one. Does anyone else remember differently? Were they on Saturdays?
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
This is utter bulls–t, BTW. We had surprise Mountain Day fesitivities in the early 1970s.
All classes cancelled. En masse hikes (Pine Cobble probably? I can’t remember. Security would have refered many Mountain Day celebrants to the WPD, I’m sure).