Amherst Magazine Edward I. Metcalf '46
Skip to Main Content50th Reunion
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Very little at Amherst is the way it used to be. Even some familiar buildings have new names.
I know it’s a sore point with some of our classmates that fraternities are gone. Not me. We should mourn the loss of secret handshakes and mindless ritual? And let’s not forget a fair ration of prejudice was part of the system.
Others of us opposed co-education. I still feel the College reneged on its commitment to the Five College concept. But the pluses now clearly have overtaken the minuses. And even without women, I seem to remember our life-style 50 years ago was hardly monastic.
At least the College is changing…for good or ill like the rest of us. Our problem is we’re running out of things we can relate to. When the Alumni Quarterly comes I sometimes say to myself: “
Who are these people?”
So U.S. News rates Amherst tops in the country. All my undergraduate education and later experience has taught me to be skeptical of such sources.
So a good Amherst man is now running the C.I.A. He deserves sympathy and our support and we all can take comfort in the fact that a bunch of Yalies screwed up that bureaucracy long before Mr. Deutch appeared. (By the way, does anyone know where the captain of the Titanic went to school?)
I find it hard to evaluate some recent developments. Should we really take pride in Amherst’s academic distinction or is our College, like our government, creating advantage for the already privileged behind a façade of honorable tradition? I can’t tell for sure.
For my own part, I look back with enormous fondness…and a few regrets. I wouldn’t trade anything for the friends I made at Amherst. But I wish I had used the education more wisely. Even so, I learned the habit of thinking for myself and to be especially wary of absolutes.
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Who could ask for better?
Ed Metcalf