June 13, 1922
Two hundred and fifty-six members of the Class of 1922 received bachelor’s degrees at Vassar’s 56th Commencement. Six candidates received the master’s degree. In his address, “Making it Unanimous,” President MacCracken noted a dangerous realignment in the country, pitting ultra conservatives against ultra radicals. “Turn where we will,” he said, “among the interests of society we seem to be everywhere confronted by an endless wrangle of Fascisti and Communists.” While this might be a natural outcome of “the shell shock of the war period,” he said, “What would be unnatural…would be for us, while recognizing it, to settle down under it as the normal condition of our life henceforth, to accept it passively as the terms of existence in our generation.” He urged his auditors to press always for greater liberty of individual development and expression.
Gifts to the college in excess of the completion of the $3 million faculty salary endowment totaled $207,608. Included in the sum was a $150,000 bequest from the late trustee Henry M. Sanders for the erection of a physics building. The Rev. Dr. Sanders had given the college the Sanders Chemistry Building (1909) in memory of his wife and more recently had given the art gallery a number of important works. Ground was broken for the Sanders Physics Building immediately after Commencement.
The retirement was announced of the first dean of Vassar College, Ella McCaleb ’78, after 38 years of service to the college in a number of posts.
The New York Times