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Political Emphasis Week & Religion-In-Life Week
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Two great weeks
I enjoyed Religion-In-Life Week (and Dr. J. Maxwell Adams) and Political Emphasis Week (and Dr. Mitau).
Nancy Knauff Waller
Believers’ or skeptics’ hour
I remember that once a year a week was designated Religion-in-Life Week. Special lectures, seminars and other events focused on religion were held that week. In one year (spring of 1955, I think) one event was a choice between attending a believers’ hour or a skeptics’ hour. Many of us were astonished that only a handful of people attended the believers’ hour, while many dozens attended the skeptics’ hour. This seemed especially surprising since Macalester was a Presbyterian College and required chapel attendance and one or two religion classes.
Nell Logan
Our professors’ quest for meaning in life
College was a time for an intense exchange of ideas. Faculty invited us into their homes or met us for coffee. I particularly liked Religion-In-Life Week. This was a time when faculty shared their lives’ quests for meaning with us. I would like to see something like this on campuses today, even on the State-supported campus where I am currently a librarian. I believe that this interaction was the essence of the Mac I remember, even more than the United Nations flag atop the campus flagpole.
Corinne E. Johnson Nyquist
Learning about the real world
I do not see the fifties as a bland decade. Political Emphasis Week was a re-creation of the real world with its grand ideas and dirty tricks. My future husband, Tom, and I led Minnesota Students for Kefauver for President. We also met Hubert Humphrey, our senator, and Eugene McCarthy, our congressman, when each came to a yearly meeting of our Mac Democratic Club. A PEW legislative committee waited until dorm girls had to leave one evening and then I voted with those who remained to change all minority reports into majority reports, my introduction to human chicanery.
Corinne E. Johnson Nyquist
All of the extras
Some of the most memorable experiences at Mac for me were the extras—Political Emphasis Week, Religion-in-Life Week, Visiting Lecturers, etc. It seems that I took them all in and was disappointed when there were conflicts and I couldn’t hear them all. I especially remember The Hill lecturers in ’54-’55—Ernst Toch, conductor, and Robert Coffin, poet. I include in the list college plays such as Hedda Gabler (see photo) and the Brahms Requiem sung by the Mac Choir.
Mary Jane Hollingsworth Lee
My first objective look at religion and politics
I am thankful for my first serious objective look at religion and politics through Religion–in-Life Week and Political Emphasis week. I especially recall Dr. James A. Robinson, an African-American minister from New York City, who gave me a wake-up call about the issues of racism in America. Political Emphasis week was also an enlightenment for a kid from small-town Minnesota raised in a Republican Presbyterian home, where my parent’s circle of friends was defined by their religion and politics.
Sandy Hill
Advertising Religion-in-Life Week
We advertised Religion-in-Life Week activities by taping the blurbs onto the inside of bathroom stall doors all over campus.
Barbara James Schue
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