New Wine, Old Bottle
There’s much to be written about the Charter Class, and this is just a tidbit. It took me almost four decades, and three years of working on AMP projects, to make this connection:
1972 Yearbook flyleaf
Charter Class Diploma, 1972
The rubber stamp text on the diploma reads: “First lot inspected and passed by 72.”
Was someone thinking of apple wine?
Sam Babbitt shared more about diploma design in a recent email:
First of all, the PRE-Charter Class (’71) selected an intaglio etching. It always bothered me a bit, because it shows a woman evidently peeking out from behind a translucent curtain. I immediately thought of the passage in “The Invisible Man” in which Ellison muses about the statue on their campus which is said to depict a young neophyte being relieved of his blindfold by an older man. Problem was that it also looked as if the older man might be blindfolding the younger! Same with that etching: maybe she was not coming out of hiding, but going in!
Anyway, I had done some questioning of the Albany education folk as to what was required to be on a diploma. Answer: Nothing, really. The operative document is the transcript. With that in mind, we went pretty minimalist and the charter class chose a very simple, elegant layout. Then came the Celtic design, and after one more version, everyone decided to stick with it.
If there’s anyone reading who can locate a 1971 diploma, or share their Celtic one, please let us know! We’d love to scan it for display here.
Creative Writing
Innovation was a cornerstone of a Kirkland College education. In the 1960s and 1970s, only a handful of colleges in the United States offered an undergraduate degree in creative writing. According to the Associated Writing Programs, half a dozen colleges conferred a BA to student majoring in creative writing in 1975. Kirkland was one of them.
More than 20 Kirkland undergraduates concentrated in creative writing. Many of them later earned MFAs or MAs in writing from prestigious programs at the University of Iowa, Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, Columbia University, Vermont College, and others. Some pursued successful careers in magazine and book publishing, journalism, teaching writing and literature, or related fields.
William Rosenfeld and Naomi Cohen (K’78) in a fiction workshop at Kirkland
• Kirkland was one of the earliest members of the Associated Writing Programs, a professional organization founded in 1967 to support and encourage academic creative writing programs and individual writers.
• Carl Beier was the first chairman of Kirkland’s arts division and creative writing program.
• Creative writing was in the Arts Division, not the English Department. This concept was visionary in the 1960s and 1970s. Thirty years later, creative writing at most colleges and universities remains in the English Department.
• Kirkland students who concentrated in creative writing took a minimum of 6 writing workshops, including introduction to writing courses and advanced workshops in prose and poetry, and had to complete a Senior Project.
Read about Kirkland Writing Faculty
Read about “Red Weather” Kirkland’s Literary Magazine
Jo Pitkin K’78
The Co-Op Art Store
Kirkland’s popular Arts Division created a tremendous demand for materials like silkscreen inks, high quality paper and litho crayons, which were not readily available in the Utica region. The Co-Op was founded in 1970 by charter class member Gail Phelps, and was student funded and operated. Members bought shares to help finance inventory, and contributed work/study time to running the shop, housed in a little closet with a dutch door, under the stairwell in the basement of List.
Stock certificate by Gail Phelps (Smith) K72
Do you have any Co-Op memories? Do you know who painted the dragon mural which still adorns the List stairway? Please add your comments below.
Site of the Art Co-Op. Photo 2007 by J.Morris
Senior Projects
Another innovation at Kirkland was the undergraduate thesis, or senior project, required for graduation. These could be performances, research, literary analysis or other effort, but always included a written paper and a faculty interview.
The Kirkland Archives at Hamilton’s Burke Library houses copies of many projects. Here’s brief sample:
“Appetite Plus: A Look at Obesity and Why it Happens” by Catherine Scott
“The Practice and Principles of Organic Gardening” by Jani Klebanow
“A Partial Analysis of the Soils of Gatecliff Rockshelter” by Liana Hoodes
“Women in the Church 1223-1548” by Christine DeLuca Lotto
“The Political Role of Public Security in Communist China” by Sara Paige Noble
“Designing a Solar Heated House” by Ruth Finch
“The Photochemistry of Methyl Phenyl Sulfoxide” by Donna J. Wax
Kirkland College 