Rochester Review • University of Rochester

Review welcomes letters from readers and will print them as space permits. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity. Unsigned letters cannot be used, but names of the writers may be withheld on request. Send letters to Rochester Review, 147 Wallis Hall, P.O. Box 270033, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0033; rochrev @rochester.edu.

“Will the program give any attention to areas where females have the advantage?” —Marc Roemer ’88, ’97 (MS)

Still Debating Susan B.

I’m intrigued by the yearlong program about Susan B. Anthony (“Still Seeking Susan B.,” Spring 2006). I’m especially interested in how women frame the issue of “equal rights.” Ms. [Nora] Bredes, director of the University’s Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership, makes nothing of the fact that women have outnumbered men in college since at least 1983. Will the program give any attention to this and other areas where females have the advantage, such as women’s better health, exemption from military service, reproductive and automatic parental rights, lower accountability for crimes they commit, and disproportionate consumer spending?

I expect the answer to be “no,” because my observation is that women strive for equal rights only when they stand to benefit, and rarely, if at all, when they stand to lose. Nevertheless, I invite the program participants to apply their intellectual gifts to these inequalities, using the rational side of their being, so we can perhaps come to respect women some day as equal partners, just as Susan B. Anthony hoped.

I read with great interest your article “Still Seeking Susan B.” I was disappointed that there was no reference to Antoinette (Nettie) Brown Blackwell. A native of Henrietta, New York, she was the first ordained woman minister in the United States. Her biography, Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography, by Elizabeth Cazden, (The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1983) contains more than 30 references to Susan.

Susan visited Nettie frequently at her Henrietta home, and the two traveled together on the lecture circuit and attended numerous conventions together. It would be a shame to neglect this strong connection with the Rochester area.

Remembering a Teacher

I was surprised and saddened to learn of the demise of Paul Allen ’49E (In Memoriam, Winter 2005–06). Paul and Ward Woodbury ’54E (PhD), the director of music on the River Campus, had become friends at the Eastman School right after World War II. When Allan Ross ’61 left to pursue graduate work at Indiana University after the 1964–65 year, Dr. Woodbury invited Paul to take over the men’s and women’s glee clubs and the concert band.

Although I performed under him in the concert band for only my senior year, I found him to be not only a good musician but also a man who was open, friendly, and sensitive to the musical interests and aspirations of the students. He was an outstanding teacher, and I know I am far from alone in this opinion. He will be missed.

Wallis Rejoinder

As a proud Rochester graduate and faculty member for 31 years (1959–2000), I take strong exception to the views expressed in recent letters to Review regarding the presidency of W. Allen Wallis (Letters, Winter 2005–06 and Spring 2006). Alumni Hyman, Leberstein, and Russell are apparently still disgruntled and upset that their demands during the troubled ’60s were not obeyed.

An eminent statistician, economist, and a distinguished administrator, Allen Wallis deserved the honor of having a University building named in his memory.

The author was on the faculty of the Warner School and the School of Nursing at Rochester—Editor.

Recording a Correction

The Winter 2005–06 issue of Review failed to include the text for a recording that we listed. Our apologies to Susan Marie Pierson ’74E, whose debut in the role of Isolde in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is featured on a four-CD set produced by Titanic Records.