The chaplain called to his office girls who represented some of the more important campus organizations and other students who were known to be dissatisfied with life and education at Wellesley. That gathering signified the first time that the isolated voices of dissent on the campus were brought together. Out of the meeting came a list of proposals for reform of the college and an organization, the Committee on Wellesley Indifference (COWI), to work for the acceptance of the reform.

The proposals discussed many areas of concern to the students. They called for alterations of admissions policy to accommodate the acceptance of unconventionally-qualified students and to allow for greater recruitment of black students. In addition, COWI requested that the administration introduce pass-fail courses and more extensive leaves of absence. The group also suggested that faculty salaries at Wellesley be raised to improve the quality of faculty attracted to the college and to enable the school to compete for the scarce supply of black professors and administrators.

COWI's reforms did not ignore the issue of student power: the group asserted that students should be seated on the Board of Admissions and on Academic Council, Wellesley's faculty decision-making body. The girls concluded by demanding that the administration cease perpetuating a "tree day" image of Wellesley in the college publications.

Behind the proposals lay a concept of the college that would be very different from Wellesley as it presently exists. Most COWI members see the college as a collection of girls from middle class suburban homes who find neither in their education nor their living conditions at Wellesley anything that questions or contradicts the mode of life to which they are accustomed. Such an experience, according to the girls in COWI, has no educational value. As Nancy Scheibner '69, a leading member of COWI, explained at an All-College Meeting, "Wellesley must find her identity as an educational center in which the norm is no longer that of conforming to...a middle class cultural milieu but in which each individual is seeking to maximize her own creative potential and in which each individual sees herself as making a unique contribution...to the diversity of her college...Unless the college provides contact for diverse individuals, it is failing to equip any student with the understanding and flexible mind required for relevant survival in the present world."

TWO points of significance emerged from the COWI proposals and Miss Scheibner's explanation of them. COWI was concerned with issues that affected white as well as black students, and the critique of the college was directed as much at the students as at the administration.

Because the proposals affected all students and not just blacks, COWI was able to succeed where Ethos had failed. Students began to express interest in the proposals. In compulsory dormitory meetings, girls had a chance to give their opinions on the reform, and they came out strongly in favor of all the proposals--except those encouraging the hiring of black administrators. There was still resistance to the goals that Ethos had set for the college the previous spring.

Nevertheless, it seems strange that most Wellesley students were willing to support the COWI proposals. For when Nancy Schneibner speaks of admitting a diversified group of students to Wellesley, she is saying that most of the girls who are currently enrolled in the college should not be there.

The students' acceptance of the proposals, then, indicates that there is a gap between the rhetoric used by COWI members and the reform measures these members introduced. Students who support proposals to increase faculty salaries, to permit leaves of absence, and to change the school's "tree day" image do not necessarily believe that the character and student body of Wellesley College should be drastically altered. Even putting students on Academic Council or on the Admissions Committee gives little guarantee that the college will become more diversified or accommodating to change. In short, student support for the COWI proposals would not have to reflect approval of the rhetoric behind those proposals.

Much more a measure of the students' desire for change at Wellesley is the reaction to the Ethos proposals of the previous spring: demands for many more black students, black faculty and administrators, and black courses. To imagine a college that is ten per cent black, rounded out by black heads of house, black administrators, and black professors teaching courses in black history--to imagine this is to view a school that is quite different from the Wellesley of today One student's remarks typified much of the student reaction to such a change, "I'm satisfied with what I've gotten out of Wellesley. I don't feel that black students have any legitimate grievances." Her remarks reflect not so much prejudice as just a basic resistance to change.

BUT IT IS this very willingness to accept change that COWI members seek to instill into the students and administration at Wellesley. The reform-minded students want to demonstrate that unconventional courses and girls who are not from a "middle class social milieu" are not inferior just because they are different.

The reaction of Ethos' members to the COWI proposals can best be described as sympathetic disinterest. "Ethos," explained Karen Williamson, "is still trying to get the proposals of last spring accepted. They are sort of vaguely included in the COWI proposals. These proposals are an attempt to involve the rest of the student body, so they are watered down.... They are too weak to get our support...and are not even controversial any more. People feel that commentary on the proposals is enough. My feeling is that that's fine and dandy. Now back to business."

Francille A. Rusan '69, another Ethos member, commented, "I don't resent their (COWI) ignoring Ethos.... I just don't have time to become involved with proposals from white students.... Given the structure of the current proposals, it is not necessarily true that Ethos' goals will be satisfied as a natural follower. The proposals are generally so vague that the administration could agree to them and actually do little."

The changes that Ethos seeks in Wellesley are so specific that they can be expressed in quantitative terms. "The thing that is important to me," Nancy Gist said, "is giving more black students a chance at higher education so they can affect change where its needed--in the big bad world."

That does not require altering the attitudes or composition of Wellesley's student body. "I see it as enough that the administration will act without the students," concluded Karen Williamson.

Both Ethos and COWI are willing to work independently of each other for apparently different reforms. Their goals, however, are inter-related. If COWI does succeed in changing the type of student that attends Wellesley, Ethos will find its task easier. Black students will not feel alienated from a student body that prides itself on its diversity; and black courses and perspectives will naturally appear in course listings that are, as COWI wishes, continually being questioned and revised.