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Andrew HeiskellAndrew Heiskell
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attempt at a new form of very liberal art oriented education, and that had had considerable success, quite well known graduates and quite well known teachers there--Bernie Malamud, various others. But times have caught up with them. They were in a continuous financial bind. Main reason they were in a continuous financial bind is that they had a policy at commencement of telling the students: “Well, now we've done everything we can for you, and you've gotten everything you can out of Bennington, so go your way, God Bless You, and you don't need to think about us once again.” Well, they didn't [laughter]. And the school didn't even have a list of names of its graduates. And I am convinced to this day that a lot of the graduates are quite wealthy, because I know that quite a lot of them came from wealthy families. But very few came back--they didn't have reunions. At Dartmouth, the speech at commencement is: “Now we've done everything for you, now you've got to do everything for Dartmouth.” And by God, they do. And they contribute enormously.

Well, between increasing cost of living, one thing and another, the situation became very serious, and remained serious. The president then was Ed Bloustein, who had been there for quite a few years. And he finally told us that he had been offered the presidency of Rutgers, and he had--he finally said, he'd just about accepted it. And I remember we were--the chairman of the board was a lady--very charming lady, Jessie Everette, a good deal older than myself--and she and Ed and I were flying out to Racine, Wisconsin, to call on Sam Johnson, whose sister was a Bennington graduate, to see if we can get some money. And as we were flying over Lake Michigan, Ed Bloustein began to change his mind about going to Rutgers and





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