When Suzie Benack, a member of the House System Implementation
Committee, gently suggested that her colleagues bring to South
College something that would make
the students feel at home, the faculty gladly responded.
At the recent open house, the shelves of one seminar room
were filled with all kinds of books (classics to beach novels), board games
(Trivial Pursuit, for one), mugs (some were to donate their 10-year service
mugs as “named gifts”) and playing cards, to name a few.
But
two slightly older books –- one worn, the other not — were especially interesting
for what their inscriptions said about the donor. In Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (45th edition), Kimmo
Rosenthal, dean for undergraduate education and professor of mathematics,
wrote, “I have not opened this book in over 30 years. I hope you make better
use of it.”
But
in Standard Mathematical Tables (14th
edition), he wrote, “This is a book that no home should be without.”