Scrapbooks and Social Awareness: A Self-Curated History of the Oberlin YWCA

Part 1: Domestic Arts     |     Part 2: Student-Faculty Discussions
Part 3: Career Symposia     |     Part 4: Interracial Relations
Bibliography

Introduction     |    Document 2: 1940-1941    |     Document 3: 1944-1945    |     Document 4: 1945-1946

Document 3: 1944-1945

Title: Faculty-Student Discussions

“Christianity Criticized: Nietzsche”
“Christianity Criticized: Nietzsche” YM/YWCA Photos, 1908-09, 1914, 1939-63, RG 29, Subgroup III, Series 4, Box 1

Author: unknown

Date: Likely December 1944

Document Type: Printed Document

Location: 1944-45 YWCA Scrapbook, RG 29, Series II, Box 4, O. C. A.

 

Introduction:

The following document is a questionnaire for asking for suggestions for topics to be addressed in  faculty-student discussions. These discussions were likely held, although Julia Taylor, who compiled the 1944-45 scrapbook, did not save the schedule. The Oberlin Review reported on 16 March 1945 that YWCA and YMCA hosted faculty-student discussions, “bull sessions,” on topics adapted from this questionnaire. They included: “Is the Church An Elective?” “Is Religion Practical?” “Why Pray?” and “Reconstruction Begins Within.”

 

Original                       Both                    Transcription

 

 

bull session

Transcription:

You’ll have an opportunity to have some of your questions discussed and answered, to develop your ideas, and to bull about many things, during the Conference which will be coming up in a few months. An important outside speaker will be here for several days – there’ll be student discussions and student-faculty bull sessions. So let us have your ideas for the Conference!

 

IF YOU COULD GET BUT ONE RELIGIOUS AND PERSONAL ISSUE ANSWERED, IT WOULD BE:

(Number several in order of interest to you)

( ) What is the relation of a man’s belief to his temper, to sex, to hatred?

( ) If God is good and also powerful, why this war?

( ) What is the relation of Christianity to democracy? Are they in cooperation or conflict?

( ) Of what value is prayer?

( ) Is there a life after death?

( ) Is a “Godless life” an effective one?

( ) Why so many faiths for one God? What values in the many Protestant denominations?

 

ANY IDEAS OF YOUR OWN:

 

 

 

ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CONFERENCE (more bull-sessions? More student-faculty discussions? More conferences luncheons? More panel discussions?):