Te Deyo Laudamus

Te Deyo Laudamus
by William T. Ramsay

In 1961, the College joke was that school supplies were doled out on a quid-pro-quo basis: to get a pencil, show a stub; to get a yellow pad, turn in an empty. This was the atmosphere faculty breathed when a few concerned members decided that communication needed improving by augmenting the telephone system on campus.

The Administration Building had essential lines: the College Dean, Don Deyo, had one; the Registrar, Bill Neal, had one; the Dean of Students, Sadie Higgins, had one; the Library had one; Science had one, on the first floor. And there were even three in the Academic Building, strategically placed so that Deyo could call a custodian in the basement or a faculty member above stairs when he wanted immediate access to someone. For faculty, Freda Malone’s office on the first floor was one station; Virginia Pinney’s office on the third floor was the other. This arrangement was especially cost-effective. The first-floor phone served both first and second floors, and the third-floor phone counted double because it functioned down one to second, on level at third, and up one to fourth.

A faculty Telephone Committee surveyed the situation and came up with a list of installations needed to up-date the system. For additional instruments, top priority went to department chairmen; next came the Science Building; and finally faculty offices—modestly requested for opposite ends of each hall in the Academic Building.

Personally presented with the request for telephones, Deyo met his importuner as a bulldog with a bone might receive a hungry Chihuahua. He studied the list quickly and read each justification for a phone. Then he made his decision.

“No more faculty phones,” he growled. That was that! And that was sure to stop a universe of faculty from lounging around their phones, feet propped up on desks, “playing college.”

But the Science Building request was a different matter. Deyo admitted that there was a question of safety related to the chemistry laboratory. He approved that one additional phone with a circle around it on the Memorandum of Request. He would take care of it, he promised. Then he dismissed the young pup who had brought the list, laying the memo aside and silently going back to the work in front of him.

The Telephone Committee gained some small satisfaction in coming away not completely empty handed. And, in time, Deyo made good on his promise. One day, a telephone truck came on campus, an installer quickly went about his business, and at last the Science Building had its emergency hotline outside the chemistry laboratory.

It was a pay phone!

Takoma Park Campus: English Department, 1961–1983; Professor Emeritus.