No, I haven’t
been sitting quietly here in my Milton, Massachusetts
home all of these years counting ’44's, donation
dollars, or sheep, or what have you . . Most of the
statistics that are shown below were provided to
us by the good people at Cornell Alumni Affairs and
you can accept their totals as being "the
Gospel."
Some of the "numbers" are
quite interesting . . For example, where this past August Cornell’s current
2005 Freshman Class had 3,043 eager-to-learn enrollees, way back in September,
1940 we ’44's only numbered 1,673 when we signed in at Barton Hall as a
Freshman class.
Plainly and simply that means that today’s
circa 2002 freshman class was 182% larger than our ‘44
Class was on its Day 1 on campus in 1940 . . Sort of staggering, isn’t it?
. . And it accounts, in good part, for the major growth in the University’s
facilities that have been needed to match this enlarged student population.
The war may have been a factor
Another stat
that caught my eye was the "graduate
total." With 1,673 of us entering
Cornell in 1940 - and only 1,163 of those
entering earning an undergraduate degree
- we experienced what has to be considered
a startling drop-out
rate of 32% . . .
Do you remember those old World War II movie scenes
in which the chief petty officer or the sergeant at boot camp or the NCO at OCS
says, "Look at the man to your left and look at the man to your right. One
of them won’t be here with you when you graduate."
Well, my classmates, that’s exactly what happened
to us in 1940-1944 . . one-third of us fell by the wayside and
never did graduate . . . That’s why when Art used the slogan atop our letterhead
for many years, "The upended and somewhat decimated class of World War II
times that’s living it up in the ’90's," he wasn’t making
a funny -
he was right on target!
However, the loyalty to our Class of ‘44 has
been most exceptional from those who experienced
a personal wartime interruption in their Cornell education. Most returned from
the war and chose to re-affiliate with 1944!
Remember,
too, that the tableau that appears below is a "snapshot
in time" - the totals shown
are those that existed on June 30, 2002 and they’ll continue to change
in time. Keep this in mind if you’re viewing this Website page at
a later date.
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