When students arrived on College Hill in 1969, the war in Vietnam was the big issue on campus.
PRECEDING PAGE:
Sol Lebovitz was the first dean of the Graduate School, which was established in 1969. He emphasized high standards in admissions and in faculty recruitment.
well-informed, others went along because their sweethearts were there. Several times they went down to the center of Providence and joined with Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students in protest demonstrations. Bryant students were in contact with national peace groups, and in October of 1969 they formed the Bryant Chapter of the Vietnam Peace Action Committee. They observed the October 15 moratorium. The next spring, Bryant students voted overwhelmingly for the immediate withdrawal of United States forces in Vietnam. 71 Then on May 6, 1970, at Kent State University, four students protesting escalation of the war were killed. Bryant students, like students everywhere in the nation, voted to strike to protest the bombing of North Vietnam, American intervention in Cambodia, treatment of political prisoners in Vietnam, and the killing of the four students. Bryant students were the first in the Providence area to make that decision. 72 Lynn Hayden summed up their intention: "Somebodyand as many somebodies as possible-had to say something was wrong!,,73 Students and faculty made the strike a time for learning. "Teach-ins" about the history of Vietnam and the current war went on as well as theatrical and musical presentations of the aspirations of the country's young people for a "truly democratic society." Students set up a telephone network in the gym so that Bryant students could maintain contact with students at other colleges and universities around the country. Faculty and administrators were generally sensitive to the students' feelings and respectful of their desire to educate themselves on United