Kilocycle Prexy

Though they have been hearing quite a bit of it recently, few Americans really know very much about Ivy College, located in the town of Ivy, U.S.A. No one, for instance, knows how many students it has, or has much idea of the quality of its faculty, the size of its endowments, or the prowess of its football team. The only thing that the U.S. public really knows about the college is its president, a kindly, debonair gentleman named William Todhunter Hall.

Actually, President Hall has had a short career. Played by Actor Ronald Colman, he exists for only half an hour a week, Wednesday nights on NBC. But judging by the president's fan mail, U.S. educators like him fine. By the pie-simple process of self-identification, many a paunchy U.S. educator is clearly having a gratifying half hour listening to Ronald Colman suavely solving his problems.

Wisely & Well. The president of Ivy ("Toddy" to his wife, played by Mrs. Colman) is, of course, a harassed man, whose desk is always littered with reports, and whose days are filled with faculty teas, meetings of the Fiscal Committee of the Governing Board, and invitations to make speeches. Like his fellow presidents, Dr. Hall has a good deal of trustee trouble, especially with the chairman of the board who invariably wants to "throw the book" at someone ("He wouldn't know any other use for a book," says Hall). He is bothered by his budget ("Our sinking fund is going down for the third time"), and by the town gossips who are trying to stir up a scandal about a young English professor and a coed.

But in the midst of these problems, President Hall rules wisely and well. His door is always open to troubled students. He seldom loses a chance to plug for academic freedom, reads both a Republican and a Democratic newspaper to get both sides of every question. When a wealthy donor offered Ivy $500,000 with the proviso that it not be used for students of "certain races and creeds" ("After all, one cannot be a traitor to one's class"), Dr. Hall turned her down flat: "Life is like a college, Mrs. Marshall, you don't learn much by attending only one class."

"A Real Service." Last week, when William Todhunter Hall got through his weekly stint, a real-life college president --Frederick L. Hovde, of Purdue University--came to the microphone. On behalf of the national fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, Hovde presented the Colmans with a scroll in "appreciation for your accurate and intelligent delineation of campus life ... a real service to education."

Only one thing about the president of Ivy bothered the president of Purdue: "No other college president I know can solve a brand-new problem every week with neatness and dispatch, in exactly one half hour. It's pretty discouraging."

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