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A Gas Mask Graduation Class LOUISE STEVENS E The University of Hawaii is on a war basis. The longest summer session in its history will end August 29. An accelerated program that enables students to complete a standard course and receive a degree in three years instead of four was inaugurated following the commencement on June 4. The only graduating class in America to receive their degrees in the war zone, the class of 1942 marched into the tropical garden of the University’s outdoor theater, each student carrying his gas mask in its khaki case. The cumbersome masks, slung over shoulders by long brown straps, contrasted oddly with the black caps and gowns. From an adjoining football field came the explosive commands of an officer drilling the Honolulu Businessmen’s Military Training Corps. An occasional airplane zoomed overhead. An army colonel delivered the commencement address. A degree was awarded posthumously to James Malcolm Topalian, who was killed on December 7 in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Members of the graduating class publicly reaffirmed their faith in America by reciting in concert the Pledge of Allegiance. Like all schools in the Territory, the University was closed by military order from December 7, 1941, to February 2, 1942. In the interval many students and instructors had taken defense jobs. New courses designed to fit into the Territory’s war needs were added to the curriculum at the time of reopening. Some of these were first aid, chemistry as applied to warfare, history of the warring countries , courses dealing with the economics of the conflict, and courses in nutrition to meet the increased interest in this science that the war has engendered. A Chinese girl whose university in China had been moved from 70 First published August 1942. Lingnan to Hong Kong while she attended it and who, when the war neared Hong Kong, had flown by Clipper to Honolulu to continue her education, received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture. Her name is Fung Ting Fung. Bent on returning to China to help develop her country ’s agriculture, Miss Fung took her work so earnestly that when demand for war workers made it difficult for the University farm to get labor, she voluntarily herded swine and helped with the morning milking. Now she is taking graduate work at Cornell University. During recent months University of Hawaii students have seen on classroom blackboards such instructions as this: “In case of an air raid alarm,go by way of the nearest stairway to the first floor,then to the center of the building, out by the fountain entrance, and left to trench 8-A.” The bomb shelter trenches that crisscross the campus were used twice during the spring semester, both times on Saturday mornings. Both times the alarm gave comfort to some of the students, for it interrupted examinations. Some faculty members continued their lectures in the trenches. Army and navy uniforms are very much in evidence on the campus. Many service men use their leave for study at the University. Instructors have devised a tutoring-class-conference-correspondence system of instruction to accommodate the soldiers and sailors. The men come when they can and receive instruction individually, in class, in groups of two or three, or by correspondence. Several service men whose graduation from mainland colleges this year was prevented by the war expect to receive their degrees at the end of the summer semester. The University of Hawaii has fitted itself into war conditions. It has enlisted for the duration. War!—1942 71 ...

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