Tommy Arkle

A tall, spare, white-haired man with a bushy white mustache was carried into a Chicago hospital last November to undergo a serious operation. Flowers, letters, telegrams began arriving for him. "Who is this guy?" asked an attendant. Replied another: "Guess he's a gangster."

No gangster, Thomas Arkle Clark held until last week a job he invented and made famous: dean of men at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, Ill), Graduate of Illinois (1890), onetime professor of rhetoric, onetime acting dean of the College of Literature & Arts, he became in 1909 the first U.S. dean of men: chastener of delinquents, soother of parents, information bureau, helper of the needy, social and moral adviser. A year ago he reached 67, age limit for university officials, was asked to stay on until the University's new president, Harry Woodburn Chase, was installed. Also, they wished him to break in his successor, Fred H. Turner. This April he announced his retirement at a meeting of U.S. deans of men in Gatlinsburg, Tenn. Last week he closed up his desk and said: "I'm not tired of the job. I just grew tired of waiting for students to think up new alibis and excuses for cutting classes."

Well-beloved, well-hated, "Tommy Arkle" wore garish clothes, big rings, liked to be told that he was the best dressed man on the campus, glowered quizzically over his spectacles as he talked with his students. Quietly, firmly he made his impress upon Illinois, abolishing naughty fraternities (Kappa Beta Phi, Theta Nu Epsilon), fraternity "hell week," freshman hazing, student ownership of automobiles. He is fond of proper fraternity life, interested especially in his own Alpha Tau Omega. Like Edward, Prince of Wales an accomplished fancy-worker, he knit sweaters for soldiers during the World War, has lately turned his attention to tatting and crocheting. He gave Alpha Phi Sorority a fine tat-edged luncheon cloth, crocheted this spring a rag rug for Kappa Delta.

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