Capital University - Capitalian Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

Page 27 text:

LEONARD HALL Leonard I Iall has looked for years as though .t would fall in at any minute; but last year it got a new lease on life in the form of a summer's work of redecorating and rehabilitating so that now Leonard is entering on something of a second childhood. Starting originally as a boarding club in the days of Dr. Schuh. Leonard was undoubtedly the scene of much “jollity among its all-male constituency; during Professor Leonard’s days however, the at- mosphere became more academic as the sciences moved in and the dining tables moved out. For several decades, then, Leonard Science I Iall was the scat of all the lab sciences on the campus: rooms full of test tubes, smoking vials, and sopho- more girls trying to find an unknown. In those days Leonard sported a most attractive tin smoke- stack pointing unsteadily out of one of the back windows; and the atmosphere (despite the smoke- stack) was heavy with fumes and the remnants of old odors as each new experiment left its record in a new combination ol smells with maybe here and there a splotch on the walls from some exploded miscalculation. But times were changing and the scientists ol Capital were beginning to feel cramped; Leonards stairs were creaking more pitifully with the rush of scientific feet up and down and there were signs of sagging here and there throughout the venerable old structure. Finally Cap became the possessor of a new science hall, and everyone wondered if Leonard had seen its last class. But no, after considerable patching, painting, rearrang- ing, Leonard received a new lease on life and is now going strong. 21

Page 26 text:

LOY GYM Old and battered, Fort Loy has withstood some forty-three years of service to Capsters and commu- nity. It would he hard to estimate the number of athletic forays which have been battled on its creaking floor, the number of cheers which have rebounded from the dingy brick walls, the number of people who have sat tense on its benches as the purple-and-white men charged up and down the hardwood. Not only that, but Fort Loy has taken on in its forty-three years of service other duties: back in 1907 it served as auditorium for dramatic productions and for commencements; when the vets started coming back to school in ‘46, it served as men's dorm (and was officially dubbed the Fort ); and occasionally the fellows and girls of Cap hide those drab walls under festoons of crepe paper and f ort Loy becomes a carnival midway or a barn for the hoc-downs. Truly, Loy Gym has had a checkered career. During the day, Loy Gym is somewhat less glamorous. Men’s plus. ed. classes keep the floor shaking most the day upstairs; downstairs are facil- ities for various athletic exercises: weight-lifting, wrestling, ping pong, and what-have-you. Intra- mural basketball teams also play an interesting variety of ball beneath the broad white-washed beams which have spanned the ceiling and the years in Loy Gym.

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RUDOLPH LIBRARY One of the most photogenic buildings on campus is the Rudolph Memorial Library, whose vaulted reading rooms are seldom empty from morning till night—especially around term paper time. 1 he library, built originally in 1914 and remodeled in 1938, serves Cap scholars well. I he reading rooms are well-known to every Cap stcr. especially the much-thumbed periodical section in the corner of the main room; and on the other side are the formidable shelves of the reference books which every freshman English student duly leafs through at the beginning of his college career. I he old green sofa that sits in the bay window is almost as familiar a campus landmark as the Big Elm, and many a student has found it l lovely place to puzzle ovci a particularly heavy pas- sage of Virgil or general psych. Miss Conrad, the guiding saint of the Rudolph Library, has her oflice behind the Seminary reading room on the south side, while across the hall assis- tants Vincent and I leubner struggle violently to keep up with the incoming flow of new volumes. Upstairs are the private domains of Chaplain Owens, Social Activities Director Bowers, and Mr. Metz’s education oflice; among the three of them they keep the narrow hall nearly always occupied by goings of student teachers, social chairmen, and other impatients awaiting admission. In the basement one finds the art room. Here Miss Ebinger's I itians, Picassos, and other such people hold forth in various media, from Ivory Soap to oils and clay. Behind two ornate doors sparkling in colored glass windows, Capital artists give expression to their artistic impulses with much enthusiasm and varying degrees of success; their efforts have even overflowed onto brightly designed murals pasted around the basement halls, showing forth all sorts of queer creatures. Down here, also. Dr. Ebert discourses to his philosophers daily and Dean Smith entertains his Greeks. It is in the library that most students are first initiated into the serious side of college life during the voluminous entrance tests; and from those first days on, this lovely brick building plays an im- portant role in the academic life of each member of the Cap family. — 22 —