Claremont McKenna College - Ayer Yearbook (Claremont, CA)

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Ever since the 18803, men and women of higher education had been dreaming 0ftransf0rming C laremont into a new Oxford, a new Cambridge, basking in the sunshine of Southern California.

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CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE

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Formulating and Founding. the Enterprise, 1926-1946 RE G I STRATI O N for the newly established Claremont College Undergraduate School for Men talso known as the Claremont Undergraduate School for Men, or, even more simply, the Claremont Menhs SchooD commenced on the morning of Mon- day, 23 September 1946, in the foyer 0f Bridges Auditorium on the campus of the Asso- ciated Colleges of Claremont thirty-Hve miles east of Los Angeles. Throughout the morning and afternoon, Dr. Gerald I. Jordan, assistant professor ofpohtical economy, recently released from the Navy, and Mrs. Bertha Ward, lecturer in Spanish, lately serving as a language instructor for the Army, enrolled eighty-six young men tmany of them in Eisenhower jackets or other examples of surplus military attiret in a hand- ful of courses being offered by a hastily assembled faculty of seven. Tuition, room, and board for the fall semester came to slightly more than $500. The majority of regis- trants, like millions of other young men similarly enrolling across the nation, were on the GI Bill. Morris Slack, for example, had flown 13-173 and 13-245 in the South Pacific, then taken charge of air intelligence in Kunming, China, before being discharged with the rank of lieutenant colonel, the same grade held by School Director Dr. George C. S. Benson, who had served in Africa, Italy, and Austria in civil affairs and military gov- ernment. Robert Eachus, also registering that morning, had won his commission in a tank destroyer battalion. Donald Phillips had won a spot promotion from the ranks to ensig11.James Wilcox had served in the South Pacific as a sergeant in airborne infantry and artillery units. William Cronin had spent part of the war in Brazil as an enlisted