Fresno State College - Campus Yearbook (Fresno, CA)

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GOV. WARREN BREAKS GROUND FOR NEW CAMPUS Official groundbreaking on the new Shaw Avenue site was held on October 18, 1950, at ceremonies attended by more than 2,000 persons. Chief Justice Earl Warren, then the Governor of California, was the main speaker at the ceremony. The first building to be occupied on the multi-million dollar campus was the laboratory school in 1952. Although the entire men ' s physical education unit was not complete, the basketball team played part of its 1953-54 season in the new gymnasium. In the fall of 1954, the agriculture, industrial arts, music and ag mechanics building were popu- lated by the growing student body. During the Christmas vacation of 1954, the president ' s office and the student personnel offices were moved to the new campus. By the fall of 1953 almost 400 students were attending classes on the new campus, commuting by special bus from the old campus. Then with the completion of the education- psychology building in the fall of 1955, the new campus became the main FSC site. More than 75 percent of the total classes were scheduled on the new campus. In the spring of 1956 one of the most tedious and diffi- cult transfers occured with the occupancy of the new library. Since then the new student cafeteria, a woman ' s physical education building, a bookstore — financed by the FSC Stu- dent Association — and the medical center have been com- pleted and occupied. The new campus, a $30 million capital investment, was dedicated May 9, 1958. THIRD PRESIDENT of the college, Dr. Arnold E. Joyal, was appointed in 1948. THE LONE THREE story structure on campus, the art-home economics building, was built in 1957 and part of 1958. PARTICIPATING In groundbreaking ceremonies ore Governor Earl Warren, Senator Hugh Burns, P. T. Pooge, Dr. Roy E. Simpson ond Dr. Arnold Joyal EARL H WIGHT, former administrative ossislant to President Joyal, observes sculpture on the men ' s gym. 16

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DR. TULLY KNOWLES, president of the College of the Pacific, and Dr. Arnold Joyal, F5C president, headed the procession at the 1 949 commencement. 1 tTii THE FRESNO BEE kept FSC students informed ' on World War II news DR. ARNOLD JOYAL presented the FSC Foundation award for service to tfie college to Frank Homan in 1950. COLLEGE PRESIDENT Dr. Arnold Joyal and former president Dr. Frank Tliomas visited with the first college president, C. L. McLane (center), in his home o few weeks before his death in 1949. STATE BUYS LAND FOR NEW SHAW AVENUE CAMPUS The barrier of the Santa Fe railroad tracks had convinced the college administration that the old campus should not be expanded. In 1947 the legislature enacted a bill calling for the sale of the old campus and the purchase of a new site. Four sites were considered and in 1948 the state public works board selected a 160 acre fig orchard at Blackstone and Shields Avenue (now the site of the Manchester Shop- ping Center). Dr. Thomas retired that year at the age of 70. His suc- cessor was 46 year old Dr. Arnold Edward Joyal, the dean of education at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Joyal ' s immediate task was to organize and carry out FSC ' s opera- tion big shift, the transfer of a growing student body to a new campus, seven miles northeast of Fresno. The state bought the Shields-Blackstone site for $327,000 in 1949 but immediately ran into opposition from planning officials and property owners when it proposed to buy another several hundred acres in the same area for the farm school. The impasse was broken when the state decided to sell the site and build instead at Shaw and Cedar Avenues, where it already owned 120 acres. The state completed purch asing the 880-acre site for approximately $600,000, 120 acres for academic structures and 720 acres for the division of agriculture. Today the campus comprises almost 1,000 acres and will grow to 1,428 acres when the college adds more land for its farm school and discards 358 acres now used for the farm operation at the Fresno Airport. 15

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DEDICATION OFFICIALS included William Blair, president of the state board of education; Harold Powers, Lieutenant governer; Judge Gilbert Jertberg, Dr. Robert Sproul, UC president; Dr. Arnold Joyal, FSC president and Dr. Roy Simpson, director of state education. CON5TRLJCTION BEGAN on the speech-orts building in 1 59 and students and faculty moved into the building in the fall of 1960. ' ,M THE PROCESSIONAL at the dedication of the Shaw Avenue campus in May, 1 958 con- sisted of many official delegates, adminis- trative staff, faculty of the college and visitors. NEW CAMPUS REPRESENTS $30 MILLION INVESTMENT In the fall of 1959 three new residence halls, the first such on-campus dorms in Fresno State ' s history, were occu- pied by 600 students. The halls, located on the southwest corner of Cedar and Shaw Avenues, were completed in late July 1959. The cafeteria dining room was renovated and the new faculty dining room was completed with a capacity of 152 seats. Work started on the two-story addition to the cafeteria, the new handball and tennis courts were completed and bids were opened for the enology plant and construc- tion of parking lots for residents of the FSC dormitories. Parking fees were levied by the state for the fir«;t time — $13 for hunting privileges and $5 a month for a reserved spot. The new $1,600,000 speech-arts building and $550,000 social science building were completed in the fall of 1960. With the completion of the speech-arts building the old University Street Playhouse was closed to FSC drama pro- ductions. In May, 1961 the new wing of the science building was completed. Today there are 6,000 full time and part time students attending classes on the FSC campus. The faculty numbers 370 full time members and 40 part time. The college offers a master of arts in 14 fields and a master of science in five. On April 11, 1961 the college observed the start of the celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the college. 17