Hamilton College - Hamiltonian Yearbook (Clinton, NY)

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Graduation by the Numbers . . . women language teachers, four of them wives of male faculty members. The more variegated civilian program presented no such dilliculties. Language courses often hit rock bottom, but English composition, history, mathematics, and physics waxed with registrations of 25 or 30. Classroom space was a dire need. The gargantuan festive boards from Commons were transplanted to Truax, where area students amused themselves coloring in spread maps. PM space was gained by slicing Roofs math parlors in twain, and gloomy Silliman had its dozen odd uses reduced to but one: teaching space for ASTP trainees. What was once nebulously dubbed Ustudeut lifen was stripped of its ostentation and confined to scant snatches of time Where it could be found. For the soldier population it consisted ofa brief hour and a half before Htaps and one evening a week, save for occasional week-end passes. It took the Army to convince local bus companies that. the Hill is not, an insurmountable barrier, so that Saturday P. NI. saw escaping ti.l.'s swarming aboard Ivtica-bound conveyances. The breathless pace inspired civilians to greater efforts. Squad living, military drill. and a demerit system highlighted the freslnnen's introduction to militarism. although upperclassmen still lived as untouchables. Soldier scholars found college facilities adequate and modern. Especially popular was the Drowsing Room, which they soon adopted as a haven for pleasurable reading and furtive napping. The Alumni tiymnasium, as a body-building plant, met with but limited favor. Classroom desks now bear the initials of some who found etching them for posterity 15

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amiaon vs in fAe war Of late many a returning Hamilton man has experienced the freshman's thrill once again in reacquainting himself with his college. The impassive serenity of grounds and buildings belies the upheaval whichfrecolored the Buff and Blue with a khaki shade during the heavy waning days of 1942. With civilian students outnumbered eight to one by the soldiers, the Hill took on every aspect of an army camp. Mufti-clads still ambled from class to class in knots of two or three, soldiers wheeled about in 'itask units of 10 to 25. The chapel bell between classes set in motion some 10 to 20 squads of Army Specialized Training Program language-area students and 15 flights of singing pre-meteoro- logical privates. The college's unprecedented population density made for crowded Clinton buses, stacks of soiled O.D.'s in the dry cleaning shops, and frequent queues at the barber shops and soda fountains. At mealtimes the college turned restaurateurwwhole- sale. Commons' massive oak tables gave way to bistro stands with much less elbow room. 530 chow hounds filed past steam tables in two long lines. The Soper Build- ing's wooden annex is one monument to have evolved from the demands of large- scale dishwashing. Civilian students dined in regal seclusion at Delta Kappa Epsilon and at Alpha Delta Phi, the catacombs of the latter even being fitted out as combination PX and snack bar. To find an instructional staff for 600 students, concentrating their work on a few subjects, was no slight problem. To meet PM needs, a six man mathematics- physics staff was inflated to 211. The arrival of the ASTP language-area students upped the five man romance language department to 13, and a new four man '4area division was created to teach the economics, politics, and geography of Central Europe. A 130-year tradition was tossed aside with the hiring of seven Painless M ilitarizat ion g if.-R523

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HAMILTON IN THE WAR fffllllfl-11116112 more absorbing than the Articles of War. The Chapel served as a catch-all, includ- ing its use as a cinema palace and as a classroom for large groups. In December, 1944, came the news that a mass exodus of the warriors would be complete by the following February. With this announcement gray hairs multi- plied in the budget department. But in any ease the facts were that, after three years of war training programs, 300 CPT fliers, 700 air corps pre-meteorologists, and a countless number of ASTP trainees, A-127s, and pre-medics had been boosted along their educational way. K Came 1945, the wild bells rang out, and Hamillonews exulted: The road is open. lt will 11ot be long before the campus is once more crowded with Hamiltoniansf' lt was not long. With the passing months applications for admission swamped the administration. In keeping with the times, a 116W president, David Worcester, and a new dean of students, Theodore S. Jones, both naval veterans, were appointed, and stepped into unenvied roles as peacetime planners. The Hamilton that geared itself to war has found no easy task in reconverting to peace. Still Hamilton remains as we knew it: the View over the Oriskany, the neat. quadrangles, the importunate chapel bell-these are immutable in the Hamil- ton of yesterday and today. Between Twolfras . . . Ei