Occidental College - La Encina Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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bulletins, the Administration may well be for- given a modest inflatus for having contributed to what appears to be an increasingly singular phe- nomenon — the achievement of a balanced college budget. So native to the activities of that body has such an accomplishment become, however, that it may be without trembling considered an administrative policy. As 1936 edged its way into the calendar came the announcement that provision had been made for the erection of the Helen G. Emmons Health Center Memorial, scheduled to reach completion by June and giving to the College a distinction shared by few institutions. Certain lesser campus improvements justify the benevolent smile of the man in the Comptroller ' s office. Particularly gratifying to undergraduates these summer days was the repair of the Library fountain. The fact that frequent administrative excursions through the college grounds may be observed leads one to suspect that the unstudied beauty of the campus is not purely a happy landscape accident. No significant curricular changes have been effected by the Administration during the past scholastic year, although the Curriculum Board has kept a sensitive eye on the fluctuations of contemporary experimental education, to be pre- pared to meet any scholastic demands which changing standards might make on college cur- ricula. The strengthening of the Music and Art Departments, however, has had particularly sat- isfactory results, both in the quality of instruc- tion and in student response. Occidental College has kept substantially abreast of the times in less purely scholastic re- spects, likewise. The advent of scholarship into government has not been without its effect on this campus. The Department of Economics, aside from giving one of its members to govern- ment, has, on more than one occasion, dropped an advisory pearl into needy Washington laps. Dr. Charles F. Lindsley and Miss Elizabeth Gilli- land were Occidental ' s contributions to the West- ern Association of Speech Teachers Convention, held in San Francisco. Dr. Lindsley featured the opening of the convention with a lecture. A Christmas vacation trip took Dr. Osgood Hardy to the American Historical Association Conven- tion, held in Chatanooga. There he survived the Democratic climate and delivered a lecture to the Hispanic section of the convention. A four months ' sojourn in England last summer fur- nished Dean Robert G. Cleland with interesting conversational matter for the remainder of the year. Mysterious research in the Fowler Hall labyrinth more than once attained to outside pub- lication in scientific periodicals, and the English Department occasionally invaded the public press on specialized subjects. A quiet but unusually cooperative student Ex- ecutive Committee guided Occidental undergrad- uate life during the 1935-36 school year. Stu- dent Body President Al Hartley acquired a solid reputation for efficiency and modesty during his year as chairman of the Executive Committee. Vice-President Billie Vincent lent a dark-haired charm to all social conventions and somehow contrived throughout the year to disentangle her identity from that of her twin sister. Martha Messick, although pressed by social obligations, wielded an efficient secretarial pen and appears to have collected the only complete set of min- utes in the executive files. Student government progressed smo othly through the complete year. The Council maintained a cautious conservatism, kept its constituents happy with a full social program, including various Friday mixers, dances, and Tiger Day, and in general lived up well to everything that had been expected of it. Elections for the 1936-37 year brought out the heaviest balloting in college history. Guy Nunn, succeeding Al Hartley as President of the Asso- ciated Students, finds himself surrounded by an Executive Committee of encouraging merit. Alice McDowell successfully aspired to the vice-presi- dency and has already proven herself a social fire- brand in arranging teas, dances, and other femin- ine addictions. Helen Hornberger temporarily forsook her selected male following for a larger constituency to get herself elected to the secre- tarial chair, where she has indulged a fetching and entirely original shorthand. The present Council sponsored a mixer, the revival of the Sabretooth publication, and a successful Tiger Day celebration. Largely dedicated to the aesthetic, the Asso- ciated Women Students occupied themselves with the Procession of Lanterns, May Day, and the benevolence of the Big Sister Plan. Of more interest to males was the feminine sponsoring of the Co-ed Hop, with women allegedly paying the bills and furnishing transportation. It was cov- ertly understood, however, that the women would get it back in later dance invitations. Ruth Bab- 10

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BOOK HE PRESENT yearbook is intended to represent the achievements and activities of a college in the process of a modest upward evolu- tion. There are, it must be said, significant features of any institution which the subtlest camera technique cannot grasp — intangible assets — tokens of an inter- nal quality, which even the pen, particularly when in student hands, is hard put to make explicit. It is to a definition of these indefinables, the spirit, tone and personality of Occidental College, that this introduction is de- voted. Since its childhood as an academy, Occidental has each year more competently met the require- ments of a Liberal Arts college. Of Western in- stitutions it has been among the first to become aware that a college owes something more to its undergraduates than a crisp scholastic instruc- tion. Today, although the curriculum bears few formal indications of the trend, few students are unconscious of the school ' s educational progres- siveness. A certain charming informality is the first noticeable feature of campus life. There is nothing of the grim bustle and drive of the gar- gantuan educational plants to which Western culture has become addicted. A close-knit social life gives a feeling of unity and common purpose to each of its participants. Something of the cam- pus congeniality has crept into the classroom. The student-professor relationship has long ago evolved from the knuckle-rapping stage to a more benevolent form of paternalism. Student opinion regularly finds voice in chapel symposia. That professor who at eleven o ' clock expounds Kant from Olympus may be seen at twelve in friendly discussion of last week ' s baseball game with the student whom he had but recently chided for a stuttering definition of Transcen- dentalism. Possibly it is the strategic location of the cam- pus, possibly it is a combination of selective en- rollment with tactful administrative guidance, which gives to Occidental College an atmosphere and inherent feeling of social unity distinctive among large and small colleges alike. It is not ex- clusively a year-book boast, at all events, that on this campus there have been combined, with in- creasing effectiveness each year, the two ends of constructive living and intellectual advancement. In the realm of the college administration dur- ing the past year, particular internal forces have been at work which, although sometimes quiet in their movement, have made significant con- tributions to the evolution of Occidental College. Chief among administrative obligations is that of maintaining a faculty of a high and progres- sive cultural tone. What threatened to be a seri- ous gap in the Department of History and Gov- ernment when Professor Thomas R. Adam left on a year ' s leave of absence to join the Guggen- heim Foundation in New York, has been effec- tively filled by Dr. Donald M. Brown, who comes to Occidental fresh from a position as a govern- ment consultant. Professor Harry Kirkpatrick has given new strength to the Department of Mathematics and the coming of Mr. Pari Welch to the Department of Religion has been a decid- ed tonic. Older students will regret the retire- ment of Professor William B. Allison, of the Modern Languages Department and the resigna- tion of Professor Virgil Morse, for years a mem- ber of the Department of Mathematics. Never given to boasting, even through formal

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cock, after a popular and successful year as Pres- ident, was succeeded by Janet Anderson, an earn- est red-head of surprising modesty. The women report unusual success in the Big Sister plan. The Associated Men Students, proceeding more or less reluctantly to compulsory Wednesday chapels, planned and executed a satisfactory Men ' s High School Day, besides bringing a new constitution into painful birth. Last year found Bill Andrus behind the gavel. Since the consti- tution was largely of his siring, his eloquence in constitutional procedure was singular. Lectures of every description were heard at the meetings. Dr. Arthur Coons, as Dean of Men, hovered over each assembly with ready Socratic advice. Track notoriety and a winning smile carried Jer- ry Isett into the presidency of the men ' s body for the year 1936-37. 11