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

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Seeking to know of the flight of this college into its fiftieth year, and of what in that year had been accomphshed in the manner of college building, La Encina went into the president ' s office. From the administrative sanctum it emerged triumphant with a letter. Prosaic, indeed, must all words be if some of the grandness of today ' s growing, and tomor- row ' s dream are not caught in these paragraphs by Dr. Remsen Bird who in them expresses the doings of the administrators not as persons, but as a unit with a single goal. You have asked me to give you a statement with reference to the progress oi the college during this Fiftieth Anniversary year. May I say that the plan of celebration ordered by the Committee having the matter in charge began with the Commencement Program closing the year 1935-36 and carries through to the opening convocation of the year 1937-38. We set our sights with reference to the increased equipment, endowment and furnishing of the college to a general amount of % oo,ooo. It was the desire of the Administration that there should he received during this period gifts for essential buildings, endowment, campus grooming and other necessities of the college by outright subscription, bequests, trust funds, or otherwise, to an amount of % oo,ooo. At this time I may announce to you that this sum has been secured and an amount totalling considerably over the goal set without campaign and without cost. Among the outstanding significant units in connection with this planning and equipment are the following: 1. The erection of the Helen Gertrude Emmons Memorial Health Center at a cost of about % o,ooo. 2. The funds for the erection of the Belle WiJber Thorne Hall, for which an original gift was made of 1 0,000, and which has now been increased by Mr. Thome ' s generosity to 200,000. 3. The assurance that funds will be provided for the reorganization of the Central Quadrangle and the planning of the campus in the environs of Thorne Hall at an estimated cost of about 2 ,000 or ,000. 4. The addition to the campus of the property required for the athletic fields which are to be developed beyond the men ' s residence area, an acreage valued conservarively at % o,ooo, which has been presented to the college by an alumnus and trustee, Alphonzo E. Bell. 5. Addirions to endowment by the Carnegie Corporation and other friends of the col- lege to an amount of $100,000 for the permanent funds of the institution. 6. Other subscriptions and special contributions looking to the erection when the 18

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of fifty dollars a plate. Tlie loyalty of the college ' s friends and the drawing-card that Will Rogers proved to be, drew several hundred people to the affair. Then fate began to make drastic moves. Tlie morning of the Will Rogers Dinner its namesake was rushed to the hospital for an emergency operation of major seriousness. And at practically the same time President Remsen D. Bird was ordered to bed by his physician. Still the banquet was sched- uled, fifty-dollars a plate minimum and a good many of the guests in their munificence paying a great deal more. Only the tact and good humor of John Willis Bacr, the gracious spirit of Mrs. Will Rogers who left her husband ' s bed-side to attend, and the words of William S. Hart spoken in substitution for his good friend, saved the college from becoming the target of potential ill-will. It ' s nice now to have evidence of concrete existence of the Gymnasium Will Rogers was to have helped raise. And that, incidentally was the last of the major buildings to rise before the recent depression catapulted most everything but dreams of college expansion until in 1932 when the Trustees built two additional homes upon the campus, that of the dean of faculty and the comptroller. Truly, here was evidence of a college becoming a self- sufficing personality, a sanctuary rather than a productive scholastic mechanism turning out die-cast products with the help of disinterested technicians. It is interesting to note that all the eucalyptus trees which lend their tall and graceful beauty to the present campus were planted in 1914 by architect Myron Hunt at the total cost of some five dollars. They were set out from flats as seedlings and their growth has corresponded with Occidental ' s. Through all of these days that passed under the guidance of Dr. Bird and saw the erection of a complete physical campus moved many college generations. Alike were these groups in their ardent love of alma-mater, yet as different from each other as the times they were a part of. Post-war disillusionment and the sophistication of the Menken-ite era came to Occi- dental, setting new standards of morals and of conduct, bedecking itself in blatant cynicism and creating a smart set. On the surge of the boom days Occidental rode the crest of the wave that past the middle twenties did so much to create the rah-rah convention of collegiana in the minds of the great American public. Finally, too near the present to need reminiscence came the depression. Minds were suddenly serious, summer jobs a thing remembered, preparedness a byword and a law. Now emergent from financial depths of personal and institutional worry, the Occidental student sees his college beginning to stride once more booted with attainable ambition. 17

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fund is sufficient, of a men ' s dormitory in honor oi Dr. Roheit Freeman. This fund is not yet fuJJy subscribed but we have every expectation that in the course ot a year, that money will be sufficient to build this very much needed structure. 7. Other appropriations and support enabhng the college to curb and groom the entire periphery, in which we have the assured cooperation oi the City Council, looking to the paving ot the entire Campus Road. In addition to the improvement oi the physical plant and the increase oi endowment, this year has been an occasion oi self scrutiny and constructive criticism oi the college in all its parts. It is very important ior the Row and fulfillment oi an institution like Occidental that there shall he periodic times oi such self examination, looking to larger services and increased significance. Committees oi the Faculty are at work studying the curriculum, the standards oi admission and classification, the relationships that exist among educational forces, the responsibilities oi the college with reference to the secondary education field, and the possibilities oi the college in mutual obligations and satisfactions with reference to our larger community. I think we will look hack on this year and mark it as the occasion in which the real meaning and power and inspiration oi the small residence college shall become clearly recognized and taken advantage oi ior the development oi education, the good oi the individual and the general social satisfaction. Sincerely, Remsen D. Bird Yet inwardly, too, the administrators have been keeping careful physician ' s fingers on the student pulse. Dr. Cleland served in his capacity of Dean of the College for the first semester of 1936-1937. Then, wooed too ardently by the muse historical, he obtained a year ' s leave of absence for research at the Huntington Library. Dr. Coons, Dean of Men, cheerfully assumed a double role and filled Dr. Cleland ' s position. Bringing a wide experience and an unusual depth of understanding of the coed ' s prob- lems, Mrs. Le Boutillier entered Occidental to become the new Dean of Women, with Mrs. Pipal withdrawing to the more congenial task of Social Chairman. To Miss Brady as always flocked the timorous freshmen and confused seniors with matters of majors and minors and problems of scholasticism. Mr. McLain, true to the sturdy dependability of his name, held fast the college purse strings and in his office of Comptroller did his usual much to insure the school of a succeeding fifty years of financial stability. Whenever a particlar job was hard to catalogue but happened to involve a varying but definite degree of worry it was sent to the office of the Graduate Manager, Theodore Brodhead. 19