University of Oregon - Oregana Yearbook (Eugene, OR)

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lord Breaking Expansion m r Students Swarm Oregon Campus; Find Housing, Classroom Shortage By Ross Yates I ' HE LINI ' ERSITY Iiiui not seen such expansion in - -its entire history. For the fall term 5,682 students registered, an increase of 49 per cent over registration lor spring term and an in- crease of 104 per cent over the fall term for 1945. Students overflowed the classrooms. They put the ad ministration on the hunt for more teachers and textbooks. They crowded the sidewalks and spilled over onto the grass in the rush between classes. More than half of them were ex-servicemen, including over a hundred women veterans. Less than six hundred of the men were not eterans, counting the 1946 crop of high school graduates who, obeying the v ' isdom of time and tide, had decided to take advantage of a higher education until such time as the Selective Ser ' ice Act might call them into training. Manv students stood in line for meals at the John Straub cafeteria. At nights they occupied every available study table in the Librar) ' . The housing shortage was the worst problem that the University had to meet. Never before had the University refused admission to would-be students because there was no more living space available. The married veterans suffered the most. Although by the third week of the fall term all applications for admission of single ' eterans had been accepted, there was still a wait- ing list of more than seven hundred married veterans. The Universitv had five housing projects for married veterans. The largest was on the Amazon Flats and contained 248 units. It was completed in time for the winter term and was also used to house some faculty members. There were also apartments at Skinner ' s Butte, the Columbia Street apartments, and the prefabricated units on Agate Street. Across from Hayward Field there were 54 trailer houses where veterans and their families lived until they could move into more permanent quarters. Many of the regular living organizations were over- crowded. During the war several of them had lost their houses. Fall term not all of them could find a place to live. Fraternities Delta lau Delta and Phi Sigma Kappa both started the year without houses. Two of the men ' s coopera- tives, Kirkwood and Canard Club, had been dissolved be- cause thev could not get living quarters. Men outnumlx ' red women almost two to one, and still the women overflowed the usual housing units. Alpha, Gamma, and Zeta Halls, traditionally men ' s halls, housed the excess. Zeta 1 au Alpha Sorority built a new house at the corner of Fifteenth and .Alder. For the single men veterans there were the X ' eterans (continued on follounng page} 19

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- ► ' ' ' • ' . ' «• ' • • ■»• •■, v -,. If! PidikV Sl ' ■ •. . j» . c » - ti ' E 1 Former students who returned to Oregon after the war find that the campus has undergone a change. To offset the sudden swelMng of registrants, University offitiols set to work to toke care of the overflow. Prominent among the new structures ore potches of Quonset huts. The huts shown here ore ones erected near the BA School. '

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(continued) Memorial Halls, ten living units named after University men killed during the war. Hall Number One had been completed in time for the fall term; Hall Numfjer Two was opened winter term. 1 he Halls were the former Hudson Houses at the Vancouver Shipyard at Vancouver, Wash- ington—prefabricated units which had once housed ship yard workers. Villard Hall, the second oldest building on the campus, had never been meant for a men ' s dormitory, but it housed appro.ximately 40 men, mostly non-veterans. And in spite of the tremendous effort of the University to provide housing for all its students, an estimated 1100 men and women lived in non-University units or private homes oS the campus. I ,OR those returning to their school for the first time - - in years there were other changes. Spring floods of 1946 had destroyed the headgates on the Millrace, and the Mill- race was dry. Would-be Romeos found to their dismay that the cemetery had been cleaned of its underbrush. The Fiji house had been moved to make way for the proposed new science hall. The University had erected four Quonset huts beside Commerce Hall to provide additional class room space. The increase in students and automobiles had necessitated traffic regulation on Thirteenth Avenue. In October the State Board of Higher Education voted to establish a separate graduate school at the University, thus abolishing the former inter-campus graduate school with Oregon State College. The State Board also abohshed most of the cross-campus directorships with Oregon State. The administration made new courses available. The RO 1 C department added an air corps unit to train student pilots. Almost all schools and departments added new fac- ulty members. The administration talked about new buildings. Be- sides preparation lor the construction of the new science hall, plans were under way for a new women ' s dormitory; and there was a drive to complete needed funds for the Student Memorial Union Building, which had been con- templated since 1922. MEMBER of the si.x who had t)een graduated from - - - the University in 1879 would not have recognized his University. The School had been founded in 1876 and had expanded gradually up to the time of the First World War. The ASUO had been organized in 1900. Sigma Nu, the first Creek organization on the campus, also had come in on the turn of the century. The Oregana had been first published in 1910 and the Emerald in 1912. Fall term of 1918 had shown a jump of 35 per cent over • the registration of 1917; fall term of 1919 had jumped 38 per cent over the 1918 figures for a grand total of 1785 students on the campus. The great building period had come during the thirties, when under the help of the PWA the Library, Infirmary, Physical Education Building, Heating Plant, Humanities Building, and the grandstand had been erected. 1 hen came the war and the spring of 1943, when the ERC and other reser ' e units marched away. The Univer- sity ' s students filtered into all corners of the world. But the University mo ' ed forward too. For several years it trained ASTP and air corps men, many who liked the School so well that thev returned following their discharge from the armed forces to complete their courses of study. By winter term of 1945-46 the veterans began returning to their School. By fall term of 1946-47 they were back in force, and the University set out to meet and comply with the changes they brought back with them. all. Men work during the summer !o get the first hall for vets ready for the Quonset huts spring up everywhere. Work on the new Zeto Tau Alpha house proceeds slowly throughout the year. 20