University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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PITB1ISHED BY THE SENIOR CLASS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH, Pljfj S YLV Ij f 1

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T HROUGH The Portals Each day at put we have passed through many portals into the many worlds that, gathered together, are the University. Because we have gone in and out of these doorways so many times, we have come to look at them without seeing; yet each doorway has come to have for us a meaning. When we return to Pitt in years to come, the sight of a familiar doorway will recall experiences we knew on the other side of that door. The carved door of a Nationality Room, the heavy, iron-studded door of the Chapel, the glass-panelled door of a dean's office, a noble Gothic arch in the Commons Room, the ugly, black door to an unfinished classroom — each has come to have an association with the world it opens into. And so to tie together our story of the year '47-'48 we have used the doorways of Pitt as our theme. For our frontispiece we have chosen the wrought-iron gates of the Commons Room, gates “to the love of wisdom, and to days rich in living.” In their craftsmanship and their delicacy of design, they signify the beauty, the inspiration, and the high purpose that we found in the University. Often, as we have walked through these gates, our eyes have been drawn upward by the subtle rhythms of the framing arch to the inscription that crowns the gates and completes the harmony of hammered iron and written word. Surely, as the inscription reads, “Here is eternal Spring. For you the very stars of Heaven are new.” Between the covers of this book, then, we have tried to capture the spirit that is beyond the doors, the spirit that is Pitt. If we have succeeded only a little, then we will have accomplished the purpose of our year’s work. We hope that on these pages you, the student, will find a reminder of the joys, the problems, and the friendships of your own college life; we hope, too, that in this volume others who are not students will find an appreciation and understanding of the love which we, the students, have for Pitt.