University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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The first room open to student use in the newly acquired Schenley Hotel was the Hunt Room. Here students gathered for small talk” and light snacks. With the opening of George Hubbard Clapp Hall—new home for the natural sciences—a new path, down Fifth Avenue walk, across the street, past Masonic Temple, to Clapp Hall, was tread by many students. Students of the natural sciences attended many lectures in Clapp Hall’s Spacious auditorium.

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Students hold last minute conversation before entering Clnj p Mall for first hour class. Children of Pitt alumni, faculty, and administration had many afternoons of fun at the newly acquired Pitt swimming pool at Hubbard Reservation, now a part of the University Recreation Center. The Center is open to all Pitt students, alumni and faculty. The peace and quiet of Summer surround Hubbard Reservation. The Reservation building (altove) will be used as a country club when remodeling is done.

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as a student union, will house the Deans of Men and Women and most of the student activities. The apartments will provide living space for 1200 students, including a proposed sorority and fraternity row. Another recent accpiisition was the Ilubbard Reservation in North Park which will be used for student indoor and outdoor recreational and athletic events and for nature and scientific class studies. All of this physical expansion is a necessary part of the continuation of the era that began with the Pittsburgh Academy; but Pitt is also expanding in other ways. Leading Pitt into this New Era” of many-fold expansion is Dr. Edward H. Litchfield, newly appointed chancellor of the University. Chancellor Litchfield has been allocated more than one-hundred million dollars of working capital to reorganize Pitt’s educational system and eventually place Pitt among the foremost universities of the world. Chancellor Litchfield has concentrated his efforts on the University as a whole and on each of the various departments within the University in his efforts to achieve this goal. Salaries of all faculty members have been raised to keep top men from migrating to greener pastures and also to lure men of proven ability in all fields to Pitt. Entrance exams have been stiffened to make the caliber of the average Pitt student much higher than it has been in the past. This, along with the greater influx of students from outside the Pittsburgh area now that adequate dormitory space is available, will give us a more cosmopolitan student; a student fitted for leadership in a smaller world. New fields of study, such as the training of men for governmental work, the department of Far Eastern Studies, and courses in television techniques have cut across subject areas. A common core of knowledge is needed by both the engineer and the liberal arts student. Dr. Litchfield himself has said: The tendency in most universities is toward autonomy in the various colleges, such as engineering, law, arts, and so on. I want Pitt to be an organic whole, a university in the older sense, with joint faculty appointments, so that the student’s education is a rounded one.' This physical and educational expansion is not a new policy at Pitt. It is just another example of a dynamic new administration continuing the work outlined by its predecessors and interjecting new ideas along with the old. In this way the university has avoided the one pit fall that most great nations and institutions of the past fell victim to—stagnation. Since its beginning in 1787 Pitt’s administrators have worked to bring its founder’s hopes to fulfillment. Several times during this long span of years there were opportunities to relax their efforts and to gaze contentedly upon the results of their labors. Especially was this true after the completion of the Cathedral of Learning. But, fortunately, each new administration, perhaps thinking of decadent Greece and Rome, chose to look to the future rather than to any Golden Age of the past. Each new administration strove for a goal they knew could never be attained— perfection in education—and in striving, gained a large measure of that goal. In May of this year a new administration headed by Dr. Litchfield will officially be inaugurated as the leaders of the University. Although the ceremonies will be impressive and great men in all fields of learning will watch the Inauguration with utmost interest, it will be in a sense anti-climactic. The Inauguration will take place more than a year after the administration has begun its job—the job of continuing the era that started 170 years ago. Dr. Jonas Salk, victorious in his battle against polio, brought world recognition to Pitt's Medical School. His future in the field of medicine promises to brighten Pitt's New Era. 14