University of Rochester - Interpres Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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aying goodbye to a president as outstanding as Alan Valentine is not easy for a university which has risen to the position of prominence among institutions of higher learning to which the University of Rochester has ascended under President Valentineis dynamic guidance. During the fifteen years since Dr. Valentine came to the University to succeed Dr. Rush Rhees, who had been president from 1900 to 1935, the University has achieved a record of exceptional service to higher education, to the nation's health, and to the nation's security which attests the untiring, foresighted, progressive leadership with which President Valentine has directed the University through the exceedingly trying period preceding, during, and immediately following World War II. The distinguished faculties and the excellent facilities which have been assembled by the University to aid in its varied fields of education during the past decade and a half stand as proof of President Valentineas outstanding administrative abilities. He has worked hard and successfully to strengthen all departments of the College of Arts and Science, the Graduate School, and every phase of the intellectual life of the University. Under Dr. Valentinels direction, a new curriculum designed to encourage and to equip the student to assume responsibility for his own educationi' was introduced. It includes fewer required courses and a broadened field for the honors student wishing to carry on independent study. During the past fifteen years, all divisions of the University have increased in enrollment drawn from a wider geographical area. Many new buildings, including three large wings at the Medical Center, Harkness Hall, the Naval Science building, new dormitories, a large engineering wing, and the cyclotron building and shops, have been added to the University under President Valentine's administration, and the endowment of the University has increased from 53 million dollars to 62 million dollars during that 15 year period. Many of the contributions which the University was able to make to the nation,s security during World War Il through research in all fields of science had their conception through the foresight and planning of Dr. Valentine. The responsibility bestowed upon the University by the government in designating it one of only twenty-five institutions of higher education acting as new training centers forthe Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps indicates the outstanding manner in which President Valentine conducted the Navy V-12 College Training program located at the University during the war years. As a result of its wartime accomplishments, the University has gained the position of a center of peacetime research in nuclear physics, in optics, in chemistry, and in the medical aspects of atomic energy, through President Valentine's able guidance. The record of Alan Valentinels attainments preceding his coming to the University of Rochester is in keeping with his outstanding achievements here. Born in Glen Cove, New York, February 23, 1901, he received his college preparatory work at the Friends Academy, was graduated from Swarthmore College in 1921, and received his master of arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1922. As a Rhodes Scholar, he studied at Oxford University in England from 1922 through 1925 and received a master's degree from Oxford in 1928. For the next four years he was assistant professor of English and dean of men at Swarthmore, before being appointed master of Pierson College of Yale University where he also served as professor in history, arts, and letters, and as chairman of the Board of Admissions. In Ianuary, 1935, Dr. Valentine was named to succeed Dr. Rush Rhees as president of the University of Rochester, and he was inaugurated the following November, thus entering upon a long, distinguished, and fruitful administration. In addition to his achievements as president of the University, Alan Valentine has proved his versatility through outstanding work in business and industry, in international affairs, and in civic endeavors. He is a member of the boards of directors oflseveral large business firms in the Rochester area, and has devoted much of his time to civic committees such as the Rochester Community Chest and the YMCA. From Iuly 1, 1948, to Iune 30, 1949, Dr. Valentine served as chief of the Marshall Plan Mission to The Netherlands under the Economic Co-operation Administration while on leave of absence from the University, and his outstanding service in that capacity won him numerous expressions of gratitude and official honors from the Dutch people and their government. Last December, Dr. Valentine was one of a group of leading American educators who studied educational and economic problems in India under the sponsorship of the Institute of Pacific Relations. To these accomplishments he has added innumerable services to national education studies, bringing distinction both to himself and to the University. 6

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OREWORD Mb the class of 1951 the University of Rochester begins its second hundred years. From humble yet none the less auspicious beginnings as a denominational liberal arts college, the University has steadily improved the quality of its educational services, maintaining high academic standards through the years. In its progress it has passed such milestones as the abandonment of sectarian restrictions, the expansion of the curriculum in the late nineteenth century, and the admission of women to the university after the semi-centennial of 1900. Fostered by the benevolence of George Eastman and other citizens of Rochester, and encouraged by the guidance of President Rush Rhees, it has grown with the incorporation of the Eastman School of Music in 1921. The erection of one of the countryls finest college physical plants on the River Campus, and the addition of the world-famous medical school made 1930 a memorable year. In 1935 Alan Valentine assumed the presidency. Under his guidance the University has broadened the scope of its offerings, developing and improving its courses in the Sciences and the Humanities. Among the factors which led to the'inclusion of Rochester in the Association of American Universities were the addition of the Graduate School and the University School, as well as the invaluable scientific research done here during the Second World VVar. Now in 1950 the University of Rochester has reached a plain of prominence as a modern educational center. The centennial class signaled and celebrated the achievement of these inspiring hundred years. To the class of 1951 belongs the honor of initiating the University's second hundred years. In this sense the publication of its yearbook, this I nterpres of 1951, comes at a particularly appropriate time. Hailing the accomplishments and traditions of the past, which were honored in 'the centennial festivities, I ntcrprcs, 1951, illustrates that eager and inquisitive probing into the problems of today and tomorrow characteristic of the spirit of Rochester. The Conference on Human Rights in the Spring of 1950 is a manifestation of that spirit. It is up to the Class of 1951 to maintain and pass on to succeeding classes Rochester's traditional conservative approach-rooted in the past, alive to the present, and sensible of the future. In its senior year the class will welcome a new president of the University. What changes will come with him are not yet known, but undoubtedly he will recognize the need for retaining Rochester's high scholastic standards, and for maintaining freedom of thought and responsible opinion, in short, the necessity to carry on the good works of the resigning President Valentine. Anil, too, he must deal with those problems of which the class of 1951 has been most aware: He must meet the problem of encouraging academic, as well as athletic, well-being through attraction of outstanding and active young people to the University. While affording special facilities to the unusually able students, he must foster a vital interest in the welfare of every student. While shunning publicity for notoriety's sake, he must promote a greater national awareness of the stature of the University of Rochester. As the class of 1951 inaugurates the University's second century, it looks with wondering eyes toward the riddle of the future, agreeing with Dr. Iohn Rothwell Slater, who succinctly pondered what these next hundred years will mean to us and to our University: Who knows F The years before us are all the more fascinating because they are unknown. 5

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Such a record emphasizes the great loss which the University suffers in losing Alan Valentine as its president, who by his achievements during the past 15 years has made his administration an outstanding era of progress in the University's history. Dr. Valentine has expressed his feeling concerning his years at the University of Rochester thusly: I was a freshman with the Class of 1939 and am a senior with the Class of 1950. During those fifteen years I have learned much, though obviously not enough to secure a diploma. But what I have learned may be less significant than what I have not had to learn. I have not had to learn to face disappointment, to endure unkindness, or to experience disillusion, for I have met none of these in Rochester. Therefore I do not regret a moment of my long course at the University. It has given me, as it will give every Rochester man and woman, more than one can ever repay. My respect for its ideals, my admiration for its great teachers, my affection for its friendliness have mounted with the years. We are proud of our University. It rests with those who remain here, and those yet to come, to make us still more proud of it in future years. That means no compromise with mediocre thought or values, no fear of cheap opinion, no slackness of effort by its supporters, from trustees to freshmen. cc This steadfast determination to accept no standards but the highest, and the genuine human warmth of his feelings toward his University mark Dr. Valentine as a university president whose stature has not often been surpassed in the history of American education. In whatever endeavor the future is to hold for him, Alan Valentine will alvvays deserve the warmest, most sincere admiration and affection of the university to which he has so self-sacrificingly devoted the past 15 yearsf 7