University of Southern California - El Rodeo Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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This summer a new rash of construction will break out. The $2.8 million Von KleinSmid Center for International and Pub- lic Affairs will rise where the Information Center and Bacon Court are now, forming the campus heart quadrangle with Doheny, Bovard and Hancock. Also getting under way this summer will probably be the new Student Union addition, to rise on the park area south of the present building. The $1.5 million wing will be financed by a loan from the HHFA and paid back by a ' $2.50 per semester fee bill tax after the build- ing is completed. Other buildings slated to get underway soon are a $4,450,000 nine-story clinical research building for the School of Medicine, the $2 million Graduate School of Business Administration, an eight-story addition, and the $300,000 Mrs. Willis H. Booth Memorial Rehearsal Hall, the first unit in the Pereira-designed Center for the Performing Arts. ■ Attention has been focused on what goes on inside the new buildings as well as on the buildings themselves. Perhaps the most striking example of the university ' s determination to strive for enterprise and excellence in education is Letters, Arts and Sciences ' new Four-Course Plan. The new curriculum system, al- ready in use in many departments, discards both units and the general studies department entirely. Students instead take four classes each semester, the equivalent of 16 units of work. For general education requirements, they have a wide choice of both upper and lower division classes. The new program is designed to stimulate more thorough understanding of subject matter through outside reading, individual study and research and student-teacher conferences. The effect of the new plan is still impossible to gauge — it will be a good five years before re- sults are evident. But most administrators and faculty members are confident that students will emerge with a better education and with more appreciation and interest in knowledge. Tangible evidence of the stimulus of the Master Plan on aca- demics, however, is abundant. The best freshman classes in the university ' s history have been admitted in the last few years, due to tightened admission requirements. Of the 1,500 fresh- men entering last September, for example, 88 per cent had a B average and 200 (17 per cent) received Honors at Entrance for at least a 3.75 average in major subjects. The n umber of stu- dents in regular honors courses and programs has increased 12 times since 1958, and scholarship awards have risen by more than 20 percent. The graduate enrollment has increased annually one per cent, and now the number of graduate students holding top fellowships has increased to 246 — compared to 15 a few years ago. Last year three USC seniors won Woodrow Wilson Fellow- ships. This year there were six. The university has also chosen the first Trustee Scholars, 10 outstanding freshmen selected for excellence of scholarly achievement and promise, demonstrated qualities of leadership, character and evidence of unusual talent in one of more specific areas. The designation is primarily hon- orary, but the scholars can receive up to $2,500 annually if they need financial aid. The faculty, too, has shown the imprint of the Master Plan. Sal- aries have been increased at all levels: median salaries for as- sociate professors, for example, have gone up 37 per cent from $6,200 to $8,500 since 1958. Further improvements are prom- ised as the university meets the challenge of the Ford grant. The College of Letters, Arts and Sciences has increased its full-time faculty 1 1 per cent, and the number of college faculty holding doctorates has jumped 21 per cent in the last four years. Eighty- six percent of the fulltime college faculty now hold doctoral degrees; the national average is less than 43 per cent. The faculty have also received more fellowships and awards — Fulbright, Guggenheim, NATO, National Science Foundation, Science Fac- ulty and others — than at any time in the university ' s history. Some 60 faculty members have been elected to national and regional offices in various learned and professional societies. Outstanding new faculty in several fields have joined USC, in- cluding Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky and William Prim- rose in the Music School; Gerhard Tintner in the economics de- partment; Maurice Pryce as chairman of the department of physics and Myles Maxfield as director of the bio-physics pro- gram. Dr. Paul Weiss, Sterling Professor of Philosophy at Yale and one of the country ' s leading scholars, is teaching at USC this semester. ma

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i As the Master Plan ledgers f illed with donations, the face of University Park changed rapidly. Classes were held against the background of a cacophony of construction as old buildings and parking lots were cleared away and new struc- tures began to rise. The $2.3 million Olin Hall of Engineering was the first academic building to be completed. Many students would grant Olin — a striking ex- ample of USC ' s new architecture — the most at- tractive building on campus, but others would give the compliment to one of the many other new additions. In the new science quad, the Laird J. Stabler Memorial Laboratories exempli- fies Pereira ' s thruway principle of campus construction. The $232,000 research facility for physical chemistry and air pollution study is raised on stilts one floor above the street level, permitting an open vista into the quad area from the Stonier Hall side of campus. Across the quad from the laboratories rise the three towers of the $2 million Ahmanson Center for Biological Re- search also designed by Pereira. Across campus, on a pie-shaped lot at the junction of Exposi- tion and Figueroa Boulevards stands the Re- search Institute on Communist Strategy and Prop- aganda. The two-story brick building, designed by Ladd and Kelsey of Pasadena, houses the re- search institute, the campus information center and the housing office. Providing parking for visitors, the area is a key introduction point to the changing campus. Dormitory construction has kept pace with the increasing number of students who want to live on campus,- a major Master Plan goal is hous- ing on or near campus for 50 per cent of the full-time enrollment. The largest building to be completed was the Cecele and Michael C. Birn- krant Women ' s Residence Hall, the first eight- story tower on campus. Also new in the wom- en ' s quad area is the University- College complex which houses 312 women in an area composed of the old College Hall and a new three-story wing joining it to the east. The $750,000 addi- tion was designed by Albert C. Martin of rein- forced concrete with brick pilasters to blend with the architecture of the older structures in the quad. The men were not neglected. Marks Tow- er, a distinctive eight-story structure forming a quad with Trojan and Marks Hall, houses 200 men. Also for the men were three new fraternity houses, built by the university for Beta Theta Pi, Chi Phi and Sigma Chi, as part of the USC small-group housing plan. Under this plan, fi- nanced by loans from the Housing and Home Finance Agency, the fraternities deeded the land to the university which agreed to build and op- erate the residences as part of its totol hous- ing system. All three new houses cost $260,000 and each has room for 58 men. On the Medical School campus, the Blanche and Frank R. Seaver Student Residence provides housing for 100 stu- dents, dining facilities for 270, a bookstore and lounges. USC has also taken note of the increas- ing number of married students. The first unit in the planned complex at Exposition and Ver- mont, a $777,000 building catchingly titled Mar- ried Students I, was occupied last September.

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Programs for interdisciplinary study have been established to combine classes in many depart- ments treating different aspects of the same subject. A senior in Latin American studies, for example, might take a class in Latin American history from the history department, a class in the economy of underdeveloped countries from the economics department, a class in Latin Ameri- can literature from the Spanish department and a class in Spanish colonial architecture from the fine arts department. The programs fill the un- fortunate gaps between the many sides of any one problem. The trimester plan has also been introduced experimentally in some areas and may be expanded. These are many of the changes that the Master Plan brought in just over three years, in the face of the campus, in the academic curricula, in stu- dents and in faculty. But there is more to the picture, an undefinable but undeniable feeling of pride in the university and in its accomplish- ments that was absent three years ago. Now it is everywhere, as we walk past the or- ganized mess of new construction, as we hear the intelligent questions of freshmen in our classes, as we listen to the wisdom of new fac- ulty members, as we attend classes in depart- ments that recently didn ' t exist, as we watch the enthusiasm of the administrators for the future they are materializing. We and other students are aware that progress is not necessarily perfection, that retreats have been and will be occasionally necessary. We know that mistakes have been and will continue to be made, and that advances in some fields have sometimes been offset by failings in other fields. But we also know that at least the in- tention, the effort and the determination are there and will now always be. We have sufficient cause for pride — both in the Master Plan and in the person within whom the dream was envisioned and finally brought to a reality. To a man unselfish in his dedication . . . unrelenting in his pursuit of a greater USC . . . untiring in his quest for enter- prise and excellence in education, we dedi- cate the 1964 El Rodeo — Dpy by Sue Bernord Bryant Dr. NORMAN TOPPING PRESIDENT OF USC 17