University of Washington - Tyee Yearbook (Seattle, WA)

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ITY OF 10 YEARS

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UNIVEF UNIVERSITY OF WASHIf

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i- icatioii THIS MILL OF KNOWLEDGE, this fhousands-strong brain, this Washington— we hove said — shall live a thousand years. And eighty-eight of them have slipped by. They are The Past of a great university. The patterns of these years are in their harvest, yesterday ' s students and today ' s. They are in the musty, ivy-greened buildings, in the rawness of new construction — and in the blueprints of still more monuments-to-learning. They weave through wars, wealth, depression and intellectualism. They are olive in its instituti ons, even as pride and devotion are alive. Among a university ' s institutions is its yearbook. TYEE 1949, which happens to be an anniversary edition, marks the passing of fifty years of tracing those patterns, of recording that Past. But a yearbook, especially on a birthday, should probably be devoted to more than retrospection. Somehow, it should reflect — if it finds it — a feeling of rededication and a sense of readiness for ony of the future ' s challenges. And in this typical Washington June, TYEE 1949 has made a discovery. The University of a Thousand Years is not just a meaningless slogan stamped on vague and ambitious dreams. The apparent accent, of course, is on the building program — has been, will be. In 1934, for instance, TYEE was expressing some misty optimism — now that the depression-cloud was passing — that somefhing might be done to revamp and revitalize Washington ' s educational plant. Fifteen years later, the university has added 18 build- ings and keeps a small army on duty to service them. Really want a contrast? Consider for a moment UW of 1900, when TYEE wos born. End-of-century buoyancy prompted educators in this essentially frontier community to predict that — perhaps — the university would someday make an appreciable advance from a 58-man staff and a student body of 514. Half a century later, university bulletins list over 3,000 teachers, administrators, grounds-keepers, policemen, electricians and mailmen. A few months ago, the student newspaper reported that 16,650 were registered for instruction. Vague and ambitious dreams? We think not. Nor do we scoff at a schedule that even by I960 will be translated into solid realities: two spanking-new engineering build- ings; the much-discussed student union; two modern dormitories with a combined capacity of 3200; an atomic energy plant rivaling the nation ' s best; an auditorium designed to seat 4000; new facilities for languages, industrial arts, journalism, speech, architecture, and mony more departments. And a campus population of 25,000. If progress requires farsightedness, then the big ideas of those who guide and now shape Washington ' s future are something less than fantastic. If improvement, per se, is dependent upon imagination, then that imagination must be given free rein. Consider, if you will, a university spilling into the valley between 22nd and 35th Northeast, and knocking of the doors of Laurelhurst hill. Of Montlake boulevard turned into just another Hello Lane, while its traffic is diverted from Montlake toward the Union Bay Village stoplight over a mighty span. Consider a brood avenue instead of 40th Street, with university classes on either curb. Dreams? Perhaps. But perhaps those dreams are only a part of that infinite dreom man has of bettering himself, of changing the vast unknown to the usable known. Space and equipment are certainly the tools. Building a University of a Thousand Years is the Washington Idea. To that Idea TYEE 1949 is dedicate. 3: