Wabash College - Wabash Yearbook (Crawfordsville, IN)

Page 12 text:

ee ee Students and Uncle Sam’s recruiters alike find time for leisure, conversation and a cup of coffee in the Scarlet Inn. Mrs. Rutledge smiles up from her desk where she acts as receptionist and handles the switchboard. in his calculations to ponder the meaning of a coke or cup of coffee. Here too reside members of our faculty, eagerly awaiting an intellectual slip by some Inn-sitter so that they may proceed to devour him. Here we see the personification of that Wa- bash informal attitude and sp irit that is so hard to define, as student and professor blend together over a cup of coffee to point out errors in the Wall Street Journal's financial analysis, in our foreign affairs, in a recent chapel program, or in a letter to the editor. Here the Wabash spirit lives. Down the hall from the Inn, (see page 6), is a labyrinthian room called the Bookstore. Twisting about the shelves of paperbacks can often be seen Dr. O’Lessker, manager of said establishment. The shelves are piled high with books ranging from Shell Scott to “The No Plays of Japan,” with a pre- dominance of books of the latter quality. Living up

Page 11 text:

Members of the Campus Center Board dig into their juicy steaks served in the President’s Dining Room. on one side. The entire lounge is magnificently furnished with thick, soft carpeting, supporting handsome couches and chairs. The comfort of the furniture is proven by the large numbers of sleep- ing students which can often be found in them dur- ing the morning. These sleepers are usually inter- spersed among a group of studiers getting in some last minute preparations before heading off to class. Eating, sleeping, and making merry—the lounge and Great Hall combine to support all of these di- versified activities. The normal dining area is not the only place in the Center providing dinners; the President's Din- ing Room shown above is the site of many small, private banquets. Although intended as a private room in which the President could entertain dis- tinguished lecturers and other guests, it has gotten a great deal of use from local service groups, col- lege clubs, and simply private groups of hungry people. The picture above shows the dining room decked out for a fine steak dinner. Partaking of the repast are the members of the Campus Center Board, an advisory body intended to aid the admin- istration and Mr. Kleis in increasing student use of the many varied facilities of the Campus Center. There still exists one more Campus Center struc- ture which supplies tasty foodstuffs; this is the Scarlet Inn, shown on the following page. The Inn offers mainly short orders and that mainstay of the college campus, coffee. Open from 7 a.m. until 10:30 p.m., the Inn acts as the hub of activity in the Center during any hour of the day. Morning and afternoon find faculty, administration, and secre- taries taking their coffee breaks at the Inn’s round tables or side booths. This hangout acts as the home of many a lab-weary science student pausing l

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Mr. Mitchum slices a mean return to his student opponents as his cigar-chewing partner, Dean Moore, looks on. to its name, the store sells only books and avoids prostituting itself to pencil, paper and eraser sales. The Bookstore goes along with the Campus Center tradition of providing the most possible in response to a wide variety of tastes. Across the hall and between the Inn and the Bookstore is the recreation area, featuring pool, snooker, billiards, ping-pong, and bowling. Open most of the day, the recreation room is run at as low a cost as possible to the student so as to en- courage use of the facilities. Above, two faculty members strive to uphold their honor in a vicious ping-pong match against students at- the Campus Center Brawl, an evening of relaxation during finals. This is only a part of the Campus Center story, the Wabash story; through this we attemped to demonstrate some of the common characteristics of Wabash men: boy—man, playboy—scholar, all con- fused in a mixture of innocent and sophisticate. The Campus Center is hard put to satisfy the changing nature of its inhabitants, but still succeeds in cap- turing and demonstrating some of their spirit. We only hope that the remainder of this book can communicate this spirit and something of the quiet, patriotic pride of belonging to such a group. 9