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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1950)
'49'$ Top News Stories Continue in '50 By Gretchen Grondahl With the first chill days of Jan r>ary, 1950, comes a rash of “top” this-and-thats- the greatest fifty men of the half-century, greatest movies of the year, and so forth. The Emerald has the spirit too. Not to he outdone, we put on ear muffs and woolies to thumb through the 1949 files of the camp us daily in the libe’s frosty base ment to come out with what we modern Carson Hall, women's dor mitory. Still under construction are the long-awaited Student Union, scheduled for a spring opening, and the library addition, which is plan ned to give students access to the stacks. Otegon coeds moved into Carson amid the hammering hubbub of construction but now find their new rooms, with their seven-foot-wide windows, worth the inconvenience. 1949’s unusual winter weather conditions are typified by this snow scene on the old campus. consider “The Ten Top Campus News Stories of 1949." Any story which aroused camp us interest between January, 1949, and January, 1950, was eligible for the competition. Undoubtedly there •will bo disagreement with our choices; some of the yarns have been virtually forgotten now, but they all were first on the list of campus conversational topics in their time. I. Deferred Living-in. First blast on the famous ior infamous, de pending- on your point of view) plan requiring all University fresh men to live in the dormitories for one year really came in late 1948. Tn January, 1949, the plan was tabled to fall. 1950. The real squawking began this fall, climax ing around the Homecoming cele bration in mid-November. Attention was first centered on the plan itself, tagged the DuShane plan in its early infancy, after Di rector of Student Affairs Donald M. DuShane, from whose office the original announcement came. Protests came from botli frater nity leaders and dorm heads, with plaints ranging from “weakening of the fraternity system” to “damaging to dorm unity." Alumni wore brought into the fray: letters circulated, leaflets and cartoons littered the Quad, and a portion of the Homecoming flashcard section rebelled in a chant "Deferred Liv ing No!” Into the midst of things stepped Emerald editor Don Smith, urging'1 via his editorial page that the way to make the plan work was to insti tute deferred rushing. Various committees and organi zations now studying the Plan are working on the assumption that it will go through but that adminis trative details must be worked out. Building Const ruction hit new peaks on the campus with tiie completion of the music school ad dition, new University theater, and Carson girls are envied' their ele vator by stair-climbing women in Hendricks, co-ops, and sorority houses. With the first performance of “Winterset” last month, the new University Theater received its formal baptism. Students in even ing- dress admired scenery and tech nical facilities afforded by the new building-. 3. The Millrace had its ups and downs during- ’49. Students and townspeople hoped to see the re turn of water in the race, a bed of weeds and junk since 1945. A blow to such hopes was dealt when Koke Chapman Company placed a fill across the race. Although student picketing failed to stop the opera tion, hope returned when the com pany left pipes under the fill, mak ing it possible for water to be piped into the old stream. Things plugged along, with much talk of getting easements from property owners along the Race. With Eugene City Council approv al of the project April 12, the Emerald came out in two-inch type stating “We'll Get Race!” As it turned out, the announce ment was a bit premature. It still remained to the students to col lect their $3500 share of pledges towards the refilling project. War ren Pavis chairmaned a campus drive to sign over breakage fees to the Millrace Fund; in this man ner the funds were raised. Even after the water finally trickled in, the venerable old stream ran into difficulties. Health authorities declared it polluted: its level fluctuated with the Wil lamette from a mere puddle to near bank-high; and the current was pronounced too sluggish to move Junior Weekend floats at sufficient speed. 4. Elections moved up to April, found off-campus student Art Johnson winning the ASUO presi dency in the first independent win for many years. Johnson’s running mate Lou Weston took the second vice-presidency for the USA tick et, but Yell King and class vic tories went to candidates of the AGS, a revamped version of the former ASA. The Independent Students’ Association renounced political aspirations to become a purely social organization. USA candidates John Chaney and Virginia Wright topped AGS aspirants Bob Gitner and Shirley Hillard in January’s freshman elections. а. f aculty raun^, iranic court, and the renewal of the Ore-Nter were ASUO council projects ac corded the limelight in the move ment toward more student govern ment. After many pros and cons from students and faculty members, Laura Olson’s committee put through a voluntary rating for those professors who desired it. A student traffic court was set up and put into operation. Senior member Carl Davis guided the court through its first weeks of operation, then resigned, turning the chairmanship over to Dick Neely. Merv Hampton was ap pointed new sophomore member and Steve Church continued as junior member. The Ore-Nter was a chatty in troduction to UO life for new students, replacing the informative but sometimes dry Welcome Book. Trudi Chernis and Olga Yevtich piloted members of Theta Sigma Phi to the completion of the vol ume. б. Two Junior Weekend Queens were named for the first time in the history of a school where strange things, including canine candidacies, have been known to happen in such contests. Mary Margaret Jones and Phyl lis Morgan shared honors and crowns at the combination Junior and Mothers’ Weekend festivities early in May. Their unique posi tion, caused by a tie vote, created all sorts of knotty problems of, precedence, symmetrical arrange ment of the cour t, and so on. 7. A change to the semester sys tem was advocated by a faculty vote described as “close” early in the year. Close, all right, the cam pus decided when the margin was later revealed as one vote. When the measure reached President H. K. Newburn’s desk, however, he declined to send it on to the State Board of Higher Education, thus adminstering a sort of “pocket veto.” Akin to this move was the re shuffling of final schedules and the cutting of spring vacation in 8. Unexplained dismissals from the School of Health and Physical Education and complaints about men’s dormitory food caught the spotlight in an eruption of gripes at the beginning of December. Five women students were ad vised to discontinue courses in the PE school on the grounds of poor attitude. The women complained of inadequate notification; their story was taken up by the Emer ald. A storm ensued, but as the Emerald stopped publication Dec. 7 it was reported that the women had hopes of reinstatement and that the school in future would give adequate warning to such stu dents as it considered unfit for helpfully provided quite a bit of newsworthiness during 1949. Stu dents returning for winter term classes found nearly six inches of snow blanketing Eugene; the white stuff stayed in varying de grees for a good portion of the term in the hardest winter in years. With the melting of the snows came threatening floods and the migration of trailer-housed fami lies to the curbstones of McArthur Court. Fall ’49 was punctuated by an unexpected hail storm and re lieved by a trifle less rain than usual. As students return for win ter term 1950, they find the ground CO-QUEENS Mary Margaret Jones and Phyllis Morgan broke precedent in Oregon’s first double coronation Junior weekend. teaching physical education. A letter printed in the Portland Oregonian, criticizing dormitory food and signed by 397 students, touched off a furor which sim mered down to some changes in the atmosphere of the Veterans’ Commons, where Vets' Dorm resi dents eat. White lights replaced blue, dishes were preheated, and other steps planned. Out of this and similar plaints grew a movement to air campus grievances through proper chan nels rather than to bring unfavor ART JOHNSON and MARGUERITE JOHNS receive the Koyl and Gerlinger cups for the outstanding junior man and woman. Johnson's election as ASUO prexy was a top 1949 news story. Miss Johns made more headlines later as 1949 Homecoming Hostess. order to dismiss classes one week earlier in June. Oregon students saw some of the effects of this plan during the latest exam week: finals now begin and end in the middle of the week, with a week end between tests. able publicity to the University through outside sources. Last ac tion of the ASUO Executive Coun cil in 1949 was a resolution along these lines. 9. The weather, that proverbial topic for stranded conversations, again covered with snow, although the blanket is worn thin in spots. 10. The Cotton Bowl game just barely squeaked into the annals of ’49, being played on New Years’ Day. After being disappointed in their try for a Hose Bowl berth, the Webfoots trekked to Dallas, Texas, for a try against Southern. Methodist in the Cotton Bowl, where they were defeated 21-13. Shortly after the Bowl game, Webfoot supporters were relieved to hear of the refusal of Coach Jim Aiken of an offer to take over at Nebraska. There they are—the ten top stories. They may not be the ten most important or the ten most valuable things that happened to the University in ’49; they were among the most talked-about. As usual when eliminating a field to a few items, there were many yarns which could be logical candidates. Campus-wide events like Homecoming and Dads’ Day occupied Emerald space and cam pus conversation for weeks. The All-Campus Vodvil, a new idea to combine the development of talent with fund-raising for the World Student Service Fund, met praise and criticism, the latter be cause of its Good Friday sched uling. Mysties replaced Twisties as Phi Theta Upsilon’s annual bid for the campus palate; rallies reached new highs under the system of pairing men’s and women’s living organizations. All in all it’s been quite a year. But one can’t help wondering if the new 1950, with the opening of the Student Union and the pro posed revamping of the ASUO Constitution, won’t make this one look pale.