100 years ago (1901)
Faculty anger over the recent forced resignation of sociology professor and political activist Edward A. Ross (see Century at Stanford, November/December 2000) accelerated in January when President David Starr Jordan, at Jane Stanford's insistence, forced out history professor George E. Howard. During a class lecture, Howard had defended the right of academic freedom and suggested that corporate influence was behind Ross's firing. Jordan sought from Howard an apology or resignation. Howard, a member of the pioneer faculty and widely acknowledged as one of the best teachers on campus, chose the latter. Several other faculty resigned in protest.
75 years ago (1926)
The Independent Study Plan was inaugurated in January for outstanding juniors and seniors. Participants were released from compulsory class attendance and examinations, working instead with faculty to design individual courses of study.
Eric Knight Jordan, youngest son of President and Mrs. David Starr Jordan, died in an automobile accident near Gilroy, Calif. He had graduated in 1925 with a major in geology and minor in zoology and was working toward an advanced degree in geology when he died. A month earlier, he married Elizabeth Roper, '25. In his brief scientific career, he collected Hawaiian fish for Cornell University and helped conduct a biological and geological survey of Baja California under the auspices of the California Academy of Sciences.
50 years ago (1951)
At the request of the Smithsonian Institution, mechanical engineering professor emeritus William F. Durand donated his original model of a variable-pitch aircraft propeller to the National Air Museum. Durand, 91, developed and tested the propeller 33 years earlier in a Stanford wind tunnel. He retired in 1924 but was called to Washington, D.C., during World War II to direct the nation's jet aircraft development program.
President J.E. Wallace Sterling announced that physicists Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky and Willis E. Lamb Jr. would join the faculty. Panofsky went on to help build the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and served as its first director, while Lamb shared in the 1955 Nobel Prize in physics for his spectroscopic study of the energy level of a hydrogen atom.
Construction crews erected an L-shaped wooden building between Toyon and Encina halls to house the seven eating clubs. The clubs had shared the dining hall in Encina Commons since the war.
25 years ago (1976)
Marguerite, the free campus bus, began service. The name commemorated the faithful steed of Jasper W. Paulsen (1870-1953), whose horsedrawn coaches provided much of the University's early transportation. Paulsen got his start as a stable boy for Leland Stanford in the 1880s.
About an inch of snow fell on campus February 5. A Stanford loyalist tramped out a huge Block "S" in the Oval, and three women built a snowman in White Plaza. Temperatures had been in the 70s the day before, and the next day was mild again.
A charter group of Stanfordites founded the Stanford Historical Society. James T. Watkins IV, emeritus professor of political science, was elected its first president.
Karen Bartholomew, '71, writes this column on behalf of the Stanford Historical Society.
