100 years ago (1898)
Jane Stanford had billiard tables, a piano and tables for studying installed in the unused Encina Hall dining room. Residents of the men's dorm cheered Mrs. Stanford the night their new lounge opened. The dining hall had closed after persistent complaints about the food; many of the men took their meals at eating clubs.
75 years ago (1923)
Roughs' Day, the undergraduate tradition in which men caricatured the uncouth, misogynist "Roughs" of the pioneer classes, earned one last chance to continue after nearly being banned the previous fall. To prevent future abuses, the Men's Council set new rules: Men could not cut classes, dress as women, badger female students or faculty, or engage in Roughs' Day activities on the Quad.
A gathering of 150 alumni, faculty and trustees paid tribute to Chancellor David Starr Jordan, the University's first president, on his 72nd birthday. Caspar Hodgson, Class of 1896, gave the University a bronze bust of Jordan, made by Italian artist Cartaino Scarpitta.
50 years ago (1948)
The campus community was stunned by the death of President Donald B. Tresidder. He died in a New York hotel room on January 28 while on a trip to attend a meeting of the Association of American Universities. Classes were suspended the next morning, and students, faculty, trustees and others filled Memorial Church for readings and prayers. The church filled again the following Sunday when Chancellor Ray Lyman Wilbur delivered a tribute at the memorial service of the popular 53-year-old president. A member of the Class of 1919, Tresidder earned a medical degree from Stanford in 1927 but put that aside to run his deceased father-in-law's Curry Co. concession at Yosemite National Park. Elected to the Stanford Board of Trustees in 1939, Tresidder became board president in 1942, then resigned the next year when the board asked him to serve as the University's fourth president. During his five years in office, Tresidder laid the foundation for the University's postwar growth. A week after his death, the Associated Students recommended naming the proposed new student union in his honor.
Trustees appointed Vice President Alvin C. Eurich as acting president following Tresidder's death. Eurich had been on the education faculty since 1938.
25 years ago (1973)
A presidential commission suggested that the Overseas Campuses Program be reorganized to emphasize rigorous intellectual and academic standards. The commission, chaired by law Professor John Merryman, said that new campuses should be founded in cultural centers outside Western Europe. Begun in 1958 with a campus in Beutelsbach, Germany, the program included centers in Austria, England, France and Italy.
In the wake of Associate Professor H. Bruce Franklin's dismissal, trustees gave final approval to a new faculty disciplinary system that called for outside hearing officers to make detailed findings on disputed facts. It was opposed by the Faculty Political Action Group, which said it would "abrogate safeguards traditionally associated with academic freedom." But faculty leaders said the new system would protect professors from arbitrary actions more effectively than the old one.
Jasper Ridge, a 960-acre natural laboratory located on the southwest edge of Stanford lands, was officially designated the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve by University trustees.
Catherine Peck, '35, writes this column on behalf of the Stanford Historical Society.
