About Town and Campus

" For those who just have joined the ranks

Of pots and pans an d pi ggy banks, And to the same old gals we've asked before This is a plea for news once more. Please call th e 1v[ iner Office, phone 85 1 Every T hursday 2 to 4."

The above poem is. quoted from a recent iss ue of the Miner under the title "Marriage Rin g." T he announcement furth er stated that the U nive rsity Dames Sewing Club had met at the home of Mrs. Grace S traub, 1808 East Oak street, \I\fednesday, Jan. 22 at 7:30 o'clock. . .

In the same iss ue it was reported that the chief tOP1C of disc uss ion at the V/edn esday Afte rn oon Club that w eek was th e various trials a nd tribul ation s confrontin g wives of se nior students who are leavin g Rolla to en ter industry.

An in an other arti cle : "The marital per cen t on the MSlif cam pus seems to be stead il y risin g. A nn ouncement has been made of the fo rthcomin g marriage of Nancy McCabe to Jack McCarthy on Feb. 1 in St. Louis." .

The student body las t semester consisted of 26% married s tudents and, to mee t a demand that m ust not be denied, the Miner is devotin g a considerabl e portion of Its pages to news of interes t to the better halves.

It is a different type of student on th e campus. A more mature type-a type who knows what he is here for and. w ho is tryin g to make the bes t of th e opportunity being furni shed him by a g rateful gove rnm ent. " I want to filll sh my education as soon as I can an d get out and on the job" is a prevalent attitude. T he frivolous side of college life here, as at o th er school s, is at low ebb, and will remain so as lon g as th ese Veterans, with 25% married and, possibly, an equal number considerin g marriage, are on the campus. To them, an education is a desirable thin g, to be accomplished as soon as possible and th en to th eir li fe's wo rk, already too long del ayed by necessary service to their country.

The s tudent body grade average fo r many years was approximately 1. 12, but when the grade average for the summer term was fi gured this past year, it was fo und to be 1.278. As one experi enced profess or expressed it: " I cast up my grade c urve and took a look at it and couldn't believe that those grades were ri ght. I went back and rechecked t hem a nd th ey were ri ght. r have never g iven s uch high g rades befo re In my lifetime of teachin g." P erhaps the. fem.lnin e touch . menti oned in the earli er part of the article IS a factor in grades, too.

T hin gs seem to be chang in g indeed on MSM. T ust the other morni ng there was a loud whlrrrnn g s ound th e campus as a red streak sli thered to a stop at the north entrance of Norwood Hall. A boy grabbed a l oad of books and rushed madly into the building at five minutes afte r 8 :0G--late again- even with a motor scooter to get to class. Perhaps th e cold weather made it difficult to ge t th e thi ng started.

T here was a di fferent atmosphere on registration day, Feb. 3, also. About five o'clock in the afternoo n, 2125 stude nts had compl eted registration. Li nes started forming at 7:00 in the mornin g in order to be first in th e registration procedure. L ines formed not on ly at the gymnasium, !n which regi$trati on has been held for many years, but also In front of Mechanical H all and in front of the south entran ce of orwood Hall. O nly new students and students who fa il ed something wen t to th e gymnasium, and yet the gym was full. Students who pre-registered and fa iled nothin g a nd w hose names began w ith letters fro m "A" to "L" went to th e top floor of Mechanical H all. S tudents who pre-register ed and failed nothin g and whose names began w ith l e tters from "M" to "z" went to the firs t floor of Norwood H all. A ll converged on Parker Hall to pay their fees and there the line was long, but moved rapidly.

After th ey had fini shed clearin g their fees, some 1700

ve ter ans went to th e /irs t an d second floors of the O ld Rolla l3ui ldin g' to complete their veterans administratlOn papers and ge t on th e pay roll. In these rooms where Chief Buehler and Diz McQ ueen roamed for many years, these young veterans s truggled with the neces ary governmental red tape to receive their $65 and $90 a month for the coming fo ur months.

I n the gymnasium, th e section board, which "Doc" H. H. Armsby worked out several years ago, has grown to where Doc wo uldn't have kn own it. It is much larger WIth a much larger number of sections, and did, indeed, look l!ke the stock exchan ge score board. T hI ngs moved smoothly, however, and when the business office closed at 5:00, 2125 students had completed regis tration.

A nother item in the last iss ue of the Miner shows a t;'end on the camp us-"Men Living in T emporary Dorms Form a Small City." The story goes on to relate how the students living in the temporary dormito ries on the upper athletIC fiel d have organized a city coun ci l and mayor and have g iven the community the name of "Vetvill e." Two hundred slxtyeight men are livi ng in the dorms. I n the new each dormitory w ill select one coun cdman WIth the exceptlOn of Do rm " A" w hi ch w ill be allowed three because of Its large As soon as these men have been elected they will me: t w ith Ass istant D ean Wi ll iams to elect a mayor of their town.

Just to the eas t of the gymnasium on the block between 14th and 15th streets, running east and west, and Rolla and P ine streets, runnin g north. and south, housin g of another type has taken shape. Th is is' a g rou p of budd1l1 gs moved in from surroundin g Forts and ml il tary camps and converted into 56 apartment units to house married students. These are fou r-room apartments, eight to a unit. There are fo ur a partments down stairs and four upstairs consistin g of a living-room, kitc hen, two bedrooms, and a There were close to 400 applications fo r space 111 the ;,6 un Its. A g ro up of school officials with a student from the Veterans Association constituted the committee to make the selection. It was a Solomon's choice.

T his hill many years ago-w hen Bill Kahlbaum '21 and his family lived in one house, Dr. G. ·A. M uilenburg and hi s two girl s in another, J. H. Underwood and his fo ur children in a nother, Dr. F. W. Shaw and fam il y in another, Noel Hubbard and hi s four children in another, and Barney H arris and his two boys in still another - the hill was 'then known as "Stork HilL"

This designation will be even more appropriate now, for of the 56 couples assigned to the units, 50 of them have children. In addi tion, many of the houses mentioned above in which the families lived in the twenties, have been converted into about a dozen small apartments, and a prerequisite for a place in these apartments was that the fam ily have children.

O n N agogo mi road at the end of 14th street, still another type of housin g has been developed. H ere s ix duplex houses with rooms for twelve fam ilies have been erected out of material brought in from Ft. L eonard Wood. In these live twelve new members of th e fac ulty w ho, li ke people elsewhere, are havin g considerabl e difficulty in findin g a place to live. School officials tho ught "Nagogomi Court" would be an appropriate name:for these housing un its but the students have thought otherwise- they have called it "Calculus Row."

Rolla is indeed changin g. One of the city officials the other day es timated 'there m us t be at least 11,000 people in town. D ean Wilson, in a recent talk, es timated that over 3000 of th ese we.re directly connected with the school, as students, fac uity, o'ther employes, and their families.

T he s tudents are making a defin ite impression upon the co mmun ity life. Their lus ty enthusiasm in the various theaters, fo r ins tan ce, ·leaves one w ith little doubt but that the M in ers are in town again!