Spruceup

should take form on the drawing board early this spring and ground will be broken later this year. Target date for completion of the structure is 1971.

A contract a I ready has been let for the other major building on the 1969 construction program - a $1,200,000 dormitory, the largest and most expensive of the six dormitories authorized in President Mod Ii n's administration. These six, together with the original dormitories, Thomas Hall and Jeter Hall, will house 1009 men. With the completion of the new dormitory it wi 11 be possible, for the first time in many years, to accommodate all of the resident students in the dormitories. The new building, yet to be named, will accommodate 223 students and another dormitory under construction and scheduled for completion this year, will house 151.

All dormitories are of similar constructiongothic architecture, red brick with limestone trim -and are located in the dormitory complex.

With the completion of the new dormitories and the Field House, the University will have solved most of its pressing needs for buildings, with the exception of a dormitory for Westhampton College and an auditorium sufficiently large to seat all of the University's students. High priorities also have been given to additions to the Student Center and to Ryland Hall which contains both classrooms and administrative offices for Richmond College.

Although the completion of the new dormitories will make it possible to accommodate all male students who wish to live on the campus, the "temporary do rm it or i es" constructed in 1947, to take care of returning veterans, will not be razed - certainly not immediately. These "Green Mansions," so dubbed by Richmond 8 College students with varying degrees of affection, wil I be used for student recreation and other University purposes.

There has seldom been a time during the past decade when there was no dormitory under construction on the men's side of the lake as the University attempted to adjust to the change in the composition of its male student body. The percentage of commuters to Richmond College, which reached a high of 57 per cent in 1945, has been declining since 1947 at an increasingly accelerated rate (see graph) and is now only 27 per cent of the student body. The University was faced with a virtual ultimatum: build new dormitories or lose a great many out-of-city students. The University built new dormitories.

The University faces an increasingly difficult admissions problem at Westhampton College where no new dormitory has been constructed since South Court in 1948. South Court and North Court can house 375 of Westhampton's approximately 650 students - a relatively small percentage of those who apply for admission.

The change in the composition of the student body can be attributed to the relative affluence of students of college age. Most of them elect to go away from home and, unlike depression days, their parents have the money to send them away, with a resultant decline in the number of commuting students. Another factor has been the phenomenal growth of Richmond Professional Institute, now merged with the Medical College of Virginia into Virginia Com monwea Ith University. VCU is becoming an increasingly important competitor for Richmond students who elect to get their higher education locally.

With the completion of the Field House and the new dormitories, the University's buildings will have a current value of more than $25,000,000.

It is doubtful if any of the buildings constructed over all the years has been as urgently sought as the Field House which, among other things, will give a home to a nomadic basketball team which found shelter in two Richmond armories, at Benedictine Gymnasium and later the Richmond Arena after outgrowing the cosy confines of Millhiser Gymnasium. The building is the gift of Mr. and Mrs. E. Claiborne Robins, their son E. Claiborne Robins, Jr., '68, and their daughters, Mrs. Alois Mayer and Mrs. John C. Haskell, Jr., '67.

The Field House will be located adjacent to Mi 11h iser Gymnasium, which will be remodeled and become a part of the athletic complex.

The complex will provide several basketball courts and a swimming pool. It will include adequate housing for visiting teams, which now are quartered in Richmond hotels, and will contain classrooms for students and offices for Athletic Director Frank Jones, all coaches, and members of the department of physica I education.

The new building, coupled with Millhiser Gymnasium, will provide facilities for "a complete physical education program for the entire student body," Jones said. He envisioned handba 11, volleyba 11, and badminton courts, and "modern and complete gymnastic equipment."

President Modlin emphasized that the same careful planning that preceded the construction of the Fine Arts building will go into the Field House. The University's complete athletic needs, at the varsity and intramural levels, are being studied carefully, he said, before the plans are drawn. •

Telephone facilities increased.

Alumni and Alma Mater join Funds in Spruceup.

How about Operation Spruce up?

Did we get the money?

Yes, we got the money and the University matched it. And Alma Mater has used it, is using it, and will use it-squeezing the maximum out of each of the fifty thousand dollars -for a variety of spruceup operations.

Such as improvements to faculty offices, for new science laboratories and new equipment, for admission office improvements, and (praise the Lord) for improvements in a telephone system that was staggering under an excessive load. (Sometimes getting an outside line was almost as difficult as breaking out of prison!)

The new telephone equipment will speed up service to and from the University and also will carry the increased load of phones in the new Fine Arts building.

Spruceup was one of a number of cooperative ventures in which the Uni-

Science lab gets new equipment.

Paint brushes glide, phone cables unwind, science labs gleam as result of extra giving for housekeeping needs on the campus.

SPRUCEUP versity and her alumni have engaged over the years, the most significant being the construction of the Student Center. Spruceup was born of the desire of the alumni to help the University find funds for housekeeping needs, those nagging jobs that a cc u m u I ate w h i I e larger and more important projects get priority. Of course the alumni recognized the fact that the most pressing need was money for faculty salaries. That is what most of the money raised in the 1967 fund was used for. We dared not do less in 1968. So the friendly challenge was made. In 1968 we would raise $100,000 principally for faculty salaries and an extra $25,000 to be matched by the University. The alumni responded most nobly and raised $131,000. Hallelujahs were sung by professors whose offices benefited from shelving and paint. The science departments have new equipment and new laboratories. Director of Admissions Thomas N. Pollard, Jr., '53, whose office has really been spruced up with new paint, new carpet and new furniture, rejoices in the new decor that impresses students and their parents who come to "look the college over."

The 1969 Alumni Fund, already launched under the leadership of Howard P. Falls, '33, president of the Alumni Council, will seek to raise the giving of alumni to at least $150,000. The special gifts phase of the fund was conducted in December with general solicitation to be conducted this spring.

In the words of Falls, the 1969 Fund will be the "Alma Mater appreciation fund. It will be our way of telling the trustees, President Modlin, and the faculty that we are proud of the men and women who have made it great." •