1940

The college treasurer, Gilbert Malcolm, falls in a hotel room and injures both of his ankles.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon will hold a Christmas party for needy children in the Carlisle area featuring a dinner, a trip to the movies and a gift. It is hoped that this will become and annual event. The Sociology Department announces the creation of a new award, the Gaylord H. Patterson Prize, to be awarded annually to the upperclassman who writes the best essay on public policy. The award commemorates the late professor Patterson and is valued at twenty five dollars. The Winter Edition of the 1940 Hornbook comes out.

Dickinson joins a nation-wide Christmas stamp-selling campaign that raises funds for the National Tuberculosis Association. The Woman's Choral Club performs for the first time this semester, singing at the College Chapel Service. The renovations being made to Bosler Hall near completion and will include a reserve room, a reference room, a Dickinsonia room, a faculty study, a music room and a recreational reading room. In addition, it is now limestone to match the other buildings on campus.

Student Senate organizes a pep rally for the big game against Gettysburg in response to the noticeable lack of spirit by students in the recent past. The head librarian at Dickinson, May Morris, suffers a fall from the library stairs, leaving her with both wrists broken and severe spine and shoulder bruises. Tau Kappa Alpha holds a meeting regarding an annual debate with interested members of various campus organizations.

The Dickinson Alumni Club of Ohio is formed in Cleveland, the twenty-second alumni organization to be formed. Seven freshmen are tried by the Student Tribune for laughing at their classmates who had to perform for upperclassmen. The intrusion of Metzger Hall reported last week is said to have been nothing but a nightmare. A national officer of Phi Mu visits the chapter at Dickinson. The coach of the freshman football team is forced to cancel the remaining games in the season due to many injuries.

An unidentified man breaks into the room of a female freshman in Metzger Hall. He smothers her screams with his hand and tries to remove her bedclothes before being frightened away by her second scream, which is not smothered. The Dramatic Club changes their December sixth production to "YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU." Dr. Wellington A. Parlin of the physics department invents an apparatus to be used in laboratories and appeals the Chicago Science Apparatus Company to put it in its catalog.

The Commons Club's furniture mysteriously disappears. The third Dickinson Horn Book will be published in the coming weeks. It's homecoming/alumni weekend! A group of girls fights to get a cheerleading squad for athletic contests.

The reorganization of the Harman Literary Society is decided by a group of seven female students interested in the furthering of a literary and discussion group. The Dickinson Dramatic Club selects "Charley's Aunt" for their first production of the academic year and will be shown December sixth. The Wilkie Club will be holding a debate against the College Democrats regarding the 1940 presidential race. Two faculty members and three seniors are elected to the Lambda Sigma Phi honorary scientific fraternity.

It’s the second annual Parents’ Weekend! Fifteen students meet to discuss their desire to start a Spanish Club on campus. Twenty students begin working with the Civil Aeronautics Authority to receive private pilot’s licenses. The Willkie Club of Dickinson College holds its first meeting as the republican counterpart to the Roosevelt Club. The 1940 Microcosm is placed in the top forty-five of all college yearbooks in the country as ranked by the National Scholastic Press Association. The honorary journalistic society Alpha Sigma Gamma initiates five new students into its ranks.

The passage of the Selective Service Act requires ninety-two of the colleges' four hundred and twelve male students and seven faculty members to register for the United States military. This is the first peace-time conscription in the history of the nation. Senior women prepare to move into a new dormitory called Hayes House, allowing them to leave Metzger Hall and the strict restrictions that come with living there. Two women enroll for the Civilian Pilot Training Program. The Freshman and Sophomore rules will both be enforced by a rebuilt Student Tribunal.

The Young People's Fellowship plans a hayride to disprove the rumors that they are a "stuffy" organization. The four women's fraternities pledge forty-three freshmen and transfer students. Dickinson is asked to take part in the Civilian Pilot Training Program which will allow students of the three older classes to learn to fly. 108 freshmen men and transfer students pledge to the twelve men's fraternities. Tau Delta Pi, the theater honorary fraternity, proposes the ambitious campaign of one-act plays. The remodel of the Bosler Memorial Library is nearly completed.

Doctor Gaylord H. Patterson, Professor Emeritus, dies at the age of 73. Bishop E.H. Hughes is announced as the year's Commencement speaker. Ten seniors are elected to join Pennsylvania's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Edwin E. Willoughby '22 donates a collection of rare books to the College, including a single page from the Kelmscott Chaucer.

Omicron Delta Kappa taps six juniors for membership. Union Philosophical Society, Belles Lettres, Wheel and Chain, and Lambda Sigma Pi (honorary scientific society) elect officers.

Dean M. Hoffman and Boyd Lee Spahr '00 address the College at the annual Founders' Day kickoff. Five of the original ten students taking flight classes from the Civil Aeronautics Authority receive recreational flying licenses, with the other five on track to earn them at a later date. W. Roberts Pedrick '40 is tapped as graduate assistant to the Biology department in light of the resignation of Elmer C. Herber, who is leaving campus to pursue a PhD at Johns Hopkins.

The Province Convention of Sigma Alpha Epsilon comes to Dickinson for the first time, with an expected attendance of nearly 200 delegates and alumni. Little Jack Little is announced as the entertainment at the annual Senior Prom. Skull and Key taps nine sophomores for membership, while Wheel and Chain picks eight juniors. The demolition of certain parts of Bosler Hall, now complete, reveals the location of a long-forgotten College cistern and unearths two lost pieces of administrative documentation.

Coach Richard MacAndrews breaks three ribs during an accident at a baseball practice. Dickinson is one of 33 colleges in Pennsylvania to attend the Intercollegiate Conference on Government in Harrisburg. The track team wins their first meet of the season against Blue Ridge.

The seventh annual Guest Day for prospective students gets underway. A group of pranksters locks the only door to Bosler Hall (then under construction) while seven people, including College Dean Ernest Vuilleumier, are inside, forcing them to climb through the rubble in the back of the building. Howard Williams, captain of the basketball team, is awarded the Phi Epsilon Pi Most Valuable Player trophy.

Missionary and author Sherwood Eddy visits campus to lead a Q&A session on the subject of Europe's economic, political, social, and religious situations. Demolition and renovation of Bosler Hall gets underway, the eventual goal being a $125,000 overhaul of the library building. The College Orchestra publishes the six-piece program for its annual spring concert, to be held the following night. The baseball team wins its first game of the season (against Blue Ridge) 9 to 4.

Traveler/self-educated savant/newsboy/bum Samuel H. "King" Cole passes through campus to collect autographs to add to his fifty-volume set of the people he meets, which includes Neville Chamberlain, King George VI, and President F.D. Roosevelt. Colonel Philip Mathews, supervisor of the Works Progress Association, is announced as speaker at the annual Union Philosophical Society banquet. Edgar Washabaugh, one of the ten students training in personal flight with the Civil Aeronautics Authority, is the first of that group to fly solo across the country.

The Drama Club announces that it will present Merton Hodge's "The Wind and The Rain" the following week. Dr. Paul Swain Havens, president of Wilson College, visits campus to give a lecture on John Donne. Pan-Hellenic Week, to be extended by a day for the leap year, will feature Sadie Hawkins-style rules for co-eds to act as gentlemen.

Over 300 people, mostly alumni, attend the Mid-Winter Ball, which ultimately makes a profit of $16.98. Alpha Sigma Gamma, an honorary journalistic society, elects nine Dickinsonians as members. The owner of the horse that was the subject of a student prank some two months earlier demands $200 from the College to account for "loss of value" imposed on the animal.

Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership fraternity, taps John F. Campbell and W. Richard Eshelman (both '41) for membership, along with Governor Arthur H. James, who joins as an honorary member. Jack D. Hughes visits chapel via the New York Worlds Fair to demonstrate scientific advances and their applications. Campus receives a healthy 14-inch snowfall.

W. Albert Strong and Bernard Gingrich (both '40) are elected to join Phi Beta Kappa, the national honorary fraternity. Mary Lou Kirkpatrick is elected Queen of the Mid-Winter Ball. The College Orchestra's string quartet presents a two-song program at chapel. The Dickinsonian column "Flotsam" appears for the first time.

Samuel McCartney is tapped to replace Paul Gorsuch as editor-in-chief of the Dickinsonian. The General Alumni Association publishes its annual report, revealing that there are 5,161 living Dickinson graduates--at least one in every U.S. state and 27 foreign countries. A plan for all fraternities to cancel their spring formals and donate all money to be used for them to an all-College inter-fraternity ball is rejected outright.

The Social Committee announces that the Alex Bartha Orchestra will provide entertainment at the second annual Mid-Winter Ball. Belles Lettres and the Union Philosophical Society announce an inter-society debate, with the goal of rejuvenating the societies' age-old rivalry.