Upsilon), and Theta Pi Epsilon, begun in 1922, the Clarkson Technical Society, and the Square
and Compass Society. The students were governed by the Senate, the Interfraternity Council,
and the Athletic Council. Jack Reed was finishing his fourth year as coach of basketball,
football, and baseball, and Assistant Professor Croskery of the mechanical engineering
department coached the eight-man hockey team.
Commencement.
Forty-eight degrees were awarded at Clarkson's twenty-fifth
Commencement. Among those receiving degrees was the first son of a Clarkson graduate to
receive a degree: Cyril I. Fenn, son of Robert Fenn, a member of the first graduating class in
1900. In the fall, the classes took another week off to work on the athletic field.
Col. Frederick Buck.
A member of the Clarkson faculty for only two years, 1922-24, Col.
Buck died of complications arising from an ear abscess which led to meningitis. Born in
Pennsylvania in 1875, Buck graduated from West Point in 1900, was appointed to the Coast
Artillery, and served with the regular army for 22 years. He went into Mexico with General
Pershing on the expedition to capture Pancho Villa, acting as paymaster on this expedition. He
served in the Philippines from 1914 to 1916, returning to the United States to serve as
commandant of Fort Constitution at Portsmouth, N.H., during the war, training young officers
in coastal defense. Heart trouble forced him to retire in 1922. He joined the Clarkson faculty
that year as an instructor in mathematics. He had been promoted to assistant professor shortly
before he died. His son, Carson, graduated from Clarkson in 1933.
Lynn L. Merrill.
Lynn Merrill graduated from Clarkson in 1924 with a degree of bachelor of
science in electrical engineering. He received his master of science degree from Clarkson in
1927 and in 1932 was awarded a professional degree in electrical engineering. From 1924 to
1929, he taught mathematics at Clarkson. In 1930 he was a part-time assistant to the company
mathematician at General Electric in Schenectady. The following year he was sent to Pittsfield,
Mass., as designer in the High Voltage Bushing Department and mathematical consultant on
special problems for the High Voltage Laboratory and the Transformer Engineering
Department.
In 1934, he was appointed associate professor of mathematics at RPI and received his
PhD from RPI in 1936. He left to serve as the consulting mathematician in the Research
Department of Stromberg-Carlson in Rochester from 1944 to 1948. He served as a part-time
consultant for that company as well as for Alcoa in Massena even after he returned to Clarkson
in 1948 as director of graduate studies and professor of mathematics. In addition to serving as
second vice president of the Alumni Association, he was elevated to the chairmanship of the
mathematics department in 1949 and to the chairmanship of the Division of Engineering in
1951. He became dean of the newly formed School of Engineering in 1952. He left Clarkson in
1954.
Football Promises.
Being supremely confident in the ability of the Clarkson football team to
defeat St. Lawrence in their annual battle, the Clarkson men published a resolution in the
Syracuse Post Standard, that induced the following:
Resolved, that having perfect confidence in the men representing our college on the football team, and knowing
that on November 15, 1924, each and every one of you will fight as a unit and do your duty in every play:
