1951
The Twenty-second Amendment was adopted, limiting the president to two terms. Americans
bought 190 million records and 231 million paperback books. CBS produced the first
commercial colorcast and new facilities made possible the first transcontinental TV broadcast.
A government testing station in Idaho generated the first electrical energy from atomic energy.
Nobel prizes went to Theiler for his vaccine to combat yellow fever, and to Edwin McMillan
and Glenn Seaborg for their discovery of plutonium. James Jones published
From Here to
Eternity
and Herman Wouk,
The Caine Mutiny
.
The King and I
, Rogers and Hammerstein's
musical, opened to rave reviews. The Rosenbergs were found guilty of wartime espionage in the
atomic bomb spy trial, and were sentenced to death. Truman fired MacArthur as Supreme
Commander of Allied Forces in Korea, extended the draft until 1955, and lowered the draft age
to 18 1/2. The Giants won the pennant on Bobby Thompson's ninth inning home run. Truce
lines finally were drawn in Korea. Movie audiences watched
An American in Paris, The
African Queen
, and
A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Charter Amended
•
Clarkson Journal
• New President
• Final Exams
• Stuart Portrait
• Chi Epsilon
• Hodge Anger
• Betty Baderman
• CCT-Dartmouth Hockey
• War Orphan
• Ice Carnival Kings
• Campus Items
• Fencing Team
• Songs of Clarkson
Charter Amended.
In April, the State Department of Education amended Clarkson's charter to
authorize the granting of the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. The first recipient
was Albert Monroe Greenfield, a noted Philadelphia banker and philanthropist, at the June
Commencement which also awarded 379 undergraduate degrees and four master's degrees: two
in chemical and two in mechanical engineering.
New President.
President Jess Davis resigned in June to become the fourth president of
Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. In November, he was replaced by William
Gardner Van Note as Clarkson's ninth president.
In his three years as president, Jess, who well could be called the "Father of modern
Clarkson," had transformed the College. When he had arrived in 1946, Davis found that
Clarkson consisted of two buildings: Old Main and the Pierrepont Avenue gymnasium. The
Depression and a World War had taken a severe toll on the College. Low enrollments meant
neglected maintenance. Coat racks were merely orange shellacked boards nailed to the walls;
halls were dusty and unswept; offices were tucked into cubby holes wherever they could be
found. Because teaching loads had to be enormous-30 hours was the extreme, but 25-hour
loads were common-no time could be spared for professional development.
When he left, the College had witnessed skyrocketing enrollment with the influx of
veterans, increased faculty, enlarged curriculum with the addition of Liberal Studies
requirements, additional graduate work, and the construction of two new buildings (Peyton and
Damon Halls).
