1961
The Berlin Wall was built. The Russians orbited a man around the earth. Presidential press
conferences were televised for the first time. An article in the
Journal of the American Medical
Association
claimed statistical evidence of a connection between smoking and heart disease.
Eighteen members of the US ice-skating team were killed in a plane crash in Belgium. Ralph
Boston set broad-jumping record at 27 feet six inches. Major Robert White set speed record of
2,650 mph and an altitude record of 31.25 miles in X-15 rocket plane. Kennedy increased aid to
Southeast Asia. The US Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba became a fiasco. Alan Shepard became
the first American in space. Whites battled blacks in Birmingham, Alabama, race riots. US
Public Health Service licensed Sabin oral polio vaccine. Roger Maris hit 61 home runs, beating
Babe Ruth's 60 in one season. The UN adopted a ban on nuclear tests over US protests. James
Davis became the first American soldier killed in Vietnam.
West Side Story
won the Oscar.
Other movies included
Judgment at Nuremberg, The Hustler
, and
The Guns of Navarone.
• Graduates
• Radio Feud
• New Buildings
• Joe Bushey Accepted
• Clarkson Hall
• Liberal Studies Degree
• Delta Upsilon
• Snell Auditorium
• Fraternity Houses
• Computer
• Thatcher Hall
• Woody Herman
• Management Simulation
• Rocket Society
• New Faces on Campus
• Sports 1961-62
Graduates.
Clarkson awarded 20 master's degrees including the first MS in physics and
graduated 255 seniors in June 1961. Enrollment for fall 1961 stood at 1,536 men: 497
freshmen, 392 sophomores, 333 juniors, and 314 seniors. These were spread across the
disciplines: 976 in engineering, 72 in chemistry, 66 in physics, 18 in liberal studies, and 438 in
business administration and industrial distribution.
New Buildings.
The new engineering science building (later Robert L. Clarkson Hall) was
under construction for later use by the Departments of Civil Engineering, Electrical
Engineering, and Chemistry.
Also under construction was the new dormitory, 400 feet south of Hill Residence (now
Moore House).
Construction was expected to be finished in July 1963. Costing
about $750,000, it will have two wings to house 150 men. Such expansion of the facilities
began under President Jess Davis (1948-51) and finished under President Van Note.
Here is a list of those major plant additions:
1948
Peyton Hall
$ 275,000
1948-60
Renovation: Old Main, Arena (heating)
350,000
1949
Physics Building
250,000
1950-55
Alumni Gymnasium
385,000
1951
Lewis House
350,000
1954
Men's Residence
900,000
1955
Burnap Library
175,000
