THE COLLEGE

PRESIDENT DICKEY used the occasion of the annual dinner of alumni officers, held in Hanover last month, to make public announcement of a new building program for the College. Additions and improvements to the plant were approved by the Board of Trustees at its spring meeting, after recommendations by the Board's Committee on Buildings and Grounds.

Major items in the program include new dormitories to house 230 men, substantial alterations in two existing dormitories, construction of a new apartment house and of several new three-bedroom houses for faculty and staff members, and extensive additions to Thayer Hall, the student dining center.

In addition, the Trustees' Committee on Buildings and Grounds has directed the making of preliminary studies looking toward construction of a Hopkins Center on a revised basis in the near future. These studies will be based on the committee's recent consideration of a comprehensive review of the Center project made by the Advisory Committee on Plant Development, of which Prof. John P. Amsden '20 is chairman. It is hoped that preliminary studies will be ready for consideration by the Trustees at their October meeting, so final plans may be prepared and construction begun in 1956 or early in 1957.

Scheduled for completion by the opening of College next September are from four to six rental houses for the faculty and extensive remodeling of Topliff Hall. It is expected that the new apartment house will be ready for occupancy by the fall of 1956. Plans for this housing unit will be prepared during this year and will be submitted to the Trustees' Committee on Buildings and Grounds for final approval.

The new dormitory units will also require further planning, particularly as to selection of sites and arrangement of student rooms and social facilities within the individual buildings. It is expected, however, that no unit will be designed for more than eighty occupants. These further studies will be undertaken by the Advisory Committee on Plant Development and the Trustees' Committee on Buildings and Grounds, with the objective of completing these new dormitories by the fall of 1956.

Alterations in Topliff Hall will include partitions and acoustical treatment in halls and conversion of 23 existing triple suites into rooms for one and two students. Middle Massachusetts Hall is scheduled for remodeling and redecorating from top to bottom to convert it into a modern fireresistant building. According to the plan, this work will begin in the summer of 1956.

The scheduled additions to the College dining facilities are based on consideration by the Board of Trustees of recommendations by the Commission on Campus Life. These additions will enlarge the dining facilities in Thayer Hall to feed both the sophomore and freshman classes, beginning in the fall of 1956, and will make possible other improvements in the dining service.

The plant program also includes improvements in classroom facilities, rebuilding of certain heating mains, additional fire safety measures, and a general remodeling of the locker-room facilities in Alumni Gymnasium.