The feature “On this day in Stanford history” details events that occurred on the same date in past years at Stanford.
According to The Stanford Daily’s archives, on Jan 9 in….
1917: The Stanford Fraternity Chapter of Acacia announced its shut-down. The Acacia fraternity had only one other chapter in the nation and required that all males be 21 years old to join. A small chapter made the house expenses difficult to maintain.
1924: The Stanford Band was prohibited from rehearsing in the Engineering building, after 15 years of doing so.
1941: A 35-bell Belgian carillon — a gift from the Belgian government — officially arrived on campus and was installed in Hoover Tower.
1951: The University received a questionnaire from the U.S. government regarding “special armed service training … in time of national crisis.” The notice, which went out to schools throughout the country, required little action on Stanford’s part according to the University president, who said Stanford would cooperate fully with the government in identifying resources for use in emergencies.
1967: Three Stanford students got in trouble with the FBI for passing a bank employee a prank note about a robbery. While waiting at the Bank of America at Stanford Shopping Center, one of the young men wrote on the back of a deposit slip, “This is a holdup. Don’t panic. Don’t be alarmed. Give me the money. Thank you.” When the students gave the note to a woman behind the bank counter, she laughed, recognizing the scribbles as a joke, according to prankster Michael Ferrari — but the FBI didn’t find the situation funny and was waiting for the three students at Alpha Tau Omega house that evening.
1970: In a reversal of an earlier decision by the Dean of Students, the University allowed the all-women and all-men dormitories of Florence Moore Hall to become coeducational. Loro and Paloma dorms, both all-freshmen, were to integrate their residents through a lottery. Each dorm would end up with one women’s floor and one men’s floor.
1986: In wake of a cheating scandal, Professor Philip Zimbardo restructured his Psychology 1A class, cutting down the class size from 744 to 300 students. The cheating incident led to the suspension of nine students and was the largest such scandal in ten years.
1997: The Office of Undergraduate Admissions updated Admit Weekend terminology to differentiate between “house hosts,” students who would actively spend time with prospective freshmen, and regular hosts, who would only offer a room to stay.
Contact Arielle Rodriguez at arielle3 ‘at’ stanford.edu.