THIS ... IS YOUR UNIVERSITY

[Music] In the Texas Constitution of 1876, it was stated, "The legislature shall, as soon as practicable, establish, organize, and provide for the maintenance, support, and direction of a university of the first class to be located by a vote of the people of this state and styled the University of Texas. These were the words which first promised a great state its greatest institution of learning. But there have been many years between the words that were and the university that is. Those years have seen the only building grow into the main building. Thousands of students and professors come and go. In this film, we recall some of those pastimes and people for you. But we owe you more than nostalgia. You deserve to know the University of Texas as it exists today, as it can become tomorrow. One of the most modern and extensive educational plants in the United States. Because actually this isn't just a university or even the university. If you are a Texan in residence, memory, or preference, this is your university. Its future policies were most recently stated at the inauguration of the university's president, Dr. Logan Wilson. Sworn in with fitting ceremony before a record crowd, Dr. Wilson made noteworthy statements. On the one hand, we cannot ignore opportunities for a wider service without seriously limiting our usefulness to the state and nation. On the other hand, my own view is that the welfare of our students and residents should remain our dominant concern. So, to the students themselves go the first benefits of your university. Who are these students? Like all Texas products, they're a diverse group, but carefully blended. Through the testing and guidance bureau, each incoming student is given a battery of tests. How can one bureau assist thousands of students? The answer is equipment like this scoring machine. But once the scorer has ground out its objective answers, a well-trained counselor takes over. Here, counselor and student check a profile of interest. How will the educational journey go from here? Orientation at Texas gives every newcomer encouraging personal contact with deans, professors, and other students. Now, the newcomer may ask, "Should I have gone to a smaller school?" Here, the physical plant and faculty of your university speak for themselves. In Texas, the oil state, many students turn to petroleum engineering, a new science calling for new skills. Brilliant men, often recruited from the oil industry, make up the teaching staff. Languages, too, are updated. In Bats Hall, linguistic instruction research has made your university world famous. On Q, staff members record oral practice material to be piped into special drill rooms. Thus, a central control room gives out homework in seven different languages. A student checks his progress. After the playback, he may grin or groan, but he's had thorough teaching. Equally modern is the second of three sister buildings, Maises Hall, home of philosophy and psychology. And in Benedict Hall, third of the trio, we find latest teaching devices for mathematics and astronomy. Housing a complete school is the journalism building with offices, classrooms, and working equipment for campus publications. Works exactly like a real newspaper. say visiting journalists as a faculty member gives out story assignments. The music building strikes a new note too with its panled recital hall worldrenowned for fine acoustics, its soundproof rehearsal hall, an entire floor of practice rooms. In the new experimental science building, bacteriology, physiology, biochemistry, part of organic chemistry, and certain fields of zohology find abundant space here. Research and teaching are carried on with close supervision at all levels of training. For the pharmaceutical sciences, an outstanding building has been designed for small groupoup instruction. This aircooled library is an excellent example of a departmental reference room, one of 25 circulating library units on the main campus. [Music] With the help of scientifically compiled index cards, students find reading material on every conceivable subject. Here are the main library stacks open to graduate students, faculty, and staff. Hundreds of shelves hold 1,90,000 volumes. All available at your university. Reading connoisseurs ask first to see the rare books collection, one of several special libraries with their own tasteful settings. Here is a perfect atmosphere for seminar discussions of literary treasures. In sickness or in health, your university is at your side. In its health center, all students entering the university have complete physical checkups, including thorough chest X-rays. Besides X-ray and physiootherapy departments, the health center houses a clinical laboratory, pharmacy, clinic, and outpatient department, and a suite for major surgery in any type of emergency. 84 beds stand ready. The staff includes 18 nurses, six full-time doctors, and 12 consultants. Registered students are allowed 10 days hospitalization each semester and 10 days each summer session. Many Texas attorneys and nationally famous barristers once knew this as the law building. Now, a jackabbbit hop across the 40 acres brings us to the law school's new town's hall and priceless Charlton Library. The building's three floors include an auditorium with courtroom facilities, beautiful lounges, private offices for visiting attorneys, libraries, and many classrooms. During a 3-day dedication ceremony, the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court proclaimed the school best in the Southwest. There is need, however, for a continuing construction program. 13 new buildings since 1940 have added much to the physical prestige of your university. But many shacks still dot the campus. Inadequate classrooms in the rough, architectural isors that must be replaced. Of course, not all learning requires specially designed buildings. Witness this art class which has for a change gone to nature's own laboratory. Realist and abstractionist both start with life as it is on a creek bank. Nature creates, the student interprets, the teacher helps to guide the brush. Another creative outlet at your university is drama. In addition to acting and directing, young thespians work at set construction. When the department of drama puts the show on the road, students help with every phase. Strong Austin public schools are proving grounds for university practice teachers who face everything from teenagers to tots. Authorities have discovered much about children's inborn love of making a picture. So, student teachers make sure this love is given plenty of expression. Lots of blank paper, lots of bright colors add up to lots of smiles and a youngster's real sense of accomplishment. Accomplishment is important at all ages. At your university, it's rewarded in many ways. Here, for instance, come members of mortarboard in a procession filled with suspense. Each spring semester, members of this honorary society for senior women walk unannounced into classes for their tapping ritual. Not all selection on the 40 acres is done in such brief ceremony. Each year at election time, posters get bigger and splashier. The most colorful and usually ziest contest is in the spring. Then youthful campaign managers pull all the stops. Of course, the proof of the race is in the voting. No matter how big the posters, how loud the speeches, or how sweet the serenades, it's the little ballot that tells the story. Well, congressmen, governors, and even US senators have started here. Religion as intelligible as science, as appealing as art, as vital as the day's work. That's an important aim of your university, which seeks to train the heart as well as the mind. Within one block of the campus are nine institutions for worship, including the Student Christian Association, and three other denominations have churches in short walking distance. [Music] To represent the cooperative efforts of Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic groups, there is the University Religious Council, which meets at least once a month. To its gatherings come three student representatives and the adult adviserss of each religious foundation. Together they worship and study to achieve a widened understanding for each member. Climaxing the work of the university religious council each year is religious emphasis week. Around the central theme are planned church services, seminars, panels, lectures, informal speeches, classroom talks. From these many fine solutions, all find inspiration. Closely allied to religion is civic responsibility. Here, girl students help their dorm give a Christmas party for deaf and blind colored children. Even a deaf child can hear the harmony of the spirit. Even a little blind girl knows the feel of a doll. And it doesn't take eyes or ears to enjoy those refreshments. Why doesn't Christmas come once a month? Every girl should have a bow spelled one way or another. In the B group are the archery club members. Your university also offers riding, badminton, tennis, bowling, golf, riflery, fencing, tumbling, and swimming. Girls find their places too in intramurals and mixed intramurals with boys. Awid can shoot better than that. But sports scales everywhere are weighted heavily in favor of the men. In addition to intramurals, your university offers training in all intercolgate games. Here on Clarkfield, players learn the diamond secrets that earn Texas so many baseball trophies. And in the fall comes football. Time to pile on fuel for the monster bonfire. Flames leap up and the pep rallies on. Speeches by the players, yells by the crowd. 15 for the Longhorns that graze in Memorial Stadium, and at game time, there's not an empty seat. Pat your feet now to those football songs. Nobody plays them like the Longhorn Band, as Texan as a cattle brand with its orange uniforms. Right in step are the Cowboys and Silver Spurs. and mascot Bivo, who has the longest horns and shortest temper of anybody. Here come Bivo's buddies running onto the field through a loyal gauntlet. Texas spirit is kept at Fever Pitch. And what it is is football, the game where everybody goes whole hog for a little pig skin. Sometimes things don't look too promising for the home team. Here, the TCU frogs seem ready to leap right out of the Texas frying pan. But even the coaches don't know it all. Just when every play is falling flat on its face, and suicide seems the only way out, the quarterback finds a solution. A long pass can make short work of the opposition. And along one it is, away it goes. Straight into the arms of the receiver who bites off one tackler, crosses the 15. He's down to the 10 and clear all the way to the five and across the goal line for a Texas touchdown. Almost as exciting as touchdowns are the halftime shenanigans, especially on band day when your university plays host to high school bands from all over the state. Youngsters from every size town in every kind of uniform pour into the capital city. And every musician plays a little louder. Every twirler spins a little faster. Every band major really struts to meet the heady competition of band day at the university. Now for a look at the Aqua Carnival, where stars perform equally well in the water or under it, not to mention high above it. Here's a breathtaking dive. So perfectly done, it looks easy. Of course, there are the simpler ways of leaving the board. Hey, any water left for the next act? Plenty of water for a boatload of beauty. These are the contestants for Aqua Carnival Queen. Judges have a difficult time. Biggest fling in the spring is roundup. Activityfilled weekend when your university welcomes its ex- studentent herd back to the campus corral. Organizations plan and labor for weeks on floats, open houses, class reunions, and the X's of Texas look forward all year to Dad's Day, the barbecue, the relays, the square dance, the review and ball, and of course, the fanciful roundup parade. But floats aren't the whole procession. No, indeed. The University of Texas is unique in that it's the only school in the state having all three ROC units, which came into being in 1940. First, we'll weigh anchor for the Navy. [Music] Then, we'll dip our wings to the Air Force firmly on the ground at parade time. [Music] And now, fall in with the army. up. Hope the eight pork. No doubt about it. There's something about a soldier. And these are Texas best. When Roundup is over, routine starts again. Here in one of the co-op houses, girls get their university education as happily and inexpensively as they could anywhere. Cooperative living means sharing decisions, too. And here you see feminine democracy at work. No railroading. You notice the eyes have it, but there are good, strong nose, too. And nobody's sulking. Every gal has had her say. Most women are satisfied with that. In any university, there's a time and place for study, for thinking, or for just getting all the loose ends tied back together. A well-furnished dormatory room is the perfect place, and every girl can choose her own time. [Music] At your university, different students have different answers to the problem of companionship. Some like to ally themselves with a definite group, such as a fraternity or sorority. And many undergraduates find jobs to help dad pay extra expenses. Some boys and girls, of course, prefer to make friends in more assorted groups. They want the wider freedom of dorms with a sing song here, a bull session or companionable game there. Every student can be happy in his chosen sphere. [Music] To those who find themselves short on the long green, the Student Employment Bureau offers assistance. A surprisingly large percentage earns all or part of college expenses. Job opportunities are waiting the year round. Even when the thermometer's rising, there's work to be done. So, summer students get their chances, too, to earn dollars for scholars. And graduate students also come in for their share of help in finding the right place for their educated talents. For 45 years, the division of extension under the motto, the state of Texas is our campus has extended to adult Texans the benefits of university teaching and research. Extending the teaching function of the university in all fields of learning is the division's principal activity. Extension classes for public school teachers and administrators are a significant factor in the development of Texas modern public schools. Short courses and conferences for inservice training of business and industrial personnel enable Texans to perform the tasks necessary to the economy of a growing industrial and urban state. Extension classes are carried to the oil fields as well as to the classrooms. Here oil field workers are learning modern skills required in the operation of the petroleum industry. A great university is a storehouse of the accumulated knowledge of man as well as a center of teaching. The division maintains the southwest's largest audiovisisual library providing films, slides, and other materials to Texas schools and communities. Packaged loan library materials gathered for 45 years are lent annually to thousands of adults and school youth. Texans are proud of the Interscolastic League, which in cooperation with our public schools sponsors competition in drama, speech, and literary events, as well as the league's famous track, football, baseball, and other athletic events. Indeed, the division of extension brings the resources of your university directly to the people and communities of the state. A second important off-campus division of your university is the balcony's research center. It's coordinating and develop St. Angelo, Lach, and El Paso. Addition of the fully accredited Southwestern Medical School in Dallas is greatly extending your university's program of medical education, services, and research. [Music] At Porter Atarancis, bottleneck between the bay and the Gulf of Mexico is the Institute of Marine Science. Here are found more different kinds of marine plants and animals than live anywhere else in Texas. So, a small investment makes the institute's work invaluable to the state's fisheries industry. Every day, men go out to take specimens or bait, to strain water for microscopic forms of plants and animal life, or to dive for bottom animals. Living treasures of the deep are also collected from a moving boat. In the sarasm or gulweed is a unique community of organisms, all gristed for the teaching and research at the Institute of Marine Science. [Music] The stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas. And the place to study them is the WJ Macdonald Astronomical Observatory located at an altitude of 6,800 ft on Mount Lock near Fort Davis. The observatory is equipped with an 82in reflector type telescope which reveals millions of stars the human eye can't see. Recordings of the telescope's discoveries are made by photography. The McDonald Observatory is a cooperative project staffed by the University of Chicago and operated under University of Texas ownership. It is one of the most active centers of astronomical research in the world. At El Paso, your university claims Texas Western College, formerly a mines and metallurgy branch. Students take a surveying course in the campus experimental mine, supplemented by two weeks in an active mine. Here, a future mining engineer watches an analysis test, learns to find carbon content of steel or cast iron in 2 minutes. All is not gold that glitters. So, young engineers are taught to determine the precious metal values in an hour. There is increasing demand for mining and metallurgy specialists to solve the growing problems of mining at great depths and of working lowgrade deposits. Through a million-doll estate left to Texas Western facilities of its art department are unusually fine. Ceramics is one of the exciting subjects which also includes painting, design, sculpture, sketching, commercial art, printing, jewelry making, and metal work. Graduate work toward the MA degree is offered every semester and the teaching staff has been selected for its professional skill in preparing students for creative promotional or merchandising fields. Happy Oasis in a dry section is Texas Western swimming pool, a popular student rendevous for six warmer months. Nine branches, 200 acres. Back on the main campus, the Proud Tower symbolizes them all. The University of Texas, its president has said, "The most important thing we can do for our students is to provide here the best faculty obtainable." A great faculty makes a great university, stimulating students to the limit of their capabilities. So, your university encourages new and vigorous instructors with dynamic classroom methods. But President Wilson has also said, "A great university contributes immeasurably to the enrichment of our culture and civilization." So here too you find the most established scholars and the more classic minds, those of men who have spent decades on the great frontiers of American education. Their faces are known to every Texas scholar. Their names are capitalized in the history of academic progress. And to them and their younger colleagues, you may safely commit your children's intellectual future. For they know that this institution of learning belongs to you. Your legislature has created it. Your support has improved it. Your growth has deserved it. This is your university. [Applause]