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Web Exclusives:PawPlus January
30, 2002: PAW, February 20, 1931 When Fine Hall is completed in a month or so, each of the scientific departments (except Geology and Biology, which share Guyot Hall between them) will have a laboratory building of its own. Three of the seven scientific buildings - Guyot Hall, the Halsted Observatory, and the Palmer Physical Laboratory - belong to an earlier period, but four of them have resulted from the building campaign of the last few years. Eno Hall, for the Department of Psychology, was the first of these new buildings. It was erected in 1924. The John C. Green Engineering Building followed it in 1928, and the Frick Chemical Laboratory in 1929. Fine Hall is not a laboratory in the sense that the other buildings are, but it will serve the uses of students of mathe-matics in the same way. The following description of the new building was written for the Weekly by Dean Luther P. Eisenhart, chairman of the Department of Mathematics: "The Fine Memorial Hall has been erected through the generosity of Miss Gwethalyn Jones and her uncle, the late Thomas D. Jones '76, in memory of Dean Henry Burchard Fine '80 who organized and developed the pres-ent Department of Mathematics. "The building is intended to be a center for the study of mathematics and mathematical physics. It provides studies for members of the staff and similar facilities for advanced graduate students. There are several lecture and seminar rooms and a reading room for the use of upperclassmen enrolled in the Department of Mathematics. One of the outstanding features of the building is the library of the Departments of Mathematics and Physics which occupies the whole third floor and includes four conference rooms, as well as alcoves in which the advanced students can carry on their studies. On the second floor there is a large conference room for meetings of the professors and another room, 'the common room' which will be a general meeting place for the members of the staff and the students. The portrait of Dean Fine, which has just been painted by Ernest Ipsen, will be the central feature of the latter room. "This building will provide for those interested in mathematics and mathematical physics opportunities for a group life similar to that enjoyed by our departments of science in their laboratories and by the Department of Art and Archeology and Architecture in McCormick Hall. Buildings of this character and with this purpose have been erected in several of the universities of Europe. "During the last
five years the group of graduate students in mathematics has increased
materially in numbers and quality. During each of these years there
has been group of from seven to ten men studying here who already
have their doctor's degree and most of whom are on appointment as
fellows either from abroad or from other universities in this country.
The new building will not only provide suitable opportunities for
study but also facilitate informal contacts between the members
of the group, both faculty and students, which are so important
in a seat of learning."
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