News Scrapbook 1958-1961

A YLAR before he died, TobaclO Tywon J .i mes Buchan an ("Buck") Duke ( Bull Dur- ham, Lucky trikes) had a Jre.1111. I k wi,hcd to c tablish a un1ver- s1tr. The ,mh1tccturc would be . oth1c, .ind there would be schools of d" inity, rm,J1c111c, .inJ law. On a sunny after- noon m 192 1, Duke d1mbed a hill three rmlc, west of Durh.im. C.., peered lupp1lr at the surrounding aues, turned to a friend and s:ud, "Thi is the place." I le: then promptly dealt out 6 million 111 order to pronde an 8,000-acre campu for the 'lhool which woulJ henceforth bc.1r h1, n.1mc, and whose endowment fund, he w.is ·ub ·cqucntly to enrich b) more th.111 ~O million. Thi, " one war to realize a dream and tu build .i great ·chool. rt i, the easr way. For mo t of the men who ha,e p·mdcrcd the idea of a university, from QJ,nt1ll1an to Alfred orth \X'h1tehcad, t!1c dream and the ~hool h.1,c lx:cn in- fmitel)' harder to rnmc by Most men, 111dc:d, h.i, c been content to hunt the dream ,1rmed only with slumbrous prose· 111 the unreal world of philosoph1Cal and nlu,ation.11 tr.ids, and .ill would l1J,c ,1;sm:J th.it the dist,ull<: lx:twc-en dream .ind re ltt} anuunh for some of the most poignant hearthrc.1k 111 the his ory of the human cl/11d1tum.

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0 BUILD IO AL 0 OSS S: 0 0 ORY

the Mo,t Rev . Charles Frano s .T.D, PhD , L LD., Bi hop

For

Buddy,

an D iego and gen•

of the D1oc<:sc of

ni, er-

erally considered "father" of the

s1tr of an Drego, the dream has never lost the substance: of hard reality, nor has the challenge of its pur url been tem- pered b) uch a lucky contretemps as the ,·isitat1on of James Buchanan Duke. For one thing, the Bishop's JOb is a,ing souls, and the University, in h1 · , icw, i simply one more logistic c: sc:ntral whrd· help~ to gc:t that job done. In the battk for salvation, truth and knowledge arc every bit a important as faith. Morc- o,er, ht has had to share l11s hopes and plan wrth a thrrd of a million people hi droce ·an flock and others-to many of whom the idea of a univer ity became no Jes than it did for him a tactic in the struggle for redempti n. Th<:y too aw the ro1d to truth a the road to hea,en. Thousand of other an D1egan , on- lookc:rs only 111 th1 fervent enterprise, have been tartled and awed by the al- most o,crnight emergence of the panish Rena1s anle skyline on the westernmost promontory of Kearny Mc a. To them a dream is hardlr an cxplanat,on. Ye tcr- day thc:rc was only sa.i,:ebrush on a brown hill Today there tands on the saml spot the hcgrnning, of an cducationa colo:; u,. a 20 million inn:stmcnt whic

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thrtt·Slof)', rndlwn-dollM hurld,n •

.1,..,,1 ol I.aw ( Mort" I I.ill) 1 J

II,

BILL REIO

Graduation exercise , th Chapel of San Diego College for W om n

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bids fair to achieve its goal as the largest privately-owned university in the West. How did it happen? One of Bishop Buddy's three doctoral dcgre<:s was conferred at the American College in Rome, and perhaps some memory of days spent in that ancient city on the ridge of the JanicuJum triggered the rn ·p,ration which gave ri c to the whole idea. Al any rate, in 1937, he re- call , shorllj• after he was appointed to head the newly-formed Diocese of an

Imperial,

in

(36,000 sq. miles

Diego

a running start. It is not ce rtai n that the prob lem of money entered h is mind at all. In any case, it is safe to as umc he was not at a loss as to how to gel started. \X/ hatever his fau lts, the Bishop has ncv r bc:cn known to lack for ideas. His first move rcflcd cd the combina- tion of hard -nosed logic and bri ll iant era/age which often charactc:rizes h is mode of operation. He went to San Francisco to share his p lans wi th an Id rontimred on 11ext flt1ge

Riverside, San Diego Counties), the Bishop stood on the spot where geranium-lined Marian Way, the University 's main street, now runs, and convinced himself that a great center of learning could and should be built there. Unlike Bu k Duke, with whom it is probable he had only this educationally-inspired hilltop trek rn common, Bi hop Buddy did not com- mandeer millions to give his apocalypse San Bernardino, and