Hoyt Administration Building - 333 W College St
This three-story structure, built in 1912, overlooks much of the campus. The first floor is used mostly for information, registration, and counseling (and contains the offices of the student newspaper) while the second floor holds the bulk of administering staff. The third floor contains the offices of the president, vice-president, staff, and some class or conference rooms. The building is open 8 a.m. to noon, and 1-5 p.m., Monday-Friday.
A semester's tuition at Missituk costs $713. A dormitory room costs $40 a semester. Three meals daily at a dormitory cafeteria cost $136.74 per semester.
Missituk University has welcomed a certain number of women since 1879, and small numbers of church-sponsored students from China, Africa, and Polynesia are enrolled, but 95% of the student body are white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males, usually linked with well-to-do, often-local families.
The University takes seriously its in loco parentis duties, prescribing student hours and behavior in detail. Curfews at 10 P.M., strict segregation of the sexes, and enforcement of school traditions are normal to the time, but perhaps far-fetched to those who must fend for themselves in looser eras. Students who fail to rise when their instructor enters the classroom may be expelled, for instance. When not in classroom or library, an unruly student may be confined to his or her room, and a system of proctors and hall monitors sees that this is done.
Faculty and staff must not be merely competent, but must be of sound morals and reputation. Those who become entangled in bizarre situations or become the subject of gossip may not last long at Missituk.
Though the University offers only 20 full-tuition scholarships each semester, various private charities and trusts also offer full or partial scholarships. Those winning them must still work for or otherwise pay for room, board, and pocket money.
Fall semester runs from September to mid-January, with a three-week break in December. Spring semester begins either the fifth Monday of January or the first Monday of February and concludes the second Friday in June. A few tutorial classes or introductory classes required for graduation are offered during summer vacation, but never specialized upper-division or graduate-level instruction.
Dr. Harvey Wainscott: now 48 years old and formerly a dean at Dartmouth, was hired three years ago by the trustees and has presided over the on-going reorganization of the University into its present schools and departments. He has made faculty enemies in doing this, though the trustees applaud his attempts to move the University to closer junction with the modern world. They pride themselves upon the extent and depth of their scientific curricula, including a department of business administration started in 1948, when federal monies begin first to trickle and then to flood in.
Wainscott has also stirred up the town by actively running for mayor of New Jerusalem four years ago —a part-time job—against longtime incumbent Peabody. The election was remarkably close and well-made Wainscott's point to Mayor Peabody, who the university has found much easier to deal with since.
Vice-President David Edmund: 55 years old, he also was vice-president under Dr. Addleson, the previous president, and was disappointed to be denied promotion. An excellent administrator but an uninspiring leader, he functions admirably as the president's second-in-command. He is unenthusiastic about some of Wainscott's academic reforms.
Miss Ruth Ellen Whitby, Registrar: now just 37 years old and in the flower of her emotional and intellectual life, Miss Whitby is competent, keen, and prescient about University records. Only a handful of dearly trusted and similiarly oriented individuals know why she is a member of Miss Andrew's Social Parlour.
The Missituk University Crier: its enemies call it the Sniveler. The weekly student newspaper's managing editor is Howard Penobscott. He's a Henry Luce fan and an annoying young trouble-maker. Skinny and habitually winking through his wire-rim glasses, Penobscott prefers editorializing to journalism and glories in tweaking the school administration. Clashes with his faculty advisor and censor, Swanson Ames, are on-going. Penobscott enjoys nothing more than slipping something controversial by Ames, an oblique and distracted man. Even the fair-minded President Wainscott finds it impossible to like Penobscott, though he admits that his young nemesis is ingenious.
Type
University / Educational complex
Parent Location
Owning Organization
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