Talented, and in need

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(Image: Stadium dorm construction, 1935) With the onset of the Great Depression, the University faced both a shrinking budget, and an increased obligation to provide for needy students: the Ohio Union served 10- and 20-cent "Depression meals," and the University routinely deferred fees. Reviewing scores from the 1932 Ohio Scholarship Test - an early statewide college entrance exam - OSU Dean of Men Joseph Park found that the top 18 students in the state had no means to pay for school. Concerned that the University would lose talented applicants, Park began to look for unused space on campus to house these students. He identified two locations on campus where about 75 men could live in barracks style: the ground floor of Larkins Hall, to be known as the Buckeye Club, and the southeast tower of Ohio Stadium, to be known as the Tower Club. The next year, 78 men enrolled in the first two scholarship dorms. Throughout the Great Depression, the number of deserving students from poverty-stricken Ohio families far outpaced the supply of housing. In 1935, with support from the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), dorm floors for another 100 students were constructed, suspended from the stadium's structural supports. The two towers and this Tower Club Annex would eventually be known as the Stadium Club.