Mobilizing

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(Image: Tower Club, 1935) The first students' shared workload, communal living arrangements, straitened financial circumstances and often rural upbringing created a unique sense of community. Stadium Club floors self-organized, appointing a central administrative committee, a newspaper publishing committee and a work committee, whose task was to divide labor hours among the residents. Students in the clubs competed with fraternities in intramural sports, taking pride in any victory over the well-heeled "kids from across High Street." Like many Americans stunned by the failure of America's financial system, Stadium Club students were attracted to causes of the political left: Stadium Scholarship Dorm students, under the banner of the Peace Mobilization Committee, marched in consecutive May Day parades from 1933 to 1935. Throughout the early 1930s, PMC members and other student groups were instrumental in agitating against the University's compulsory military drills. Residents from the Stadium Dorms found a sympathetic ear in President Rightmire, who permitted a one-hour break in classes for Peace Day, April 27, 1938, so the campus community could attend a neutralist rally. The dorm's political tenor changed abruptly with the United States' declaration of war on Japan and Germany. During the 1942-43 school year, more than 1,000 Ohio State students dropped out to enter military service. In 1943 the dorms were emptied of scholarship students to make way for the new Army Specialized Training Program.