The University’s Guardian Angel

Posted on December 18, 2017 by Jim Nicar

James Clark’s Christmas Dinners for stranded students were legendary.

He was the youngest “old man” on the campus. The genuine friendships he forged with students and faculty were to him an elixir of perennial youth. For the alumni, he was among the most cherished memories of their college years. His kindness, humor, patience, and counsel, were invaluable, as was his courage to take on a staggering array of vital responsibilities. For more than two decades, James Benjamin Clark was the indispensable guardian angel of the University.

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Born in North Carolina, raised in Mississippi, and an 1885 graduate of Harvard University (photo at right), Clark settled in Bonham, Texas in 1873 with his wife, Florence, and opened a successful law practice. A decade later, Governor John Ireland asked Clark to serve on the Board of Regents for the soon-to-be-opened University of Texas. He accepted, but didn’t remain a regent for long. Ready to move again, and excited at the prospect of being involved with the initial development of a university, Clark offered to take on the duties of proctor. His fellow regents agreed. In July 1885, Clark resigned as a regent, moved his family to Austin, and at 50-years old took up the only non-teaching position on the Forty Acres.

For $2,000 a year, Clark was, in practical terms, the entire University staff. Along with his formal duties as “Secretary to the Faculty and the Board of Regents,” Clark served as registrar, bursar, academic counselor, groundskeeper, and librarian. He was also the campus financial advisor. “Parents are warned against the serious dangers connected with extravagance in the supply of money to students,” cautioned the University catalogue, “and are strongly advised to deposit the funds of their children either in the hands of a discreet friend, or with the Proctor of the University.”

From his home at the corner of 26^th Street and University Avenue – where the Student Services Building stands today – Clark looked after the University community as if it were his own family. A student who missed class because of illness often received a personal visit. “After I left you the other day on the street car,” Clark wrote in 1899 to regents chair Tom Henderson, “I found the student threatened with appendicitis up, dressed, and out of danger. At the next house I found my boy with the broken leg (done in a friendly scuffle) doing well, and the other two who had fever were able to enjoy some oysters I had taken to them. I took supper with the mess [a campus eating club] and spent an hour talking with them. They live pretty hard, but are of the right metal. There are a dozen of them, and they have a short debate every night. The dear fellows seem very grateful for any attention shown them, or interest manifested in their work. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to cheer and encourage the boys who are making a brave struggle with poverty for noble ends. And they will win the fight.”

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Faculty, too, occasionally fell into trouble and needed Clark’s help. One of them was the rusty-haired Thomas Taylor (photo at left), hired in September, 1888 to teach applied mathematics as well as courses in mechanical drawing. His classroom in the old Main Building was on the third floor, directly above the library, and was outfitted with drafting tables, chairs, and a faucet and sink for cleaning the drawing equipment after class. Austin’s water works, though, weren’t always reliable in the 1880s, and the water pressure was often insufficient to make it to the third floor.

On the afternoon of May 2, 1889, near the end of Taylor’s first academic year on the campus, he turned on his classroom faucet, but no water was forthcoming. Since this had happened many times before, Taylor simply went downstairs in search of a place to scrub his equipment. This time, though, he forgot to turn off the faucet before he left.

Overnight, with most of the city’s residents asleep, the water pressure returned to normal levels, and the faucet began to run. Since the basin had been plugged, the water filled the sink, overflowed, and began to flood the room. By the next morning, much of the third floor was a large puddle, and water had seeped downstairs to the University library, where many of the books were ruined.

Taylor was more than a little upset, and was certain his short career at the University was over. But Clark reassured the young professor, quietly had the water damage repaired, and replaced some of the library books at his own expense. In a report to the Board of Regents, Clark minimized the harm done as “not so great as might be expected,” and took some of the blame himself for not checking the building more thoroughly that evening. The regents were reassured that steps had been taken so that a similar incident wouldn’t happen again. In part because of Clark’s intervention, Taylor remained at UT for more than 50 years, founded and developed its engineering program, became the first Dean of Engineering, and was one of the most loved and respected professors on the campus.

Above: A 1904 engineering survey class. Professor and Dean of Engineering Thomas Taylor is back row center, with the mustache.

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Along with his duties to faculty and students, Clark had to look after the grounds. When the University opened in 1883, the square, 40-acre campus was inhabited by the west wing of the old Main Building, a set of temporary outhouses down the hill to the east, and little else. Near the close of the Civil War in 1865, most of the trees on the future campus had been hastily razed and used to build Confederate defenses for Austin. By April 1882, as the regents considered plans for a University building, the grounds were cleared of remaining tree stumps, and a mile-long, white-washed wooden plank fence was erected around the perimeter of the campus, with gaps at the corners and at the south and west entrances.

Above left: The west wing of the old Main Building in the 1880s. The planted trees and graveled pathways were added by James Clark.

Clark re-sodded the areas damaged by the construction of the west wing, laid out graveled walks, and planted live oak, mesquite, and cedar trees. At his home he grew English walnut and pecan trees from seeds, and when the saplings were tall enough, Clark transplanted them to the Forty Acres. Florence assisted by planting flower beds around Old Main.

The greening of the campus, though, brought unwanted visitors. Austin’s family-owned cows, which wandered freely about the town, found the grounds a favorite place to graze, and made a special effort to eat the tender leaves of the newly-planted trees. While Clark denounced the cows as the “most ruthless of raiders,” their appetites were also a distraction to classes. Harried professors had to regularly interrupt their lectures en masse to herd noisy cattle away from classroom windows. To stem the bovine invasion, Clark filled in the gaps of the perimeter fence with turnstiles and gates.

Surprisingly, the turnstiles weren’t very popular with the students. “They are nuisances to the stranger who is out late on a dark night, to the young ladies whose dresses are easily torn, to the tardy student whose overcoat pocket “hangs him up,” and to our regiment of absent-minded poets who commune with the stars during their evening strolls.” Besides, the cows had somehow learned how to operate the turnstiles themselves. Gates replaced the turnstiles, but were almost always left open. By 1895, the gates had been removed entirely, and the fence had fallen into disrepair, but the town cows had since found other places to graze and weren’t a concern.

Above: The Forty Acres from the southwest in 1895. The old wooden fence can still be seen along an unpaved Guadalupe Street.

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Among his many contributions to the University, Clark was perhaps best known for his Christmas Dinners. For almost a decade after the University opened, only Christmas Day was allowed as a holiday. Students repeatedly complained, argued there wasn’t enough time to travel home and return to campus before classes resumed, and petitioned the faculty for a week-long holiday. In 1891, the faculty at last acquiesced. Most of the students fled the campus for home, but there were still a few, all of them residents of B. Hall – the men’s dorm – who didn’t have the funds for a train ticket.

Clark came to the rescue and invited the “leftovers,” as he called the stranded students, to his home for dinner. “There was turkey at one end of the table and ham at the other,” recounted Clark’s daughter, Edith. “We had individual stuffed squabs, cranberries, plum pudding, and everything that goes with Christmas dinner.”

Above: B. Hall as seen from Speedway Street. The dining room was on the ground floor in the central part of the building.

As the University’s enrollment grew, so did the number of leftover students, and within a few years, Clark’s Christmas Dinners had to be moved to the ground floor dining room in B. Hall. By 1900, more than 50 students attended, and the event lasted several hours. Guests traditionally arrived by 2:30 in the afternoon, where a complete Christmas banquet awaited them. “After the feast there was a flow of soul,” reported the Texan newspaper. “It was announced beforehand that every good looking person present would be expected to respond with some toast, and so there was a great rush to secure recognition from the toastmaster. Of course everybody spoke, and everybody covered himself in glory – even the freshmen.”

“Clark,” the Texan continued, “in his inimitable way, kept the audience in convulsions with witty anecdotes and sly humor sandwiched in between the speeches. He also favored the boys with an eloquent address on the University which called forth much enthusiasm. Among other things, he pleaded strongly for a proper understanding and confidence between Regents, Faculty and Students.”

While the University president sometimes attended and offered to share the cost, Clark was adamant on providing for the dinner himself.

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Above: The entrance to Clark Field, UT’s first athletic field, named for Clark in 1906.

“Editor of the Texan: I suggest the name of ‘Clark’ Field,” began an anonymous letter published in the student newspaper in the spring of 1905. “Judge Clark is a lover of sport and by his own testimony is a trained athlete. The name is easy to remember and is one we all love. If no better name can be found, I move we adopt it.” The note was authored by David Frank, The Texan’s editor, who had actually written the note to himself. Frank had been on the newspaper staff since his freshman year, and later remembered, “When I first went to the University in 1901, Alex Deussen and the editors who followed him were constantly referring to the fact that at other schools the athletic fields had definite names, whereas at the University of Texas people merely spoke of it as the athletic field.”

The field in question was a lot just east of the Forty Acres, about where the O’Donnell Building and the Gates-Dell Computer Science Complex are today. The University purchased the land in 1899 to use as an athletic field.

Frank’s idea to name the field after Clark quickly found traction on the campus. Letters from fellow students appeared, and Frank began to refer to the grounds as “Clark Field” in print. His successor continued the effort. By the fall of 1906, the Athletic Council approved the name, and the Board of Regents quickly made it official.

Above: The present day Caven Lacrosse and Sports Center at Clark Field is managed by the Division of Recreational Sports.

Through the years, Clark Field has wandered about the campus. When the original athletic field was closed in the 1920s in favor of the present DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, the name Clark was assigned to a new baseball facility where the Bass Concert Hall now stands. Baseball moved to its present location in 1975, and the old “Freshman Field” along San Jacinto Boulevard was renamed for Clark and placed under the management of the Division of Recreational Sports.

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On December 6, 1908, James and Florence Clark arrived at the auditorium of the old Main Building to hear a speech by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential nominee. Clark smiled and waved to his many friends, and the couple took their usual seats on the front row. Just minutes before the start of the program, Clark’s head dropped, and his shoulders slumped forward. Florence knew immediately that something was wrong. Clark was hurried to his office while a doctor was summoned, but it was too late. At the conclusion of Bryan’s speech, Bryan himself learned, and then announced, that the University’s beloved proctor of twenty-three years had passed away.

Two days later, an enormous crowd that included UT President Sidney Mezes, the Board of Regents, the entire faculty and student body, and many alumni and friends in Austin, gathered at the Clark residence. With a horse-drawn cart to carry Clark’s coffin in front, the assemblage formed double lines and quietly followed for more than two miles to Austin’s Oakwood Cemetery, where Clark was interred.

Efforts to memorialize Clark were numerous, and among them was one written by Dean Thomas Taylor: “For nearly a quarter of a century he was the guardian angel of the University, and his life here was a benediction to the students, faculty and alumni. The night was never too dark for him to go to the help of a student or professor in need. He was the associate of the distinguished men that have shed glory on the University of Texas – Mallet, Humphreys, Roberts, Dabney, Gould and Waggener. The places of these great men have been filled with able men, but until the world produces another prophet Samuel, the place of James B. Clark will never be filled.”

Above: The senior class of 1909 donated a stained glass window in memory of James Clark. It was initially installed in a place of honor, above the south entrance of the old Main Building. In the 1930s, when Old Main was razed and replaced by the current Main Building and Tower, the window was preserved and can be seen just inside the Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies on the first floor.

Texas Engineers Know How to Party!

Posted on November 22, 2017 by Jim Nicar

The Thanksgiving Eve Engineering Reception drew capacity crowds.

Above: The Engineering Building, today’s Gebauer Building.

It was the social event of the fall term. Everyone wanted to attend. For a decade on Thanksgiving Eve, students, faculty, staff, and alumni donned their finest attire, gathered on the Forty Acres, and headed straight for – of all places – the Engineering Building. There, they were dazzled by the electric lights, amazed at the science exhibits, laughed at the variety show, enjoyed the plentiful refreshments, sang along at the rooftop concert, and danced into the wee hours on the top floor.

Thanksgiving could wait. This was the Engineering Reception!

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Starting in 1900, Dean of Engineering Thomas Taylor (photo at right) hosted an annual banquet for his students. Held at the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin, Taylor scheduled the event near Thanksgiving to ensure his engineers enjoyed a feast, as most wouldn’t make it home for the holiday. University students were inclined to remain in Austin for Thanksgiving. There was always a home football game scheduled that afternoon, usually against the A&M College of Texas. Besides, Friday was a class day, and there usually wasn’t enough time to make the trip to home and back.

By 1907, the engineers had exceeded the capacity of the Driskill. “On account of the marvelous growth of the engineering department,” announced The Texan newspaper, “the annual Engineers’ Banquet had to be abandoned this year.” The students met to discuss the issue, and “it was the unanimous choice of those present to hold a reception, smoker, roof garden party, and dance.” It was ambitious idea. The Engineering Building, newly opened in 1904, was to be transformed into the venue they needed, and they planned to invite the public to celebrate with them. Thanksgiving Eve was chosen as the date, as engineering alumni would be in town for the football game and could attend as well.

Above: The top floor of the Engineering Building was a drawing studio that would serve as the main dance hall. The desks were pushed together to create a stage for the band. Courtesy Alexander Architectural Archives, UT Buildings Collection, Box 249.5

As they began to plan, the students soon discovered that their Engineering Building, though full of classrooms, a library, and labs, would be a great place to host a party. The roof offered a grand view of the campus and the Texas Capitol to the south. The top floor, a single, well-lit open room, was the drawing studio, and was easily the best choice for a ballroom. A lecture hall along the east side of the second floor was a natural for a planned variety show and smoker, and other rooms in the building could be remade into lounges.

The reception opened at 7:30 p.m. and guests were treated to a building thoroughly transformed from basement to roof. The stairways and rooms were draped with holly, imported by train from East Texas, along with orange and white bunting and large Texas pennants. Newfangled electric lights of various colors, powered by a basement generator in the electrical engineering lab, were strung across the ceiling of the top floor ballroom.

Everyone received a printed program for the evening, which included a well-crafted welcome message:

For the first hour-and-a-half, the focus of the reception was in both the second floor classroom and on the roof. The classroom was the scene of a variety show, where the students performed skits – which often poked fun at the faculty or rival law students – sang songs, and led the audience in some UT yells. Upstairs, Besserer’s Orchestra, a popular Austin band, played a roof top concert of familiar tunes. The crowd was invited to sing along.

Above: It was standing room only to watch the skits, songs and yells of the variety show on the second floor. Click on an image to see a larger version.

At 9 p.m., the formal dance began on the top floor. The drawing tables had been shoved together in a corner on the west side as a makeshift stage, Besserer’s Orchestra descended from the roof, and everyone had dance cards inside their programs. Each dance for the evening was listed – a waltz, two-step, schottische, or others – with a blank where the name of the dance partner could be written. At the time, it was the usual social custom to reserve dances in advance. The reception’s earlier entertainment was, in part, intended to give the gentlemen time to ask the ladies for dances and fill in their respective cards.

Those who chose to sit out a dance would find refreshments on the east side of the top floor, and could either return to the roof to rest and talk, or join the post-variety show smoker on the second floor. Traditionally, smokers were for the men. (It was considered unladylike for a woman to smoke, especially in public.) Cigars were provided, and it was here that many of the engineering alumni settled to reminisce with their fellows and relay stories of their time on campus to the students who visited.

In addition to the roof top lounge, the four engineering classes – freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior – had each decorated a room in the building to serve as additional sitting rooms. A contest was declared, a committee of faculty obliged to be judges, and the junior class room was declared the best.

Above: The Junior Room was dubbed the best class-decorated sitting room at the reception. The walls were covered with hanging carpets, UT and other college pennants attached to the carpets, and the room outfitted with couches and pillows.

Dancing continued until 1 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, when the guests, tired but happy, returned home. The affair was considered a complete success. Over the next decade, the Engineering Reception attracted capacity crowds, the decorations and planning became more elaborate, and a pre-reception Open House was added in the afternoon for visitors to explore the basement laboratories and enjoy science and engineering demonstrations. In 1917, with the onset of the First World War, the tradition was reluctantly discontinued.

Above: Program covers for the Engineering Reception were elaborate. From left, a Thanksgiving turkey on a survey, the entrance to the Engineering Building (now the Gebauer Building), and an image of the original Alec, patron saint of the Texas Engineers. Click on an image for a larger version.

Above: The farewell message from the last page of the Engineering Reception program.

The Thrilling Adventures of Alec!

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Jim Nicar

Or, How April 1st became a UT Holiday

Above: Headlines from The Texan in April 1908. “Holiday Inaugurated” – “Professors Given Needed Rest.” How considerate of UT students to give the faculty a day off!

All hail UT’s patron saints!! Among the schools and colleges on campus, a few have taken on mascots which have affectionately been promoted to patron saints. The law school has its staid Peregrinus, business boasts the wily Hermes, architecture claims the mysterious Ptah. But the best-known is the patron saint of the Texas engineers: Alexander Frederic Claire, or simply, Alec. His arrival created an annual UT holiday.

When the University first opened in 1883, the academic calendar of choice was the quarter system, and holidays were in short supply. The fall term opened in early October, with final exams completed just in time for Christmas. Winter classes resumed the third or fourth day of January and ran through mid-March. And without a pause, the spring term began immediately after winter finals and continued mercilessly until the first week of June. In the spring, students were permitted only two days to catch their breath: March 2nd in honor of Texas Independence Day, and April 21st for San Jacinto Day.

In 1908, the start of spring classes was joined by a student movement for a third spring holiday, preferably April 1^st, which was about halfway between the other two. Officially, the faculty opposed the idea, though professors did nothing to prevent the cause from gaining momentum. As the students began to organize, there were indications that if their request was refused, they would simply stage group walkout for the day.

About the same time, UT engineering students received an invitation from their counterparts at the University of Missouri to travel north to the Show Me State for St. Patrick’s Day. Since 1903, Missouri engineers have declared St. Patrick to be one of their own, and have used March 17^th to celebrate.

As for the Texas engineers, they’d already claimed a patron saint. Since 1901, Alexander Frederick Claire – or “Alec” – was the main character in Hi Ho Balls, a favorite song of the engineers. But Alec was known in name only. There was neither an appropriate physical rendering, nor a special day, for UT’s patron saint.

The invitation from Missouri, along with the students’ request for a holiday, sparked an idea. If the Missouri engineers take a day off to honor their patron saint, why not dedicate the first of April as a day of homage to Alec?

On the evening of March 31^st, student members of the TECEM Club – which stood for Texas Engineers: Civil, Electrical, Mining – gathered for their weekly meeting on the second floor of the Engineering Building (today’s Gebauer Building). The group’s purpose, according to Dean Thomas Taylor, was to “promote practically everything but learning and scholarly attainments.”

Above: students practice surveying in front of the old Engineering Building, today’s Gebauer Building, just east of the UT Tower.

First on the agenda was to make plans for April 1st. To encourage their fellow students to cut classes, the group wanted to smuggle a few stray dogs up to the top floor of the old Main Building, tie tin cans to their tails, and let them loose during the first class hour at 9 a.m. It was hoped the ruckus would create enough chaos to disrupt classes for the day. The group adjourned to find the required canines, but the neighborhood dogs weren’t very cooperative, and the idea was dropped due to a lack of volunteers. Instead, the club adjourned to Jacoby’s Beer Garden, just south of the campus on Lavaca Street.

Just after midnight, as the group was about to depart, they spied a wooden statue under a porch shed near the exit. Meant to promote Falstaff Beer, it was a chubby, medieval character. After a quick conference, the group decided to “borrow” the statue and quietly spirited it away to old B. Hall, the men’s dorm, where they perfected plans for the next day. (Photo at left: Engineering Dean Thomas Taylor stands next to Alec in the 1930s.)

On the sunny and humid morning of Wednesday, April 1st, everyone in the Engineering Building knew “something was up.” Professor Bantel went to his office and locked the door, while Dr. Benedict, who had scheduled a quiz for his first class, failed to show up at all. The engineering students gathered in front of the building and lined up in rows of four, while a few created a makeshift band from some tin horns, hastily crafted kazoos, and an improvised percussion section of trash cans and lids. At precisely 9 a.m., a noisy procession set off across the campus. The engineers marched around the perimeter, entered into the west wing of the old Main Building, through the central rotunda, then out the south main door. There, the group formed a circle around the new likeness of their patron saint.

In front of Old Main, Alec was formally unveiled as a handkerchief tacked on to his head was removed with great flourish. Sophomore Joe Gill spoke eloquently on the life of Alec, who, Gill claimed, was the founder of engineering science. It was Alec who created the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Great Wall of China. Alec himself surveyed and built the roads of Ancient Rome, dug the Suez Canal, and invented the T-square, the original model still on display in the United States Patent Office. Alec’s achievements were so moving to Gill, he was reportedly overcome with emotion several times and had to constantly wipe away a stream of tears from his face.

Following Gill’s tribute, the engineering students filed past their patron saint one-by-one. Each placed a small bouquet of hand-picked bluebonnets at the base of the statue, then swore allegiance to Alec with their right hand resting on a “holy” calculus textbook.

The ceremony concluded, senior engineers promptly kidnapped Dean Taylor (who had neglected to lock his office door) and went for a picnic at Bull Creek. The rest of the engineers set out for a trip to the Austin Dam and a day of swimming. Not wanting to be left out, law students abandoned their classes en masse and turned the city’s electric street cars into roving party vehicles, while the Academic Department (Arts and Sciences) went as a group to Sixth Street. Though it was never officially approved, for years April 1st became an annual “cut class” day.

The celebration for Alec also became an annual ritual, much to the chagrin of the rival law students, who had designs on the statue for their own purposes. (Read more on the origin of the UT engineering – law rivalry.)

In the spring of 1913, while Alec was resting comfortably at the foot of the stairs to the Engineering Building, law students captured the patron saint took him to a farm near Pflugerville. Placed in a pig sty and knee-deep in swine, Alec was photographed for the Cactus yearbook. “This,” claimed the lawyers, “shows Alec in his true element.”

“No!” retorted the engineers. “That is Alec feeding the laws.”

Above: In November 1913, engineers celebrated the rescue of the original Alec after the laws took the patron saint to farm in Pflugerville.

In 1916, armed with the knowledge that Alec had initially been “borrowed” from Jacoby’s Beer Garden, the statue was kidnapped again when the laws approached Mr. Jacoby’s widow and “legally purchased” the statue from her. Armed with a bill of sale, the laws brought Alec before the Justice of the Peace, had him declared a vagrant, and sent him to the city jail. Dean Taylor and the engineers appealed to Governor James Ferguson, who issued a full pardon, and warned Alec to beware of “out-law-yers.”

Above: After being declared a “vagrant” at the hands of the law students, Governor James Ferguson issued a pardon to Alec in 1917. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Because the laws still held a bill of sale, Dean Taylor elected to retire the original statue. In 1917, Alec’s right leg was cut into small strips, branded “CELAFOTRAP” (“Part of Alec” spelled backwards) and sent to Texas Engineers fighting in the American Expeditionary Force during the First World War A second statue was created by local woodcarver Peter Mansbendel. The new Alec was kept locked in a vault in the Littlefield Building downtown, where he could make a short but safe trip to the annual Engineer’s Banquet at the Driskill Hotel next door.

A decade later, on February 21, 1927, the evening of an Engineer’s Banquet, the Laws took Alec once again. Sixteen law students climbed up a fire escape to enter a hotel room guarded from the hallway by Dean Taylor and several engineers. The laws dismembered the statue, sent the head to Governor Daniel Moody, and delivered other pieces to law alumni. The torso was hung in a tree on the campus for a brief time, then disappeared, only to turn up years later in the Law School library.

Governor Moody returned Alec’s head to Dean Taylor, who commissioned a third rendering by Austin master woodcarver Peter Mansbendel, who incorporated the head and other salvaged pieces of the patron saint.

As retirement approached, Dean Taylor was very secretive about Alec. The statue was seen in public only a few times, always surrounded by an armed guard of engineers. After Taylor’s death in 1941, Alec remained in hiding, stored by the Texas Memorial Museum in a house north of the campus. Some journalism students discovered him there in 1964, after a report that someone had spotted a coffin in the basement. Alec was restored, and in 1972 was put on display in the engineering library. (Photo at left: Alec secured in a glass case with a concrete base in the engineering library.)

In March, 1987, word reached the College of Engineering that the dismembered torso of the second Alec had recently been discovered in the Tarleton Law Library, an opportunity the engineers couldn’t resist. On March 30th, David Walker and Chris Flynn, then engineering seniors and members of the newly formed “Order of Alec,” approached Julia Ashworth, an archivist at the law library. The two claimed to be from the Cactus yearbook, and asked if they could take a photograph of the torso. Ashworth agreed. Making the excuse that there wasn’t enough light in the library, Walker persuaded Ashworth to take the torso outside. Once outdoors, three masked “unknown and unnamed ruffians” rushed by, grabbed the torso and disappeared.

The events seemed far too coincidental. Law School Dean Mark Yudof wrote a scathing memo to his engineering counterpart, Dean Earnest Gloyna, demanded the torso’s return, and labeled the scandal “Gloynagate.”

On April Fool’s Day, Gloyna was subpoenaed, along with a few engineering student leaders, to appear in court. The laws argued the engineers had waited too long to claim ownership of the torso, and demanded Alec be returned to them.

The two groups met in court on Friday, April 3rd. On one side were the “law nerds” while others wore buttons that read “unknown and unnamed engineering geeks.” Judge Harley Clark (who, as head cheerleader in 1955 introduced the “Hook ’em Horns” hand signal) presided, and listened to both arguments. In the end, Clark made no decision of ownership, hoped that Alec’s “thieves” would keep him safe, and that the rivalry between the two schools would continue.

Today, Alec, along with the recovered torso, are stored in sealed exhibit cases in the engineering library. The statue is bolted to the display case, which has a heavy concrete base.

Alec is safe, for now.