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A SALUTARY INFLUENCE Although the completion of Christ Chapel in 1953 left the College uncomfortably in debt, its building and grounds committee continued to remind the trustees of the need for major repairs and further construction, all within the context of what was being called a developing master plan.111 As early as June 1952, this committee gave estimated costs for needed alterations in the sixty-year old heating plant, a field house, a dining hall, dormitories, and a classroom and office building. The total was, for that time, a staggering $2,275,000. Scaling this list down to what he believed was a practical size, President Langsam told the trustees in December 1953 that the single most urgent need was for three men's dormitories. As he explained to the alumni in the January 1954 bulletin, almost five hundred male students "live either off-campus or in the crumbling barracks. This is a bad situation." Agreeing, the trustees immediately authorized a campaign to raise the necessary funds. Even before its meager results were known, in December 1954 they approved construction of the first unit, which it was agreed earlier would be named in honor of the recently retired (and now deceased) chairman of the board, Charles M.A. Stine. Groundbreaking ceremonies were held on February 21,1955 and Stine Hall was ready for use in February 1956. Accommodating about 135 students, it was formally dedicated during commencement week, on June 2, 1956. The cost was $274,886. Contrary to what one might have expected, the board of trustees did not delay discussion and action on needed campus development during 1955-1956, the year without a president. Instead, it took the steps necessary to secure the College's first federal loans to construct income-producing facilities and authorized construction of two new men's dormitories and a dining hall. Ground was broken for the dormitories in August 1956 and they were ready for use in September 1957. The total cost of what were first called Dorms B and C, each accommodating 135 students, was $599,882. Dorm B was formally named John S. Rice Hall on April 8, 1961, during a dinner in his honor as he was leaving to take up new duties as United States ambassador to the Netherlands. Dorm C was formally dedicated as Willard S. Paul Hall on June 2, 1962. When the war ended in 1945, President Hanson still regarded the College's feeding men students in the Huber Hall dining room as a temporary measure, one to be discontinued as soon as possible. Postwar developments quickly convinced him and others that this was not to be the case. As early as December 1951, John Rice told his 111This committee replaced the building committee in 1949 and took over at least some of the tasks of the former planning committee. Over the next third of a century it proved to be one of the busiest and hardest-working committees the trustees ever created. 83