The Shiny Toaster in the Night, greatest of all the colleges ever to be raised on the grounds of this fair institution, traces its origins like all others to 1957 when the Residential College System began, a system intended to bond all students of all academic disciplines under one roof, and give them homes that would encompass all campus life. At first, their numbers were few: Baker, Will Rice, Hanszen, and Wiess were founded as all male colleges, with Jones meant for all female students, and Brown, also all female, following hot on their heels. Though the college system was perfectly good, then-president Kenneth S. Pitzer knew that something was lacking from this glorious institution. In a momentous meeting that will remain forever etched in the minds of all who then lived, President Pitzer uttered these fateful words to the Board of Trustees: “I want you to build a new college, six stories high, surrounded in indestructible grating, and with walls that will never fall. I want you to populate it with the finest male students on this campus, only those worthy few who are deserving of the honor. And you shall call this mighty edifice Edgar Odell Lovett College, after the first president, who with a steady hand guided this Institute fair and true, in that twilight dawn when it was young.” And so it was. Work on the crown jewel of the University began, and in 1968 the riot-proof doors of Edgar Odell Lovett College swung wide open, then as now the greatest lasting achievement of this school. But in 1980, Rice realized that the title of “Lovetteer” was too great to be confined to a single gender. President Norman Hackerman decreed that women from Jones College were to be exchanged with Lovett males, and Lovett became co-ed. Successive colleges expectedly failed to meet the standards set by the Glorious 7th. Sid Richardson College, built on Lovett’s parking lot, is technically a colony, and operates as a rogue province in defiance of its appointed Governor, as well as collegiate and international law. The legislative debate surrounding the status of Martel as either college or dormitory continues to swirl to this day. Eco-friendly identical twins McMurtry and Duncan are the last additions to the system, coming in 2009. Among these and its other lesser peers, Lovett stands out as a beacon of excellence and has been rewarded with Beer Bike victories, President’s Cup dynasties, an alumnus who founded Texas’s oldest craft brewery, and a Nobel laureate Master, to name but a little of the recognition it has reaped.
As Lovett enters its 50th year of existence (we will be celebrating Lovett’s 50th Anniversary this fall), Lovett is now known for its consistently awesome incoming class, its strong IM and college sports teams, parties, an epic mud-fight at Beer Bike, and an incredibly inclusive, caring, and laid back community that, in the spirit of its founders, strives to meet the needs of each and every Lovetteer. Though people far and wide have come to leave their mark on what is affectionately known as “the best college,” the story is not over. History is in the past, and tradition informs the present, but the future of this place is up to you.
LOVETT PICTURES
