Architect John Galen Howard gave Haviland Hall a lofted central core, surmounted by a magnificent skylight and flanked by two wings. The effect of this design was most noticeable on the third floor. While the first and second floors of Haviland Hall were dedicated to laboratories, classrooms, administrative offices, and the library, the third floor was intended to provide space for events, exhibitions, and social functions, and in this its design mirrored the building’s exterior profile.
In the center was the exhibition room, Room 301, bordered by corridors and faculty offices bordering, and a seminar room at either end of the hallway, opposite the stairs. This configuration has remained largely unchanged to present day. In either of the building’s wings, the third floor offered expansive spaces for gathering and socializing.
The south end of the floor consisted of a single capacious room, almost 40 feet deep and stretching across the entire width of the building, about 65 feet. It featured seven balcony alcoves. A counterpart at the north end, similarly spanned across the building, was slightly shallower, at 25 feet deep, and had five balcony alcoves. Its smaller size was due to a utility room squeezed in adjacent to the stairs and a kitchenette next to the seminar room. The kitchenette, with cupboards, hot and cold water, a serving table, and a service window, provided amenities for events in the exhibition hall and the lounges.
Both rooms were intended not just for the use of university students and faculty, but, reflecting the central role of the School of Education in the educational universe, were to be open to all in the public education system:
Away up under the roof, at North and South ends, are chambers set apart for the Men’s and Women’s Education Clubs. These quarters represent the importance attached to the societies using them. . . . Together they serve as an abundant fountain of professional spirit. As recreation centers their rooms are open to all administrators, supervisors, and teachers in the state. Here working committees will find quiet retreat, with a pot of tea not out of reach. Here can be held social gatherings, larger and smaller. It is not impossible that these chambers will come in time to be, among all the rooms of this noble building, the richest in human associations. (Western Journal of Education, May 1924, v.30:5,
p. 5)
In July 1924, the School of Education held a day-long reception to celebrate the opening of the new lounge. It was attended by hundreds of students, “not only the women students,” the Daily Cal commented, “but also the men.” “The large room has been furnished with deep wicker chairs and davenports which invite the weary educator to rest. A color note is struck by the blue draperies and bright hued cretonne covers of the chairs, and on Tuesday was repeated in the many gorgeous flowers which formed the decoration.” One guest was overheard to remark, “This is a place at the top of the world where the froth of education has lodged” (Daily Californian, July 11, 1924, p. 1).
The lounge offered magazines and books for general reading. It was expected that the rooms would host informal parties, and students were encouraged to use it for committee meetings, as well as meetings of educational clubs. “Luncheons have been planned in the future for the purpose of bringing business men together who are interested in the exhibits that are given from time to time in 301,” the Daily Cal reported. “The room is also to be the assembly hall for teachers from anywhere in the state for social or professional purposes. Informal seminars will be fostered here” and would serve as “a clearing house for the organization and development of extra-curricular activities” (Daily Californian, July 3, 1924, p. 2).
In the next couple of years, education students held fundraising drives to raise money for the lounges, using “miniature sea chests bound in brass and artificially aged” to collect the money. With over 1,200 students using the building daily, said organizers, only a small amount was needed from each student to meet their goals. In 1924, one drive raised $104 to furnish the women’s social room (the smaller of the two rooms, unsurprisingly), while in 1925 about double that was raised to furnish the men’s smoking room. The goal in 1926 was $400 for various social functions and furnishings, “a piano being among the other things desired.”
Perhaps inevitably, but with the relocation of the School of Education, the passage of time, and the unceasing University demand for more office space, the lounges at both ends of the building have been subdivided into warrens of faculty offices. Today, the froth of Social Welfare can be found lodged in the lounge that occupies what was originally a seminar room on the first floor,
room 113.