Caltech Gets Funds for Sports, Faculty
Caltech is about $6.2 million richer in its efforts to improve body and mind.
Within days of each other, the school has announced two major gifts, one to create a teaching position and the other to build an athletic facility.
Warren and Katharine Schlinger of Pasadena have pledged $1.5 million to Caltech to endow a professorship in energy research.
The award, announced last week, serves one of Caltech’s greatest needs, paid-for faculty, President Thomas E. Everhart said in a release. The holder of that researching position will address one of the world’s needs: safe, cheap, plentiful and ecological energy resources.
Warren Schlinger, a Pasadena resident, is no stranger either to energy research or to Caltech. In 1944, he received a bachelor’s degree from Caltech in applied chemistry. Later, he earned a master’s and doctorate from the institute in chemical engineering.
“I look back on my 12 years on the Caltech campus as one of the most exciting and rewarding periods in my life,” Schlinger said. “My wife and I hope that this professorship will help provide similar experiences for future students.”
Schlinger conducted postdoctoral research and taught at Caltech before joining Texaco’s Montebello research laboratory in 1953. Until his retirement in 1987, he helped develop processes to produce clean energy from coal, tar sands, oil shale and other organic sources. He holds more than 60 patents.
Katharine Schlinger met her husband while working as a secretary for two chemical engineering professors. The Schlingers married in 1947 and have three children.
Meanwhile, students who need a break will soon have the 42,000-square-foot Braun Athletic Center. The proposed $4.7-million facility will include a gymnasium, locker rooms, a weight room, a class or conference room, and a multipurpose area for dance and aerobics.
The Braun Trust, whose donation will pay for the building, has given to Caltech before. Six years ago, the family trust funded construction of a swimming pool and a facility that houses a weight room and the women’s locker room. The trust has also endowed two professorships and paid for a graduate-student residence hall.
The athletic center, which should open by Fall, 1992, will double the university’s capacity for indoor physical-education courses. For the first time, the school will be able to offer racquetball, squash, dance classes and judo.
During the last school year, 28% of Caltech undergraduates were members of a school athletic team; a third of undergraduate women played for a team. In all, about 75% of undergraduates and about 50% of graduate students participated in either team or intramural sports.
