University to Acquire Sargent College Land

The University will take over the land and property of Boston University's Sargent College as soon as this women's physical education school can move from Cambridge to Boston, it was learned exclusively yesterday.

Located at the corner of Massachusetts Ave. and Everett St., and adjacent to Harvard's Graduate Center, Sargent possesses some very good real estate which the University could presumably use for building purposes, such as married dorms.

At present on the land, there is a small wooden administrative building and a main house which contains three well-equipped gymnasia, lecture rooms, a science laboratory, and physical therapy clinic.

In addition, 210 girls live in Lennox Hall, a dormitory near to the gymnasia buildings. B.U.'s other property in Cambridge is another women's dormitory on Sacramento St., which also would be sold to Harvard.

Edward Reynolds, the Administrative Vice-President, said yesterday that an "oral agreement" had been made between Harvard and B.U. by which Harvard would buy the land when Sargent moved closer to its mother university across the Charles River.

Robert F. Oxnam, B.U.'s Vice President for Administrative Affairs, confirmed the agreement, but said he could not release the terms of the sale yet. He said he did not know when B.U. would have the needed building and dormitory facilities in Boston to allow Sargent to move, but another source named 1959 as a likely date.

It is well known that B.U. has wanted to bring Sargent closer to the main "campus" for the last few years, with money as the main factor working against the transfer. But in early November, B.U. President Harold C. Case announced the start of a large multi-million dollar fund raising drive, similar to Harvard's "Program for Harvard College." With money from this drive, B.U. will be able to move Sargent.

This physical education school was founded in 1881 by Dudley Allen Sargent, then director of the Hemenway Gymnasium at Harvard. In 1904 the present building was erected, and in 1929 it offered itself to B.U., which accepted it in 1934.