Graphic designer: Heather
Whitman College is a place filled with names, with places like the residence halls, Maxey, Penrose, Reid, and the College itself all bearing the names of figures relevant to the College’s history. But why do these places bear these names in particular? Who were the people they were named after? Under what contexts did these places come into being? The answers to these questions were especially elusive for one place in particular: the Clise Planetarium. The reason for why it interested me isn’t wholly clear, but I think it had to do with how ill-documented the name was. If you walk past the planetarium all you’ll see is a small plaque with its full name: the Charles F. Clise Planetarium. That’s it. There is no mention of who Charles F. Clise was, or why their name specifically ended up on the planetarium of all things. This, to me, runs counter to the idea of naming a place after someone. I mean, if the point is to commemorate some part of the College's past, isn't more documentation in due order?
I’ll start by going over a brief overview of the Planetarium’s history. The planetarium was part of the original construction of the Hall of Science back in 1963, which replaced Billings Hall and was the first building to cost over $1,000,000. The Hall of Science has, since that time, had two whole wings added to it, as well as having undergone several renovations. Despite the original building containing a planetarium, it was neither named the Clise Planetarium nor did it have the projector it has today. In fact, due to a lack of funds a cheaper model of the intended projector had to be bought. Later, in 1969 Dr. Kate Bracher (Professor of Astronomy) applied for a National Science Foundation grant to acquire a 1969 Spitz A-5. The NSF gave half of the money needed ($26,000 total was needed at the time, which today is equivalent to ~$218,000), with the other half needing to come from the College within 2 years of receiving the award. Whitman, upon receiving the grant, immediately bought the projector and had it fully installed by the beginning of October of that same year. The difference between the two machines was quite noticeable, with Dr. Bracher explaining that “the old machine simply consisted of a very strong light source behind various transparencies with holes in them. It then projected them on the roof (screen). The new projector has separate lenses for the brighter stars and planets, and shows their differing colors.”
However! This still isn’t the planetarium we know today, both because it still doesn’t have the present-day projector, and –more importantly– it still didn’t have a name. It was simply referred to as “the planetarium”. This would change with the Hall of Science’s first expansion in 1981, where Whitman would “dedicate a new wing for its Hall of Science and in the process re-dedicate its efforts in the sciences for the 1980’s.” During the opening ceremony visitors were especially encouraged to visit the “Ludwig Gaiser Memorial Lecture Auditorium, and the Charles F. Clise planetarium in the original part of the building… and other exhibits and collections.” So by this point the planetarium had gotten a name, and was one step closer to being the planetarium of today. The final piece would click into place a few years before 2000, where “with generous support from local foundations [the Astronomy department was] able to… replace [the] aging 1969 Spitz A-5 planetarium projector with a new Spitz 512 instrument. The sky simulation is much crisper and more natural looking and [has an] enhanced ability to demonstrate sky motions and coordinates.”
So that’s the history (roughly speaking) of the planetarium. But why is it named after Charles Francis Clise specifically? In my countless hours searching (okay, maybe not countless hours but still way too many for what should effectively be a nicely recorded paragraph somewhere) I have not found a definitive answer. Instead, I’ve found a vague contour hinting at why it might be named that way. Charles F. Clise was the father of Alfred F. Clise, who was a member of the Board of Overseers (which today is the president’s advisory board) at the time the Hall of Science was renovated. On a –now non-existent– page on the McKay Clise scholarship it’s explained that “the Charles F. Clise Planetarium, named for Alfred’s father, was ‘dedicated to those who seek knowledge of the heavens for the benefit of man.’” Additionally, major contributions from Alfred and his spouse, Joyce, were listed:
McKay Clise scholarship
The Benjamin Brown Telescope Dome
A Lyman House Section
The Alfred and Joyce McKay Clise Practice Studio
Support for the Fouts Center for Visual Arts, Baker Ferguson Fitness Center, Hall of Science and the Classical Liberalism Speaker Fund.
So the precedent is there, generous donations can get your name on things after all. But why specifically Alfred's father? I’m not sure, no one –as far as I can tell– bothered to write down the reasoning behind it, and at that point I can’t help but wonder what the point is. The point of naming things is to commemorate; for a part of a place’s history to be remembered in some fashion. Heck, even the College’s very name was meant to commemorate the Whitmans (though with time this intent has, of course, changed). The 1981 dedication also mentions “the new lecture-demonstration auditorium in the new wing, named for Walter H. Brattain, ‘24, Nobel Laureate, a gift of Pacific Northwest Bell” and “the Benjamin Brown telescope (on the roof, used in planetarium demonstrations this evening).” Walter Brattain was a Whitman alum who won the Nobel Prize in Physics back in 1956, and Benjamin Brown was an exceptional Physics professor who first started teaching at Whitman in 1895. Their names –and what they did for the College– are generally well preserved (and in fact are subject to a future article on transistors, which has been vastly easier to research), but names like Charles F. Clise not so much. And this makes sense! The College subsists off of narratives. Back in 1981 part of that narrative was that Whitman was highly successful in the Sciences, and major components of that story were Walter Brattain (who was one of “The Four Horsemen of the Class of 1924”, four highly successful physics graduates from Whitman’s 1924 graduating class) and Benjamin Brown. It makes sense that only the largest things would get preserved, as it not only streamlines the narrative for the College, but also is just how the past tends to fade. Yet that also isn’t an entirely fair outlook. The College isn’t commemorating Brown simply because it best fits into the story they’re trying to tell. Whitman is, at the end of the day, a small place. Back when Brown started teaching he taught the entirety of the Sciences here at Whitman, or what is today called Division III. He not only helped shape the College, but he also helped shape hundreds of alums’ lives. He was, in part, commemorated out of the basic human desire to remember the good people in our lives. The Clise planetarium is very much borne from that same principle. Maybe that’s enough of an answer.
Interestingly enough one of the speakers considered for the inaugural address was Carl Sagan. (Which would’ve costed around $14,000: ~$47,000 today.) Two other notable figures considered were Isaac Assimov and Ray Bradbury (with the College noting that neither flew on planes).
Now, how does all of this relate to digital fluencies? It relates on two main fronts, those being research skills, and our relationship to the technologies we use. That first point mostly involves developing the skills to research a question such as the one tackled in this article. For a lot of surface-level questions a simple Google search tends to be enough, but what happens when one ventures beyond what is readily available on the web? Well, one then has to venture one layer deeper: in this case, Whitman’s archives. Relatively soon I’ll be publishing an article on some of the skills I developed over the course of writing this article, and how you could use them to tackle your own Clise Planetarium question.
Secondly, knowing the history of the places one inhabits is valuable –and technology is no exception. Understanding the history of a place –and the technologies associated– not only lets us better understand our place in the world and the technologies we use, but also lets us better appreciate the places we ourselves are a part of. Additionally, this increased awareness lets us keep up with the ever-changing world we all live in, which is both an invaluable skill to have and one that the College has concerned itself with throughout its history as an institution.
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