The Beginning
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The urge to associate is strong, especially among young people on the point of leaving forever the relative security of the collegial nest to make their way in the world. Thus it came about that on a warm spring afternoon in 1925, in the sixth year of the fledgling existence of the Southern Branch of the University of California on the Vermont Avenue campus*, five student leaders met in a deserted classroom in Millspaugh Hall to mull over their futures.
The names of the five, all of whom were current or former student body officers, would forever become identified with UCLA alumni leadership: Leslie Cummins '25, Thelma Gibson '25, Fred Jordan '25, Elder Morgan '23, and Jerold Weil '25.
"We'll all be graduating soon," said Gibson. "We really need some kind of organization to bind us together. Now, what do you think we can do?" After long discussion, they drew up a plan to petition the California Alumni Association at Berkeley to form a Southern office.
Their proposal met with instant approval. The new Southern Branch office opened a few months later on July 1 in a small room in the campus cafeteria building. Fred Jordan was chosen to head the operation as "Southern Representative."
The first general alumni event was a spring banquet. Other events would not wait upon graduation. On March 21, 1925, the University of California Regents approved the site at Westwood for a new campus. Pivotal to the plan was the successful outcome of municipal elections for more than $1 million in bond issues, which had to be approved by the voters of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Venice. This was to pay for land and improvements for the 383-acre site, which the regents had decreed must be a gift or acquired without cost to the University. The soon-to-be alumni were quickly called* upon to distribute literature on street corners, knock on doors, speak before local organizations and generally carry on a colorful, noisy campaign.
