The hub of the U.S. campus today is neither lab, library, gym nor classroom, but a huge fun house called the student union that blends the looks of a USO. a Howard Johnson's and the old Havana Hilton with the dreams of Manhattan's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Claiming a vague kinship with Britain's Oxbridge Unions, and aided by generous Government loans, student unions have multiplied seven-fold since World War II to more than 600 now, with at least 200 more under way.
To form a more perfect union, Stanford this week opened its $2.6 million Tresidder Memorial Union, a handsome hacienda...