CALTECH STUDENT HISTORY NOTES
DABNEY HOUSE
Adapted from the Caltech websiteWhen the fraternities were dissolved in 1930-31 the members of the Gamma Sigma fraternity (see Fraternities) almost all moved into the Dabney House part of the new south house complex. In 1928, Joseph B. Dabney, owner of the Dabney Oil Syndicate and a trustee of Caltech, had given $200,000 to build Dabney House. Dabney House is the smallest of Caltech's houses. Members of Dabney House are referred to as Darbs, a combination of the name of the house with a 1920s slang term darb, meaning something or someone very handsome, valuable, attractive, or otherwise excellent.
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| Dabney House courtyard |
Dabney House, as part of the complex that makes up the four south houses, was constructed in 1930 and 1931. It was known as the house of gentlemen and the house of captains, but underwent a dramatic change in personality during the 1960s. In 1973, the house was disowned by the Dabney family when students from Dabney House protested then-President Nixon's role in the Watergate affair with a sign on the library bearing the phrase "Impeach Nixon."
Traditionally standing for "Dabney Eats It," referring to a particularly unpalatable plate of noodles in the 1950s, the trigraph DEI has come to be a badge of pride for Darbs. Besides naming the house's recreation room after it and spreading it all across campus, Dabney alumni have made DEI a hidden code in the outside world. The letters can be seen in movies (most notably Real Genius) and video games (including GTA: Vice City and several Intellivision games). There are even stories of the trigraph making its way into space on JPL probes including the Voyager space craft, and being written on the Moon by astronaut Darb Harrison Schmitt. In the late 1960s, during on-campus shooting of an episode of the TV series Mission: Impossible, students stenciled the cryptic letters "DEI" high on a wall in a steam (utility) tunnel scheduled to be filmed the next day. The marking was subsequently visible on national television behind Peter Lupus as he paused in one shot, unaware of this Caltech contribution to spy drama.
More recently, Dabney started the Student Coffee House, or "Chouse",[16] and provided the majority of the staff for a couple years. Since then, Coffee House has become a part of Caltech's Dining Services and is now managed by CDS. Dabney hosts the annual Millikan Pumpkin Drop Experiment (a parody of the Millikan oil-drop experiment) where pumpkins frozen in liquid nitrogen are dropped from Millikan library. This tradition was featured on the TV show Numb3rs.[17] Dabney also hosts Drop Day, a party held the Saturday after the second term drop day to celebrate the point of no return, and Dabney Metal Night, an opportunity for the amateur bands of Caltech to play for the crowd.
While the traditional motto of Dabney House (Fidelis et gratus "Faithfulness and thankfulness") still stands on the Dabney crest, Dabney House has instituted a new, changeable motto. In line with Caltech's tradition of wall murals and wall writings, any member may change the house motto by striking the previous motto on a designated motto wall and writing a new one.[
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| Kip Thorne and Stephen Hawking visit Dabney House |
Notable Darbs include: Harrison Schmitt (1957, Geology) – Geologist, Astronaut, Adjunct Professor of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Politician John Clauser (1964, Physics) – Physicist, Nobel Laureate in Physics.
A list of most of the Dabney House presidents and resident associates is attached as Appendix D.
Last updated 4/10/04.
Christopher E. Brennen