CALTECH STUDENT HISTORY NOTES
VENERABLE (RUDDOCK) HOUSE
Adapted from the Caltech websiteWhen the North House complex (see North Houses) was completed in 1960, Ruddock House was primarily populated by a mixture of south house residents with a strong contingent of former Dabney House members. The House was formerly known as Ruddock House, named for Albert B. Ruddock, a member of the Board of Trustees from 1938 to 1971 and chairman from 1954 to 1961. However, in 2021, Caltech's Board of Trustees authorized the renaming of the building following a unanimous recommendation by a committee charged to study Ruddock and his affiliation with the eugenics movement.
In 2021, the House was renamed in honor of Grant D. Venerable (BS '32), the first Black student to graduate from Caltech. Venerable received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering. Over his lifetime, he worked as a mining engineer, and he owned and operated a hotel and eraser manufacturing company.
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| Venerable (Ruddock) House courtyard |
Approximately 160 Caltech undergraduates are members of the house and approximately 80 reside in the house. Members of the house are known as "Vens" and were formerly nicknamed "Rudds." During the week, student waiters serve family-style dinners in the dining room; some notable dinner traditions include the throwing of bread rolls and "floating" members who break dinner rules by pouring water on them. The hallways, referred to as "alleys" by undergraduates, are adorned with various murals including reproductions of M. C. Escher works, a Monopoly Board, Simpsons characters, and a two-story mural of an astronaut. This mural, called "The Spaceman," is based on a photograph of Ed White's spacewalk during Gemini 4. The painting was made completely by Phil Cormier ('79) in a day's worth of work. A few years later Rusty Schweickart Jr. (whose father walked in space on Apollo 9) was elected house president. Another Ven connected to the space program is Philip Engelauf ('78), who later became a flight director at Johnson Space Center.
Other Vens include Bill Gross of idealab!, MIT's Peter Shor (1981) – applied mathematician best known for Shor's algorithm in quantum computation, and Nobel Prize recipients Eric Betzig (Chemistry 2014) and Michael Rosbash (Physiology/Medicine 2017).
After the end of a campus-wide undergraduate party tradition, Interhouse, Venerable began the tradition of OPI. OPI, standing for either "Our Private Interhouse" or "(Our) Own Private Interhouse," traditionally occurs during the winter term of the academic year. One of the most notable aspects of the OPI is the amount of time and effort put into construction and artwork for the sets of the party. The past decade's preparations have included a Mayan temple, Roman Colosseum, skylines of Tokyo, a giant Egyptian pyramid, a 16-foot-tall windmill and 20-foot-tall elephant statue from Moulin Rouge, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and a Gothic cathedral with 32-foot-tall facades.
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| View of courtyard from Venerable lounge. |
A list of most of the Venerable (Ruddock) House presidents and resident associates is attached as Appendix RU.
Last updated 4/10/04.
Christopher E. Brennen