Proposed as "South Hall" by the University's former President Nicholas Murray Butler as expansion plans for Low Memorial Library stalled, the new library was funded by Edward Harkness, a Columbia alumnus who was also donor of Yale's residential college system, and designed by his favorite architect, James Gamble Rogers.
On the day before the Organic Chemistry exam—which is often on the first day of finals—at precisely the stroke of midnight, the Columbia University Marching Band occupies Butler Library to distract diligent students from studying in an attempt to raise the curve on the organic chemistry exam.
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This fund bankrolled the establishment of the Harkness Fellowships and the construction of St. Salvator's Hall at the University of St Andrews, the Butler Library at Columbia University, and many of the undergraduate dormitories at Harvard and Yale Universities (known as "houses" and "residential colleges," respectively).