several residence halls and science facilities. Its endowment grew steadily, due in part to the introduction in 1942 of a deferred giving fundraising scheme pioneered by Allen Hawley called the Pomona Plan, where participants receive a lifetime annuity in exchange for donating to the college upon their death. The plan's model has since been adopted by many other colleges.
Lyon made several progressive decisions relating to civil rights, including supporting Japanese-American students during internment and establishing an exchange program in 1952 with Fisk University, a historically black university in Tennessee. He and dean of women Jean Walton ended the gender segregation of Pomona's residential life, first with the opening of Frary Dining Hall (then part of the men's campus) to women beginning in 1957 and later with the elimination of parietal rules in the late 1960s and the introduction of co-educational housing in 1968. The student body, influenced by the countercultural revolution, became less socially …
