Hyde Warren was appointed as a college master, and named for Benjamin Silliman in 1933. Warren, also Sterling Professor of Geology and Dean of the Sheffield Scientific School, wrote a biography of Silliman but only retained his appointment until 1938, two years before the college's opening. Otto Eggers of Eggers & Higgins, previously a draftsman for John Russell Pope's buildings at Yale, was selected as the college's architect. Eggers' design preserved Van Sheff, reconstructed the interior of Byers Hall, and created a quadrangle of Georgian buildings to complete the college and harmonize it with the adjacent Timothy Dwight College, established six years earlier. When the college opened in 1940, philosopher F. S. C. Northrop was appointed its master. Under the Yale College policy that let incoming students express a residential college preference, Silliman developed a reputation for attracting engineers until the policy ended with the class of 1958. Shield and mascot Silliman College's shield has a white background, three curving red lines emerging from near the bottom of the shield (representing salamander tails), and a green crossing bar containing three acorns. In heraldic terms, the shield is described as "Arms: Argent, three piles wavy gules, on a fess vert three acorns or." The colors represent the four ancient elements: red for fire, white for air and water, and green for earth. The acorns are an element taken from the family arms of Frederick Vanderbilt, 1876, who funded the college's construction. The college's mascot is the salamander. Students in the college refer to themselves as Sillimanders. Facilities The college courtyard, which covers almost an entire city block, is the largest enclosed courtyard at Yale and is one of the glories of the old college. Students can be seen playing various sports or lounging in the sun. Because of the size of the courtyard, sports such as spikeball, wiffle ball, football, and frisbee are often enjoyed. Special facilities within Silliman include Yale's only undergraduate art gallery, called Maya's Room (named for Maya Tanaka Hanway, '83), a big-screen movie theater (Silliflicks), a dance studio, a half-court basketball facility called the Sillidome, computing facilities, a student kitchen, multiple music practice rooms, and a state-of-the-art sound recording studio. The college's library, located in the third floor of Byers Hall, is commonly referred to as the Sillibrary. The Buttery, a student-run eatery in the basement that serves greasy goodness on weekday nights, is designed in the