Following the May 30 Vanport Flood of 1948, the college became known as "the college that wouldn't die" for refusing to close after the flood.[1][9] The term was coined by Lois Hennessy, a student who wrote about the college and the flood in the Christian Science Monitor,[8] though students nicknamed the school "The college without a future."[8] (Hennessy was the mother of poet Gary Snyder.)