September 2007
News & Notes

Red Hawk Day! MSU begins the new semester

President Susan A. Cole addressed faculty and staff on Sept. 4 in the Alexander Kasser Theater. President Cole kicked off the new semester -- and the beginning of the year of centennial celebrations with a "history lesson" about the University, including a slide show. Following the address, campus departments came together to reestablish the tradition of a new student convocation. All first year students processed from the Student Center Quad, led by bagpipes and Rocky the Red Hawk and assembled in the Alumni Green/Amphitheater area. The students, grouped by school and college, were given a quick bite to eat and an opportunity to meet faculty and staff who introduced themselves and welcomed them to the University and to their new academic home. 

Following lunch, students were led to the amphitheater for their convocation (pictured above) which included a welcome from President Cole, the President of the SGA, the President of the Freshman Honor Society, Alpha Lambda Delta, and an address by Professor Rob Gilbert. Each student was given a tassel to serve as a visual reminder of their goal. The convocation concluded with the singing of the alma mater.   

To view a slide show from Opening Day, click here.

See "Jersey Boys" in San Diego
Jersey Boys is coming to your area and you're invited to see it on Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the San Diego Civic Theatre with your fellow Montclair State University alumni. This performance of the hit Broadway show about Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons is being offered at a special discounted price. In addition, you'll have an opportunity to meet and mingle at a pre-theater reception at the Napa Valley Grille.

For a printable flyer with all the details, Click here

Alumni Connections will feature an article each month during the centennial year written by members of the Montclair State University Alumni Association. The retrospective stories will look back decade-by-decade at the school and the culture of the times. 

Alma Mater, dear Montclair: The Roaring '20s.
Nov. 11, 1918, The Great War is over, the flu pandemic almost ended and Montclair State gets ready to head into the Roaring Twenties. The campus was vibrant; Dr. Charles S. Chapin had fostered a spirit not to be lost and declared 11/11/18 a school holiday.

The 1920 yearbook, The Palatine, is dedicated to the faculty of the Montclair State Normal School. The yearbook, named for its association with “that highest pinnacle of Rome, from whose height could be seen the panorama of the ancient world of learning,” had debuted the previous year and was dedicated to Dr. Chapin. That year, the class of 1919 was made up of 115 graduates, all girls; one African American. We read of socials, Red Cross, Mandolin Club and three sororities. We find out about coal shortages, no heat, closings and make-up days. We learn that on occasions Dr. Chapin has alumni meetings at the St. Regis and McAlpin in New York City and of his concern about “flapper” influences on campus.

Our nation seemed isolationist, rejecting the League of Nations and Versailles Treaty. The 1920s brought prohibition, women’s right to vote, cars, the jazz age, the Charleston, gangsters, Dempsey, Ruth, silent movies, Chaplin, Pickford, talkies, Jolson, radio, Cole Porter, Berlin, Gershwin, “Showboat,”  Robeson, Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Sandburg, Louis Armstrong, Byrd, Lindbergh, the Scopes trial, New Mexico and Arizona resulting in the “48,” plus an economic boom. 

The 1922 yearbook has an inspirational letter to graduates from Chapin, still full of hope today; and an article by Professor Will Monroe about California moving to a four-year teacher’s college higher education system. The yearbook name is changed to “Montclairion.” In all the yearbooks students’ faces reach out to us. We recognize graduates who went on to become teachers, principals, superintendents, both locally and throughout the county. Bishop John Wesley Lord ’22, and Barbara Ann Wolf ’28 are awarded honorary doctorates from Montclair State College (1975 and 1974, respectively), unique for Normal School alumni.

In 1923 Dr. Chapin falls ill, takes a leave of absence, then returns and sadly dies in March 1924. Mrs. Edith Tufts Bridge becomes acting principal. Harry A. Sprague, Summit School superintendent, is named principal for fall 1924. Evelyn Hock Walter, class of 1925, writes our alma mater.

The school’s first student-run newspaper, “The Montclairion,” is launched in 1926 (its name later changed to “The Pelican” in 1928.) In 1927 we become Montclair State Teachers College to prepare secondary school teachers; the Normal School is phased out with its last class in 1929, but many students transfer into the college program. Sprague is named college president, and forms a student government association (SGA). In 1928 a second dorm, Chapin Hall, is opened. Two men’s “clubs” are started, first Senate, later Agora.
In 1929 a fourth building opens with the same architecture and is the home of the demonstration school, College High. College High closed in 1973, and the building was later named Morehead Hall after Alan Morehead '34. In October of ’29, the stock market crashes ending the year – and the decade -- with the Great Depression that followed.  For Montclair State, the end of the ’20s marks an incredible era of triumph, sadness and success.