It was a time when a year’s tuition cost $200, barracks were used as classrooms and the majority of students were WWII veterans.
More than 30 U emeritus alumni, students who graduated more than 40 years ago, gathered at the Alumni House last Thursday to reminisce about their days at the U and how the campus has since changed.
Several of the former students at the reunion were Intercollegiate Knights. The IKs, a service-centered fraternity, once dominated fraternity life at the U, said former IK member and student Wayne Pace.
Pace, who graduated from the U in 1953, displayed his collection of IK and U memorabilia at the reunion. Included in the collection were yearbooks from the 1950s, publications produced by the IKs and paddles used by the fraternity when initiating new members. During initiation, pledges would be “whacked on the rear” with the paddles, Pace said.
IK pledges would receive the paddles and had to have every fraternity member sign them, said Pace. He was quick to point out prominent signatures on his paddles, including astronaut Don Lind.
“Pledges had to perform tasks like painting the Y red,” Pace said.
Dick Jacob, who graduated from the U in 1958 and doctorate in 1963, was also an IK. Jacob said service-centered fraternities gradually became less popular and the “revolutionary spirit of the ’60s” eventually brought an end to the fraternity.
“It was kind of the death of all altruistic organizations,” Jacob said.
Jacob recalled some of the heated issues on campus when he was a student. Free speech issues were not a big concern until the Vietnam war, but nationwide the civil rights movement was gaining momentum and it was reflected on the U campus — despite having few black students, Jacob said.
At the reunion, alumni were invited to take a tour of the new John E. and Marva M. Warnock Engineering Building. Howard Jorgensen, along with his wife Lou Ann, are this year’s homecoming marshals. They laughed when asked how the new building compares with those they took classes in.
“It wasn’t bad then, but some of our classes were in barracks,” said Howard Jorgensen.
When he was a student, Jorgensen said, there were many open fields on campus — now nearly all have been replaced by buildings.
“The campus looks magnificent,” he said.
After graduating and spending more than 50 years outside of college, Howard Jorgensen offers this advice to current U students:
“Stick it out. A college education is just as important today as it was back then. Don’t give up, just keep going.”
Jarad ReddekoppU alumni Corinne Wunderli and Mike Korologos listen to the history of the sky bridge in the new engineering building during a tour of the building.