Col. Robert Tucker, as College marshal, leads the
academic procession at the first commencement
on June 14, 1970.
By Patricia R. Sullivan, Ph.D. and Gordon A. Magnuson, Ph.D.
Pat: Remember the seventies, Gordon?: (humming)... “Those were the days my friend. We thought they’d never end.”
Gordon: I remember how annoying you were!
Pat: We had such an elegant office with your antique desk! It was better than Madame de Scudery’s salon.
Gordon: We were at the corner of a busy hallway in Hofheimer Library. Everyone stopped to say hello to your French majors.
Pat: And everyone taking classes, other than in the sciences or math, HAD to go by our salon, as well as those looking for Professors Shealy, Garraty, Hultgren, Culver, or Cass.
Gordon: How about our faculty lounge, down the hall with the mail boxes? It was a small campus then, with a small faculty, whom we saw every day.
Pat: Chaplain Doug Wilson spent some good lunch hours getting to know every-one. We had great discussions on the philosophy of existence, the need for communication, and the need for change.
Gordon: We did? I thought we talked about whether we could persuade the snack bar to make me a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich. But you’re right. Virginia Wesleyan was starting to feel like a real college in the ’70s. The school was discovering itself as a college. We all had something to do with this creation.
Pat: I remember the students as being involved. They had grown up during the ’60s, and had been very much influenced by the deaths of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and the war in Vietnam.
Gordon: Some were quite cynical, but many were also curious and persistent. Besides studying, they had to make their own lives interesting on a kind of rural island. Perhaps that is why we remember so many of them being active in art and theater. They were fun to teach. And instructors were encouraged to be innovative.
Pat: As Deborah Paxson ’75, now a District Judge in Virginia Beach, said when speaking of those times, “Students learned because Virginia Wesleyan cultivated an environment where learning was fun and enriching. President Lambuth Clarke was at the center of this excitement and his personal example was the spark which kept the lamp of learning lit at Virginia Wesleyan.”
Gordon: Yeah. Just think of the theater. Everyone involved was challenged physically by having to turn the dining room or chapel into theaters. Eggleston Dining Hall became a theater at 8 p.m., and two hours later the set was struck so as to accommodate the breakfast crowd the next morning. And this was done for each performance.
Pat: That shows team work, organization, and above all a passion for the work. Whether in class or on stage, lots of students possessed the spark Ms. Paxton was talking about. And this was contagious. We also got to know our students. There were only about 700 students by the end of the ’70s. The campus consisted of Hofheimer Library, Birdsong and Pruden Halls, the science building, Eggleston Dining Hall, Monumental Chapel, Cunningham Gymnasium and six dormitories. Our basic requirements were six hours of philosophy and/or religion, six hours of English, and six hours of math and/or science, and we had to convince students to add a few more solid courses.
Gordon: We did, however, introduce a couple of very basic non-credit courses in remedial writing to help our international students.
Pat: Yes, I forgot how interesting the college population was. We had Colombians, Peruvians, Japanese, Koreans, Haitians, and students from the Middle East. This diversity made the campus very exciting.
Gordon: Particularly for the English faculty, trying to teach writing. Some of our best students were either English majors or solid liberal arts majors and well prepared for any graduate school. Think of Judge Paxson, Attorney John Murray ’74 and Professor Matt Franck ’80. All very successful.
Pat: At the Honors Convocation English majors were always recognized.
Gordon: I remember. I do indeed. Our students seemed more diverse, more individualistic, and at times, more eccentric. Remember the fellow who lived under the library reading room for a semester?
Pat: And how about the clothes? Mini skirts with orange tights. Platform shoes for men or women. Afro hairdos for anyone with curly hair. Near-burnt brillo pads for the rest of us.
Gordon: Okay, Sullivan. Enough already! Remember the unbelievable legal smoking in classrooms? Classrooms were divided into left side with non-smokers, and right side with smokers.
Pat: At faculty meetings the debaters were difficult to see through the smoke and often we had to depend on our hearing abilities.
Gordon: Unbelievable today. And faculty and students worked side-by-side writing the by-laws for faculty governance and student governance. It was interesting to see the college creating itself. And then it seemed we were all on campus, day and evening. The faculty encouraged students to participate in poetry reading sessions, in music sessions, in theater, and in political debates.
Pat: And much of this took place in the Coffee Grounds, a 1974 January Term project converting the snack bar into a ’60s style San Francisco café where students, faculty and staff could entertain the campus. January Terms started in 1973 and covered anything from studying in the Everglades, to cooking “a la francaise,” to joining a moveable feast in France. Then the Talent Show started. Refreshments were not very French, but remember that there was no drinking on campus, although the drinking age was 18. Most faculty, students and administrators attended concerts, plays, movies, readings, and basketball games. I’m sure President Clarke holds the record for events and games attended. We were young and for most of us this was our first college. We were determined to make a difference, and we did.
Gordon: It was a different era, or so it seems to us. But Pat, as we grow nostalgic over the ’70s, we need to remember that most people look back to earlier years and recreate a Golden Age. We had some difficulties, too.
Pat: Yes, we did, but it is nice to recall the ’70s as a gracious yet energetic time, n’est-ce pas? Expresso, Capuccino, Latte anyone?