Western Michigan University - Brown and Gold Yearbook (Kalamazoo, MI)

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Western ' s history, for it is with this group that the college is centered about — that all may learn. The student body is one of the hardest things to capture in description. Easy to count — we have statistics. Readily observable — they are easy to watch. Students are the most apparent thing about a campus, but when it comes time to set down the history they are the hardest to write about. They defy generali2,ation and invite it at the same time. They change with the wind and they are conserv ative as only the young can be. In short they are what make the college go, and they are the spirit that cannot be confined by des- cription. However, something can be done to show how Western students have changed in the past fifty years. We must remember that the majority of the early students were women, and it was only with the increase in teacher ' s pay and the addition of non ' teaching courses that men were attracted in large numbers. In fact, nothing indicates that b etter than what happened on November 4, 1913. On that day Western defeated Albion College m a football game by the resounding score of 20 to 3 This so enthused the students that they held a parade from the campus to the business district, tying up all traffic and causing general pandc monium. As an after thought of the parade they crashed the gates of a movie theater. The whole affair caused such a furore among the conservative citizenry that Waldo was submerged by com- plaints. He called a mass meeting of the women students, who outnumbered the men, and endeav- ored to find out what caused them to devastate the countryside. Out of this meeting the Assoc- iated Women Students developed. To anyone reading the old yearbooks and vol- umes of the school newspaper the impression is very strong that the students of yesteryear were uncomplicated and unsophisticated. Whether these are virtues or not is another matter. The point is that years ago Western in many ways resembled what we think of today as a rural con- solidated high school. Perhaps what this process of sophistication amounts to is the relationship between a grade school, a high school, and a col- lege, imagined as steps on a ladder. Forty to fifty years ago — and even much later — Western was one place on this ladder, today it is another. The sophistication process has affected all of the schools — even the first graders watch television. When we think of the students of Western ' s early days we must think of them as simpler and less sophisticated than those of today. Another factor affecting the character of col- lege students is the size of the college. Western began with an enrollment of 107. It did not reach 1000 until 1921-22 (not counting the one war year 1918-19). There were not 2000 students until 1924-25; for seven years during the depression and after it until 1938-39 the enrollment dropped below 2000. In 1945-46 the enrollment was 1,840. The next year it shot to 4,034, which is only slightly under the current enrollment. Now it Vv ' ill be seen that while Western since the was has become a college with an enrollment of about 4500 students, for many years it was a college between 1000 and 2000 students. The difference was very great in the character of the student body, in subtle ways that are difficult to record. A small college is not so much a matter of number of students as of atmosphere. Western was a small college — or at least a different col- lege — before the war. A third factor, that for most of these fifty years Western was a teacher training institute, meant that there was a homogenity of interests and abilities at Western. This tended to set it apart from the more diversified college that re- sulted from the introduction of the general degree in non-teaching fields. And finally, since a college mirrors that world that is about it, Western students have changed because the world has changed. To best understand the students at Western for this fifty year period, turn to the Herald and the Brown and Gold. There you will see them as they saw themselves. Beyond this is almost impossible, for the million odd memories that are stored away in four years cannot be remembered by anyone. The smell of fresh paint in a new building can come across the years from 1904- or 1954. The faces of the girls and the fellows are flashes in the mind ' s eye as you think back about them. A sum- mer ' s afternoon during exam week is the same in 1924 as in 1954 — but for the person that remem- bers it, the experience cannot be separated from the whole. It is part of a much larger thing — his life. Western ' s history is carried in the memories of those who leave it, for to them this college has meant something that only they can know. The student can see the past about him at Western. Prospect Hill still surveys the Kalamazoo valley. The old administration building is still there, and so are the remains of the cable car. And if the present day student looks more deeply he can trace the development of the school, as we have done here. The history of fifty years of service to edu- cation cannot delineate what that service is. If those who leave Western today do so with a clearer understanding of themselves and the world they live in than when they entered Western, then this fifty years may be understood; for that is the goal that this institution has been striving for — the understanding from which all else derives. 18

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m Model oj the latest Western addition, Davis Hall. visited the students who were sick. This became quite an operation, reaching a climax for the Waldo era in 1931 ' 32, when the total number of calls amounted to 3933 and the home visits to 1046. The building of the health and personnel building in 1939 was the beginning of a real clinic at Western, which occupies the whole second floor of that building. The Psycho ' Educational clinic began in the fall of 1931, with the aim of providing psychological service for maladjusted children and adults, both students and non-students. The clinic helps num- erous college students who have problems with slow reading or faulty study habits, and its ser- vices are available for tests to supplement the counseling program. The Speech Correction clinic is very famous at Western, both in aiding those with speech de- fects and in training special education students in speech correction techniques. Western has always encouraged foreign stu ' dents to attend, and since the end of the war an increasing number have done so. To advise and assist them the college has provided a special for- eign student advisor. The library is the oldest service to the students, and has been a most important factor in the growth of the college. Its value to the whole stU ' dent body and to the faculty is great, and the his- tory of the library is one of steady growth. It will mark the semi-centennial by the accession of the 100,000th volume. The campus store began in 1912 and has since served the college in many ways other than selling text books. The invaluable one, to many of the students (and faculty) is .the mid-morning and afternoon snack! Five Western ' s Students Turning from services to the students, we shall now consider that part of the college which is the most important of all the things that we have mentioned before. The foundation of the college, the buildings, the classes and the services all were aimed at one thing — the students. Western was established for the purpose of providing trained teachers, but as we have seen it soon evolved into a college whose purpose was preparing educated people for all walks of life. The student body and its activities is the subject with which we shall close this commentary upon 17

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