Gannon University - Lance Yearbook (Erie, PA)

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YEARS OF CRISIS, YEARS OF CALM BY ELIZABETH BUCARELLI A chilly October rain fell upon Erie that Monday night in 1970. Msgr. Wilfrid Nash, president of Gannon College, was relaxing in his residence on West Sixth Street when he re- ceived a call from the director of student living. There were serious rumors a group of students wanted to take over Old Main. Could he get over there right away? It was going to be a long night. How does one prepare for such a confrontation? For the chanting and the anger and the threats, for those impossible demands — we want 24- hour open dorms drinking privi- ledges equal representation on all the standing committees and the board of trustees more electives less philosophy less theology more pass fail options an end to all re- pression in the Third World an end to the R.O.T.C. Program an end to the war in Vietnam and what are you going to do about it?— for the rumbling and shouting and pushing and shoving, the air tense, electric, ready . . . ready for that one rock to be thrown, ready for chaos, pandemonium, trouble . . . serious trouble. What if someone gets hurt? What if a building gets ripped apart? What to do to make them . . . go home. Well, you do what you have to. It turns out that the confrontation at Old Main wasn't nearly as dramatic as this. Msgr. Nash recalls it almost matter- of-factly: Well, what happened was, I got a call in the evening from the director of student living. The rumor was that a group of students were going to take over Old Main. So we all came down here and spent the night. But for a while there . . . who knew what to expect? Better round up the student per- sonnel officials. Get Dick Dunford over here. And Joe Pisoni, Bruce Payette. Call Mario Bagnoni. And alert the cops. Get a few over here. Barricade the building. Lock and chain the doors. Ready? Set? . . . Wait. This was around 11 or 12 o'clock. And when about 30 students marched up the front steps of Old Main at about 2 a.m., they quickly found that the administration build- ing was not for the taking. Standing on the other side of that door was Msgr. Nash, Security Chief Mario Bagnoni, and the student per- sonnel officials. Did they want to talk? Well, yeah, they guessed, no use getting this demonstration all to- gether and not doing something with it. So the students were let in out of the rain and they talked. By then the cops were all over the place, Msgr. Nash recalls. And they were angry because I called the cops. I finally said, 'Well, gentlemen, we've been at this long enough — either you leave now or I will expell all of you. They left peacefully. 14