Gannon University - Lance Yearbook (Erie, PA)

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I i fr'-fi ! 18? annon University J Ml}'' i| PERRY SQUARE • ERIE. PENNSYLVANIA • 16541 • (814) 871-7220 m- 5n llil:. :■ Gannon's newly designed stationery and logo made it's debut in December Dr. Scottino and Gov. Thornburgh discuss U-Status at press conference Governor Thornburgh meets with crowd following designation The first sign to go up following U-Status was this on Gannon's front lawn 17

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New U in town by Dave Schultz Back in the early depression years, the headmaster of Erie's Cathedral Prep school was concerned that the students he was preparing for higher education could not get into the nation's colleges and universities. It wasn't that they weren't smart enough. They just didn't have the money. And so in 1933, while Erie Diocese bishop, John Mark Gannon was in Europe, Prep headmaster Monsignor Joseph Wehrle established Cathedral College as a two year extension of St. Vincent's College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. There wasn't much fanfare for this new college and anyone who had any sense probably thought starting a college during the depression years was doomed to fail. But the fact that Gannon has continued to the point where it was named a University by the Pennsylvania Department of Education is a tribute to the early backers of the institution. They watched it grow into a four year Gannon School of Arts and Sciences (in cunjunction with Villa Maria College) in 1941, and then into Gannon College in 1944. When Pennsylvania governor Richard Thornburgh announced that the school had the right to use the name University — to an overflow crowd it was a memorial to everyone who refused to give up on Gannon. The college kept going even in the rough times, like the time in 1943 when all but 35 of Gannon's 250 students were drafted. And, more recent, was the financial crisis of the early 1970's when officials had trouble getting the school budget out of the red. Thornburgh's announcement was also the culmination of the one and one half years of planning that went into Gannon's application for status change. It all started during the summer of 1978 when Gannon officials began holding meetings to prepare to make an application for university status to the Department of Education. Meetings on status and structure change became commonplace on campus with administrators, faculty and students getting input into what would be changed if the college became a university. Also of concern was what argument Gannon would use to justify the change in status. Gannon decided that the institution already had the qualities of a medium-sized liberal arts university, and university status and structure would allow it to better serve it's students and the community. After an evaluation committee judged that Gannon should be a university, eight task forces and committees were organized to write and revise a university transition document. The inch-thick document stated what would happen to Gannon if it became a university. Once the school board of trustees drafted the document if was sent to Harrisburg as part of the application for status change, and two weeks later Governor Thornburgh came to Gannon to tell the audience that all the work was not in vain. In )anuary, the divisions of Humanities, Business, and Science and Engineering, and the graduate program were renamed colleges, starting the process of school revisions that will continue for the next couple years. 16

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