Northern Illinois University - Norther Yearbook (DeKalb, IL)

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ln 1968, 28 industries were not allowed to enter DeKalb. They tried, but their applications were turned down. There is still a strong industrial base, claims Craw- ford, with General Electric, Barber Greene learth moving equipmentl, Richardson, Wurlitzer, and Del lVlonte. Some even employ NIU students, but De- Kalb will never be as industrial as it was during its barbed wire era. That is a heritage the town will never outgrow. The Barb city was once a steel manu- facturing city, but U.S. Steel closed its last plant here years ago. Barbed wire was invented here and manufactured from raw materials, but the plants and factories have disappeared--plants and factories that ran from Pearl Street clear out to the east end, big buildings. said Crawford. They are all gone, alive only in history books and the minds of the old timers of this city. A rural university community . . . Does a large uni- versity contribute anything besides money to the community? I don't want to sound entirely negative toward the university because it has a tremendous impact on the community, offering many things that it can take advantage of, people from the university, speeches in the area lespecially in fine artsl, art exhibits, music, dramatics and athletics. There also are tremendous educational opportunities for the people in this com- munity, he concluded. And this conservative community may be waking up. DeKalb RFD is a college town, a town where it has been said that it is easier to obtain drugs than alcohol. Businessmen are now catering to university students' interests. A head shop even exists. What type of people live in DeKalb? They are sort of like the people in your hometown, like your parents, Crawford said. You are here to live. You are a college student. You are labeled as one--in the category youth, You are in a town that contains one catholic church, one synagogue, 12 black families, and 41 protestant churches. This is WASP territory. Encounter it. Get to tolerate it. Who knows, you may even get to like Ill. Community-university relations in this town have been experiencing growing pains. University towns may never get over the ill feelings found in com- munity-university relations, but at least they're be- ginning to see the light. lVlr. Faivre put it: These students have to be educated someplace, and l think that DeKalb is as good as any. 16

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32900 ' O Businessmen don't agree with Gilmore. Students drop S60 million in DeKalb each year, causing some businessmen to call Northern their university. l personally don't have any problems with the uni- versity, declared DeKalb Mayor Jesse Chamberlain. l think the conflict between the university and the townspeople points to a lack of understanding in the university community to the townspeople and the townspeople to the university. The university is bound to affect you socially be- cause it has changed the type of person in the city, in the organizations, and so forth, said Joseph P. ..Q.5'2' DE KAZ11 srsrs s HOME. RN ii.L2?:. s 'CUUL6 Faivre, farmer of the 1,700 acres on rural Fairview Road, and I just can't help having some of this rub off. lt has changed the social setup in the com- munities, city as well as rural. Students at Northern come almost exclusively from the Chicago area. DeKalb offers its farm atmosphere, its fresh country air, its surroundings. lt is a rural community. As Faivre said, l think that the city fathers were dedicated to a program of keep- ing DeKaIb a university town, a rural town rather than an industrial town. lt's surrounded for miles by farms--the post office may as well classify it RFD.

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reflections Reflections is less than a calendar of what happened during the school year. It doesn't present every event as it occursg it doesn't give times, dates or names of everything and everyone involved. lt won't even at- tempt to do any of these things. Yet it is more than just a calendar of events. It attempts to portray all the people of NIU--their work, their play, their emotions. It projects the mood of the year through pictures and copy. It gives a better idea of hovv people felt because of its lack of complexity. It re- flects our encounters with the people, places and happenings experienced throughout Northern's school year. This is Reflections.