Siena College - Saga Yearbook (Loudonville, NY)

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These students, few in number in comparison with today's enrollment, were greeted by a solitary brick farmhouse surrounded by forty acres of rich Newtonville farmland. Every collegiate foundation is important but these ninety men were greeted by seven Franciscan Friars of the Most Holy Name Province, who had one idea in mind, - namely, to give these students and the thousands more to come after them a Catholic collegiate education. Until June 20, 1938, when the cornerstone of Siena Hall was laid, the College operated under the Charter of St. Bonaventure's College of Alleghany, New York. Upon their return to the college in October of 1938, the original ninety members of the college discovered that the enrollment had in- creased to 250 students and that classes were now being taught in a new partially completed building of Georgian-Colonial architecture. The scholastic year of 1940-1941 is noteworthy in the annals of the school. The enrollment of the institution at this time soared to new heights. There were 989 students in the day and evening divi- sions of the college. Completed in September of 1941, Siena Hall was built on a firm foundation of trust in the Divine Will of Almighty God. The permanence of the young college was recognized when on March 20, 1942, the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York granted Siena a permanent Charter. The college has as its primary purpose, the development of the individual. This development is three fold; it is the mental, moral, and physical molding of the character of the whole christian man and not just one segment of him. In order to develop the man physically, on December 20, 1940, the cornerstone of the gymnasium was laid. The brick edifice was named for the Most Reverend Edmund Francis Rev. Colman Dunne, O.F.M. Guardian of The Friary

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Rev. Jerome Dawson, O.F.M. Gibbons, D.D., then Bishop of Albany, who in 1937 had invited the Franciscan Friars to establish a Catholic Men's College in his diocese. The years from 1942 to 1946 were sorrowful ones for the entire world, but they were especially sad for Siena because, during those years, forty-six of her brave sons died vaiiently on the war torn battlefields of the world. The liberty that these men fought for and preserved is the reason why Siena's history does not end here, but goes on. Since the war there have been many changes in the cur- riculum and the campus of the college. The college had to adopt a temporary accelerated program in order to fulfill its duty during these war years. From July of 1942 until August of 1944, the College, in coniunction with the United States Navy, trained uniform personnel as prescribed under the V-5 Program. This program was discontinued in September of 1944 when the College returned to the usual two semester and a six week summer session. One of the most remarkable changes in the college was the teriffic increase in the number of students attending the school after the war. The campus was actually bursting its seams in the year 1948 when enrollment sky-rocketed to 2,752 students. Three fourths of this figure were veterans. In order to provide classrooms, it was necessary to construct a perfabricated building of eight ciassrooms on the campus and to rent a hall in the nearby town of Latham. Located on the southeastern corner of the campus are two adjoining Georgian-Colonial styled buildings. Although from their external ap- pearances neither resemble that which we call a house , both of these magnificient structures truly are houses. One is St. Mary of the Angels Chapel and the other is the Friary. The former being the house of God and the latter the Faculty house of the Friars. It was only eight short years ago on April 25, 1949, that the Most Reverend William A. Scully, D.D., then Coadiutor Bishop of Albany, blessed and laid the cornerstone of the Friary, which was completed in July of 1950.