Kevin,
As a member of the Union Board and an off-campus student I virtually lived in the Union my junior and senior years at Tech. I particularly liked to take a mid-afternoon nap on the couch that was on the top floor just outside the ballrooms. The top floor was usually deserted in the middle the day so it was a good place to pass out for a half hour or so after lunch. On one memorable occasion I woke up to find myself surrounded by a large group of well-dressed individuals attending a fundraising event in one of the ballrooms. I can imagine how it looked having this scruffy, flannel shirt clad student snoring away in the corner as the school was trying to impress the various well-heeled attendees on the merits of the school and its students. I suppose the pitch went something like, “We have to take slobs like that and turn them into Professional Engineers! We need all the financial support you can muster!”
Pete Schierloh ‘96
–Thanks, Pete: that had to be quite the shock. Since I was only here as a graduate student, I did most of my snoozing somewhere on the 3rd floor of Walker.
Kevin:
I expect older alumni like myself can relate to some of this. My first memory of the “Union” goes back to “Frosh Week” in 1959. During the first week of classes the frosh were expect to dress and behave in prescribed manners. The upperclassmen could issue tickets for things such as not wearing your freshman beanie, failure to light a cigarette on demand, and other infractions. The tickets were placed in a locked wooden box on the Union reception counter. A kangaroo court was scheduled for Friday evening in the ROTC building gym. On Thursday night a group of us from DHH 3rd floor center appropriated the lock box, unlocked the combination lock, removed the tickets and began to erase the names of the frosh and replace them with the names of faculty as listed in the college catalog. The box was then replaced. The scene of Friday night was interesting when “Judge” Dean of Students Harold Meese read the first ticket. A bit of pandemonium ensured.
During my time as an undergrad I was on the Lode staff ending up as editor during the 1963-64 school year. The Lode office was in the Union on the main floor along the east side. Tom Hruby and alumni relations was at the end of the hall, then the student government office, followed by the Lode office. I spent countless hours in that office both working on the paper and using it as a place to study between classes. During that time we moved from manual typewriters to IBM Selectric with the bouncing ball.
The Union was also the place where job interviews were held. There was no career fair and individual employers would spend a week, sometimes returning again later in the year, beginning in October soon after the school year started. The schedule was posted and each employer had a folder to receive resumes and a schedule sheet on top to sign up for an interview time. The process went on well into the spring. The lodging rooms in the Union were used for housing and interview locations. Additional interview spaces were set up in the ball room upstairs. You could tell who had an interview on any specific day by looking for the persons wearing their best suit and tie.
Ken Kok ‘64
–Thanks, Ken: that last part is still true! It was an amazing mix of people dressed formally and those who clearly had just rolled out of bed on the morning after career fair (the day that’s full of interviews).
There are still a few of us around who remember when the MUB wasn’t there yet. There was a little place called Georges (I think) located about where the rear service drive to MUB is now. It was a house made into a coffee joint and student hangout. The Clubhouse was also there for between class hours.
Larry Watson 51
–Thanks, Larry: it’s one of the things I find most fascinating about college campuses, the way they change over time. A few years back I returned to the first college I attended—Monmouth College in Illinois—and could barely recognize the place after only being gone a bit over a decade. I almost couldn’t navigate my way around. Considering the changes there have been on this campus, I’m betting that’s a familiar feeling for many!