Tag Archives: Student Life

The Testimony of the Spirits

In Commencement Programtheir  Junior year the Class of 1922 put on “The Second Annual Anti-Homesick Treatment,” the fourth portion of which was a “grand opera” that tells the story of a new student caught between the Spirit of Homesickness and the Spirit of the Institution.  In order to defeat Homesickness the Institution calls forth the Spirits of Friendship, Hard Work, Loyalty, Knocking, Class and Beauty.  For the incoming freshman we give you the Testimony of the Spirits:

Hard Worked Students:

We study hard both by night and day
And that’s the way we always play
But since no labor we ever shirk
We must just here get at our work

Spirit of Homesickness

Right here methinks I’ll take my stand
Some new student may happen by
I’ll grab the poor thing by the hand
And teach her how to say good bye
I’ll try to get her good and blue
And get her ready to skidoo
My mission is where’er I roam
To get ’em blue and send ’em home

New Student

My home I love so dearly
Is far away from me
I begin to feel so queerly
What can the matter be
What can the matter be
I feel so gloomilee
And I fear some frightful illness
Has seized a hold of me

Continue reading

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February Out of the Box

Board of Regents 2/1/1947Step Show

Championship Effort

Dignitaries & Visitors

Diversity Programs

Felts Log House

Fraternities

Integration

Integration at WKU

Minorities

Philosophy & Religion

Sorority System Report

Tops Beat Cats

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Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

We have been processing and posting meeting minutes of all kinds.  There are University Senate minutes, Congress Debating Club minutes, departmental faculty meeting minutes, Stickles History Club minute books and FCG Classical Club to name a few.

WKU minute takers have done a great job in relaying accurate information to us.  They have also found and recorded humor in their meetings.  Here are a few examples:

Congress Debating Club, Book 4, page 279

Senator Searcy blew his breath at the crowd and at the same time his vocal chords vibrated in an unintelligble manner.

On page 290 of the same book we find a notation that the previous minutes are an “unhealthy bit of propaganda.”

In a memo addressed to the History faculty April 29, 1977, Dr. Richard Troutman outlines a number of meetings as:

The first meeting will involve consideration of two proposals from the Departmental Curriculum Committee . . .

The meeting following the first meeting should be brief and will involve a continuation of our discussion on graduate assistants.

The meeting following the brief meeting which follows the longer meeting will concern my concern about what direction the Department should take as we seek a new teacher for next year.  This meeting should take longer than the brief second meeting, but perhaps not as long as the longer first meeting.  But then again, it may take longer.

History faculty meeting minutes have begun “Once upon a time” and ended “. . . and they all lived happily ever after.”

A belated but slight reminder of things past . . . !

As quickly as was humanly possible, Dr. Crowe adjourned the meeting. Deferentially yielded, crowe the younger

The Sept. 19, 1974 meeting minutes open: “This is the Way it Was . . . !”  and conclude with:

If there are any questions as to particulars mentioned in this monsterpiece, check with the man who keeps a pad in his shirt pocket.  His note-taking ability far surpasses anything done by ‘little old me, honey.’

Stickles History Club

Stickles History Club

[signed] Scarlott O’Crowe

This image from the Arndt Stickles History Club Minute Book 1, page 4  relates the seriousness of manner in which the members organized:

In ancient days students sat at the feet of the old philosophers or followed them about through gardens, in order to get the gleam of life that scholars of the age had or to hear marvelous stories of the universe, or perhaps, just to be near great and noble characters.  Even so, do students of the modern age long for contact with just such noble men as those of old.

These and many more records are available for researchers in WKU Archives.

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Out of the Box – August

Welcoming students back to campus through the years.

Admissions

Board of Regents, 11/6/1914

Moving In

Moving In

College Heights Herald 8/24/1982 Diddle Dorm

Dress Code

English Club Gazette

Meredith Hall

Northeast & Southwest Halls

Ogden College Entrance Exam, 1889 Residence Halls

Rodes-Harlin Hall

WKU Housing

Zacharias Hall

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Pig in Class

Forsythe & Pig

Belmont Forsythe
with Socrates-Kruger

During the school break between the summer and fall semester of 1939 I obtained Socrates-Kruger from my father’s farm in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. He was six weeks old. He became well trained and responded very obediently while on hiis pig’s leash. Socrates-Kruger soon became a campus celebrity as he accompanied me to class and around the campus (he was always fastened to the outside doorknob of the classrooms. I was firing a coal fed furnace at a boarding house on State Street, Socrates-Kruger stayed with me in my basement room which ws located next to the coal bin. He continued to get into the coal bin, and therefore needed a bath everyday. After six weeks of enjoying his celebrity status he was returned to my father’s farm when in 2 years he joined his ancestors, Socrates & Kruger. He is pictured here in front of H.H. Cherry Hall. Belmont Forsythe, AB ’40.

Socrates-Kruger was named for the Greek philosopher and General Paul Kruger of South Africa.

Check out KenCat for more images of WKU students and alumni.

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December Out of the Box

Athletic Media Relations Photos collection inventory

BUWKY Dec. 1942

BUWKY Dec. 1942

BUWKY, December 1942

Christmas – lots of information regarding Christmas celebrations at WKU

College Heights Herald, January 1929

Diddle Arena Dedication Program 50 years ago

John Minton Swearing In listen to the audiotape and read along

Registrar’s Degree File collection inventory

Schneider Hall building history with links to documents and photos

Snow read about and see images of snow covered WKU campus through the years

Thomas Meredith WKU’s eighth president 1988-1997

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WKU Hangouts

The Goal Post, Hilltoppers Lunch, HUB Pizzeria, Nite Class just to name a few. Did you / do you have a favorite hangout?  Tell us about it.

Hilltoppers Lunch

Hilltoppers Lunch

Goal Post

Goal Post

Nite Class

Nite Class

Check out this map of BU-related sites and hangouts as well.

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Founders Day Addresses

In doing research related to the opening of Ransdell Hall we’ve come across several Founders Day speeches.  These are primarily from the 1960’s, but there is an especially interesting one that highlights the earliest years of WKU.  A.L. Crabb’s Founders Day Address “It Sounds So Lovely What Our Fathers Did,”  reprinted in April 1943 was delivered the previous November 16th.  In it he relates his earliest memories as a student in the Southern Normal School in 1904.  He introduces the listeners to a host of early faculty including J.S. Dickey, the Cherry Brothers, J.M. Guilliams, J.H. Clagett, M.A. Leiper and Laura Frazee to name a few.  It is a great eyewitness account of the  early years of WKU.

This and additonal records are available for researchers through our online catalog, KenCat and in the Harrison-Baird Reading Room of the Kentucky Library & Museum Monday – Saturday, 9 – 4.  Selected digitized records can be found on TopScholar as well.

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BUWKY

BUWKY Oct. 1938Editor-in-Chief & business manager Lawrence Stone launched the BUKY in March 1936.  The publication statement indicates that it was to be a student magazine published monthly “during the college year except for July and August in the interests of the students of the Bowling Green Business University and Western Kentucky Teachers College.”  It cost $.75 for a year’s subscription and $.10 per single issue. 

The next extant issue May 1936 indicates a change in the title to BUWKY due to a misunderstanding in the pronunciation.  Although published at the BU, there were more Western students on the rolls of reporters in the early issues each with pseudonyms such as Rusty Rhythm and Norothy Nix.  The magazine covers WKU sporting events, alumni of both schools, and highlights BU students and faculty.  The ads are also an interesting component highlighting local businesses of the period as well as national trends.

The University Archives does not hold a full run of the magazine.  Those that are extant 1936 and 1938-1943 have been digitized and are now available on TopScholar.  They are a wonderful view into student life at both schools.  Please contact the University Archivist at archives@wku.edu if you have more issues of this publication to donate.  Also, check out the University Archives wish list

These magazines and other records regarding the Bowling Green Business University are available to researchers in the Harrison-Baird Reading Room of the Kentucky Library & Museum Monday – Saturday, 9 – 4.

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