1976 year book photo

Grad of '76 lost her original 8x10 senior photo. Had to tell her I don't have the original negatives, but I could, and will, scan the yearbook image and send her as high quality image as I can get from that.

Radio Club

Radio has a long history at Brockport, going back into the 1950s when the "Radio Club" was formed. In 1964 the call letters WBSU were assigned, but it was still a closed circuit broadcast. The FM transmitter station started in 1981.


The station has a web page with a history section that was written by Warren Kozireski, who has been with the station in one way or another since his student days here! Below is the club from the 1964 Saga yearbook.

Drake/Allen in 1976

Allen and Drake were completed and occupied in the mid 1970s. This aerial shot shows some features no longer present. One example is the original pedestrian bridge over the tracks; that first bride was not covered, and more steeply pitched than the present covered bridge. It was a little treacherous in bad weather! Notice too the field on the east side of Drake being used as a parking lot, no Special Olympics fountain, no LAB...

New acquisition!

Just was given this postcard dated 1909. It is group shot of the school faculty on the steps of the old Normal school. The man on the left in the front is Charles MacFarlane, Principal 1901-1910. The younger man in the middle is Fred Belland perhaps, a teacher of physical education and other subjects. Much to determine, an exciting donation!

Hartwell & Tower

Since we have a new president at the college, it seems appropriate to look back at some of our previous presidents. Here are two who saw the college through some very challenging and interesting times. Ernest Hartwell, left, was the last principal of the old Normal school, and the first president of the Teachers College, a transformation in the school he was instrumental in achieving. He also successfully staved off the threat of closure of the school, something we can all be grateful for! He served here 1936-1944.

Donald Tower, right, was president of the college from 1944-1964. When he came here the school was a small institution with perhaps 300 students and 25 faculty, all in the one building, (which we now call Hartwell Hall.) The post WWII years radically transformed Brockport, like all higher education then. Tower was a founding member of the SUNY system in 1948, oversaw the expansion of the campus by a number of buildings, including Lathrop  on Kenyon, shown in this photo, and saw the enrollment grow from a few hundred to a few thousand students and a corresponding growth in staffing levels.

Hello Goodbye

This is just a charming picture, part of a set of slides Rosalie Mowers took of her kindergarten class in 1953. Part of a section labeled "Hello Goodbye" it shows these girls going home from the campus school!

Raye Conrad, disc jockey!

This slide is part of a set of recruitment photos taken c.1950. The slide shows Frank Lane, Education, left, then an unidentified woman, Wayne Dedman, History; Ray Conrad, Education, at the record player; and Pauline Haynes, Music, right.

Wings over Hartwell

A nice aerial shot of the college from the 1950s.

Original Ellsworth

This is the original painting of Ellsworth, from a photo in the 1963 Saga yearbook. The painting hung then in Lathrop, which at that time was the student union. The painting was lost somewhere along the way in subsequent years, and the one in Seymour today is a more recent version. Bob Bloxsom was the student artist who painted the original in 1956.

Name this machine!

Recently the archivist shared some photos of Greg Scarborough who was a physics professor here from 1958-89, with his son Mark. In one of the photos, from 1958, Professor Scarborough is in the lab, at a machine; can anyone ID the machine? We're pretty sure it isn't a roulette wheel ;-)

Brockport Beats Army!!!

The 1955 Brockport men's soccer team, coached by Huntley Parker, was a real force to be reckoned with. They beat Army at West Point and were the national champions that year. Here they are at West Point for that famous game!

Can you read this?

The question refers to the letter shown here. It is a scan of a letter Mary Jane Holmes, noted Brockport author of a century ago, wrote to a friend in 1884. The letter, as was the common practice then, was written in cursive penmanship. Nowadays many younger people do not learn cursive writing in school, and when confronted with a handwritten document like this are often at a loss to read it. The letter will be posted soon in the Mary Jane Holmes section of our Digital Commons; perhaps we should make a print transcription of it first!

First Winning Football Team

Football was played at the old Brockport Normal school as far back as the 1890s; Principal Charles McLean was the coach. The team played against some other schools, but there wasn't a formal program, no dedicated coaches, it was all rather casual by today's standards. After WWI football fell out of favor in many schools, due to controversy over injuries, and questions of "professionalism."

When WWII ended however it was decided to revive football, and Bob Boozer was hired as the coach. The first season was that of 1947. It takes time to grow a team, but in the fall of 1957 Brockport had its first winning football season, with a tally of 4-2-1. Shown here is halfback Bob Berg '58, who played on that winning team.

In 1987 Mike Andriatch, who was Sports Information Director then, organized a reunion of that team of '57.

Governor Harriman visits Brockport!

Well, he did, in October 1958! It was an election year, and Harriman, a Democrat, was running for his second term as governor against Nelson Rockefeller, Republican. Harriman was an interesting man. His father was a wealthy railroad baron, and when Harriman was a boy he went on his father's "Harriman Alaska Expedition," traveling on his father's yacht with a party that included such figures as John Muir and Edward Curtis. In the WWII years he was our ambassador to the Soviet Union.

However, unfortunately for Harriman, but perhaps fortunately for SUNY, Rockefeller won. Over the next decade or so he presided over a massive expansion of the state's public higher education system that saw schools like ours grow at a phenomenal rate. Brockport for example went from 1000 or so  students in 1958 to over 10,000 in the late '60s!

"A good fellow"

In preparing a slide show about African American history at the college for an upcoming Black Student Liberation Front & OSAD reunion, the archives yielded a number of images of African American students. The reunion planners were interested to hear the depth of the African American experience at Brockport, as evidenced by students like Robert Bray, Class of 1937.

An AV Survivor

Shown here is a ca1930 Balopticon "magic lantern," a projector for the glass slides then in use (35mm slides weren't developed till the latter 1930s, and not widely used till after WWII.) This machine was part of the school's audio-visual equipment, along with a large collection of glass slides, covering the different countries of the world, famous artworks etc. We still have not only several projectors, but a wooden cabinet with thousands of slides!

Summer cookout!

For some years the college put on a cookout in the summer for staff and students. That tradition is being revived this summer, and as a preview, here is a shot from an earlier cookout, summer 2001.

Class of '65 dorm life

This class had a lively and enjoyable reunion this past week, as they were inducted into the Hartwell Society on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. Pictured here are some of the members as they were in the dorms some fifty years ago!

Hartwell, the man

For many years the Georgian style building we call Hartwell Hall has been a landmark on campus, and its tower has often served as a logo for the school. The building was built in the late 1930s to replace the old building complex that had stood in about the same location. Ernest Hartwell was the principal at the time, as the heads of Normal schools were called. He was only head of the school for eight years, from 1936 - 1944, but he had great influence on the school's direction and infrastructure.

When he came in 1936 we were a Normal school, as were all of the SUNY four year schools of today. Normals were schools for training teachers, they had a three year course and when done one received a certificate as a teacher in the state elementary schools, but not a bachelors degree. The building complex dated back to the 1850s, and while picturesque, a lack of funds had led to much deterioration.

Under Hartwell the threat of closure of the school was staved off, a new building complex acquired, and in 1942, Brockport and the other state Normal schools all became Teachers Colleges, granting the bachelors degree for the first time.

Hartwell was in some ways a stern and formal man. He insisted on maintaining appearances, once chastising a student for being seen on Main Street, chewing gum, something no aspiring teacher should be seen doing! He was also an active educator who took a real interest in the students, and did all he could to ensure their success here. The photo here is from the 1944 Saga yearbook.

"Ready To Roll"

In the college archives we have a slim volume entitled Ready To Roll: An intrepid teacher's journey in education. The book was published in 1982 and is an edited memoir of the life of Lena Agnes Boyle 1917, who in latter life became known as Lea Cowles Masters. The book is drawn from a set of tapes Masters recorded, at the suggestion of some Brockport emeriti she had come into contact with in her retirement in Arizona, such as Wayne Dedman, History. Ron Watts prepared the edited transcript version of her tapes, with Peg Hare Browne, Bruce Leslie, Ken O'Brian and others playing a part as well.

While her teaching career after Brockport started conventionally enough, as a grade school teacher in Port Jervis NY, by the 1930s she had acquired a bachelors and masters degrees, and became active in New Deal efforts to expand nursery and preschool education in places as far flung as the Virgin Islands and Alabama. After WWII she established the preschool for the children of staff of the newly formed United Nations. Recently the archives was contacted by a staff person at the UN school, inquiring about her, and that query prompted the scanning of her book and placement of it in our Digital Commons where you can read it now.

Lea Cowles Masters is shown here with then President Albert Brown in 1980.