Genial, smiling and friendly...

That's how Beryl Roberts '45 described Dr. Donald Tower in a piece in the Stylus in February 1945, when he had been here just about a year as president of the college, having taken over from Ernest Hartwell in February 1944. Tower was a native New Yorker, having grown up in Dundee NY in the Finger Lakes. He was educated in the local schools there, and then attended Albany State Teachers College and New York University. His first job after graduating Albany in 1919 was as a high school teacher in Olean NY, for $1,100 per year!  

After receiving advanced degrees he was head of the training school department at Oswego before coming to Brockport.  When he became president of this college in 1944 it was quite small, just 325 students, and the whole campus was what we now call Hartwell Hall and Alumni House (at the time, Alumni House was the president's home; Dr. Tower was the last president to live there.)

In here "Personality Plus" column, Beryl Roberts described Dr. Tower as saying that as far as hobbies went, he loved hiking, and also swimming and reading, His real hobby he said was his job, that he immensely enjoyed working with people and teaching. She noted that "Steak and French fries are Dr. Tower's favorite dish - though he admits that like most of us he hasn't partaken of them in a long time." (This was during WWII, and food rationing was in effect...) She also noted that Dr. Tower's academic interests were in English and dramatics. (Dr. Tower wrote an early book on dramatics for the college level, Educational Dramatics, 1930.)

In a Stylus article a few years later, in 1953, the writer noted that "Dr. Tower's theory of administration is one of close contact between the administrator and the administrated. At no time is the door to Dr. Tower's office closed... Dr. Tower said, 'Please don't make your story an obituary, I want the student body to know me as a person, not merely as an office holder."

When Dr. Tower retired from Brockport in 1964 he had helped establish the SUNY system in the late 1940s, and seen Brockport grow as a campus and a school much beyond what it had been in 1944. He didn't completely retire though, as he taught for several years more as an adjunct at St. John Fisher. Dr. Tower died in 1977, but is fondly remembered by many Brockport alum and emeriti to this day.

Cherishing This Heritage

Cherishing This Heritage is the history of the college published in 1969 as part of the observation of our centennial anniversary of becoming a state school in 1867. Wayne Dedman, a history professor at the college,was given a year sabbatical to research and write the book. It is an excellent work of scholarship that relates the personalities of the people who made the school what it was, the culture of the school and its students, and something of the history of education and teacher training as well; what were those academies anyway, or what exactly was a "Normal" school? There is also some in depth treatment of the history of the village of Brockport.

There are several copies in our circulating collection: LD571.B782 D42. Check one out soon - something a little different to read at the beach this summer!

A great sports story!

The story of the 1955 Brockport soccer team that is. They were National Co-Champions along with Penn State that year. It's a great sports story of a truly amateur team from a small teachers college defeating all comers. You can read Daniel Cody's paper on the team in our Digital Commons. Shown here is a team photo from that year.

"Our little untried craft"

Thus the first editorial staff of the Stylus described it in their inaugural issue of May 1914: "We are starting our little untried craft, 'The Stylus' upon its first voyage, which is always a more or less perilous one simply because of the very newness and unproven seaworthiness of the vessel. In the case of 'The Stylus' even the crew, the editiors, are as new and untested as the craft itself."

It is almost a century later now, and certainly the Stylus has proven "seaworthy," perhaps more so than the editors who launched it could ever have imagined! Pictured here are two of the original Stylus staff, Gertrude Cook '17 and Loyd Coleman '14.

"Diary of O. U. Senyor"

A little humor piece from the June 1922 commencement issue of the Stylus...

Greek Letter Societies of Yesteryear

The room shown here may look a little sparsely furnished to us, but it was one of several rooms in the old Normal School building set aside for the fraternities and sororities of the day, and undoubtedly was the setting for many lively events. (This room was for the Philalethean fraternity.) These societies were also known as "literary societies" back in the 19th century and were a part of Brockport student life from the 1860s through the 1930s. Especially in the earlier years, when there was no student government, a limited number of clubs and so on, the societies were important sources of social, intellectual and entertainment opportunities. They sponsored debates on topics of the day, held oratorical contests, hosted dances, brought noted contemporary speakers to the school and held athletic contests as well.

By the 1930s the student government had begun, and many of the functions the societies had played were picked up by other bodies or groups, and they became more purely social. Ernest Hartwell came as head of the school in the late 1930s, and planning was launched for the "new" building (today's Hartwell Hall.) Hartwell was apparently unsympathetic to the role of the societies, and did not include rooms for them in the new building, effectively ending a long standing tradition.

Camp Totem

In 1951 the college bought a camp just north of the Adirondacks near Harrisville NY, on the Oswegatchie River. It was a wonderful camp, comprised of nine log style buildings, on fourteen acres of land, and adjacent to a fifteen thousand acre forest preserve. It was used by a variety of college groups, from the campus school to to student and other groups, but its main purpose was to support a camping experience for the Health and Physical Education majors who were concentrating on recreation. As fine a facility as it was, the distance was considerable, and in the 1960s the college sold the camp and bought the property at Fancher, just a few miles away in Orleans County. Pictured here are some Camp Totem student staff in the 1950s.