Student Handbooks Live On in JKM Library Archives
Chatham’s Jennie King Mellon Library doesn’t just contain research materials, fun reads, and knowledgeable staff… it holds history too! The Archives and Special Collections, headed up by Archivist & Public Services Librarian Molly Tighe, is a delightful place for any history buff, and luckily for us, much of it is available to view online. Online exhibits help narrow the archives’ considerable breadth and give a point of entry into our past.
Recently, Communications major (and Marketing & Communications student employee!) McKenna DiRienzo ’22 plumbed the archives’ depths to reveal the surprising, perhaps slightly scary, and certainly very sweet characters that populate old student orientation handbooks from last century. Check out some highlights below, and view the online exhibit here.
What’s in a handbook of old?
Today, we provide new Chatham students with a physical and digital Orientation schedules so they can keep track of their first few days at ChathamU. We also have our Student Handbook which applies to both new and returning students, and dives deep into important info around Honor Code, student resources, and more. The same is true for student handbooks of the past, except these were physical bound books that included delightful and demonstrative doodles illustrating student life. Below are just a few reoccurring characters from handbooks past.
Ring that bell!
Handbooks for Pennsylvania College for Women (PCW) in the 1950’s featured a curved character called the PCW Belle who seems to emphasize the decorum and femininity one might associate with a women’s college during that era. Sporting her ceremonial freshman class “dink,” the PCW Belle certainly rings out as a marker of how far we’ve come in the way we view gender expression on our now all-gender campus and in the world at large.
(Don’t) send in the clowns
A puzzling figure in the student handbooks is a dizzy little elf character in jester gear who appears in handbooks throughout the midcentury and into the 1970’s. This clown is seen pouring over books, peeping behind lamp posts, and in one perhaps too-honest illustration, being pulled apart in different directions to demonstrate the many demands on a college student’s time. Whether the clown resonates or not, it clearly shows that past students had a sense of humor all their own, just like today.
Pennsy is our pal
Okay, we love Carson the Cougar, but Pennsy the seal is really stealing our hearts. As McKenna put it: “While I’ve come to love Carson and the school spirit he embodies, there is just something so sweet and nostalgic about Pennsy. Especially when she is comforting our anxieties about the first year of college. How can anyone look at Pennsy and feel nothing but absolute joy?” Though Chatham retired Pennsy in 1991, there’s still a lot of love for Pennsy’s sweet, supportive face.
There’s plenty more to discover in these handbooks, along with Mckenna’s comedic insights and observations. Check out the full exhibit here.