By 1914, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ was hitting its stride as a college. And having sent college graduates into the world for nearly 50 years, it was time for some grown-up alumni programming.

Which meant getting a little silly.

In 1948, this “display of livestockâ€� won best costume for the Class of 1903. The sign holder, Class President Alexander Maerz, is next to classmates George Ramsdell, a longtime ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ math professor, and Carl Sawyer. Ralph Johnson, right, wrangled the sheep for the class. Photograph courtesy of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library

1914 was a big year, marking the 50th anniversary of the college’s transition from Maine State Seminary to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College in 1864. The college chose to celebrate the semicentennial during Commencement, in June.

• Reunion 2014 schedule including the Alumni Parade at 11 a.m. Saturday

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Student, doing double duty in those days as both a campus and alumni publication, noted in May that “this Commencement of all Commencements should belong to the alumni.â€�

The late Rev. Peter Gomes ’65 sports a t-shirt that reads, “Isn’t it funny… We still look the same,” in honor of his class’s 40th Reunion in 2005. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College.

The big new feature of this alumni-focused Commencement was an Alumni Day, “a program of merrymaking by the different classes…such as is carried on at many of our larger colleges.â€�

And the centerpiece of Alumni Day was an Alumni Parade, a “historico-humorous parade of classes about the field.�

In its buildup to the event, The Student exhorted the classes to portray “historical incidents associated with the development of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, illustrated soberly or unsoberly; ‘things you did,’ wise or other-wise…. Class statistics, mention of members who have won honored places…may well be carried on large cards or any other way. Class banners of olden days…should be there.â€�

In 1934, it was time for the 20th Reunion Class of 1914 to cowboy up for the Alumni Parade. Photograph courtesy of the Muskie Archives and Special Collections LIbrary.

One hundred years later, the Alumni Parade hasn’t deviated from the 1914 playbook. Stop by the Alumni Walk on June 7 and you’ll see.

Back in 1914, lest a parade seem like a frivolous way to celebrate the college’s 50th, there were sober events, too.

A pageant on the steps of Coram Library commemorated great college events: founder Oren Cheney reading about the burning of Parsonsfield Seminary, the incident that inspired Cheney to found his own school for poor and disadvantaged Maine youth; and the seminary students marching off to the Civil War, 175 of them, including two from Georgia who fought for the Confederacy.

Maine Sen. Edmund S. Muskie ’36, left, architect of the landmark Clean Water Act of 1977, carries a banner featuring the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ seal at his 50th reunion in 1986. Photograph courtesy of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library

Stepping up to the parade challenge was the Class of 1912. The Student of May 21 noted that class members would dress in all white and assemble “a band composed of the men of 1912 who played in the college band.�

The June 11 edition noted that the Class of 1904 “will be on hand with something good,� yet the class refused to divulge exactly what that might be. Using a trendy phrase from the early 1900s, the class wanted to conceal their plans until the “psychological moment.�

Benjamin Elijah Mays ’20, civil rights leader and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., links arms with with a classmate at their 60th Reunion in 1980. Photograph courtesy of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library

While coverage of the first Alumni Day is scant, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Bulletin reports a successful event, as “the costumes, movements and performances awakened universal enthusiasm and great merriment.â€�

In contemporary parlance, the first parade fostered greater alumni engagement, and the good feelings carried over to Commencement the next day. In full spring bloom, the campus was, at least to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ eyes, “the most charming place in all the world.â€�

This being from 1974, we’re pretty sure only the caps are part of the costume, and not the plaid trousers and pantsuits. Photograph courtesy of the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library

Leisure Suite

By Doug Hubley
Photographs courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collection Library

It wasn’t billed as such, but a campus announcement in October from student activities director Keith Tannenbaum proclaimed a historic shift.

Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collection Library

After nearly a century as a venue for everything from dances to debates and poetry readings to protests, Chase Hall Lounge has been reinvented as a casual lounge for students.

Equipped with portable podium and grand piano, the lounge for most of its life was less a lounge than ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ go-to venue for all kinds of campus events: contradances, faculty meetings, flu shot clinics, lectures, readings, blood drives, symposia, formal dinners, dance performances — even student protests, such as the one in 1979 after The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Student riled up the campus by inventing an award to gain entrée to former President Richard Nixon.

This year’s transformation, part of an overall freshening of Chase Hall, happened because students wanted an “inviting drop-in or ‘hangout’ space,� said Tannenbaum — “a casual and comfortable spot.�

The timing is nice, as Chase Hall was conceived a century ago and dedicated in December 1919.

The clubby, masculine look of Chase Lounge here and at left reflects the building’s initial purpose as a “home for our young men,� in President Chase’s words. Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collection Library

Named for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President George Colby Chase, who had died that May, the hall was largely a response to the fact that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ all-male competitor schools had fraternities. Though President Chase had no desire to reverse the college’s “cherishedâ€� no-fraternity policy, the early 1900s was a time when the college’s male-female balance was tipping toward women. President Chase was forceful in his belief that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ needed a well-appointed “home for our young men,â€� both for social reasons and, as noted in various President’s Reports, to counter the lure of demon rum downtown.

But the men’s club angle didn’t last long, nor did the lounge’s identity as simply a lounge.

Coed movie nights, wildly popular in Hathorn, came right over to Chase Lounge in 1919. Three years later, when the college lifted its ban on dancing, the lounge was where ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ men and women went cheek to cheek for the first time in public.

That began a long tradition of Saturday night dances in Chase Lounge, which continued into the late 1960s when the college’s first documented rock group, the Hanseatic League, was the house band. That was when tough rules governing gender relations were slowly starting to ease, making Chase the “only place to find people of the opposite sex,â€� as Jill Howroyd Lawler ’68 told ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ for a Hanseatic League retrospective in 2003.

Today, thanks to donor support, the lounge is fitted with comfy new leather chairs and sofas, an electric fireplace, a pool table and 60-inch TVs, part of a larger Chase Hall makeover intended to reinforce the building’s identity as a student center.

The Den has been spruced up and designated the campus pub. The lobby is now bright, spacious and welcoming, with Don Lent’s “Canterbury Tales� mural a well-lit focal point. A new lift has improved physical access to the building.

And the old “Big Room� in Memorial Commons is now a function room that can accommodate nearly 700 — a fitting venue to resurrect those legendary Saturday night dances, should anyone so desire.

After ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ lifted its ban on dancing in 1922, Chase Lounge was where students went cheek to cheek. Photograph courtesy of Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collection Library

Heard a lot about “joining the conversationâ€�? Harry Rowe, Class of 1912, was ahead of that game when he launched the magazine of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 91 years ago.

In the magazine’s first issue, managing editor Rowe presented the college magazine “with some trepidation.�

He felt that way because, as he wrote, “there is no way of knowing what alumni want� in a magazine until readers see and react to the first one.

So in that first issue, Rowe extended an unpretentious invitation to join the discussion of all things ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. With “suggestion and constructive criticismâ€� in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ fashion, Rowe knew that the magazine would evolve over time (though he may not have anticipated a yellow cover).

As shown by 91 years of covers, the mag’s look and feel has certainly changed. Yet the reader’s main interest — what’s going on at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — hasn’t. Which is why, in that first issue, you learned about a guest lecturer who vigorously denounced the Bolshevik Revolution, about a new freshman initiation program in lieu of a ban on “indiscriminate hazing,â€� and why the football team had a tough go of it in 1919.

A new president, Clayton Spencer.

Saying goodbye to Peter Gomes '65.

Alumni and AIDS.

There must have been some magic....

A new angle on Commencement.

Ode to a Hot Dog

In 1938, while on a “splurge� with Wilson House friends at Jimmy’s Diner in downtown Auburn, Muriel Swicker ’42 penned this ode on a napkin about the delights of a 30-cent hotdog.

Swicker, who passed away in 2008, placed the napkin in her freshman-year scrapbook, where we found it recently after the scrapbook was donated to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

“Ode to a Hotdog,” from a freshman year scrapbook of Muriel Swicker ’42.

Ode to a Hotdog

Oh Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy
Oh, luscious cytoplasm
We sink our teeth
in thy cells walls

Even on thee spread
Shovelfuls of goooo
Oh crispy greasy cloak
Draped upon thy sides.
Yum — My God!

Below, listen to one of Muriel’s ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ chums, Virginia Day Hayden ’42, recite the poem (from memory!) in 2012 at Reunion:

Skull Session

This sketch of a cat skull by Cecelia Christensen, Class of 1919, is displayed in the lobby of Carnegie Science Hall.

Past and present, “students grapple with the spatial component of knowledge,� says Don Dearborn, chair of the biology department. “Transforming something you see, or know to exist, into another form, whether a drawing or a computer image, is a powerful tool for learning.�

Riders Up

Photo courtesy of the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library.

In the 1930s, riding was among the many offerings of the Women’s Athletic Association. The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ women’s athletics motto — “a sport for every girl and every girl in a sportâ€� — reflected the national reaction to the era’s professionalized and exclusive sports culture.

Pete’s Prize

Meredith “Pete� Burrill ’25 won the Garcelon Cup for hurdles in 1922. Then Burrill took another leap forward, becoming a world authority on geographic place names.