More LIFE Photos: Roth's Dapper Predecessor

Also in the LIFE photo archive: photos of Wesleyan students and professors volunteering at the Connecticut Valley Hospital for the mentally ill in 1965:

And a series of 1968 photos of Wesleyan's then-president, the dapper alumnus Edwin D. Etherington, at home with his family:Etherington was the president of the American Stock Exchange before taking over at Wesleyan, and was a staunch civil rights advocate who got Wes to admit women and increase minority student enrollment. Plus he's got a serious Don Draper thing going on:

Sorry, Roth's got nothing on this guy.

Skateboarding at Wesleyan in 1965

The LIFE photo archive, recently released into the public domain by Google, reveals that Wesleyan University was the host of the first intercollegiate skateboarding championships, back in 1965:Browse through the archives for more photos of old-school Wesleyan, including this 1958 shot of a football game against Amherst on Andrus Field.

Boner 4 MGMT, Through the Ages

Wesleying alum Joe John Sanchez '07 is sharing his boner for MGMT with the Internet, in a comprehensive series of posts on his blog appropriately called BONER4MGMT which recount the days at Wes when those guys were generally called The Management, and expound on his bittersweet feelings about their mainstream exposure in such venues as Gossip Girl.

MP3's of all the versions of "Kids" ever put online are also linked on this post, along with some other unreleased tracks.

It's the Money Shot: Boner4MGMT

Remember the Boon!

Way back in the second week of Wesleying's existence, Xue posted about the long-forgotten legend of Boon Tan, the most infamous pre-Internet meme Wesleyan had yet known back in the '70s. Boon Tan languished in the subconscious of alumni of decades past until it was dredged up in April 2006 by blogging Wes grad Plain(s)feminist from an archived Argus article:

"Boon Tan was a Malaysian student who failed to show up in 1972 and again the next year though his face was in the face book. Shortly thereafter 'the Boon began to appear on the University walls; not a representation of the missing student, but a symbol of evil incarnate. Midnight ceremonies were held. Mass gatherings cried out the word of Boon...' Boon Tan had the largest following on campus."

Apparently the whole thing started out as a practical joke on Tan's ertswhile roommate in WestCo Down 4, with hallmates pulling pranks on him and blaming them on the absent Boon Tan. The spirit of Boon Tan became a WestCo in-joke and was eventually drawn as an "evil" version of the Smiley Face, which became the central character in a series of comics drawn by the head of WestCo for his residents as a sort of a vessel for the decidedly un-PC darkly humorous side of the "peace and love West College environment".

The drawings were passed around campus and caught like wildfire, with spontaneous Boon graffiti soon going up all over Wes in all sorts of contexts. The phenomenon culminated in a giant Day-Glo Boon being painted on the roof of the former power plant building (which stood where Usdan is now) in the spring of 1977, and kept going strong through the '80s as a manifestation of Wesleyan weirdness, though by then students were probably unaware of the intentionally offensive origins of the legend.

Incidentally, Boon Tan the human being apparently ended up going to school in Malaysia and becoming a successful doctor, unaware of his inadvertent cult status at Wes.

This brief history is paraphrased from Wes alum Oppyman's firsthand account of the origins of Boon Tan on the Plain(s)feminist blog, which is kind of fascinating as a window into what Wes was like in the late '70s.

I bring all this up because the one thing Xue's post lacked was an actual picture of the infamous Boon - which Wes alum Tod Norman '79 very belatedly emailed us earlier this week after idly Googling "Boon Tan", finding Wesleying's old request for a drawing, and realizing he had one lying around:
A little underwhelming, after all that? I guess you definitely had to be there. Norman reminisces about the heyday of the Boon:

It was ’75. I was a freshman that year... But I was also in West College, and a participant in the very first Zonker Harris day, so I don’t remember much more.

By the way, on the original ZH day, we had over 100 West College residents on a very special batch of…well…. Something. It had been cooked up in the chemistry lab – which, of course, had been noted in the 1974 ‘Underground Guide to Universities’ as producing the best acid on the East coast and Timothy Leary’s favoured supplier.

I do know that about 1979, on a brief return to the states, I saw Boon Tan all over the New York subway (in those days it was covered in graffiti – I understand it’s clean now). It even appeared on two sides of a lift door in a building down in the village, which closed to reveal evil in all its glory.

Well there you have it, an icon of Wesleyan past thoroughly exhumed. Keep Wesleyan Weird advocates, if you're still around and looking for a vaguely offensive former symbol of weird Wesleyan glory to rally behind, look no further!

Links:
Wesleying: Where is Boon Tan?
Plain(s)feminist: The Legend of Boon Tan
Plain(s)feminist: Behind the Wesleyan Legend: Boon Tan, Part Two

The first rule of project mayhem is....

One anonymous commenter asked what the deal with the firebombing talk on the ACB is about. Surprisingly, this was not about chocolate sauce in various orifices, but rather, an incident that occurred 17 years ago in 1990.

An Argus Article from 2004 described the incident:

On April 7, 1990 at 4 a.m. a fist-sized rock was thrown through the Wesleyan President's window followed by two Molotov Cocktails. Shots were allegedly fired from an AK-47 in the bushes of Van Vleck Observatory towards South College.

Full article here

The short nytimes article about the guilty plea of the perpetrator (Link) had this excerpt:

Prosecutors said Mr. Ranganathan and Mr. Haddad had planned the firebombing to retaliate for what they saw as the university's failure to promote the rights of minorities.

From what I can gather, the firebombing was, at least in part, student protest calling for the divestiture of apartheid South Africa. The debate on the ACB shows that there is some disagreement about whether this was actually a legitimate act and whether it was handled fairly.

I just have to say: wow, I never heard about this event my entire freshman year. I mean, between stories about how a certain literary society paid the Grateful Dead to play on Foss Hill in LSD and the fact that Joss Whedeon had sex in the cinema you think someone would've mentioned a firebombing that wasn't just some kid being dumb Clark. Normally, I think throwing moltov cocktails at anything is a bad way to encourage your point in a debate, but i may just not understand power dynamics.

Perhaps my older and wiser fellow wesleying contributors wish to comment?

A Book About Wesleyan

So there's actually A History of Hogwarts Wesleyan out there that you can actually buy from Amazon. I didn't think this would be out on paperback for some reason considering the relatively limited audience of interest but there is!

Incidentally, I've actually known about this book's existence for some time but have never actually gotten around to, you know, reading it. But from what I've been told by people who have apparently it explains a lot of things. Things, for example, that as tour guides we tell perspective families but are never really sure why. Like why the football field is in the middle of campus and can never be moved. Or the origins of the secret societies and frats, etc.

New England Quarterly, William G. McLoughlin
"In this adroit blend of institutional and cultural history, David B. Potts provides an exemplary analysis of the first eighty years of Wesleyan University. He not only describes how the college changed its president, faculty, students, and curriculum (which one expects in institutional history), but he also deftly explains its identity shifts in terms of the broad context of higher education in the United States.... Potts has given us both a thorough documentation of the early trials and successes of this small but prestigious New England college ... and a clear portrait of the rapidly changing nature of higher education from 1831 to 1910."

Evidently, according to one reviewer on Amazon, a second volume is in the works following Wesleyan's institutional history between 1910 and 1969.

Eclectic Turns 100

The Wesleyan Connection reports:

“Our reputation was one of respect from most everyone,” recalls Bill Moody ’59, P ’91.” We did not come across as rich or preppy or jock-filled or hyper-social or racist or nerdy. We did not dominate a given group or project or sport.”

Moody, author of the recently-published book, A History of the Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta, 1837-1970, shared memories with current and past Eclectic members during the 100th anniversary celebration of the completion of the Eclectic Society House May 26. The book is published by Wesleyan University Press.

Faces have come and gone, but the symmetrical brick house with a four-pillar façade at 200 High Street has changed very little.

"This house is truly what links the ever-changing society members," says Eclectic Society member Omar Hunter Craighill '09. “The house has very distinctive architecture and has been a very important part of campus for many generations of students.”

Formally named The Eclectic Society at Phi Nu Theta, the fraternity was established in the 1830s, when students began meeting for the purpose of helping each other with college studies, literary work and Saturday-evening social events. In 1837, the association became official, making it the first fraternity established at Wesleyan.

Now 170 years old, Eclectic is one of the oldest non-national fraternities in the United States. Many notable figures in Wesleyan's history were members of Eclectic, including four who became Wesleyan presidents: Joseph Cummings, Class of 1840; Cyrus D. Foss, Class of 1854; John W. Beach Class of 1845; and Edwin D. Etherington ‘48.

Early Eclectic members gathered in a clubhouse; later they lived in a dormitory-like structure at 246 High Street. In 1900 they began extensive fund-raising for a home of their own, and in 1907, a house was completed. It was designed by Henry Bacon of New York City, who later designed the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. The house had the “largest and finest dance-hall of all the college houses,” wrote Billy North Rice, chairman of the organization’s Board of Directors in 1921.

“This building was the first step towards bringing a highly distinguished American architect to serve as de facto campus planner and architect for Wesleyan,” says Wesleyan Historian David Potts '60, author of Wesleyan University, 1831-1910: Collegiate Enterprise in New England.

Bacon created Wesleyan’s first campus plan in 1913 and was the architect of the swimming pool addition to Fayerweather Gymnasium, the Skull and Serpent building, Van Vleck Observatory, Clark Hall, the Memorial Chapel Renovation of 1916, the South College belfry and the initial design for Olin Library. In 1923, Bacon won the highest award in his profession and Wesleyan’s campus “has by far the largest assemblage of his works, starting with Eclectic,” Potts says.

(more)

Dresden Dolls Diary: Amanda Palmer '98 blogs

Amanda Palmer '98, of Dresden Dolls fame, writes beautiful anecdotes and thoughtful reflections about her life as a musical artist and as a person. She occasionally references her years at Wesleyan in her recounting of her experience:

when i was 18 or 19, i remember living in the basement of eclectic, the society i belonged to at wesleyan university. i had somehow gotten ahold of a 3-disc collection (stolen from the college radio station, i'm pretty sure) called "the beat generation". it was a compilation of wicked hip 50s ephemera, music, spoken word, it truly set the scene. allen ginsberg, lenny bruce, recordings of kerouac reading aloud, bop and more bop, burroughs....they were all there. i was unhip. i'd had no idea. it was like all of a sudden someone had walked me in the backdoor of a place i'd been craving to visit since birth. i remember freaking my shit out night after night thinking "what are we DOING???? we're doing NOTHING!!! fuck. we could be DOING everything!!!!" i felt like i had found what i came to college for, but instead on it being on campus, it was on compact disc. eclectic was an old house with lots of character and there was a large room across from mine, in the basement, with a padlock on the door. i found the key from someone and came upon an empty, dingy space the size of a large living room and my mind went wild: "yes, YES ! here ! this is where we'll put the tables and chairs. this is where we'll put the stage. i'll make coffee. we'll drink whiskey. we'll chain-smoke. fuck this is going to be AMAZING." i even (and this part i'm embarrassed to admit) started donning my hip russian sailor shirt and hep fifties beret when cleaning out the space (oh yes, with awl and broom and vacuum, it took days, and my papers and grades suffered most likely). i was so convinced i would create bohemia for my campus. the only problem was, i had no friends and no idea what to do next, after i'd cleaned it. so i got distracted by the likelihood that it would be an abortion-like, unromantic cesspool of unsuccessful beer-drinking and uninspired chain-smoking, much like the parties we were having weekly on the top floor, where even things as hip and hep and shooting heroin didn't have any substance, everyone was just so blase, bored and over it all. i moved on to other things.

The blog can be found at http://www.dresdendollsdiary.blogspot.com

OMFG: WESWIKI WARS!

Wesleying has covered the school's attempts at providing student, faculty, and administrative Wikis in the past, but this time it's some industrious Wes students starting them up on their own.

For the unhip and uninformed, Wikis are websites allowing users to collectively add and edit their content. The scope of Wikis can be as small as a group editing a paper, to an entire encyclopedia.

Darwin, co-creator of WesConfess, recently announced the creation of WesWiki. Then, the same day, we received confirmation that WesWiki had been finished. Wait... two WesWikis?

Bear with me.

WesConfess' WesWiki

WesConfess' WesWiki, set up by its semi-anonymous co-founder Darwin, is currently a bare-bones Wikipedia-looking wiki with little in terms of content or organization. It runs MediaWiki, the same open-source software Wikipedia uses to allow users to both intelligently edit text and upload informative pictures. It allows anonymous editing, though IP addresses are published with anonymous posts (which when plugged into a dorm connection, leads to your full name).

WesConfess' WesWiki gets some plus points for allowing anonymous editing, mostly because it allows people to pull epic moves like this:
Then again, it's still possible to see what IP edits are made from.Who's that? Remember how to resolve IPs...
I changed the problem for a friend. I swear.

The Good: anonymous editing, uses a very open license so other Wikis can use the stuff you post, and the Wesleyan webmail admin is lovin' it.
The Bad: no organization yet, no sexy design, little content (but has great list of Windows shares)

WesWiki dot com

Vernon Thommeret '10 created WesWiki.com in hopes of building a community site that "answers people's questions." By using the wiki, "people should be able to [for example,] find out which house they want to live in." The site's organization is top billin, and complements the sexy design well.

The site is split up into two sections, Wesleyan, and Middletown. Vernon wants the wiki to include "anything that would be useful to a Wesleyan student. That's why half of it is about the campus and the other is about Middletown."

Underneath the Middletown section, one can find restaurant reviews and info and hours for retail stores. Imagining finding PIP Printing's hours without having to #@$@ing call them up excites me so.

The site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. The No-Derivative Works part means someone can re-publish what you submit, but not change it in any way. That means, unlike Wikipedia, WesWiki.com can't be branched off into a new Wiki by a competitor. For example, WesConfess' WesWiki can put WesWiki.com's information on their site, but can't allow it to be edited. According to Vernon:

"I chose "no derivative works" because I felt that people's personal work shouldn't be changed in a medium outside of WesWiki. [...] if a real use comes up, I'm always willing to leave it up to discussion."

Editing the wiki requires account creation, but after a quick email confirmation, you can begin editing articles and uploading images.

The site seemed great, until I noticed the site's recipe for potential disaster. Underneath the Wesleyan section, in all of its glory:
Oh.. my.. science.
I still can't decide whether pages on students and faculty will be the best thing ever created or a devil-sent abomination, but either way, it lets pages like this one exist:The Good: Nice design, great layout, and already has a bunch of articles
The Bad: Uses slightly closed copyright scheme, site loads a bit slow
The Ugly.

</longestWesleyingArticleEver>

Special Collections Blog

Valerie Gillispie, one of Wesleyan's Archivists, just notified us that Olin now has a Special Collections and Archives Blog! If you're interested in old photographs or Wesleyan's history, be sure to check back as they add more stuff!

Campus Tour Cheat Sheet

Presenting: Everything you will ever learn on a campus tour.

This will be on the exam.

Related:

The Wesleyan Website: Through the Ages

Ever wonder what Wesleyan's website used to look like...ten years ago? Ok, I did. Shut up.

Wesleyan's Website:

• 1997
• 1998
• 2002

Blast From the Past: EastCo 1989

EastCo 1989

Not too much has changed since 1989, huh?

Making fun of the past is funny!

You don't even have to go to the Olin archives to find mind-blowing Argus articles. Check out this one on cell phones from a mere six years ago...Here's an excerpt:

In a constantly changing world full of newfangled inventions like "computers" and "CD players" another recent technological advancement is becoming quite universal. This handy pocket-sized gizmo is known as the cellular phone.

Wesleyan students have many varied viewpoints on carrying cellular phones. Some own cell phones because the rates are cheaper than ACUS service charges, while others seem to use them simply because they are popular.

Many disgruntled students expressed their annoyance with peers who walk around campus talking on their cell phones.

"I came to Wesleyan to get away from preppy cell phone-toting fools," said Dylan Brown '04.

Erin Larkin '03 was also dismayed about cell phone usage around campus.

"Its kind of excessive walking around campus talking on a cell phone when there's a blue-light phone in visible distance," Larkin said.

Some students were just amused by the whole spectacle and figured that Wesleyan was the last place where cell phones would show up.

"I think it's really funny to see Wesleyan hippies walking around on their cell phones like be-boop-be-bop-boop," said sophomore Anna Sobel. "I'm like what are you doing? You like grass."

Historic Middletown

Wesleyan's website proudly claims as Wesfact #1 that "In the mid-1800's, High Street--which runs through the center of the Wesleyan campus and borders College Row--was called "the most beautiful street in America" by literary legend, Charles Dickens." Here's a postcard showing what it looked like around that time (though I believe this picture is from the 1900s...? That's Eclectic on the right, and it wasn't built until 1907):


I feel like Dickens was having a Ben Franklin-esque "Let's name the turkey the national bird!" moment.

And just for the sake of completeness, here's Main Street:

More secrets

To those of you who took the 2002 US History AP test--Here's a familiar DBQ for you:

Document H

Source: Orestes A. Brownson, An address before the Society of the Mystical Seven at Wesleyan College, August 7, 1844.

I propose . . . to bestow . . . my remarks, my attention on several species of the genus QUACK REFORMERS . . . . The effort to cut loose from the past, and to create an entirely new social and industrial order . . . is the species of quackery practiced by our professed social reformers . . . . These systems of reform disown the past, condemn what has been, and propose the creation of an entirely new social order. . . . It is to no man’s credit that he disowns what has gone before him. . . . But what is this past which we in our folly condemn? It is that which has made us what we are. It is our mother. . . . Alas! He is a bad son who curses his own mother, and no good can come of him.

Wesleyan College? Boo, AP board!

(P.S. I've been asked why I focus more on the Mystical Seven and not the Skull & Serpent. This is because there's just more information out there on the m7. That and if you google "Skull and Serpent" you get more Harry Potter fanfiction than I'm willing to deal with.)

Fire at North College

Here's a really interesting old postcard showing the ruins of North College after a fire broke out on March 1, 1906. The fire was supposedly started accidentally by the Mystical 7, who met in the attic in those days. From The Mystical 7: A History:

Many of the Mystic Records were destroyed in the fire as well as the possessions of many students who were living in the North College Dorms, although fortunately nobody was killed. Within a few years of the fire enough money was raised by the newly formed Mystic Alumni association to begin construction of a new Mystic Templum.

You can buy this postcard here.

Advertising Wesleyan University

The glossy admissions booklets have come a long way from the pamphlets of yesteryear. Here's one from the early 1900s. Image from The American Minerva.

A computer in every dormitory?!

Another gem from the NYTimes Archives describes the heated debate for Wesleyan's administration to embrace computers back in 1983. Here are my favorite quotes:

- A computer in every dormitory room?

- "That day may well be coming, but I'm not one to make predictions," said Nathanael Greene, Wesleyan's vice president for academic affairs.

- "If you take a look at what the larger and more technologically oriented universities are doing, it is pretty clear that a personal computer system is necesssary," said David Todd, who directs Wesleyan's Computer Center. "In 20 years this sort of thing will be common. Every college will do it."

- "I do expect to see a lot of students coming in here with microcomputers," said Kevin Compton, an asst. professor of mathematics at Wesleyan. "If the price comes down, I think you will see college students buying microcomputers like they used to buy typewriters."

- "Computers do have a certain potential and I am going to learn about them, but there is a cocmputer mentality that is getting taken too seriously here," said Leslie Brokaw, a junior. "Sitting at a terminal punchin buttons is dehumanizing. It's the complete other end of the spectrum from human contact. There are already too many people at Wesleyan who spend more time with computers than with their friends."

- Vice President Greene defends Wesleyan's decision to invest heavily in the rapidly changing world of computer science. "We are placing a wager on what is central to this institution," he said. "And I think computer science is central to a liberal arts education. It is marvelous and exciting."

by Randy Siegel. New York Times, July 24 1983.

Wesleyan Sings Vulgar Songs with "Gusto!"

This is an actual news article from The New York Times dated from October 18, 1908:

Wesleyan Songs Censored
Students Will Not Sing Vulgar Ones in Public Places

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. Oct 17--The undergraduates at Wesleyan University have voted to prohibit the use of all vulgar songs about the campus or any public place.

Although Wesleyan has furnished in the past a large percentage of ministers and Bishops to the Methodist Episcopal Church, the undergraduates' life has had much the same tone as at all the American Universities. Vulgarity has crept into many of the songs and students have sung these songs with gusto. The class societies have been the prime offenders in this matter. Some of the songs of the Tau Nu Episoln, Kappa Gamma, and Pi Kappa Tau have been particularly objectionable.

For a few years it has been the practice to sing some of these songs on the streets [in the] evenings. The student body has now placed the ban on this, and it is expected that the societies will acquiesce.

Wesleyan Songs Censored. New York Times (1857-Current File): Oct 18, 1908; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2003), pg. C8.