Journey into Richmond’s past to see how much things have changed—and how much they have stayed the same.
For institutional memory, you can’t beat Tom Austin, R’29. When he matriculated 80 years ago, the Richmond College campus featured only a few buildings.
“There was just the one main building (Ryland Hall), and it housed the administration, the library, the professors’ offices and most of the classrooms,” he recalls. “There was also the refectory (dining hall) … the old Millhiser gym and two dorms.”
Austin remembers a little building near the lake that housed a soda fountain and a bookstore. On the hill, where the library is now, stood an old dance hall left over from the days when the campus had been an amusement park. Science was taught in the former dance hall, except for physics, which Dr. Robert A. Loving taught in an old building near the power plant.
“There was a little boathouse on the lake, and I often swam across the lake up to the island at the end. A dam-like bridge connected us to Westhampton.”
At age 97, Austin still has a phenomenal memory for anything related to the University. He recalls paying tuition of $62.50 per year, and he has an English literature textbook marked with its $2.50 price. “It’s still one of my favorite books, and I refer to it often,” he says, breaking into the first stanza of “Lady of the Lake” from memory. “We had to memorize that to pass English.”
Austin remembers President Frederic Boatwright and Dean May Keller. “He was my president, a very serious man, intent and focused. He was not someone to approach with trivialities, and neither was Dean Keller. She was very strict.”
As a well-educated man who has traveled the world, Austin does not expect the University today to resemble the college he knew in the 1920s. “I would hope and expect it to have moved through a number of incarnations over the years,” he says. “Something would be drastically wrong had it not.” But he expects his University to maintain its sense of character, and when he disagrees with changes, he is quick to write letters to the powers that be.
“I think the primary necessity for a great university is great professors,” he concludes, “and it’s even better when they are also great men and women. We had them in my day: Dr. Loving; Dr. Mitchell, who had been president of Brown; Bob Gaines in math, who wore a black robe when he taught; Dr. Ryland in chemistry; Ralph McDanel and Mac Pitt. Was there ever a finer person? I’m sure students at the University today will carry forth such a list … of professors who made a difference in their lives. If you have professors like that, who educate well and change lives in the process, then Richmond will always be the same school at its heart, whatever the visible changes might be.”
Top: Ray Ashworth, R’56, (second from the right) donned a coat and tie on student government election day. Today’s students dress a bit more casually.
From loafers to flip-flops
Students in coats and ties would have attracted little attention on the Richmond College campus in the 1940s and 1950s. “We wore them any day a picture might be taken,” remembers Ray Ashworth, R’56. Students also dressed up for “inductions, football games and fraternity parties.”
The rest of the time, men wore dark pants and V-necked sweaters over white shirts. Ashworth especially remembers those heavy wool pants. “My mother called them Sunday school pants,” he says. “This was before the good wools came out that you could wear comfortably all year.”
Haircuts were very short, especially if you went to the barber in the Slop Shop building. Long hair did not arrive on campus until the late 1960s.
In the late 1950s, women wore round-collared shirts with a circle pin on the collar. “Westhampton ladies” preferred plaid, pleated skirts or pencil-narrow skirts with cardigans (sometimes worn backwards) and Oxfords or loafers. Suits (and for some, hats) were appropriate for football games, and fraternity parties were dress-up occasions, too. Jumpers, vests and monograms were in—as were spit curls facing in from both sides of the forehead.
From the end of the 1950s until the mid-1960s, Richmond College was all Gant shirts with button-down collars, preppy Izod golf shirts, Weejun loafers, Harris tweed sport coats and crew-neck sweaters. There were also madras shorts, but students couldn’t wear those to class. For dress up, it was a very traditional campus: khakis, striped ties and blazers. The only acceptable jewelry was a watch, a fraternity pin or subdued cufflinks.
Blue jeans did not have much impact on campus until the 1970s, when they competed with bell bottoms and mini-skirts for attention. Today, short skirts are back, and belly buttons have emerged—sometimes sporting rings. Guys have a baggier look, most often with shirttails out.
Generic tennis shoes have given way to sport-specific athletic shoes, but flip-flops are the most popular footwear. Students wear them everywhere, with everything, even in the winter.
Top: Dr. Charles Albright, associate professor of physics, helped a student find the composition of a piece of metal in the 1940s. Today, the trend toward discovery-based learning is accelerating.
Evolution of Teaching
Dr. Robert Smart, a former dean and professor of biology, used to say that if you put an ear of corn in his hand, he could teach an entire biology course around it.
Science instruction has changed dramatically since the late Dr. Smart uttered those words 70 years ago. Discovery-based learning has replaced the chalk ’em and talk ’em approach to teaching science, and the equipment has evolved from mechanical to electrical to digital.
“Computers have changed every department here … especially the sciences,” says Jackson Taylor, R’42, who taught physics at Richmond from 1948–86. As a first-year student in 1938, Taylor found “an excellent science complex” of Richmond Hall (physics), Puryear Hall (chemistry) and Maryland Hall (biology). This complex was a major improvement over the old dance hall where science professors lectured in the 1920s.
“We had excellent equipment” in 1938, Taylor says. “And over the years, we kept up very well. I remember when lasers came in, for instance, we were able to buy them quickly. The administrators recognized the importance of the sciences.”
Taylor was among the first to integrate physics lectures and labs. “We gave up the big lecture room approach that Dr. Loving had used in my student days,” he says, “and changed to smaller, individualized lecture presentations so students could actually do lab work in conjunction with the lecture.”
The University has expanded on that concept ever since. “The teaching aspect is still paramount,” he says. “A lot of good research takes place here, but … teaching is still first and foremost. I welcome that non-change. On the other hand, undergraduate research is far more prevalent, and as long as it’s woven into the instructional part of the program, which it seems to be, that’s a good thing.”
Taylor likes the newly expanded and renovated Gottwald Center for the Sciences. “I was impressed with the staff, their attention to teaching and research, and their commitment to the importance of seminars,” Taylor says. “I’d have to give the place an A.”
Above: Ryland Hall library in 1945, Boatwright Memorial Library in 2006
‘Almost a holy place’
When it comes to libraries on campus, Jean Neasmith Dickinson, W’41, wrote the book. “Her Practical Guide to Using the Library,” helped students navigate Boatwright Memorial Library in the 1970s and 1980s.
Dickinson also knows a lot about the old library that served students from 1914 until Boatwright opened in 1954. As a student, she spent countless hours studying and socializing in the old library on the second floor of Ryland Hall.
“That library was almost a holy place … with its cathedral ceiling, casement windows, dark wood and a wonderful huge, high window facing the lake,” Dickinson says. “It was such a spiritual, unique place that the librarian didn’t have to shush you.”
When Dickinson returned to Richmond to teach psychology in 1963, she was delighted to find her office “in the first cubbyhole” of what used to be the library. “I liked it there,” she says. “It’s different from any other space on campus.”
The old library—with 100,000 volumes in 1945—was much smaller than today’s library, which holds more than 475,000 books, 540,000 government documents, 105,000 bound periodicals and 50,000 serial subscriptions. Last summer, to make more room, library workers replaced the stationary stacks with mobile shelving units. The library remains the most popular place to study on campus—often into the wee hours of the morning.
Top: A dorm room in 1959 and a residence hall room today
Life in the ‘Green Mansions’
Dorm life has changed dramatically since the days of the barracks that stood approximately where Jepson Hall is now. They were moved to campus from the Richmond Army Air Base in 1946 to accommodate the large number of war veterans entering Richmond College—“temporary” housing that lasted 28 years.
George Rapp, R’65, lived in the barracks as a first-year student. He laughingly refers to them as “the Green Mansions.” He says the barracks were typical military housing—two-story frame buildings with small rooms and wooden floors.
“Chunks of sheetrock would occasionally fall out onto the floor,” he recalls. The rooms alternated between being too hot or too cold, and Rapp recalls placing a piece of cloth over the vent to keep the soot down.
Replacing the barracks with modern residence halls was a huge improvement, and all dorms are now air-conditioned, but students are not required to keep their rooms as clean and orderly as they did 40 years ago. Most rooms are cluttered with “essential” electronics such as computers, printers, televisions, microwaves, refrigerators and video game consoles.
Thirty-five years ago, students walked to the end of the hall to use a pay phone. Today, most students carry cell phones. Campus pay phones became extinct several years ago. The biggest change, of course, has been men and women living in residence halls on both sides of the lake. Rapp thinks female students would have opposed that change if the barracks were still standing.
Top: Marylou Massie Cumby, W’47, often played the piano while her classmates sang. Today’s students are more likely to keep their songs to themselves.
Musical memories
Ask Marylou Massie Cumby, W’47, for memories of her Westhampton days, and she wonders if enough time has passed to share this story.
When former President Frederic Boatwright died, there was a huge memorial service for him in the chapel, and Cumby was among a group of students waiting to sing. The chapel organ was played—as it had been for many years—by Miss Hannah Coker, who by then was deaf. Miss Coker raised her hands dramatically over the keys and started to play, but there was no sound. It took her a few seconds to notice the absence of vibrations, and then she stopped, turned on the organ and started again.
“By then we singers, being young and silly, were trying hard not to laugh and struggling to sing.”
Singing was a big part of the Westhampton experience in the 1940s. Cumby remembers writing class songs for annual contests and playing the piano as her classmates learned them. There were songs as the students waited for dinner, singalongs and “little ditties” that all the girls knew by heart. Cumby remembers a few record players in the dorms, and students listened to Frank Sinatra and the big band sounds, but most of the music in those days was self-made.
Students don’t sing together much anymore, except in organized groups such as the Octaves, Sirens, Schola Cantorum or University Choir. Today, thanks to tiny MP3 players, students listen to all types of music all over campus all the time, but music has become more of an individual experience than a shared one.
Sixty years ago, Cumby heard a lovely rendition of “Night and Day” coming from behind a closed door. “It was so beautiful that I eased open the door and saw this good-looking man playing the piano.” She went in, met Guy Cumby, R’49, and started a conversation that turned into 50 years of happy marriage.
Music is still a common denominator for today’s students, but the songs and the sounds are as different as, well, night and day.
Top: Frank Stoneburner, R’47, (No. 31) took a backseat to basketball stars like George Gasser Jr., R’50, (No. 27) and Fearless Freddie Gantt, R’46, (No. 22). Today, women’s teams, such as field hockey and swimming, win more championships than the men’s teams.
Richmond’s winning tradition
The Spiders’ giant-killer reputation on the basketball court goes way back beyond the Spiders’ 1988 appearance in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. In 1943, Richmond beat North Carolina, 53–51, at Thomas Jefferson High School.
The Tar Heels returned to the TJ gym the following year to avenge the loss, and the game is still remembered as a classic. The score was tied 45-45 in the final seconds as Carolina worked the ball around the perimeter.
Sophomore Frank Stoneburner, R’47, was surprised to be on the court. He rarely played because Richmond had five outstanding starters, but one of them had fouled out, and now Stoneburner was guarding a Carolina player at the top of the key with the biggest game of the year on the line.
Stoneburner eased off his man for a split second to fill a gap in the defense, and the Carolina guard pulled the trigger.
Swish! The Tar Heels took the lead. They scored again to make it 49-45, but that was no consolation to Stoneburner. “I gave up the game-winning shot,” he says with a grin.
Even so, Stoneburner has fond memories of Spider sports during World War II. “Thanks to the V-12 program, we acquired some excellent athletes from William and Mary, VMI, and Washington and Lee,” he recalls. The Navy’s V-12 program brought hundreds of additional students to Richmond for officer training.
Today, the Spiders continue to win big games. Last year, the football team advanced to the quarterfinals of the Division I-AA playoffs. The men’s basketball team beat Kansas in 2004, and the women’s basketball team earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in 2005. Women’s teams in particular have won numerous conference championships in the past five years—particularly in swimming and field hockey.
Richmond’s winning tradition has endured, but much has changed in Spider sports. Today, women earn nearly as many athletic scholarships as men, and recruiting is nationwide—sometimes worldwide. Athletes are bigger, stronger and faster, and the basketball team no longer plays Union Theological Seminary or McGuire Hospital.
As for Carolina, the Tar Heels have improved somewhat, and they are not likely to give Richmond another rematch in the TJ gym.
Top: Barbara Ramsey Robbins, W’60, (center) on Boatwright hill; football on Westhampton Green
Just for the fun of it
Barbara Ramsey Robbins, W’60, does not remember sliding down Boatwright hill on a serving tray, but she is not surprised that a photographer captured her having fun with classmates.
“Those are my predominant memories of college,” she says. “My freshman year in particular, there was so much going on. … We spent a lot of time in the dorm talking about boys, playing jokes and putting off studying.”
Robbins recalls regular birthday parties in the dorm, and any care package from home was cause for shared celebration. They would place it on a chair with all four chair legs in pans of water to discourage the ants. “But if they got in anyway, we’d just brush them off and eat the goodies. A care package was too precious to waste.”
A slow walk around the lake with a boy “was especially romantic in the fall, with the leaves turning, and the boy would walk you back to your dorm afterward,” Robbins recalls. “These were still the days when there were house mothers waiting for you, and you had to sign in and sign out.”
Today, students come and go as they please. Most of them have cars, so trips to area malls, movies and clubs are routine. On-campus fun has become a bit more organized, with lots of fraternity, sorority and club activities. And, yes, when it snows, students still slide down Boatwright hill.
Top: The Slop Shop in the 1950s; and Tyler’s Grill today.
The food got better
J.C. Phillips, R’64, remembers eating at the Emporium, an on-campus burger joint more commonly known as the Slop Shop.
In 1951, hoping to discourage the Slop Shop moniker, the manager held a contest to come up with a new name. The winner was “Dry Dock,” but the name never caught on. Slop Shop it was until Tyler Haynes Commons opened in 1976 with The Pier, a fast-food restaurant with better food and more elbow room. The Pier is now Tyler’s Grill, but students still call it The Pier.
The food at the Slop Shop was not very good, but it was better than the fare at the refectory, the men’s cafeteria in Sarah Brunet Hall.
“There was a huge discrepancy between menus and meals,” Phillips explains. The menu would promise “braised and savory this” and “pan-seared and succulent that.” Then the entrée would turn out to be mystery meat, and a food fight would ensue.
Across the lake, Westhampton ladies dined family style on white linen tablecloths. They said (or sang) a blessing before each meal. The atmosphere was far more civilized, but the food was every bit as bad.
Phillips thought the refectory food was OK, but he envied the football players, who got steaks, “which the rest of us saw maybe once a year,” he says.
Steak night comes more frequently for students today, and the recently renovated Heilman Center offers everything from grilled pork chops to brick-oven pizzas.
Food fights are a thing of the past.
Let us know what you think about this story. Send e-mail to krhodes@richmond.edu.
To find out what our readers had to say about this story, go to Reader Response.
