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Homecoming 2011: Widener Spirit is in the Air

September 14, 2011

By Nathalie Carril-King ’12

From Pioneers to Pride, the Widener community is preparing to welcome the festivities of homecoming. From past traditions to revamping new ones, this year is bound to have spirit in the air.  In addition to the traditional broom drill and PMC reunions on campus, Widener students have created unique ways to demonstrate their school spirit.

Marking a new tradition, the freshman class of 2014 was the first to sing the Pride “Fight Song,” which is now the song sung after every football victory as well as during convocation for incoming students. Another tradition established in recent years is the homecoming cart parade. This parade allows students to express their creative side while displaying what their clubs and organizations mean to them.

This year’s homecoming is Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.   We hope to see you here.  For more information and a list of events, see the schedule here.

Nathalie Carril-King is a senior from New York City majoring in international business and marketing management.

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Looking Back to the Boardwalk Bowl

June 22, 2011

I’ve been busy this week finishing up stories for the fall issue of Widener Magazine that will be due out in October, and thought I’d share one of the photographs that will go with a story about the history of athletics on campus dating back to when baseball started way back in 1866.  Above is a shot of the Boardwalk Bowl in Atlantic City from 1967, Pennsylvania Military College’s last game of that season (click on image to enlarge).

In 1934, PMC played one of the earliest indoor football games on record in Convention Hall in Atlantic City, now known as Boardwalk Hall, the arch-roofed arena famous for being home to Miss America pageants until 2004.   The football team played six more games in Atlantic City in the thirties.

After a hiatus, PMC returned to Atlantic City in 1961 to play the Merchant Marine Academy, more commonly referred to as Kings Point for its location in New York state.  “Beat Kings Point,” became the mantra on campus. PMC played a game annually in Atlantic City until 1970.

After that, there was only one more game in Atlantic City, that in 1973 when Widener beat Fordham 49-20 in the last game of the season.  It also was Billy “White Shoes” Johnson’s final game in a Widener uniform before he went on to stardom in the NFL.

You can see scores of the games online in the Widener Football media guide.  There also are oral histories with PMC alumni talking about the game accessible on the PMC Museum web page.

–Sam Starnes, Editor

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Widener-PMC’s Old Main: Then (1942) and Now

March 10, 2011

In putting together the recent issue of Widener Magazine focusing on Taking the Lead — The Campaign for Widener, I sorted through many aerial campus photos old and new.  Here are similar perspectives on Old Main — the first from October and the second from 1942.  (Click on these images to enlarge them.)

You can look for historic campus shots and other noteworthy items from the past to be posted on this blog near the end of every week.  Let me know in the comments field if there is something from the Widener-PMC past you’d like to see.

–Sam Starnes, Editor

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Widener’s Wolfgram Memorial Library Turns 40

November 10, 2010

Forty years and three days ago on Nov. 7, 1970, the distinctive, white triangle-shaped Wolfgram Memorial Library was dedicated on the Main Campus of Widener University in Chester, Pa.   For more on the story, be sure read the library’s fall newsletter.   (Last month I blogged about the Little Nipper window inside the Wolfgram Library.)  This photograph of the library was taken from a helicopter in early October.

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Leadership at Widener Law in Harrisburg

November 3, 2010
I spent a pleasant and informative day earlier this week at the Widener Law campus in Harrisburg, talking about leadership and sustainability with John Dernbach, a distinguished professor of law and director of the Widener Law Environmental Center.

I chose to interview Dernbach to include him in an article focusing on the university and leadership in an upcoming special issue of Widener Magazine in large part because he directs Sustaining America, the Agenda for a Sustainable America Project.   The project brings together sustainability experts from many disciplines, reviews sustainable development efforts in the U.S., and makes recommendations for future action.  The work led to the 2009 book, Agenda for a Sustainable America, edited by Dernbach.

Dernbach’s influence reaches far and wide in the fields of sustainability and environmental law.  Two of many examples:  He won  a 2010 award for distinguished service  from the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Environmental and Energy Law Section earlier this year, and recently The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin wrote about a speech Dernbach made in New York.  –Sam Starnes, Editor

An office with a view: Dernbach at Widener Law in Harrisburg

 

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A Memento of Recording History on Permanent View at Widener University’s Wolfgram Library

October 26, 2010

The next time you take the front stairwell in Widener’s Wolfgram Library, pause to look straight up over your head.  There you’ll see The Little Nipper Window installed in 1971.   As noted in the entertainment timeline feature in the new Widener Magazine, “The 14-foot window is one of the four original stained-glass windows depicting Nipper, the mascot of the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA) removed in 1967 from the RCA Tower in Camden.” 

There’s more to the story than the magazine could hold.  According to an article on The Gloucester County Times web site, NJ.com, “The window was one of four executed in 1915 by Nicola D’Ascenzo, one of the most important stained-glass artists of his day. His works include the chapel windows at West Point Chapel, St. John the Divine Church in New York and, closer to home, the mosaic frieze on Camden’s Cooper Library — now the Walt Whitman Arts Center.

“All four windows were removed to make way for a more modern logo; one went to the Smithsonian Institution, another to Penn State University and a third to Widener University. The fourth Nipper window, built in nine sections, was packed into three crates and stored in a Cherry Hill warehouse.”

Readers of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Weekend Section on Friday noticed the Little Nipper image gracing a cover story about Camden.  That picture shows a replica of the original windows, now hanging in the refurbished RCA Building 17.  For more on the building renovation, read this excellent story by Hoag Levins on historiccamdencounty.com.

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A Man of Few Demerits: Cecil B. DeMille at PMC

October 21, 2010

The iconic Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille graces the cover of the fall Widener Magazine and is featured in a lead article I wrote.   I very much enjoyed digging through the archives in Widener’s Wolfgram Library, scouring the Pennsylvania Military College records in search of DeMille’s footprints.

One of the most intriguing items I found that we didn’t have room to print is the record of a demerit DeMille earned on Sept. 26, 1896, for missing an assembly.  I searched through all of the books for his time here from 1896-98 and he was rarely cited.   That’s probably why he finished fourth in his class one year.  Below is a scan of the “List of Cadets Undergoing Punishment.”  DeMille’s name is fourth from the top (you can click on the image to enlarge it.)

I started the article with well-known references to DeMille, including the classic line by Gloria Swanson summoning DeMille at the end Sunset Boulevard.   The final three minutes of the movie is on Youtube.com, a clip including her famous words.  If you haven’t seen the Billy Wilder film, it’s an all-time classic I highly recommend.  It also includes a cameo of DeMille playing himself.  — Sam Starnes, Editor

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News That Didn’t Fit: Photos and a Video Clip for Widener Magazine’s Entertainment Timeline

October 18, 2010

The most challenging part of editing Widener Magazine is cutting some of the wonderful material I come across that I don’t have room to fit in print, such as the shots below of the late radio and television actor Burt Mustin, a 1903 alumnus of Pennsylvania Military College.   Mustin’s familiar face appears in the new fall magazine feature “A Timeline of Famous and Influential Faces” — the issue was printed last week and on the way to readers as I write this.

Mustin played on the PMC hockey team — here he is front and center. (Click image to enlarge.)

He also played baseball — here he is on the far right in the second row.

For more Mustin photographs, visit his section in the Wolfgram Memorial Library Digital Collection or check out the Burt Mustin Fan Club page on Facebook.   I also found the clip below of him appearing on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in March 1976, shortly after his 92nd birthday.  He died in 1977, but his estate each year continues to make a donation to the university.

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That’s Entertainment — Fall Magazine Highlights Widener and PMC’s Many Hollywood Connections

October 14, 2010

The fall Widener Magazine has rolled off the presses and is making its way to our readership.  The new issue highlights the many alumni and former students who have made a name for themselves in the world of entertainment.

Standouts span 111 years, stretching all the way back to Cecil B. DeMille, a Pennsylvania Military College cadet from 1896-1898, to 2007 graduate Danny Corey, a rising young filmmaker who works in television.

Please post your comments and letters to the editor here on the Widener Magazine blog.  I hope to hear from you. – Sam Starnes, Editor

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Autumn Moves into Widener on the Maple Trees

September 16, 2010


Every morning I walk down the hall from the University Relations office on the first floor of Old Main to the small room shared by the copy machine and coffee maker.  While my cup of coffee brews, I look out the window at one two maple trees on the edge of the Memorial Field.  This week I noticed the first signs of autumn in the treetop, a tinge of yellow and orange in the otherwise green leaves.  Over the next few weeks the leaves will transform into the brilliant hue you can see in the photo used for the masthead of this blog.  While the campus cherry blossoms of spring are resplendent, I like these two maples and their first hints of fall.  — Sam Starnes, Editor

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