.jpg)
When it comes to star power, the lineup for honorary degrees in 1969 may have set the standard. Among the 10 degree recipients were legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite, poet Archibald MacLeish and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who gave the Commencement address.
For many years, Winter Carnival was a mid-winter campus celebration featuring concerts, comedy shows, dances, the crowning of a winter carnival queen and, of course, the construction of elaborate snow sculptures.
Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt gave the main address at the opening convocation in Curry Hicks Cage on Sept. 25, 1952.
Marshall Annex, the home of many Art Department studios in recent years, was demolished Sept. 6 to make room for the new Integrated Sciences Building.
The basketball court was home to Jack Leaman.
Sept. 9, 2005
For some veteran staff and faculty and quite a few alumni, images of the Hurricane Katrina disaster may have triggered faint memories of another water crisis that forced the campus to close and evacuate more than 11,000 students.
Thousands pass by Memorial Hall every day, but many students, faculty and staff are unaware that it was the first college hall in the United States to be built in honor of troops who fell in World War I.
.jpg)
Maurice J. Tobin’s name graces the home of the Psychology Department.
As might be expected at a state university, legislators have long played a role in the shaping of the Amherst campus as an institution of higher learning. The contributions of a number of those lawmakers have been recognized over the years by having buildings named after them.
It was 50 years ago that construction began on Dorm 12, a new four-story, women’s residence hall on North Pleasant Street. Built at a cost of nearly $552,000 by the University of Massachusetts Building Association, the traditional brick structure was topped by a cupola that mirrored the tower on its counterpart across the quad: Lewis House.
As the first president of Massachusetts Agricultural College, Henry Flagg French’s days were usually occupied more with planning the school and political haggling than farming. The New Hampshire-born lawyer and amateur farmer was ill-equipped for the mission of building a land-grant college and resigned after just two years in Amherst.
Over the years, the Amherst campus has used Commencement to bestow honorary degrees on a cavalcade of politicians, entertainers, scholars, musicians, scientists, activists and other well-known figures. But what seems to be part and parcel of graduation today wasn’t always a common practice.
