Adamses take a fresh look at campus history

For most students, campus history begins when they enroll and ends when they leave school, but David L. and Lynne E. Adams hope their new book, “Massachusetts Memories: UMass Amherst History,” will promote a deeper appreciation of the events, people and traditions that have shaped the institution over the past 145 years.

“People on campus don’t know its history,” said Lynne Adams, a retired community college professor. “There’s a loss of tradition at this university that’s actually appalling.”

The Adamses, who graduated in 1967 with degrees in Chemistry, are among those alumni who bridge two eras on campus. They were students when the campus was on the cusp of expansion — enrollment was slowly ratcheting up, but hadn’t yet reached 20,000. The Southwest towers were being built and “there were no concrete buildings,” said Dave. There was still a small school feeling to the place.

“You could drive through campus,” said Dave. “Lincoln Avenue ran all the way to South College and you could park near Goessmann and the Student Union.”

“I miss the Hatch,” said Lynne, recalling the once popular student hangout on the bottom level of the Student Union. Now a lunchtime eatery, the Hatchet & Pipe (later shortened to the Hatch) was the one and only place to gather. “When you said to someone, ‘I’ll see you at two,’ you didn’t even have to say where,” said Dave. “It was understood that it was at the Hatch.”

The couple returned to a very different campus in 1999 after Dave shucked a tenured faculty position at Babson College for a teaching job in the Chemistry Department. For several years after their return, Dave worked on a history of the department and his research inevitably led him to other areas of campus lore.

Two years ago, the Adamses’ longstanding curiosity about their alma mater became a mission.

“I said to Lynne, “Let’s write a book,’” said Dave. “So, we sat down and wrote a table of contents.”

Lynne readily agreed to the idea. “We were students here and now we have the time to uncover these stories. Too much has been lost already.”

She began mining records and materials in Special Collections and University Archives at the Du Bois Library and Dave conducted interviews. What he soon learned is that history can be fluid, depending on who’s relating it.

“A lot of alumni have stories and opinions,” he said. “About 20 percent are wrong.”

Unlike previous works, like Harold Cary’s 1962 chronicle, “The University of Massachusetts: A History of One Hundred Years,” the Adamses’ volume is not chronological, said Dave. Instead, the couple penned a collection of 20 chapters about some of the most notable people, traditions, places and events on campus. There’s also an exhaustive list explaining the names attached to various facilities, memorials and other sites.

“I’ve been here all these years and never noticed all these things,” said Lynne, who crisscrossed the campus and its buildings many times to locate markers and track down other details for the list.

“We tried to verify everything,” said Dave. “We wanted a book that people could go to the bank on.”

Individual chapters trace the history of the Old Chapel, the Distinguished Teaching Award (which Dave won in 2004), campus symbols such as Metawampe and the Minuteman, and changes in Commencement over the years. Notable figures, such as Bernie Dallas ’66, memorialized in two places on campus, and Carl Allen ’14, who was believed to be the oldest alumnus when he died in 2001 at the age of 108, are also profiled.

The Adamses also recount the stories of some bygone buildings as well as various examples of social upheaval on campus, including three notable events from the spring of 1970: the national student strike, the tense confrontations surrounding the creation of New Africa House, and the time when former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was driven from the speakers’ podium in Curry Hicks Cage by protesters who shouted him down.

The writing was mostly done by Dave with Lynne serving as editor. Many of the images that illustrate the 169-page book were culled from Special Collections and University Archives.

The Adamses shopped the work around, but chose Collective Copies to publish the book, which had an initial press run of 500. Along with selling copies at its shops in Florence, Belchertown and Amherst, the publisher is also supplying the work to local bookstores. Their arrangements give them flexibility to make revisions before another printing, said Dave.

All in all, the couple is pleased with the result. “We had a lot of fun,” said Dave. “We both had a blast.”

They had so much fun, in fact, that the couple is plugging away at a second collection. This time around, they plan to write their own chapters so they each can pursue topics that pique their interest.

“If we can get even a few people interested in the campus’ history, then it’s a success,” said Dave.


“Massachusetts Memories” is available in paperback for $18.95 at Collective Copies in Amherst, Belchertown and Florence, Food for Thought Books, Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore and Amherst Books in Amherst, Broadside Books in Northampton and the University Store. Mail orders can be made to Collective Copies, 71 South Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002 (add $3.95 shipping and handling and $0.95 sales tax for mail orders).

June 12, 2008.

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