Text by Bob Young. Title Banner and Photo Print Reproductions by Brenda Gray 

If a time machine could transport today’s QU students back 40 years to the beginning of the 1977 – 78 academic year they would find themselves visiting an institute of higher learning that at times would seem oddly familiar and yet significantly different from the university that they are now attending. In 1977 Quinnipiac was still a “College,” and the establishment and building of the York Hill and North Haven campuses still lay decades in the future. The student body was made up of only 2,500 full full-time students, with 1,200 students living on the Mount Carmel Campus. Only seven dormitories existed in 1977, and they were situated on what was then called Dorm Road, later to be rechristened Bobcat Way. The official drinking age at the time was 18, and the building that today is known as the Bobcat Den was the Quinnipiac Ratskeller.

One thing that today’s students would immediately recognize and relate to as something they have in common with the students of the 1970s is the annual experience of moving back to campus at the beginning of the fall semester. In 2015, a collection of photographic negatives were found in the university archives that document students moving into the dorms at the beginning of the fall 1977 semester. The negatives were digitized as positive Images, and a selection of the most interesting ones were printed for this exhibit.

The photos reveal the late ‘70s fashions and hairstyles of the students and their parents, as well as the variety of vehicles used to transport students to campus. Moving clothing and other dorm essentials required packing of course, and one sees an assortment of suitcases, trunks, boxes, and bags. Conspicuously absent is rolling luggage, which would not become popular until the early 1990s. Also, while there does appear to be a group of QU students assisting at check-in tables, the coordinated move-in crews that greet and assist students and their families today are also missing. A number of photos show parents congregating in the Ratskeller where they were treated to coffee and donuts.

According to the first fall 1977 issue of the student newspaper, The Chronicle, the move-in period went smoothly. Interestingly, the issue also included a detailed article about the new orientation program for freshman students. This was the first formal freshman orientation at Quinnipiac, and it coincided with the move-in-period. The creation of the program had been spearheaded by a number of students who had been freshman the previous year. They had felt that their introduction to Quinnipiac had been inadequate, and they lobbied the administration to create an orientation experience similar to what other schools were doing.