Arnold Bernhard Library Special Collections Blog

Click to see the Virtual Native American Heritage Month Exhibition

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August 30 - October 6, 2017

Link: Guide to Activities at the Netter and Arnold Bernhard Libraries

This fall the Netter Health Sciences Library and the Arnold Bernhard Library are hosting the National Library of Medicine’s traveling exhibit “Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine.” This exhibit draws on works by 15th and 16th century thinkers to explore science and medicine through the lens of Harry Potter. It connects the fantasy and magic depicted in the Harry Potter series to the Renaissance traditions of alchemy, astrology and natural philosophy. The exhibit consists of rare manuscripts, printed works and images reproduced from the National Library of Medicine’s collection.

The Netter library will host the exhibit for three weeks from August 30 through September 17, and sponsor a series of lectures and related exhibits. The exhibit will then travel to the Arnold Bernhard Library where it will be available for three weeks from September 18 through October 6. An opening will be held on September 20 with gifts and refreshments, and David Valone, professor of history, will give a lecture tilted “More to Magic Than Waving Your Wand: Harry Potter and the Magical and Medical Traditions of Renaissance Hermeticism” on October 3. The Student Programing Board will also be sponsoring a showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on September 27. 

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. 

The photographs on display in this exhibition provide a glimpse of campus life at The Junior College of Commerce, the educational institution that would eventually become Quinnipiac University.

Established in 1929 by Judge Philip Troup, educators Samuel and Irmagarde Tator, and 11 prospective students as The Connecticut College of Commerce, the school initially enrolled 200 commuter students from the greater New Haven area. Two year degrees were offered in the arts and sciences, pre-law, journalism, business, and the secretarial sciences, and courses were taught in the evening. In 1931, a day division was added. 

The first classes were held at locations on Chapel and Howe Streets in New Haven, but in 1934 the college purchased the Charles S. Mellen Mansion at 389 Whitney Ave, New Haven. Mellen, known as “The last of the railway czars,” had been the president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. The mansion would serve as the main campus until the late 1940s. During the first year of the Whitney Ave campus’s existence the name of the school was changed to The Junior College of Commerce (JCC).

The earliest photographs found in the University Archives date from the JCC years, and include images of academic, social, and sports/recreational life.

In 1951, the name of the JCC was changed to Quinnipiac College, and in 1952 the college took over the administration of Larson College, a school for women that was located at 1450 Whitney Ave in Hamden. Larson offered degrees in several different fields, including allied health, and a number of these degrees were incorporated into the QC curriculum. Quinnipiac eventually relocated to the Larson College campus, and Larson officially merged with Quinnipiac in 1957.

In 1966, Quinnipiac College moved to the current Mount Carmel Campus, and the buildings from the former JCC and Larson campuses were sold.

The Junior College of Commerce Campus at 389 Whitney was eventually acquired by Yale University, and the property is now The Consultation Center, Inc., which provides a variety of mental health counseling services.

Junior College of Commerce, Main Campus Building, 389 Whitney Ave., circa 1930s  

Samuel and Irmagarde Tator, College Founders 

Junior College of Commerce Cafeteria, circa 1940s 

Junior College of Commerce Baseball Team, 1939 

The library is currently hosting an exhibition on Ken Saro-Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa was a renowned writer, social activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He is widely known for his leadership role in MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People), which protested against the actions of the Nigerian military regime and western oil interests. The exhibition includes facsimiles of selected letters to an Irish missionary nun, Sister Majella McCarron, as well as poems and images from the Ken Saro-Wiwa archive housed at Maynooth University library in Kildare, Ireland. Selected works by and about Saro-Wiwa are also on display. These primary and secondary sources tell the story of the small Kingdom of Ogniland located in the oil rich Niger delta. Ogniland lacked basic infrastructure and oil exploration and production left the local environment polluted. Saro-Wiwa organized a massive protest movement that eventually led to his incarceration and execution on November 10, 1995. The exhibition was curated by Helen Fallon, Maynooth University’s deputy university librarian. Fallon and several senior Maynooth librarians visited the University in October via the University’s five-year exchange program with Maynooth. The Ken Saro-Wiwa exhibition will be on display until the end of the 2017 Spring Semester and is free and open to the public. It may be viewed during regular library hours. For more information contact the library circulation desk at 203-582-3713.

“'Visualizing Irish Independence," showcases a fascinating sampling of chromolithographic images from a collection of late 19th century political cartoons that was donated to Ireland's Great Hunger Institute by Gerald Moran, a research fellow at Galway University in Ireland. The cartoons on display illustrate the Irish nationalist movement, what was popularly known as "Home Rule," and several depict historical figures of the day, including Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell and British Prime Minister William Gladstone. Many of the illustrations were drawn by William Mecham (pen name, Tom Merry) and were originally published in Saint Stephen's Review." 

The exhibition is free and open to the public, and will be on display in the Lender Family Special Collection Room until the end of the Spring 2017 semester. Hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 8p.m., Friday, 8am to 5pm, Saturday, 9am to 5pm, Sunday, Noon to 8pm

The exhibits commemorating 9/11 and the Easter Rising in 1916 are entering their final days.  Both will be taken down on Friday, October 7.  Look for a new exhibit focusing on Nigerian human rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa to open soon.