Illinois State students on the Quad for the first-year 9/11 anniversary on September 11, 2002. (Vidette file)
Every week, we use STATEside to take a look back at the recent and not-so recent past, using the archives at the Vidette.
If you recall any of the campus happenings referenced in our This Week in Illinois State History feature, feel free to post in the Comments below.
Previous weeks: August 22 | August 27 | September 4
10 YEARS AGO
The Illinois State Quad goes silent to mark the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, as nearly 6,000 students, faculty and staff listen to speakers, including Normal Fire Lt. John Grussing. Grussing was sent to New York City three months after 9/11 to help firefighters from across the U.S. Illinois State President Vic Boschini canceled classes from noon to 1 p.m. for the Quad first-year anniversary event. The campus Interdenominational Youth Choir performed twice. “It’s not like anyone is ever going to forget, but it’s a really good thing to have a memory going so we’ll never forget the people who care,” said freshman elementary education major Megan Thome, whose uncle was scheduled to be at the World Trade Center on 9/11 but was luckily running late.
20 YEARS AGO
Election season is in full swing on the Illinois State campus. Students, including Vidette reporter Jill Hartzold, make the trek down Interstate 74 to University of Illinois to see Hillary Rodham Clinton speak on that campus. She’s touting her husband, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, for the presidency. Comedian Richard Lewis introduces Hillary at University of Illinois, stressing the importance of the youth vote in the 1992 election. “The vision asks something from all of us,” Hillary told students. “It says we need a new economic system that puts an end to the trickle-down system that has failed us for the past 12 years.” Sound familiar?
30 YEARS AGO
About 75 percent of Dunn-Barton residents have circulated a petition asking for looser enforcement of “quiet hour” regulations in their hall. That petition will be presented at tonight’s residence hall government meeting. Hall President Tim Shea says the “quiet hour” idea was misrepresented to students who signed up to live there. He said that rules being enforced are turning residence hall advisers into “babysitters and cops.” The “quiet hour” decision was made last year (in 1981), making all of Central Campus “quiet lifestyle,” after Dunn-Barton was made coed, Walker Hall was turned into an honors and international student space, and the Fell cafeteria was closed.
50 YEARS AGO
The headline of today’s big story is “Campus Gets Phones,” and Vidette writer Jim Seay has some fun with the write-up: “Down through the ages, man has sought to communicate with his fellow man — and, even more so, with his fellow women, if I may be permitted this incongruous phraseology. Over the summer of 1962, Direct Inward Dialing, or DID, phones were installed. Those who are calling Illinois State Normal University can now dial specific offices or dorm rooms directly, which “eliminates the annoyance of going through a switchboard.” By the start of the fall 1962 semester, 1,800 phones are now in service on campus, mostly in the residence halls. It comes with a cost; a $16 increase in annual room rent helps offset the project’s $15,000 budget, some of that the 4,350 man-hours of phone installation labor.
Ryan Denham can be reached at rmdenha@ilstu.edu.
30 years! How could that be? I think we lost that battle if memory serves me.