Times They Are A-Changin’: Baby boomers, part 1 of 3

From Brian Spector’s viewpoint, the late 1970s were a real ‘feisty period’ at Syracuse University.

Spector, who in 1978 graduated from the College of Business Administration — now the Martin J. Whitman School of Management — was on campus during the time baby boomers were attending college, from 1964 to 1982.

This month marks the start of a milestone year for baby boomers, who made waves when they spurred campus expansion and led protests during their college years. Starting Jan. 1, the first set of baby boomers hit retirement age and began turning 65.

The atmosphere of the SU campus during the baby boomers’ time was more focused on questioning the government and authority, a change from today.

‘Students took part in the political arena, became involved and questioned what was going on,’ said Spector, who is now the president-elect of the Alumni Association.

During his time here in the 1970s, Spector began to see students becoming more concerned about life after college and moving away from liberal arts studies toward those related to a specific job field, such as information studies.

‘There was a definite trend toward preparing for a career,’ Spector said, ‘and there’s a renewed sense of that now because of the economy because the job market is so tight.’

1970 was a ‘wild ride’ for the university, said Mary O’Brien, the reference archivist.

SU students demonstrated nonviolently with a student strike in May 1970 in response to President Richard Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia. The student strike forced the typical June commencement to be held six weeks early. O’Brien said the colleges and professors had to scramble to come up with a way to grade students who had not even taken final exams.

‘There was a real change in what people expected and what people would put up with,’ O’Brien said. Students called for more power through councils and the student government, she said.

It was also right around this time, O’Brien said, that the professional schools, such as the business school, communications school, and engineering and computer science school, became their own entities.

The library school became the School of Information Studies at this time, as it became necessary to integrate computers, O’Brien said. The dean of the school took measures to use advanced technology.

‘He knew people would be using computers, not paper anymore,’ O’Brien said. ‘He turned out students who were ready to go into libraries that were computerized.’

It was also a changing time for female students, O’Brien said. Before the baby boomers, women had a curfew of 11 p.m. or midnight, but this started to change after World War II, she said. Additionally, women started looking into more science fields, and men started to look into the traditionally female-dominated College of Human Ecology.

Roger Harrison, who graduated with a political science degree from the College of Arts and Sciences in 1965 and returned for his master’s degree in 1968, witnessed the sternness of the administration firsthand.

‘There was strict separation of male and female. There were two times out of the year when women were allowed in the male dormitory. You had to have four on the floor and a crack in the door,’ Harrison said, meaning that two pairs of feet had to be on the floor with the door open.

But the university quickly changed its overall philosophies after the protests leading up to the Vietnam War and adopted a policy that gave students more independence, he said.

‘SU had a very active antiwar movement,’ Harrison said. ‘During that critical period, the alumni were so incensed that the university couldn’t control the students that they changed the rules.’

Other activities changed on campus as time went on. Ira Berkowitz, a 1982 graduate from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the College of Business, said he remembers a greek tradition started by the ever-motivated baby boomer generation called the Muscular Dystrophy Dance Marathon, for which Berkowitz was the programming coordinator. The tradition has been lost over time, as was Berkowitz’s fraternity, Zeta Psi, which disbanded at SU in 2007.

‘University Union was big on campus for concerts and other events,’ Berkowitz said.

The baby boomers’ time on campus was also a period of great expansion for the university in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Berkowitz could see the Carrier Dome being built from his residence hall window when he lived in Sadler Hall during the second semester of his freshman year.

DellPlain Hall became the first coed dormitory in the fall of 1971. In the late ‘60s, the Brewster/Boland/Brockway Complex was constructed in time for the influx of students. But Berkowitz said he remembers there was still some difficulty finding housing, and students tripled up in doubles and lived in study lounges.

Almost three decades later, Berkowitz’s daughter, Alexandra, remembers similar problems with crowding on campus as an SU freshman. The Berkowitz family has deep ties to SU: Ira’s wife graduated in 1983, and their two children are currently enrolled at the university.

Alexandra, now a senior television, radio and film major, said she is literally walking in her parent’s footsteps.

‘Living where they’ve lived, learning what they’ve learned, partying where they’ve partied, eating the same Varsity wings they ate and feeling completely at home,’ she said. ‘Because I am.’

bquaglia@syr.edu

Published on January 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm