Since starting as the University Record in 1873, the paper known affectionately as “CT” has never stopped informing, entertaining, opining, and offering its staff a training ground for journalism and life.

A NEW RECORD: What is now the Campus Times began its life in October 1873 as the University Record. The Record featured editorials, news on undergraduates and alumni, poems, jokes, and advertisements.

Alyssa Koh ’24 enjoys poring through old issues of the Campus Times, as well as its predecessors, dating back to 1873. She looks at digitized versions of the oldest papers on the University Archives website and flips through more recent bound copies in the paper’s office in Wilson Commons.

“It’s amazing to see how many different people have contributed to so many different stories over the years,” says the editor-in-chief of the paper students call “CT.” “I’m proud to be a small part of its history.”

This fall marks 150 years of almost continuous student reporting. From the inaugural issue of the University Record, launched as a monthly in October 1873, to the most recent CT, published weekly online, undergraduate journalists have informed and entertained the University community from a student perspective. In the process, they’ve trained themselves for distinguished care.

“T��� Campus Times has been a campus family for many students over the years,” says Anne-Marie Algier, interim dean of students and the paper’s longtime advisor. And because it places big demands on students’ time, “many have gone on to careers in journalism, law, and other fields where the CT laid the foundation for their work ethic.”

“Working on the Campus Times taught me a ton about reporting, writing, and editing, but it also taught me a lot about teamwork, time management, and accountability,” says Rachel Dickler Coker ’96, editor-in-chief in 1994. “It was not easy to make our weekly deadline as full-time students. I felt tremendous satisfaction when I saw a good piece in print under my name.”

A newspaper for students, by students

Twenty-three years after the University opened its doors, eight students established the University Record, the first campus newspaper at the then all-male institution located on Prince Street. The inaugural edition that rolled off hand-cranked presses in the fall of 1873 looked more like a magazine than a newspaper.

“T��� primary objective of this journal is to furnish friends and patrons of the University with reliable information concerning its workings and history,” the editors wrote. “We are confident that it will meet a want long felt by the students.”

The Record featured editorials, news on under-graduates and alumni, poems, jokes, and advertisements. It came with a subscription price: $1 for the year, equivalent to about $25 today.

Forty-five years later, as the Campus, the paper brought news of the Great War home. The June 6, 1918, edition, a special war issue, reported news of the first casualties among the student body.

News from the home front

World War I affected the University deeply and directly, and the Campus provided news of enlistments, promotions, and casualties among members of the community. But the paper was also a cherished source of home front news for students like Alfred Veness, a member of the Class of 1920, who had joined Britain’s Royal Flying Corps in 1917. Veness was in basic training and nearing an assignment to France when he received a copy of the paper. An excerpt from his letter of gratitude was published on January 31, 1918:

I received the last edition of The Campus about a week ago and was very pleased indeed to have it and learn all about the activities in dear old Rochester. . . . It means a lot to have such news when one is away from the University.

A newspaper rivalry

Students in the College for Women—lacking representation in the men’s Campus—launched their own paper, the Cloister Window. Competition between the Campus and the new upstart was fierce. In the 1920s, the Campus published an article declaring that the women were not “welcome” on its Prince Street campus. Annette Gardner Munro, dean of women from 1910 to 1930, responded by canceling her subscription to the Campus and banning it from the women’s enclave on the other side of University Avenue.

In 1932, two years after the College for Men moved to the River Campus, the women, now with the Prince Street Campus to themselves, renamed their paper the Tower Times—a reference to its office location high up in Cutler Union.

MEDIA MANIA: Students at the College for Women created the Cloister Window, which became the Tower Times in 1932. Times staff and their male counterparts at the Campus enjoyed a friendly rivalry—to wit, the Tower Times’s publication of the Crampus on April 1, 1949.

HARD TIMES: Its staff having dwindled to just a few juniors and seniors, CT ran a stark editorial at the close of the 1962 fall semester (right). “We find that increasingly, and for the first time, the most intelligent and able students are not entering extra-curricular activities,” the editors lamented.

The dry spell came a mere seven years following the merger of the Tower Times and the Campus to become the Campus-Times (left). The step coincided with the merger of the colleges into a single coeducational institution on the River Campus in 1955.

Introducing the Campus Times

Although students published five issues of the “Campus-Times” during the brief merger of 1943, the CT, as it’s known today, traces its birth to 1955. That was the year the women moved from Prince Street to join the men on the River Campus. Women continued to play a large role in campus journalism: the last editor of the Tower Times, Sally Miles ’56, became the first editor of the new Campus-Times.

Paper nearly folded

In December 1962, the very existence of the Campus Times (now sans hyphen) was tested when its staff had dwindled to just a few juniors and seniors. The editors published a two-page edition, with the front page a stark, two-column editorial titled “An Announcement.” The paper, published twice weekly, would be reduced from 12 pages to four. The editors decried the state of extracurricular activities on campus, attributing part of the lack of student interest to “the infusion of a few exciting new faculty members.”

A year later, the paper continued to struggle, according to Christian Yves Wyser-Pratte ’65, elected editor-in-chief in December 1963. “I inherited a dying rag,” he recalls. The paper, which received funds from student government, was back to eight pages but over budget, and the federal government had banned cigarette ads—which Wyser-Pratte says was the paper’s largest source of revenue—in college and university settings. He asked a Simon Business School professor to give him the name of the best business student, whom he could recruit as a business manager. Richard Hall ’66 took the role—a big part of a turnaround, Wyser-Pratte recalls. “I had a great team to work with,” he says, citing Hall, managing editors Cliff Fishman ’66 and Joyce Inglis ’65, and Marjorie (Mac) McDiarmid ’67, who became CT’s next editor-in-chief.

Telling it like it is

By the late 1960s, with war protests common across college campuses, many student newspapers were printing the speeches of visiting activists verbatim—obscenities included. The Campus Times was among them. Laura Drager ’70 was editor-in-chief when Black Panthers leader Eldridge Cleaver spoke at Strong Auditorium in 1968. The CT quoted him word for word, including language that offended some members of the local community.

“Most of the students heard Cleaver’s talk,” Drager told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “T���y’d think we were misrepresenting the man if we didn’t use his words in the story.”

Some students felt the Campus Times devoted too much attention to the war and other controversial issues. Drager, who went on to a distinguished legal career, serving on the New York State Supreme Court, recalls the criticism. Some students “started a competing paper that focused on more typical student activities,” she says. “But I don’t regret the choices we made for the Campus Times.”

On-the-job training

In 1973, the Campus Times marked 100 years of student journalism at Rochester by becoming a daily. Staff often worked through the night several times a week. “My attendance in class became increasingly spotty,” Marc Rosenwasser ’74, editor-in-chief that year, told Review in 2013. “At one point, my father asked me what exactly he was paying for.”

Rosenwasser went on to serve as Moscow correspondent for the Associated Press and as a television producer the CBS Evening News, NBC’s Date-line, and PBS NewsHour Weekend.

Coker says being on staff presented “incredible opportunities” for student journalists. “I interviewed Elie Weisel and Kurt Vonnegut and had a standing weekly meeting with the University president,” adds Coker, who went on to a long career in journalism and is now director of research advancement at Binghamton University.

ROOM 102: “T��� Weekly Miracle of Room 102” is what Review called CT in 1988. Staff in that year (left), in 1997 (right), and in nearly every other year since the late 1970s have made the first floor of Wilson Commons a hive of activity.

FEATURED: Managing editor Dwayne Samuels ’93 (left) and syndications editor Louise Aibel Litt ’94 pause during production to pose for photo editor Allegra Boverman ’96. CT pages were spread across the office walls to make them easy to refer to. Samuels and Litt occupied the “features section” of the office in this image from 1993.

CT’s “Honorary Uncle”

When the staff worked through the night to put out a Thursday morning paper, Ray MacConnell, the University’s graphic arts manager, supplied the staff with dozens of homemade chocolate chip cookies. And when someone from the suburban shop where the paper was printed failed to show on a Thursday, it was MacConnell who drove the pages to the printer.

“Ray was an incredibly special person,” Coker says of MacConnell, who worked at the University for 30 years and died in 2019. “He never had kids of his own, but he was an important friend and mentor to decades of Campus Times editors. He was an honorary uncle to all of us.”

CT today

In 2018 the Campus Times went mostly digital. A print paper—about 2,000 copies—is still published once a month. The staff of about 25 is headed by editor-in-chief Alyssa Koh ’24 and publisher Sarah Woodams ’24 (T5).

The Wilson Commons office is quieter than in eras past. Sundays are busy, with staffers com-ing in to edit stories, but editors also can work remotely on their own laptops. Much activity takes place on social media. Today’s Campus Times has a social media editor, Alice Guzi ’26, who manages CT accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and X (for-merly Twitter) along with Karis Kelly ’27 and Jane  Oliver ’25.

Woodams, a double major in environmental studies and studio art, is thinking of working in social media. At the Campus Times, she says, “I’ve learned how to manage people and the importance of deadlines in the business world,” she says.

Koh, who is studying English and linguistics, is considering a career in journalism. And though she will leave the Campus Times when she graduates, Koh says the Campus Times will never leave her.

“A student newspaper is where people in the campus community can become aware of import-ant goings-on outside their standard scope, and that makes it crucial that it’s run by and for the students,” she says. “To get a view of the University that the University wants you to see, take a campus tour. To really understand what’s happening on campus—to me, that’s the point of the Campus Times.”

21ST-CENTURY EDITION: Editor-in-chief Koh and publisher Woodams lead a staff of about 25 that includes three members devoted to maintaining CT social media accounts. Student journalism, Koh says, helps students “really understand what’s happening on campus.”

Are reports of the marching band’s last hurrah greatly exaggerated?

STANDING OVATION: Tracing its origins to the early 20th century, by the mid-1980s, the University’s marching band moved from on-field performances at football games to a pep band that performed from the stands of Fauver Stadium, a tradition that continues today.

I was both surprised and very pleased to see the photo of Yellowjacket marching band members in the Fall 2022 issue of Rochester Review and both interested and sad to learn of the probable year of the band’s demise. I had been wondering for decades about when the band stopped functioning. Can you tell me why the band was discontinued?

—Harrington (Kit) Crissey Jr. ’66

Letters from alumni of the 1970s to Review also dispute the end date of the marching band proposed in the Fall 2022 issue, echoing a 1974 Campus Times letter from Michael Horowitz ’77: “Perhaps few people realize it, but the UR Marching Band is alive and well.” And so it would be—for about another decade.

The end of the band can probably be attributed to several factors, including competition from other activities and funding. Considered a student group providing a service to the University, the band could not receive Students’ Association funding and relied on an academic department—or in this case, two departments: music and athletics. In the September 20, 1982, Campus-Times, Sharmila Mathur ’85 reported that athletics became the band’s sole sponsor in spring 1981 but lacked a budget line to support it. With practice time in Fauver Stadium scarce, there was less stepping on the field and more pepping in the stands, and the baton was passed to the Varsity Pep Band, which continued to “create spirit in the fans by displaying spirit” as noted in the 1985 Interpres.

The origins of the University’s marching band—or perhaps the marching University Band—are no clearer than its coda.

In the Winter 1984 issue of Review, Frederick Fennell ’37E ’39E (MM), ’88 (Honorary) recounted his role in starting the band. “It was on a September afternoon just fifty years ago last fall when I, a pea-green Eastman School freshman . . . hiked over to the new River Campus to found the Ģ����ý Marching Band.”

While hesitating to suggest Fennell was beating his own drum, there is considerable evidence that an organization known as the University Band, which performed and marched at football games, predated his Rochester arrival by some 25 years.

“Our University band should be the rallying point for our improved cheering and for the rendering of our really good college songs,” announced the November 18, 1908, Campus newspaper. In the years that follow, information about the band appears sporadically; each successive article announces a new band almost as though there had been no previous group.

Thus the October 1926 issue of Rochester Review trumpeted the news to alumni: “A praiseworthy addition to student life is a new University band, which made its initial appearance of the season at the Clarkson game, strikingly garbed in yellow jersies (sic), blue sailor trousers, and blue toques with yellow tassels . . . The band was organized by [Eastman School of Music professor] Sherman A. Clute . . . with the co-operation of Matthew D. Lawless, ’09 . . . and Eugene Loewenthal, ’28, student manager.”

The next Review issue pointed out that “quite aside from the rendition of music . . . [the band] is providing a definite tie-up between the college and the Eastman School of Music. Only about one-third of the band members are students of the college; the remaining two-thirds are from the School of Music.”

Home games were played at University Field, in the area where East High School is currently located—bounded by Culver Road, East Main Street, Ohio Street, and Atlantic Avenue. When the River Campus opened in the fall of 1930, the band, directed by Theodore Fitch, Class of 1922, joined the football team in the new Varsity Stadium. (The stadium was named for Edwin Fauver in 1951 and is now part of the Brian F. Prince Athletic Complex.)

Fennell took over the marching band in early 1934, and by all accounts (not just his own), the ensemble was a rousing success even after he passed on the baton about a decade later. In the off-season, he converted the group into a true University Band. Fennell directed its first concert in Strong Auditorium, won Eastman director Howard Hanson’s approval, and embarked on one of the University’s most illustrious careers.

Fennell’s reminiscence may resonate with that of other marching band alumni: “Whatever has happened to me in the fifty years since then, no matter where, when, or with whom, all dates from that beautiful early-autumn afternoon with my own first group. And I don’t intend, ever, to forget it.”

Ask the Archivist features a question for Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian.

Has anyone photographed ‘The History of . . .’?

When I was a student, and each time I return to Rochester, I find Professor [John] Slater’s inscriptions on the front of the library (“HERE IS THE HISTORY OF HUMAN IGNORANCE,” “HERE IS THE HISTORY OF MAN’S HUNGER FOR TRUTH”) particularly moving.

I am searching for matching photographs—taken at the same time, from the same angle, with the same lighting, etc. When I was an undergraduate, I spent an afternoon in the library looking at historical photos and other documents from when the River Campus was first constructed. At that time, I was able to browse a set of black-and-white prints taken by Ansel Adams. But it’s been 40-plus years (!) since then, so I don’t remember whether the photos I am looking for were among those prints.

 —John Womer ’82

In 1998, then University photographer Joe Gawlowicz took the pair of photos shown here: these seem to be the only deliberately created pair in the Archives.

Ansel Adams visited campus in 1952 and created a portfolio of photographs to use in a capital campaign to fund the merging of the Colleges for Women and Men. Adams’s photographs only include one of the inscriptions (“human ignorance”). The 1977 cover of Professor Arthur May’s A History of the URochester, 1850–1962 features a dramatic photograph of the other (“hunger for truth”).

As you note, the texts were composed by Professor John Rothwell Slater. Hired in 1905 as assistant professor of English, he chaired that department from 1908 until his retirement in 1942. The October 1930 River Campus dedication issue of Rochester Review noted: “Professor John R. Slater . . . has virtually carved his personality on the front of the Rush Rhees Library for the inspiration of future generations, as well as the present.” His original compositions, or choice of quotations, also grace the library’s doors and Messinger Periodical Reading Room and the Meridian marker in the center of the Eastman Quadrangle.

Correspondence in the Archives between Slater and the University’s president Rush Rhees shows that formulating the inscriptions began in 1929. “T���re are plenty of familiar quotations about books, but they are all hackneyed by frequent repetition. Certainly, I would not quote Bacon’s recipes for readings. . . .” A deeply religious man, Slater also looked to the Bible: “T��� pessimistic dicta of [Ecclesiastes] come as near the goal as anything, but not for the young.”

One draft shows three pairs of suggested texts—glimmers of the final version alongside Milton and Emerson—to which Slater has added a note: “T���re is first the literature of knowledge and secondly the literature of power. The function of the first is to teach; the function of the second is to move.”

John Lorenz, deputy librarian of Congress, spoke at the 1970 dedication of the addition to Rush Rhees Library. As a teenager, he accompanied his parents on a 1930s road trip across New York state:

“I don’t recall how we happened to stop at the URochester campus. I was already an inveterate reader so one of the buildings we visited was the [Library]. . . . What really made a great and lasting impact on me were the two inscriptions on either side of the entrance, an impact which led me to take paper and pencil right then and there and copy [them]. I have seen many inscriptions since that day, but I have never again been impressed to the point of copying another one down . . . and this yellowing piece of paper has been in my files ever since. Looking back, I’m inclined to believe that if there was any single influence whichstarted me toward thinking of being a librarian, it was the impact and the meaning of these inscriptions.”

In submitting the final texts to Rhees, Slater reported on a meeting at which he and other faculty considered every element of the inscriptions: weighing the meaning, effect, and word count. “One member of the faculty doubted whether ‘ages yet to come’ are likely to be ‘wiser.’ Dean [Arthur] Gale said of this criticism, ‘If they are not wiser, God help them!’ And to this I add, Amen.”

Ask the Archivist features a question for Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian.

What’s for lunch?

An alumni letter in the recent Campus Times tribute to the late Miguel Rodriguez ’96 mentioned a Rochester dish from the ’90s called a “Squealy Gobbler.” Have you ever heard of that? Was it the Mel Burger of the Clinton era?

—Daniel Gorman Jr. ’14, ’23 (PhD)

Rare is the generation of college students that recalls, and admits to, a beloved dining services offering. Rarer still is the favorite with staying power beyond the waistline. The Mel Burger, with its ever-better secret sauce, has been on the menu since 2005. By contrast, the Squealy Gobbler was available in the Wilson Commons Pit only for a few years in the mid-to-late-1990s. Its ingredients and preparation were a University Archives mystery that only alumni from that era could solve. A Facebook query posted by Alumni Relations sparked a sizzling online conversation, with the sandwich described by Peter Schenck ’96 as “Turkey, ham, cheddar on the grill, then onto a sub roll with BBQ sauce . . . Squealy (ham) Gobbler (turkey) . . .”

The University Archives has a jar of Mel Sauce preserved for the ages, but always welcomes memories of favorite dishes, staff, and dining companions.

My great-great-great grandfather started Verdin Bell in 1842, but there was only one early American bell foundry that ever learned how to cast a true carillon bell, Meneely & Company of Watervliet, New York, founded in 1826. Meneely cast their first chime of bells in 1854, and in 1930, cast 17 bells for the Ģ����ý in Rush Rhees Library. Can you tell me what happened to the original bells, which were replaced by a carillon in 1973? The original chime was unique because it was so large.

—Tim Verdin, president, Verdin Bell Company, Cincinnati, Ohio

A.W. Hopeman and Sons were the general contractors for many of the University’s buildings, including the Eastman School of Music and Eastman Theatre, and the original River Campus buildings. The Hopeman Family gave the chime of 17 Meneely bells as the literal crowning touch on the library tower. The bells were heard weekly for many years, played by Professor John Rothwell Slater and Robert Metzdorf ’33, ’39 (PhD), among others.

To expand the musical range of the instrument, two additional bells were purchased from Petit and Fritsen in 1956. In 1973, plans were made to replace the chime with a full carillon, and a contract was signed with the bell foundry Eijsbouts of Asten, the Netherlands.

The weight of the new carillon of 50 bells was 6,668 pounds, much less than the original set. What to do with almost 18.5 tons of old bell-metal? According to correspondence between the University’s assistant treasurer, Bruce Wolfanger, and the Eijsbouts staff, the component metal of the bells had greater value in Europe than in the United States even after shipping. Eijsbouts kept the 11 largest bells, and gave the University a discount on the cost of the carillon. The very largest bells, including a low B-flat weighing 7,800 pounds and 72 inches in diameter, were too big to remove from the tower without cracking them into pieces.

But the smaller bells still had life in them—and sentimental value. Also in 1973, Christ Church in Rochester was looking to replace its bells, and it appears that arrangements were made for the church to receive six smaller bells at the cheaper, United States cost of the metal.

Albert A. Hopeman Jr., grandson of Arendt W. Hopeman, in whose honor the original chime was donated, requested and received the smallest of the original bells, which at 24 inches in diameter weighed 300 pounds. Retained for the Archives was the small keyboard used to play the chime, which was joined in 2017 by a selection of smaller clappers from the carillon that were replaced during a 2016 renovation.

Ask the Archivist features a question for Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian.

BETTER BELLS: Since the Hopeman Memorial Carillon was installed in the tower of Rush Rhees Library, the iconic musical instrument has been renovated and expanded, including a 1973 project that replaced the original 17-bell chime with a 50-bell carillon.

Photo credit: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation

When Did We Start Connecting with Community Organizations?

Every November, for longer than anyone can remember, the River Campus Libraries has celebrated its very best tradition: providing donations for a Thanksgiving basket for families selected by the Baden Street Settlement. Just before Thanksgiving, a caravan of library volunteers heads to Baden Street and gets to hand the donations directly to each family. It’s a time of much hugging (pre-COVID) and smiling. It’s sad that this is needed in Rochester, but RCL is honored to help, and it is an important part of who we are in Rochester’s community. What can you tell us about the origins of this tradition?—Lois Metcalf, Eileen Daly-Boas, Ashlee Huff, Jeffery Jones, Katie Papas, Diana Golemb, and Jenny Arbelo

Founded in 1901 by Therese Katz and Fannie Adler Garson of Temple B’rith Kodesh, the Social Settlement of Rochester taught the young women of the area “kitchen gardening, sewing, and primary education.” Renamed the Baden Street Settlement in 1922, it has grown to support a wide variety of needs from emergency services to day care to counseling and educational resources.

The libraries’ annual gift was well established by 1988 when it received a plaque for “distinguished volunteer service” from Baden Street. The earliest call-to-action may be this request in the December 1968 University Librarian newsletter:

Christmas is a time of giving—or so we are told. . . Would you like that good feeling that comes when you give—even to a stranger? Then, between Thanksgiving and December 20th, bring . . . clothing for Baden Street Settlement children to the Library office. Let’s make this a significant and meaningful project for the entire Staff Association.

A 1965 issue of the newsletter notes that Interlibrary Loan Office staffer Juanita Paige was president of the Achievement Club, a community group whose mission was to encourage Black teenagers to continue their education after high school. The club met at the settlement house and arranged lectures, including one by then Kodak executive Walter Cooper ’57 (PhD).

In 1889, Unitarian minister William Channing Gannett and his wife, Mary Thorn Lewis Gannett, arrived in Rochester, and established the Boys’ Evening Home. Its focus was on the physical well-being and education of immigrant children, many of them newsboys and bootblacks. Professor Kendrick Shedd, Class of 1889, an ardent supporter of the progressive movement, served as the home’s superintendent beginning in 1900. Articles in the Campus newspaper encouraged students to volunteer as tutors and record their efforts.

More settlement houses followed—the Lewis Street Center (initially named the Association for Practical Housekeeping) in 1907 and the Genesee Settlement House in 1918. And the University’s connections, particularly among students, grew as well. In 1928, the College for Women’s YWCA group requested donations of food or money to provide Thanksgiving baskets for families recommended by the settlement houses. By 1931, 30 women students were volunteering as tutors. Fraternities and sororities also became involved, including Theta Eta, Gamma Phi, Alpha Delta Phi, and Tau Kappa Epsilon.

One of the most vital services of the settlement houses is health care. Among the many Medical Center staff involved were Paul Beaven, Class of 1913, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics emeritus, and Kenneth Woodward ’53M (MD), ’72S (MBA), who was integral to the introduction of health clinics to the houses and, in particular, in efforts to expand Baden Street’s health clinic into the current Jordan Health Center.

The words incised on the pediment of the Eastman Theatre—“for the enrichment of community life”—reflect the close association of the faculty and students of the Eastman School with Rochester’s residents. While a member of George Eastman’s Kilbourn Quartet, future Eastman School Professor Samuel Belov tutored students of the David Hochstein Music School Settlement, founded in 1920.

The University’s involvement with community service organizations continues to this day and occurs year-round with examples too numerous to mention in this space. In a 1958 Campus Times article, Kay Hartman ’59 gives a detailed description of her experience as a volunteer. Although she questions her abilities and effectiveness, she concludes: “Life is beautiful when the group decides to spend the day doing things for others.”

Ask the Archivist features a question for Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian.

My Coach, My Mentor, My Best Friend

LIFE COACH: Boomer’s influence “extends far beyond the pool.” Photo credit: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation

I met Coach Bill Boomer ’63W (EdM) on the pool deck during freshman orientation in the summer of 1977. I lost my best friend when he died in January of this year.

In 1962, the U of R asked Boomer to coach men’s swimming. The University could not have imagined the impact Boomer would have on the sport of swimming and, more importantly, on the lives of so many swimmers and associates throughout his career.

I swam for Boomer for four years and worked as his assistant coach for one more. I witnessed his passion for exploring the science of swimming. He studied the relationship of athlete to water, broke down swimming into its fundamental parts, and developed innovative dry-land and in-pool workouts.

After retiring from Rochester, Boomer went on to work with elite NCAA Division I swim teams, the US Olympic team, and several Olympic teams from nations around the world. His cutting-edge insight into the role that the nervous system plays in movement through water, and its effect on swimming performance, fueled his coaching career.

His Rochester swimmers amassed 118 All-American awards, and he contributed to an untold number of Division I All-America honors and Olympic medals.

Yet the core of Boomer’s legacy as a coach was the true gift of his friendship: his compassion and love, generously shared with people in his life.

His insight, wisdom, and support helped us sort through life’s challenges and share life’s joys.

I knew Bill for 44 years. I helped him and his wife, Sally, build their log cabin on a little piece of paradise in Clifford, Pennsylvania. They helped build my house in Vermont. I got engaged on the dock at their pond, and my kids have grown up with Boomer and Sally as part of our family.

Over the years, swim team reunions became gatherings of Boomer’s extended family. Ever-present at these reunions was the esteem, support, and love that his former swimmers and their families have for each other, for Boomer, and for Sally. Many swimmers say Boomer was like a second father to them.

Boomer’s contributions extend far beyond the pool. He will be remembered because he changed the lives of the people around him, creating networks of connection that still thrive, living on through his example. The people and communities he touched will always feel his presence, his compassion, and his love.

Rochester’s newest affinity group works to support Black alumni and students with mentoring, networking, and supporting programs in equity, diversity and inclusion.

In December, the Ģ����ý’s Black Alumni Net-work will celebrate its first anniversary as an official affinity net-work. Its mission is to unite, engage, and empower Black alumni, students, staff, parents, and friends and to foster and promote an inclusive community where those of the African diaspora know that they belong.

“Having a name for the group is important,” says Ashley Campbell ’09, ’10W (MS), one of the network’s three global co-chairs and director of equity, diversity, and inclusivity integration, education, and programming within the University’s Office of Equity and Inclusion. “We are no longer an unofficial group that’s blended in with one of the multicultural groups,” says Campbell, who holds a PhD in transformational studies. “We are the Black Alumni Network, and it’s meaningful to articulate that.”

Campbell and the other cochairs—University Trustee Emerson Fullwood and Gina Cuyler ’92M (MD), ’95M (Res)—collaboratively lead the network. They work closely with the network’s leadership volunteers across three committees and the Office of Alumni and Constituent Engagement. Together, they create pro-grams designed specifically for the University’s Black community; develop mentoring and career networking opportunities; and encourage philanthropic support of key equity, diversity, and inclusion goals.

Cuyler, a practicing physician and founder of Comprehension Internal Medicine, says that for many Black alumni, the experience at Rochester was not always what it could and should have been.

“We recognize that and are working with each other and with the University to identify ways to improve what and how we do things, celebrate successes, and truly live the values that this

institution and all of us so fervently believe in,” she says. “We are dedicated to supporting each other, advancing professional opportunities, and accelerating change where it is needed, especially around inequities and racism.”

Network members facilitate candid conversations that address social justice issues within the context of the University’s mission. Specifically, the network has played a key role in developing and leading some of the University’s programs centered on equity, diversity, and inclusion, such as the virtual monthly series, REAL—Rochester’s Equity and Access Leadership—Conversations.

One example of how the network has influenced programming for alumni and friends occurred during the summer of 2020 when the University held its first-ever event to honor Juneteenth, the nationally celebrated day that marks the full emancipation of enslaved people in the US. The inaugural event brought more than 100 Black alumni, students, faculty, and staff together at a pivotal time of racial reckoning. The event resulted in a written report, summarizing the attendees’ equity, diversity, and inclusion recommendations that was shared with University leadership to help influence positive change. The program also paved the way for an annual Juneteenth Celebration to take place, with 2021 offering a monthlong suite of programs for support and reflection and to celebrate Black excellence.

The “Keep on Pushin’: Juneteenth and the Evolution of Emancipation” REAL Conversations event held on June 18 kicked off the second annual celebration. President Sarah Mangelsdorf welcomed attendees; Wade Norwood ’85 offered an invocation; Jazmine Saunders ’22E gave a vocal performance; and Scot Brown ’89, an associate professor of African American studies and history at UCLA, presented the keynote address and guided the audience through a tradition of African heritage, the Nguzo Saba.

“Through the Juneteenth programming, we built community and gained healing—all of this solidified a real family feeling among the University’s Black community,” adds Campbell. “This underscored for us that we aren’t alone, that we are all in this together, and that we have much to honor and be proud of. And even though we might not have all gone to college together at the same time, we share a common connection with this University, and we share a common history associated with our Blackness.”

“T��� Black Alumni Network provides such an important re-source to the University,” says Fullwood, a retired senior executive from Xerox and parent of a Rochester medical school graduate. “Those in the network have a long connection with the University—for many, it’s where they started their journey into higher education and it’s where they continue to learn, grow, and have a chance to support students and alumni of color, perhaps in ways that have never existed before. This is a formative time for the network, and I am honored to be a part of it.”

People can get involved in the network through regional professional and social activities and by mentoring students and hosting and attending virtual and in-person (in adherence with the University’s COVID-19 guidelines) programs.

All members of the University community are encouraged to volunteer, mentor, and connect with others on The Meliora Collective and through the University’s Black Alumni Network Facebook page.

Christian Woehr ’73E

When Christian Woehr ’73E was an undergraduate viola student at the Eastman School of Music in the early 1970s, he suspected his heart might beat to a slightly different drum. His girlfriend at the time listened to his heart with a microphone and noticed that its “lub dub pisshh” went much slower than hers.

Woehr got his heart tested but never received the results. He put aside any worry and went to Colorado to participate in its renown Aspen Music Festival. It was his first time there and his jaw dropped at the sight of real mountains. When the orchestra wasn’t rehearsing, Woehr went exploring.

Into the wild

After Aspen, Woehr returned to Eastman but couldn’t get mountains out of his mind. Upon graduation, he skipped the ceremony and went directly to Colorado. He strapped on a very heavy backpack, hiked for two days into Hunter Creek Wilderness, and set up camp for a two-month stay. “Other than the Vietnam War, I really had no idea what was happening in the world,” he says. “I picked news about Watergate from an Eastman conducting student who visited me from Aspen.”

Thus began Woehr’s routine for the next several decades. During the academic year, he’d play viola. In the summers, into the wilderness he went, exploring not only the Rockies but also Alaska, British Columbia, Scotland. Over the course of his career, he performed with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra for about 10 years, five as its principal viola player. In 1986, he left Rochester for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) where he stayed until his retirement in 2018.

A diagnosis

Woehr with viola, 1980s

In November 2004, a nagging cold prompted Woehr to see his doctor who ordered an x-ray. When compared with an earlier film, the doctor identified an acute bulge of the aortic root. In addition to that bad valve, Woehr’s aorta was near to bursting, which could be fatal. Woehr needed immediate surgery. Three weeks later, Woehr’s medical team replaced his aortic valve with a pig’s valve.

In 2014, while still a member of the SLSO, Woehr got dizzy during rehearsal. Because the notes seemed to swim together, he had to stop playing. He was sent home immediately, soon to discover a staph infection in his heart, which was the catalyst for his issues during rehearsal.

Woehr then underwent a second heart surgery to replace the first pig valve. In the intensive care unit, he was placed in a medical coma to provide time to reduce the inflammation so his chest could be closed. While in the coma, he suffered mini-strokes, known as transient ischemic attacks (TIAs).

A new world

When Woehr came out of the coma, his world changed.

Gradually, he could identify the musical pitch of sounds around him—trucks backing up outside his window, machines in his hospital room, and birds singing. That’s when Woehr discovered he had pitch recognition. Otherwise known as absolute pitch, this is an ability to correctly label a given sound with its pitch name. This ability is often assumed for a composer, but for Woehr it had been a lifelong struggle in concentration. While listening to music, Woehr even began to see music in streaming notation.

“T��� medical professionals were confounded by this,” he says. “A neurologist with a musical background examined me and said he had never heard of late-onset-pitch-recognition. The nearest thing that made sense to him was that those kind of mini-strokes resulted in a loss of inhibition, and that this ability had always been there, just not trusted before.”

Woehr recounts a pre-entrance exam for an Eastman’ theory class. He had correctly identified pitch for the first 20 notes of a pitch-recognition test, but he then lost the thread, degenerating into random guesses. This experience contributes to Woehr’s belief that he always had pitch recognition, but that something got in the way. He attributes it to simple lack of confidence.

A new passion

Woehr was flabbergasted, excited, and overjoyed by the transformation. He now had a technical tool—knowledge of where he was in tonality—that nourished what would become a prolific new undertaking: composing music.

“With the help of a laptop and music notation software along with being able to track my key, I began writing like a maniac,” he says. “I eventually retired from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, hitting the pace of writing a string symphony a month.” Although Woehr had always written music, his attempts had been hit or miss—until the TIAs. And, as a viola player he was encouraged to only practice and perform, not compose music.

This was a new world to him.

First, Woehr composed pieces for his ensemble within the SLSO, a world music group called the Strings of Arda—named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s word for “world.” In the past 25 years, he’s composed or arranged several hundred pieces for fellow SLSO members. He’s also written 33 string symphonies, each between 10 and 24 minutes long. Woehr says his orchestral compositions are “ripe for premiering” and are the kinds of pieces string players in particular love to hear and to play.

Toward the end of his time with the SLSO, Woehr was commissioned by music director David Robertson for a new piece, “Beinn na Caillich” or “Hill of the Old Woman,” a short tone poem for solo violin and chamber orchestra about one of his memorable hikes in Scotland. “Performed by St. Louis orchestra’s violinist Rebecca Boyer Hall and conducted by Robertson, this piece is broadcast on St. Louis public TV from time to time,” says Woehr. “Since conductors control orchestral programming, this was a significant breakthrough for a viola player.”

“Each composition of mine acts as a kind of memoir in musical language,” he adds. “T��� notes come together to describe my emotions around a particular personal or global experience—such as wilderness or the presidential election or the pandemic.”

Woehr’s lifelong dream of composing has finally come true—a musically-inspired medical triumph and music to his ears.

A look back in time for John Manhold from the Class of 1941

John Manhold now and then.

A lot happened in 1941.

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the United Kingdom broke the Enigma Code, and the GI Bill was signed into law. In popular culture, Citizen Kane was released, Dumbo became a hit, and people were singing Glenn Miller’s “.” Gas was 12 cents a gallon, the average house was $4,000, and people earned about $1,750 per year.

But, that’s not all. It’s also the same year that John Manhold graduated from the URochester.

Since then, Manhold has led a full life as an accomplished dental researcher recognized for wound healing studies, a consultant, and a faculty member. He also spent many years as an attending pathologist at the New Jersey Medical Center.

Manhold is also a Navy veteran of World War II and Korea and a gifted sculptor, golfer, and competitive shooter. He also enjoys playing the guitar, which he picked up as a hobby when he was in his 60s. Manhold is a prolific reader, too, and, today at 101 years old, he writes book reviews for Amazon and is about to publish a memoir of his life. Manhold and his wife of 50 years, Kit, are also adventurers and have sailed thousands of miles around the world, often in their 42-foot yacht, Ketita II.

At Rochester, Manhold was an English major and a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He was also a fencer, football player, and boxer, a pastime that also helped him pay his way through Harvard School of Dental Medicine. To mark 80 years since Manhold graduated, here’s a look at his college admissions application from 1937.

“There is much to learn by looking at the past,” says Manhold. “My undergraduate education at Rochester prepared me well for a very full career and life. It helped me hone the skills needed to adapt to changing times, including changes in technology, society, and scholarship.”

An excerpt from Manhold’s 1937 college admissions application, in which he notes his goal of entering the medical profession—an objective he achieved.

During high school, Manhold’s favorite books were about Germany, Napoleon, and Lincoln and he regularly read Life magazine.

In Manhold’s college essay—aptly titled “T��� Story of My Life”—he says, “I arrived on the hot summer afternoon of August 20, 1919 in Rochester, New York at five-fifteen to the accompaniment of the doctors vocal solo, ‘arriving on the Five-Fifteen,’ which was the current song hit.”

Manhold also notes this in his essay, “When I was a small child, I decided that I should like to follow the medical profession. There is no apparent reason why I should decide in favor of this profession. However, as I have grown older, the desire has grown strongly and for this reason I hope to obtain from college all possible knowledge to help me gain my ambitions.”

The suitemates celebrated the start of 2006 with their families.
Back row, from left to right: Cory’s husband Curt Ritter, Helen O’Connell-Short, Janice’s husband Henry Blinder, Jackie’s husband Tom Cartelli, Cory Amron, Helen’s husband Alan Short.
Front row, from left to right: Gregory Cartelli, Jackie Miller, Halle Ritter, Joanne Harap Kovener, Brendan Ritter, Janice Blinder.

When Cory Amron ’74 and Jackie Miller ’74 both ended up at the URochester from their hometown of Queens, the friends since third grade decided to begin their collegiate lives by branching out and rooming separately. Jackie went on to secure her first-year roommate Debbie Gephart Worbis ’74, and by their third year on campus, the three friends decided to share a suite with Janice Rowe Blinder ’75, Joanne Harap Kovener ’74, and Helen O’Connell-Short ’74.

For more than 45 years, these former suitemates have been getting together annually to stay connected and celebrate their friendship.

Hailing from New Jersey to Ohio and Kalamazoo and beyond, each of the six women brought unique perspectives, majors, and interests to the group. “It was such a positive experience,” says Helen O’Connell-Short ’74. “We respected and supported each other as we celebrated what we had in common and learned from our differences.”

Even though they are now dispersed across the country, the annual reunions have been going strong since 1973. Cory Amron ’74 proudly credits Joanne with being the glue that has held the friendship together, especially early on when families, jobs, and “life” always attempted to get in the way–a common theme for anyone trying to maintain friendships.

Originally held every New Year’s Eve, the group has added summer gatherings to their collective calendar, often at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. The ladies use their time together to catch up, especially about their children, who are now older than the suitemates were when they first met.

Cory counts herself as lucky to have these connections. As she puts it,

Those experiences also happen to include Rochester love stories. Janice is married to Henry Blinder ’73, and Helen married Al Short ’73 shortly after graduation in the Interfaith Chapel. The Shorts have even displayed their die-hard alma mater pride with custom “Meliora” vanity license plates.

As the suitemates reminisce about their time on campus, as they often do when together, they remember $0.50 movies offered three times a week, going out for pizza, and battling the unfriendly elements. The suitemates could always count on each other, and the warmth of their camaraderie helped make Rochester a bit cozier than the temperature outside.

While they no longer live under the same roof, or even in the same state, the University has had a lasting impact as the starting point for two marriages, countless memories, and special bonds between six strong women that have spanned more than four decades. “It’s difficult to express the significance of our bond,” says Jackie Miller ’74. Helen adds, “T��� fact that we still get together every year is a testament to how we learned to know and care about each other, despite our different backgrounds.”