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Franklin Hall may be a brand spanking new,
state-of-the-art facility, but we're not
turning our backs on our past.
Some of it is going with us.
"The new facility will
be great, but thousands of alums have fond
memories of Merrill and Kent halls, Taylor
Hall and the Music and Speech building,"
JMC professor Fred Endres said.
"We want to preserve elements
of our history while moving into a futuristic
facility. We have to maintain a sense of
continuity about the history of our programs,"
he said.
Plaques
and trophies honoring faculty and former
students will make the trek to Franklin,
along with a fascinating scrapbook kept
by Bill Taylor,
head of the Journalism Department from
1936-1963.
And, although there are
many items we'd like to take to Franklin,
only a few can go. Here's what's making
the move.
Murray Powers Reading
Room
Like the current reading room in Taylor
Hall, the reading room in Franklin will
also be named for the venerable Murray
Powers.
According
to Pathways, Powers came to Kent
State in 1940, and “for the next
31 years, he taught editing and advised
the Stater.” Powers was
also the managing editor of the Akron
Beacon Journal for 18 years.
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In the
current Powers Read-ing Room, antique
radios, typewriters and computers
are on display. All of these items,
includ-ing many antique radios the
present room isn’t |
large enough
to house, will be displayed in a journalism
museum in Franklin Hall.
John Weiser, one of the first professors
in JMC’s telecom division, donated
many of the antique radios. “There’s
some stuff of significant value there,”
according to JMC professor Ben Whaley.
The' Wall of Shame'
It was nearly 30
years ago when a couple of student workers
in the Taylor Hall photo lab happily attached
former JMC professors' nameplates to a
set of doors in the bowels of the building.
The photo lab employees
were celebrating the 1978 departure of
some of their least-favorite professors.
“They were proud
they outlasted them,” photo lab manager
Chuck Bluman said. “They were glad
to see them go.”
That started a tradition
of sorts. Photo lab workers called it the
Wall of Shame.
Through the years, though,
the wall became more about compiling a
collection of former JMC staff and faculty
nameplates and less about cheering the
departure of unpopular profs.
And, after almost 30
years of collecting old nameplates, the
double doors are moving to Franklin.
“Over the years,
the idea behind the door changed,”
Bluman said. “At one time, faculty
on their way out put up their own nameplates.”
Many of the nameplates,
Bluman said, aren't the originals. If professors
didn't attach their nameplates and photo
lab workers were unable to acquire the
actual plate, the photo shop workers often
created plates of their own. And in some
instances, the students weren't very careful
during the process.
“Some of the names
aren’t even spelled accurately,”
Bluman said.
Want to see the names
closer up? Click
here
Eddy
, the DKS Mascot
In 1984, journalism student Mike
Scott painted a whimsical fantasy reporter
on the south wall of the Daily Kent
Stater office. His creation -- a spike-haired
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JMC
retrospectives
The
school is preparing for the biggest
move in its history.
It
will cost mucho dinero and take
countless hours to complete, but
when it's finally done, Kent JMC
students will be able to learn
in a single, brand new, state-of-the-art
facility.
But, before gigabit Ethernet and
digital photography, we worked
with typewriters, wet darkrooms
and reel-to-reel tape editing.
Here
are a few history lessons for
you.
Click
on the links in the next column
to read about how Kent State journalism
education used to be, what alums
think about themove, and how JMC
got to be where it is today.
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Quickie history links
• Slideshow
of JMC history
• What
alums remember
• JMC
from 1926 to present
• The
twisted history of Franklin Hall
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jellybean of a reporter
with a pencil behind the ear and a notebook
in hand -- over the years came to be known
as "Eddy," the Stater mascot.
'Eddy'
was created in 1984 by DKS cartoonist
Mike Scott. |
The
original Eddy is painted on the
cinderblock walls of the Stater
office and will have to be left
behind in Taylor Hall, most assuredly
to be painted over by new tenants.
However, according to senior business
manager Lori Cantor, there have
been talks about using a replication
method that will allow a digital
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Eddy to be captured and
transferred onto the walls of the newsroom
in Franklin.
“Eddy is part of
our history,” Cantor said.
The Pan-African Studies
Department has used this method to make
digital scans of murals painted on the
walls of Oscar Ritchie Hall.
The
TV-2 Newsroom Door
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A
sign posted in the TV-2 newsroom
reads "Countdown to Franklin."
Broadcast students, eager to move
into their hi-tech new digs in
Franklin Hall had |
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marked off the days on a calendar.
But while excitement abounded, the students
also were happy that their TV-2 newsroom
door will be making the trip with them.
"It's good because it's going to remind
us of the good times we had in the old
newsroom," junior broadcast major Greta
Mittereder said. "It will remind us of
our history."
Rob Decker, also a junior
broadcast major, appreciated the door's
utility, as it serves as a landmark for
deliverymen.
"When we ordered food,"
Decker said, "we always told them to look
for the big TV-2 door."
The
Daguerre Boulder
Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre didn't invent photography;
he simply made it accessible and inexpensive.
With a process that combined,
among other things, a silver-plated copper
plate, iodine vapors and mercury fumes,
Daguerre developed an affordable system
for making permanent replications of photographs
called daguerreotypes.
In 1939, to commemorate
the 100th anniversary of Daguerre's innovation,
a plaque honoring Daguerre was unveiled
next to Merrille Hall (home of the journalism
department) by Roy E. Larson, then publisher
of Life magazine.
The unveiling occurred during the second
year of the Short Course in News (Press)
Photography at Kent State. According to
Endres' book Pathways, which details
the history of JMC, the Short Course was
among the early programs that helped push
JMC the forefront of collegiate journalism.
Endres writes that the Short Course was
the second of its kind and the first east
of the Mississippi.
Photographers from all over the country came
to the Short Courses to discuss and practice
what was then a growing journalistic field:
news photography. The
Daguerre plaque is attached to a low, heavy
brown-gray rock, which rests between Lowry
and Merrill halls. When JMC relocates,
the Daguerre boulder will make the move,
too.
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