The Villanova Monthly, Vol. 4. No. 8, December 1896

As the question, “what are you doing for break?” begins to spread over the land and deep sighs hoping for finals to end, the University Archives extends a Happy Holidays to all the Villanova students, staff, and faculty this year. Here is a past glance of the December 1896 Villanova Monthly (precursor to The Villanovan).

The poem is written by John I. Whelan, a 1895 graduate and 1894-5 school year recipient of Gold Medals for Logic, English Literature, & Chemistry.

Thanksgiving Hop

In continuation of exploring traditions of the past, the University Archives highlights Villanova’s penchant for a good party with the Thanksgiving Hop.

1927 Belle Air Yearbook

Thanksgiving break has always gotten students excited for a study break and return home to see family and friends. In the 1920s, before students made their trek home for Thanksgiving, the Senior class would host a Thanksgiving Hop, later known as the Thanksgiving Dance, for all the students. The night would be filled with dancing, live music, and good food to send off students. The Hop appeared as a co-ed dance and lasted with different incarnations into the 1950s.

Happy International Students’ Day! International students attending Villanova is as old as the institution itself, as we remember it was Irish Augustinians’ who founded the College. Not only were Irish the first international students to attend but also Spanish, Cuban, and Puerto Rican students. As you can see in the 1870-1871 list of students.

Annual catalogue of the officers and students of Villanova College, Delaware Co., Penna., for the academic year 1870-71

More history on the earliest students and campus life can be found in Distinctive Collections’ Annual Catalogue collection available in the digital library.

International Students’ Day originates from students’ resistance in the streets of Prague against Nazi occupation on November 17, 1939.  Nazis arrested 1,200 students from Czech universities and sent them to concentration camps and shut down all Czech colleges and universities. The resistance inspired the establishment of an anti-Nazi students coalition. In 1941, November 17 was declared International Students Day by the International Students Council in London, which became the  foundation for the International Union of Students. Today, International Students’ Day has evolved beyond observance of student activism, but a celebration the cultural diversity that international students bring to their universities.

Homecoming got its start on college campuses as a fall celebration of the first football game of the season, for which alumni would return to their alma maters. For Villanova, in particular, originated as an annual homecoming known as Alumni Day, which consisted with a football game, dinner, and alumni business meeting. The alumni returning is a long tradition as the alumni association started in 1875.

Homecoming photographs, December 1941

Homecoming really took off as an all campus event around the 1930s. It was not until the 1950s when Homecoming became a multi-day event for the entire Villanova community.

Here are some of the major traditions:

Dorm Decorations

Dorm Decorations, 1960

Dorm Decorations, 1961

Dorm Decorations, 1950s

During Homecoming week the dorms would have a decoration contest for the best decorations. The theme usually surrounded Villanova’s victory on the field.

Bonfire

Night time bonfire, 1961

Bonfire, 1967

Bonfire, 1939

The Homecoming bonfire was a long-standing Wildcat tradition that kicked off the weekend’s festivities.

Parade

Homecoming parade, 1959

Homecoming parade, 1962

homecoming parade, 1956

A surprising tradition, certainly not seen today, is the Homecoming parade where prior to the big game Wildcats would have a car parade through campus to the football field. Like the dorm decoration there would be float decoration contests.

Game Day

Kissing booth, 1983

Homecoming, 1983

Game day sign, 1939

Of course, Homecoming revolved around the big football game. Longstanding foes have been Georgetown University and Temple University.

Homecoming Dance

Dance, 1939

And to cap off the festivities was the annual Homecoming dance.

Homecoming court, 1983

Homecoming court, 1990s

Homecoming queen, 1960

Many more images of Homecoming can be found in the Digital Library and Villanova University Archives

40 41 Years of Connelly Center

Installation of signage outside Connelly Center, May 1980

Last year marked the 40^th anniversary of the Connelly Center. Leading up to the anniversary Distinctive Collections was hard at work digitizing photographs of Connelly over the years. While COVID may have dashed in-person celebrations, the University Archives invites you to check out Connelly over the years and celebrate September 21st as the anniversary of the official dedication ceremony.

Connelly Center construction in 1979

Connelly Center, March 26th 1979

Dedication, September 21, 1980

As the heart of campus, Connelly Center originally opened with a game room, music listening room, ice cream parlor, terrace for entertainment, and lounges. Some of the amenities and look haven’t changed.

Students in Connelly Center, New Student Record, 1980

More photographs of the early days of Connelly Center can be found in the digital library.

Beaudry Rae Allen ’13 MA, Preservation and Digital Archivist, removes dust from books in Falvey Memorial Library’s Special Collections. Photo courtesy of Shawn Proctor, Communication and Marketing Program Manager.

Tuesday, Sept. 21, is 1842 Day, Villanova’s day of giving! This is a special day honoring Villanova’s founding in 1842 and celebrating all the things that make Villanova great. Your gifts to Falvey Memorial Library these past five years have enhanced the library’s collection—impacting Villanovans for years to come. Beaudry Rae Allen ’13 MA (pictured above), Preservation and Digital Archivist, purchased preservation supplies with support from 2018 donations. Allen was able to “rehouse thousands of at-risk, rare materials—including 10,000 photo negatives, 35 scrapbooks, photographic albums, and University logos—and inventory more than 1,100 CDs and DVDs.” The funds also allowed the Library to purchase a specialized vacuum to safely clean books in Special Collections. Preserving these rare materials ensures scholars can access resources for future projects.

Support Falvey Memorial Library by giving any amount to our campaign! To donate, please use this link or scan the QR code below. Thank you to all of our past and future donors! Be sure to download the Reading Room as your zoom background!

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

It’s College Colors Day, so, of course, we’re reppin’ our blue and white!

Keep the celebration going and check out “Wildcats Past & Present: Moments from the History of Sports at Villanova.” The online exhibit features assorted and unique items representing the various sports played at Villanova College, and later Villanova University. Villanovans have always shown their school spirit–explore sport programs, basketballs, baseball, photographs, newspaper clippings as well as championship memorabilia from University Archives’ collection along with books and scrapbooks from Special Collections.

The exhibit, based on a legacy exhibit curated by Teri Ann Pirone, was curated by Susan Ottignon, former Collections Librarian, with assistance from Laura Bang, Distinctive Collections Librarian, and Michael Foight, Director of Distinctive Collections and Digital Engagement. Graphics provided by Joanne Quinn, Director of Communication and Marketing.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 

Jim Croce ’65 sings to a female student

Legendary singer Jim Croce ’65 left his stamp on Villanova and on the music world before his untimely death at age 30. While an undergrad, Croce was a leader of the oldest singing group on campus, The Villanova Singers, who can be heard on campus even now. After graduating, he penned and sang #1 hits, such as “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. His music legacy continues, with his songs featured in films and television, including Django Unchained, Logan, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Stranger Things.

On the 55th anniversary of Croce’s debut album Facets, Falvey is sharing a recently discovered image from his senior yearbook, contained in the University’s Digital Library. Here, Croce, seen lounging in a campus tree and wearing loafers and a sweater, strums his guitar as a co-ed listens on.

From the University Archives: Welcome to Villanova

A Peek into First Year Orientation

The next installment of the University Archives exploring past traditions of Villanova is how incoming first year students, or also known as Frosh or Yearlings, experienced their first days on campus in the first half of the twentieth century.

Orientation, Freshmen, Belle Air, 1965

Freshman Orientation

Upon arrival incoming students were given logistical and academic information, housing details, class schedule, introductions to faculty and upperclassmen, religious registration, and introduction to student organizations. The first day also required a physical exam by a doctor. All of this would be guided by the Orientation Committee (White Cappers), who were the Sophomores.  The committee who would prepare incoming students with “regs” (dinks, ties, identification buttons, and handbook) and teach them the “Frosh rules and regulations” and the very important Hello Habit.

Much of orientation was like an initiation where cultural aspects to Villanova life were heavily indoctrinated and Freshman learned the college songs, yells, and rules. Orientation Committee reinforced etiquette and rules from day one. Frosh would be taught they would have to partake in trunk carrying (help move-in all students in their dorms), coal shoveling, gridiron marking, and stadium cleaning. Noted in the 1946 Belle Air yearbook, infractions would result in haircuts or being molasses and feathered.

Description of Etiquette Expectations

 Belle Air, 1937

First Day for Yearlings, Belle Air, 1943

Frosh being directed to jump, Belle Air 1967

…and be sure to remember the “Hello Habit”

The Hello Habit was simply students saying hello to each other as they passed each other on campus. The gesture was serious business for upperclassmen as they would patrol the halls making sure Frosh did it as well as lament in The Owl and Villanovan for years how the time-honored tradition was at constant risk because of freshmen.

The Owl, 1931

It was later in the school year Freshmen got  “revenge” on the Sophomores during annual Frosh-Soph field day called “Muff Day” and annual Tug-O-War in the Spring.

Belle Air, 1938

Changes

Many of the rituals, dress, initiations, and student hierarchies were abandoned by the late 1960s. Mostly because the university had become co-ed, the student body became more diverse, and the styles and trends of a college student focused more on individualism. In the 1980s, Villanova saw a significant cultural shift as orientation became more about preparing students for their college experience as a whole, including how to navigate the academic rigor and learn the support systems throughout campus.

For more images of campus life: https://digital.library.villanova.edu/Collection/vudl:171664

In continuation of presenting traditions of the past, the University Archives draws attention to Villanova’s AIDS Awareness Week held in the early 1990s. June as Pride Month is a celebration of the progress of LGBTQIA+ community and the COVID-19 pandemic amplifies a time of reflection of forty years ago when the world started to live through another epidemic that suffered from rampant misinformation and government inaction. Just like with COVID-19, health inequities and social injustices, stigma, fear and bigotry around HIV/AIDS fueled the spread and destruction of so many lives. AIDS remains decades on an unspoken epidemic, but is so clearly entrenched in our history and its affects reverberate through the LGBTQIA+ community and beyond.

Through articles from the Villanovan, the University Archives highlights how Villanova community responded to the AIDS crisis. Villanova established an AIDS task force in the 1980s as the virus was gaining media traction. Into the late eighties, lectures and panel discussions would be sponsored by student organizations or departments on campus about the virus and transmission. Though, through perceived lack of interest and advocacy, the task force faded away by the end of the eighties. The necessity to address the crisis really emerged in the early 1990s and the task force was reorganized in 1992 (Compitiello, 1992). By the early 1990s, AIDS cases had peaked and college campus across the nation were faced with the reality of positive cases on campus (CDC, 2001).

In 1991, the University started AIDS Awareness day, which expanded into AIDS Awareness Week in 1993. Awareness Week included invited speakers, panel discussions, student performances, masses, and vigils. The main goals were,

_{Raise awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS; to offer HIV/AIDS educational programs during the week; to create an opportunity for spiritual reflection on the impact of HIV/AIDS upon the University community at the beginning of the Lenten season; to provide members of the University community with opportunities for reconciliation and for consideration of their own personal outreach in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to raise money for local HIV/AIDS care advocates and provider (Lee, 1994).}

Panel discussions and lectures would cover questions related to AIDS in relation to discrimination, health care, and how perception is affected by the Church and what is the Church’s response to HIV/AIDS.

One of the most longstanding traditions has been selected panels of the Names Projects AIDS Memorial Quilt on display at the Connelly Center (which continued in to the 2000s).

In 1994, Villanova started to contribute to the quilting project. Here are images from the “Have a Heart” Quilting Bee campaign in 1995. Students could help with quilting and banner making at St.Mary’s Library.

For more information on the AIDS Awareness events on campus, visit the Villanovan in the Digital Library: https://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:183783