Alma Mater. June 27, 2019

Copyright © 2019                               John F. Oyler 

June 27, 2019

Alma Mater

My grandson, Ian McCance, has just finished his junior year in high school, in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is beginning to think about college. So far he had visited three universities in Colorado – Colorado State University, Colorado University, and Northern Colorado University. 

This month’s agenda included a trip to my alma mater, Penn State. I was happy to accompany him, his sister Claire, and his mother on this trip.

Although I enjoyed my years at State College immensely and was originally a strong supporter of the school, we gradually became estranged as the years passed. Our first disagreement involved football tickets. For a number of years a Fall trip to a football game with our friends Dick and Mary White was an annual treat for my wife and me. 

We seldom went for Homecoming or any really “big games”; for us it was a pleasant social experience with good friends. One year we were advised that tickets were no longer offered for individual games. If we wanted to go to a game we had to purchase season tickets for all five games. Obviously the University had converted a sporting event into a business opportunity. My attempt at a logical, courteous complaint was brushed off; I haven’t attended a Penn State game since.

For me the demonization of Joe Paterno following the Sandusky scandal was even more serious. I was a Sophomore in 1950 when he and Rip Engle arrived, and I joyfully followed his career. I became convinced he was the ideal coach, as interested in the overall development of his players as he was in winning games. His positive impact on the University was unparalleled. Nothing I have learned since has changed my mind. It is impossible for me to condone the way his legacy has been treated.

Nonetheless I approached the trip with a positive attitude and was rewarded with an enjoyable experience. The drive up route 22 and then I-99 was nostalgic, despite the fact that high speed divided superhighways have replaced the winding country roads of the 1940s. The fact that we were staying at the Nittany Lion Inn reinforced the nostalgia; it certainly is a marvelous example of old time elegance and modern convenience.

We started the formal tour in an auditorium in the Shields Building, on the east end of campus, with a sophisticated presentation that focused on the merits of choosing Penn State as one’s alma mater and the intricacies of the application process. I viewed it from the perspective of a representative of a competitor, based on my long involvement with the University of Pittsburgh.

One thing that surprised me was the presentation’s emphasis on the ability of Penn State graduates to easily find employment after graduation. The sales pitch seemed to be that of a vocational school rather than an educational institution. I still think that acquiring a well-rounded education is an objective as important as preparing a student for finding a job. Perhaps that is no longer true at “public” universities.

I also was surprised at the complete lack of acknowledgment that Penn State is part of the Big Ten conference. I was not a fan of State abandoning its traditional rivalries with schools in Pennsylvania and neighboring states when they joined the Big Ten. At that time there was a lot of talk about the academic advantages of establishing a relationship with the Big Ten universities. Apparently that is just one more example of replacing sports with business.

We then split up into individual groups of about a dozen each and were assigned a tour guide. I commented to Sara that, at Pitt, the guides had to be like hockey defensemen (skilled at skating backwards) because they had to walk backwards while talking to their groups. Sure enough, our guide immediately announced that she had walked backwards into a signpost, two days earlier.

Sara reported that she thought the enthusiasm and capability of the guide made a big difference in the visitor’s long-term impression of the school, citing particularly a young man at Northern Colorado who was an excellent ambassador for his school. I felt our guide was of that category as well.

Our first stop was in the Intramural Building, one of her favorite spots. It was especially interesting for me, as one of our Senior Design teams had just done a hypothetical design of such a facility which will be built at Pitt in the near future. I am enthusiastic about providing opportunities for students to work out and play pickup games, to participate rather than be spectators at games in professional arenas. The Penn State facility was outstanding, much more ambitious than the one Pitt is planning.

We then walked west along Curtin Road all the way to West Halls, a distance of about a mile. This prompted me to recite an “old days” story. When I was a sophomore, living in the Nittany Dorms, I had an 11:00 o’clock “Phys Ed” class in Rec Hall that ended at Noon. I then had to trek a mile back to my dorm for lunch, switch into my ROTC uniform, and dash back to the Armory, another three quarters of a mile. 

Our walk on Curtin took us past the Creamery, prompting Claire to make us promise to return there in the afternoon. It is refreshing to realize that such a simple tradition is still extremely popular.

My junior and senior years I lived in one of the West Halls, Hamilton. My dorm room was on the ground floor, looking out at the sidewalk separating Hamilton Hall from the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. I kept the window unlocked so my close friends could sneak in easily. It doesn’t appear that that is possible today. 

I stuck with the tour three fourths of the way back on Pollock Road, bailing out at the HUB (Hetzel Union Building) for coffee and a muffin and the opportunity to visit the Book Store. When they finished the tour, Sara, Claire, and Ian joined me for lunch in Pollock Commons, the dining hall for a complex of dormitories in that area. The contrast between that facility and the dining halls of my era is dramatic; Pollock Commons was easily as upscale as the “downtown” restaurant we had eaten in the previous evening – the Federal Taphouse.

The only negative thing I learned on the tour was that students had to buy tickets for football games and that tickets for Seniors, purchased online, sold out in three minutes! Still one more example of mistaken priorities.

After lunch I decided to risk a visit to the Civil Engineering Department, which is still located in the building it occupied seven decades ago. I found the main office and inquired “Who is responsible for entertaining antique alumni?” The lady there was sympathetic and eventually introduced me to Dr. Shelly Stoffels. She and I hit it off well, probably because I was interested in their Capstone projects, which are remotely equivalent to our Senior Design Projects.

Their projects are single discipline – Structures, Geotechnical, Transportation, Water Resources, and Environmental – and offered only in the Spring term. She showed me posters of several projects, each of which had three or four students on a team. Their final presentation process is a massive poster session with about sixty teams involved. She reported that they are in the process of switching to a two semester, six credits program in three areas – Structures and Geotechnical; Water Resources and Environmental; and Transportation and Infrastructure.

Our model would not work in their situation. We have forty or fifty students a term, twice a year; they have over two hundred once a year. I am satisfied that our Seniors have an experience that is an order of magnitude more rewarding than theirs. The advantages of multi-discipline teams, full life cycle projects, and the colloquium presentation process are considerable.

When I asked Dr. Stoffels if she knew anyone at Pitt, she laughed and said “Do you mean, other than Julie”? She had assumed I would realize that she and Julie Vandenbossche, both being pavement specialists, would be colleagues. Turned out we are both members of Julie’s Fan Club.

We had a pleasant drive home the next day. We stopped at the Horseshoe Curve and were rewarded by watching two trains go through; it is still a thrill to see the whole curve filled by one long freight train. A late lunch at Dean’s Diner fulfilled another revival of a decades long tradition.

It was a very enjoyable trip and I suspect my estrangement from my alma mater has been reduced significantly.