Those Who Can, Do

Those Who Can, Do

“The First Annual Faculty Follies will be presented on Tuesday evening”, announced the November 1941 issue of the Towerlight. Faculty members were to present a two-part program, the first of which was a kind of music hall performance with “all the members of the faculty who can be crowded on the stage”. “The second act,” the

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Founders’ Day

Founders’ Day

For about 50 years, Towson celebrated a now little-known anniversary, the very first day of classes at the Maryland State Normal School in January of 1866. The celebration, called Founders’ Day, is first in evidence in the school calendar for 1919/1920 when the Maryland State Normal School principal was Henry Skinner West. By that time,

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Building Bridges

This is a bridge nearly 40 years in the making . . . When the Administration Building — now known as Enrollment Services — was constructed in 1972, it meant pedestrians coming from the main part of campus had to cross Osler Drive to reach it.  Almost immediately concerns about pedestrian safety were raised. In

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Elaine Hedges & the Start of Women’s Studies at Towson

Elaine Hedges joined Towson State College’s faculty in 1967 as an assistant professor in the English Department.  She had spent the previous 15 years teaching at Harvard (where she’d earned her doctorate), Wellesley College, San Francisco State University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Goucher College.  She’d earned her Bachelor of Arts in English

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Healthy Bodies and Trained Minds

Healthy Bodies and Trained Minds

As we celebrate the anniversaries of both the founding of Towson University in 1866, and its move to this campus in 1915, the Towson University Archives and Special Collections department is taking time to look back over the school’s history and some of the important but lesser-known people who have influenced it. The move to

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Frederick James Ladd Photographic Collection

Frederick James Ladd Photographic Collection

This blog post was written by former Archives Associate, Armando Suarez. The Frederick James Ladd Photographic Collection (circa 1969-1999) is now available for research in the University Archives at  the Albert S. Cook Library. The finding aid is searchable online, while the physical materials can be consulted at the Archives and Special Collections room located

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STC on the Homefront

STC on the Homefront

In February of 1944, M. Theresa Wiedefeld, President of the State Teachers College at Towson (STC) and member of Class of 1904, co-authored a letter with the Alumni Association President, Myrtle Markley Groshans, and published it in a special newsletter called the “Alumni Victory News”. They were making the case for the establishment of the

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How Far We’ve Come

Last year while processing a collection, I came upon this remarkable entry in a notebook devoted to minutes of the “Faculty Meetings” — the predecessor to our modern-day University Senate. For those of you not well-versed in 120-year-old cursive, let me transcribe it for you. Principal’s Office September 16, 1893 A special meeting of the

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