It happens like clockwork — the days get shorter, there’s a chill in the air, and people contact us here in the Special Collections and University Archives department to ask about Auburn House. We can understand why. It’s a lovely old house on the edge of campus. You only get to go there for special events.
The tradition of inaugurating a new president is a fairly new one here at Towson University given our 150 year history. Part of that may be due to the fact that our first leaders were actually considered principals while the school itself was a teachers’ training school – something more akin to a vocational school.
To celebrate the inauguration of Kim Schatzel as Towson University’s 14th leader, we are looking back at the past leaders of the school. These essays are from a book we helped craft, Towson University: The First 150 Years. In 1969 Hawkins retired and handed the leadership over to the first president whose experience in