Ralph Ellison, First Black Commencement Speaker at UMD

By: Evangeline Gahn

Ralph Waldo Ellison is one of the most iconic Black authors of the twentieth century. Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1913, and named after the transcendentalist essayist Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Ellison’s father hoped he would grow up to be a poet. 

James Whitmore/The Life Picture Collection/Getty Images

Ellison’s most famous work is the novel Invisible Man, published in 1952. The book deals with many of the major social and political issues he was facing as a Black man in America in the post-war period, such as Black nationalism, as well as the struggle between individual identity and community identity. 

Deeply concerned with society, and the places different people hold within it, Ellison nevertheless considered himself an artist and a novelist first. The freedom of an artist to be such for its own sake was the central philosophy of his career, from Invisible Man and other novels to his work as a lecturer and professor. In an interview for the New York Times in 1966, Ellison said, 

I am a novelist, not an activist… But I think that no one who reads what I write or who listens to my lectures can doubt that I am enlisted in the freedom movement. As an individual, I am primarily responsible for the health of American literature and culture. When I write, I am trying to make sense out of chaos.

University of Maryland Commencement Program, May 12th, 1974. University Archives Digital Collections.

By 1974, Ellison was an internationally recognized literary force. As the first Black commencement speaker for the University of Maryland, College Park, he was awarded an honorary degree as a Doctor of Humane Letters; this was his ninth such honorary degree. Unfortunately, no copy of the speech Ellison gave remains in the University Archives. Instead, we encourage our readers to explore some of his literature, essays, novels, and other speeches. 

Though Ellison died in 1994, at the age of 81, his legacy of engaging with our world and ourselves as students, artists, activists, and Americans endures in the work and lives of everyone who sees the world, with its justice and injustice alike, and confronts it.

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Evangeline Gahn is a graduate student assistant in University Archives, pursuing her Master’s of Library and Information Science. With a background in history, philosophy, and creative writing, she is interested in using archives to understand the past and the present, and creating a more accessible and inclusive space for all members of the University community.

Fight For Your Right…To Equal Opportunity

By: Eleena Ghosh

In October 1968, 500 students took over the steps of Marie Mount Hall, home to the College of Home Economics, in a rally protesting discrimination in a nutrition experiment. 

Four Black students were denied participation in the experiment for being “biologically different” and an “unknown variable”, despite the Home Economics lab having a history of employing Black women to work in the lab for cheaper wages than their White counterparts, particularly pre-integration. 

As the protest went on, state and campus police were called in to line the perimeter of the building, as well as the inside lobby. 

Crow outside the Marie Mount building, 1968. The Diamondback, vol. 61, issue 29. University of Maryland Archives.

When then-president of the Black Student Union, Bob McLeod, tried to peacefully enter the building to speak with Brooks and VP of Student Affairs, J. Winston Martin, he was met with forceful resistance from them. McLeod stressed that is his legal right as a student to enter the building, and that this was not a violent protest; still, the state troopers wouldn’t allow him in. 

Eventually, he and other students were able to enter the building. After a conversation with BSU representatives, Brooks took to the podium to publicly apologize and announce that two of the students would be given lab positions, and two were to be included in the study. 

Bob McLeod, right, speaking with J. Winston Martin, left. Crow outside the Marie Mount building, 1968. The Diamondback, vol. 61, issue 29. University of Maryland Archives.

However, she also read excerpts from a 1956 science journal article that stated a “biological difference between White and Black individuals” and later, mass copies of that study were made available and spread at the Student Union, though no one knows how… 

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Eleena Ghosh is a graduate student assistant in University Archives, pursuing a Master’s of Library and Information Sciences and a Museum Scholarship and Material Culture Certificate. She is interested in museum studies, creating more inclusive archival records and spaces, anthropology, and figuring out how to combine all of her different interests.

The 1971 Admissions Policy Protests

By: Eleena Ghosh

In 1971, the Board of Regents announced new admissions requirements for the University– (1) a limit on incoming class enrollment, (2) a higher minimum GPA, computed by high school grades and SAT scores, (3) a tuition increase for some incoming students, and (4) a limit on incoming out-of-state students.

It’s likely that these changes had been building up for a while; for the 1969-70 school year, there were already concerns over the rising rate of enrollment versus the budget. When the University was denied any budget supplement by the Board, they were also told to hold the enrollment “at the present level”; this led to some proposals for new admissions requirements from Dr. R. Lee Hornbake, then VP of Student Affairs. These proposals included increasing the GPA minimum from 2.0 to 2.1, combining the “C” average requirement with the student also being in the upper half of their class, and a soft limit on incoming freshman.¹ Sound familiar?

That September, students began to protest these new requirements, claiming that they would unfairly exclude Black and minority students who would otherwise have been accepted because of the built-in cultural bias in exams like the SAT. It wasn’t just students who opposed the new policies– an informal coalition of students, staff, faculty, and some University administrators formed in response to the policy that was said to be “detrimental to the future of Black students at the University”. The Committee of Concerned Faculty even conducted a study to later detail a report of all the issues involved with the new policies and their development, emphasizing that faculty and student input were “deliberately avoided.” The Committee eventually called for a formal moratorium on the new standards, with an abundance of support from the students on campus. 

A petition that was circulated among students, staff, and faculty.

On the 22nd of that month, more than 300 Black students marched across McKeldin and took over the steps of the administration building to voice their concerns. For nearly two hours, the students took the stairs, going back and forth with administrators. Finally, Chancellor Charles E. Bishop appeared to promise that he will “study the problem” with admissions officials, only to later announce that a major change in the new standards is “beyond his control”. Students and faculty refused to accept that and condemned him for not living up to his word.

People gathered on the steps of the administration building to protest the new admission standards, September 1971.

Throughout the next few months, Bishop, the Board of Regents, and members of the Governor’s Commission on Student Affairs held hearings. Eventually, the Board of Regents admissions committee themselves recommended using a different predictive grade formula that doesn’t use SAT scores, only high school grades and class rank. 

Headline from The Diamondback, October 1971.

Finally, just two months after the policies were first approved, the Board agreed to modify them; under the new changes, students could enter the University without taking standardized tests and an increased number of students would be admitted as exceptions to regular admissions standards. 

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Works Cited

1. Nov. 8, 1968 – Ltrs. From Hornbake, Waetjen on Holding Enrollments During 1969-80…. Adm Policies, Series 10, Box 223, Office of the President, University of Maryland records

Anderson, Lonnie. “Coalition forms to challenge new admissions standards.” The Diamondback (College Park, MD: 22 Sept. 1971). https://digital.lib.umd.edu/result/id/812889d4-7c88-4733-b5ae-a6fa68b61a81?query=admission

Brodsky, Art. “Regents modify admissions standards.” The Diamondback (College Park, MD: 19 Nov. 1971). https://digital.lib.umd.edu/result/id/0c824258-10f3-47e2-87c5-9fb96af362b8?relpath=pcdm&query=%22admissions%22

Neighbor, Chad. “Admissions controversy .” The Diamondback (College Park, MD: 1 Oct. 1971). https://digital.lib.umd.edu/result/id/ff5e15db-400e-488f-90a8-b49493a66356?relpath=pcdm&query=%22admissions%20controversy%22

Neighbor, Chad. “Regents committee asks adoption of entrance policy without SATs”. The Diamondback (College Park, MD: 18 Oct. 1971). https://digital.lib.umd.edu/result/id/f1bde024-5773-4e61-a4d2-b64e23687b74?query=%22admissions%22

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Eleena Ghosh is a student assistant pursuing a degree in Environmental Science & Policy with a concentration in Anthropology. She is interested in museum scholarship and curatorship, creating more  inclusive archival records, and figuring out how to combine all these different interests.

New UMD Story Map Unveiled

Today, in partnership with the University of Maryland Libraries’ GIS and Spatial Data center, we debut a new story map entitled “From MAC to UMD: How the University of Maryland became the campus we know today.” This new online resource visually chronicles the development of the UMD campus from its earliest days as the Maryland Agricultural College to the present. Terrapin Tales welcomes Story Map author and guest blogger Caitlin Burke, a former graduate assistant in the GIS and Spatial Data center, to describes her research process and the technology she used to create this exciting new UMD history resource. We hope you enjoy Caitlin’s post and the extensive story map she created.

As someone who works with and creates maps, I know maps can tell various stories. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Maps can do the same, especially looking at maps of the same location from different decades. In this project, I looked at old campus maps starting from when the University of Maryland (UMD) was Maryland Agricultural College (MAC) to tell the story of how the campus changed since its charter in 1856.

The creation of this story map took up much of my summer. My former supervisor, Dr. Kelley O’Neal, suggested I create a map that all of campus could enjoy. In the GIS library, I am known as the “story map person,” and I helped create story maps for the 2018-2019 Prange Collection exhibit and the 200^th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein for the English Department. Kelley told me about University Archives’ digitized campus maps, so I thought that I could create a story map that shows how the UMD campus changed from a small, rural, 19^th-century agricultural college to a large public university in the 21^st century.

When I first started coming up with ideas for the map, I thought that this project might only show a few maps and could be finished quickly, but I realized that there was much more to this project. The University Archives digital repository, University AlbUM, has a TON of old campus maps, old aerial photos, and landscape scenery images that illustrate how the campus has changed over time.

Map of the University of Maryland campus, 1934.

This story map was going to be bigger than I initially thought. I included so much material, but there was so much more that could have been added. However, the story map focuses on landscape, architectural and some social change. Because there is so much history for UMD, there could probably be a story map created for each decade since 1856.

I used ArcGIS, a geographic information software owned by Esri, to create the UMD story map.  For this project, I used their online platform, ArcGIS Online. UMD has a partnership with Esri, so students and faculty can get access to free ArcGIS accounts. If you’re interested in using this tool, visit the GIS and Spatial Data Center’s website for more information, instruction and tutorials.

With this story map, I wanted to show that our campus is constantly changing. New buildings and old are updated with modern technology and features, and they are made to be more suitable for students and faculty of the modern era. In the map, I cover monumental events that affected the Maryland Agricultural College, the Maryland State College of Agriculture, as the university was known from 1916 to 1920, and the University of Maryland, from 1920 to the present. Some highlights include the Great Fire of 1912, the construction of some most-recognized buildings in the 1950s, and the building boom in the 2000s.

Maryland Agricultural College campus prior to the fire of 1912.

As I was creating the map, I was interested to learn about UMD’s affiliation with military training. I have always known that there is a large population of students involved in ROTC, but I didn’t know this predated World War II. The Maryland Agricultural College benefitted greatly from the Morrill Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, that required colleges and universities designated as land grant institutions to have mandatory military training to receive federal funding. ROTC wasn’t even established until World War I! To be honest, I am more interested in art history than military history, but it was fascinating to learn how involved my university is with American history.

As a UMD alum and current graduate student, this story map was very fun to create. I learned so many interesting facts about UMD from University Archives librarians Anne Turkos and Kendall Aughenbaugh that I was surprised I had not ever heard in my five years of attending UMD. Also, I could spend a whole week going through University AlbUM, the Archives’ digital repository. There are so many interesting photos of various events and people that you get lost in wondering what it would have been like to be on campus decades ago. After working on this project, I pay more attention to details on older buildings. As I walk through campus, the old architectural features and characteristics of the older campus buildings stand out to me more. After going through the story map, maybe you will notice them too.

To view the new story map, <click here>.

 

#Terps100: This Day in History: March 11, 1984

Undoubtedly one of the highlights of Hall of Fame Coach Lefty Driesell’s stellar career was the Terps’ March 11, 1984, ACC Tournament championship victory over arch-rival Duke, 74-62.

The Terps were led by their star Len Bias, who scored 26 points. Bias, named the tournament’s most outstanding player, had come to Greensboro, NC, with a bit of chip on his shoulder. According to the Washington Post, he felt he had something to prove.

“I didn’t get named to any of the all-ACC teams, first- or second-team,’ Bias said. “I wanted people to know I could play and that I could do it in the big games.”

Duke opened up a 16-8 lead early in the game, behind 10 points from Blue Devils’ star Johnny Dawkins. The Terps shot 44 percent in the first half, trailing by three, 30-27, at the break, and Bias had six turnovers.

He righted his game in the second half, opening with a dunk to bring the Terps within one of the Blue Devils and pouring in 10 points during a 24-3 Maryland run. His sharp shooting, plus Maryland’s move to zone defense and physical play, shut down Duke. With five minutes left in the game, the Terps were ahead 58-47, and Bias still had two monster dunks left in his arsenal. The first came on a Maryland breakaway in transition when Adrian Branch hit a trailing Bias with an over-the-shoulder pass, which ended with one dribble and a spectacular reverse dunk. Moments later, Keith Gatlin, trapped in a triple-team, hit Bias on the baseline with a pass, which resulted in a magnificent windmill throwdown.

Bias’ heroics led a terrific team effort. Center Ben Coleman finished with 14 points and 9 rebounds. Guard Adrian Branch chipped in 12 points, 4 assists and 2 steals, and his backcourt mate Keith Gatlin recorded 10 assists, 3 steals, and only 1 turnover in 30 minutes of play. Herman Veal drew 2 key charging fouls when the score was close, rattling the Blue Devils, and led a tough zone defense that shut Duke down in the second half.

After the final horn sounded, the Terps and their supporters mobbed the floor, and the players attempted to carry Coach Driesell off the floor on their shoulders, celebrating the victory that had eluded Lefty for 15 years at Maryland. Driesell commented “I guess the good Lord just wanted us to win this time. But all of our players played well today, and yes, it is very special to me to have won this thing.”

You can re-live this landmark victory and watch footage of the game at http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/40063 and http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/43122,which has been digitized as part of the UMD Archives’ project to Help Preserve Maryland Basketball History.

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts the University Archives will be featuring as part of the celebration of the 100^th season of Maryland men’s basketball, 2018-2019, with our colleagues in Intercollegiate Athletics. Visit the #Terps100 website for more information about and to participate in the celebration.

Follow Terrapin Tales throughout the season for additional features on landmark days in Maryland men’s basketball history. Our final post will highlight the Terps’ dramatic national championship win on April 1, 2002.

 

Lefty’s Legacy Saved in Digital Collections!

As we continue to celebrate the 100th Season of the Men’s Basketball, devoted Terp fans reminisce on the many standout players and coaches who have come and gone through this program. Over the years, University of Maryland basketball footage has poured in from the athletic department and the private collections of former Terps, and University Archives is excited to announce that we have digitized and preserved footage from the recently inducted Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, Coach Lefty Driesell!

In fall 2016, our University Archivist Anne Turkos and Athletic Archivist Amanda Hawk left College Park and drove to Virginia Beach to meet with Coach Driesell. They had previously discussed his interest in donating the archival footage he accumulated from his time as a Terp, and while very excited to add to our athletic history, both Turkos and Hawk were a bit nervous about the state the footage was in. Once the University Archives team arrived, they found 113 pieces of videotape and film spread between Driesell’s personal storage locker and condo! Even stored in optimum conditions, videotapes recorded as recently as 30 years ago are in danger of becoming unplayable, and film could lose sound after 40 years of deterioration. Safe to say, the urgency to digitize Lefty’s footage was immediately apparent.

But Coach Driesell and the University Archives shared a goal of trying to save these audiovisual pieces and make them accessible to the public. So after packing up the van and making the 3.5 hour trip back to College Park, the Archives staff set immediately to work to make sure to digitize every piece of footage. Lefty’s contribution to Men’s Basketball history can be found at go.umd.edu/leftyfootage.

You can support the University Archives’ work to continue to digitize more Men’s Basketball footage by making a gift to Help Preserve Maryland Basketball History. Our Launch UMD campaign is now open to the public and will run through the conclusion of basketball season on March 8, 2019. Check the Launch site frequently to see how we are progressing, and encourage your family and friends to make a gift as well. What better way to celebrate the 100th season of men’s basketball than by making sure that the games that Terp players and fans once enjoyed on the court will be preserved for generations to come!

GO TERPS!

 

A “War of Pens” With One of UMD’s Most Notorious Alumnae

Before writing the S.C.U.M Manifesto and attempting to assassinate Andy Warhol, Valerie Solanas was a student-journalist for the Diamondback from 1956 through 1957.

Valerie Solanas, 1958 Yearbook

In contrast to her later reputation as a radical feminist, Solanas wrote some fairly generic articles for the paper. In her first article from February 2, 1956, Solanas reported on a female student who donated her eighth pint of blood. The next time she popped up was as a feature reporter on a May 16, 1956, article defending the university’s decision to charge seniors a $10 diploma fee.

The fall semester of 1957 saw the end to her rather bland assignments. On November 19, 1957, the Diamondback editorial staff praised a speech given by Max Shulman at the Associated Collegiate Press Convention. Described as a humorist and national college newspaper columnist, whose column “On Campus with Max Shulman” appeared regularly in the Diamondback, Shulman’s speech declared that in order to “reinvigorate the youth,” the matriarchy must be destroyed. He claimed that when America was run by “restless men,” the country was the light of the world. Shulman suggested that one way to begin the process of reversing the matriarchy was to take the girl with whom you have been going steady since you were 13 and “punch her in the nose” because it will “leave no confusion as to who’s boss.”

Title card for Max Shulman’s column, which appeared regularly in the Diamondback.

Solanas responded with a letter to the editor on November 22, 1957, stating that Shulman was the “nadir of trivia” and that his statements were “pure bigoted drivel.” She went on to defend stay-at-home mothers by outlining all of the work they did while their husbands were at work and noting that two-thirds of married women juggle work and family duties. She then turned her attention to the Diamondback editors by questioning whether or not it was appropriate for this sort of content to be in the editorial section of the paper. Her fiery response was co-signed by ten other female students on campus.

On November 26th, Harry Walsh, writing on behalf of himself and the residents of North Baltimore Hall, responded to Solanas by claiming that “these females” purposefully misinterpreted Shulman’s speech and he doubted that Shulman was serious about revolting against the matriarchy since Walsh doubts it even exists. While he does not believe that men have lost masculinity and that he should he punch his girlfriend in the nose, he and his dormmates believe that Solanas’ response only created more humor around the whole situation.

Over the next two months, anonymous and named men from the UMD campus and College Park community chimed in to defend Shulman’s comments, with the main war waging between Walsh and Solanas. One anonymous writer from December 11th wrote that women are meant to stay home and that “women think they’re too good to do housework and try to think.” Another man, W.E. Parr, wrote on December 12th that Solanas is “Maryland’s own little suffragette.” He stated that when UMD men come across a “certain type of distraught female,” the best thing to do is humor them.

Solanas wrote two significant responses on December 17th and December 18th. In the first, entitled “Verbal Warpath,” she tells men to “maintain your manly composure” and that their replies are “unbecoming to men of your intellectual stature.”  After taking a few more shots at the multiple men writing in and insulting her, she signed off with “‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ and my pen is dipped in blood!” The next day, she responded directly to Parr, arguing that men are actually the ones who are wasting away without the women because they are desperately seeking companionship as they lurk around dances and the female dorms.

One female student did come to the defense of Solanas on December 10th when Mary Louis Sparks wrote that Solanas was not trying to wage war, but clarify certain concepts that are held by a large number of men and that those concepts are being held in error. None of the women who signed off on Solanas’ first letter wrote in to defend her, and it is unclear if women wrote in and were not included or if Sparks was actually the only student to defend her.

By January 9, 1958, the editor of the Diamondback had stepped in to put an end to what had become known as the “War of Pens,” as it was unlikely that Shulman or his followers would be converted. He also noted that both sides stated their cases rather poorly due to the sheer number of insults and sarcastic responses to one another. The editor then declared that January 17th would be the last issue that would address the debate.

Solanas was the only person to directly respond to the call for final thoughts. She opted to write a poem rather than a traditional letter:

January 17, 1958, poem on the War of Pens

There were at least 15 exchanges over the course of three months with articles separate from the “Backtalk” column that addressed the debate. Nearly every “Letter to the Editor” section had someone chiming in on the debate. After the war of pens had ended, Solanas did not appear in the Diamondback as a writer again, while Max Shulman’s column “On Campus,” that was sent out to multiple college newspapers, continued to be published. On what could be considered a particularly conservative campus in the 1950s, the Diamondback editorial staff said that War of Pens had permeated every part of campus life. Though it cannot be said that it caused any major changes, this look into gender relations on campus is certainly enlightening, especially since it was led by Valerie Solanas.

Flip through the gallery below to see the entire “War of Pens”!

To see more archived issues of the Diamondback, visit https://www.lib.umd.edu/univarchives/student-newspapers

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Double, Double, Reveille and Trouble

In celebration of All Hallows Eve, we dug up a poem from the 1903 Reveille yearbook. Early yearbooks often had a section dedicated to poems and short stories. Along with love letters and complaints over homework, Halloween was a recurring theme.

UMD has acquired a number of ghostly friends over the years. Whether you’re in the mood for cold spots in the Stamp Student Union or a meeting with Miss Bettie who managed the Rossborough Inn during the Civil War, there’s a little something for everyone. Just head over to https://maps.umd.edu/tours/ghost/ to take your own ghost tour of the campus!

Enjoy this bit of UMD history on the spookiest night of the year!

To see more Halloween stories and poems from the Reveille, visit https://www.lib.umd.edu/univarchives/yearbooks

Ladies, Come Get Your “Information, Please!”

When you first step onto the University of Maryland campus as a new student, one of the last things you might expect is a handbook of rules specifically for your sex. Up until the late 1960s, that’s exactly what new female students were handed. “To Do Or Not To Do” and “Information Please!” were handbooks that outlined the rules and expectations for newly admitted female students. These handbooks were distributed by the University of Maryland Women’s League and Associated Women Students, respectively. New female students were automatically made a member of these organizations upon enrollment at the university.

                “The Terrapin” 1952

While the guide outlined many standard rules we may see today, such as general policies, dorm hours, fire drill procedure, and quiet hours, female students were given a particularly strict and detailed set of rules. In the 1937 and 1940 issues of “To Do Or Not To Do,” every social interaction had a given set of instructions. If a girl was unsure how to go about introductions, flirting in the library, how to behave in the dining room, and rating her date, she simply had to turn to the handbook for her answers! Each handbook let a girl know that if she did not conform to the standards, she ran the risk of seriously embarrassing herself.

Throughout the 1950s, leaving your dormitory after 8pm was quite a process. Any girl who wanted to leave the dorm after 8pm needed to obtain permission and note when she would return. After 10pm, it really became an ordeal! Girls were only permitted a certain number of these “late leaves” per semester, which were determined by class and GPA. Weekends were much easier to stay out late, with 1am curfews. If you were late, you ran the risk of being “campused,” the college version of being grounded, unless, of course, a girl called her house director and the campus police. Imagine being 22 and still having to obtain parental permission sleep somewhere other than your dorm room!

                                             “Information Please!” 1958

Running the risk of getting grounded was not the only thing a freshman girl had to worry about. Dress code was outlined to a T until 1967! Shorts, slacks, jeans, and other sportswear were forbidden anywhere on campus, unless the girls were in a location where sports were being played. In the 1964-1965 handbook, the dress code became even more specific. To attend dinner on weeknights, skirts or dresses were required. In 1937, the handbook noted that there were 40 or 50 formal dances at the University, so a girl had to be ready with her formal attire! Sunday breakfast and dinner demanded a dress, or coordinated outfit, with pantyhose and heels. A skirt and blouse was considered standard attire for the classroom and everyday campus activities.

                                           “Information Please!” 1951

Interestingly enough, students helped establish some of these rules! Female students in conjunction with Dean Adele Stamp made up the AWS board who regulated curfew, dress code, and visitation to fraternities. But, as the wider culture changed, the AWS soon followed. By 1968, there was no dress code, and by 1970, students successfully had the curfews eliminated. While the AWS continued to put on very traditional events like their annual Bridal Show, more contemporary events made their way into the organization. Around the same time as the elimination of the dress code, the AWS began sponsoring a Sex Symposium dealing with contemporary issues involving sex and morality.

                                                                                “Information Please!” 1966

It would be an understatement to say that we have come a long way since the handbooks of the 1950s and 60s!
You can see more student handbooks like “Information Please!” through the University Archives website at https://www.lib.umd.edu/univarchives/digmaterials

Black Explosion Now Available!

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As part of an on-going effort to make student publications more accessible, the UMD Archives is pleased to announce the addition of the Black Explosion to the UMD Student Newspapers database.

Dissatisfied with coverage of issues important to and activities of the African American community at the university, the Black Student Union began publishing an independent newspaper, entitled the Black Explosion, sometime between 1967 and 1970; the actual date is unclear, and the founding date is reported variously on the masthead of the paper itself. The Black Explosion published continuously in hard copy until December 2015/January 2016, and all issues in the Archives’ collection are now online and searchable by keyword and date. Users can also save articles or entire issues by using the clipping tool described on the Using the Database portion of the About page on the website.

The paper has been and continues to be, through its online presence, an important student voice on campus and can now be heard around the world.

Work continues to digitize additional student papers, and announcements of their availability will be made here on Terrapin Tales as content is loaded.