WPI Journal - The Magazine for WPI Alumni

WIN 2013

The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)

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Signs of protest in the office of the student newspaper, Tech News. The Volkswagen Beetle (the "People's Car"—later dubbed "The Love Bug") was a common site on campus. Chuck Harrison '71 personalized his with an affectionate nickname for WPI. Photographs by Domenic Forcella '70. There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear…" For the first half of the '60s, however, WPI was largely mired in Eisenhower-era conformity. Campus consciousness, say those who were there, was notably slow to rise, even lagging behind other urban campuses where elements of the beatnik and folk movements had long-since taken hold. Pat Moran, who graduated in 1965, jokes that the school was "a hotbed of rest" during his undergrad years. He recalls students at the then all-male campus sporting short haircuts, studying through the night, and participating in ROTC training. "The whole thing was just a grind—four years of engineering education," Moran says. "Was there change in the air? I wasn't aware of it." As the decade progressed, America's political consciousness rose and many folks, particularly on college campuses, grew wary of the United States' escalating involvement in Vietnam. At the same time, social change began to accelerate. Opposition to authority grew as a mood of permissiveness and experimentation took hold in art, music, fashion, literature, drugs, and sexuality. Women were admitted to WPI in 1968. Only two initially enrolled, and lived in an off-campus apartment, but alums say the arrival of coeds coincided with accelerating on-campus change. The ROTC program was the target of a notorious WPI prank with anti-war overtones. A student took over the Alumni Field master control panel and rigged the sprinklers to come on full-blast in the middle of the cadets' final review. Campus journal Tech Today, reporting the story in its July 1968 issue, assured readers that "none of the men in formation broke ranks" and noted that trustee George W. Smith, who got thoroughly soaked, quipped that he was "glad to have had the advantage of Navy experience to cope with an amphibious operation." Like a true nature child, we were born, born to be wild … " Elsewhere, however, dissatisfaction with the war and campus unrest had taken a darker turn. On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen marched on students demonstrating at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine. About a week later, there were two fatalities at the hands of local police and state troopers at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Those enrolled at WPI honored a nationwide student strike as a form of nonviolent protest, skipping classes en masse. "We marched to the flagpole in Lincoln Square and lowered it to half staff," recalls Forcella, who documented the protests in photographs he later donated to the WPI archives. Those on the scene believe the generally thoughtful bent of the WPI community—and the low-key, working-class nature of Worcester, compared to the more eclectic, combustible vibe of communities like Berkley, Calif.—helped keep a lid on potential conflict and limited "violent outbursts" to dousing the ROTC cadets. During the '70s, students and educators embarked together on a sweeping academic overhaul known as the WPI Plan, which replaced conventional engineering education with a more flexible and progressive approach. Undergrads were—as they still are—required to complete one major project based on their area of professional study and another designed to fuse technical knowledge with the needs and demands of society. Phased in throughout the decade, the Plan "made campus a very exciting place for students and faculty," and to some extent bound them closer together, says Thomas Keil, a WPI physics professor since 1967, who has twice chaired the department. Some who were there say they were profoundly changed. Forcella says he gained a keen social awareness that inspired him to use his engineering skills for environmental planning. He's remained politically active and has worked on several local-level campaigns. WPI "took some of my left leanings and moved them further out," he says. Keil's a bit wistful on that subject: "It seemed like revolutionary times. It seemed like everything was about to change. I don't think the revolution succeeded." Winter 2013 27

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