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The Puget Papers

Sound Leaders: Introduction (1/15)

As we begin the countdown to the inauguration of our newest University President, Isiaah Crawford, we thought it would be fun to do a series in which we review all of our previous presidents along with some facts and info about each one! Here’s the list you can expect to see over the course of the upcoming weeks:

1890-1892 Rev. Dr. Fletcher B. Cherington

1892-1899 Rev. Dr. Crawford R. Thoburn

1899-1902 Rev. Dr. Wilmot G. Whitfield

1902-1903 Rev. Prof. Charles O. Boyer, acting president

1903-1904 Rev. Dr. Edwin M. Randall

1904-1907 Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Williams

1907-1909 Prof. Lee L. Benbow

1909-1913 Rev. Dr. Julius C. Zeller

1913-1942 Rev. Dr. Edward H. Todd

1942-1973 Rev. Dr. R. Franklin Thompson

1973-1992 Dr. Philip Phibbs

1992-2003 Dr. Susan Resneck Pierce

2003-2016 Dr. Ronald R. Thomas

2016-present Dr. Isiaah Crawford

 Information was gathered from a variety of sources, including our special 125th anniversary edition of Arches, a special 100th anniversary publication, Wikipedia articles put together by Kara Flynn ‘15, class bulletins, Tamanawas yearbooks, The Trail, presidential histories, and others!

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Who is it? (11/12)

Since the article ended after two papers, we didn’t have much to go off to try to find out who “the one who knows” might have been.

First off, both of these were published anonymously. Obviously, this complicates things a little bit.

Our first step was to try to match the names mentioned in the articles. There was a Forbes, a Miller, and a Williams. The easiest place to start for this is in the yearbooks (Tamanawas) and in the bulletins--when classes were still so small, everyone's names and even addresses were included in the bulletins. The Tamanawas from 1927 includes an Ernest Miller and an Evalyn Miller in the Senior Class, but no one else has a similar name. 

The next place to investigate is in the actual Trail staff who published the articles. We cross-referenced the listed staff in both editions of the the Trail (both 19 Apr 1929 and 26 April 1929) to see who shows up in both, and then compared this to copies within the next three years. If the author was a first year, they’d presumably be a senior three years later. Alternatively, we could cross-reference it backwards, with the assumption that the author was a senior. The only person I managed to identify who might be responsible was Minard Fassett, who was a Sigma Mu Chi member and a sports writer for the Trail, though he doesn’t appear very often.

The only problem with this sort of “archival sleuthing” is that it makes a lot of assumptions. First of all, it assumes that a single Trail employee wrote this entire thing. It could easily have been an anonymous submission or even a group effort. Secondly, it assumes that even if an employee of the Trail wrote it, that they were there for all four years of their college education. It even assumes that they spent all four years here on campus, and that they started writing for the Trail as a freshman, instead of maybe picking it up their second or third year. Any of these assumptions could easily be untrue.

What do you think? Care to do some sleuthing of your own? Feel free to check out the digitized copies we have of the Trail online or come in on your own to browse through some other things!

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Evaluating? (10/12)

Unfortunately, last week’s post was the last section we can give you. We checked the next paper, the next year, searching for a continuation of this reimagining of the campus, but couldn’t find anything. Instead, we’re going to do some evaluating and explaining! So, as any prediction written 100 years ago, it correctly predicted a couple of things but most of the rest are questionable.

For example, we haven’t combined our radio and newspaper into one big jumble, but we do still have the Trail and KUPS 90.1 FM! The Trail still keeps up on campus news, though they don’t have anything writing down the news from across the universe (though that’s a pretty close definition of Twitter, if you ask me). KUPS isn’t news based at all, instead it’s 100% student DJed music.

There was an auditorium mentioned in Jones hall--we still have good old Jones Hall, but the auditorium no longer exists. Jones does look pretty much exactly the same as it did back in the 1920s, though by now it definitely is an old ivy-covered building. It still has old-fashioned stairs (though so do the rest of the buildings) and a door that leads out the back to the Color Post, and there aren’t quite a dozen other “ivy-covered buildings”, but there are at least two directly around Karlen Quad, being the Music building and Collins Library.

We don’t have any trams on campus, since campus is still small enough to walk from one end to the other quite comfortably. Some people might use bicycles, skateboards, longboards, or scooters, but I don’t think we’ll have to predict them building a light-rail any time soon.

Students and professors don’t wear togas (except on Halloween sometimes), and freshmen aren’t required to wear green anymore. This idea of freshmen wearing green is likely due to the old tradition started around 1916 of freshmen wearing green beanies--a tradition that the administration brought to an end in the 1950s because of the intense levels of hazing.

Probably the least accurate thing in the entire thing is the slang - though to be fair, slang is incredibly difficult to predict. Who would have guessed we’d be using things like “savage” or “on fleek” or “lit” even as recently as ten years ago? It’s just as likely someone will call a class a jungug a hundred years from today.

So what are your thoughts? We still have two more weeks of follow-up from here, so don’t think we’re done just yet.

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Sees Big Buildings (9/12)

The two now went down a short stairway and out the Colorpost Door of Jones Hall. There Williams exclaimed aloud in surprise. Before his eyes stood a dozen tall and stately buildings of stone and brick, heavily overgrown with ivy. “Where did all these buildings come from?” he demanded.

“I dunno,” said the reporter. “They’ve been here ever since I can remember, which is some statement, considering I’ve whiffed every jungug (Editor’s note: “flunked every course.”) in the University.”

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Is Year 2021 (8/12)

You’re crazy. See,” as they came through the door into the old hallway in Jones Hall, “there’s a calendar that will prove it.”

“Well, I’ll be--surprised!” murmured the dumfounded sleeper. “When I dozed off, it was April 26, 1921 (N.B. we believe the author may have meant 1928 not 1921) and now it’s 2021. How do you explain that?”

“Simply another case of ‘Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Van Winkle When Rip Van Winkle Went Away,’ as our new hit song says.”

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Don’t Have Any Classes (7/12)

“We don’t have any classes here,” said the news-sleuth.

“Say, listen, my name’s Williams, and I’m no dumb ox. I know we have classes here, because I just went to one last period.”

“And I,” retorted the other, “am as sure that there is no class hereas I am that today is April 26, 2021, or that--”

“Whoa there! Your date is all wrong,” interrupted Williams.

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Secret of Strange Individual Solved; Is One Who Knew of Old Puget Sound (6/12)

This strange remark of the strange creature in the strange hall created a strange sensation in the group surrounding him. “What did you say?” asked the reporter for the radio newspaper.

“I asked,” responded the awakened one, “if chapel were over yet. I must have fallen asleep during Dr. Smith’s talk. I do that every now and then.”

“Why don’t you sleep nights?” said the professor of psychology and the laughter did not die down for several hours.

“I say, that’s as old as the hills,” said the recent sleeper.

Hotly Denied

A chorus of denials swept over the throng. “I think,” mused the newshound, “that there is more in this than meets the eye. I’m going to get this man aside and buzz him for some wazzo on the lampi he’s been flapping us.” (Editor’s note: Translated, this means, “question him concerning the line he’s been handing us.”) Consequently, he approached the other and asked him to give him some of his time.

“Sorry, old man, but I have a class.”

“A what?”

“A class--under Dr. Topping.”

“But what is a class?”

“Why a class is--a class. You a place where you go and have a prof talk to you and tell you things.”

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

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The Puget Papers

The One Who Knows: Sleeping Beauty Awakens (5/12)

At this moment the psychologists made certain passes over the face of the dormant one and he stirred uneasily in his slumbers. A moment later his eyes snapped open and he looked about him. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is chapel over yet?”

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

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