For UMass’ sesquicentennial in 2013, Katharine Grieder and the UMass Press published a book called UMass Rising, which is a look back on how UMass has evolved over the last century and a half. From the Morrill Land Grant Act to its incorporation as Massachusetts Agricultural College “Mass Aggie” to Massachusetts State College to finally University of Massachusetts Amherst, UMass Rising shows how much this school has changed, but also how much things have stayed the same throughout the duration of this university.
This university was founded in 1863, the year after Abraham Lincoln approved the Morrill Land Grant Act in order to create federal universities to educate Americans that may not have had access to one of the extant colleges at the time due to their expense. Also, college was seen as a frivolity, with one professor saying the students’ exertions were “limited to digging Sanskrit roots,” saying that they were useless for any physical work. The founders of UMass intended to change that by starting an agricultural school. In 1867, the first students came, tuition was $36, and everyone lived in South College. What was just open farmland around the dorm soon became littered with buildings tacked on through every passing architectural fad, creating a veritable motley crew of buildings.
UMass has seen a lot of changes and has had a lot of cool things happen over its existence. It was fairly quick to admit women to the school, first in 1875 as “select” non-degree students and then in 1901 as degree-earning students, which was much sooner than Harvard or Columbia. We’ve seen the mascot of the football team change from Metawampe and the Redmen to Sam and the Minutemen (and women!) in the name of being respectful to Native Americans. We’ve also seen the construction of dorms all across what used to be open land, giving the majority of the 28,000 students currently attending UMass a place to live while they’re here. And we’ve also seen UMass’ academic staff, despite its reputation as a “safety school,” making this school one of the best values for a great education this side of the Mississippi. When luminaries in their fields such as Max Roach, Sut Jhally, George Parks, and Chuck Close all teach at one place, you know it’s a great institution.
However, the one thing that struck me was the prevalence of the Old Chapel in the book. It’s on the cover, and stays through the story of the school until 1997 when the building was condemned. While you still hear its bells toll every day and see it walking across campus, very few of the students here now have ever been in it, with only a few bandos going in when they have it open for homecoming to see the old home of the band until 1997. I’ve been in there, and you can see when it was used as a chapel, library, rehearsal space, and many other functions as well. If you’re on campus next time it’s open, I highly urge that you check it out, because it illustrates the history of this school as much as the book does and you can feel the history of the entire school once you pass through those doors.
Interested in purchasing this book? Buy UMass Rising online!