150-131, published in Spring 2006.
130-111, published in Summer 2006.
110-91, published in Fall 2006.
90-71, published in Spring 2007.
70-56, published in Summer 2007.
55-41, published in Fall 2007.
40-26, published in Spring 2008.

55-41

55. George Enders, president, 1902-1904. A German immigrant who came to America as a youth, Enders was a Lutheran pastor who resided in York, Pa. He had been on the board of directors of the Missionary Institute and then Susquehanna University, and was selected as president in 1902. Enders maintained his pastorate in York, and commuted to Selinsgrove until he resigned in 1904.

54. Amos Alonzo Stagg Sr., football coach, 1947-1952. Stagg Sr. was either assistant coach to or co-coach with his son, Stagg Jr. The two compiled a record of 21-19-3. By the late 1940s, Stagg Sr. was a football celebrity, having been an end at Yale and selected to the first All American football team. He inaugurated football as coach at the University of Chicago and elaborated the basic formations and rules by which the game was played, coaching there for 40 years.

53. Russell Gilbert, faculty member, 1933-1970. A professor of German and scholar of Pennsylvania Dutch, Gilbert was a member of the third cohort of the faculty, shaping academic and social life at the college for nearly four decades. Gilbert was an earthy, humorous, friendly man who was well liked by both students and his colleagues.

52. Property Purchase, 1899. The first property purchased by Susquehanna University was the small slice of land on which O. W. Houts gymnasium is located. Athletic fields were carved in this space to appease male students and alumni displeased when the board decided to build Seibert Hall for women instead of a gymnasium.

51. Erle Shobert ’35, board member, 1977-1985. Erle Shobert was among the most able of Susquehanna students, receiving the first alumni scholarship and taking independent study courses in his last few years at Susquehanna. He then pursued graduate studies in physics. A successful businessman in St. Marys, Pa., he was also a loyal alumnus and board chair.

50. Herbert Allison, faculty member, 1896-1933. A member of the second cohort of the college’s faculty, Allison taught Greek and was the first teacher of history. He held bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College). Allison had a long tenure at Susquehanna until his death in 1933.

49. Alma Mater, 1909. The alma mater was written by E. Edwin Sheldon, director of the university’s conservatory. It has a distinctive melody and lyrics. For a time in the 1990s it was rarely heard (students from that era may not have been aware that it existed), but slightly revised, it is again being heard at Convocation, Commencement and athletic events.

48. Charles Steele, board member, 1902-1951. Steele, from Northumberland, Pa., was a banker, land developer, lumberman, churchman and politician (having served in Pa., senate in the 1920s). He applied his considerable business acumen to organize college finances and was a key leader during the period when Jacob Diehl was interim president 1927 to 1928. He selected G. Morris Smith to be the college’s ninth president in 1928.

47. First Football Game, 1892. On October 22, 1892 a tradition began. Fourteen “boys” representing the Missionary Institute played the Sunbury Athletic Club in the first known football game by institute students against an outside opponent. Professor John “Jack” Woodruff had just joined the institute, teaching Latin, history, and philosophy; he then became coach and player. The institute boys lost 16–0, perhaps because they were outclassed but more probably because they didn’t know much about the game.

46. Women’s Athletic Association. Organized in 1930, the “WAA” ran women’s athletics at Susquehanna for three decades. It determined criteria for the awarding of athletic insignia, planned and conducted athletic events, bought equipment such as bicycles for coed use, and sponsored the May Day festivity. Its most significant functions were coordinating intramural competition among women and sponsoring “play-days,” an early type of intercollegiate competition for women. It folded in the early 1960s.

45. Star Course Series. In the first decades of the 20th century, many lectures and musical performances were sponsored by various clubs, classes and faculty members at Susquehanna. In 1923, E. Edwin Sheldon, director of the conservatory, provided organization and order to these annual presentations in the Star Course series.

44. Weber Chapel Auditorium. Built in 1966 emulating the General Electric exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair, the structure features a stage build on a railroad roundtable, so the space can be used as a place of worship and entertainment. Designed to hold all of the student body in daily worship, a student boycott ended compulsory chapel just as the building opened.

43. Thomas Houtz, faculty member, 1886-1930. A key member of the second cohort of faculty, Houtz was a native of Centre County, Pa., studied at the Pennsylvania State College, and taught in the public schools of Centre County. He enrolled in the theological department of the Missionary Institute in 1886, becoming a Lutheran pastor. Houtz never left the school, teaching German and initiating the teaching of mathematics.

42. Theological Department. Designed for religiously awakened men of any age or social station who wanted to prepare to preach the gospel on home or foreign mission fields, this academic program was the raison d’etre for the school as the founder, Benjamin Kurtz, saw it. Changing its name and requirements over the years, it was finally “suspended” in 1933 due to low enrollments and high expense (its students were educated tuition-free and had their room paid for).

41. Frank Fletcher, faculty member, 1962-1999. An innovator and energetic member of the faculty for over three decades, Frank Fletcher experienced many “firsts” at the school. He initiated what is now the department of earth and environmental sciences; secured a National Science Foundation grant in the early 1970s, the largest the college received to that date; served as the inaugural dean of arts and sciences at the college; and was the first liberal arts faculty member appointed as a Degenstein Professor.