On this, the final day of April, we say goodbye to National Poetry Month. Whether or not you’re a devotee of poetry, it can be found everywhere, and National Poetry Month is a good time to stop and appreciate the power of words that surround us, and the unexpected places poetry can exist.

One place we’ve found poetry in the archives is in the student newspapers. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, the student newspaper, then called The Nor’Easter, regularly ran student contributed poetry. Now, you can read student work in the University’s annual Review of Art and Literature (check it out!), but back then, the newspaper was the only only venue for such work.

In honor of poetry, and the arrival of springtime, we’re sharing a poem by a 1943 graduate, which was featured in April of 1938 in The Nor’Easter. Perhaps it will inspire you to write some versus, even after National Poetry Month has come to an end.

Enjoy!

Since the newest edition of The Cupola is being distributed this week, we thought we’d take some time today to look back at the Archive’s earliest yearbook from 1949.

Cover of the 1949 yearbook

The 1949 edition of the school’s yearbook was not yet called The Cupola, as we didn’t yet have the famous cupola atop Deliso Hall. In fact, we didn’t even have Deliso Hall! When the 1949 edition was distributed, the school was still known as Northeastern University, Springfield Division, and classes were held in buildings in downtown Springfield, not on our Wilbraham Road campus we know and love today. The yearbook received the title The Cupola in 1961.

Cover of the 1961 yearbook

Arrival of the cupola, as pictured in the 1961 yearbook

The 1949 yearbook itself is homemade – not professionally bound or published. In fact, the second page of the book indicates the yearbook was published by the senior class.

Publishing information page from the 1949 yearbook

The pictures are pasted on each page, the text from a typewriter, and the binding done with a hole puncher. We’re not sure if this copy is a proof (meaning an original other yearbooks were copied from) but it’s the only one we have in the collection, so we can’t say for sure.

The book features photographs of all the graduating seniors (only 27!), details about convocation events, the class oration, class prophecies, last will and testaments, and class ballots – old yearbook traditions that have since been replaced by photographs and information about clubs, sports, campus events and activities, and so much more!

Class ballots for the class of 1949

The last will and testament for the class of 1949

We’re not sure if this is in fact the first Western New England / Northeastern University, Springfield Division yearbook. The school has been graduating students since 1919, and our graduating seniors don’t appear to have been included in the Northeastern University yearbook, The Cauldron. It’s very likely we just haven’t been lucky enough to get our hands on some of the earlier editions.

So if there are any alumni, or family of alumni, out there with a yearbook prior to 1949, please consider donating to the University Archives! And if you’re picking up your yearbook this week, be sure to take good care of it. It may end up in an archive someday!

Is everyone on campus longing for spring as much as we are? With snow in the forecast tomorrow, but 77 degrees predicted for Saturday, we don’t quite know how to feel (or how to dress!) this week. In honor of the confused spring season of 2018, we thought we’d share some campus scene during all of the seasons, capturing the best of the different weather and temperatures so we can try and embrace whatever the rest of April has in store!

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