Spring Fever Fades to Summer

Memorial Day, as you know, is the unofficial start to summer. But, we still have a few more weeks of Spring. So, stop by the Archives and take a look at our celebration of spring, three student displays focusing on three of our favorite aspects of the season. You've already heard about Fiesta and Graduation. Next up is Kate's ode to the season...

I like doing these displays because they’re a means of showcasing some of the interesting materials we have in Archives. In assembling my collection, I chose to focus on the presence of spring on art and literature so that I could display as many types of material as possible. Our Dicke art collection provided a lot of classic paintings to choose from; the impressionist art was especially bright and cheerful.

Don’t you just wish you were outside?

Claude Monet, Essai de figure en plein air: femme a l’ombrelle tournée vers la gauche (Study of Figure Outdoors: Woman With Parasol Turned to the Left), taken from Paintings in the Musée d’Orsay

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And what would springtime be without flowers? Special Collections holds a surprising number of botanical photography books, and I found some surprisingly exciting photos of vibrant spring flowers.

   Color explosion Christopher Baker, Keizerskroon from Tulipia: A Photographer’s Botanical

Finally, I went to look for some literature. This is dangerous territory for me because I tend to get lost in the first editions of novels or children's books, but I managed without irritating Amy too much. Most of the spring-related materials were books of poetry, and the selection is eclectic. Horizontal Yellow is a collection of poems by Spud Johnson, evoking the spirit of the Near Southwest, and our copy is one of 400 printed as Writer’s Editions and signed by the poet. A lovely copy of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is also on display as well as a strange and fascinating collection of irregular haikus, unbound and printed on long strips of paper. This funny little collection is entitled High Kukus and was written by James Broughton, who intended the work as an experiment, reconciling humanity with nature.

I thought these haikus were so unique that I decided to display them despite the fact that only a few of them relate to spring. Many of them focus on mundane items like kitchen utensils and old trucks.

The hardest part about putting together this display was the excitement I experienced in even thinking about being outside and the end of the year and all of the other lovely things that come along with springtime. Looking at the art and setting up the display case made the close of the semester seem even further away. But spring has sprung, and before we know it, it will be the heat of summer. So enjoy spring fever before it’s over!

Kate Cuellar '15

New Beginnings

Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time of year again to whip out your tissues and get ready to send our lovely seniors into the real world to make us all very proud. As they walk the Laurie Auditorium stage on May 18, 2013, they will be ending one adventure and starting a new one (cheesy...I know). One of our very own down here in Special Collections, Faith Bradham, will be starting her new life in August at Indiana University, attending graduate school to become a librarian and spreading her love of books to everyone she can. Your Special Collections family is very proud of you, Faith-- now go do awesome things and never forget that we’ve always got your back!

Trinity University diploma from the Waxahachie campus

Although the beginning and ending ceremonies are held in Laurie Auditorium both freshmen and senior year, it was not always this way. Previous ceremonies on the Skyline campus were held in the Sunken Gardens, located directly across the 281 highway and walking distance from campus.

Trinity University Spring Commencement at the Sunken Gardens

Due to lack of space (and probably the unbearable Texas heat), the ceremonies were eventually moved inside. Because, lets be honest, who wants to sweat up a storm under one of those polyester graduation gowns in the 100 degree temps? Not me. However, that has never stopped friends and families from enjoying the outdoors as they take photographs outside by the Miller Fountain and the Trinity Tower to commemorate this important day.

Trinity students have been known to add a personal touch
their graduation day attire

In addition to walking the stage on graduation day, graduating seniors also have the opportunity to leave their mark on Trinity, specifically on the iconic Trinity Tower. As wide-eyed first years, students climb the Trinity tower, taking photographs at the top with the University’s president. When graduating, students climb the tower once more, this time signing a brick at the top (which will cost $20.13 this year--see what they did there?). Therefore, while graduating, seniors participate in similar ceremonies as they did four years ago, this time transitioning out of college life and into a new phase in their lives.

As we creep closer and closer to graduation, seniors are getting closer to holding that much deserved diploma. Just as those who walked across the stage at the Sunken Gardens in the 1950s before their friends and family, 2013 seniors will walk (or stumble) across the Laurie Auditorium stage with the support of all their friends and family. The seniors of 2013 will be dearly missed next year, and campus will definitely not be the same without them. Congratulations friends, and never forget that your Triniland family is here cheering you on!

Oh, and try not to trip...

--Angeline Bottera '15

Student Days -- Reverend Black at Andover Newton Theological School, 1940s

Here at Trinity University, all anticipate the end of the semester, and student and faculty life is abuzz as projects and papers are due, and seniors wrap up their undergraduate life.  The digital collections contain two sets of photographs that represent Reverend Black's own time as a student at Andover Newton Theological Seminary (as it was called in those days) in Newton, Massachusetts, which he attended from 1940 to 1943.  The photographs are candid snapshots, primarily of Reverend Black and his fellow students studying, or enjoying leisure time and each others company in their residential dormitory.
Over the years of his life, Reverend Black often remarked that his time at the school was the first time he had ever lived in a non-segregated society. The experience was no doubt similar for other African Americans from the South attending Andover Newton Theological Seminary in the years before desegregation of the South. As is seen in the second photo, Samuel H. James, Jr. was also at the school at the time. He became Reverend S.H. James of the Second Baptist Church in San Antonio, was the first African American elected as councilman to the San Antonio city council, and was a founding civil rights leader in San Antonio in his own right.
Others who went on to become influential ministers also appear in some of the photographs, such as Alfonso Leon Lowry and Edward McCreary. The Trinity Digital Collections provides access to the thesis Reverend Black wrote to gain his degree, Communism as a Religion, made available by kind permission of the Franklin Trask Library at Andover Newton Theological School.

Claude W. Black, Jr. at study
Andover photos, part one 

Samuel H. James, Jr.

Andover photos, part one

Group photo
Andover photos, part one 

Student reflections Andover photos, part one

Playing chess

Andover photos, part two