Stockton Myths and Legends

 

Stockton Myths and Legends

Thursday, October 6th marked the beginning of University Weekend. Between movies, comedians, parades, and fairs, it was bound to be a busy few days. However, a small event on the crammed schedule caught my eye. Stockton Myths and Legends, hosted by Stockton alumni and staff. Unsure of what it could possibly be, I made my way to the event room. I grabbed a cannoli and sat down quickly in the second row, already late. Seated on the stage before me were people much older than me, talking to each other, fixing their microphones, and playing on their cellphones.

The host walked over to a separate podium and began to speak. He introduced his distinguished guests one by one. Stockton Myths and Legends, he explained, was an event where the first members of Stockton College’s pupils and professors met to speak about what the college was like when it’s doors first opened. One professor left great money in a well established school to teach a liberal arts education to students, he felt, needed it more. Another handed in her application simply because she needed a job.

They described the early days as a combined effort between students and staff to create an education they both agreed on, implementing unorthodox courses such as women’s sexuality, classes in which they created isolation chambers, and others which were extremely unordinary for the time. They created clubs left and right, and the professors even played football alongside their students. It was, as they saw, an opportunity to construct the kind of college they thought the world needed.

While all in attendance agreed that the Stockton they taught at was wonderful and unique, a distinct separation in opinion arose, those who felt the university had strayed from its original platform, and those who felt it was the same place it always was. The perennial optimist of the group argued that the alterations seen were necessary for the University to grow and spread its ideals; his counterpart maintained that Stockton changed for the worse and had already conformed too much.

I like to hope that Stockton is still the place that they called home all those years ago, but who am I to say? The event was hilarious, enlightening, and gave me a whole new love for my school. As I shuffled through the double doors, University Weekend t-shirt in hand, I decided I would certainly be attending next year’s event too.

 

Eryn Swineford