Student Life

Posted by John Dojka on March 27, 2020
The ’87 Gymnasium was dedicated in June 1912. Planning for the new facility went back a couple of years earlier to 1910 when a Board of Trustees committee was established to investigate the feasibility of developing a department of physical culture at the Institute. The committee concluded that a completely equipped modern gymnasium was necessary if such a department was to be established.
Posted by Kelsey O'Brien on August 28, 2018
Sixty years ago, NASA was formed, the microchip was invented, Ella Fitzgerald was on the radio, and four men from RPI won the National Handball Championship in Chicago, Illinois. That’s right! Mike McQuillen, Harvey Poppell, Jerry Gonick, and Fernando Arias, under the guidance of RPI’s Athletic Director, “Pop” Graham, won the National Cup in handball, a sport that the team, besides Gonick, had never played until freshman year of college.
Posted by John Dojka on May 7, 2018
Rensselaer’s ninety-fourth commencement exercises were held on Wednesday May 1, 1918 in the ’87 Gymnasium. Bachelor degrees awarded included 30 in Civil Engineering, 22 in Electrical Engineering, 11 in Mechanical Engineering, and 8 in Chemical Engineering.
Posted by T. A. Gobert on February 13, 2018
With the 2018 Winter Olympic Games underway, this is a good time to highlight a recent acquisition in the Institute Archives and Special Collections: a lacrosse uniform worn in the XIV Olympiad in the summer of 1948!
Posted by T. A. Gobert on November 27, 2017
Not long ago I happened upon something of great interest to me as an RPI archivist – a photograph album documenting Rensselaer and its vicinity in the early twentieth century.  This is the story of how we acquired not one but seven photo albums compiled by Mr. Louis Blackmer Puffer, RPI Class of 1909.
Posted by John Dojka on May 16, 2017
The Institute’s ninety-third commencement took place on Wednesday, June 13, 1917 in the ’87 Gymnasium. Eighty-nine students received bachelor’s degrees: 53 in Civil Engineering, 19 in Electrical Engineering, 12 in Mechanical Engineering, and 5 in Chemical Engineering.
Posted by John Dojka on March 30, 2017
Student Army Training Corps, '86 Field, RPI, 1917 The first week of April 2017 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the United States entry into the Great War, or the First World War as it came to be called. On April 2, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany.
Back to top