This photo really intrigues me! In all of my RPI history travels, which includes extensive research for exhibits on student clubs and student traditions, I haven't found an explanation for this image. I hope I stumble across something someday that will help me identify this curiously dressed group of men! I'm dying to know what they were up to. Was this an early LARP club?!

Finals week is coming to an end, and from my vantage point (limited as it may be), it has been very quiet on campus this week. It definitely feels like the semester is winding down. On the job, I often live in the past ;) and today I wondered how very different it must have been here 38 years ago this week in May.

There are several centennials to mark this year at RPI, so I've been doing a lot of research in the period 1907 to 1909. I just installed a new exhibit in the Folsom Library titled Russell Sage Laboratory 100 Years: A Glance Back at the Beginning. One hundred years ago this month, ground was broken for the construction of Russell Sage Laboratory. Funding for the new building was made possible through a $1 million gift from Margaret Olivia Sage.

Every RPI student and alum has invariably heard the term "'Tute Screw" often used metaphorically and also embodied as an actual object. No one knows who coined the term or how long it has been in use, but the object itself has a documented origin. In the Fall of 1949, Sigma Phi Epsilon awarded the first 'Tute Screw in a ceremony on the '87 Field. Three hooded fraternity brothers known as "The Order of the Royal Screw" presented the "trophy" to the freshmen class.