Hi everybody uh so I’m Matthew Lions Drex University archist and this webinar is about the history of student organizations at Drexel and specifically how University archives is helping to preserve that history so that people can learn about these organizations now and in the future Drexel has a lot of different
Kinds of student groups from from fraternities and sororities to professional organizations and from groups focused on a particular extracurricular activity to groups that offer support for students from a specific cultural or religious background I’m going to talk about some of the various kinds of student groups that we’ve documented in our Collections
And show you some examples of materials we’ve collected I will also make a pitch for people who are involved in student organizations on how you can work with us in University archives to help preserve some of your group’s history and after the presentation I’d be happy to answer any questions that people might
Have before I go into the main topic let me say a little about Drexel University archives we are a program of drexle University libraries and we are the department whose job it is to document the history of Drexel as an institution and an academic community except for the
College of Medicine which has its own archives we collect institutional records from academic and administrative departments across the university as well as campus Publications memorabilia compiled by students research files and teaching materials from faculty and the records of student organizations we have materials going back to Drexel University’s founding in
1891 and up to the present in physical and digital formats we’re located in Hagerty library at 33rd in Market Streets and we’re open by appointment for anyone who’s interested in using our collections or learning about Drexel history now with regard to Drexel student organizations I want to announce
A new resource from University archives which is this guide to researching student organizations and Greek life at drexell University this guide was compiled by Drexel student Sophia study who was our University archives co-op in the spring and summer of 2023 the guide is available now through the Drea libraryies website and I
Believe my colleague Matt Sherman is going to drop the link uh to the guide in the chat here are some of the kinds of items that Drex University archives has collected from or about student organizations we have photographs such as these photos at the left from a Drexel Players theater production and
This group portrait at the right of a drexal team that built a Formula 1 racing car we have Publications such as this newsletter at left from the betaf MU Honor Society and official documents such as the constitution of the undergraduate student government Association at right there are student organization
Scrapbooks such as this newsletter at left from the beta FIU Honor Society um and offic blah blah blah uh I’m mangling that um this is a example of a scrapbook from the drexal tyrians a Christian Student organization um and these are some flyers such as a printed flyer at left from the Federation of engineering and scientific societies and the handwritten flyer at wri from the society for women scientists and Engineers we even have archived web pages from some groups such as this list of officers of the drexal women and Computing Society most of our physical collection materials are either bound volumes or they’re flat items that will fit in a folder or an envelope but there are exceptions such as these drinking
Paraphernalia from the FI Sigma cppa fraternity which was originally called Delta Delta Kappa row as as shown here and this homecoming Banner from the fu sority which is about twice as long as the table in the archives reading room which makes it about 24t long or tall these collection items can tell a
Lot of stories about who Drexel students were where they came from what they cared about what they hoped to achieve to help us get an overview of student organizations history at Drexel a really useful tool is the collection of Drexel yearbooks that we have at The Archives Drexel’s main yearbook is the
Lexer which is Drexel spelled backwards and we have an almost complete set of lexs going back to when it was founded in 1913 110 years ago we can use the lexer to take a series of snapshots of Drexel student groups over time let’s start with this first lexur
Yearbook from 1913 when Drexel was 22 years old and still had its original name the Drexel Institute of Arts Science and Industry that first lectur represented just the School of Engineering rather than the whole Institute it has pages on three student organizations just three there’s the Drexel Club of Engineers no
Surprise there is the Drexel Orchestra as seen here and there is the class presidents Association which mainly organize social events such as dances and sports days it’s interesting that there are no fraternities mentioned although at that time there were already at least two fraternities at Drexel and had been for several
Years now let’s Jump Ahead about 25 years to 1938 at the tail end of the Great Depression and right on the eve of World War II by 1938 Drexel has grown to have almost 5,000 students Fallen part-time and we see a lot more student organizations in the yearbook than we did in
19133 now there’re about 10 fraternities and sororities represented and a whole list of Honor societies instead of one Engineers Club there are about five different associations for different kinds of Engineers mechanical engineers chemical engineers and so on and there are also clubs related to other professional Fields such as home economics dietetics
And the teaching of business there are groups for students who are interested in chess debating in theater specifically the Rouge and robe drama club shown here there are also several different musical performance clubs and religious associations for Catholic students and Jewish students fast forward again to 1973 half
A century ago Drexel has continued to grow and evolve in a number of ways and we see a number of student organizations that definitely weren’t in the lexur in 1938 such as the computer Society the Russian Club the psychology Club the afroamerican society which was later renamed the black student union and the
Society for women scientists and Engineers shown in this slide one more snapshot this time from 2003 just 20 years ago now instead of the one computer club we saw in 1973 there are several different groups dealing with different computer related issues from Linux Le Linux users to computer Gamers to a
Group focused on giving more lowincome people access to digital technology unlike 1973 there are now several groups with a social or political activism Focus such as a straight and gay Alliance a chapter of the college Democrats and a students for social justice group probably the most dramatic change
From 1973 is a big growth in the number of student organizations reflecting Drexel’s increased racial ethnic and cultural diversity now there are professional organizations for both black engineers and Hispanic Engineers there’s a minorities in Medicine group and a branch of the NAA CP and there are organizations for Asian
Students West Indian students European immigrant students and at least eight different specific nationalities such as the Filipino Intercultural Society shown in this slide there are now not one but several different Christian associations as well as organizations for both Jewish students and Muslim Students again these are just quick
Snapshots but I think looking at at overall long-term changes in This Way shows us how student organizations can tell us some interesting and important things about the university as a whole and it also reminds us how changes in student organizations often reflect larger changes in the university and in society more
Broadly now let’s talk about some of the kinds of collections at Drexel University archives that document student groups we have several for photograph collections that contain images of student organization activities or members such as the clubs and organizations photographs and the events photographs both of which cover a pretty
Wide time span from the early 20th century to around the year 2000 our campus periodicals collection includes newsletters from some student groups such as the afroamerican society’s newsletter the communicator from the 1980s shown here some collections from specific administrative offices have a lot about student groups such as the office of
Fraternity and sorority life records sometimes student organization materials show up in collections from Individual students or alumni such as the Nicholas riter III collection of memorabilia which includes a number of photographs and Publications from Alpha Omega fraternity we also have a number of collections from or about a specific student
Organization from wkdu student radio station we have programming log books hundreds of audio recordings and a lot of old zen and flyers such as the flyer shown here at left the Drexel Players Theater group has given us lots of posters programs and photo albums from Productions of various plays they’ve done over the
Years here at right we see the program and tickets from their 2003 production of the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night Dream the undergraduate student government Association records include meeting minutes reports correspondence and subject files earlier in this presentation I showed you an interesting scrapbook from The Drexel tyrians which was a Christian
Student organization at Drexel in the 1940s a number of Greek life organizations have also contributed historical records to the archives the Pi cifi Fraternity collection includes show programs such as this program for their 1962 production of something called Moscow Mania as well as sheet music and lyrics photographs and a
Scrapbook the Delta Zeta sorority collection repres presented in the photo at right includes several scrapbooks as well as photographs and some of their printed materials and these are all just some of many examples so how do you get access to these materials from drex’s uh archives they’re basically three
Different ways depending on the collection some of our most heavily used collections have been digitized and are available online in our Drexel history collection digital repository shown here this repository includes our yearbooks such as the lexer and a few other lesser known drexal yearbooks including the Spartan which
Was the yearbook of the Drexel’s uh evening College from the mid 1930s to Mid 1950s um also available online are most issues of the triangle student newspaper going back to its founding in 1926 the triangle has featured news coverage of many campus events and at the beginning
Of each school year often published a list of current student organizations which can be a very useful uh point of reference in the months and years ahead drexal University archives will be adding more historical content to our digital repository and also improving the search capabilities to make it
Easier to find what you’re looking for getting historical materials scanned cataloged and indexed is a very labor intensive process so most of our collections at University archives actually aren’t available online if you have a specific question or are looking for a particular piece of information or photograph of a specific
Person or event we may be able to locate it for you and email it to you but in other instances you’ll need to come into the archives reading room in Hagerty library and look through the materials yourself this can be timec consuming and you won’t always find what you want but
On the other hand getting to handle the actual historical documents and photographs can be really interesting and fun and you may turn up surprises and unexpected finds that take your research in a New Direction anytime you want to use University archives collections or have a question about Drexel history we
Encourage you to ask University archives staff for help we can advise you about the best way to get the information you want and we may be able to point you to collection guides or other online tools that can help you out such as the new research guide on student organizations that I mentioned
Earlier the best way to reach us is by email at archives at drexel.edu now is the part of the webinar where I ask you for help if you are part of a Drexel student organization or if you know other people who are part of a student organization
Or if you have memorabilia from being involved in an organization in the past you can help preserve that history for the future and we can help you do it University archives is interested in collect materials that document any and all Drexel student groups in both physical and digital formats if your organization has
Official documents like bylaws or meeting minutes if you have photos videos or Flyers of past events if you have a newsletter or emailings or a website please talk to us as I’ve said we’re reachable at archives drexel.edu and we would love to talk talk with you about which materials
Might be a good fit for our Collections and to address any concerns that you might have that’s pretty much everything that I wanted to cover in this webinar to wrap up let me leave you with a few quick takeaways Drexel student organizations have a long history that can teach us a
Lot about the university its students and the larger society you University archives has diverse collection materials about the history of student groups at Drexel student organizations can work with University archives to help preser preserve their own history for the future and if you’d like to access University archives collections or if
You have new collection materials to offer us please email us at archives drexel.edu and lastly here is our contact information our email address once again is archives drexel.edu and if you want to reach me specifically I’m reachable at matthew. lions drexel.edu for the University archives website which is part of the Drexel University
Libraries website go to library. drexel.edu archives thank you very much and now I’m happy to take questions thank you so much Matthew see a couple applauses if anyone has any questions feel free to unmute and just uh start talking or put them in the chat and I will read them
Off it’s always awesome to see those old uh photographs and it’s s such interesting context text and it’s so funny 20 you know 2003 doesn’t feel that long ago for a lot of us but seeing those pictures really puts it in perspective of you you can see how
Things have developed and changed over time y uh I see Alisa has raised her hand go right ahead I sure did I know it’s it’s like I’m a plant but I’m not um so I was looking at the I hadn’t had a chance to see Sophia’s lip guide until today until now
Which is so great and I hope everybody clicks over there and checks it out but the timeline especially is really interesting there’s this timeline of um student organizations and clubs about when they were founded and stuff and I and I don’t know if you know this
Matthew but was were all of these dates found in our archives records or did Sophia have to go out and reach out to organizations to find some of these dates out I I don’t know specifically I don’t think they did did any reach Outreach to uh student organizations um but they were working
With um you know some of the secondary sources we have as well as um the collections themselves so we have you know several published histories of the university and I’m sure those have some you know information about for example when the first fraternities were founded and things like that anyway I thought
That was really a a great addition to the guide that is not typical and what you see in these research these sorts of research guides so anyway I really like that yeah and it it definitely included information that you me there things that that I certainly didn’t know
Yeah I’m not seeing anything in chat um and no more raised hands so if no one has any questions we can go ahead and conclude um the webinar but uh you know where to find us and uh please feel free to reach out to Matthew as he as he said
Um at this contact thanks everybody
source
