By Paul Grondahl

More than 300 alumni walked across the lawn in front of Page Hall on the downtown campus for a “Moving Up Day Luncheon” last June 8, stepping back in time four, five and six decades. They remembered a long-ago afternoon in May in which they participated in a tradition-steeped ceremony to mark the symbolic advancing of each class at the end of another academic year. It was called Moving Up Day, and it was one of the grandest rituals in the days when the Univer-sity was known as the New York State College for Teachers, between 1906 and 1962. Regarded as one of the nation’s premier teacher training institutions, tuition-free State College offered many poor and working-class families their first opportunity for higher education, as well as traditions still fondly remembered today.

UAlbany’s Moving Up Day Luncheon in June drew a strong alumni turnout.

Moving Up Day, 1919

Moving Up Day — founded in 1914 by the senior class and held on a Saturday in mid-May — was filled with pomp and pageantry. Women wore formal white gowns and ribbons in their hair, while men dressed in their best suits. Each member of the class donned a brightly colored felt armband with their class year emblazoned on it. There was a parade, and members of each class arranged themselves in a human numeral spelling out their class year. The day-long event moved inside the auditorium, later named Hawley Hall, where there were speeches, original songs performed by each class, skits and the denouement: a ritualized tapping by outgoing seniors of juniors selected for Student Association and Myskania, the coveted student judiciary and policy-setting board. Each graduating senior also passed a lighted candle in an inscribed wooden souvenir candle-holder to a junior to symbolize the transfer of wisdom and responsibility. The ceremony concluded as seniors marched solemnly out of the front rows of the auditorium to the strains of State’s alma mater, “College of the Empire State.” The remaining three classes each then literally moved up a block of rows.

During Alumni Week-end last June, alumni remembered the heart-in-the-throat finale of Moving Up Day, the climax of an emotionally charged ceremony that was at turns raucous and reverent. Class songs tugged at the heart strings, such as “Where, Oh Where” from Moving Up Day, 1954:

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“Where, oh where are the grand old Seniors?
Safe, now, in the wide, wide world.
They’ve gone out from their Alma Mater
Safe, now, in the wide, wide world.”

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“There was a great deal of wondering and excitement leading up to seeing who would get tapped for Myskania, and it was a very emotional, tearful conclusion when the seniors walked out,” recalled Ruth (Seelbach) Elmore, B.A.’48, who traveled from her home in Florida for the Moving Up Day luncheon. She was tapped as one of the 12 Myskania members her senior year.

For Carl Mitchell, B.S.’42, of Mechanicville, N.Y., the luncheon marked the first time he’d been back to his old haunts on the downtown campus since graduation (alumni events routinely are held on the newer and larger uptown campus). “It was the first time I’d sat in the Page Hall auditorium in 60 years and it was a very emotional, wonderful experience,” said Mitchell, who reunited with class members he had not seen in years. “Our class kind of graduated into a war, we scattered and our lives were changed forever.” Mitchell enlisted in the Navy during World War II just weeks after his final Moving Up Day in ’42.

“The luncheon was such a special event, and we shared a lot of old stories during the tour of the buildings on the downtown campus,” recalled Joy (Beckers) Ford, B.S.’47, of Glenmont, N.Y. “What made it so great was that this was our campus. The uptown campus is nice, but we have no memories there. The downtown campus is where we participated in many traditions and made friends for life.”

Another tradition was Rivalry. Begun in 1918, Rivalry was a long-running series of competitions that pitted the sophomore class against the freshman class. Points were awarded for each event, and the class with the most points at the end of the year won a trophy and bragging rights. Incoming freshmen were made to wear beanies and perform menial tasks meant to summon class spirit, build character and enliven campus life. Rivalry events initially lasted the entire year, but were later reduced to a four-month stretch of tug-of-war, climbing a greased pole, games of push ball, capture the flag, singing contests and debates.

Top: Torch Night 2002. Bottom: Rivalry in the 1950s.

Traditions were re-counted during the luncheon as alumni reminisced about indelible memories of the downtown campus. Attending “Frosh Camp,” an orientation at rustic cabins in Columbia County. Renting a bus for class picnics at Thacher Park. Avoiding bitterly cold winter weather by moving between the buildings in the underground passageways. Riding the trolley downtown to watch movies at the Palace Theater (women had to wear dresses and would be reprimanded for going out on the town in dungarees). Taking a date to the Boulevard Cafeteria, known as the “Boul,” where 15 cents bought a tuna salad sandwich.

“We talked about how we were all so poor in those days, especially just after the Depression and during the war years,” Ford said. “I remember my mom, who was a widow, sending me off to State from White Plains with $10 in my pocket, and that was supposed to be my spending money for the year.”

“The luncheon and the reunion events were outstanding, and we all had a real good time,” said Ben Lindeman, B.S.’57, M.S.’62, of Poestenkill, N.Y., a retired high school math teacher and state Education Department administrator. He reunited with classmates from as far away as San Francisco. Lindeman praised the Alumni Relations staff and University archivist Geoff Williams for creating a display of photographs and artifacts of Moving Up Day and for an entertaining program with Williams’ historical retrospective, interspersed by alumni vignettes. One of the highlights was a hilarious story recounted by Howard Lynch, B.S.’43, M.S.’47, of Sidney, N.Y. Lynch told of his wanting to take a date to a formal college ball, but he couldn’t afford to rent a tuxedo. Lynch’s mom came to the rescue and said she’d send two tuxes — one for Lynch and one for his buddy. The tuxes arrived in time, but it turned out they were moth-eaten. Lynch’s mom later disclosed that she had borrowed the tuxes from the local funeral parlor.

“Holding these events on the downtown campus really hit home for a lot of our alumni because it gave them a chance to relive their student days in a way they never could when they gathered on the uptown campus,” said Melissa Samuels, director of Alumni Relations. She attributed the idea to Margaret Aldrich, associate vice president for University Advancement.

Torch Night 2002.

Most of the traditions from the University’s era as the State College for Teachers — including campus rivalry — had faded away by the mid-1960s as student sensibilities changed and the size of the student body grew with the opening of the uptown campus. Some of the old traditions still remain, including a modern-day version of Torch Night, a procession and ceremony begun in 1930 to symbolize the passing of leadership as seniors become alumni. Homecoming, begun in 1953, is still an important tradition at the University. So, too, is the May ritual of Fountain Day, started in 1978, which has turned into a major student tradition as the podium fountain is turned on for the first time of the season. “The earliest traditions of State College were meant to enliven school spirit and campus life,” said Williams, the archivist. “That’s still the purpose of traditions on the uptown campus, too.”

Paul Grondahl, M.A.’84, is a feature reporter for the Albany Times-Union and frequent contributor to UAlbany magazine.