“What greater honor could fall to any individual than to have the center of the academic community named for you?” The rhetorical query, posed by author Russell Vance in his authoritative and comprehensive, A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976, referenced not simply one individual, but two: Justina Baron and Mildred Forness.

The two women, who dedicated their lives to serving Edinboro students as librarians during the early days of Edinboro State Normal School and Edinboro State Teachers College, could not have imagined technological advances that decades later would influence such monumental changes in library science.

Ms. Baron, a 1917 graduate of Edinboro University’s early forerunner, Edinboro State Normal School (ESNS), returned to her alma mater in the 1920s as a librarian. She became the guiding force behind the then fledgling Alumni Association, serving as its executive secretary from 1937 to 1962.

During the same period, Justina Baron’s co-librarian, Mildred Forness, became a sponsor of ESNS’s first sorority, Alpha Delta, organized at Edinboro in May 1928 and restricted to young women enrolled in state teachers’ colleges. That October, Alpha Delta made its first formal appearance at a campus banquet.

Almost 100 years after the first building designated to house the library was erected, the new Hamilton Library was constructed and opened in July 1961. Prior to construction, however, it was Ms. Baron and Ms. Forness who visited libraries throughout the country, returning with ideas for the new one to be built at Edinboro and named to honor George Hamilton, a regional and state leader who long supported physical and educational growth at the college.

Just 15 years later, following a tremendous spurt in campus growth, the largest and most comprehensive library facility in northwestern Pennsylvania was built at a cost of $3.5 million and dedicated to honor the two librarians who were so much a part of the University, its growth and its student life. Today, a seven-story, state-of-the-art research facility, complete with computerized databases linking the library with state and national information hubs, Baron-Forness Library houses nearly a half million bound volume equivalents and 300 linear feet of archival material. In 2005, the University completed major renovations, including architectural and access enhancements.

“No more holes to fall through and please heaven the ceilings and skylights will never descend on our heads in the new situation . . . that the frequent gas attacks from below will become a mere memory.”

So reported The Plaid, Edinboro State Normal School’s official newspaper, organized by art students of the day, after the Art Department, with one instructor and one actual major, moved – or “skyed” from Room N3 of Normal Hall to Normal’s third floor attic in 1921.

That single instructor, who also headed the department, was Waldo F. “Pop” Bates, Jr., a recent promising and talented graduate of the prestigious Massachusetts School of Art, who arrived at Edinboro a year earlier to found the department.

Serving as department head for 34 years until his retirement in 1954, Bates’ sense of humor allowed him to survive the department’s hectic early days – each student in the art room was there on an irregular schedule, each doing a different kind of work. “There was but one instructor who refereed a rather strenuous game,” Professor Bates was quoted in Russell Vance’s, A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976.

In 1920, the state board of principals had divided the 14 normal schools into “service areas.” Edinboro was assigned elementary education and art. Although all students were required to complete an art course, Professor Bates had only one major that first year in a program that by the dawn of the next century had grown to one of the largest in the nation with 1,100 students and more than 50 instructors.

By 1923, Professor Bates was joined by another art instructor, also a graduate of the Boston school, Aimé Doucette, who taught until 1960. By now, with five majors and many students interested in art, Bates organized the Scarab Club, which continued for many decades as the most enthusiastic and successful of all the school’s student-centered organizations.

In the attic, under Bates’ leadership, the department flourished in quarters with no fire escape, no ventilation or heat control, a ceiling that rained plaster on the occupants and a floor that was “as full of holes as a railroad trestle,” Vance wrote. The Art Department remained there until Loveland Hall was built in 1931, and the overjoyed art students celebrated the opening of their new home with a dedication program and a tea. That evening’s celebration was highlighted with a typical Scarab Club Ball, complete with Egyptian dress and décor. In April 1936, at the 75th anniversary of the school’s 1861 transition from Edinboro Academy to the “new” Northwestern State Normal School at Edinboro, Professor Bates played a major role in the celebration by arranging a special art exhibit.

Today, the Bates Gallery, honoring the man who started it all, is operated by the Student Art League and features continuous exhibitions of student work throughout the year.

Dr. Clair J. Butterfield, truly an educator extraordinaire, served at virtually every level of learning during a career spanning four decades, taking him from Waterloo, Iowa, to Iron River, Michigan, and finally to his adopted home in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.

A high school teacher at Iron River, a principal and superintendent of schools at Trout Creek, Michigan, an elementary school principal at Iowa City, Iowa, and director of elementary education in Davenport, Iowa, Dr. Butterfield found his way to Edinboro in 1946 and served in the Department of Education until 1951, when he took an eight-year leave of absence to participate in the Point Four Government Education Program in Latin America. Once there, he established public teacher education programs in Honduras and Nicaragua, while serving as an education technician in Ecuador and Panama. Returning to Edinboro State Teachers College in 1959, he became the Education Department’s chairman. In 1966, following the unexpected death of Acting President Harry W. Earlley, Dr. Butterfield was appointed acting president and later interim Dean of Student Affairs until his retirement in 1968.

His dedication to Edinboro was so great that several months later he again answered Edinboro’s call when he was needed. Dr. Butterfield was called back from retirement for another interim appointment, Dean of Students, a position he held for a short time until a permanent dean was named.

The college honored Dr. Butterfield in 1972 with construction of the $1.9 million Butterfield Hall. Since that time, the nearly 41,000-square-foot complex has housed classrooms and offices for the School of Education. Now also housing offices for the Social Work Department, the Butterfield Hall classrooms have been renovated, upgraded and enhanced for technology access. Dr. Butterfield died November 27, 1984, at the age of 84.

Completed in 1941 for $250,000 and known simply as “the college auditorium” or “the new auditorium,” the recently rededicated and renamed Louis C. Cole Auditorium – Memorial Hall has been one the most recognized landmarks on the Edinboro University campus for 65 years.

The unique structure was one of four new campus buildings on which construction began in 1938. After completion, however, it remained without an official name for 12 years. But in 1953, the Board of Trustees resolved the auditorium be named Memorial Hall, honoring all those who gave their lives in service to their country. Later, the building became known as Memorial Auditorium.

In 2003, a half-century after getting its first formal name, the campus’ center for the performing arts was rededicated, the culmination of a $2.8 million renovation project. The building’s new name not only recognizes a distinguished alumnus and philanthropist to the University, but also restores to the building its originally intended name.

Louis C. Cole, a native of Erie and graduate of Cathedral Preparatory School, graduated from Edinboro in 1965, earning a B.S. degree in education with a concentration in mathematics. Serving briefly as a substitute teacher in the Erie School District, he was hired by Erie Technological Products, then by Litton Industries in Erie. In 1969, he was recruited by Fairchild Industries to head its information services. The California-based Silicon Valley company was a world leader in the semiconductor business and became the launching pad for Mr. Cole’s meteoric rise in the fast-emerging technology industry. His climb continued through a series of technology-based information service and network companies, each one owing its success largely to Mr. Cole and culminating with his stint at California’s Legato Systems, where he was president and CEO.

In 2001, Mr. Cole made a $1 million gift to Edinboro University – the largest unrestricted donation in the school’s history and one of the largest in the history of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. In addition, he has generously supported the Frank G. Pogue Honors Scholarship Endowment, the Arts and Sciences Center building fund, and the fund for restoration of Academy Hall. Recognizing Mr. Cole’s generosity to his alma mater, the University, at the conclusion of the 2003 renovation project and during the Fall Convocation and Founder’s Day Celebration, dedicated the Louis C. Cole Auditorium – Memorial Hall in his honor.

Highlighted by the building’s extraordinary mural-covered ceiling – completed during the initial construction by New York City artist Alfred James Tulk and depicting the development of knowledge through the ages – the facility today ranks as one of the region’s premier performing arts venues. The fully air-conditioned auditorium seats more than 800.

Since it’s construction in 1941, tens of thousands have enjoyed concerts and plays and heard world-renowned speakers there. With its recent second-life improvements, this campus edifice will provide many more decades of performing arts enjoyment for tens of thousands yet to come.

During those tenuous, often contentious, early days of Northwestern State Normal School at Edinboro, historians credit Joseph Aldrich Cooper as, by far, the most important figure in putting the institution on a firm administrative and academic foundation, setting the tone for the academic excellence and growth to come.

In 1863, the Board of Trustees elected Cooper – who served as vice principal since his arrival in Edinboro in 1861 – as the school’s third principal. An 1859 graduate of Yale University, later earning his master’s there as well, Cooper was born in 1834 at Mattituck, Long Island, and not yet 30 when elected principal of the fledgling normal school. Initially hired for the unusual salary of one dollar for each student per term not to exceed $200 annually, he supplemented his income raising hogs and hatching chickens, once having an incredible – for the period – 3,000 eggs under incubation at the same time. Within several years, however, he was pulling down a respectable salary of $1,200 as principal.

Cooper hit the ground running, first rebuilding a faculty greatly depleted by the Civil War, then tending to the school’s academic and financial needs. By 1880, Cooper’s ingenuity and innovative spirit was evident when he designed a new brick building to comply with his belief that students should get exercise and fresh air changing classes. His new two-story building, opened that November and later called Recitation Hall, contained first floor classrooms that could be entered only through outside doors. Students in first floor rooms had to leave the building to change classes; those coming from the second floor to classes on the first, also had to go outside first. Cooper’s design provided generations of Edinboro students plenty of fresh air and exercise for 86 years!

By the late 1880s, Cooper had earned a stellar reputation throughout the Commonwealth for establishing excellence in academics and administration at Edinboro. Writing of Edinboro’s NSNS in the Pennsylvania School Journal, Superintendent of Public Education E.E. Higbee said: “Under the vigorous administration of Professor J. A. Cooper, of whom everybody thinks when the Edinboro school is mentioned, it has come prominently to the front as a training school for such exclusivity as are preparing for the work of teaching.” (From Russell Vance’s A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976)

Cooper’s academic standards at Edinboro were so high that when requirements were upgraded for the system of state normal schools to reflect academic policies of actual colleges and universities, many of those standards already employed by Cooper were adopted for statewide use.

His reign, however, was to end in 1892 with what came to be known as the “Cooper Affair,” which began typically as a difference of opinion between Cooper and new trustees over operational policies, but soon digressed into personal vendettas nearly destroying the normal school. Amid charges, countercharges, accusations, innuendo and rumor, when the trustees fired Cooper that February, their action exploded into a bitter, years-long battle dividing trustees, faculty, students and townspeople, many of whom sided with Principal Cooper.

Despite Joseph Aldrich Cooper’s unceremonious and divisive departure after nearly three decades of service, his great contributions ensuring the school’s success and financial viability, combined with setting the bar for academic excellence, established forever his place in Edinboro’s history as a visionary leader. In October 1965, Cooper’s pioneering leadership and contributions were recognized when the new science teaching facility – one of four new structures culminating phase two of Edinboro’s master plan for expansion – was named Cooper Hall.

Constructed for $692,000, today Cooper Hall continues to house departmental offices for various science faculty, lecture halls and classrooms, as well as the planetarium, observatory, instructional laboratories and a greenhouse. Extensive interior renovations were completed subsequent to the 1986-89 capital campaign, and plans are now underway for another major renovation and expansion, ensuring Cooper Hall’s future as a state-of-the-art facility for teaching the physical sciences.

By all accounts, Clarence C. Crawford was one of Edinboro’s most admired administrators during the first half of the 20th century. Crawford, having earned two doctorates from Grove City College, had previously served as head of the McElwain and Fredonia Institutes and as president of Dayton Normal School before becoming vice principal and instructor of mathematics at Edinboro State Normal School in the fall of 1918.

After only four years, when then Principal Arthur G. Crane resigned in 1922 to become president of Wyoming University, Dr. Crawford was named the normal school’s ninth principal and, before the end of that decade, Edinboro State Teachers College’s first president. Respected by faculty and students alike as a scholar and administrator, it was Crawford who led the school to the new horizon of college status, then directed Edinboro in its transition from normal school to degree-granting institution, as well as through major curricular changes and building projects.

It was a particularly difficult time, those early years of the Great Depression, and Russell Vance, in his A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976, portrays Crawford not only as an efficient administrator and admired educator, but an appreciated friend who, with his own money, financially enabled students to stay in school, giving of “himself and his money far beyond the call of duty.” Crawford’s $7,100 salary in 1931 was slashed two years later to $4,346.

Failing health forced his resignation from office in 1934, but he continued to teach social studies until his retirement in 1940. Former students and faculty members, understanding that Crawford’s use of personal funds to help them survive the Depression had deprived him from participating in the Teachers Retirement Fund, raised $4,000 to provide the former president with a $137 monthly pension. Even more, in 1940, recognizing President Crawford’s contributions on so many levels, the college dedicated its new, $242,000 gymnasium in his honor. The building was the sole campus gymnasium for 30 years until McComb Fieldhouse was completed in 1970.

Crawford Gym, now called the Crawford Center for Health & Physical Education and Disability Resources, underwent an extensive renovation and expansion program that was completed in 2002. The building currently houses an enhanced gymnasium and physical education facility used by the Health and Physical Education Department and the Office for Students with Disabilities. Department offices have been relocated to the Crawford Center, efficiently consolidating resources in a single, modern facility.

Much like Edinboro State Normal School’s innovative Principal Joseph Aldrich Cooper a century earlier, Edinboro State College President Foster F. Diebold arrived in 1979 with a bold new vision that would transform the campus from small college to respected university. The former president of the University of Alaska System, Foster Diebold found the task ahead a daunting challenge, but immediately set out to restore Edinboro’s reputation to one of academic excellence established by the school’s pioneering leaders.

President Diebold’s 17-year tenure marked an unprecedented era of reconstruction that virtually remolded every campus realm, from the administrative to the operational to the educational to the physical. Several million dollars in accumulated debt was eliminated, financial procedures revamped, academic departments and programs overhauled, credibility and reputation enhanced, enrollment and majors grown, strategic and long-range planning goals implemented, and the needs of a long-deteriorating physical plant finally addressed.

Much of President Diebold’s accomplishments came in spite of a system of cumbersome and outdated policies and practices long weighing negatively on the operation and efficiency of Pennsylvania’s State Colleges. His accomplishments were directly resultant of his ability to coordinate such efforts for desperately-needed funding with the governor’s office, the state legislature and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

President Diebold not only collaborated and advocated with college and educational leaders across the Commonwealth to bring about great and much-needed change in the operation of Pennsylvania’s State Colleges, but diligently shepherded Edinboro through its transition into a vital member of the new, unified State System of Higher Education that in 1983 resulted in the college gaining university status.

It is altogether fitting that the University’s third oldest building is now named in his honor, for it was Foster Diebold who dedicated himself to saving the 1906 structure – and its Meadville Street neighbor, Reeder Hall – from the wrecking ball.

The building initially serving as Northwestern State Normal School’s second gymnasium was built 100 years ago for $16,980, attaining along the way a long rich and storied history. During World War II it served as a barracks for marshaling troops and, after the war, a facility for quartering returning servicemen. In 1952, the college turned it over to students. It became known to several generations of alumni as the “Old College Union” until 1971, when the new Student Union across Mallory Lake opened its doors. However, the building wasn’t vacant for long. In 1972, it was named the “College Union Theatre,” a setting for many quality drama productions. But now it had fallen on hard times. When Diebold arrived on campus in 1979, the Old College Union and Reeder Hall were closed by the Commonwealth for safety reasons and scheduled for demolition.

As Dr. Roy Strausbaugh wrote in Edinboro University, An Administrative History, the buildings were old, but architecturally worthy. “Their historic significance and architectural importance would enhance the general appearance of the campus and preserve a sense of the history of Edinboro,” Strausbaugh wrote. President Diebold established preservation of the buildings as a top priority, and through his efforts in securing state funding, the buildings were restored.

Diebold’s namesake building was re-opened in 1986 as the Center for the Performing Arts. Today, it serves as a classroom, lecture and conference facility and houses the Intergenerational Center.

Aimé Doucette was flamboyant!

Dressed in the fashion of the day, wearing a straw hat, Aimé H. Doucette’s arrival in 1923 took Edinboro State Normal School and the town by storm, wrote Edinboro historian Russell Vance. Joining Waldo Bates to become the second member of the small Art Department that Professor Doucette would live to see become internationally famous, he worked his artistic magic at Edinboro for 38 years.

Mr. Doucette, a graduate of the Massachusetts School of Art in Boston, the same school that produced “Pop” Bates, he became actively involved with Edinboro’s students. For example, he quickly took note of the absence of church facilities for Catholic students at the school and even in Edinboro, and soon began helping librarian Mildred Forness transport these students to mass in Cambridge Springs until mass was made available on campus in 1931.

He later led the effort to establish a Catholic church in Edinboro. After Protestant Harry Engh donated land, money and a bell for the church, writes historian Vance, “On May 28, 1950, Father Dwyer dedicated the first Catholic Church in Edinboro, ‘Our Lady of the Lake.’”

Professor Doucette retired in 1960 but returned for an additional year to serve as acting chairman of the Art Department.

In 1971, Haven Hall – a women’s dormitory constructed in the early 1900s – was demolished to make room for a modern classroom building. The structure, completed in 1973 for $1.7 million, was dedicated in 1974 to Aimé Doucette for his many years of leading the Art Department and service to Edinboro students and the community. The structure now accommodates the Art Department, with its studios, offices, animation and art laboratories and classrooms, and the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

Bruce Gallery, which houses the University’s permanent art collections and hosts local, regional and national art exhibitions, is appropriately situated in the building named for the flamboyant and beloved Aimé Doucette.

In 1974, with money donated by the Student Government Association, the college erected what was also known as the Equestrian Building. At the time, the building served the needs of an active equestrian program on campus.

The college named the structure to honor the late Debra Dowling Decock, who, as Debra Dowling, faithfully served the SGA as secretary.

More noteworthy, however, is Dowling’s honorable service in representing her peers as the first Edinboro student to become a voting member of the Edinboro State College Board of Trustees and the first student so honored with a named campus building. The building is currently used as a storage facility.

One of the most popular faculty members during the school’s post-World War II growth spurt was mathematician Harry W. Earlley. Dr. Earlley arrived at Edinboro State Teachers College in 1946, part of the largest influx of new faculty (11) in the school’s history and quickly endeared himself to faculty and students alike.

In 1959, after serving as Chairman of Admissions, Earlley was named Dean of Instruction by President Thomas R. Miller, a title that would change in 1965 to Dean of Academic Affairs. In that role, Earlley not only became a member of President Miller’s innovative Administrative Council, but was invited to join Miller’s less formal, but highly efficient “Kitchen Cabinet,” a team of administrators, educators and staff members who, over weekly luncheons in Haven Hall’s dining room, hashed over and instantly resolved problems of the day without becoming bogged down in formal administrative red tape.

Edinboro historian Russell Vance tells of an incident in 1961 during which Dean Earlley joined the parade of faculty and students helping to shuttle 30,000 books from the old library in Normal Hall to the new Hamilton Library. The mathematician in Earlley predicted the moving scheme – in which each participant would carry a numbered stack of 10 books on each trip – would surely fail. But Vance recalls it was Dean Earlley who worked harder than anyone else to prove himself wrong while, in the process, helping to ensure the successful relocation of thousands of library books.

Earlley’s tenure not only spanned Edinboro’s rapid period of growth, but also the school’s transition in 1960 from teachers’ college to state college.

When President Miller died unexpectedly of a heart attack on February 7, 1966, the plan of presidential succession established by the Trustees four years earlier called for the Dean of Academic Affairs – Dr. Earlley – to became acting president. Tragically, on March 25, after serving less than two months in office, Acting President Earlley also suffered a fatal heart attack while waiting to board a plane to Harrisburg at the Erie Airport.

Immensely popular on campus, Earlley’s passing was considered a great loss by the Edinboro family, and Pennsylvania’s General Assembly passed resolutions in appreciation of his two decades of service to the college.

Built in 1969 for $383,311 to house campus maintenance operations, Earlley Hall honors Dr. Earlley’s many contributions to the college as teacher and administrator. Soon after the 1969 fire that destroyed Normal Hall, Earlley Hall temporarily housed the President’s Office until a new administration building, now McNerney Hall, was completed in 1976.

Today, Earlley Hall provides many services – just as Dr. Earlley did – housing the Facilities Office, Plumbing Shop, and Police Station.

Measles, mumps, chicken pox, influenza, aches and pains and strains and sprains: the brothers Ghering, M.D.s – Harold A. and Boyd W. – helped keep 27 classes of Edinboro students and faculty members healthy and above the weather. The two brothers, both Edinboro grads themselves, cared for the medical needs of the Edinboro family from 1932 to 1959, treating ailments from headaches and the common cold to garden variety illnesses of the day, some that even mandated quarantine.

Harold A. Ghering was the college physician from 1932 until he retired in 1953. Boyd W. Ghering filled the position and remained until 1959. The brothers also ran a private hospital on Meadville Street from 1925 to 1937.

During their separate tenures, the Gherings provided excellent medical care from an infirmary in Haven Hall that could accommodate up to 20 patients. The infirmary was initially established on the third floor of the “new” wing of women’s dormitory at Haven Hall in 1917. But by 1949, the Edinboro State Teachers College Trustees, recognizing the third floor was not easily accessible – and that both genders were forced to share a common bathroom – resolved to move the infirmary from the third floor to the first floor of Haven’s south wing. Haven was razed in 1971, but by that time all health care functions had already moved to the newly constructed and well-equipped Ghering Center.

Built in 1968 for $365,196, the Ghering Health and Wellness Center serves as the campus health care facility, with a fully-equipped outpatient treatment clinic and a five-bed capacity. The original structure housed an infirmary and small dispensary with service mainly focused on curing the sick. The facility’s first medical director, Dr. Tom R. Miller, participated with architects in the design of the Ghering Health Center, which included centralized nursing stations enabling one nurse or secretary to easily observe all three halls.

While no overnight accommodations remain today, campus and community resources combine to enable student access to an all-inclusive health service program. Interior renovations were completed in 2001 to create a “one-stop shop” for student health and wellness needs, including counseling and psychological services.

Today, perhaps the Ghering brothers would be surprised that campus activities are no longer interrupted by outbreaks of measles and mumps and chicken pox, yet the practice of providing students with excellent medical care, standards they established more than 70 years ago, continues at a facility named to honor their family’s outstanding contributions.

The institutional history of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania is filled with the good, the great and even the legendary. Clearly, B. Regis “Sox” Harrison breathed the rarified air of the latter.

Early in the last century, athletics began to become prominent on campus with Edinboro State Normal School fielding both men’s and women’s teams. But it wasn’t until Sox Harrison was hired in 1919 that the teams became truly competitive with other schools. One of the most popular faculty members of the time, Sox Harrison was coach and athletic director for 34 years, retiring in 1953. He had attended Niagara University in New York with students who later became stars of professional sports, and it was there, according to Edinboro historian Russell Vance, where Harrison got his nickname.

“In a contest to see who could throw a baseball the greatest distance,” Vance wrote in his A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976, “Harrison threw it over 100 yards, which caused Joe McCarthy to say, ‘You reminded me of Sockalexis,’ an American Indian who was playing for the Cleveland Indians at the time.” The name “Sox” stuck.

Harrison graduated from Battle Creek Physical Education College in Michigan and had learned physical education methods advocated by the Kellogg Foundation on Physical Culture. Before arriving at Edinboro, he coached at Alliance College in nearby Cambridge Springs for three years.

In his early years at Edinboro, Harrison not only coached every team, but students were required to spend one period each day in his physical education classes. He taught men’s and women’s classes (and coached women’s athletic teams as well) until 1920 when Catherine Avery was hired to instruct and coach women. Harrison also served as a disciplinarian when a firm hand was required to quell spirited young men at Reeder Hall.

Prior to 1926, finding enough men on campus to form a football team was difficult, and he often used high school boys and young men from the town to supplement his teams. Harrison did much individual coaching, since there were too few players at practice at any one time to conduct scrimmages. The players, who worked various jobs, attended practice only when they could. It wasn’t until the late 1920s and early 1930s when enough men were available to schedule regular games with other colleges. Football equipment, as we know it today, was nonexistent. Padding was sewn into jerseys, offering minimal protection for shoulders and elbows; soft leather helmets, even with nose guards, weren’t protective, either.

Until the 1930s, reported historian Vance, coaching was almost a side activity at the school. Harrison, as director of Physical Education, taught all physical culture classes at the Normal School and most of the physical education classes in the public schools of Edinboro.

While at Edinboro, Sox was a member of the Borough Council, the town clerk for a six-year stint in the 1920s, and once even read water meters – so he made a tremendous impact off campus as well. For example, as Vance illustrates in his book, in 1935 it was Harrison who opened the Sunset Camp north of Edinboro. His dream was to provide camping and athletics to boys and girls aged 6 to 16. “The excellent reputation of this camp,” Vance wrote, “was justified by the numerous camp alumni who became professional leaders in the fields of law, medicine and education.” Although Harrison retired from teaching and coaching in 1953, he continued to direct the camp until it closed in 1963.

Two years later, in deep appreciation of his decades of teaching, coaching – and for endearing the Harrison name as one synonymous with Edinboro athletics – the college bestowed an honor rarely accorded coaches by naming the new stadium in his honor. And so it was that in the fall of 1965, the Edinboro State College “Red Raiders” – then nickname of Edinboro teams – started the football season on the old field behind Crawford Gym, but ended the year at the newly-completed, $386,000 Sox Harrison Stadium.

New bleachers were added to the field’s east side in 1995, bringing total seating capacity to 5,600. New locker rooms and a new press box were also added during that $750,000 expansion project. Repair of stadium seating and concrete and exterior waterproofing were recently completed, as was a new accessibility ramp, making Sox Harrison Stadium, home of the Fighting Scots, one of the region’s premier football venues.

“Mr. Social Studies of Northwestern Pennsylvania.”
“The Bear.”
“The Boss.”
“Dean Hendricks.”

Whatever affectionate or professional name assigned by students, faculty and friends, he was still Luther V. Hendricks, educator and administrator, who spent a quarter century teaching students, influencing faculty and helping guide the college through an unprecedented period of change and growth.

Dr. Hendricks not only helped World War II’s returning veterans with their unique financial situations – attempting post-secondary education while supporting families – but he quickly became well-known throughout western Pennsylvania for his dedication to teaching history and social studies. Over the years, his leadership skills honed, he rose to become Chairman of the History Department and later Dean of the entity he helped create, the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Only his unexpected death at the age of 58 in 1970 prevented his list of achievements from growing even more significant.

During a memorial service in the campus auditorium that year, Professor Richard Gromen, a colleague and longtime friend, said, “I would judge that every student who graduated from a northwestern Pennsylvania secondary school this past year has had, during his 12 years of schooling, at least one teacher who sat in Dr. Hendricks’ classes. Doc has had a constructive influence on these graduates, for few of the teachers who survived his classes were not better for it.”

As if to prove Dr. Gromen’s point, in a bound volume of dozens of testimonial letters memorializing Luther Hendricks – a University archival document in Baron-Forness Library – former student Jean McAtee (ESC, ‘67) wrote: “I remember the time he gave me a ‘G’ on a Teaching of Social Studies Unit. The grades were all so bad that we envied the kids with Ds. I asked what ‘G’ meant, and he said something like this: ‘It could mean God! It could mean Good. But it doesn’t. Mainly it means that it wasn’t good enough for an F. See me after class!’ . . . I saw him and did the paper all over. And got an A. . . . I still cherish that paper.”

In the same volume, Dr. Raymond L. Lee, director of Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Social Science Division, shared an insightful glimpse of Luther Hendricks, the man: “No one who crossed his path was in doubt about his absolute honesty – some called it bluntness – his dedication, his integrity. Like another great American, ‘he did not suffer fools gladly.’ But above all, in an age of synthetics, public images and plastics, here was a man who stood foursquare, who was inner-directed, who believed and acted passionately! May his untimely death not end the currents set up by his dynamism!”

Hendricks’ achievements and accomplishments at Edinboro are far too many to list here, but a few include:

• his founding in 1949 of a continuing professional organization, the Northwestern Pennsylvania Council for Social Studies, which met annually to bring programs and nationally-known speakers to the area’s social studies teachers;


• his election in 1954 as president of the Faculty Association, a position he held for 10 years;


• his initiation in 1960 of a non-western world history course that he later developed into a course in world cultures;


• his election in 1968, during the first meeting of the College Senate, as vice-chairman; and


• his drive to help establish the new World Cultures Building.

The late 1960s, turbulent political times off and on campus, represented a period when the organizational model for what would later became Edinboro University began to take form, albeit not without the typical growing pains associated with any such momentous changes.

As Edinboro historian Dr. Roy Strausbaugh describes in his Edinboro University, An Administrative History, “A delightful, old-fashioned, academic fight was in the making.”

Yet, Dr. Hendricks’ savvy understanding of campus politics and his willingness to embrace change, combined with his academic standing of earned respect at all levels of the Edinboro community, led to the separation of the Social Studies Department he chaired from the School of Liberal Arts and its metamorphosis into the new School of Behavioral and Social Sciences. This 1969 restructuring became an integral component of President Chester T. McNerney’s directed reorganization in anticipation of the 1970 passage of state legislation providing state colleges with more local autonomy. For his efforts, Dr. Hendricks was named Dean of the new school.

But there was another side, a humorous one, to Luther Hendricks as well, and one not all that accepting of some changes. As illustrated by Edinboro historian Russell Vance, on a typical campus day, the tolling of the bell at Recitation Hall for years marked the beginning and ending of class periods. But in 1960, Vance notes, “The mellow tones of the old bell were replaced by the clamor of an electric bell system activated from the president’s office. Members of the social studies faculty tell the story of their department head, Luther Hendricks, who became so annoyed by the shrilling of the bell that he taped all the bells in Academy Hall so they could not ring.”

In the fall of 1971, a year after Dean Hendricks’ untimely death, the new World Cultures Building he worked so diligently to establish was renamed in his memory. Built for $1,344,649, the structure originally housed Edinboro State College’s Social Science Division. Today, Hendricks Hall houses classrooms and offices for the Departments of History and Anthropology, Chemistry and Physics, Business Administration and Economics, Political Science and Criminal Justice, and Sociology, as well as ROTC.

The genesis for transformation from state teachers college to state college to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania can be traced directly to the 1950s when Commonwealth officials began to take note of post-World War II’s Baby Boom and its anticipated impact on public higher education. As Edinboro historian Roy Strausbaugh points out in Edinboro University, An Administrative History, by the late 1950s, it became clear the “Baby Boom” would greatly increase demand for access to higher education. “Such access was now a part of the American Dream,” Strausbaugh wrote.

With the first “Boomers” only several years away from college age, Pennsylvania Governor George M. Leader and the Commonwealth’s legislature were beginning to come to grips with the need for more comprehensive planning for higher education. As a result, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1959 formed a Committee on Education to study the issues at hand, while at the same time Gov. Leader appointed a Committee of 100 for Better Education for the same purpose. From those committees grew legislation supported by the governor that restructured statewide planning and, as Dr. Strausbaugh wrote, created the State Board of Education and a subordinate group, the Council of Higher Education. The Council was to provide the Commonwealth with focus and direction for higher education. It took years, but from such Leader-endorsed baseline legislation, guiding public higher education in Pennsylvania took on a new urgency and priority at the state level.

Pennsylvania Governor George M. Leader had long been an ardent supporter of the state’s teachers colleges and, in fact, participated in an all-day convocation with trustees, faculty and alumni on December 12, 1957, to help Edinboro State Teachers College celebrate the school’s centennial year.

As a result, in 1961, the “new” Edinboro State College honored Leader’s dedication to public higher education by naming the addition to Compton Hall to house the Special Education Division in honor of Gov. Leader. Called the “Leader Clinic,” it housed a classroom, four clinics, audio-testing areas and offices.

Constructed for $125,000, the Gov. George M. Leader Speech and Hearing Center now houses offices for Speech, Language and Hearing Department faculty, as well as classrooms, clinic areas and a laboratory to support the speech-language pathology program.

Mallory Lake was named in honor of beloved English professor Royce Mallory who was also known to be an outdoor enthusiast. A contemporary of Justina Baron and Mildred Forness, Mallory was among the faculty who endured the austere World War II years that were followed by significant post-war enrollment increases. He is also fabled to be among the faculty at the time who went door-to-door throughout the community to encourage local residents to house Edinboro students because the campus residence halls were full.

Professor Mallory retired in 1959 after 31 years of service. The beautiful Mallory Lake, with the Baron-Forness Library as its background, is among the most photographed images on campus. The Student Government Association purchased a fountain to complement the lake in 2003.

“Education is really for tomorrow. It may change that which happens today, but the full impact is tomorrow and the days ahead.”
Chester T. McNerney

The 13th head and fifth president of the institution, Dr. Chester T. McNerney launched his presidency at Edinboro State College during perhaps the most turbulent decade of the 20th century. It was 1966, the height of a decade of social upheaval at institutions of every level, and, in some instances, it marked violent change on college campuses across the nation when the McNerney era began amid great hopes for Edinboro.

Born in Indiana and earning all three of his degrees from Indiana University, Chester McNerney was already a well-seasoned, well-respected college educator and administrator when he was appointed to fill the vacancy created by the unexpected death of President Thomas Miller. A U.S. Navy veteran of World War II, McNerney arrived at Edinboro with a vision for growth that furthered the mission initiated by his predecessor.

Despite winds of change marked by tensions and student unrest, Dr. McNerney catapulted the campus through an era of dynamic, unprecedented growth. His incumbency achieved a doubling of enrollment and faculty and creation of a balanced, multi-purpose academic program with renewed interest in liberal arts and the sciences, all functioning under a restructured administrative umbrella. Dr. McNerney organized the first College Senate in 1968, giving not just administrators, but faculty and students, a voice in setting policies.

By the end of his presidency in 1979, despite the growth at many levels, there still remained much to be done before Edinboro achieved university status. Edinboro historian Roy Strausbaugh, in his Edinboro University, An Administrative History, summed up McNerney’s tenure this way: “During President McNerney’s incumbency, the college pursued great dreams. It educated thousands of capable men and women and did this well. It provided new facilities and programs for them. President McNerney and those who assisted in this enterprise of education and expansion could and should take satisfaction in what they accomplished. It was no small feat. For that the credit is theirs. But Edinboro State College also suffered because of dreams pursued and not accomplished.”

McNerney is accurately recalled as the force propelling the college toward enhanced education and growth, and his academic restructuring credited with preparing the college for university status.

Built in 1976 for $942,000, the “Administration Building” housed the President’s Office, Admissions and other administrative staff. In May 1987, to tribute Dr. McNerney’s accomplishments, the building was renamed in his honor. It currently houses offices of University Services, Inc.; Career Services; the Dr. Gerald P. Jackson Department of Academic Support Services; the Highlands Center for Faculty Initiatives; the Community Outreach Center; and administrative offices.

“The cost of education is not a drain on the economy. It is an investment whose cost returns to us in a strengthened economy, a better working force, better citizens, and a more intelligent consumer.”
Thomas R. Miller
From A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976, Russell Vance

Known as “the Builder,” Dr. Thomas R. Miller directed a 12-year period of growth – the most comprehensive at Edinboro to date – that included 10 new buildings and hundreds of acres in additional land holdings.

Dr. Miller, born in Bradford County, arrived in Edinboro in 1954 with a degree from Mansfield State Normal School and three from Syracuse University. With extensive teaching and administrative experience in Pennsylvania and New York, the post-World War II timing was right for a new president with visions for academic, administrative and physical growth at an institution facing the quickly-approaching enrollment demands of the first of the Baby Boomers.

The faculty of 34 in 1954 increased nearly six-fold during Dr. Miller’s tenure as the institution’s 12th leader, and his innovations – including establishment of an Administrative Council and a problem-solving “Kitchen Cabinet” to cut through bureaucratic red tape – were many. Through Dr. Miller’s leadership, Edinboro joined the Commonwealth’s teachers colleges in achieving State College status.

But he wasn’t done yet. With his leadership role among other state college presidents and the earned respect of Harrisburg’s legislative and executive branches, Dr. Miller helped ensure expansion of academics at all state colleges into multi-purpose degree-granting liberal arts programs with many new disciplines.

Early in 1966, at age 62, President Miller died unexpectedly. Yet his legacy as a builder lives on. During his incumbency, the number of students grew from roughly 400 to more than 3,500, and the size the campus expanded from slightly more than 40 acres to 585. State colleges were now offering enhanced degrees in liberal arts and sciences.

Edinboro historian Roy Strausbaugh writes of Miller: “Under his leadership, Edinboro State College developed from an institution – barely surviving, with modest enrollment and limited facilities – to one ready to meet new demands. His leadership in the planning of an expanded campus and new curricular offerings ensured that Edinboro would be ready to meet the enrollment pressures facing the school.”

Dr. Miller raised the bar high for his successors, and the growth to come in the following decades, even into the 21st century. Five years after his death, a new building honoring Dr. Miller was dedicated. Costing $1,704,000, it opened in 1971 as a research center for teacher education students and faculty, and a learning center for children. It housed the Miller School, Edinboro’s acclaimed model laboratory school, the Elementary Education Department and faculty offices, a television studio, computer laboratories, satellite library, classrooms and campus day-care facility. Today, the building is used as a classroom facility, with most of the Elementary Education Department offices housed there.

From humble beginnings on Erie’s lower east side, Louis J. Porreco rose to become one of Erie’s most respected entrepreneurs. Despite his success in business and as a community leader, Mr. Porreco never forgot the value of education instilled in him by his beloved aunt, Mary Porreco, a two-time Edinboro University graduate who not only raised young Louis, but also dedicated her life to teaching and public education in Erie for 42 years.

Fulfilling a lifelong ambition to honor his Aunt Mary, Mr. Porecco donated his 27-acre pastoral estate to Edinboro University in 1986.

The original estate mansion, now Mary Porreco Hall, was built in the mid-19th century after 400 beautiful countryside acres, situated in Millcreek Township just west of the City of Erie, were purchased by German immigrant Henry Knobloch. Although the original acreage eventually was subdivided, the main property stayed in the Knobloch family until 1931 when the first of the Gebauers acquired it. In 1942, Jesse Gebauer become owner while married to Adrian Archbold, grandson of John Archbold, partner of John D. Rockefeller and successor to the Standard Oil fortune. Over the years, the Archbolds completed extensive reconstruction of the buildings, most notably the mansion and guest quarters.

Upon Jesse Archbold’s death in 1976, much of the estate was divided into smaller holdings, then sold. But the property’s core parcel remained intact and in 1978 went on the public auction block. Mr. Porecco outbid several developers to purchase the estate, which became the Porreco family home until 1986.

During a luncheon that year with Edinboro University’s president, Foster F. Diebold, Mr. Porreco proposed donating the property to the University. His intent was aimed at enhancing the quality and convenience of Edinboro’s educational and cultural offerings in the Erie area while honoring his Aunt Mary. At the same time, Edinboro’s avowed stewardship in maintaining the aesthetic beauty of the property concurred with Mr. Porreco’s desire that it not be commercially developed.

“She was such an incredibly devoted teacher,” Mr. Porreco recalled, “often tutoring children in her home on Atkins Street for hours to give them the extra boost they needed to succeed.”

In addition to the estate’s main house being named for Mary Porreco, at the University’s May 1988 graduation ceremony she was awarded an honorary doctorate for her many years of service to public education.

Today, Mary Porreco Hall – with its 12 rooms, six with fireplaces, a large living area, library and lounge, conference rooms and dining facilities with a fully-equipped kitchen – is the centerpiece in the Porreco Center’s pristine park-like setting. It has been used primarily for executive seminars, retreat conferences, cultural events and professional gatherings. The Porreco Center itself includes a dozen buildings that have drawn more than 10,000 students to its classrooms since Edinboro University consolidated its academic offerings at one convenient Erie location in 1988.

How fitting it was in 1908 when the first campus building named for an individual was dedicated by the Trustees of Northwestern State Normal School to honor James Reeder, one of the founders of the original Edinboro Academy.

Reeder, a descendent of one of the village’s pioneering families of 1797, had been a strong advocate for education in the mid-19th century. The community had grown from 50 original settlers to 363 by 1850. Listed as one of the original stockholders in the 1856 charter that established the Edinboro Academy, Reeder was among a dedicated group of community leaders who set out to raise $5,000 to launch the Academy. The effort resulted in the formation of a private, non-profit corporation controlled by stockholders and governed by trustees who operated the school for 57 years until 1914, when it was acquired by the Commonwealth.

James Reeder was instrumental in helping the newly-formed corporation obtain its first property for the new Edinboro Academy. Reeder and his brother-in-law, Isaac R. Taylor, another early stockholder and trustee, owned large land holdings in the southeastern part of Edinboro. Early in 1857, they sold to the school corporation one acre of land fronted on Meadville Street, a plank road at the time, for $200. The land was designated for the first academy building, the property situated on the third lot south of New Street (now Normal Street).

Fifty years later, construction of the building that now honors James Reeder began in 1907 and was completed in 1908. If it could talk, it would boast of a century of rich history that includes the housing of thousands of students and faculty members. Prior to construction, Northwestern State Normal School trustees borrowed $10,000, then mortgaged another property to raise the $35,000 required to build the four-story brick and Berea stone structure that would initially serve as a men’s dormitory.

Reeder Hall continued as a men’s dorm until 1920 when the school’s first co-ed housing sprang into existence with faculty apartments on the first floor for single men and some families, women students on the second, and men occupying the third. Two years later, however, the trustees determined this bold social experiment in mixed gender living was not working and ruled, “If you are a man, you must live off campus.” Reeder Hall then became a women’s dormitory until 1940, when, once again, men took over the building.

The dormitory continued to see-saw between men’s, women’s and even married student living quarters for the next three decades. Interestingly, from 1936 to 1946, the mother of honored librarian Mildred Forness served as a housemother in Reeder Hall.

By 1972, the historical landmark structure had fallen on hard times. So great was its neglect and resultant deterioration, so many were the safety code violations, that the state ordered it closed and scheduled it for demolition.

Only determination by President Foster Diebold, who inherited the campus’ literally crumbling physical plant when he assumed office in 1979, saved Reeder Hall, and also its Meadville Street neighbor, the Old Student Union Building, from the wrecking ball. The action preserved a great part of the school’s historical significance for generations of university students and townspeople yet to come.

Stately Reeder Hall now serves as the campus’ primary administrative building. It houses the offices of the President; Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs; Vice President for Finance and Administration; University Planning, Institutional Research and Continuous Improvement; and Human Resources and Faculty Relations. An 85-seat lecture hall is located in the facility’s lower level, while the third floor is occupied by the offices of the School of Graduate Studies and Research, Grants and Sponsored Programs, and Public Relations.

Through a century of mixed use and change, the building continues to honor the educational vision and wisdom of one of the University’s founding fathers, while preserving the historic value of early 20th century architecture.

“Our definite goal in making teachers should make possible a type of abiding scholarship and culture within those who expect to teach. It is inconceivable how the scholar can be separated from the teacher.”
Carmon Ross
From A Portrait of Edinboro, 1856-1976, Russell Vance

Carmon Ross, considered by many to be one of the school’s most scholarly administrators, was appointed Edinboro State Teachers College President in 1934 during the depth of the greatest financial depression in recorded history.

With undergraduate degrees from Lafayette and Easton (Pennsylvania) and advanced degrees from Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Ross was serving as president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association at the time and arrived at Edinboro well-equipped to become the school’s 10th chief executive.

But times were hard when he ascended to Edinboro’s highest office; a gloomy period when appropriations to state teachers colleges were drastically slashed and Commonwealth leaders even threatened to close four or more of the colleges.

As a result, rather than lead Edinboro through what, under better financial circumstances, would have been a period of growth, it became a constant struggle for President Ross just to maintain institutional services.

With faculty salaries greatly reduced and an increase in fees, the college still ran a deficit. Historian Russell Vance points out that while the biennial allocation from the state between 1933 and 1940 averaged $110,555, the expenses for the same period averaged more than $174,000.

After six years of being forced, by necessity, into making unpopular decisions to keep Edinboro afloat, Dr. Ross resigned from office in 1940. Nonetheless, he had done his job – the institution not only survived, but went on to flourish as one of Pennsylvania’s leading centers for public higher education and learning.

Originally built as a dining hall in 1962 for $603,000, the building named for President Carmon Ross served as the main dining facility until 1969, when Van Houten Dining Hall opened, and has since housed various faculty and staff offices.

Today it is home for the offices, classrooms and laboratories of Technology and Communications. The offices of Distance Education and Learning Technology Academy, the Publications Office, and a state-of-the-art printing center are situated within the lower level of the 41,780 square-foot Ross Hall.

Constructed in 1968 as a dormitory for women, Scranton Hall was named for Governor William Scranton who served as the Commonwealth’s CEO from 1962-1966. As Governor, he signed into law comprehensive reforms in the state’s education system including the creation of the state community college system, the state board of education, and the state Higher Education Assistance Agency. Regarded as a friend of the state college system, Governor Scranton’s reforms were driven by a master plan for higher education. In a public address about the plan, Scranton announced his intention to “rapidly and drastically increase State financial support of the fourteen State colleges, but keep the cost to individual students as low as possible.” He increased the proposed budget of the state colleges by 95 percent of the previous funding.

Like its twin, Shafer Hall, Scranton is a co-ed residence hall.

During the mid-to-late 1960s, Pennsylvania Governor Raymond P. Shafer, a native of Meadville, Pennsylvania, took great interest in the state’s colleges, especially Edinboro.

It was Shafer, with a visceral understanding of the importance of value-added, quality, public higher education, whose administration heralded in a period of unprecedented growth in the system of state colleges, both physically and academically.

A friend to Edinboro, as evidenced by his frequent campus visits, Shafer prioritized what became a significant growth of state colleges in terms of student enrollment, campus building programs, academic expansion and leadership-sharing initiatives. For instance, it was Shafer who mandated that state college boards of trustees maintain both student and faculty representation.

In recognition of his strong commitment to public higher education, Edinboro honored former Gov. Shafer in 1968 by dedicating a new men’s dormitory, built for $2.3 million, in his honor.

A co-ed residence hall in recent years, the first floor has been reserved for male students with disabilities. While the Office for Students with Disabilities – once situated on the lower level of Shafer Hall – has moved to the Crawford Center, some of the specialized services and support components for students with disabilities have remained in Shafer.

Just as his predecessor, Carmon Ross, was confronted with holding together Edinboro State Teachers College during the difficult and uncertain years of the Great Depression, the 14-year presidency of Lyman H. Van Houten was filled with similar survival challenges created by World War II and resultant post-war problems.

But Van Houten, as did Ross, added his name to the long list of those who met seemingly insurmountable challenges of their eras, then successfully passed the institutional baton of stewardship to the next generation of leaders.

President Van Houten was born in North Dakota, receiving his A.B. Degree from Central College of Iowa, his M.A. from the University of Iowa, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Serving as superintendent of schools in Iowa, a faculty member of Iowa State Teachers College, an officer in the U.S. Army, and a faculty member of the University of Wyoming, he began his 33-year career at Edinboro in 1921 as director of the Normal School’s Erie Branch (or extension center, as it was sometimes called).

Situated on the third floor of Erie’s new Washington School, the branch was designed to train teachers for the Erie School District. Erie had had its own normal school, but teacher certification was not recognized outside Erie County.

After eight successful years of training teachers in Erie, Dr. Van Houten transferred to the main campus as a professor of psychology in 1929, where he also established and directed a formal program of freshman orientation. Edinboro historian Russell Vance writes that Van Houten’s program “provided detailed instruction by the faculty in registration, use of the library and other academic requirements while the preceptors and, later, the deans, explained the regulations.”

Dr. Van Houten’s extensive training and service earned him appointment as acting president in 1940, then president in 1941, a position he held until 1954.

With declining enrollment and lack of financial resources during and after the war, progress and growth were understandably slow during the Van Houten years. But the college not only survived during his leadership, but it was poised for an era of great growth and expansion.

Built in 1969 for $2.2 million, the 59,057-square-foot Van Houten Dining Hall was named to honor the school’s 11th president. The building contains two large, ground-floor dining areas, supplemented by the University Club, a private dining area for faculty and staff, and the first floor President’s Dining Suite.

Major renovations were made in 1990, and, in 1996, the air-conditioning plant was upgraded and power-operated doors installed. A new roof was installed in 1998, and the University Club was renovated. In 2000, the main dining hall was renovated again, and an elevator recently installed to enhance accessibility.

Ben Wiley was more than a caring trustee to the University – he was a true friend to Edinboro University.

A smart kid from a small farming community in Belmont County, Ohio, R. Benjamin Wiley arrived in Erie, Pa., in the mid-1960s to take advantage of a basketball scholarship at Gannon College. Despite his awesome athletic prowess and court generalship, his true leadership skills emanated from his need to serve others and his great love for post-secondary higher education.

In 1969, at the age of 24, he became executive director of the Greater Erie Community Action Committee, a struggling and financially strapped social service agency born of President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty efforts. With keen administrative and organizational savvy far beyond his years, combined with compassion for those he served, Wiley’s leadership quickly elevated GECAC into the region’s premier, non-profit, non-government provider of human services with a budget later approaching $40 million.

In 1983, Pennsylvania Governor Richard Thornburgh appointed Wiley to the first of four consecutive six-year terms on the University’s Council of Trustees. Ben Wiley’s impact was felt almost from the outset, as he became actively involved in affirmative action efforts ultimately leading to Edinboro’s extraordinary on-campus diversity, a finely woven tapestry of ethnic, cultural and racial access and inclusion as is proudly evidenced on campus to this day.

It was perhaps no accident that Wiley and young Erie lawyer Tom Ridge would become fast friends in the early 1970s. They had much in common, from their upbringing to sharing a love for sports, for community trusteeship, for access to public higher education for all. For many years, Ridge served on GECAC’s Board of Directors. And when he became Pennsylvania Governor in 1995, one of the first invited to join his cabinet was R. Benjamin Wiley. Wiley declined, believing instead he could do more to help others by leading GECAC, while continuing his service on Edinboro’s Council of Trustees.

Gov. Ridge, however, took Wiley’s service to public education a step further, appointing him a member of the Board of Governors for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. At the time of his death, Mr. Wiley was the board’s vice chair and chairman of its human resources committee.

It was Wiley more than any other, who, as chair of the Presidential Search Committee in 1996, was responsible for the recruitment of Dr. Frank G. Pogue from his successful position as vice chancellor of New York’s impressive SUNY system.

Ben Wiley contributed to the University in many ways. He served as campaign chairperson of one of Edinboro’s most successful capital campaigns – the Campaign for Excellence – and was a regular and generous benefactor to the University. Besides his leadership gift to the Campaign for Excellence and contributions to the University’s annual fund, his untiring personal commitment to public education was reflected by his anonymous financial assistance to countless students, helping them realize their academic goals while achieving their personal aspirations.

Recognizing Ben Wiley’s immeasurable legacy to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and the Commonwealth, and acknowledging his impact, the University’s Council of Trustees voted August 16, 2004, to name the R. Benjamin Wiley Arts & Sciences Center to honor their dedicated colleague and friend.

The Center was created to provide students and faculty with contemporary learning environments offering state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities. The building features four auditorium-style classrooms, four technology-enhanced classrooms, and four conference and seminar rooms. The Wiley Center also houses the offices of the Deans of Liberal Arts, and Science, Management and Technology schools. Constructed in 2000, it was the first new building in nearly 25 years.

Eight Wiley Center classrooms feature “Smart Podiums,” specially equipped desks at the front of each room enabling faculty to operate computer and audio-visual equipment from one convenient location.

From the Center’s Distance Education classroom, the University can link to many remote learning sites via high-speed digital phone lines and its many computers.

The R. Benjamin Wiley Arts & Sciences Center, dedicated September 17, 2004, serves as a living memorial to the man whose enthusiasm and dedication breathed so much life into Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.