Blast from the Past—March 23, 2021 Edition

Posted By Gettysburgian Staff on Mar 23, 2021 | 1 comment

(Photo Mary Frasier/The Gettysburgian)

By Shannon Zeltmann, Staff Writer

This week in 1946, some Gettysburgian writers conducted a poll to see how many students used fountain pens, which brands of fountain pens they used, and the variety of brands they used. That year, there were 670 students at Gettysburg, and 650 said they used fountain pens. Of those students, 255 said they did not use more than three brands of pens. As for the brands students used, most used Parker brand pens, with 180 students using Parkers, Shaeffer was in second with 160 students using them, and Waterman was far behind the other two with just 50 students using Waterman’s pens. It seems like The Gettysburgian would normally do a random polling of all the students each year, though it is unknown how many years they did these kinds of polls.

This week in 1996, the college decided to cut the Russian language program as student interest declined. They decided to phase out the program within the next year. Students who were in Russian 102 during Spring 1996 were able to enroll in Russian 201 or 202 the next year, and those would be the last Russian courses taught on campus. Students could not sign up for the 100-level classes in the 1996-97 academic year. Any students who came to Gettysburg to study Russian would be able to take classes at Dickinson and Franklin and Marshall Colleges once all the courses were removed at Gettysburg. Russian was first offered in Fall 1993, but the program did not attract as many students as the college hoped it would.

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These articles and more from the Gettysburgian (1897-2010 issues) can be found on the Gettysburgian digital archives, provided by the Special Collections & College Archives: http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/APA/Gettysburg/default.aspx#panel=home