Section 2

SECTION 2

90th Anniversary
Gifts for Alumni
Homecoming & the GI Bill

SECTION 3
Heads Up
Carlyon Scholar 

SECTION 4
The Play's the Thing
 

School of Social Work  90th Anniversary    

  RPI alumni of the School of Social Work will also want to celebrate the 90^th anniversary of the oldest school of social work in the South—now ranked 14^th in the country by US News & World Report. Participate in RPI events, and some special social work celebrations as well. There will be educational presentations (CEU credits), a student art exhibit on social justice, historical displays, music, dinner and VCU Theatre, and a Sip-and-Support wine tasting to benefit the scholarship fund. Our joyous 90th birthday party will include music by social work Professor Joe Walsh and his band, and birthday cake, of course!  Watch your mail for additional details and registration information.

       Homecoming and the GI Bill:   Post-WWII RPI

In 1944, RPI enrollment was 511 students. Following the war, the enrollment rose to1638. Thanks to funding from the G.I. Bill, many veterans who might not have been able to afford college flooded the campus. Male student enrollment increased from 30 in 1940 to 805 in 1947--650 were veterans (figures from VCU by Bonis, Koste, Lyons). Bob Lindholm ’50BS/H&S comments, “Dr. Hibbs was hard pressed to handle the invasion.”    

"Lost Battalion” club, from the 1947 RPI Wigwam. As a
result of the G.I. Bill, men comprised 805 of the 1638 students in 1947,including 650 veterans. Male and female veterans at RPI organized the Lost Battalion club in October of 1946.

The post-war economic recovery created many new occupational needs for Richmond and Virginia. A need to be filled never went unnoticed by RPI founder, Dr. Henry Hibbs, who developed new programs accordingly —in business, advertising, professional drama and speech, law enforcement, rehabilitation counseling and occupational therapy. Later in the ‘50s, Korean War vets came as well. 

Anne Flick ’49Cert’50BFA remembers the transformation. “The change in one year, between 1946 and ’47, was just amazing. RPI went from a school of 600 students to 1638.  Teachers had their offices in closets, with just a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.  Classrooms were packed. We were sitting on windowsills.  I had an English class of 300 in the basement of Grove Avenue Baptist Church. The teacher walked up and down the rows lecturing; he had student graders.  

The campus was sparse. Anne continues. “Shafer Street Playhouse was the art school. Our auditorium was on the first floor and art studios were on the second. The Music Building was at Shafer and Park; you could hear the students practicing.” [Some things don’t change, thank goodness. At the Alumni House, we often hear singing from practice rooms across Franklin Street. Ed.]  

Gifts for RPI-VCU Alumni        

Consider a Gift Membership in the VCU Alumni Association or the African American Alumni Council (which includes VCUAA membership) for a recent graduate (new grads get a first-year 15% discount) or an old friend. It’s a generous gesture to an alumni relative or friend and supports your university as well.

Your VCU-RPI education has had a lifetime impact. Celebrate your own connection and commitment with a Life Membership in the Alumni Association. Check out the full benefits of Association, and join for a year or a lifetime at www.vcu-mcvalumni.org.

Or order VCU caps, shirts, backpacks, and more through our online partner, Club Colors, www.clubcolors.com/vcu  Receive the promotion code for a 10 % discount with your new membership. Already a member? Call us at 804-828-2586 for the code.

Bonus for RPI-VCU Alumni
The VCU E2 Bookstore will give VCU Alumni a 15% discount on VCU merchandise. Just use code #999 for online or phone orders. VCU e2 Bookstore 
Exceptions: Textbooks, candy, drinks, gift cards, Quizno’s, plan9; and cannot be used with any other discount.

[Post-WWII, cont'd]

There were no men’s dorms, at first, so there was some scrambling for housing. Lindholm and Willis McCauley ’54BS/B were two of the men who, Willis says, “made a kind of dorm upstairs above Chelf’s Drugstore. Bob Lindholm adds some details. “Dr.Moore, the pharmacist and owner of Chelf’s remodeled the second and third floors of his building, and rented rooms to us, four to a room in bunkbeds, and made a tidy monthly sum in that way. Yearbooks during the same years as mentioned above, contain pictures taken upstairs at Chelf’s.”

The first men’s dorm in 1948, McCauley says, “was at 712 West Franklin Street—where Rhoads Hall is now. There were three floors, and guys lived in the basement, too. Men rented rooms from families, and apartments in the fan near RPI.”

Lindholm remembers some creative housing solutions. “About 20 of us also started a fraternity at RPI, that lasted a year or less before Dr. Hibbs shut us down. The fraternity was started after Dr. Hibbs put a private club on Floyd Avenue (a house some students/ veterans from Norfolk rented), off limits to female students; and the guys eventually moved out. After the fraternity folded, remnants from that group helped form the German Club, which had a faculty sponsor and was OK with Dr. Hibbs. The German Club lasted for some years after I graduated.  

The GI Bill was a kind of Marshall Plan for the U.S.—added to the Hibbs Plan for RPI, to make advanced professional training accessible to as many young men and women as possible. The investment certainly paid off, for individuals and for the country, in post-war prosperity and growth.

“Those were interesting years.” Lindholm muses.