Check out the Class Photo Album.
Do you remember what was happening on campus, in Chicago, around the world, and in arts and culture during your years in the College?
- The entering class of 1967 numbered 585, including 221 women and 364 men. Tuition at the time was $1,500 and would increase to nearly $2,000 by the class’s senior year. The class’s graduating year marked the University’s 75th anniversary.
- The late 1950s and early 1960s were a time of transition between the highly structured curriculum of the 1946-1954 Hutchins Era and the College that was reorganized by Edward Levi and Wayne Booth from 1966 onward. The “New College” had a revised curriculum and included divisional as well as general education faculty.
- The tumultuous tone of the Class of 1967’s four years at the University was set by momentous events in the second half of 1967. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C., in August which was followed shortly thereafter by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November.
- Students staged a sit-in on the 50-yard line of Stagg Field to protest the return of intercollegiate football to the University in November 1963.
- By the end of their years
on campus, many members of the class would take part in political activism
around national issues, including civil rights and the Vietnam War.
- One class member recalls: “We were exhilarated by the feeling that we could change the world — and that there was a lot that needed changing. We were also scared to death of Vietnam.”
- Women’s issues became more prominent on campus. A 1964 editorial in the Maroon asked, “What will college girls do with their education?” while the “women’s hours” system was significantly overhauled and liberalized in 1966-1967.
- 800 students converged on Mandel Hall in April 1965 for a “teach-in” on Vietnam.
- Students for a Democratic Society held a major protest on campus in February 1966.
- In May 1966, 450 students protesting University draft policy took over the administration building and blocked any entrance to it. They claimed the decision to allow class ranks to be used in determining draft status harmed education and turned students into “enemies in a life and death struggle.” In spring 1967, the Council of the Faculty Senate voted to abolish the male class rank, making UC the first major university to reverse a decision establishing a rank specifically for the Selective Service System.
- Prominent visitors to campus included Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Stokely Carmichael, and Robert F. Kennedy.
- Quantrell Award winners during this class’s junior year included: Nathan Sugarman (d. 1990), Professor of Chemistry and David Orlinsky, then Assistant Professor in the College. During its senior year: Michael Joseph Murrin, Paul Joseph Sally Jr., David Burton Wake, and Gilbert F. White.
- Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s mayor from 1955-1976, was elected for a third term in 1963.
- School policy replaced housing as the chief racial issue. The segregationist policies of Schools Superintendent Benjamin Willis were strongly opposed by black leaders.
- President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty in March 1964 and announced his “Great Society” programs in January 1965.
- The Voting Rights Bill was passed in July 1964. Spring 1965 brought civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Alabama.
- The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of August 1965 authorized President Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack” in Vietnam. The war rapidly escalated and the student anti-war movement began.
- Malcolm X was assassinated in February 1965.
- Race riots erupted in the Watts section of Los Angeles in August 1965. Urban riots also took place in Newark and Detroit in 1967.
- BOOKS AND LITERATURE: The Bell Jar, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Group, The Feminine Mystique (1963), Herzog, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), Unsafe at Any Speed, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Magus (1965).
- MUSIC:
- The Beatles became enormously popular following the Fab Four’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. Their most popular songs included “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “A Hard Days Night,” “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away,” “Help,” and “Yesterday.”
- The
Rolling Stones were also a phenomenon with hits like “Satisfaction,” “Time
Is On My Side,” “Get Off My Cloud,” and “Paint
It Black.”
- Other artists included Roy Orbison, the Supremes, the Byrds, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Sonny and Cher, and Simon and Garfunkel.
- TELEVISION
AND RADIO: The Andy Griffith Show, Hogan’s Heroes,
I Dream of Genie, Batman, The Dating Game, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Green
Acres, The Mod Squad, Bewitched, The Fugitive, The Dick Van Dyke Show,
and The Ed Sullivan Show were all popular.
- MOVIES: The Birds, The Great Escape, and Dr. Strangelove
(1963); Lord of the Flies, Goldfinger, A Hard Day’s Night, A Shot in the
Dark, Fail-Safe, My Fair Lady, Zorba the Greek (1964); Dr. Zhivago, The
Sound of Music, Othello (1965); Fahrenheit 451, Alfie, A Man for All Seasons,
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966); Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
- SPORTS: The Chicago Bears won the NFL Championship in 1963. In
boxing, Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship
in 1964 and again in 1965. Clay, then known as Muhammad Ali, was indicted
in 1967 for refusing to be inducted into the Army.
- OTHER: Pop Art à la Warhol and Lichtenstein and “Op” Art, nonobjective art directed at optical illusions, became popular. The Ford Mustang, Diet Pepsi, and the miniskirt were introduced in 1965.
Researched by the University of Chicago, Development and Alumni Relations, 2006. The Chicago Maroon was the primary source for the “On Campus” section.