It’s too bad John Evans is dead, because Northwestern has a big party lined up in honor of him and the university’s other founders this weekend — and there’s even a 600-pound cheesecake involved.
At 2 p.m. today, the kick-off celebration for NU’s sesquicentennial begins in honor of the university’s 150th birthday.
“It’s a celebration of Northwestern,” said NU’s sesquicentennial director Monica Metzler, who’s been planning the festivities since October 1998. “It’s a celebration of the history of this place — where it’s been, how it got to where it is today, and that tells us where it’s going.”
The weekend will include speeches about the university’s history, tours of campus, various performances, fireworks and many other events.
“I think there will be a lot of events that are fun as well as informative,” University President Henry Bienen said. “It’s meant to be a fun and festive occasion for the whole community, so I’ll be very disappointed if it doesn’t engage students.”
Associated Student Government President Adam Humann said he was hopeful students will attend the events, no0ting that the weekend was well-publicized.
Bienen and Humann, a Weinberg senior, will be among the speakers at the sesquicentennial opening ceremony beginning 2 p.m. Friday at Deering Meadow. Other speakers include Alumni Association President Ava Youngblood and Board of Trustees Vice Chairman Donald Perkins.
In addition to the speeches, the NU Marching Band will play and a U.S. Postal Service postcard honoring NU will be unveiled.
Bienen and Judy de Torok, a U.S. Postal Service media relations manager and a Medill alumna, will show off the card’s design that features the clock tower above University Hall, NU’s oldest building.
When the 20-cent card is released in 2001, it will become part of the Postal Service’s Historic Preservation series.
Prof. Garry Wills will give the weekend’s keynote address, “Is the University Obsolete?” on Friday night at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall. His speech will be broadcast simultaneously to Coon Forum in Leverone Hall and Ryan Auditorium at the Technological Institute.
Fireworks and music on the Lakefill Friday night will end the first day of celebration.
Of all the events during the weekend, Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said, he figures students will enjoy the cheesecake if nothing else.
The 600-pound dessert, made by Eli’s Cheesecake, will sit outside Arthur Andersen Hall from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s a Chicago-based company, and the president is a Northwestern alum. As a result, we’re getting a massive cheesecake,” Cubbage said.
For the calorie-conscious, a 5K Fun Run/Walk and tug-of-war competition on Saturday can help ease the guilt.
To exercise the mind, tours around campus and Evanston will run all weekend. Sites include Shakespeare Garden, backstage at Cahn Auditorium, the Block Museum of Art, Frances Willard’s Rest Cottage, Alice Millar Chapel’s pipe organ and stained glass, the Dearborn Observatory, and the “river” in a Tech lab.
And Metzler said the events will go beyond “stale” history lessons.
“You learn these kind of generic facts: ‘Oh, University Hall was build in 1869. No, the library’s not sinking,'” Metzler said. “There aren’t enough occasions to bring out this more interesting stuff.”
The last major event of the weekend will be Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. sesquicentennial concert, which will feature the premiere of “Northwestern: Moments in Time,” a video about NU’s history, and musical and theatrical performances by students, faculty and alumni.
For whatever they plan to do during the weekend, students will get a jump start with the early 2 p.m. ending of Friday classes.
While the decision to end classes early “was ultimately up to individual faculty,” Cubbage said, the idea originated with the sesquicentennial committee. The committee recommended the 2 p.m. time to Bienen and Provost Lawrence Dumas, who then consulted with the deans of the individual schools.
The deans said most of their classes would be over by that time of the day, and they agreed on the 2 p.m. ending, Dumas said.
Compared to the university’s decision to suspend classes from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January, Dumas said the decision for the sesquicentennial “was a relatively easier one.”
In November 1998 ASG unanimously voted to recommend that MLK Day be an academic holiday, but a year later the NU Calendar Committee voted against the full day off.
A student committee later met with Bienen and they compromised for a three-hour break from classes.
Dumas said the MLK Day class suspension was more complicated because of the annual nature of the holiday, the request for the full day off and the timing of the event — the middle of a Monday as opposed to a Friday afternoon.
The MLK Day decision had “a bigger impact on curriculum” and “a repetitive impact on the university,” Dumas said.
“NU doesn’t celebrate their 150th year very often,” he said. “I think the last celebration like this was 50 years ago.”
Sameer Gafoor, ASG academic vice president and a member of the MLK Day student committee, said he agreed with Dumas’ comments.
“The sesquicentennial is an occasion that comes around every 150 years,” Gafoor said.
