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chronology:
memorabilia:
1951-1960
-The Saltine Warrior
1951
The senior class commissions Luise Meyers Kaish, a 1946 graduate of the School of Art, to sculpt a 3,000-pound statue of the Saltine Warrior.
1952
On successive October days presidential candidates Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson hold campus rallies before audiences exceeding 10,000. In a campus poll, students choose Eisenhower.
1953
Yates Castle, former home to the schools of pedagogy and journalism, is razed. Built for private use in 1852, it reportedly served as a pre-Civil War stop on the Underground Railroad, by which thousands of slaves escaped from the South to Canada.
-Yates Castle
1954
Early spring water fights, a campus tradition among students in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, feature open hydrants and soaked visitors. This year's targets include police cars and officers, who make 31 arrests.
1954
Biology professor Arthur Phillips arrives from MIT and starts the first germ-free animal research laboratory dedicated to studying medical problems.
1955
-Supplicant Persephone
Ivan Mestrovic, considered by some the greatest sculptor of religious subjects since the Renaissance and a sculptor-in-residence at SU since 1947, leaves for Notre Dame University. He wants to take Supplicant Persephone with him, but the senior class purchases it for the University.
1955
SU's College Quiz Bowl team earns $1,000 in a national radio competition with four other colleges.
1956
The School of Social Work is founded.
1956
Running back Jim Brown scores an NCAA-record 43 points in the football team's 61-7 rout of Colgate.
1957
United States Senator John F. Kennedy speaks at Commencement.
1958
John DeVeaux becomes the first African-American president of the men's student government.
1959
An early-morning fire at a Skytop Air Force barrack kills seven student airmen.
1960
The unbeaten football team culminates its only national championship season with a win over Texas in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day.
1960
Valedictorian and future novelist Joyce Carol Oates is determined not to give the traditional student address at Commencement. SU officials tell her rain will be her only excuse for not speaking at the outdoor ceremony in Archbold Stadium. Commencement arrives, and so does the rain.
1960
Use of the Alpha Tau Omega cannon, fired after SU touchdowns in Archbold Stadium since 1922, is indefinitely suspended after an accident injures five students during the Penn State game.