What was the student voice saying 50 years ago?
On the week of Sept. 24, 1971, the Good Five Cent Cigar was reporting on the upcoming panhellenic rush, Honors Colloquium and concerts coming to the University of Rhode Island.
According to an article on the front page, a new policy was instituted at the URI Bookstore that allowed students to re-sell their used textbooks through the bookstore as long as the books were still in use in their respective courses.
In addition, the bookstore had just added new items to their inventory available to students for purchase, as well as adding renovations to enlarge the store. Items such as records, candles, posters and health-food items were added to the store’s stocks for students to purchase.
In the editorial section, an anonymous reporter wrote an article about URI’s Sailing team. According to the article, the sailing team was just recently erased from the fall athletic schedule. Members of the Sailing team offered to pay for it themselves and become a club rather than an official sport.
“It might be noted that the sailing team at URI was ranked second in the nation last year,” read the article entitled “Strange but True.”
The author addressed their confusion by mentioning that the sailing team had ranked second in the nation in 1970, yet still were cut from university funding.
Today, the URI sailing team is a club sport under Campus Recreation, rather than a Division I sport through the NCAA.
In a letter to the editor, Student Senator Gail McCurry discussed her disappointment with the Homecoming Committee’s poor planning for the upcoming celebration, and with her fellow Student Senate members for not granting the Homecoming Committee the proper amount of funds.
According to the letter, the Homecoming Committee only had a football game and homecoming pageant planned for the 1971 celebration. In years past, the festivities included concerts and lawn displays. The committee had reached out to the Senate asking for a $170 emergency fund for planning, which the Senate declined.
“The request was met with an outburst of snickers and the typical Student Senate soapbox dramatics including cries of sexist revolution on campus manifesting itself in a beauty pageant during Homecoming festivities,” McCurry wrote.
The “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts” column was a column where students could ask for love advice from an anonymous reporter under the alias of “Militant Female.” This edition of the Cigar told a story about a reader’s boyfriend trying to light her cigarette for her.
“I started to light my cigarette out of my own pack with my own book of matches,” she said. “He tried to grab the matches and light it for me! I mean, was he for real? Boys don’t do that anymore, they’re not supposed to.”
Miss Lonelyhearts responded, telling the woman to excuse the man’s behavior as he must have had an old-fashioned upbringing and that women’s rights were still on the rise.
In campus news, articles were featured about a new international program being started, panhellenic recruitment beginning, and a recent poetry show by Joanna Featherstone, a Black poet, in the Memorial Union ballroom.
Lastly, there was an advertisement for a Beach Boys concert at Keaney Gymnasium on Sept. 28. The concert, hosted by the Student Entertainment Committee, was $2.50 a ticket for students.
Other advertisements featured were for a Lehigh Gas Station, Chimney Sweep Candle Company, and weekend music performances at Bon Vue Inn in Narragansett.