Founders’ Day
Founders’ Day, like its predecessor, Charter Day, celebrates the anniversary of the granting of Union’s charter on February 25, 1795. The day was first observed in 1896. Founders’ Day at some institutions has been a day of student ceremonies or rituals, but at Union it has always been run by the administration.
Celebrations of the anniversary down to 1968 focused on Union’s history or on the lives of famous persons connected with the College. At the second Charter Day, in 1897, President Raymond went so far as to read the Charter aloud. Professors William Wells and Maurice Perkins, both of whom had been at the College for thirty-two years, then recounted anecdotes about Union’s history.
The College canceled classes for Charter Day, and by the second year other events, such as the Allison-Foote debates and the sophomore soiree, were being scheduled for the same week. By 1898, Charter Day was celebrated on Washington’s Birthday (February 22), a holiday for which the College customarily canceled classes.
After 1902, Charter Day ceased to be observed annually, but in 1920 the College marked its 125th anniversary with noon chapel services on February 25th, calling the day Charter Day. Thereafter the anniversary was noted only casually until 1937, when Dixon Ryan Fox revived it as Founders’ Day and began the custom of scheduling lectures on a specific person or topic connected with Union’s past; at the first Founders’ Day, Columbia University professor Robert Livingston Schuyler spoke on his ancestor, Philip Schuyler.
Suspended during the Second World War, Founders’ Day returned in 1947. The anniversary ceremonies then began to honor an illustrious alumnus or former faculty member, and the addresses were published in the Union Worthies series of pamphlets. Typically the program consisted of one address on the featured alumnus, often by a member of Union’s faculty, and another, often by a nationally known speaker, on the field of the honoree’s achievement. The latter speaker received an honorary degree during the ceremonies.
Controversy greeted the decision in 1961 to honor one of slavery’s staunchest defenders, Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs ’28, at a time when many students had become enthusiastic about the civil rights movement. A larger problem, however, was the increasing difficulty of finding honorees of sufficient stature. Founders’ Day honored an individual for the last time in 1968. The anniversary was not observed in 1969, but in 1970 Founders’ Day marked Union’s 175th year in May with seminars devoted to institutional self-scrutiny.
The College’s founding remained uncelebrated for the next fifteen years, a period during there was little prospect of gathering a sufficient audience for such a purpose. Since the revival of Founders’ Day in 1986, the ceremonies—with the partial exception of the Bicentennial year 1995—have made only passing reference to history, typically centering instead on an address by a well-known speaker, who is then awarded an honorary degree.
Condensed from Wayne Somers, compiler and editor, Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), page 295.
Image courtesy of Union College, Schaffer Library Special Collections and Archives, Photograph Collection