Ludlow (Fitzhugh) Day
Intended as an alcohol-free spring festival and as a community-building antidote to the low student morale its organizers perceived at the end of the Bonner administration, the first annual Fitzhugh Ludlow Day, April 21, 1979, featured dancing, music, chapel bell playing, volleyball, games, parties, a barbeque, fireworks, an historical exhibit and faculty discussion groups.
Something of a village fair, this rare campus-wide social event was organized by a student/faculty/administration committee and supported by College appropriations. In the second year the festivities moved to the more reliable weather of mid-May, and after being held on a Saturday for the first five years, they shifted to Friday in 1984 when the administration agreed to cancel classes.
Fitzhugh Ludlow Day featured a marked emphasis on history, each year honoring a different person from Union’s past: Fitzhugh Ludlow (1979), Squire Whipple (1980), William Seward and Robert Toombs (1981), Henry Wikoff (1982), Anne Dunbar Perkins (1983), Isaac Jackson (1984), James Rufus Tryon (1985), John Farnham (1986), Joesph Jacques Ramee (1987), Chester Arthur (1988) and Ludlow again (1989).
By the end of the period covered by this book, the intentions of the founders had been largely forgotten, and the Concordiensis editors found it necessary to scold the participants for drinking on what had been an alcohol-free day. The event was subsequently abandoned.
Condensed from Wayne Somers, compiler and editor, Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), page 465.
Image courtesy of Union College, Schaffer Library Special Collections and Archives, Photograph Collection