Kenyon became chairman of the mechanical engineering department; and Guy Donaruma
became director of Research and Graduate Studies; Charles O'Brien joined the faculty as
assistant professor of social sciences; and Peter Besiot as associate professor of management.
Interesting side note: of the 24 new faculty hired in 1968, only
one
- Charles O'Brien -
still was teaching at Clarkson in 1995.
Tom Hurley, Olympian
. Tom Hurley '66, an All-American hockey player while at Clarkson,
was chosen to play on the 1968 United States Olympic hockey team competing in Grenoble,
France. He skated in most of the games, and scored one goal against West Germany.
Student Disturbance
. Several students standing outside a bar on Market Street in April
witnessed the Potsdam police arrest three young men from Syracuse for driving the wrong way
around the traffic loop, for public intoxication, and for reckless driving. When they saw police
use a tear gas derivative in the arrest, and club one of the young men with a flashlight, they
reacted violently to what they felt had been an excessive use of force. As they surged around
the police car with the three young Syracusans inside, the police reacted by using the same
methods to disperse the crowd. This use of gas caused other students inside the area bars to
pour onto the streets in anger. For several hours, between five hundred and one thousand angry
students blockaded Market Street, upsetting traffic cones, and breaking glass in the street.
In response to hurried calls for assistance, the local police and fire department personnel
summoned police from Canton, Gouverneur, Massena, and Ogdensburg to help them. At the
urging of Acting Mayor Richard Murphy, and several student leaders, the police reinforcements
stayed away from the crowd in order not to spark any new violence which might have arisen
from such a show of force. Student actions on the street were restricted mainly to lighting
bonfires onto which traffic cones were tossed, to drag racing on Elm Street, and to harassing
any traffic which happened through the Elm-Market intersection where the crowd had stopped
its "march on the Police Station."
By three o'clock, after most of the weary students had gone home, brooms and shovels
appeared from the town highway department, and under the leadership of Student Council
President Mark Scherer '69, a handful of bystander students swept the glass and litter from the
street into the gutter where the village road sweeper completed the clean-up. The three
motorists triggering the event were arrested, arraigned on Sunday, fined, and disappeared into
history.
Chaperones' Duties
. On a flyer sent out to faculty by C. Michael Harris, director of student
activities, the following guidelines detailed some of the duties expected of chaperones.
All female guests must leave at 12:30 a.m. when the social activity is a 1:00 a.m. affair; at 2:00
a.m. when it is a 2:30 permission. The organizational officers (in particular the social chairman) are
responsible for seeing that the place is cleared at the designated time. A final check by chaperones at the
conclusion is desirous. At affairs held beyond 35 miles, where buses are involved, enough travel time to
ensure arrival in Potsdam by 2:30 a.m. is essential.
When social functions are held out of town, the chaperone's responsibility is considered to be
completed when the buses have departed for their return to Potsdam. All girls from SUCP and Clarkson
are required to travel to and from such out-of-town functions via approved public transportation.
