Penn College News

Where memory serves

Monday, September 16, 2019

A color rendering of the Hager Lifelong Education Center’s “loop” previews a now-familiar vantage from West Third Street. The drawing was provided to the archives by late administrator William Homisak.A caddy for electronic tubes harks back to when TVs were too cumbersome to be repaired off-site, so technicians carried the tubes on house calls. Hand-drawn technical illustrations include a massive steam boiler brought down to size in the meticulous ink work of student John M. Dunlop. The pieces were donated to the archives by retiree Patrick Murphy, an associate professor of advertising art who received Master Teacher honors in 1989.From the Fall 2019 Penn College Magazine: “There have been many attempts to place on the record the history of this unusual institution, but such records as exist are scattered and incomplete,” wrote George H. Parkes, the first director of Williamsport Technical Institute, a forerunner of Pennsylvania College of Technology. He would be heartened to know that his words are part of a treasure trove of objects, photos and papers that have been cataloged in the archives of that “unusual institution’s” successor to help to tell the story of the institution and those who have dwelled in its halls. For 20 years, those archives – on the third floor of the Madigan Library – were studied, cataloged and preserved by librarian Patricia A. Scott. Before retiring in June, Scott shared a few of her favorite archives finds. Read "Where Memory Serves."