The 'Circle:' opening ceremony (standing on the bridge between the two sections of SEL) and looking down on Mayor Daley (Imagine the security if that were today!) ... first quarter in microbiology class was shortened due to lack of gas and steam in the lab ... trekking through the mud to the Roosevelt Road Building ... stalactites forming on the underside of the 2nd floor walkway in the winter ... walking across the slabs of concrete over the lecture center and having them tilt like an amusement 'ride' ... sitting in the 'forum' in nice weather ... seeing construction going through phases one, two and three! (SEL, SES, SEO, etc.) ... gathering crabapples from the trees by the faculty/staff parking lot next to SEL ... getting bussed to the Duncan Y for P.E. class and taking the Madison Avenue bus afterwards (Meeting an interesting subset of Chicagoans in the process) ... the chaos (and closing) during the Kent State demonstrations ... having friends get their 'greetings' letter from the military when student deferments were dropped during the Vietnam war ... and more! So many memories from my tenure from 1963 until 1982 (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees included.)

I most remember my instructors. To be sure there were a few 'lemons,' but the vast majority were excellent and back then they were not much concerned with politically correct speech.

The Russians had launched Sputnik in 1957 and thereby had scared the U.S. Congress, which subsequently dramatically increased funding of university research. In 1965, it seemed as if just about every faculty member could obtain a federal grant. UICC seemed to have so much money that, when it rained, workers were sent out to squeegee water off the sidewalks! The students walked safely on those sidewalks; and I suspect that the workers were sure to pull the Democratic lever in local elections to keep their patronage jobs at UICC.

But we didn't care. You see, many of us were first-generation Americans. Even more of us were the first in our families to attend college. We were proud to be college students, thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in college athletics and other school activities, and elated to be able to be part of football games, dances and rallies.

We made good friends and even better memories during those years, then went on to earn our degrees somewhere else. But we never forgot Navy Pier. Today, when I drive by the Pier, with its family attractions and giant ferris wheel, I realize that most people look at it and think what a great place it is to spend the day. I look at it and recall, with fondness, what a wonderful place it was to spend some of the best years of my life.

In the span of less than 10 years after that unwelcome relocation, at a spot no more than a stone's throw from my grandparent's former home, a yearbook photo would be taken of me, as the 1969 senior class president. UIC made it possible for me to be the first in our family to obtain a university education.

But my experience of Circle was more than merely getting a degree.

Just as that old-world-style, immigrant neighborhood of my grandparents' defined and supported their identity and life, Circle brought a new multi-cultural community that defined and supported mine. Just as their Little Italy neighbors and friends shared each other's company and lives sitting on apartment front steps, I forged lifelong friendships and shared life experiences at 'front tables' in the hustle and bustle of the Pier Room. Just as their neighborhood provided social gathering places and activities that led to new relationships, Circle made available a myriad of extracurricular organizations to enrich my life and brought me to my wife of 35 years.

Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, and all the families whose sacrifices benefited a new generation. Thank you, too, Mayor Richard J. Daley, for your vision.

And I remember the spirit! Like so many other students, I worked 20 hours a week in order to pay tuition and expenses, so I wasn't as involved as some other students like Bill Hawes, Howie Marks, Tony Podesta, etc. But, I was fortunate to work in the UICC College of Engineering when Dr. Robert Banks and other outstanding, committed faculty were working to establish a college of the highest rank. Faculty and administrators in the other colleges were focused on the same goal. It was an exciting time.

When the ribbon was cut and we moved in, no one cared about the mud, the incomplete buildings, the hard-to-find rooms in our unique buildings ... we just felt fortunate — and we still do — that we were given the opportunity to build the foundation of our futures on a campus in the heart of the "city that works." Both the campus and the city still do, and still work together to enhance each other — most of all by providing similar opportunities for many other fortunate students.

Thank you to Mayor Daley and all those countless others who made this campus possible!

In 1952 I was president of the Student Congress and was a charter member of the Activities Honorary Society. Along with fellow student, Carole Foster, I co-chaired the Quad Council, which obtained petitions for the establishment of a four-year campus. The group went downstate to Springfield where I presented testimony in support of a bill to establish such a campus in Chicago.

On the bright side, I can remember walking all the way to the end of the Pier and enjoying the breathtaking view of Lake Michigan. I can remember the hour (only) ride to school from the western suburb of Melrose Park. My dad would drive me down to the western end of the El in Oak Park, where I took it downtown 'til I caught the Grand Avenue bus to the end at the Pier. One day I got out of Dad's car and realized I didn't have any money on me. When I walked up to the ticket booth attendant, she said, 'That's okay, just pay me tomorrow.' At school, I went to the office, where they lent me a few dollars for the return home later.

I truly have great memories of the Circle, spending hours in the Pier Room, eating, playing cards with friends, enjoying the warmth of spring lying in the sun at the main forum. ... Demonstrations and rallies always happening during the turbulent Vietnam days ... The closing of the campus after the ROTC riot.

My history professors were top notch. There was standing room only in the lecture hall when Dr. Nicholson gave his Hitler rise-to-power lecture. Also, one would see him in the library with a stack of books checking for plagiarism on the papers he assigned.

I moved from Chicago in 1970 but will never forget those great days at the Circle ... although I heard that the upper walkway is gone, which I really thought made us unique.

Already wrote my memories previously, but just want to add that the other memories being written are great! Question: Does anyone remember the name of the English pub off campus? I believe it was on Harrison Street, about a block west of Morgan. Keep writing your memories, alumni!

At the time, there were no scholarships available and there was no football program. Wrestling coach Dean Ryan almost cried when I told him I had lettered in high school, as most of his recruits came from the gym classes. I soon earned my place on the team as a regular starter with a 6-2-1 record for the season and winning my 'I.'

Early on, I do not recall calling the University of Illinois anything but 'Navy Pier' or 'the Pier,' but we soon began calling it 'Harvard on the Rocks.' My friends thought I had joined the Navy. The push for a four-year school called UIC did not come until my sophomore year, although we did sing the U of I song ending with 'Victory UIC, varsity.'

Most of my memories that first semester are driving a broom-painted blue-and-orange (school colors) 1937 Dodge down the Outer Drive (Lake Shore Drive) each day to get to school then working out in the gym with Hal Frey and the gymnastic team after classes ... and playing intramural softball in Grant Park in the spring.

My better memories are from the following semester when speech class was greeted by a lovely young coed instructor fresh out of Louisiana State University. But my greatest memory was playing varsity football. These memories include suffering a broken nose the week before the first game; having Coach Krisdlelr reset two dislocated thumbs one day during practice; being bussed to Grant Park for practice and playing home games in a high school's back yard; and finally, after suffering an embarrassing loss our first game, going on to finish the season with the school's best record.

I was in the last entering freshman class at Navy Pier, September 1964. There never was any doubt as to where I would go to college. My brother had gone to the Pier, as did his friends, so it was either the Pier or 'Wright' for the first two years. At the Pier, a biology or chemistry lab smelled as you would expect — from formaldehyde or sulphur, the wooden structure having absorbed decades of aroma. We had all of one side of the Pier for classes, cafeteria and gym, although by my time, the boys took gym in the Richard J. Daley Gymnasium in the circle drive in front of the Pier. We parked in the small lot near the filtration plant, leaving our keys in the car so anyone could move your car out of their way. We double- and triple-parked in that tiny lot. The streetcar ran down the middle of the Pier. If I took public transportation to the Pier, I had to take the El to the bus to the streetcar. At the Circle, the science labs in SEL were so sterile — all glass and brick and stainless steel. A biology lab could have been a chemistry lab and vice versa. We could only walk on the second level because construction was still underway on the ground and heavy equipment was always moving, with mud everywhere. Sometimes we actually did have classes outside in the excedras, created for that purpose above the Lecture Center.

I have three fond memories that I would like to share. I attended Navy Pier as a freshman from January 1959 to January 1961 before transferring to Champaign-Urbana and later, to the UIC College of Medicine. Work crews performed construction during much of the day. One day when the noise was nearly unbearable, Leo Ziomek, our instructor, went outside the classroom and convinced a construction worker to wait until his class was over before continuing his work with the jackhammer. Leo proudly returned to the room saying, 'The little guy always wins.' The second was when classes were let out for the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway during the spring semester 1959. We knew that this was a historic event. The third is that the National Restaurant Association used to hold its annual convention on the second floor of Navy Pier each year. It was a real treat to obtain a pass illegally and taste all that the meeting had to offer.

I remember with much joy the 'fratority' on Navy Pier. It was made up of men and women who gathered purely for social purposes. We even wore a beanie for initiation. Mostly it was lots of parties on the South Side with polka music. I also remember the buckets in the halls and classrooms to collect rainwater leaking through the roof. The education was magnificent, with full professors teaching the lowly freshmen.

Sitting in classrooms on the north side of the pier during the winter storms, with wind-driven waves splashing on the windows and the wind howling, lent drama to what might otherwise have been dry lectures.

I have the greatest admiration for our alumni/ae who struggled down Navy Pier in search of a great education, and especially for those who took a chance coming here when UI Chicago Circle was still a whole in the ground — literally. Now that I am working at the UIC College of Engineering, I hear those tales from our early alumni — snowstorms and sleeping overnight in UH, burst water mains, and no one knowing where this campus was located. Ever since my first years at UIC as a staff member and a grad student, there have been huge changes, like the name change to UIC. Not only are those dreary monolithic granite walkways gone (remember slipping on them in the snow or walking under them dodging dripping rain?), but we have dorms; paved, well-lit parking areas; flowering trees; plus an incredible number of places to get coffee. Have you seen the coffee bar and seating area in the UH Rebecca Port Center? The changes are immense. I'm proud of my UIC degree from the relatively new College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and am glad to tell my friends to visit UIC and send their kids to school here. The education is excellent!

It is difficult to organize the memories that come flooding back when I think back to that bitter cold, February morning in 1965, when I started my morning early in the Jackson Boulevard subway tunnel, making sure the students boarded the right train to a campus they had never seen. I almost missed the ribbon-cutting. After the ceremony a number of us headed for Manny's — the deli I frequent to this day. Part of the experience of Chicago Circle was being exposed to the food and culture of the surrounding neighborhoods: Italian, Greek, Mexican.

And the memories that followed that opening day ... that first spring hanging out and making new friends on the excedra (monkey island) because the union was in the old bank building on Roosevelt Road, a trek across an open space (Burma Road) that was too long between classes. This is the same open space that was the site of the legendary tug-of-war in the mud between Student Government and the newspaper staffs. (Memory says Student Government won, but I am biased.) And more memories ... the food boycott that predated far more serious protests; the blackout; the 1967 snowstorms; student government elections with their own intrigues and dirty tricks; the campus dances that featured big name bands like the Animals, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and local legends like Baby Huey and Babysitters, the New Colony Six and Buckinghams; parties thrown by social groups like the Royal Order of Petunias and the Royal Jolly Rumplefunks before there were fraternities and sororities; Winter Carnival; homecomings — including the final football season played at Soldier Field with crowds of tens of ... well, maybe just ten.

If anyone does not remember these events, or wants to relive them, please come and find me Feb. 4 and 5 as we celebrate 40 years of the Chicago Circle Campus. (Does anyone remember that it was almost called Congress Circle until they changed the name of the expressway?) It's a campus that was unique in many ways, particularly the much maligned physical structures — the forum, the exedra, the walkways — which were allowed to deteriorate to a point where the conversion to the present campus was inevitable, though, in the view of many of us who were there when it was new, it's not an improvement. Chicago Circle may be gone — both as an institution due to consolidation in 1982 and now physically — but it's definitely not forgotten.

I already wrote my memories, but the other memories being written are great! Question: Does anyone remember the name of the English pub off campus? I believe it was on Harrison about a block west of Morgan. Keep writing your memories, alumni!

Dear fellow alumni,

I wish to share some experiences at Navy Pier as a coed from 1950-1953:

I remember attending classes with many GIs returning from the Korean War.

Ours was the first class advocating for a four-year University of Illinois in Chicago. We called ourselves the 'Quad Council' and held many rallies and marches. As Miss Navy Pier and Homecoming Queen in 1950, and a member of the Activities Honor Society, I was very active in this campaign. It didn't come to fruition until a decade later, but we were proud to be the generation that kicked it off.

Classrooms at the 'Pier' had to fight Mother Nature whenever she sent angry waves washing into our rooms. With a blink of an eye, we would move our chairs to drier areas and continue on.

It was a wonderful experience sharing our 'streetcar school' with traffic court, which was attached to the building.

We boasted the largest campus on Lake Michigan!

Once a year the National Restaurant Association would have their convention on the second floor. Some of the more enterprising among us would figure out ways to obtain a badge and eat heartily and free for a week.

It was a wonderful experience attending Navy Pier and we received a wonderful education there.

From 1956-61 at the Urbana and Navy Pier campuses, I had instruction in chemistry, physics, mathematics, languages, social sciences and humanities, as one important phase in my lifelong learning in these areas.

During the political campaign of 1960, I remember seeing Senator Paul H. Douglas introduce the Democratic presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy, on the Urbana campus. The current Field Museum exhibit in Chicago on the Kennedy White House years makes this memory more vivid.

Detailed memories were rendered more vivid by the photograph of the ribbon-cutting ceremony on the postcard (also on this Web site) announcing the celebration of the opening of UIC Circle Campus in 1965. I was aware that the person cutting the ribbon — Governor Otto Kerner — was personally involved in the successful effort to open up a four-year campus of the University of Illinois in the Chicago area. I also was reminded that my late father, Milton W. Rosenstein, a 1924 graduate in civil engineering at Urbana-Champaign, designed the CTA blue line station immediately adjacent to the campus in 1965.

I had some admittedly brief contacts but retain detailed memories of three of the historic personalities in the photograph: Governor Kerner, Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago and David Dodds Henry, University president.

In 1961 I received a facsimile of my undergraduate diploma from President Henry at the commencement ceremony in Urbana. However, I retain to this day sorrowful memories of President Henry's 1956 decision — in my freshman year — to fire a tenured biology professor who made a public recommendation that (heterosexual) couples cohabitate before marriage. I remember that the irate response from parents of undergraduates prompted President Henry to seek dismissal of this professor. To me, this episode — capitulating to angered parents — is a sorrowful chapter in the long, otherwise mostly distinguished history of our university. At a time when we celebrate the positive, we still have an obligation to remember such moments.

The Pier was a unique experience — the only university in the world that could be torpedoed. In fact, some of you may remember going to the very end of the pier in nice weather and occasionally seeing some guy with an old PT boat (ala JFK) who used to make torpedo runs on the pier.

My other memory of the Circle Campus was of Professor Nicholson and his standing-room-only Hitler lecture (in uniform) — a fascinating study in witnessing how evil can take over a population. That lecture was so popular, many of us returned to see it again when we were at the UI medical school down the street.

The physical plant routing office, which opened November 1963, was one of the first offices to open on the new campus, along with the police department and machine shop. I remember the mud; also, we could park on the the street for free until the campus officially opened. All the problem calls for repairs and services for all the campuses — Navy Pier, Circle and Medical Center — went through Routing. It was a big change from the Pier to see the staff, faculty and students isolated in one building. I always loved working at the Pier and the people there.

I attended Navy Pier from September 1963 until the move to Circle Campus in 1965. I truly remember that first day when we all sat in the auditorium getting instructions from the various deans and administrative staff. I particularly remember Dean Tanneberg, dean of women. Her message was clear and straight to the point. She said, 'Look to the left, look to the right; by midterms, one of you will not be here.'

And she was right. I was an honor student throughout high school and received a four-year scholarship to the University of Illinois. If it had not been for Navy Pier, I would not have been able to go to school because my parents could not afford room and board for me to attend the Urbana campus. So thank you, Navy Pier.

Then Circle Campus opened up. I remember the Pier Room and all that went on in it. I remember how five or six of my African American girlfriends and I picketed to have the cafeteria serve soul food. They ended up serving fried chicken, and the chicken would disappear so fast that some days we never got any.

I was the first in my family to graduate from a university. I remember graduation day. (It was June of '68 so we could march in the summertime after graduating in December 1967.) My mother's fond memory was looking out at the seated graduates from the College of Business Admministration and easily picking out my one black face among a sea of cream.

When I think of Navy Pier I think of the mud and the wooded planks we had to walk on until they finally built the sidewalks. Yes, I do remember Navy Pier and Circle Campus.

Physics Professor Anderson assigned me the use of the ham radio station and I ran it for the two years I was there. It was in the attic in the north tower and was a great toy for a kid. Hello to Marty Robinson, Harvey Endler, Todd Lahey, Ruth Gentry, Shirley Pelch, Janine Soluanas, John Papaleo, Greg Endre and all of my classmates.

First, I can remember the two-hour trip via four buses and a train to get to the Pier from Norwood Park on Chicago's northwest side. And, my first classes were always at 8 a.m.

Second, I remember feeling the severe cold when going from the end of the bus line (Grand Avenue) to the front door during the winter when the lake wind was up.

Next I remember the times when I had to go from one end of the Pier to the other in order to get to class on time. It seemed like we had school in a tube.

One of the more pleasant times was the solitude of the lake at the end of the pier when the weather was nice. I would go out to the end and try to figure out/project where I was going to go after graduation and concern myself with all of the uncertainties of life.

I thought the instructors were all very good, and I learned most of my basic physics and math in those early years. That served me well during my graduate studies (Ph.D. in 1967) and in more than 36 years as an aerospace engineer in California.

My wife and I visited the Pier about two months ago for the first time since moving to California in 1967. We were in Chicago for my 45th reunion from Taft High School. What a difference in the Pier between then and now — with the rides, conventions, and tourist trade.

I remember some great professors. At the Pier was Dr. Samuel Fox, a great person and wonderful intellectual! At the Circle were philosophy professors Jack Vickers and Irving Thalberg. I lived in the old brownstone house of Professor Leonard Currie on Lytle Street. Those were good times. I also remember the great snowstorm of 1967. I was sitting in a philosophy class at 8 a.m. on a Thursday. It started snowing and seemed like it never stopped!

I was a transfer student from Chicago Junior College just after the Circle Campus opened. I have 'fond' memories of the long walk from the campus down to the Roosevelt Road Bank building for R.O.T.C. classes and P.E. in a building converted from some sort of manufacturing. The mats for judo class just barely covered the anchor bolts that had been cut off and ground down to the floor. I remember lockers being scattered all over the place. I used to have dreams of not finding my locker. I also remember taking FORTRAN IID on an IBM 1460! This was in the days when having a computer was a BIG selling point. All the computers were sensitive to vibration, and the jackhammers and pile drivers drove the systems administrators nuts! As a prank, a bunch of us would gather outside the windows of the computer room, and we'd pantomime a group jump in the air. (Yes, that would annoy the computer.)

As one other person mentioned in their memories, there was also the winter snow of '67. I roomed on Division Street near the Oak Park/Chicago boundary. There were nine buses marooned at the turnaround point a block from the house. I got bored and walked down to the El and rode in to campus, where there was quite the party for a couple days in the student union.

I remember one campus party running on the platform that if they were elected they would 'turn University Hall right side up!'

The confusion of switching between quarter and semester hours, along with transfer credits under the trimester system, was lots of fun near the end of my stay. That was my first lesson in appreciating administrative support staff.

The Circle was my home away from home. The Pier Room was a great place to congregate with friends and meet new ones. I remember studying at the library and using the 'Radar Range.' No fast food restaurants back then — there were the Italian deli's and the Brown Bottle. Classes were the high point. I especially enjoyed the art history classes with Mr. McNee. Each class was a time for colorful stories about 19th and 20th century artists and their paintings. I received a great education. I currently am practicing as a school psychologist and am thankful for my experiences and education at the U of I.

I commuted from LaGrange on the Burlington Railroad to Navy Pier to attend architecture school. At that time, LaGrange was a world of girls in puffy shirtwaist dresses and white canvas shoes and socks, and boys in white bucks and cotton chino pants.

When I first hiked down the long hall of Navy Pier and went into the lunchroom, I was confronted by a totally different scene. Sitting around the tables were girls in hard, black eye makeup, black hair (or bleached blond) in frozen beehives, flips and waves, wearing tight skirts and sweaters, black nylons and high heels; the boys wore black pointed shoes, tight black pants, black leather hip length coats and sported greased-back, mean hairdos. It was my first exposure to the hard Chicago look and to the different ethnicities of the kids who wore them.

These were kids that I would have been half scared to look at, much less talk to, if I hadn't sat next to them in classes and gotten to know them in a 'controlled environment.' Then the friendships flourished. What an enriching experience!

And the instructors! I think it was because the beatnik/bohemian underground lifestyle was still alive in Chicago in the arts and architecture professions that I experienced such radical, sophisticated instructors.

Here is a funny/pathetic example of how radical (and great) our design training was at the Pier: The architecture curriculum was a five-year course, so the drill for us was to attend two and a half years at Navy Pier then the remainder at Urbana-Champaign. When I transferred down to Urbana, in one of my first design classes there, I infuriated my design instructor so much with one of my design submissions (which I thought was a great solution) that he accused me of trying to drive him crazy. (This was not an off-handed comment — he was shaking and redfaced when he said it.) He even sent me to the dean's office. There I was — a college student — essentially sitting in 'the principal's' office for being 'a bad design student.' The dean didn't know what to say so he just sent me on my way.

It didn't stop there though. Unknown to me, my design reputation followed me from class to class. When another instructor found out I was enrolled in his class, he took me into his office and warned that he did not want any trouble from me. I said OK, but I couldn't figure out what trouble I could be by drawing design solutions the way I wanted.

That's how vastly different our training was at the Pier (where I got consistent As on my design solutions). Being out in those architecture and art classes at the end of the Navy Pier was an awesomely inspiring mix of water, weather, views of the Chicago skyline and academic foment. My experiences in the community of students and teachers at Navy Pier and the training I received there vastly altered and enriched the course of my life.

No, I didn't remain in the architecture profession; it didn't satisfy me. It was ultimately too much like the Urbana experience. I became an electronic musician, an artist and a mystic. In 1978 I returned to Chicago to attend UICC for an MFA program.

As luck would have it, I returned to campus at a time when another radical experience was brewing: electronic visualization. No more beatnik/bohemia. Rather, it was electronic-grunge-acid-Star-Wars-bar-abstract-art 'vidiots' that altered and enriched my life. How lucky can one get?

Weirdly though, I found myself being considered a troublemaker in that program, too. Regardless, that little two-and-a-half-year graduate program launched me into a globe-hoping, culture-meeting profession of training artists who worked on multimillion-dollar computer graphic systems in the world's most famous television and film studios. That Camelot eventually collapsed along with the Silicon Valley bubble. So here I am again, wondering what's next. I suppose all I have to do is return to UICC one more time to find out.

Soooooo many memories of the Pier: the Grand Avenue trolley bus ('OK, Jimmy, close 'em up!'); the large gravel parking lot ('Park it over by the brown Chivvy.'); the fact that, at Navy Pier, every student saw every other student every day since everyone had to walk down the same corridor; Amana Radaranges in the front cafeteria; the day President Kennedy was assassinated — students, faculty and staff walking around ashen-faced or with tears streaming down their faces; Professors Twiley Barker, Margaret Oleksy, Samuel Fox and Albert Schneider; the baseball coach, Les Miller; waiting patiently for the Circle's opening, only to be told there'd be a six-week delay.

And then, Chicago Circle: Opening day — a typical terrible weather day in February; schlepping through the mud from the classrooms to the student union at the old bank building on Roosevelt Road; going to the Vienna plant on Halsted and buying cryovac packages or corned beef and pastrami to bring back to the union to heat up in the microwaves for the best lunches until ... the discovery of Vittori's Italian Beef and Sausage at Polk and Aberdeen (later on Taylor); being trounced in student elections as a member of the 'Action' party by Tony Podesta and his minions; Ricky Libles buying my first legal beer on my 21st birthday at the Brown Bottle on Taylor (I still have my mug.); Professors George Sackheim, Oscar Miller and Herman Finer; giving up trying to make it to campus on the Thursday morning of the '67 storm after going two miles in 45 minutes; getting a great education that prepared me for a 10-year career with the Internal Revenue Service, law school, and a 27-year career as a workers' compensation attorney.

So thank you, Governor Kerner, Mayor Daley and all who made it possible.

I remember ... hearing foghorns while studying in the library at the far end of the Pier; the Pier ceiling leaking and collection buckets in classrooms and hallways — regularly; noisy demolition work for railroad tracks in the center of the Pier — bouncing up and down in my seat when the wrecking ball dropped while taking final exams; P.E. classes in the former seaplane hangar near the land end of the Pier; great instructors and serious students; getting a sound foundation.

Looking up, seeing the innovative architecture of Circle Campus and the skyscrapers of the Loop nearby, I was inspired every day I was on campus. Looking down, I remember the snow, then the mud in those first months. But the boots that were damp all week were a small price to pay for the opportunity to attend a first-rate, urban university.

I had many great teachers with national reputations — Rakove and Finer in political science, Marder for Shakespeare, Bontemps for black literature, Hendricks for the transcendentals. (I'd still rather be stranded on an island with Emerson than Thoreau.) But there were many other really solid instructors — Weber in English, Senora Tort in Spanish and Winship in economics — who made learning a pleasure. I'm omitting numerous others because, after all, it has been 40 years!

With two exceptions in two-and-a-half years (I did things backwards and transferred from classes with graduate students at UIUC), every UIC teacher provided quality instruction — better quality than I deserved while I paid more attention to the Illini than my classes! Thanks to those instructors, I learned a few things that made me a better human and have stayed with me even today. I have always been proud to say I graduated from UIC — still am proud.

The years I attended Circle were the best 11 years of my life! The undergraduate experience was unsurpassed in its ethnic diversity — before anyone else 'got it' — and the excitement that the professors conveyed in their classes was utterly infectious. I met people from all over the city who had moved to Chicago from all over the world. I will always treasure my fabulous experiences at Circle: sitting on the Forum in nice weather, celebrating a birthday or the end of the quarter in Greek Town, walking under the upper walkway and huddling in the winter or walking on top and loving the sunshine — loving the opportunity.

Graduate school was lots more demanding but I still loved it. SES was a cold building but everyone tried to make it warmer by their passion for the science. I think my educational experience at CIrcle — all the way to my Ph.D. — was wonderful and memorable. Thanks!

My memories are focused on the 7th floor of the Medical Center, in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. I remember arriving for the winter quarter and taking immunology class without any background; I had to use 'cats and dogs' to understand the concept of specificity of antibodies. Seeing my classmates submit pages of answer to a virology final exam while my responses were only a pitiful paragraph, I was sure I flunked and timidly apologized to my professor for my poor performance. 'Ah, don't be too modest,' he chided. My score was 98%! After being grilled for three hours during my comprehensive exam, I sat on my bed for the next three hours, immobile, unwinding.

I remember the architecture — so strong and seemingly so rooted to the core of the earth and to the fundamental human values that express life as we know it. I remember the faculty — so committed to the art and science of knowing and helping people. I remember a student body of impressive individuals ready to uplift all with whom they would come into contact.

I entered the Edmund J. James Scholar program in September 1970, and I graduated with honors in history in August 1974. My major was American history and my unofficial minor was film history.

I have great memories of the free rock concerts produced by 'Crazy Steve,' who eventually became president of UICC Student Government. The bands included Wilderness Road and the Ides of March/Crying Shames union.

I loved the architecture of UICC! The vibrant neighborhood — Little Italy and Greektown — was a continual delight.

My classmates in the Edmund J. James Scholar program were brilliant, eccentric, funny and always entertaining.

I remember 'Gronk' and the whole gang that hung out in the Music Listening Lounge in the UICC student union from winter 1972 through spring 1973.

My favorite teacher was George Wead, who introduced me to the films of Buster Keaton and 'the dynamics of visual wit.'

I remember the Pier Room — a wonderful place for socialization and meeting new and old friends. I learned how to play Bid Whisk at UIC. I also started bowling in a league and continue to bowl to this day. The other great times were the Friday night mixers. As you can tell, it was a great social time for me. By the way, I also got an excellent education and am prepared to work anywhere in the world. I graduated from the Medical Center as a registered nurse.

In September 1949 I enrolled at the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. After WW II, universities had a problem to solve: Where to put all the GIs. The U of I's answer for the Chicago area was to create a two-year college at Navy Pier. The strategy: Students would go to the Pier for two years then go downstate. When I graduated from high school, the Pier was still going strong, four years after the end of WW II. I enrolled in chemical engineering. The University of Illinois at Chicago — a mile west of Chicago's Loop and the successor to Navy Pier — is now a 'grow'd up' university.

Later in the fall of '49 I was the leading candidate for 'the worse college student in the world.' Except for mathematics, I seldom went to my classes, hardly studied, played bridge and chess, was a sports reporter then editor of the Navy Pier paper — The Pier Illini — sports editor of the yearbook ...

I flunked hygiene twice because I refused to attend a class to learn things I already knew — how to brush my teeth and what was healthy for me to eat.

I helped organize a Navy Pier fundraiser involving Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who were just starting to catch on. Dean and Jerry were appearing at Chez Pare, a nightclub on the near north side.

When I filled in during a competition with the chess club, I won! It wasn't that I was that great, but my opponent couldn't cope with such an experienced player.

In October 1950 I left Navy Pier after the following sequence of events: First semester, put on probation; second semester, dismissed from the College of Engineering; third semester, transferred to the College of Business. A couple of weeks into the semester I quit going because I recognized I didn't know what I was doing in college, and I was wasting my time.

This was the first year Navy Pier had a yearbook. As part of dropping out of school, I didn't finish my work as sports editor. I recall that Barbara Pierson (spelling?) was editor-in-chief.

After the U.S. Army honorably discharged me for health reasons, I returned home to attend Navy Pier for summer school in 1954. When I tried to register for classes, the dean of the College of Business took me aside and asked where had I been. I told him the Army had drafted me. The Dean looked at my transcript and asked why I hadn't withdrawn. My response was, 'I thought it was like work, you stop coming, they stop paying you.' The dean shook his head, studied my test scores, and said, 'I'm letting you in on probation; if I ever see you again you're out of here.' He didn't see me again. I took English 102 and logic, passed both and was removed from probation. Later I switched back to chemical engineering where they put me back on probation. In the fall of 1954 I made the dean's list and was removed from probation.

One of the Pier's math professors (Dr. Steinberg?) invited me to speak at the monthly meeting of the Chicago High School Mathematics Teachers. I accepted and was the last of three speakers who gave their answer to this question, 'What would you tell the math teachers to do to improve the quality of their teaching?' My answer, 'Teach the students to read. Have them study more than one textbook.' Based on the questions I received after my statement, I decided I was a big hit!

Because I was a war veteran, I automatically received credit for hygiene and physical education, otherwise I'd still be attending college.

I was one of a group of vets who drank beer at either Gus's Pub on Rush Street or at the Northwestern Rathskeller. On occasion, some students of the female persuasion joined us. I remember Dennis C. Smiley, Rich Gedes, Barbara Anderson, Patricia, Rosemary, and the faces and personalities of several more. I was going with Maureen so I didn't date the women. Regrettably I've lost track of all these people.

I remember that Dennis Smiley drove a black four-door Cadillac and told people that he was in the petroleum distribution business. He had a parttime job pumping gas.

Even though Navy Pier was supposed to be only for the first two years of college, I was able to do close to three years there. A Navy Pier advantage: Teachers were there to teach, not do research and have papers published, nor were graduate students teaching the basic courses. I had excellent teachers in math, physics, English, German, logic and chemistry.

Another veteran attending Navy Pier was Ken Fischer. When he married Marilyn, she dropped out of nursing school and become a dental hygienist to help him finish school. The nurses were graduating and one of Marilyn's friends needed a date for the celebration dance. Ken asked me if I was interested in going on a blind date and I agreed to go. It turned out to be a good decision! Ken, Marilyn and another couple picked me up. I remember everyone was greeting each other while I was wondering what the hell I was doing there. Then I was introduced to Joanne. We saw the movie 'Diabolique' and went out for pizza. (It's hard to find pizza as good as they made in those days.)

Joanne graduated on May 25, 1956, and we went to the celebration dance together and then to the post-dance party at her home. Sometime later, on a date downtown, after eating at Berghoff's, Joanne and I were crossing State Street, holding hands, walking toward the Art Institute and I realized that I was in love.

One of my chemistry courses was qualitative analysis with Dr. Mansfield, a retired chemist. During one lecture, Dr. Mansfield was explaining the chemistry of the battery. He was so enthusiastic and enamored with the beauty of the chemistry, he turned to us and said, 'Class, it's so beautiful — everything is needed, nothing is extra — it's like a Bach cantata.' That expression — it's like a Bach cantata — became our mantra when members of the class would see each other in the mile-long hall down the center of Navy Pier.

I went downstate to Urbana where I completed the first of the two semesters I needed. When I was registering for the second 20+ hours of advanced physics, an advisor told me that I couldn't register for that many hours. I replied that I had to graduate and had successfully taken that many hours the previous semester. I was allowed to sign up with the warning that it was 'on my head.'

Engineering physics was a DIFFICULT curriculum. Out of the thousands of students who graduate from U of I each year, only about ten or so are from engineering physics. Of those ten, about nine are salutatorians or valedictorians; the tenth one is someone like me.

I just wanted to thank the faculty and administrators we had while the College of Architecture and the Arts was developing in the late '60s. It seemed we were always on the bottom of the food chain when it came to funding. On the bright side, I love telling people I went to school in a old bra factory.

Also a big thanks to my band of brothers who helped form the Vets Club! Any of you old dogs still around?

Unfortunately, I will not be coming to Chicago for the 40th Anniversary Celebration. I would have made an interesting addition, however, for it's probably greater than 99.99% certain that I was the very first student to set foot on the new UIC Circle Campus on the first day that it opened for classes (not counting employed students who came during preparations for the opening).

I was working my way through school and had no money as a general condition. I could not even think about paying money for a parking permit. Thus, in order to always be assured of getting one of the handful of free, on-street, parking spaces at the Pier, or now in the neighborhood adjoining the new campus, I had gotten into the habit of arriving at school very early every morning, a habit that followed me into the working world. On an extraordinarily late day I would arrive by 6 a.m. (sometimes as early as 4:30 a.m.) if I had a lot of work to do. I know I went a little earlier that day, because I didn't know the lay of the land at the new campus, and wanted to allow some extra time.

I remember clearly the experience of walking up the big ramp and through the giant gangway of the lab building into this vast, empty place just before sunup, trying to figure out where things were. I had come to love the stillness of early mornings, and I wandered about in it on the second-floor ramps — the first level was still all mud. I hadn't even known this place was under construction. I was in awe. Eventually, I found my way into the Union, but nothing had opened in there yet. (I might have headed there first had I any idea at the time what a student union was.)

In one sense I was enormously grateful to have been handed this wonderful, new campus, because you could not complete your education at the Pier and I had not begun to figure out how I was going to finish school. In another way I was sad. Attending university at Navy Pier had been special in a way you can't appreciate unless you were there. It really wasn't camaraderie borne of common misery at all, as some might suspect (except perhaps when the occasional freighter bearing fertilizer was being unloaded). It's just that we were all in this very unusual situation, and it brought people together. Space was cramped, so we routinely studied while sitting on the floors between the lockers. For that reason, the floors were always very clean. It was unspoken, but you simply were careful about making a mess since you might be sitting in that spot studying an hour later. Roller skates on the single 1,750-foot hallway were not an uncommon sight. I think they were frowned upon, though, by the powers that be. (I don't recall.)

Owing to the weather, it took a long time to complete the first-level walkways. The interim mud bog was a source of continuing entertainment ... but those are other stories.

I shall always remember fondly all the informal reunions with my fellow Latin-American classmates from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. Those were happy, upbeat people then and good students, too. You could not find a better bunch, and what good tutors the upperclassmen made! The three-quarters course sequence of human anatomy and physiology that I took — surrounded by all those girls who were reluctant to dissect — still remains in my memory as my best time at Circle, with the most enjoyable company. I have visited in recent years and have seen many changes — mostly good. I miss the place sometimes, so I go walk around the campus incognito and just soak it all in. Part of me will always be among the concrete, glass and granite of Circle Campus.

When I heard of the request for alumni recollections to celebrate UIC's 40th anniversary, I was forced to calculate that it has been almost 40 years since I graduated (1966). Since our graduation class numbered a mere 192 students, ceremonies were held in the Illinois Room of the Chicago Circle Center. Our commencement speaker was Dr. Shiley Bill, the first woman to deliver a commencement address to a University of Illinois graduating class. Our class gift was a bronze plaque inscribed 'First Graduation, Navy Pier-Chicago Circle,' designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, whose firm was represented at the plaque dedication ceremonies by Walter Netsch, designer of the campus. We had to donate a whopping $2 per graduate for the plaque. Also The Chicago Sun-Times took our class photo while we were seated on the steps of the amphitheater.

Those of us who migrated from Navy Pier to Chicago Circle had made it! We made it before computers, Palm Pilots, cellphones, the Internet, even campus housing. Our learning was labor-intensive, consisting of hours in the classroom and library, followed by the long commute home. Especially memorable was the commute home with my then-husband, Ricky Libles, and Dr. Herman Finer in our Volkswagen bug. (I has just graduated and had begun working for the nearby Veterans Administration.) Dr. Finer was always engaging and informative, entertaining us with his many life experiences.

I am grateful for the high-quality education provided by the top-notch teaching staff. My fellow students will never be forgotten, especially those I served with while secretary of Student Government at Navy Pier and as senior class treasurer.

Of course we remember the academics, which are now throughly integrated into, and fill our lives. Where would we be without UICC? I can't get used to calling it anything other than 'Circle' — we were called 'Circle Jerks!'

One of my fondest memories was of a potluck buffet luncheon we had at the slide and photograph library. We brought our best: salads, vegetables, casseroles. Remember, it was just beyond the '60s. My contribution was lasagna, which I 'nuked' in the microwave oven.

The slide library overlooked the architecture department offices, and was adjacent to the HAA department. Everyone came over to check out the good smells. I particularly remember that D. Ross Edman was amazed that we had such good food, so he shared some with us. I bet that Tulip did, too! Nady is now in D.C., hoping to survive the second inauguration week.

I entered Navy Pier in 1964. David Dodds Henry told us to 'look to your left, look to your right, and look straight ahead; at the end of the year, only one of you will still be here' ... Rhetoric — the Bogeyman ... Coming from Lane Tech, I had to get used to having 'girls' in class and getting used to the smaller population.

1965-68: Mud, mud and more mud. Construction wasn't quite done and we had to work our way around it ... We needed three hours for each P.E. class ... Taking the bus from the Circle, taking class and taking the bus back ... 'Bra Hall' (the Maidenform Building) ... Professor Nicholson's Nazi-rise-to-power class was probably the highlight of the year ... Professors Barker, Bill, Finer, Rakove and Remini (alphabetical order) probably taught me more about history, political science and life than anybody ever has and ever would ... Won election to student government as an independent ... After complaining that I was charged five cents for a cup of ice, the food boycott took place ... Brought back pounds of corned beef from Vienna Outlet Store on Halsted ... Student book exchange ... We had permission and then didn't have permission ... Wound up sitting on the floor before we were 'helped' out of the area by the police ... Disciplinary hearing — student government leadership and I were charged for violating unknown rules, by unknown parties, who we were not allowed to question ... Disciplinary probation almost kept me out of law school ... I'm sure there was a whole lot more, but the '70s and '80s sometimes get in the way of memories.

I remember trying out for the baseball team in 1967, putting a hole in a wall at Navy Pier during practice from an errant fastball (my specialty), throwing outdoors for baseball practice in the parking lot at that old bank building on the Northeast corner or Roosevelt and Halsted, and being taken on a road trip with the baseball team to Biloxi, Mississippi, while Eric Burdon and the Animals were playing on campus there. Every time I pass by that bank building on Roosevelt and Halsted, I remember having to go out there in sub-freezing weather to 'warm up' my pitching efforts. I later became a high school baseball coach (for six years before becoming a lawyer), and I always told my teams that I had practiced in 'much colder weather' everytime they moaned about how cold the temperature was when we played games in Chicago in mid-March.

I remember ... having coffee in the BSB cafeteria with friends, secluded at one of the enclosed table areas ... feeling perfectly comfortable being able to find an empty classroom at night anywhere on campus to sit in alone and read or study ... walking to one of the small, independent Italian grocery stores off campus to get delicious Italian sandwiches for lunch ... and walking around the campus outside in the winter — freezing.

I rode the Clark Street streetcar and transferred at Clark and Grand. I remember that, between Division Street and Grand Avenue, Clark was a honky-tonk area of town, with every other storefront a liquor store, bar or strip club. There was the King's Palace, the Queen's Palace, the Ace of Clubs and the Jack of Clubs. When I saw Bennie the Bum's, I knew the next stop was Grand Avenue. The subway station was at Grand and State, so students coming in from Oak Park or Park Forest did not not encounter a culture shock.

I remember feeling so small against the backdrop of University Hall, Student Union and the other buildings as I walked through Jane Addams Hull House on my way to get coffee and meet up with friends before classes. I was from a small community about 30 miles north of Chicago and this was my big adventure — to go to Circle Campus and begin making my own decisions away from Mom and Dad. Boy, those were the days of hanging out and almost flunking out in my first year. I grew up in those days and slowly but surely got my business degree — the first generation in my family to do so. To this day, I have a grade with commentary from an English professor. He told me that my sentence structure was not college caliber, but that the ideas I expressed were very good. Looking back, I realize that the effort this professor made for me was a turning point. Circle helped to develop within me a keen appetite for learning and a joy for life that has continued into my middle age. Middle age — who would have thought! I now have an MBA and have progressed to middle management in a corporate company. I have a wonderful family. (Eugene, my husband, is also a graduate of UICC.) Thank you, Circle Campus faculty and administration, for the opportunity and for my many warm memories.

For me, there are a number of highlights worth remembering: The University location near the downtown area was terrific; I studied political science and coupled that with many courses in American and Russian history. The professors were terrific and made themselves accessible. The students were wonderful and from all walks of life. The entire atmosphere was great. It has been nice to see the University evolve into an educational leader second to none, as far as I'm concerned.

The art department at Navy Pier was a delight, with large open spaces and multi-exchanges. Faculty moved around with the students — everyone mixed, experimented, discovered together and just found life so challenging. Between that and all the fresh air outside, how could anyone call that 'going to art school?' Yet it was, and it was a rewarding and richly dynamic experience that will never be repeated again. Circle Campus was disjointed, obtuse and a bust for art students, with everything being moved or replaced; yet, again, we survived and found our souls in art activity. It also helped to go get toasted in Greektown at lunch until old John Walley put a stop to that. Anita David (Stiegler), Fred Schnieder, Barbara Houton, Joe LaMantia and Jerome Bloom added a great deal, as well as Aileen Meyers. Those wild-ass op art projects of Stanley Tigerman will go down in history as 'cosmic disorder.' Hail to the art students.

I remember enjoying the brisk walks trying to keep up with Dr. Hadley on ecology field trips ... Entomology field trips, except when we dug into the dung piles ... Studying the difficult biology and chemistry classes with a friend ... Cuddling white rats while working on my master's in biology research ... Having my infant son, Andy, be the 'official lab baby' wearing his little white lab coat in Dr. Guttman's lab, and Dr. Pasternack calling him the 'little wasp.'

I loved going to Circle campus — and that is the name it will always have for me. There I discovered a love for political science (thank you, Dick Simpson), women's issues and walking in the rain around that great campus (thank you, Walter Netsch)! I also received a wonderful education from great teachers, which gave me what I needed to go on to law school.

Recently, my wife (who also graduated from UIC in 1975) and I took our two college-age daughters (who attend the U of I in Urbana-Champaign) down to see the campus. The first thing that struck me was that the inner circle is gone! The inner circle was smack-dab in the middle of campus and was a cement circle enclosed by a circle of ascending cement slab stairs that were wide enough to lounge around and lay on. This, along with the student union, was the heart of UIC for me. Almost daily something unique was certain to transpire in the circle, be it protesters (it WAS the early '70s), imprompto thespians, whatever. I remember the time we saw a very young Andy Shaw, who was just starting his career as political commentator and was at channel 5 at the time. Lots of good memories there.

Other memories: I attended a number of events at the student union. There were some great live musical acts that were booked there, and I particularly remember going to see the legendary blues great John Mayall. Another unforgettable act was Skafish, cousin of Xrt's Bobby Skafish — unforgettable not so much for the music, but he was one of the first performers I remember who was just, well, strange. Also saw lots of good movies — 'Taxi Driver' is one that comes to mind.

I remember hating being down on the campus in the winter — I thought that it had to be the coldest place on earth. The upper level walkway was the worst — so glad to see that it was taken down! And then, being on the main level below the walkway when it was raining or the snow was melting, you'd have the constant dripping from up above — just dreary! But then the spring would come, and everything would be fine. I remember the time presidential candidate Jimmy Carter came to campus, and he and his entourage walked right through the middle of it. I got to shake his hand!

I remember volunteering for psychology experiments at the BSB. I remember my introductory accounting class on the 14th floor of University Hall. (I changed my major to marketing after that class!) I remember taking a philosophy course called 'Happiness.' I remember lunches at Papa Charlies, which was a pizza and hamburger joint on Taylor Street just west of campus (since replaced by some toney Italian restaurant). I remember meeting lots of interesting, diverse people, who, in the end, all had the same goal as me: to meddle through and survive the UIC experience! Most of all, I remember meeting my future wife, Laura, in Professor Yamazaki's Economics 318 class. But that's a whole 'nuther story!

I graduated from Marshall High School in 1964, just in time to attend the last semester held at Navy Pier. With the opening of UICC in 1965, I was thrilled at the notion of never again having to walk what seemed like miles of Navy Pier hallways to get to my classes. That is, until Feb. 22, when 'Circle' opened and I had to make the equally long walk from the El station. The difference was that my trek was now outside in the brutal Chicago winter.

One of my fondest memories is that first walk. There were only three classroom clusters to block the gusting lake front wind (aka, 'the hawk') and the wind-chill factor was well below zero. There were no neatly manicured lawns, only frozen mud from the ongoing construction. As I approached my intended destination, the opening day ceremonies were taking place on the upper level walkway and Mayor Richard Daley was speaking. However, in spite of the best of intentions, I did not even slow down and only briefly raised my head as I hurried past the sparse crowd of dedicated (or, perhaps, just more warmly dressed) souls who chose to stand and listen. And, then, within a matter of minutes, I was at a better place — a place where I would spend way too much time and have way too much fun with way too many friends. Gone were the dark, dank, dreary halls of Navy Pier, replaced by the bright, boisterous buzz of the UICC Pier Room.

Oh, by the way, I did find the time to get a great education from an excellent school.

I remember the El rides to the campus. For one of my education classes we had to read 'Old Yeller.' There I was, crying on the El when I got to the part where Old Yeller was killed.

I remember the storm of '67 and getting the last elevated train out of the area.

Who could forget the bra factory where we had P.E. and music. We had to learn to play the recorder for a music education class. What squeaking went on in that factory!

I still can remember the Viet Nam protest and seeing Sammy Davis Jr. I never told anyone that my fiance was in 'Nam!

Most of all I remember that I had the greatest teachers. I received a wonderful education and have used it teaching for the past 35 years.

The opening of the Circle Campus in 1965 was a new beginning for me. At 18 years old, I had left my native land, Cuba, in 1961, right after the Bay of Pigs invasion. I relocated to Chicago with my parents. From 1961 through 1964, I worked full time for Harris Bank and went to Northwestern University in the evenings. It was a slow way to get an undergraduate degree ... and what could I do? Circle Campus was the answer to my dreams!

When Circle opened, I transferred there from Northwestern, taking with me whatever credit Northwestern had given me for my 1 and 1/2 years of college in Cuba (30 hours). From 1965 through the summer of 1967, I took a full classload at the College of Business Administration, majoring in finance and economics. The advanced classes were small, and the professors were great, so growth and opportunities were there for all of us. I made the Dean's List a few times and was part of a small group of women going through the College of Business Administration. At times (many times) I felt like a pioneer for women who would come through the program after me. I graduated with a Bachelor's of Science degree in finance in August 1967.

With the encouragement of several professors and my father, I applied to and was accepted in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for their master's program in finance. I graduated in August 1968, and I was the only woman in the group at that time.

My husband, Jim (Illini alumni — B.A. 1967, M.S. in finance 1968, Urbana-Champaign campus), and I relocated to California in 1984. I retired at the end of 2000 from Goodwill Industries, San Jose, Cal., as vice president of finance and CFO. I am now a Realtor with The Gholson Group, RE/MAX Executive, in Fremont, Cal., and I'm looking forward to growing this business to the highest level with my husband and our son, Lee.

Those of us lucky enough to have attended Navy Pier — in spite of its shortcomings — have such wonderful memories of that place. But the opening of the Circle Campus was a great event and the new school was such a beautiful experience, that we keep the two memories separate. I was fortunate from 1967-68 to head the Music Committee that, along with the Dance Committee, arranged concerts and dances. The walking off the stage by Jimi Hendrix when his equipment malfunctioned later that year overshadowed the success of the first sellout, The Ramsey Lewis Trio. Five thousand angry students! In the final analysis, however, it was the lives that touched us. The Herman Finers, Milton Rakoves, Pat Nelsons, J.J. Overlocks, Twiley Barkers, etc. People reminisce about the ivy walls of university but it really is the skin and bones of those whose dedication directed us in our lives — and The University of Illinois at Chicago had an abundance of them.

I remember ... the Young Socialist Alliance protests against the war in Vietnam ... selling The Militant ... raising money to help people living on the west side after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ... working on the Chicago Seed ... braving the upper walkway from the library to the CCC to get there quickly versus the underground — but warmer — path ... sitting in the Pier Room playing bridge ... and listening to all the Shakespeare plays in the library's listening rooms.

Growing up in the 'protected' suburbs, it was a cultural awakening to be on a truly culturally mixed urban campus. It was a beautiful, new, clean and very exciting campus. Professors came from established institutions and risked everything an all-new engineering curriculum.

As an engineering student commuting from Skokie, I remember the walk from my parents' house to the 97 Skokie bus — particularly during 'the great snow storm' — then changing to the Howard street El, then walking the tunnel from State Street to the Congress El and finally to campus. Sometimes I could study on the El; other times I slept fitfully, to be sure not to miss the stops. The horrendously painful squeal of steel wheels in the two turns at Clark and Division surely degraded my hearing more than all the live rock-n-roll concerts like Goose Lake in Michigan.

I remember taking gym classes in the huge quonset hut at Navy Pier with the murals of patriotic images supporting WWII efforts ... or going to the YMCA in the scary neighborhood with the 'bums' asking for handouts as we entered ... PEM 103 class with all of us in our brand-new required fleece sweatsuits leaving a thick layer of fuzz on the floor — and everyone in stocking feet — making it slicker than an ice-skating rink. Playing handball in the courts at CCC and nursing a swollen fist after a particularly competitive game.

Remember the Rites of Spring festival in 1970? Surplus parachutes were cut in half and stapled back together to form four cones. Volunteers inflated balloons from huge industrial helium cylinders and slipped them into the parachute cones. As the cones filled that morning, pointing to the sky, it was evocative of a certain Woody Allen film. There were thousands of balloons set loose, almost in synchronization at 10 a.m. It was reported that the FAA was not pleased with the sudden unannounced appearance of UFOs.

About a year after computerized class registration was in place (1967?), a huge bunch of us never got mailed notification of classes. Finally, just days before the quarter started, we were mailed a note about having to register in person for classes. Rumor was, a couple of trays of student's IBM cards were misplaced. The resulting 'arena registration' was among the most stressful experiences at Circle. It was life-threatening competing to get the classes and prerequisites needed to stay on track. Otherwise we faced the prospect of falling behind a whole year and losing the golden 2-S student deferment. Remember that guys were being drafted then to feed the war in Vietnam.

Then there was the Greek Olympics. Even though there were no recognized fraternities or sororities, we had them, and an inter-fratority council. IFC organized a spring spirit event featuring ancient feats of skill like tricycle races around the excedra and other classic Olympiad events.

I remember winters in the library's fourth-floor study corrals when the wind howled outside and the chilled air seeped and creeped about us in the corners, while we struggled to master physics or calculus away from the confusion and distractions of the Pier Room or Monkey Wards lounge.

Amazing charbroiled burgers were available only in the cafe in BSB. Italian beef sandwiches came from Vitorios in the old west-side neighborhood. 'Horsemeat' burgers from the vending machines in SEL were microwaved and slammed down between bouts of writing Fortran-4 code for the IBM-360/50 late into the night.

On the fourth floor of the CCC high-rise, I remember listening with professional high-fidelity headphones to the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers album in glorious stereo. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and was probably a bigger rush than experienced by those students reportedly smoking pot in the very same high-rise stairwells.

There was a time when the anti-Vietnam war protests disrupted all classes. Then there was the marching downtown, arm-in-arm with fellow students, chanting 'Peace now,' and hearing our voices echo up and down the concrete canyons.

An 8 a.m. class in engineering electromagnetics was taught by Raymond Palschaukus, and no one wanted to be there. Kurt Burion taught signals & systems with the flair of someone who actually applied the stuff they were teaching — what a pleasure and inspiration.

I remember graduating on the blue line at Chicago Stadium sans the ice rink. My name did not appear in the program, so my mom cornered the chancellor and coerced him into hand-writing my name onto her copy.

Upon graduation I got a real job in engineering, and continue to participate in the College of Engineering as an alumnus these 35 years later. That is priceless.

Two snapshots of life on campus during the '60s stand out sharply:

Because of poor-quality food, we boycotted the cafeteria and imported our own food wagons and pizzas. After a few days of unconsumed food, the fare improved considerably — a lifelong reminder that people have the power to effect change.

I had coffee on campus with William Kunstler, attorney for the Chicago Seven, after he spoke to students. An approachable, passionate liberal, he made an appearance that was symbolic of the many exciting ideas that came with an UIC education.

I started school on the Navy Pier campus in the fall of 1962. With the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the south side of the Pier was turned into a major Midwest port. Everyday ships from the four corners of the earth unloaded their cargo at my school. (The University was on the north side of the Pier.) One day I encountered a Japanese merchant seaman while walking to P.E. I said 'hello' and he responded by bowing his head in my direction. Having no experience with the customs of the Orient, I had no idea why he was bowing towards me. Was it out of respect because he knew that I was editor of the Chicago Illini? In any event, I bowed back and we must have exchanged about six or seven bows that almost made me late for class. This introduction to world customs served me well later in life when I traveled to Taiwan and Japan as associate administrator of the Office of International Cooperation and Development at the United States Department of Agriculture.

I took a job with dining services during my first week at UIC. I was new to Chicago and didn't know a soul, but that changed one Saturday evening while bussing tables at a reception in Inner Circle. Joel was serving drinks at a make-shift bar in the front of the room. He had long, dark hair and a relaxed smile. I bustled about, clearing plates that piled faster than I could swipe them. But Joel made his job look effortless, chatting with the attendees as he poured their drinks. A brief lull in the drink line gave me the opportunity to talk to him. I asked for a coke and by the end of the evening we were friends. He took me to a cafe on Clark and Belmont for coffee and we talked for hours. When it got late, he rode the blue line all the way back to the West Side dorms with me so I wouldn't have to walk alone. He dropped me off at SRH and returned to his East Side dorm, humming as he walked away. That was the beginning of a friendship full of adventures in the city, late night campus romps through the snow while others slept, and conversations I still reflect on today. Joel will live on in the hearts and minds of all who knew him, and he'll always be my fondest memory of UIC.

When I enrolled in Karl Shapiro's poetry writing class at Navy Pier in the mid-1960s, a classmate introduced me to Anais Nin's poetic prose, 'Under a Glass Bell,' and I began researching her novels. Djuna in 'Ladders to Fire' motivated me to send a poem and letter to Nin. She answered me and we began a long friendship.

A year later, I applied to the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in Poetry and was accepted into the Fiction Workshop. That year, I won a book-collecting contest with my Anais Nin collection.

Shortly after graduation, I was invited by Anais Nin to read with her at the University of California at Berkley as part of her circle and was later featured in her newsletter. I met her and knew her for more than a decade because I was a student at UIC.

I'll never forget what my rhetoric professor advised at Navy Pier, 'If you want to know a writer, read his whole body of work.' I did and it helped me to become a better person, as well as an astute reader and a writer whose books have been published for more than thirty years.

Like most students at the time, I commuted to UIC and either took Milwaukee Road from Libertyville or drove my beater 1973 Montego. I usually parked south of Roosevelt Road along an alley on the southern edge of campus. I knew that it was a hazardous place to park, but since my car was a rusty and ugly (but reliable) bucket, I took my chances. In the fall of 1983 I arrived mid-morning and found a parking spot. I attended classes and returned to discover that the battery had been stolen. I was desperate to get going because I worked after school, and being 40 miles from home and broke, my chances of getting back to Libertyville looked grim.

I frantically walked into the food service area in the 'Round' and went to the commons. Since I was a commuter I really didn't know anybody, but I happened to spy a fellow student that I had had a few conversations with in the past. I thought, what the hell, I'll give it a shot. I asked if I could borrow money to buy a battery and for bus fare. He gave me $60! And I barely knew him. What's even more remarkable is that he was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair. He handed me the money without hesitation. I went off into the city, bought a battery, took the CTA back to my car, and went home and to work.

The next day we met at a pre-arranged time in the commons area and I paid him back. We said 'hi' and waved to each other on occasion, but I don't even know his name and never saw him after graduation. True story!

For a midterm exam in a 1972 Spanish course, each student had to give a talk in that language and answer questions from classmates. My attempt was a disaster. I forgot most of what I had prepared and no one asked me any questions. I dropped the class right afterwards.

The first day of the next quarter, a beautiful student from the class walked past me and stared into my eyes. I felt she was saying, 'You shouldn't have dropped out,' and I was so touched I nearly cried. I truly wanted to talk to her, but I was nineteen and very proud.

Several years later, I tried to look her up but I didn't know her name. I contacted the teacher and he couldn't remember her name either. The class roster was inaccessible, and the woman's photo didn't appear in any yearbook. Nearly thirty years later, I found out my former classmate's name and address. Unfortunately she gave no response to several letters and phone calls. Finally, I sent her a Christmas card with the following poem I had written for her many years before:

As a former member of the UIC Dancing Flames (1998-2002), I've had many opportunities to support and display my school colors proudly for UIC — from pep rallies and homecomings to Midnight Madness and, of course, the UIC basketball games. It wasn't always easy defending a non-ranked, underdog team that was constantly compared to its giant sister school, the Fighting Illini from Urbana. However, I kept telling my peers and classmates that one day UIC would make its name known on the college map and it would make it big. That day arrived in March 2002 when UIC played crosstown rival Loyola and won by one point in a double-overtime game to claim the Horizon League Tournament Championship. That win advanced the Flames to the NCAA tournament in Texas against Final Four competitor Oklahoma. As part of the spirit team, I was there every step of the way, from the tears of joy shed at the Horizon League Tournament to the tears of disappointment at the NCAA tournament. For the UIC Flames, that year was the year UIC was placed on the map with some of the country's greatest collegiate teams. We may not make it every year, but that doesn't mean the past victory is any less sweet — for the fuel that lights our Flames will never die and continue to light our way into the future. That is my most memorable moment when I was a UIC LAS student, which I always reflect on.

As I walked through the campus towards the SEL Labs, I looked around. It was September 1999. The leaves were golden yellow and falling. I walked up to SEL and into one of the labs. They were waiting for me there. My best friend from high school and I were finally going to be together again. He had another friend with him — Mike. I remembered Mike as a freshman in high school who was afraid to talk to me. As I walked in, I saw them both in their 'uniform' of leather jackets. Mike got up and my heart skipped a beat. What had happened to the little freshman from high school? Before me stood a tall, handsome guy with buzz-cut hair, chiseled chin, tan, muscular ... gorgeous! We met again at UIC and stayed together. We spent many hours walking around the campus, holding hands and talking. We took art history class together. We sat at the CCC commons for hours just holding each other and talking.

I have many fond memories from my days as both an undergraduate and as a psychology graduate student, although one does stand out ... When I transferred to UIC (circa 1968), from a small Midwestern liberal arts college, I had the rather disheartening experience of going to the former lingerie factory building to meet with psychology faculty in their offices. The starkness of the building and the makeshift partitions that carved office spaces out of the open factory floor space didn't match my mental model of the halls of academe.

However, construction was soon completed on the new Behavioral Sciences Building. The lines of the external architecture and the maze-like interior hallways flanked by the smoked glass walls of newly ap