This Week in Tower History

The “This Week in Tower History” column will collect relevant, historical, or humorous excerpts from any past editions of The Tower’s 97-year-existence. Compiled weekly by Tower editors.

97 years of The Tower can be read online here. 

The 2010’s

8 Years Ago – August 21, 2012

• The Department of Business and Economics split from the School of Arts & Sciences to become its own school, the university’s twelfth academic school.

10 Years Ago – September 3, 2010

• An article focused on the newly-arrived Fr. Jude DeAngelo and his plans for growing Campus Ministry. One student said, “He has just taken [the campus] by storm. He exemplifies the perfect student leader.”
• The opening paragraph of “In The Game” with Tripp Roy: “The 2010 NFL season can’t start soon enough. Although Lebron’s ‘Decision’, the World Cup, and an unusually compelling baseball season (The Return of Pitching?) have all made the summer in sports more bearable than usual, everything that takes place from February to September will always be the opening act to the main event that is football season. Super Bowl XLIV enjoyed the highest rating of any form of programming in the history of television – a mind-boggling 153.4 million people tuned in. If it’s football America wants, then I’m here to deliver football to America. And by ‘America’, I mean my seven readers.”
• The developer for what would be Monroe Street Market found funding for the project and teamed with Bozzuto Management Company. The residence halls which had previously been “Southside Campus”—Spellman, Conaty, and Spalding—would be demolished in March of that academic year to make way for Monroe Street Market.

The 2000’s

12 Years Ago – September 5, 2008

• An op-ed entitled “Give Credit Where Credit Is Due” compared Joe Biden’s and the Catholic Church’s stances on issues. Biden had been announced as Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick a couple weeks before classes began, on August 22.

13 Years Ago – September 7, 2007

• An article in A&E predicted VMA wins for Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Fall Out Boy, and Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” 
• The front page gave updates of the construction of Opus Hall, which had started that summer. 

14 Years Ago – September 1, 2006

• The university announced it would be leaving the Capital Athletic Conference and joining the newly formed Landmark Conference in the fall of 2007. 

15 Years Ago – September 2, 2005

• The edition included multiple articles on the effects of Hurricane Katrina, including a front-page feature on a student from New Orleans. 

16 Years Ago – September 3, 2004

• The front page reported that the university wouldn’t be giving free one-year subscriptions to the “now-legal” Napster like other universities were.

18 Years Ago – September 6, 2002

• The Department of Canon Law moved out from under the TRS School to become its own school, the university’s eleventh academic school. 

20 Years Ago – September 8, 2000

• The Tower reported that several students were sanctioned by the university for hosting a large off-campus party (sounds familiar). Then-president Rev. David O’Connell himself heard about the party and drove around the Brookland neighborhood to investigate the rumor before calling MPD.

The 1990’s

24 Years Ago – September 6, 1996

• Senior swimmer and biomedical engineering student Joyce Luncher arrived back on campus after competing in the 10th Paralympic Games in Atlanta, earning seven medals and setting four world records. 

25 Years Ago – September 8, 1995

• “The 5th Column” connected Catholic University and Cal Ripken Jr.’s new record, previously held by Lou Gehrig, for most consecutive MLB games played (2,131). After playing for CUA baseball, Wally Pipp, Class of 1913, played for the Detroit Tigers, then with the New York Yankees, and took a day off in June, 1925 due to a headache. He was replaced in that game by Gehrig, who proceeded to play in the next 2,130 games, a record broken 56 years later by Ripken Jr. 

28 Years Ago – September 11, 1992

• Construction began on the new building for the law school, which was previously housed in what is now Leahy Hall. The new building was scheduled for completion in fall of 1994. 
• The Department of Architecture split from the School of Engineering to become its own school, after the old gym was successfully converted to the Crough Center for Architectural Studies three years prior. 

The 1980’s

31 Years Ago – September 8, 1989 

• The opening line of an A&E (then called the Features section) article: “Listen, there is more to current British music than the Fine Young Cannibals and Depeche Mode.”

35 Years Ago – September 5, 1985

• A front page article on tuition increases calculated that the tuition for an academic year at Catholic University would now be $7,200. 

38 Years Ago – September 10, 1982 

• A student lamented the name change of the Rathskellar, Catholic University’s old student pub (affectionately called “The Ratt”), to Red’s Roost in a letter to the editor. Students ignored the name change and continued to call it The Ratt for its next twenty years of operation. Located in the basement of what is now Father O’Connell Hall, it was closed in March of 2003 after the Pryzbyla Center opened. 

The 1970’s

41 Years Ago – September 7, 1979

• Pope John Paul II would visit the university in October, as announced on the front page. It was his second time coming to the university after the then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Kraków, Poland lectured to philosophy students on the “Use and Abuse of Freedom” three years prior. 

44 Years Ago – September 10, 1976

• An article outlined the reorganization of the athletic department, necessitated by CUA’s recent move to Division I competition and the increase in women’s athletics after the recently passed Title IX.