Beginning in the mid-1970s when Art Rupprecht and Jerry Hawthornejoined a group of their very interesting and interested Greek studentslate on Friday afternoons in the Stupe.The week's classes were over and it was time to relax with a free cupof coffee — they arrived just at closing time when the staff were aboutto throw the remaining coffee down the drain. It was theirs for thetaking. Faculty and students spent time thinking through sometheological issues, talking about baseball or fishing, or discussingsome difficult Greek passage, telling a few jokes, and generallyenjoying each others company and insights. Soon others wanted to join.So it became a weekly feature, but it was too large and often tooraucous to continue meeting in a corner booth of the Stupe.
Just as concerns over a meeting place arose a new chapelschedule was implemented with chapel to be held weekly on Mondays,Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays — leaving Wednesday at 10:30 free whenfaculty and students had no officially scheduled meetings. So Wednesdaybecame the new day. Now all that was needed was a place. John Ortberg,speaking for his housemates, offered Windsor House as the newlydesignated place of meeting. It was agreed that faculty would providethe donuts and the Windsor men would provide the coffee. Occasionallyone of the faculty would fudge a little on the donut buying, for one ofthem was caught slipping across to Windsor house early, to heat up aday-old coffee cake for the coffee hour.
Eventually these Windsor men graduated, but the new menassigned to that house wanted us to continue, which the faculty wereonly too happy to do. Windsor House, which was adjacent to BuswellLibrary, continued to be a place of meeting for students from all partsof the world, faculty from all disciplines — a great amalgam ofstudents and faculty. Discussions were lively and sometimes evenheated, but always argued with passion, if not always with reason.Everyone present could not help learning something he (all men in thosedays) had not known before–those were great times together.
When Windsor House was torn down the group was invited to jointhe men in Kay House, so that this tradition could continue. By thetime that particular Kay House group of men were ready to move on viagraduation to their higher calling, the new "pharaoh knew not Joseph."So no successive invitation was extended from that house. When thatmoment of desperation came, however, many of our student friends wereawarded Hidden House as their next year's domicile, and with one voicethey beckoned us to come and join them at their home each Wednesdaymorning as usual. The tradition kept going and growing. Thispleasurable and profitable welcome break from the routine bustle ofacademic life continued unabated for more than a decade.
As change is always inevitable, the chapel schedule changedagain. The new schedule had it fall on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.Not wishing to flaunt chapel,nor to encourage undesirable behavior on the students' part, themajority of the faculty regulars decided that all who wished could cometo Jerry Hawthorne's office (on the second floor of Wyngarden HealthCenter) at the traditionally designated time. As many as 15-18professors from the departments of literature, language, philosophy,psychology, sociology, history, communication and the sciences crammedinto that small office for the weekly repast of coffee and donuts. Herethe late and beloved Dr. Joe McClatchey delighted to come as long as hewas alive; it was he who dubbed this place and this congregation,"Jerry's Pub," a name it still holds. Jerry Hawthorne died August 3, 2010. |