Student Life and Campus Culture at Poly Through Student Publications, 1966-1975

I. Introduction

When people think of an engineering school, they usually imagine classes, labs, and hard work. These things were clearly part of life at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. However, the student publications in the Poly Archives, the institutional repository of this former engineering school, also show something else. They show students trying to meet people, build community, argue about what kind of school the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn should be, and make room for interests that did not fit neatly inside the classroom. Therefore, my project focuses on campus life, examining student publications from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rather than treating these publications as mere side materials, I read them as evidence of how students understood belonging, socio-political pressure, and campus identity during the mid-20th century at Poly.

The project focuses on four major parts: Social Life + Belonging; Student Voice + Campus Spirit; Pressure, Rights, and the Draft; and Women + Gender at Poly. I am especially interested in the gap between Poly’s formal identity and the more personal, social, and creative world that students built for themselves. The newspaper, yearbook, literary magazines, and science fiction magazines in the archives suggest that student life was not just an extra part of the school. It was one of the main ways students made Poly feel like a place they could inhabit rather than attend and study.

What makes my project meaningful is that student life at Poly was never just a background to engineering education. It was one of the main ways students gave meaning to the school around them. Through social life, protest, creative expression, and changing ideas about who belonged on campus, Poly became more than a place to study. It became a place students had to navigate, shape, and sometimes challenge. Looking at campus life this way makes it possible to see Poly not only as an engineering school but also as a community actively being formed during a period of change.

At the same time, the publications do not equally represent all aspects of student life. Students who contributed content to journals, joined clubs, attended events, and made it into yearbooks are easier to locate in the archives than students who commuted, worked late hours, cared for relatives, or were never part of the official university public sphere. For that reason, the project does not pretend to illustrate all aspects of student life at Poly. Instead, it examines only those aspects of student life that could be made visible through publication, such as events they publicly promoted, ideas they disseminated, artistic communities they created, and stress they documented.

Figures 1 & 2: Student activities at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Polywog Yearbook, 1966

These images (Figures 1 & 2) introduce the project’s focus on campus life beyond classrooms and laboratories.

II. Social Life + Belonging

Before looking at the specific articles, it is important to explain what the Polytechnic Reporter was. The Polytechnic Reporter was Poly’s student newspaper, running from 1914 to 2014.

Figure 3: Bound volume of the Polytechnic Reporter, 1966-1967

The student newspaper is one of the main sources used in this exhibit to understand how Poly students reported, debated, and represented campus life.

Because it was a campus newspaper, Poly students would likely have read it regularly for school news, student events, editorials, and campus debates.

One of the clearest patterns in the student newspaper, the Polytechnic Reporter, is that belonging at Poly did not happen automatically; it had to be organized, advertised, and staged through orientation events, clubs, mixers, student groups, and traditions. In “New Freshman Orientation Program,” September 22, 1966, the pictures present orientation as a serious effort to introduce new students not only to rules and logistics but also to the school’s social life. The page is full of images of first-year students gathered together, listening to speakers, taking part in activities, and moving through early campus rituals. In other words, the institution and student organizers treated belonging as something that had to be created on purpose.

Figure 4: “New Freshman Orientation Program” (1966)

The Polytechnic Reporter article “Large Turn-Out for Fraternity Smokers” gives a more specific version of that same story. Here, student belonging is tied to Greek life, male friendship, and informal social events. The page emphasizes turnout, crowd size, refreshments, music, and conversation. It shows that social life at Poly was not hidden in the background. It was visible, photographed, and presented as an important part of the freshman experience. Even the visual layout matters: the many photos on the page make the event look crowded, active, and lively. The archive is not only telling us that these events happened. It is also showing us how the school newspaper wanted them to be seen.

Figure 5: “Large Turn-Out for Fraternity Smokers” (1966)

These pages are even more significant when read alongside the broader history of Poly in the 1960s. By the second half of the 1960s, Poly was facing financial strain, research pressure, and enrollment concerns (Rodengen 245). In this situation, student life was not a minor issue. It was part of how the institution held itself together. Community did not solve structural problems, but it helped shape how students experienced them. This helps explain why social events, student organizations, and campus traditions are so clearly evident in the publications. They were not random distractions from the real work of engineering school. They were part of how Poly reproduced itself as a community.

Figure 6: Financial Stress Condition for Poly

After the 1966 Polytechnic Reporter articles showed how belonging was created through orientation and fraternity events, Golana, a student-produced science fiction magazine at Poly, pushed this idea of belonging in another direction during the late 1960s. Unlike the Polytechnic Reporter, which covered campus news and public student events, Golana created community through original fiction, poetry, artwork, reviews, and shared fan culture. This matters because it shows that belonging at Poly did not only come from official campus programs. It could also come from smaller student-made communities built around shared interests and imagination. According to the Poly Archives finding aid, Golana was a student-produced science fiction magazine that featured original artwork, fiction, and poetry, indicating that some Poly students were creating a shared world outside the formal identity of the engineering school. What makes the magazine especially useful for this project is not just its existence, but also the way it shows students forming connections through common taste, imagination, and collaboration. The covers, art credits, and feature sections make Golana feel less like a private hobby and more like a real campus community with its own voice and style.

The strongest Golana evidence comes from the specific pages inside the issues. For every content of Golana, the page that declares “GOLANA is the superior magazine on campus” presents the magazine with pride and humor, suggesting that belonging at Poly can also come from identifying with a smaller creative circle.

Figure 7: Golana, Spring 1969 — Contents

Pages such as “NYCON 3” show that Golana connected Poly students to a wider science-fiction fan culture. The article not only describes students writing for one another; it also shows them participating in conventions, sharing references, and engaging with fan communities outside the classroom.

Figure 8 & 9: “NYCON 3”, pp. 28-29

“The Indefatigable Analyzer” adds another layer to this pattern by showing students reviewing books and building a shared reading culture. In this sense, Golana was not just a place for individual creativity. It was also a space where students could recommend, debate, and respond to the same imaginative worlds.

Figure 10: “The Indefatigable Analyzer”

The Spring 1969 story “Please Don’t Make Me Go” continues this pattern through student fiction and visual material. Its combination of written science fiction and dramatic illustration shows how Golana gave students a creative identity that did not neatly fit within Poly’s formal engineering image.

Figures 11 & 12: “Please Don’t Make Me Go”

This broader pattern also helps explain why Golana matters so much in this project. As Victoria Culver, Nathan Ziadie, and Devon Cowherd show, student-created literary groups gave students a way to come together around common interests, take charge of their own intellectual lives, and build forms of engagement outside the classroom (45-46). That framework fits Golana well. Even though it was a science fiction magazine rather than an official club program, it still gave Poly students a place to connect through shared reading, shared imagination, and a small but real creative community of their own.

Overall, these examples show that belonging at Poly extended beyond official campus events. For some students, it also meant finding a place in a creative, self-made community that gave the school another kind of social life. Since the late 1960s, Poly has been under real institutional pressure, so these student-made spaces mattered because they helped students create identity and continuity within a changing school. These examples show that belonging at Poly was created through events, organizations, and shared interests, but they also point to the next part of the story: how students used their own voices to debate what campus life meant and what kind of school Poly should be. What matters here is that the same late-1960s pressures that shaped public campus debate also pushed some students toward smaller literary and creative communities.

III. Student Voice + Campus Spirit

If the last section shows how students were brought into campus life, this section asks how they talked back to it. The strongest evidence here is the Polytechnic Reporter’s “Editorial: Apathy,” published on October 6, 1966. Even without treating it as a complete map of student opinion, the title alone tells us something important: campus spirit was a problem students themselves recognized. The fact that the paper printed an editorial on apathy shows that student participation, engagement, and care for campus life could not be taken for granted. In other words, school spirit was not a background condition. It was a subject of debate. This makes this editorial one of the most valuable sources for my project because it turns “campus culture” into an argument rather than a vague atmosphere.

Figure 13: Editorial: Apathy (1966)

Another article, “Letters,” published on December 8, 1966, in the Polytechnic Reporter, adds another layer to that argument. Letters to the editor are useful because they preserve a less polished voice. Students write in with complaints, jokes, opinions, and suggestions. Even when the tone is light, the page shows that students were paying attention to the shape of campus life and wanted some power over it. This is important because it prevents me from treating campus culture as something created solely by administrators or major student groups. The letters page shows that ordinary students also participated in defining what mattered at Poly. Their voice might be scattered and informal, but it is still a public voice.

Figure 14: “Letters” (1966)

Student voices at Poly did not only appear in editorials and letters. It also showed up in an open protest. The clearest example is the Polytechnic Reporter page from November 23, 1966, which announced, “Tuition Goes Up To $1900 Yearly; Student Protest Is Set For Today.” On this page, the paper reports on a planned student rally against the tuition increase and publishes an editorial titled “Shafted Again,” making it clear that many students saw the increase not as a small adjustment but as another burden. The protest photo showing students gathered with signs after an earlier tuition hike makes that frustration visible. Even if the caption says the rally was a “dismal failure,” the image still matters because it shows students trying to speak publicly and collectively when they felt ignored. Taken all together, these materials suggest that campus spirit at Poly was not always cheerful or unified. Sometimes it meant criticism, disappointment, and the decision to push back when students believed the school was not listening.

Figure 15: “Tuition Goes Up To $1900 Yearly; Student Protest Is Set For Today” (1966)

Kaylene Dial Armstrong helps clarify why the Reporter matters so much here. Armstrong argues that student newspapers from the protest era were often used later as background evidence, while the student press itself was rarely studied closely. She also shows that student reporters were trying to get at the deeper issues behind campus protest and had to decide what kind of role the student paper should play during conflict (Armstrong 3-4, 231-32). That insight fits the Polytechnic Reporter very well. The paper was not only describing frustration at Poly. It was one of the places where frustration became public through headlines, editorials, letters, and coverage of student action.

If the Polytechnic Reporter shows what students said when campus problems became public, Counterweight Quarterly shows what student life looked like when those same pressures were filtered through feeling, reflection, and literary expression. The literary magazine Counterweight Quarterly provides a different kind of evidence. The Polytechnic Reporter shows what students debated in public. Counterweight is quieter and more indirect. Through its table of contents and issue design, it preserves the tone, mood, and forms of self-expression that do not sound like official campus discussion. In the 1966-1967 and 1967 issues, titles such as “2 Angry But Humble Thoughts,” “Monday Morning,” “Word Gets Around,” and “Of Happenings and Changes” suggest frustration, routine, rumor, and transition. Titles alone cannot tell us exactly what students meant or what event they had in mind, but they do show that student expression at Poly extended beyond event coverage and institutional news. Students were also using literary space to record feelings, uncertainty, and everyday life.

Figure 16: Counterweight Quarterly, Box 5, Folder 9 (1967) — Contents

What makes the contrast between the Polytechnic Reporter and Counterweight so important is that they seem to capture two different levels of campus life. The Polytechnic Reporter shows what students were willing to say in public when the issue was clear, shared, and urgent. Counterweight feels quieter and less direct, but in some ways, it is just as revealing. It suggests that student life at Poly was not only shaped by rallies, editorials, and visible debate, but also by moods harder to pin down, such as boredom, loneliness, uncertainty, tension, and the slow rhythm of everyday college life. If we read the two publications together, campus culture looks fuller and more human. One of them records argument and action; the other preserves atmosphere and feeling. This difference is very essential because it shows that the student voice at Poly was not only something students used to challenge the school publicly, but also something they used to make sense of their own inner lives as they moved through it.

IV. Pressure, Rights, and the Draft

If social life at Poly was about finding a place on campus, the draft was a reminder that student life was never only about campus. National policy entered the classroom, the dorm, and the plans of male students in a very direct way. One of the clearest examples is the article in the Polytechnic Reporter in 1968, “Bregman, Draft Counseling Informs Polymen Of Rights.” The article explains that Dr. Judith Bregman, an associate professor of physics, had become Poly’s first draft counselor because of recent changes in draft law that sharply limited deferments for graduate students. It presents her work as practical and urgent. She was there to help students understand classifications, deferments, conscientious objection, and the appeal process. Even before reading the rest of the article, the headline already tells us something important: draft pressure had become serious enough that Poly students needed formal guidance from someone inside the school.

Figure 17: “Bregman, Draft Counseling Informs Polymen Of Rights” (1968)

What makes this source especially strong is its tone. The article does not read like a distant report about national politics. It reads like a campus service announcement written for students who may soon have to make difficult decisions. Bregman explains that every student’s situation is different, partly because personal goals vary, and partly because the draft system itself was highly decentralized. The article notes that there were 4,080 local draft boards across the country and that this decentralization produced “great variation in the classifying process.” It then walks readers through the logic of several classifications, including 1-A, the category for availability for military service; 1-O, for conscientious objector status; and 2-A, for occupational deferment, while also emphasizing that students could request personal appearances and appeal decisions. In other words, the article shows that rights existed, but they were not simple. A student had to know the system, read it carefully, and act within it.

Draft pressure in the Vietnam era did not fall evenly on all young men. Those who became draft-eligible during the high-call years of 1966, 1967, and 1968 faced greater pressure and had fewer chances to rely on deferments successfully (Shields 215, 219). In this context, the importance of the Bregman article for Poly becomes clearer. The issue of draft counseling at Poly is more complicated, as it involves a nationwide policy that could disrupt students’ studies and future careers, leaving them feeling insecure.

Therefore, “Bregman, Draft Counseling Informs Polymen of Rights” is not merely a discussion of rights but a discussion of pressure. The information provided by the local draft board was insufficient for students, who were expected to learn about different classifications, file their own applications, request hearings, and defend themselves before the boards. In this context, the article provides a vivid account of the situation Poly students faced; their main concern was not military service but learning the system and defending their positions.

That explains the Polytechnic Reporter’s strong focus on explaining the system. Not only were Poly students expected to have certain rights, but also to understand and use them within a complex system. In this way, the draft became an important part of Poly students’ lives.

Draft pressure in the Vietnam era was not equal for everyone. Because the Selective Service system depended on both military demand and local draft board decisions, young men who became draft-eligible during high-pressure years, especially 1966, 1967, and 1968, faced greater risk and had fewer chances of successfully relying on deferments (Shields, 219). This context makes the Bregman article more important. Draft counseling at Poly was not just about paperwork. It was a response to a national system that could interrupt students’ studies, career plans, and sense of security.

The Bregman article challenges our understanding of campus culture. While it may seem tempting to categorize the “draft policy” into its own separate category of “student life,” this would be missing the point of the essay. The Bregman article clearly demonstrates how the draft policy influenced students’ decisions about which schools to attend and pursue, as well as their sense of safety on campus. As a technical institution, Poly educated young men to enter professional positions and to continue their education in research. Therefore, the article illustrates how a national policy has become embedded within the campus’s atmosphere.

At the same time, it is important to recognize that these sources do not necessarily contain the entire experience. We can see the article published in the newspaper and the advice it gave to the students. However, we are unable to see all the discussions that took place behind closed doors, all the fears harbored, or all the decisions students made in their personal lives. These elements become particularly significant because the archive includes information about the concern, but not all its repercussions. This is precisely why the Bregman article is so helpful.

V. Women + Gender at Poly

If the 1966 Polywog Student Council page makes women look almost absent from student leadership, the later Polywog Student Council page and the 1974-1975 Polytechnic Reporter articles tell a different story. The change is not complete or simple, but it is visible. This is what makes the comparison and significant difference between the 1966 and 1974 student council pages so effective. The Polywog Yearbook makes this change visible. In the 1966 Student Council page, only one woman appears, while the 1974 Student Council page shows many more women participating in student leadership. By the mid-1970s, women were no longer shown in the engineering school only as rare exceptions. They were becoming part of the school’s public image and part of how student life at Poly was being presented to others.

Figure 18: Student Council Meeting (1966)

Figure 19: Student Council Meeting (1974)

What makes this shift especially important is that Poly was no longer simply waiting for women to arrive on their own. It was actively trying to bring them in. In “Effort On To Recruit Women,” the article makes clear that the Admissions Office had already spent six months building a serious enrollment program aimed at girls, trying to show them that science and engineering were “no longer taboo careers” and even sending Poly students into high schools to speak directly to younger women. That article presents recruitment as organized, public, and urgent. Poly was not just opening the door a little wider; it was trying to change how young women imagined both engineering and themselves. In other words, the shift was not only demographic. It was also representational: women were becoming more visible in the very student publications that helped define who counted as part of Poly’s public life.

Figure 20: “Effort On To Recruit Women” (1974)

The article “Women’s Lib???” is especially revealing because it shows both progress and limitations simultaneously. On one level, the article clearly pushes back against women’s underrepresentation at Poly and argues that girls should become more active in campus life. It imagines a larger role for women and suggests that their absence is a problem. But the article also uses language that shows how male the school culture still was. At one point, it says sports might help girls meet a “virile, athletic, and smart male.” This detail matters. It shows that even when women were being encouraged to participate, their place was still being explained through male-centered assumptions. The article is useful not because it is perfectly feminist, but because it captures a campus in transition. Institutional change had begun, but the language around women had not fully caught up.

Figure 21: “Women’s Lib???” (1974)

Nationally, engineering education had long treated women as exceptions rather than ordinary future engineers. The language used to describe women in engineering also shows this problem. As Amy Sue Bix shows, the language used for women in engineering changed over time, moving from “engineeresses” to “girl engineers” to “good engineers,” reflecting how women were initially treated as unusual before they could be recognized simply as engineers (27). It is important that, at first, women were considered exceptions who eventually qualified as engineers (Bix 27). During the 1960s, women made up fewer than 1 percent of engineering students in the United States (Bix 27). Against this background, Poly’s situation is especially valuable. The photo of the 1974 student council meeting, the article titled “Women’s Lib???”, and the recruiting article do not suggest that women immediately gained equality. However, it is clear that Poly changed its attitude toward women and began recruiting them.

Poly seems to be showing prospective students that women belonged in the school’s future. It suggests that Poly was trying to reshape who could be seen as an engineer, who could represent the school, and who could imagine a place there. The result is not a story of instant equality. It is a story of visible change, mixed messages, and a school trying to redefine itself in the mid-1970s.

VI. Reading the Contexts Together

Polytechnic Reporter, Counterweight, and Golana all provide insight into how students perceived and dealt with campus problems during the same period, but through different means. While Polytechnic Reporter features open manifestations of dissatisfaction, through editorials, letters, tuition protests, draft counseling, and debates on women at Poly, Counterweight avoids any arguments, instead concentrating on maintaining mood, reflection, and feeling with titles like “2 Angry But Humble Thoughts”, “Monday Morning”, “Word Gets Around”, and “Of Happenings and Changes”. In its turn, Golana reconsiders student life through the lens of creation, transforming it from the academic into the creative with the help of fandom, reviews, and fiction. Overall, Poly students have expressed their reactions to campus pressure in many ways, including public contestation, literary portrayals of mood and feelings, and the creation of communities around shared interests.

This comparison matters most when the project is read across time. In the earlier materials, student life is often portrayed as a primarily masculine world characterized by orientation, fraternities, tuition protests, draft anxiety, and all kinds of social activities. However, after the mid-1970s, some changes occurred, and the Polytechnic Reporter and Polywog made women more apparent in student life and in plans for the future, though not without references to previous views of gender. Therefore, the project aims to investigate not only specific topics but also the various ways in which student writing documents the process of changing the campus from multiple perspectives. While reporting is used to reveal conflicts, literature captures mood and ambiguity, and creative magazines foster small community building.

VII. Conclusion

In the end, this project shows that the history of Poly in the late 1960s and early 1970s cannot be understood solely in terms of institutional reform. This period must also be understood in the context of the diverse modes of writing practiced by students as they negotiated a school undergoing stress. The Polytechnic Reporter made campus conflict visible through editorials, letters, protest reports, and advice columns. Counterweight, on the other hand, adopted a more understated mode of feeling, repetition, ambiguity, and contemplation. Golana created a space where affective engagement, imagination, and belonging through creation were more personal yet significant. When these publications are read together, they show that student life at Poly was not one single experience. Student life at Poly was at once communal and polarizing, public and personal, political and creative, and was marked by the influence of community, fear, exclusion, and change. What emerges is not just a story of campus culture, but a story of students using writing itself to make sense of what Poly was and what it was becoming.

VIII. Primary Sources

Polywog. 1966, student activities images. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Polytechnic Reporter. 1966-1967, vol. 59, cover. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

“New Freshman Orientation Program.” Polytechnic Reporter, September 22, 1966, p. 7. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

“Large Turn-Out for Fraternity Smokers.” Polytechnic Reporter, September 22, 1966, p. 6. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Golana. Spring 1969, no. 10, contents page. Poly Archives, Serial Publications, RG.030, Box 6, Folder 25, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Pines, Elyse. “NYCON 3.” Golana, Fall 1967, no. 9, pp. 28-29. Poly Archives, Serial Publications, RG.030, Box 6, Folder 23, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Karen, Charles, Edward Barnas, and Michael Barra. “The Indefatigable Analyzer: Book and Movie Reviews.” Golana, Fall 1967, no. 9, p. 58. Poly Archives, Serial Publications, RG.030, Box 6, Folder 23, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Grab, Charles Frederick. “Please Don’t Make Me Go.” Golana, Spring 1969, pp. 28–30. Poly Archives, Serial Publications, RG.030, Box 6, Folder 25, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

“Editorial: Apathy.” Polytechnic Reporter, October 6, 1966, p. 2. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

“Letters.” Polytechnic Reporter, December 8, 1966, p. 8. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

“Tuition Goes Up To $1900 Yearly; Student Protest Is Set For Today.” Polytechnic Reporter, November 23, 1966, p. 1. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Counterweight Quarterly. 1967, vol. 10, no. 3-4, contents page. Poly Archives, Serial Publications, RG.030, Box 5, Folder 9, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Bleiberg, Jerry. “Bregman, Draft Counseling Informs Polymen Of Rights.” Polytechnic Reporter, October 24, 1968, p. 5. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Polywog. 1966, “Student Council.” Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Polywog. 1974, “Student Council.” Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Davis, Allan. “Women’s Lib???” Polytechnic Reporter, April 25, 1974, p. 8. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

Sawchuk, E. S. “Effort On To Recruit Women.” Polytechnic Reporter, February 21, 1975, vol. 67, no. 17. Poly Archives, Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.

IX. Secondary Sources

Armstrong, Kaylene Dial. Telling Their Own Story: How Student Newspapers Reported Campus Unrest, 1962-1970. 2013. University of Southern Mississippi, PhD dissertation. The Aquila Digital Community.

Bix, Amy Sue. “From ‘Engineeresses’ to ‘Girl Engineers’ to ‘Good Engineers’: A History of Women’s U.S. Engineering Education.” NWSA Journal, vol. 16, no. 1, 2004, p. 27.

Culver, Victoria, Nathan Ziadie, and Devon Cowherd. “From Debating Societies to Union Boards: 100 Years of Student Activities in the College Union.” A 100 Year Perspective on the College Union, Indiana University Student Personnel Journal, 2013 Special Edition, pp. 43-59.

Rodengen, Jeffrey L. Polytechnic University: Changing the World: The First 150 Years. Write Stuff Enterprises, 2005, p. 245.

Shields, Patricia M. “The Burden of the Draft: The Vietnam Years.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology, vol. 9, no. 2, 1981, pp. 215-219.