Schools

Aurora University Celebrates 100 Years in the City of Lights

On Wednesday, the university will host several events commemorating the April 4, 1912 opening of Aurora College, which became Aurora University.

1912 was a momentous year.

It started with the formation of the Republic of China, and ended with a temporary armistice in the First Balkan War. Along the way, Paramount and Universal Pictures were founded, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank into the Atlantic Ocean, and legendary Chicago radio personality Studs Terkel was born.

And on April 4—just 10 days before the Titanic hit that iceberg—the small community college that would become Aurora University opened its doors in the City of Lights for the first time.

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It’s been 100 years since the members of the tiny Mendota College picked up and moved to their new home in Aurora, opening a school that would one day grow to serve more than 4,300 students, and the university is celebrating a century in town with a look back, and a look forward.

That look back begins on the actual anniversary next Wednesday, with a lecture, a performance and an exhibit. The lecture is entitled “Journey of a Lifetime: The Rocky Road from Mendota to Aurora,” and will be presented by Susan Palmer, professor emerita of history at AU. Palmer graduated from AU in 1971, and has served on the faculty since 1973, receiving several local and national awards.

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Palmer’s talk begins at 4 p.m. in Crimi Auditorium at 407 S. Calumet Ave. At 7:30 in the same place, AU students and faculty members will make that history come alive with a series of readings and songs based on the university’s history. They’ll be singing Advent Christian hymns in honor of the Advent Christian organization that started AU’s precursor, Mendota Seminary, in 1893, and performing two versions of the school’s alma mater, according to Director of Communications Dave Parro.

They’ll also be reading letters to Orrin Roe Jenks, the college’s president when the move to Aurora took place. Starting April 11, you’ll be able to see another piece of Jenks’ collection—a series of prophetic charts used by Advent Christians when predicting the end of the world, according to Parro.

Eight of the 38 charts Jenks saved will be on display at the Schingoethe Museum in Dunham Hall, 1400 Marseillaise Place, through December 15. But those aren't the only pieces of history that will be on display—an exhibit created by AU students will open from April 4-15 in the lobby of the Institute for Collaboration. The exhibit contains artifacts and pictures from the Mendota days, up through the present.

And if you’re looking for a handy timeline of AU history, they’ve put one together for you as part of a new project they’re calling Storytellers. The website not only includes a capsule history, but the beginnings of a massive archive of video interviews with Aurora University alumni. About 75 of those interviews are live on the site now, Parro said, and the university continues to collect them.

“It makes the values of this place come alive,” Parro said. “You can see them lived out across the country. That comes through very clearly in the videos.”

It’s those values, he said, the school hopes to build on as it moves into the future. An important part of celebrating 100 years, Parro said, is looking forward, and AU is doing that with plans for even more growth. The school just updated its master plan, Parro said, and is currently raising funds for three projects: a new welcome center on Calumet Avenue, an entrance arch at Prairie Street and Calumet, and an addition to the Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action.

Those projects, he said, will be started as soon as funds are raised. A little further out, he said, is the partnership Science, Technology, Engineering and Math school AU will construct, and staff with the help of four area school districts. (More on that .)

The first 100 years in Aurora will serve as a foundation for the years to come, Parro said.

“We’re looking back at the last century, and at the progress we’ve made,” he said, “and building on the legacy of our founders as we look to the future.”

All of Wednesday’s 100th anniversary events are free and open to the public.


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