Brooklyn College 75th Anniversary Web Site

Were You There?

Brooklyn College has never been a dull place. Social change, clashes with authority, and the constant battle over academic freedom have marked this College, which from its earliest days has had a reputation for student activism.

Here we recall some particularly memorable moments of the past seventy—five years. There has always been tension between students and administration, and, motivated by youthful ideals, students have periodically engaged in peaceful-and not so peaceful-protest. It's an inevitable process as each generation of Brooklyn's best and brightest meets the challenges of their education and their world.

2000s

2000
Christoph M. Kimmich became the eighth president of Brooklyn College. A faculty member of the History Department since 1973, Kimmich had been appointed Brooklyn College provost in 1989. In 1997 he was named interim Chancellor of the City University of New York, a post he held for more than two years.

A maintenance crew working on Boylan Hall discovered a large copper box in a hollowed-out doorframe. The College archivist, Professor Anthony M. Cucchiara carefully examined the time capsule, which was found to contain a copy of the New York Times dated October 29, 1936; the 1936-37 Brooklyn College Bulletin, in which classes for men and women were listed separately; architectural plans for the campus; and sixty-six cents, consisting of a penny, a nickel, a dime, and a Tercentenary fifty-cent piece, all minted in 1936.

A festive celebration in the spring marked the official naming of the College's state-of-the-art computer lab as the Morton and Angela Topfer Library Café in recognition of the couple's $1 million gift. Morton Topfer, '59, is the founder and managing director of Castletop Capital, an Austin-based investment firm, which focuses primarily on real estate. He is best known for his celebrated careers at Motorola, Inc., and Dell Computer Corp., where he helped develop pager and cell phone technologies that are now considered indispensable.

2001
The College launched The On-Course Advantage (TOCA), a program that enables qualified, highly motivated, full-time students to complete their studies in four years.

2002
The boldly designed and expanded Brooklyn College Library opened in the fall, effortlessly pairing the neo-Georgian architecture of La Guardia Hall with a sleek modern addition and advanced technologies. The new library has 21.5 miles of shelving, five hundred computers, two multimedia classrooms, five computerized classrooms, and a 145-seat auditorium fully equipped with state-of-the-art video and computer technology.

2003
In The Best 345 Colleges, 2003 edition, the Princeton Review cited Brooklyn College as the most beautiful campus in the country and ranked the College fifth in the nation for "Best Academic Bang for the Buck" and for its friendly, diverse campus.

Demolition of the Bedford Avenue overpass launched the West Quad Project, which is inspired by the original 1937 architectural design of the campus. Plaza Building will be taken down. In its place, there will be a new West Quadrangle and a new West Quad building, designed by the prestigious architect Rafael Viñoly, which will consolidate all student services and house a state-of-the-art physical education and athletics facility.

2004
In the Best 345 Colleges, 2004 edition, the Princeton Review again cites Brooklyn College for its beauty and value.

2005
The Princeton Review's new publication, America's Best Value Colleges, placed Brooklyn College third in the nation, just behind the University of North Carolina and Amherst College.

Work began to expand the ever-popular Morton and Angela Topfer Library Café to double its original size.

Eugene Shenderov, '05, a chemistry major, was named a Rhodes Scholar, and also won a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health to pursue research at Oxford University.

BC Timeline: 1930s || 1940s || 1950s || 1960s || 1970s || 1980s || 1990s || 2000s

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