Alumni recall studying by the fireside

Early in the 1870s, Professor Amos Emerson Dolbear of the University experimented with "wireless communication" in the attic of Ballou Hall.

Dolbear and Alexander Graham Bell supposedly came up with the idea of the telephone at the same time, according to Alan MacDougall, President of the Tufts Alumni Association said. "We at Tufts feel Dolbear actually came up with the first telephone _ he just didn't patent it quick enough," he said.

Over the past 150 years, the University campus has witnessed the development of many forms of technology in addition to telephones. Such advances in technology have dramatically affected aspects of student life such as relationships, academics, and communication.

Academics at Tufts have also been vastly shaped by improvements in technology. To heat his room for a long night of studying, Frank Smith wrote that "after supper we set up our stove and built a fire" using coal.

In Oct. of 1933, construction for a central heating plant on campus began, and the new system was installed in under two weeks. It was more efficient, economical, and safe than heating methods such as Smith's. By the early 1960s, the University's rooms were heated, but there were still many technological differences from today.

"When we wrote a paper, we wrote it on a typewriter. We outlined the paper first, then handwrote it, and finally typed it," MacDougall said.

Researching for such papers was also very different matter. "Research was a matter of going to the library and looking up information on library cards [in a card catalogue]," MacDougall said. "If you wanted to look at a book from another library, you got on bus and went to that different library."

Comparing her own researching experiences with those of past generations of students, sophomore Jennifer Chang said, "Computers have definitely made research easier. Students once had to go through every single journal by hand. Nowadays, we just type in 'search.'"

Until three years ago, a lack of technology made the registration process tedious. "Registration involved a full day's time, MacDougall said. "Done in alphabetical order, we each had a printed registration card that we carried from table to table in Cousins Gym."

Modes of travel have also evolved through the years. At the time that Smith attended Tufts, there was a Tufts College Train Station at the foot of the Hill. From that station, it was five miles to Boston on the Southern Division of the Boston and Maine Railroads. Travel time was 15 minutes. Students could also travel into Boston by boat on the Mystic River or by streetcar on what was known as the Boston Elevated.

Today, students are within walking distance of the T, which can transport them virtually anywhere in Boston for $1. The Red Line, which stops at Davis Square, was built in the 1980s, enabling Tufts students to access the city easily for both frivolous and serious reasons.

The invention of better forms of transportation also turned Tufts from a commuter school into a university attended by students from all corners of the Globe.

Dating, for example, became different because of the development of movie technology.

Frank E. Smith, a graduate of the Class of 1883, writes about his relationships with women in the reprint of his diary, Very Fine Indeed. When on a date with women from other schools (Tufts was an all-male university at the time), Smith describes singing, sleigh rides, and walks along the Rez.

By the mid-20th century, technology had reshaped the University dating scene. "We went to all the dances," said Mel Prague, who graduated in 1948. "The dances were held on the tennis courts and the new library roof." Prague's time at Tufts was different from that of many students: he was a WWII veteran and already married at the start of his first year.

Though dances were still popular when Prague was at Tufts, films was were surpassing in popularity.

"My wife and I also went to Teele Square, a movie house that no longer exists. We used to walk there," he said.

Telephones soon became instrumental to the Tufts dating scene, though their high cost discouraged many students from owning one in the early 1960s. "It was quite expensive to have a phone in our dorm rooms," MacDougall said. "We had to get a big long extension cord so we could put the phone outside the dorm room for the other students who were splitting the cost of the phone with us."

But in 1966, a Somerville phone company agreed to outfit Tufts' dorms with phone service. At the time, it cost several thousand dollars to wire each dorm. Phone technology came to play a large part in dating as easy access to telephones revolutionized the way students met and dated.

Today, communicating with a new "interest" has been completely transformed. Beginning with Miller and South, ethernet connections were installed in each dorm room in the mid-1990s. In 1995, the Tufts Connect program was installed, wiring dorm rooms with data connections, telephone service, and cable. With the resultant speedy instant messaging and e-mailing, students can contact each other instantaneously any time of the day.

"Instant messaging is a good way to pick up women, not that I do [it] personally," senior Dave Blonder said.

Though the advent of the Internet has made it easier to communicate with friends and family from home, some students say it has lessened the quality of their communications.

The Internet "helps students communicate a lot easier, but also brings in a form of alienation," sophomore Marco Enriquez said. "IMs can be interpreted in different

ways, because the tone of voice is lost. AIM can be very impersonal."