Hobart and William Smith Colleges

The Quad

THE HEART OF CAMPUS.

Matriculations, graduations, reunions. Military training, protests, classes in the spring sunshine. Past and future presidents, Nobel winners, varsity football games. Flour Scraps, Folk Fest, slip-n-slides. Tears of frustration, tears of joy, handshakes, hugs, hallelujahs…the Quad has seen it all. (FYI, the Flour Scrap was an almost-food fight waged between early Hobart College freshmen and sophomores, who flung flour at one another on the Quad until an upperclassman referee declared a winner.)

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE.

Members of the Hobart and William Smith community gather around the “Commencement Elm” during the Hobart College Centennial celebrations in 1922. That northwest corner near Williams Hall is where today’s Commencement processionals enter the Quad.

BLANK CANVAS.

The iconic Hobart Quadrangle wouldn’t really take shape until Coxe Hall was completed in 1900. Photographed from the roof of Geneva Hall ca. 1870–80, this westward view of Pulteney Street — and the plot that would later become the Quad — shows the limited campus development during the College’s hardscrabble first 50 years. Blackwell House and McCormick House can be seen on the hill in the distance.

NEITHER SNOW, NOR WIND…

Students brave the winter cold for Quad fun during Winter Fest, ca. 1980–81.