Class of ’70 to walk again

On June 11, the University of Cincinnati Alumni Association will give the Class of 1970 the commencement ceremony it never had.

Forty years ago, fears of protests and violence after the Kent State University shootings forced schools across Ohio to shut down. UC faculty and students resisted at first, but the administration eventually gave into pressures and closed down the entire campus indefinitely, according to archived issues of The News Record.

Herbert Shapiro, a history professor at UC, was part of the faculty at the time and saw how protest against the Vietnam War evolved.

“In 1966, faculty and students began to oppose the Vietnam War,” Shapiro said. “Substantial opposition to the war existed.”

Lew Moores was executive editor at The News Record at the time and said opposition to the war became more vocal after the United States invaded Cambodia.

“Students saw the invasion as a betrayal since Nixon had promised to wind down the war,” Moores said. On May 1, hundreds of students marched downtown to Government Square and staged a sit-in. Moores estimates approximately 140 were arrested.

“But after Kent State, all hell broke loose,” Moores said. During the following week, students staged sit-ins and seized administrative buildings on campus.

Following the events, the UC administration decided to shut down campus on May 11. The school reopened on May 18, but shut down again after one day.

“The administration was afraid students from other [closed-down] schools would converge on UC,” Moores said.

If more radical students from other schools protested on campus, the administration was afraid it could lead to violence, Moores said.

The last closing canceled the rest of the academic school year, sending both students and faculty home.

“Students who had satisfactory work got ‘S’ grades, which counted as passing,” Shapiro said.

A lot of the students who passed couldn’t make the trip back to UC for the graduation ceremony, however, according to The News Record and Cincinnati Enquirer archives.

The UC Alumni Association is hoping to reconcile the missed opportunity with the anniversary event, which will give more than 3,200 alumni the ceremony that they missed in 1970.

The events will begin the night of June 10 with a UC Day celebration at the Kingsgate Marriott Conference Hotel.

A commencement ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. the following day and will be accompanied by a campus tour.