Looking Back

Bear Lake is a landmark on Oakland University’s campus. Between Vandenberg Hall and the Oakland Center, the bridge connecting Vandy and the OC has actually been there longer than the lake itself. The mud pit used to be home to campus events like tug-o-mud and a famous mud fight. Back in May of 1966, the area where the lake is used to be a giant mud hole. There were no plans for the lake to be home t...

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected to become the 44th President of the United States. In 2011, when he was running for reelection, Oakland University was chosen as a location for a  GOP debate. The news broke on Sept. 28, 2011. CNBC and the Michigan Republican Party served as the hosts for the debate, in which eight candidates talked about their perspectives and ideas about  how the country should b...

2017 marks Oakland University’s 20th anniversary as part of NCAA Division I athletics. With that move, OU athletics was changed forever. Construction began on OU’s first athletic facility — the building now known as the Recreation and Athletics Center — on Oct. 21, 1961. At the time, the building was called the Lepley Sports Center, and was only a small portion of what the Rec Center is today...

The month of October is recognized in the U.S. as being LGBT History Month, with Oct. 11 designated as National Coming Out Day. On Thursday, Oct. 13, Oakland University's Gay-Straight Alliance will host its Coming Out Monologues in the Oakland Center Gold Rooms at 7 p.m. But this isn’t the only way that LGBT history is has been shared on campus since the university's beginning. In the fal...

On Sept. 13, 1995, The Oakland Post ran the following description of a missing student: "Tina Biggar is 5-foot-7, weighs 145 pounds and has blonde hair and brown eyes. She wears glasses or contact lenses. Anyone who may have seen Biggar or may have any information as to her whereabouts should contact the OU Police at (810) 370-3331. Her family has offered a $5,000 reward for information." She was 23...

According to AIDS.gov, in 1992, AIDS-related illnesses became the leading cause of death in men ages 25-44. By 1993, these illnesses were the leading cause of death in all Americans in the same age range. Oakland University claimed that during 1992 and 1993, G. Rasul Chaudhry was overseeing research done with the HIV virus in 304 Dodge Hall. On Nov. 1, 1995, OU President Sandra Packard sent a le...

In 1993, Gary Russi came to Oakland University as the vice president for Academic Affairs following a national search. After University President Sandra Packard’s resignation in 1995, he was voted in by the Board of Trustees as the interim president of OU. Packard left the university following a 31-month tenure and three one-year contracts. She ended the final contract part-way through. In the ...

The year 1993 was a terrifying year for bird lovers at Oakland University. An estimated 100 birds made their home on the roof of Dodge Hall, to the dismay of professors spending their days there. “It’s a horrible problem,” said Frank Giblin, associate professor of biomedical sciences, in a February 1993 issue of The Oakland Post. “The heat from the refrigerator is an ideal breeding area. The...

On Jan. 24, 1969, just four days after President Richard Nixon was inaugurated, an Oakland University newspaper called The Oakland Observer ran a story entitled “The Nixon Ascendancy and the State of the American State.” Less than a year later, The Oakland Observer would be no more. The Observer was well-known for its radical opinion sections and stories that challenged the status quo. By the end of its 1...

Monday, March 30, 1981. Sixty-nine days after Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside the entrance to the Washington Hilton Hotel. Hinckley was staying in the Park Central Hotel in Washington, D.C. Just a few rooms down from him was the cast of the OU play “Jeririgg”, as well as members of the OU mime ensemble. “Jeririgg” was one of...

On New Year’s Eve, my grandpa and I went down to Main Street and the boardwalk in Daytona Beach, Florida. On our walk, we stopped by The Plaza hotel, where Oakland University students spent spring break in 1984. My grandpa, Frank Freeland, was a lifeguard during high school and lived in Daytona during the peak of its tourism popularity. I had the chance to interview him about what it was like...

In 1962, a professor of history at Oakland University gave a World Report lecture on Chinese industrialization. In his lecture, he predicted four things. The first was that China would not likely be “overwhelmed” from within. The second, Beijing would not be overwhelmed from within. The third was that the Chinese would not start a war, and the fourth was that communist China would be successful in th...

The 1968 death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was discussed in an undated special edition of The Oakland Observer. The paper was put together by students, some who were part of The Observer staff and some who were not. “The purpose of putting out this four-page paper is not merely to eulogize Dr. Martin Luther King,” the first line of the article “From a White Student (to White Students)”...

Roosevelt Dawson was a 20-year-old biology student at Oakland University. On Jan. 18, 1997, he began experiencing sharp pains. Then, he began to notice movement in his arms was slowing down and called an ambulance. He was picked up from his room in Van Wagoner Hall and transported to Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital. He walked into the emergency room, but collapsed before reaching the door. He then lo...

In the summer of 1999, the Oakland University Police Department installed a hidden camera in one of the men’s bathrooms in South Foundation Hall to investigate suspected criminal sexual activity. According to OUPD, the camera was installed for only about a month and was placed outside of the stalls. Other news media reported on the project, and campus reaction varied from mild disapproval, to c...

Oakland wasn’t always part of Division I basketball. The Golden Grizzlies finished the transition to Division I in 1999, and since joining have switched to the Horizon League. The first Division I game in the 1999-2000 season was “e-cast” live. Oakland faced off against the Wolverines from the University of Michigan. “OU will be among the first colleges and universities to broadcast bask...

A chemical fire broke out in an Oakland University biology laboratory in mid-March 1994. Classes in Dodge Hall of Engineering were canceled as a result.  Around 9:35 p.m. on March 14, Virinder Moudgil, a biology professor, smelled something similar to burning rubber. He saw flames and tried to quell them with his office fire extinguisher before calling the Department of Public Safety and the po...

Oakland University celebrated its 14th annual Drag Show this year, but the very first show was hosted in 2004 through the Gay Straight Alliance and the Women’s Issues Forum. At the time, there was no Gender and Sexuality Center on campus to act as a resource center for women and LGBTQIA+ individuals. The GSA was first instated as a student organization at OU during the 2003-04 academic year. Similar organizations h...

Oakland University was established in 1957 as Michigan State University-Oakland. It was known as MSU-O until 1963, and became independent in 1970. But in April 1961, MSU-O almost shut its doors for good. Legislators at the state level aimed to decrease the financial burden universities posed to the state by decreasing funding to MSU-O. In the legislators' proposal, the state would provide Oakland so...

“It was scary that this happened, but the truly scary part is what will happen next,” one Oakland University student said following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Spet. 11, 2001. After planes flew into the buildings, killing thousands, Oakland students found themselves in shock even though the terror was far from home. “Knowing our president, he will blame...

The Oakland University Office of the Provost announced in March of 1983 that the Oakland University psychology department would be moving to Pryale House by the following September. Pryale House had been functioning as a residence hall during previous years. The move was done to free up over 5000 square feet of space in Hannah Hall, allowing for more chemistry and engineering labs to be installed. ...

The Oakland Post’s Satire section has been well-received by our readership this year, prompting a look back on what came before. Originally in 2007 created by Paul Gully, the Post's Managing Editor at one point, and Kyle Magin, the Mouthing Off section was designed to give readers a laugh. “It was a new type of position that wasn’t focused on reporting important work [or] of understanding...

Sometimes, working at the student newspaper can mirror the ridiculousness of a soap opera. Depending on how mature the editors are, things like gossip and backstabbing can reign over the staff and make it hard for anyone to get any work done. In the late 1960s, Oakland University’s student newspaper learned this the hard way. Since it started in 1959, The Oakland Observer was OU’s only student newspaper. In ...

The independent student newspaper, which is now called The Oakland Post, has existed since 1959. In that time, the Oakland University student newspaper has become known for covering campus sports and student life. However, in the late ‘60s, the Observer wasn’t known for its quality coverage of campus events. With only a few thousand students, finding events to cover was a struggle. “We actual...

Seven years ago, Corey Jackson died by suicide. He was an Oakland University sophomore who lived on campus. He was an active member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He had come out as gay, and his family reported that he felt as if his peers treated him differently prior to his death. He died by suicide in a wooded area of campus, where he was found in mid-October 2010. His friends on campus...

Jane Briggs-Bunting, a former advisor of The Oakland Post, and The Oakland Sail, and former director of the journalism program at Oakland University, has often stood firm in defense of the First Amendment. “I learned in high school as a student editor that words could change lives,” Briggs-Bunting said. Her passion for journalism is unwavered as she stated, “it's a heavy responsibility...

In 1978, the debate on religious freedom was brought close to home. Oakland University Public Safety Sergeant John Simmons was suspended after he refused to work on a Saturday. Simmons was a Seventh Day Adventist, and his religion prohibited him from working on his Sabbath, which is usually observed on Saturday. On Aug. 4, he was suspended indefinitely for refusing to work from sundown Friday to s...

Many of us are familiar with the nine districts that make up the Great Lakes Crossing outlet mall just miles from campus, whether it be from the Black Friday sales or from the fire across the street from it just a couple weeks ago. What many don’t know is that the mall is as old as many of the students currently attending Oakland University. The “supermall” opened in November 1998, and by Ma...