As a self-proclaimed history nerd, I am continually fascinated by the past and how it has impacted our futures. When pondering the idea of a special edition of The Oakland Post, I thought of no greater avenue than to explore and inform the Oakland University community about the events that have shaped our campus and the lives of former and current students. In issue seven of volume 49, we want to take a deeper look at some of our history and reflect on how OU’s past still connects to our present. 

At The Post, we have an archive of each edition printed from 1959 to the present. In the past week, the staff of The Oakland Post has carefully combed through these archives to learn more about the history of our campus and find the most interesting content for our community of readers. 

As we dug deeper and deeper into OU’s past, we found ourselves shocked by the small details we had never heard before, such as OU’s consideration of renaming the college to either Pontiac State University, Wilson University, Dodge University, Rochester University, Varner University and Meadow Brook University.

It was unanimously agreed upon by Oakland Post staff members that this edition was the most fun to research and create. Autumn Okuszka, Content Editor at The Post, stated that the experience of working on this special edition made her feel more deeply connected to the student journalists of the past.

“I felt like I was connecting with The Post in a way that I haven’t before by reading some of our previous staff’s stories and hearing their thoughts on stuff that’s happened around campus,” she said. “It almost felt like time traveling into the past.” 

Oakland Post Marketing Director Evelyn Gandarilla commented that going through The Post archives was an emotional experience for her. 

“It was kind of emotional just seeing other people’s words that were printed out,” she said. “I really felt like they had no filter back then, and what they believed in was what they truly believed in, and they would write about it. So it was kind of emotional. They just felt really passionate, and that made me really proud to be an Oakland student.”

Megan Parker, The Post’s Managing Editor, noticed the attention to detail in every aspect of the designs of the past editions. 

“From a design perspective, it was very eye-opening to see how much our newspaper has changed over the years and over the decades,” she said. “The style is a lot different, and it was really cool to see everything that was created before we got into this era of abundant technology. It was really cool to see custom type and a lot more design work [was] put into the images and the graphics of prior editions.”

On behalf of The Oakland Post team, we hope you enjoy the opportunity to foray into The Oakland Post’s past. It has been an exciting and informative experience for all of us, and we hope that you are left with that same sentiment.