Professor holds Saturday class
In 1959, Professor of History James Hedges rescheduled a meeting of History 151 to be held on a Saturday despite "much eyebrow-raising comment." Saturday classes had been suspended for that weekend in a faculty and administration vote. But undergraduate students voted to hold the class despite a Brown versus Yale football game in New Haven that weekend. "If they hadn't so voted, there would be no session," Hedges told The Herald in 1959.
Fox Point houses slated for rehabilitation torn down
In 1969, the Providence Redevelopment Agency demolished two Fox Point houses that had been allotted funds for rehabilitation earlier that day. The Rhode Island Department of Community Affairs had granted community group Churches Concerned $30,000 to begin work on the site. Its director said no one in the group was informed of the agency's decision to tear down the buildings until the demolition group arrived. At the time of the demolition, the agency planned to construct tennis courts on the site instead.
Possible cancer risk found in U. labs
In 1979, Rhode Island health officials expressed concern over the unsafe use of carbon tetrachloride, a possible carcinogen, in Chemistry 3 lab experiments.
"Any instructor who would allow this is completely nuts or doesn't know what he's doing," said Herbert Kilgus, principal industrial hygienist of the state Department of Health. The University safety office said it would monitor the toxic vapor levels of the chemical in upcoming lab sessions to see if they met federally mandated levels.
Rally protests police brutality
In 2006, over 100 students and alums protested police brutality on the Main Green, reading students' anonymous accounts of police misconduct to chants of "DPS, we are watching you." The newly created Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency organized the rally in response to the arrest of Chipalo Street '06 MS'07 three weeks prior. Street refused to show his I.D. upon request by DPS and was consequently assaulted and pepper-sprayed.
