Coe College Cosmos: Six Students Were Graduated At Coe's First Commencement

Coe College Cosmos, 1920s

Coe College Cosmos: Final Exams 1949

"The English Department has decided on a very small exam: 32 essay questions. Each essay counts 3.125 points"

"The Philosophy Department has only one question: Discuss fully all phases of mankind 10000 B.C. to the present."

"--just conjugate each verb we've had so far, in all tenses, and write a history of the World War in French."

"Hold on here. Let's give this lad a practical exam.  He needs your subjects like he needs a hole in the head!"

Coe College Cosmos, January 19, 1949.

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant.

Coe Daily Life - The Great Sadie Finkelstein Hoax

"Her arrival, tinged with gossip, was recorded on the calendar of the 1922 Acorn: "Friday, the 17^th: 'Sadie' makes her first appearance on the campus for the coming year. Understand that she wears a rock on her left hand." Perhaps the most surprising part of learning of this engagement is the fact that Sadie was not a real person at all."


Created as a joke by students in Professor Leroy Coffin's freshman mathematics class, "Sadie's" name was secretly placed onto the roll sheet, and a female student would quietly say "Here!" to continue the charade. Students went so far as to complete an exam for Sadie after finishing their own, and both the professor and registrar were impressed by the excellent grades Sadie managed to pull in.

And so begins the tale of "The Great Sadie Finkelstein Hoax" dreamed up and perpetrated by the class of 1922.  To hear tell of Sadie's time at Coe, as reported by the Cosmos, check out her article on the site "Coe College: The First Hundred years".

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant

Coe College Campus: The Victory Bell

Another week, another tab on the site “Coe College: the First Hundred Years.”   This week it is 'The Campus', containing 'The Buildings of Coe' and 'The Attractions of Coe'.  One attraction being the "Victory Bell".

The Victory Bell: Celebrating 76 Years of Victories

“O mighty bell, thy power is great;
Your vibrant tones ecstatic swell,
And speak again of kindly fate
Thy notes are notes we all love well.


Ring out and tell of vict’ry won,
With penetrating tones, O bell.
Whene’er you speak, to live is fun;
When you keep still, to live is –!”

Roteiv
Cosmos November 12, 1925

Students first encounter the Victory Bell during orientation week when they ring it to signal the beginning of their career at the college.  This tradition, having begun in 1992, is relatively new to the bell .  The bell itself is also new having been donated by the class of 2000, but the tradition of a Victory Bell goes back to 1913.

The class of 1913 were the first to donate a Victory Bell to the college.  Athletics at Coe was going through a loosing streak at the time and the students decided that the athletes needed more collegiate support, hence the Victory Bell was born.  Over the years the bell has been apart of many traditions, been many bells, and traveled around the campus to many locations.  Check out the article, "The Victory Bell" on “Coe College: the First Hundred Years” to read the full story of it's journey.

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant

The day before graduation, 1952

from the archives...



Coe College Cosmos. June 8, 1952, page 1.

Congratulations Graduates!

~Sara, Archives Assistant