Memorial Day Weekend library hours

Library Hours (children's room, downstairs, & office):

May 26 (Friday)                                            8:00 a.m. -    4:50 p.m.
May 27 – May 29                                          CLOSED

Summer hours

REGULAR LIBRARY HOURS—MAY 15 – AUGUST 20, 2017

Monday—Friday                                                    8:00 a.m.  -  4:50 p.m.

Saturday                                                                  CLOSED

Sunday                                                                    CLOSED

EXCEPTION DATES

May 29                       Monday                              CLOSED

July 4                          Tuesday                              CLOSED

                        August 14                   Monday                              CLOSED

Finals hours

Finals Hours 

Learning Commons (upstairs space & study rooms)

May 9 – 11                                                     8:00 a.m. -  12:50 a.m.

May 13 – May 14                                          CLOSED

Library (children's room, downstairs, & office)

May 9 – 11                                                     8:00 a.m. -    9:50 p.m.

May 13 – May 14                                          CLOSED

May Reading Theme: Foster care

May is National Foster Care Month, so we are looking at books in our collection that feature foster families. For more information about foster care, visit www.childwelfare.gov/fostercaremonth

White Oleander by Janet Fitch: “When beautiful, egotistical poet Ingrid murders the lover who dumped her, 12-year-old daughter Astrid descends into the hells of foster care, where she is sustained only by a fierce intelligence and great artistic talent…. Heartbreaking, but without a trace of sentimentality, this novel provokes amazement that children like Astrid can emerge whole and capable after what we know are even worse childhoods than hers.” --Library Journal review

Michel, Michel by Robert Lewis: “An explosive, emotional novel about a young Jewish boy whose parents die at the hands of the Nazis but he is saved by a Catholic Frenchwoman and raised in her faith. When the war ends Michel's aunt in Israel claims him but ‘Madam Rose’ Michel's foster French mother refuses to give him up and the battle is soon joined. What begins as a personal quarrel in a small provinical [sic] town slowly and inexorably grows into a cause involving the hierarchy of the Church and the leaders of French Jewry as the boy goes in hiding passed from one secret refuge to another by Madam Rose and by the priests and nuns. The conflict not only divides France reviving old passions and stirring up anti-Semitism and anticlericalism it becomes a national scandal. But in the end it is up to young Michel torn and devastated by opposing loyalties and loves who must decide his own fate. A sweeping narrative, brillantly [sic] written and plotted.” --Publisher’s summary

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner: “Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades ... beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden--one that will test her convictions and her heart. 1940s, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against London's civilian population, one million children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy's burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia's profound need for her sister's presence. Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed…” --Publisher’s summary

Georgie and the Lambs by Barbara Miller: “Ten-year old Georgie is a foster child who still feels the pain of her mother's abandonment. When she gets sent to a farm to live with Twila and Frank Sutter, she thinks it will be even more work than she usually has to do in a foster home. A pair of abandoned new-born lambs need to be fed every two hours and need the love of a devoted mom. Georgie names them Blanche and Camille, and loves them and everything about the farm. But when it's time to send the lambs back to live with the flock, will Georgie be able to figure out a way to keep them safe, especially with a pair of foxes on the prowl? More importantly, can she learn to trust and love the two people who now care about her as much as she loves Blanche and Camille?” --Publisher’s summary

Georgie and the Coyotes by Barbara Miller: “Twelve-year-old Georgie thinks she has found the perfect foster home with Frank and Twila on their sheep farm. But just when her new family needs her the most, with a coyote pack on the prowl, her birth mother comes to take her away in the second tale of George and her flock.” --Publisher’s summary

Standing in the Shadows by Michelle Spring: “British private eye Laura Principal investigates the bludgeoning of a 60-year-old woman by her 11-year-old foster son. Although the boy confessed to the crime, it is not clear what made him do it. Did the woman contribute to her death?” --Publisher’s summary

Throwback Thursday: Eurythmics

We've reviewed the history of plenty of athletic pursuits in various Throwback Thursday features: archery, baseball, basketball, bowling, equestrian sports, martial arts, and outdoor winter activities. We even looked at the evolution of the Seton Hill mascot.

Today we will introduce many of you to a lesser-known form of exercise called eurythmics/eurhythmics. If you think of "Eurythmics" at all, you may think of the '80s music duo best known for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)."

Though it's a physical activity, eurythmics was actually developed as a form of musical education in about 1905 (Encyclopedia Britannica). Its creator, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, didn't think of eurythmics as dance, but it did go on to influence that field.

If the Britannica article and the date on this photo, entitled "eurythmics 1910's outdoors," are to be believed, Seton Hill must have been a trailblazing eurythmics program.

This photo in the old Sullivan Gym is dated 1930 and shows quite a crowd looking on!

To watch video clips of modern Eurythmics being used in the fields of music and dance, you can search YouTube for "dalcroze." 

Elevator escapades

It was an entertaining morning at Reeves Learning Commons. A couple of the library staff kept hearing a faint alarm-like sound, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Until, that is, Dr. Stanley texted that he was trapped in the elevator and we determined that the sound was the elevator.

I (Kelly Clever) live-tweeted from our position outside the top elevator doors. As usual with tweets, read bottom-up:

Meanwhile, on the inside:

The elevator is currently out of order. 

Throwback Thursday: Lowe Hall

You may have noticed that Lowe Hall is undergoing renovations.

It seems like a fitting time to look back at the history-- and unusual naming!-- of the building. (As usual, transcribed text appears under the clipping images.)

"Looking Back to the Building of Lowe Hall"

It began with a ceremony! But then, Seton Hill, from initiation to commencement, begins and ends ends [sic.] everything ceremoniously. Well "Breaking the Soil" was the first step toward the erection of the new building. It was an impressive rite, typifying progress, hinting of the past great achievements and suggesting future victories.

Then the Steam Shovel arrived. How it dug into the mass of earth, and stone, tearing away the hillside. For days we watched it, at first, fascinated, then fearful, lest the tennis court disappear in a landslide. Then the materials began to arrive. Trucks and wagons, daily traversed the road with their weights of brick and sand and pipes and stone. What noise and hammering and tearing and the building was wel [sic.] underway-

Thus the summer months flew by and the girls were once more back on the Hilltop. The building was yet unfinished. 

More pipes, more brick, more supplies. One morning, looking out of the windows, we beheld a car load of bath tubs, which, on account of the rain, were filled with water. You can talk as you please about schools with private roms [sic.] and baths but could you find a number of them so conveniently place [sic.] as under your very window!

Report said, "By Easter, the rooms will be ready." But they weren't. The hammering went on, the noise went on, the constructing went on. We loved it. Everything was so excited and disturbed and extraordinary that our school year was quite an exception to the regular routine. 

September came into its own again and with it the new building! Seton Hill had settled down to quiet and peace. Outside of sometimes hearing a little noise and knocking in Lowe Hall, the construction at the present day is modern, cosy and complete.

F. Little, '24.

Most people who have a passing familiarity with the the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill are aware that Lowe Hall was named for Mother Aloysia Lowe, but most are probably not aware of how it got the name. We have the small but intrepid Class of 1920 to thank for that:

Lowe Hall, so named in honor of Mother Aloysia, was the first of the college residence halls. Ground was blessed and broken for it March 25, 1919, at a ceremony presided over by Father Sullivan, and participated in by the faculty and students. The hall contains more than seventy single rooms. The dining room, attached to Lowe Hall, a fine example of Lombard Gothic architecture, has a seating capacity of five hundred. It was first used by the former pupils of Seton Hill Schools at the annual alumnae banquet, June 17, 1920. In it the Sisters assembled July 19, 1920, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of their foundation in the Pittsburgh Diocese. A tablet over the fireplace in the dining room, in Old English lettering, pays tribute to Mother Aloysia:

Remember, Good Friends,

Aloysia Lowe

Who as first Mother of her companion

Sisters of Charity in this place

Labored with them in all Meekness,

and with patient striving: who founded

this School of Christian Learning

which still betokens the Worthiness of

her ensemble to her kindred in Faith

& in Honor of whose deeds this

Building is now called

Lowe Hall

In the year 1920 upon the Fiftieth

Anniversary of her First Beginning the

Pennsylvania Mission in the year 1870

--May she and her companions Rest in

Peace & may they Pray for Us.

Hazard--yet forward

MDCCCCXX

For the naming of Lowe Hall the credit, if not the honor, should go to the Class of 1920, Seton Hill College. the three members of this class, the first Liberal Arts graduates of the college, had expected to be the first residents of the new building. Construction operations having been delayed as a result of the war, the girls had been given a half-promise that, since they were obliged to forego the honor of residing in the hall, they should have the privilege of naming it. The privilege, for some reason, was withheld from month to month. The girls clamored for permission to announce the name in The Estonian. The May number, the last before Commencement, was ready for publication and still no permission was forthcoming from the Community authorities.

The students and most of the Sisters felt that this first distinctively college building should be named for Mother Aloysia, the originator of Seton Hill's educational activities. Many members of the Community, however, believed that Mother Aloysia's name should be reserved for a Community building.

The Duquesne Construction Company, the builders, had paid for a full-page advertisement on the back page of The Estonian, which displayed a cut of the hall with the caption, The New Residence Building  Seton Hill College, and the name of the builders in inch-high letters. With the approval of the staff adviser, the girls simply pushed the caption down, inserted the name LOWE HALL in conspicuous type, and sent the paper to the printer without more ado. They then acknowledged their temerity to the horrified Dean, who predicted all kinds of dire consequences.

Half triumphant and half apprehensive the class confided their dilemma to Father Sullivan. With his inscrutable smile he remarked, 'All right; now we'll clinch it.' He immediately set about preparing the inscription for the dining room. Soon everyone began to be delighted with the name. In a short time it became generally assumed that the name originated with the building itself. 

Here is the infamous ad itself:

And here is a snap of a Lowe dorm room in the 1920's:

As always, many thanks to Bill Black in the Seton Hill Archives for the photos, documents, and stories!