Do You Remember?

Founding President D.B. Johnson leads students in the Blue Line around 1912. The photograph shows the electric trolley, unpaved roads and a campus without many of the trees that stand today.

Interesting notes about the start of Winthrop’s academic years from Gina White ’83, director of archives at Dacus Library:

• Convocation is a tradition dating back to presidency of Winthrop’s founder D.B. Johnson. It is held the day before classes start each new academic year. In early assemblies, President Johnson gathered the student body together, welcomed them to the institution and provided expectations and words of encouragement to make the beginning of the school year.

• For decades, students and faculty lined up to walk to church on the first Sunday of the school year. In the 1950s, because the students were no longer required to wear navy (encouraged to but not required), they began to call it the Church Line instead of the Blue Line. Students would walk as far as First Baptist and First Presbyterian churches downtown.

• In the 1980s, Convocation was much like today. The ceremony included the procession of the faculty, a speaker and, following the program, the president leading the students dressed in navy blue down Oakland Avenue and in through the gates in front of Tillman.

• Today, President DiGiorgio convenes members of the freshman class to provide them with an official welcome to the campus community. Representatives are on hand to offer greetings from the city of Rock Hill, Board of Trustees, faculty and student body.

President Anthony DiGiorgio and his wife, Gale, lead the Blue Line assembly of students to a picnic on the front lawn.