As 150 years of University history is being revived and celebrated, the current generation of students is putting its own history six feet under.
The Sesquicentennial Student Subcommittee is planning to take a snapshot of the University and put it into a time capsule to be buried for 150 years and opened during the University’s 300th anniversary in 2160.
For the sesquicentennial capsule, the student subcommittee is hoping to include items like a letter from the chancellor, signed photos of sports teams or coaches and contributions from students, said chairman Iftekhar Rouf.
But the plans for the capsule are not as concrete as the cement in which it would be buried. Though the subcommittee hopes to bury the capsule by the end of the year, it is still looking for solid funding to complete the project.
“It’s going to cost us about $3,000 to $4,000 to advertise, dig the hole and [complete the project],” Rouf said.
The time capsule is presently planned to be attached to the graduate walk class gift project, but Rouf said that is still uncertain because of debates about the fee for the class gift. If the Student Subcommittee is unable to get funding that way, Rouf said he will begin exploring other options.
But this isn’t the first time University students have left behind a slice of their identity for the future. The sesquicentennial capsule will join three others in University soil.
The first was buried in front of the Student Union in 1967 as part of a program called “World of 2067.” The program’s purpose was to “give a preview of life during the first half of the 21st century,” according to a May 10, 1967, news release from the Union.
The capsule contained a microfilm record of students’ predictions of life in 100 years. To house the film, the students had to build their own capsule.
A team of three engineering students was assembled to design it. The students had to develop a capsule capable of keeping the microfilm safe for 100 years, according to an undated report by Arthur Colley, one of the students in 1967.
The stainless steel housing consists of a pipe 4 inches in diameter sealed with a bolt cap. According to Colley’s report, “the gasket used for the bolted cap is a Fleximetallic gasket, a combination of asbestos and metal, which should hold for at least 100 years.”
The capsule was then sterilized and encased in a concrete cylinder weighing 1,000 pounds.
The students’ predictions came at a “time of real transition,” said Grady Smith, one of the three engineering students who built the capsule.
“We had some interesting years,” Smith said. “The Cubans had come in after the Bay of Pigs, and a lot of them started coming into LSU in the early and mid-’60s. They were outstanding students — some really amazing guys came through here.”
The University’s student body was also politically active during this period, when Free Speech Alley was in full swing as an outlet for students’ political musings, Smith said.
The predictions in the capsule Smith remembers are those of impending national problems.
“It was fairly obvious that our oil — even before the oil crisis in the ’70s — would be in depleted supply or people wouldn’t be telling the truth about the reserves,” Smith said. “We also thought it was obvious we would have a clean water problem.”
The next capsule was buried April 30, 1976, during the University’s celebration of the nation’s bicentennial.
But the reasoning for burying the capsule that day was much larger, said Paul Murrill, University chancellor in 1976. It also marked the 50th anniversary of the campus at its current site after the move from downtown.
The 1976 students also felt their capsule was being buried at an important time in history.
“We were just coming through the Watergate period and just on the heels of finishing Vietnam,” said Paul Benoist, 1976 Student Government president. “Streaking was also a big thing on campus at the time.”
Benoist said he remembers the contents of the capsule as what would typically be in a time capsule.
“I imagine we probably had some Daily Reveilles in there, and we had the [Gumbo] yearbook from LSU,” he said. “Maybe also some articles of clothing and other things.”
The 1976 capsule, located in front of the fountain in the Quad, is scheduled to be unearthed in 2076.
The final capsule was buried in front of Memorial Tower in 1999 by the LSU ROTC as part of the LSU Salutes celebration.
Though it’s the most recently buried, there is little information about it in the ROTC’s archives, said Lt. William Conger, Army ROTC enrollment officer, other than that it will be opened in 2050.
The direct reasoning behind each capsule was different, but Smith said the motivation behind any capsule is typically the same.
“You just want to leave some memories of what was going on around your time so they can find out about it in the future,” he said.
Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]