The Student

Discharged from the Army Air Corps in 1945, Marlow started classes at Albright in February 1946. He, along with hundreds of others, was entering a whole new world; one of freedom, opportunity and tremendous optimism.

"There were 100 of us men admitted as freshmen in 1946," he says. "That added a lot to the male population of the campus," he chuckles.

"We were the first group of vets after the War to start." Through the G.I. Bill of Rights, without which, Marlow says he wouldn’t have been able to go to college, Albright grew rapidly in the next three to four years. "Lots of guys who started college before the service were coming back," he says.

It was an era of optimism. "A lot of us didn’t know we’d make it out of the War and here was the chance to go to college and have all of our bills paid," he says. "We had a real sense that we could do anything we wanted to do. We had unlimited future possibilities. It was a time of great excitement and gratitude," Marlow says.

It was also a time of great fun, he says. Freshman customs, like wearing freshmen beanies and yelling "Button Frosh!" if caught without your beanie on, disappeared fairly fast after so many GI’s started coming in, Marlow says, but the social scene was alive at Albright.

Caught on the job in 1949 as a waiter in the campus Dining Hall, Marlow smiles for the photographer of The Cue.

"Much of the recreational and social events were handled by the YMCA and YWCA organizations. Every student on campus was a member despite their religious backgrounds." From movie nights to weekend retreats, the events provided "a good combination of serious discussions, such as censorship, as well as a lot of fun like sporting events, swimming, and seeing who you could find to date or take a walk with," he says. "Friendships meant a lot at Albright," Marlow says. "And it was quite possible to literally know everyone on campus." During that era, he says, "we had seated dining service for lunch and dinner.

We dressed up for dinner and every couple of weeks you would sit with a different group of people. It really did force people to sit with different people and get acquainted with them."