Time capsule to showcase 2010 MU life 50 years later
The time capsule will be stored in one of the MU Student Center's outer walls.
Published Oct. 26, 2010
Junior Heather Hobbs walked away after signing the Student Union Programming Board’s time capsule knowing her signature will be read 50 years from now.
“I always walk around campus and see the evidence of the students who went here long ago,” Hobbs said. “Even though to think of them now is to think of my great grandparents, they were once young 20-year-olds, studying, drinking in celebration of the football team on weekends, making out and falling in love.”
To commemorate the dedication of the MU Student Center, SUPB cleared a space in the wall of the new building to place the capsule. Friday, students and alumni were able to swing by a table and leave their mark on a banner that will be placed inside the capsule.
“The Student Center is a place to celebrate the student experience,” Student and Auxiliary Services spokeswoman Elaina Frede said. “Students had a great deal of input in designing the building. They told us they wanted a building that reflected MU traditions. A time capsule just made sense to do this, to celebrate students as well as traditions.”
Traditions are the most defining aspect of being a Tiger in 2010, SUPB President Saskia Chaskelson said.
“These traditions have already been going on for so long, that I don’t think that they’re ever going to go away,” Chaskelson said. “My hope is that they come back and they look at it and see a lot of similarities.”
Frede said SUPB wanted a diverse scope of MU features included in the capsule, prompting it to reach out to student organizations for submissions. Items ranged from T-shirts to letters, amounting to a total of around 40 items for the entire capsule.
“It’s a neat time stamp of the Student Center and the campus,” Frede said. “It’s actually really a time stamp of the complete Mizzou experience.”
In addition to student organization submissions, the capsule includes a video the SUPB put together, detailing the current fashion and traditions of MU, Chaskelson said.
“Obviously, I feel like things like fashion will have changed, technology, those kind of things,” Chaskelson said. “A lot of what we were trying to show in the video is our traditions. We ended the video with us standing on top of the columns and we yell M-I-Z and we hope that they’ll finish it.”
The capsule will lie entombed in the outer walls of the Student Center for the next 50 years, sealed in by a cement block reading the year the capsule was planted.
“One of the great things about having the cover there is that we won’t forget about it,” Frede said. “We will have a constant reminder of what it means to be a Mizzou student in 2010. What a great opportunity for future students to celebrate traditions and common differences between generations.”
Both Frede and Chaskelson said they hope they can be present when the capsule is open in 2060.
“Hopefully I don’t have dementia in like 50 years,” Chaskelson said with a laugh. “I think it’s going to be cool if I can come back and personally see the changes and know that I took part in it.”