In this edition of #ElonTBT, we look back to 1996 when students, faculty and staff placed a 1989 time capsule in the walls of the Moseley Center. The time capsule is to be opened in 2089.
In the #ElonTBT series, the Elon University News Bureau, along with Archives & Special Collections, will flash back to the past to take a look at Elon over the years. You will find videos, newspaper clippings, photos and more to celebrate Elon’s past, while looking ahead to the future. Follow along on Today at Elon and the university’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages every Thursday to see what we dig up.
A lot can happen over a century. In the past 100 years at Elon, campus has been destroyed by a fire and rebuilt, been molded by the leadership of six presidents, and has grown to become a nationally ranked university. Who knows what stories the university will have to tell over the next 100 years?
In 1989 Elon students wanted to make sure their story would be told to future generations of Phoenix. The student organization Writers Bloc decided to leave behind a time capsule in celebration of Elon’s centennial, and on May 4, 1989, the community filled and sealed the custom-made copper time capsule but struggled to find a location to place it.
Still in search of a safe place to store these pieces of the university’s history seven years later, the Elon community found the perfect location in the newly dedicated Moseley Center. Students, faculty and staff placed the time capsule inside a second-floor wall of the new facility during a special ceremony on Oct. 24, 1996.
According to that day’s edition of The Pendulum student newspaper, the time capsule contains “a 1989 student calendar, several local publications as well as a copy of the campus newspaper, an academic catalog, the compact disc ‘Simple Minds,’ minted coins and a silver dollar from 1989.” Additionally, Rev. Richard McBride, university chaplain emeritus, said the capsule holds a piece of a historic tree known as “The Senior Oak” that once stood in front of Whitley Auditorium.
The time capsule still sits within that second-floor wall of the Moseley Center beneath the Elon seal and between the portraits of Elon’s first black full-time student, Glenda Phillips Hightower, and its first black graduate, Eugene Perry ’69. The capsule will remain closed until the year 2089.
At the 1996 ceremony, McBride explained that the time capsule would serve two purposes.
“This is a kind of moment like that, where the college is looking ahead to those who will come in the future, sending them our best wishes, pledging that we ourselves will – during the time that we are here – make of this place an honored institution,” McBride said. “And, we’re looking back to those who labored many years — great loyalty without very much money — and brought Elon along to the place that it is today, a flowering time in its life, a time of blossoming at the college after many years of hard labor and dedicated service of many peoples.”
Associate Vice President for University Advancement John Barnhill, who attended the 1996 ceremony, says the time capsule is a reminder of how far the university has come.
“It is hard to believe this much time has passed, and Elon has grown so much while continuing to be such a special place to so many people,” he said.
The ceremony also served as an early 100th birthday celebration for the late Philip Carret, who founded one of the first mutual funds in the United States in 1928. He also created the Philip L. Carret Thomas Jefferson Essay Competition, an endowed essay contest at Elon, after falling in love with the campus during a visit.
Carret helped place the time capsule in the wall of the Moseley Center, where it will continue to rest for another 70 years, waiting to give future members of the Elon community a glimpse into the university’s storied past.
Do you have any special pieces of Elon history? Share your photos and videos with us via email at news@elon.edu or using the hashtag #ElonTBT on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.