[dropcap sid=”dropcap-1430756454″]A[/dropcap] college yearbook is a memory keeper of the people who touched our hearts and lives over the course of very important formative years. Whether yours is in mint condition or is filled with signatures, personalized sentiments, and wishes for a successful postgraduate future from friends and professors, we hope you cherish your Lexicon.
Yearbooks also create a unique archive for an institution, telling its history in timely, student-centric ways.
For all The Lexicon has done for Baruchians over its eight decades, we offer it and its dedicated staffers our lasting thanks with the brief tribute below.
[pullquote sid=”pullquote-1426103131″ type=”2″]Origin and Early Years[/pullquote]
The Lexicon owes its existence to the early spirit of camaraderie and independence at the downtown outpost of City College, today’s Baruch College. In the spring of 1934, students decided that their school, the School of Business and Civic Administration, merited a yearbook of its own. Prior to that, business students were included in Microcosm, the official yearbook of the Free Academy and then City College. Downtown students’ thinking reflected a new sense of identity: after all, they merited their own skyscraper on 23rd Street—today’s Field Building at 17 Lexington Avenue—and had already established their own newspaper, The Ticker. A separate yearbook seemed the logical next step.
Of course, this yearbook needed a name. And although students were given an opportunity to voice their opinions, the decision fell to an enthusiastic few, including Dorothy Stogel (’35), who first suggested “Lexicon.” The name seemed fitting because of the school’s location and one of the word’s meanings, a book of information on a particular subject. Generations of Baruchians should be eternally grateful that the other contenders—The Twenty-third Street Corner and The Commercial Chronicle—were not chosen!
The first yearbook—for the class of 1935—was simply designed, imitating a modern magazine layout, and already strived to balance its serious mission with a sense of fun. By the second year, the 1936 editors expressed their awareness that they had created something special and potentially permanent, inscribing, “THE LEXICON is both mortal and immortal. As an institution it is perpetual—perhaps eternal. Editors will come and go, but the constancy of the Lexicon remains an assured fact.”
For The Lexicons of the forties, the most significant influence was U.S. entry into World War II. In 1942–43, students debated whether to proceed with its production, the majority voting “yes,” even as many graduates headed off to war.
A year later, in 1943–44, war-depleted, resource-constrained yearbooks for uptown and downtown City College merged, publishing the only joint Microcosm-Lexicon. By 1945 The Lexicon was again independently produced but as a very slim volume. During this era, The Lexicon was considered so essential a memento that students off fighting the war still received a copy, given to their parents free of charge.
[pullquote sid=”pullquote-1426103131″ type=”2″]The Midcentury, a Turning Point[/pullquote]
With the growth of postwar college enrollments in the 1950s, publishing the yearbook became more labor intensive: Lexicon’s production cycle expanded to 18 months, and adhering to such time-honored traditions as individual senior portraits—more than 700 of them—was daunting. Highlights of the decade were the dedication of the 1954 issue to the school’s most illustrious alumnus, Bernard Baruch (class of 1889), and Lexicon’s 25th anniversary in 1959. To the anniversary editors, the yearbook still charted “aspirations to a better world.” Heady sentiments indeed.
Changes were to come in the 1960s, when increasing student apathy presented the biggest threat to The Lexicon’s survival. Student unease also found its way into the yearbook’s pages. The class of 1965, for example, characterized itself in poetry as “Born into a time of turmoil but not part of it, / Born into a time of ‘give ‘em hell- Harry,’ / And ‘I Like Ike.’ / Oft read about, but unremembered.” Controversy and open dissatisfaction with The Lexicon also plagued the mid-sixties’ issues. Not even the new status of the school in 1968 as a senior college, Baruch College/CUNY, buoyed students’ outlook.
[pullquote sid=”pullquote-1426103131″ type=”2″]Revolution and Renewal: The Seventies and Eighties[/pullquote]
Dissatisfaction manifested itself in radical departures and experimentation in the 1970s Lexicons. In 1971 the most unusual yearbook ever was created around the theme “Changes,” intending to offer “a multi-media phenomenon” of brochures, games, artworks, photographs, and plastic records. Explaining their creation, its editors described themselves as striking a blow against “traditional institutions,” which the yearbook symbolized. Customer disapproval was expected, and the editors challenged seniors with, “If you don’t like what we did, take a scissor and do it yourself. It’s your schoolbook.” Perhaps not unexpectedly, yearbook production was plagued with delays in the seventies. Two issues—for 1978 and 1979—had to be combined. Was The Lexicon becoming less relevant?
Changes were afoot in 1978 with the arrival of Carl Aylman, Baruch’s new director of student activities. One of his first assignments was to work with the Lexicon staff. Aylman’s dedication greatly impacted the 1980s issues, but even his help could not prevent delays or the non-issuance of the yearbook in 1990. Aylman, who is shown left wearing a tie surrounded by the 1981 student staff, would work with Lexicon students for three decades.
[pullquote sid=”pullquote-1426103131″ type=”2″]Problems and Solutions: The Nineties Through Today[/pullquote]
The Lexicon reappeared in 1991. Nineties yearbooks were notable for changes in production: staffers now relied on computers and state-of-the-art software. Notwithstanding these advances, combined yearbooks were issued for 1995–96 and 1998–99 and by the end of the decade, publication ceased again.
But better times and renewed student commitment were around the corner. The Lexicon reappeared in 2002 and, by the mid-2000s, was back on solid ground—with greater support from the College. Full color came to the pages of Lexicon in 2003. Fast forward to 2015, the yearbook has the theme “Transcendence” and is scheduled to deliver in mid-May.
On The Lexicon Tradition: Editor-in-Chief for 2015, Michael Lai
“It is challenging, yet worthwhile, to be able to lead a project with such a rich history,” says the 2015 editor-in-chief of the Baruch College yearbook. Lai and his team—his “Lexicrew”—pride themselves on having produced a yearbook “to help the graduating class carry their memories with them” long beyond Commencement Day.
Lexicon’s 80th anniversary editor acknowledges the newest obstacles facing a traditional print yearbook, the digital age. “A student may find a yearbook irrelevant because our generation can easily take photos on their phones and share their memories on social media sites like Facebook,” he explains. “But who can know for sure if Facebook will still be around—if not popular—in the future? A physical yearbook has tangible and sentimental value. It is something that you can pass down and share with future generations, telling them the stories behind each photo and autograph.”
[pullquote sid=”pullquote-1426103131″ type=”2″]In Conclusion . . . for Now[/pullquote]
[dropcap sid=”dropcap-1430761185″]O[/dropcap]VER ITS LONG EXISTENCE, Lexicon has meant different things to different generations. We’re happy to report that it is still going strong. Pull out your copy, get lost in its pages of forever-young students, and share your Lexicon memories with us!
CALLING ALL LEXICON ALUMNI:
Share your memories with the College and your fellow Baruchians here or by e-mailing [email protected]. We want to hear from you!
The above article was based on an essay and original research by Alex Gelfand (’06) and appeared in a different format in the print magazine.