WWI, 100 years later: Widener slates symposium
CHESTER >> With ceremonies set around the world to mark 100 years since the World War I came to a close on the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month,” Widener University invites the public to a daylong symposium Friday to learn about the Great War.
University faculty and guests from the Army Education and Heritage Center will cover the rationale, impact and legacy of the war, and the connection of Widener’s predecessor institution, Pennsylvania Military College, to it. It will coincide with the university’s annual Veterans Day ceremony, presented by its U.S. Army ROTC cadets.
“We didn’t set out to create this big event,” said Ron Romanowicz, Class of 1968, chairman of the Pennsylvania Military College Committee and member of the symposium committee. “(It’s growth) was kind of organic.”
With close to 300 PMC alumni participating in the war effort, Romanowicz contacted university Department of History Chair Rachel Batch, Ph.D., and university Office of the President Chief of Staff Katie Herschede, Ed.D., about marking the centennial on campus. “They said ‘this is a natural,” said Romanowicz, “the committee was formed and off we went.”
The event’s scope began to grow on a recommendation from Romanowicz’s 1968 classmate Col. Tom Vossler, U.S. Army (Ret.).
“Because of (Vossler’s) association with the Army Education and Heritage Center, he recommended that we should talk to them about the posters (traveling exhibit)… and we were able to get two very good speakers be part of the program.”
The symposium will feature more than a dozen replicas of posters created by Wilson administration’s Committee on Public Information during the war to boost public morale and Liberty bond purchases.
Running from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m., the event opens with a trio of speakers: Widener University Scholar-in-Residence Sahr Conway-Lanz, Ph. D., on “Woodrow Wilson Chooses War;” Widener University Assistant Professor of History Richard Hopkins, Ph.D., on “Voilà les Américains: The Experience of the Franco-American Alliance in WWI;” and Molly Bompane, Curator of Arms and Ordnance at the Army Heritage Museum, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, “The PostWWI U.S. Occupation of the Rhineland.”
The university’s annual Veterans Day ceremony is then held at 11:30 with speaker General John H. Tilelli Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.) Class of ‘63, ‘96H.
The final speaker for the symposium is Jim McNally, Curator of Military Art at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, on “Inspiring a Nation: The Poster Art of World War I” at 1 p.m., followed by a closing reception at 2 in the Pennsylvania Military College Museum with a its “World War I: The War to End All Wars” exhibit on display.
The event is free and open to the public. Attendees are asked to register; for registration and event details, visit www.widener. edu/news-events/ww1 or call 610-499-1154.