The 'complete' history of Hinman College

Finding myself in the proverbial history book written about my residential college.

The Complete History of Hinman College.pdf

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“People and memories are associated with the events that occurred in Hinman. It feels empty when I return because I don’t recognize anyone. It was the people who I was with at the time that made it a special place.”

Peter Lorenzi, Class of 1973 (BS), 1975 (MBA)

About fifteen years ago, an industrious undergraduate at Binghamton University (ne SUNY Binghamton), Brent Gotsch, perhaps in the process of writing a unique senior thesis, chose to attempt a 'complete' history of my -- and probably his -- former residential college at the university, namely Hinman College. In that effort, he found his way to me, through a eries of phone calls and emails, and he let me know that he had been referred to me by Bob Giomi, one of Hinman's founding fathers, to be a source of knowledge about that history. It was a proverbial, "I was there," and a chance for me to help write history with my recollections.

Yes, it was one helluva sentimental journey and I was surprised and flattered to read just how much of my name and story ended up in the final story, over 600 pages. In mid-October 2007, I attended a fortieth anniversary reunion for Hinman, on campus, with a few of my brethren from those times, including Bob Giomi.

This was before iPhones and sharp images, but I am sure that I will never forget elements of that weekend. And, back to the original subject, the weekend reaffirmed the positive memories of my time at Hinman (September 1969 to May 1974). College was wholly unlike the campus experience today. We were alert and engaged, yet never woke and often naive. We had a good time and I "never let school interfere with having a good time," a philosophy that worked primarily because I wasted little time and either worked on school or engaged in campus life, without much sleep and little wasted time.

The following are excerpts from the late pages of the lengthy PDF, slightly edited versions of the text as produced by Gotsch from our exchanges. I can't help but smile when I read them and wallow a bit in the feelings they produce in my aging, sentimental head.

Hinman Halitosis: The army years of the college 'newspaper'

Following Bob Giomi, Pete Lorenzi was perhaps the most influential of the editorial staff in the history of the Hinman Halitosis. Under his guidance, the readership of Halitosis grew, and it became known as the paper that everyone who lived in Hinman had to read. Although Pete had been a Hinman mainstay for many years, even he too had to graduate and move on. Pete Lorenzi, the “bad boy” of Hinman College, eventually went to get his PhD from Penn State and currently teaches business at Loyola College in Maryland.

The responsibility of managing the day-to-day operations of the Hinman Halitosis following the departure of Pete Lorenzi fell to onto the shoulders of Barbara Shrager, who became the new editor-in-chief. Barbara continued in the tradition of Pete Lorenzi, organizing the paper and laying it out every Wednesday night and spending hours breathing in the sweet fumes of the mimeograph machine every week. Under her leadership, contributions to the paper increased, as did the size of the regular staff.

Halitosis under the guidance of Pete Lorenzi and Barbara Shrager helped to lay the foundation for the newspaper thatHalitosis was to become. For the next few years, Halitosis grew by leaps and bounds, eventually running eight pages or more.

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Streaking—The Right Way: A Memory of Pete Lorenzi Throughout the 1960’s and into the 1970’s, the act of streaking swept the nation, and nowhere was it more prevalent than on college campuses. SUNY Binghamton and Hinman College were no exception to this fad. Pete Lorenzi, perhaps best known as the Editor-in-Chief of the Hinman Halitosis, remembers one of his experiences with streaking. It was a warm spring day in 1973 when he and his friend and fellow Hinmanite Steve Fialkoff decided to go to the pub. They did this around 4:00 p.m. with the intention of having a few drinks, going to the dining hall to get dinner, then to go back out again. Steve lived in Roosevelt Hall at the time and on their way back to the building their conversation turned to streaking. Both Pete and Steve agreed that people didn’t streak right. Streaking occurred often on campus, but it would usually be late at night and rarely was it ever fully in public. Both Steve and Pete came to the agreement that if you were going to go streaking you had to do it right—that is, in broad daylight in front of a large group of people. It was then and there, on the doorstep of Roosevelt Hall that Pete and Steve decided that they were going to go streaking and that they were going to do it right. Both Pete and Steve stripped down so that they were wearing nothing but tennis shoes and took off into Hinman College. They ran down the hill into the Hinman Dining Hall at peak dinner hours through all three sections and then back up the hill into Roosevelt Hall. When they got back to Roosevelt, they put their clothes back on and then proceeded to return to the dining hall to get dinner. As soon as they walked into the dining hall people stood up and clapped for them, many offering them high fives. Of the many memories of his time in Hinman, Pete Lorenzi (the so- called “bad boy” of Hinman) recalls this as his favorite