Sixty years ago, this paper began 

Picture this: it’s the fall of 1965, and you’re a student at the University of Toronto. The weather is good, it’s the first year of having the snazzy new red and white Maple Leaf flag, and Lester B. Pearson, the coolest guy ever named Lester, is the Prime Minister. All things considered, things aren’t terrible. Aside from the Leafs losing two straight to start the season, that is. Some things don’t change… 

As a student at Innis College, you’re walking across campus, when, out of the corner of your eye, you spot a stack of papers. This being the 1960s, you’ve got no music in your earbuds or videos to scroll on your corded phone, so the newspaper is a pretty good way to entertain yourself and keep yourself informed. You pick up a paper, open it, and a tear falls from your eye as you begin to consume some of the greatest writing accessible to mankind. A chorus of angels begins to sing… though on second thought, that might just be the Innis Choir.

That’s what I assume reading the Innis Herald, Volume One, Edition One, must have been like back then.

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V1E1 looks very different from the Heralds of the modern day. It has no real cover to speak of; rather, the title of the publication in big block letters overlooks the rest of the first page. Its first piece is a call to action, slamming the ICSS Executives for cutting programs, calling them MAs: “masters of apathy.” It’s a good piece of satire, funny and biting, although uncredited.

What follows is a list of the masthead members, headed by Cheryl Zimmerman as Editor, with a call for a permanent managing editor, “dead or alive.” It paints an interesting picture of Innis College in its second year of operation that echoes the descriptions in Innis’ official history. The Herald was raw, a little silly, and unruly, much like its namesake college. The ICSS president, John Bayly, notes in his article that the year beforehand, Innis, as a new college, had a 100% freshman student body. I shudder at the thought of such a state of affairs. In that article, he brings up the same issue from the first piece, talking about student involvement in college life being necessary to nurture the embers of Innis at such an unfinished point in its history.

This issue features every type of article under the sun. A piece proposing that the Vietnam War be fought using celery stalks to reduce harm by 87%. A story from a devoted anti-communist perspective by a man named Hart Broudy (potentially the most conservatively-named individual I have ever come across). I was taken aback when I realized that when Innisians were writing about “going to Robarts” in ‘65, they did not mean a walk to the library, but rather a march on the legislature to see Premier John P. Robarts, leader of Ontario and namesake of the concrete peacock. This article in particular focused on the idea of an accessible education and the competing ideas of schooling as a privilege versus a human right for Canadians. There is then the unfortunate truth of Innis’ collegiate sports teams using the title “Innis Indians,” a relic of the past best left behind in 1965, but worthy of acknowledging as part of the state of Canadian society at the time. There is satire of corporate consumption, public criticism of the Varsity, and a big push for women’s athletics. All together, a mixed bag that reflects the messy politics of the time, and the messy reality of the fledgling college (and its nubile newspaper) as it takes its first real steps. 

Sixty years later, things are certainly different here at the Herald. From our historical vantage point, it is clear that the ideas expressed by the Innisians of 1965 are universal ideas for U of T students today. Questions about campus apathy and student involvement, emotions about foreign wars and political extremism, and the presence of an overbearing figure called Robarts are just as present now as they were back then. However, acknowledging and understanding our roots as Innisians is valuable as we become further and further removed from our foundation as the all-freshman institution back in the 1960s. Remember where you came from, Innis, and remember: those first freshmen were not so different from you or me.