Nine decades ago, the women studying home economics at Syracuse University would perch on the Slocum Hall steps at lunchtime — waiting to flirt with the men downstairs.

Those women, students in what is now known as the College of Human Ecology, shared Slocum Hall with the male agriculture, architecture and business students.

Today the steps outside Slocum Hall are gone, and the College of Human Ecology has classrooms and offices dispersed in eight campus buildings, including Lyman and Sims halls, and buildings on Euclid and Ostrom avenues.

‘It has certainly changed,’ said Sarah Short, a nutrition science and dietetics professor and graduate of the College of Home Economics — one of the former names of the College of Human Ecology.

Changes for the ever-evolving college continue. Two weeks ago, David and Rhonda Falk, 1972 and 1974 graduates, respectively, promised a $15 million donation to SU to help the college centralize in one location. The gift will also officially change the name of the college to the David B. Falk College for Sport and Human Dynamics on July 1.

Along with the new name, two new buildings, new master’s programs and heavier recruitment of female and international students are all changes in store for the College of Human Ecology.

Humble beginnings

The study of human ecology at SU dates back to 1917, when courses in the School of Home Economics were offered through the College of Agriculture. The few courses in cooking, sewing and nutrition studies were mostly taken by female students, said Short, the nutrition science and dietetics professor.

‘There weren’t any men in home economics,’ Short said.

The School of Home Economics evolved into its own college, the College of Home Economics, in 1921.

The first male student enrolled in 1940 after the college expanded its focus beyond cooking and sewing to nutrition, food science, dress design, household technology, child care and many other areas of study, Short said.

The college’s early focus on home economics mirrors the histories of other universities with human ecology schools.

Cornell University offered three courses related to home life in 1903 and established the Department of Home Economics in 1907, housed in its College of Agriculture, said John McKain, assistant dean of communications of Cornell’s College of Human Ecology.

The courses were originally offered after a letter-writing campaign of farmers’ wives revealed that women wanted help with everyday household activities, specifically with making household chores faster and more efficient, McKain said. But over time, the courses started to gain more of an academic focus, and the Department of Home Economics evolved into the College of Human Ecology.

‘Research was a key factor,’ McKain said. ‘There were highly technical fields rooted in home economics, and by 1968 it had become its own college.’

At SU, the college’s original name changed to the College for Human Development in 1971, Short said. Then the name changed again in 2001 to the College of Human Services and Health Professions, and again in 2008 to the College of Human Ecology. The official change in July will mark the college’s fifth name change and the third in the past 10 years.

The college is home to six majors: child and family studies, public health, marriage and family therapy, nutrition science and dietetics, social work and sport management. Last May, the college announced the hospitality management major would no longer be offered to incoming students.

David Essel, who graduated from SU’s College for Human Development in 1979, helped create one of the majors when he was a student. An aspect he liked most about SU is that the professors worked with him to choose his own educational path, he said.

‘One of my professors, Dr. Shantzis, saw that I was struggling,’ Essel said. ‘He knew I was into health and fitness and sports, but at that time there was no degree that even remotely involved those things except education.’

Together, they devised a new degree called health selected studies. This major was designed for students who didn’t want to go down the education path, but still had a passion for health studies and teaching, he said. The degree has since evolved into the health and wellness program.

Essel works as a life coach and has written five books, and he said he owes his success to his SU experience.

‘It made the biggest difference in the world,’ Essel said. ‘Sometimes the best opportunities in life are the ones that don’t work out, but everything I touched upon groomed me, so when I went for my master’s, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.’

Changing times

Next May, the college’s new name — the David B. Falk College for Sport and Human Dynamics — will appear on the diplomas of students, said Michele Barrett, communications manager for the college.

The school’s new namesake, Falk, is a sports agent who has influenced his field for more than 30 years. As recognition for his continued support of the sport management program at SU, the new college name is just one part of an ongoing process of changes there, said Michael Veley, chair of the sport management department.

‘From a branding point of view, Mr. Falk has made his legacy in the sports industry,’ Veley said. ‘So when you talk about human dynamics, it encompasses everything that the college does very nicely.’

Diane Lyden Murphy, dean of the College of Human Ecology, declined to comment for this article.

In April 2008, the Falks donated $5 million to establish the David B. Falk Center for Sport Management, which endows a faculty position and funds a lecture series, among other purposes.

Veley said he hopes having ‘sport’ in the new name will not only help with recruitment efforts, but also make it a nationally recognized program.

The college also expects to continue a trend of increased application numbers, said Barrett, the communications manager for the college. This year there has been a 7.5 percent increase in undergraduate applications and a 21.8 percent increase in graduate applications, she said.

The college expects much of its future growth to come from graduate students, Veley said. A new interdisciplinary master’s program — called sport venue and event management — is in the works, he said. The College of Human Ecology is pulling expertise from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and the School of Information Studies to create the graduate program.

Veley also said he would like to see more diversification in the future, specifically in the sport management department. Right now, the program is 79 percent male and 21 percent female, according to the department’s website. The current ratio for the college as a whole is two female students to each male student, according to SU’s enrollment database.

‘We hope that the new program offerings will appeal to more females and international students,’ Veley said. ‘There is a huge upside for women in sports, and we’d like to break down some of those traditional barriers.’

The college is also developing an executive education program in Budapest, Hungary, set to begin in September, Barrett said. The college is creating the program to focus on understanding effective drug policies in both the United States and Europe. Dessa Bergen-Cico, an assistant professor in the College of Human Ecology, will run the program, Barrett said.

The college will undergo another change when it centralizes into one building rather than eight separate locations. The college will move to White and MacNaughton halls, the law school’s current location, after the College of Law moves into Dineen Hall in a few years.

Being able to have a building for the whole college is a major benefit, said Josh Berman, a freshman social work major. Having a unified building will bring sense of ‘togetherness,’ he said.

But he expressed some concern about the name change. When he first heard it would be changed, he said he didn’t think much of it.

‘I was a little disappointed that the name was going to be changed because the largest amount of programs in the college are all human-based programs,’ Berman said. 

Still, he said including Falk’s name in the new title will benefit the college and increase admissions.

‘Before we weren’t really associated with anyone in particular,’ Berman said. ‘It’s more than just cool, it’s important. It gives us a reputation and a level of importance.’

hawentz@syr.edu

Published on April 6, 2011 at 12:00 pm