New KeyCards stir nostalgia

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by Mary Lisa Russell

Strangely enough, the advent of new state-of-the-art KeyCard IDs on campus stirred up a bit of nostalgia as faculty and staff stood in long lines in the University Student Union and waited for their new KeyCard picture IDs.

They compared old IDs - carried in wallets for who-knows-how-many years.

Dr. Joanne Schroll, professor of kinesiology since 1963, showed colleagues her first blue and white ID card from then-Fresno State College. Schroll's colleagues agreed she still looks much like the photo on her more-than-25-year-old FSC card.

"One of my most vivid memories of campus back then was when Thomas Administration Building was locked and chained with padlocks during a campus riot in the '60s," said Schroll. "I was in a committee meeting [inside] and I wondered who was protecting whom at the time. We had to call security to come get us out."

Schroll likes the four-color look of her new KeyCard ID, but is keeping her first one for "old times' sake."

Dr. Robert E. Lee, professor of geography, has been here since '64. "One memory that stands out about campus is when we [Geography] moved into the New Science Building in the fall of '76," recalled Lee. "It was so hot that September and there was no air conditioning. To top it off, the Dairy Barn was right next to us and they [the cows] shared the flies quite freely. We were all issued fly swatters and fans," he laughed.

Lee said the new KeyCard is nice, but his new photo doesn't look anything like him; his colleagues agreed. His old FSC ID sports a few pieces of tape, but, hey, what do you expect after thirty-something years!

Locksmith John Ford said over the last 32 years he has learned that prayer works - because he's used it a lot for situations on campus. "I've changed a few locks in my time," Ford said. "Over the years I've opened up desks that secretaries have locked their keys in, unlocked babies out of locked cars and crawled through the ceiling to get to a lock that was malfunctioning in the middle of the night."

Ford said that the new KeyCard looks great, but he hasn't had time to stand in line yet.

When he first came to Fresno State in '69, Henry Placenti was a student getting ready to jump into the computer age. So Placenti has worked his way from a student assistant in then-IMC to today's manager and computer consultant for the School of Education and Human Development.

"The clock tower on the card seems almost symbolic - sort of like we are keeping up with the times the 21st Century," said Placenti, who really loves the KeyCard ID and the technological benefits it brings.

Placenti recalled a particularly funny incident when he first arrived on campus. "Working at IMC nearly 26 years ago, I remember someone made a mistake on the paperwork and I switched a pretty explicit film, meant for a health science professor, and took it to an early childhood development class," said Placenti. "There were memos flying around campus for a year about that one."

From plain to attractive is how Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS) Project encoder Beverly Kirkland describes the new KeyCard ID. She said her new one looks much nicer than the plain white of her old Fresno State College ID.

A member of the staff since the '70s, Kirkland recalled an incident that happened while she was working on a weekend.

"It seems no one notified campus security that we would be in the building. Joyal Administration has those tiny slits for windows and an officer was looking through them," said Kirkland. "He had his gun drawn and we scared each other. He wasn't expecting to see us . . . and we weren't expecting to see him!"