We met during Freshman Orientation at John Jay and now we’re married

A couple weeks ago at a Columbia game, I ran into Sharon and Kevin Chapman while taking pictures of fans.

We began chatting and they told me that they had met at Columbia. Their son, Ross, is now a student and part of the marching band.

I interviewed Sharon and Kevin to see what romance and life at Columbia was like in the early 80s.

Let’s start with some background information.

Sharon: I was born in Manhattan, grew up on Long Island. Kevin was born in Port Angeles, Washington. I’m Barnard ’83, and he’s Columbia ’83. I was a psychology major and Kevin was an English major.

How did you and your husband meet?

Sharon: At Freshman orientation in the John Jay cafeteria. We were chatting and he was talking about needing a cork board for his dorm room. He was at a dorm that doesn’t exist anymore which is called Eli White which was nurses’ housing from Roosevelt Hospital. I was living in 616, so long story short, there was a Papyrus store on 116th so I told him, “I know where you can find a cork board.” We walked over there, we chatted and then we saw each other at a few other orientation activities. Pretty much by the end of orientation we started coupling off. We got married not long after graduation.

Have you heard of the Alma Mater owl legend? Was your husband the first of his class to see it?

Sharon: I know Kevin can say better than I can. I know it’s about finding the owl in the skirt. I know how to find the owl in the skirt but I forgot what that’s supposed to get you.

The legend goes that if a Columbia student is the first of his class to find the owl, then he is to marry a Barnard girl. I was wondering if maybe that happened to your you and husband.

Sharon: No, he wouldn’t have known that at the time but Ross is actually third generation because my parents are also Columbia and Barnard. I think they met at a frat party. My dad was two years ahead of my mom. He was Columbia class of ’56. My mom was class of ’58.

It was during her freshman year at some frat party. I don’t remember which one. Neither were in a frat but they were just attending the same party.

My mom and he weren’t exclusively dating at first but they were married before my mother graduated. They were married in August of ’57 and my mom graduated in ’58 so for her senior year they were married.

What were Columbia and Barnard like back then? Have there been any major changes? Are any of the bars and restaurants that you used to go to around?

Sharon: I mean we were broke students so there wasn’t a lot of going out. There were more movies available at cheaper prices and there was the Olympia Theater down at 109th street. We saw a lot of movies in the day. Broadway shows would have the occasional mark down for student tickets so we did tend to see a lot of shows. [chuckles] We really just studied a lot.

Tom’s Diner has always been around. Those were in the pre-Seinfeld days. It’s always kind of comforting to go back and be able to get an egg cream. That place has always looked the same.

The West End has turned over a couple of times since but that was always a fun place to go for a meal with jazz in the evenings. Hungarian Pastry and V&Ts are still the same. They’ve been around forever.

Kevin: The West End, that was the big place. It was great. It was really informal and loud and boisterous and happy. Of course the drinking age was 18 back then and you could go in and get a pitcher of beer and a burger and hang out. You could also go down to Riverside Park to hang out or the gym.

The student center had a lot of places to hang out. There also was the Crypt. Does the Crypt still exist? It was a spot under St Paul’s chapel. That was a nice place on Friday or Saturday nights. They’d bring in musical groups down there and we’d go and hang out and I think they served drinks. I don’t remember exactly.

Then of course there’s the steps of Low Library. I spent a lot of time recently thinking about those days. I just finished writing a novel where the characters are Columbia students from that era. It was a lot of fun reliving those days and thinking about the places that you went and where the buildings were relative to one another and what they were called back then.

What is the name of your book?

Kevin: A Legacy of One. It’s on Amazon and has a picture of Low Library on the cover that Sharon took.

(Click here to check out A Legacy of One on Kindle.)

Were you involved in any clubs/campus activities?

Sharon: We both wrote for the Columbia-Barnard Course Guide. Back before you had class evaluations at the end of the semester like you do now, it was less formal in our day. You actually had a printed book so we would rely on the teachers to cooperate on handing these out. I’m sure the school must have also encouraged it. We would evaluate these things class-by-class, based on what people filled out and we would write evaluations of the courses. It was a big issue for things like Lit Hum and CC where you have so many sections so it would make a huge difference which instructor you guys had. Again, there was no internet to check it out on so Course Guide was one of the few ways to get a feel for the classes ahead of time.

These were the days that if you wanted to take CC or Lit Hum, you had to line up and you had these computer cards. They were old-fashioned, punched out computer card things. You had to stand in line and wait for the section you want and hope it hadn’t closed down so people would sleep on the sidewalk the night before to get into sections they wanted.

In fact, that’s how I ended up taking Art Humanities because Kevin and a couple of friends wanted a particular CC section. They were going to spend the night on the sidewalk. I was hanging out with them and it got to the point where I didn’t feel like walking back to my dorm by myself so I stayed around. After spending the whole night I thought, “Well I might as well sign up for something.” So I took Art Hum.

Do you have any advice for Columbia students?

Kevin: I’m the regional chairperson for the Arc here in central Jersey. I interview 20-25 high school seniors every year as they’re applying to Columbia.

As far as advice to students once they’ve been admitted is: don’t overextend yourself in the first year because I made that mistake. I was involved in lots of activities and it was my first year in New York an I didn’t have enough time for studying as it turned out. One of the first things I tell people is take it easy, you don’t have to do every activity right away. You can pace yourself. Get a semester under your belt first, and then you’ll get a better idea of how much time you really need for your classes and readings.

The other thing is just enjoy New York. Don’t spend four years in New York and not fully enjoy being in New York because it’s so wonderful and there are so many things to do. Once four years are over, you look back and say, “I wish I would have done that.” Well, you should have. Get on the subway, go down to the village, go to Brooklyn, go to the museums, go to central park, you know, go out and do all of those wonderful things—most of which are free.

@royaventurera