» About Northwest » Dates
| Day | Year | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Dec. 1 | 1944 | Fire exits to the Administration Building auditorium were under construction. |
| Dec. 1 | 1945 | Dr. J.W. Jones, the dean of faculty, assumed the role as Northwest's sixth president. |
| Dec. 2 | 2015 | Gov. Jay Nixon visited Northwest to announce the University would receive more than $6.8 million for campus improvements through the state's Building Affordability initiative to support public colleges and universities. The University invested the funds in needed electrical system repairs at the B.D. Owens Library, Everett Brown Education Hall, Martindale Hall, the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building and the Jon T. Rickman Electronic Campus Support Center in addition to replacing all windows at the Administration Building, Brown Hall, Colden Hall and the Thomas Gaunt House. |
| Dec. 3 | 1979 | Presidents of the Faculty Dames, Sigma Tau Gamma and the Inter-Residence Hall Council presented Northwest President B.D. Owens with a check totaling $8,279.79 from a series of fundraisers to assist the University with restoring the Administration Building after the devastating July fire. |
| Dec. 3 | 1984 | The Mary Linn Performing Arts Center, which is known today as the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts, opened with a concert by the Kansas City Symphony. Joe Linn, husband of the late Mary Linn, provided a donation of $250,000 to complete the center. |
| Dec. 3 | 2009 | More than 150 people gathered on the lawn of the Thomas Gaunt House for the first holiday tree-lighting ceremony hosted by the Jasinski family. |
| Dec. 3 | 2019 | The Northwest community gathered around the Memorial Bell Tower for the annual Holiday Tree Lighting, which was reformatted as a celebration of diversity. The Northwest tradition had previously taken place at the Gaunt House. |
| Dec. 4 | 1959 | The first basketball game was played in Lamkin Gymnasium, now known as Bearcat Arena. |
| Dec. 4 | 1984 | Dr. Dean Hubbard was inaugurated as the University’s ninth president in the new Mary Linn Performing Arts Center. The facility was dedicated in concurrence with the inauguration, and Hubbard unveiled a plaque with a picture of Mary Linn, a member of the Board of Regents from 1975 to 1981. The facility has since been expanded and is known today as the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts. |
| Dec. 4 | 1995 | Maya Angelou, an internationally known poet and the White House poet for the Clinton administration, performed for a sold-out audience at the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts. |
| Dec. 4 | 2008 | President Hubbard was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy degree from the University of Gloucestershire in England while attending its annual commencement ceremonies. Hubbard was lauded for "his work and achievements in university education" and "enhancing student achievement through university-wide process improvement." |
| Dec. 5 | 2004 | After an exhaustive restoration, the Memorial Bell Tower was rededicated with a ceremony honoring former President Dr. Robert Foster and Everett Brown, who was an assistant to Foster when the Bell Tower was envisioned and constructed. |
| Dec. 5 | 2012 | During an impromptu ceremony outside the president’s office, Northwest awarded a Bachelor of Science degree to Bryce Webb, a member of the U.S. Navy who was being deployed to Afghanistan the next day. |
| Dec. 5 | 2012 | Students in Jacquie Lamer's advanced advertising strategies course pitched their rebranding campaigns for the Mozingo Lake Recreation Park to city of Maryville leaders as the culmination of a semester-long project in partnership with the city. The concepts adopted by the city included a new logo highlighting the recreation area’s tall grasses. |
| Dec. 5 | 2014 | Country duo Dan + Shay performed at the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts for the Student Activities Council's fall concert. |
| Dec. 6 | 2010 | U.S. gymnast and Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson presented a lecture to a packed auditorium in the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts. |
| Dec. 7 | 1967 | The Tower Choir and College Chorus, directed by Byron Mitchell, performed a concert with the Kansas City Philharmonic Orchestra. |
| Dec. 7 | 2018 | The Hughes Fieldhouse, which opened in October, hosted its first major event, the two-day Mel Tjeerdsma Classic indoor track and field meet. |
| Dec. 8 | 1941 | A special assembly occurred to hear a broadcast of President Roosevelt's speech to Congress, during which he asked for a declaration of war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. |
| Dec. 8 | 1945 | The first formal dance takes place at the College since the beginning of World War II. |
| Dec. 8 | 1948 | The Scholarship Supremacy Cup is awarded for the first time and is won by Sigma Sigma Sigma. |
| Dec. 9 | 1912 | President H.K. Taylor recommended opening a drive from the entrance to the school grounds on Fourth Street to run north to intersect Seventh Street; the Board of Regents approved a bill of $1,475 for repairs to a smokestack damaged by lightning. |
| Dec. 9 | 1919 | The Board of Regents voted to keep the college in session despite a coal shortage and ordered the school day to begin at 12:30 p.m. and close at 4:30 p.m. with no evening activities. |
| Dec. 10 | 2007 | A catastrophic ice storm struck Maryville, destroying about 100 trees on the campus in addition to downing power lines and leaving thousands of residents without electrical power. |
| Dec. 11 | 1906 | The Board of Regents approved plans by J.H. Felt & Co., Architects, of Kansas City, for construction of the Academic Hall, which is known today as the Administration Building, and future development of the campus. |
| Dec. 11 | 1922 | Kappa Omicron Phi, an honorary home economics fraternity, was founded on the campus by Miss Hettie M. Anthony, the head of the home economics department. |
| Dec. 11 | 1999 | The Northwest football team won its second NCAA Division II National Championship by defeating Carson-Newman, 58-52, in four overtimes. |
| Dec. 12 | 1941 | 100 percent of the College's faculty and students purchased Defense Stamps as the U.S. entered World War II. |
| Dec. 12 | 1947 | President J.W. Jones was injured in an automobile accident and suffered broken ribs and bruising. |
| Dec. 12 | 1998 | The Bearcat football team won its first NCAA Division II National Championship, defeating Carson-Newman, 24-6, in Florence, Alabama. |
| Dec. 12 | 2008 | Jennifer Becker, a biology and psychology major, was the first to graduate from Northwest's Honors Program, which was launched in 2005 for gifted and highly motivated students. |
| Dec. 12 | 2009 | The Bearcat football team defeated Grand Valley State University, 30-23, to win its third NCAA Division II National Championship in Florence, Alabama; the game was Northwest's fifth consecutive appearance in the national championship game. |
| Dec. 13 | 1938 | The Nu chapter of the Phi Sigma Epsilon fraternity was installed on campus. |
| Dec. 13 | 1952 | The first all-school formal dance took place in the Student Union building. |
| Dec. 13 | 1953 | The 20th anniversary of the "Hanging of the Greens" took place at Residence Hall. |
| Dec. 13 | 2013 | During its winter commencement ceremony, Northwest bestowed the honorary degree of Doctor of Pedagogy on John Gardner, the founder of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education and an inspirational friend of the University. |
| Dec. 13 | 2019 | Karie Ogle, a nurse at Maryville High School, became the first to graduate from Northwest’s RN-BSN program after it was relaunched in 2017 as an online nursing degree program. |
| Dec. 14 | 1926 | An explosion in the chemistry department laboratory caused $10,000 in damage. |
| Dec. 14 | 1944 | A drive for the Sixth War Loan opened with a goal to raise $2,500 from the College; by Jan. 15, $20,672.20 had been raised. |
| Dec. 14 | 1947 | The first student from England, Hilda Jolly, enrolled. |
| Dec. 14 | 1963 | Jazz legend Louis Armstrong appeared at the annual Christmas Ball in Lamkin Gym. Tickets were $1.50 per person. |
| Dec. 15 | 1916 | The Glee Club presented Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance." |
| Dec. 15 | 1943 | "Photostat Junior," a photographic copying machine, was added to the equipment for the registrar's office. |
| Dec. 15 | 1954 | "Everybody who likes to sing" was invited to join in carol singing in front of the Administration Building auditorium in the second-floor corridor for 15 minutes before the meeting of afternoon classes. |
| Dec. 15 | 1958 | Faculty voted against a proposal to establish faculty rankings -- a vote that President J.W. Jones disapproved, leading to his formation of a Faculty Rank Committee, the first of its kind at Northwest. |
| Dec. 16 | 1988 | Ryland Milner, who captained the Bearcat football and basketball teams to conference championships as a player in 1932-33 and later coached the teams to conference championships, was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. |
| Dec. 17 | 1908 | Faculty learned they would not receive salaries because state funds were depleted. |
| Dec. 17 | 1933 | "The Hanging of the Greens" at Residence Hall, a custom observed each Christmas season, was started by Miss Margaret Stephenson. |
| Dec. 17 | 1944 | Residence Hall was still occupied by the Navy men, but the college women returned for the traditional Hanging of the Greens. |
| Dec. 17 | 1956 | During the annual Hanging of the Greens ceremony, Sue Wright, who became the wife of future Northwest President B.D. Owens and thus a future first lady, was the senior student honored as the "Spirit of Christmas." |
| Dec. 17 | 2004 | Northwest adopts a new logo identity. |
| Dec. 17 | 2010 | Northwest head football coach Mel Tjeerdsma, one of the most successful coaches in the history of college football, is inducted into the Division II Football Hall of Fame. |
| Dec. 17 | 2016 | The Northwest football team won the NCAA Division II national championship, beating North Alabama 29-3 during a snowstorm at Children's Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. The Bearcats went 15-0 for the second consecutive season and their second consecutive national title. The sixth title in program history, it gave Northwest the record for most Division II football national championships. |
| Dec. 18 | ||
| Dec. 19 | 1943 | The traditional Hanging of the Greens took place at the home of President and Mrs. Jones, because Residence Hall had been given over to the Navy for housing men. |
| Dec. 19 | 2015 | The Northwest football team beat Shepherd University, 34-7, to win its fifth NCAA Division II national championship. A record-setting crowd of 16,181 fans attended to see the Bearcats make their first title game appearance at Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kansas. |
| Dec. 19 | 2016 | Northwest formally announced Rich Wright, a former graduate assistant and member of the coaching staff since 2004, as the 20th head coach of Bearcat football. Two days after the Bearcats won their sixth national championship, Wright took over for Adam Dorrel, who resigned to accept a head coaching position at another school. |
| Dec. 20 | 1995 | Northwest student Mercedes Ramirez was one of just four survivors of American Airlines Flight 965 when it crashed into the side of the Andes Mountains in Colombia. Ramirez and her parents, who did not survive, were aboard the jetliner, heading to Colombia for the holidays. |
| Dec. 21 | 2013 | The Northwest football team won its fourth NCAA Division II National Championship with a 43-28 victory over Lenoir-Rhyne in the last Division II football championship game played in Florence, Alabama. |
| Dec. 24 | 1918 | Students finished their fall term, having attended classes on Saturdays to make up for lost time resulting from a campus closure that fall during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. |
| Dec. 25 | 1919 | The staffs of the College paper sent gifts for "Christmas cheer to war-stricken children of France." |
| Dec. 29 | 2010 | Legendary football coach Mel Tjeerdsma announced his retirement after 17 seasons of leading the Bearcats. |
| Dec. 31 | 2010 | Northwest announced that defensive coordinator Scott Bostwick would succeed Mel Tjeerdsma as head football coach. |
