Prof. Robert Sibley – Started U of M ‘Singing on the Steps’
Prof. Sibley Accepts U Invitation to Homecoming – Founder of “Singing on the Steps”
Prof. Robert Sibley, Berkeley, Calif., Montana State University faculty member from 1903 to 1907 and founder of one of MSU’s oldest and best-known traditions, will return to the campus for the first time in many years as the honor guest at MSU’s 1955 Homecoming Oct. 7 and 8.
Homecoming officials reported Thursday that he has wired acceptance of invitations extended by William O. Dickinson, chairman of the 1905 class reunion dinner, for the Missoula homecoming committee, and by President Carl McFarland for the University.
Prof. Sibley taught engineering at the University for four years, coming here as a recent graduate of the University of California to take over the engineering department.
Soon after coming to the University, he founded the practice of “Singing-on-the-Steps,” an evening singing session for students and faculty on the grounds in front of Main Hall, a ceremony which always concludes with the singing of “Old College Chums,” for which Prof. Sibley wrote the words. The “SOS” gathering and the final song have been a symbol of the University for thousands of alumni during the past half century. Its most recent occurrence was Wednesday evening when new members of Bear Paw, service organization, were tapped.
Prof Sibley left Montana to become professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, and after four years there, entered a career which led to his being recognized as one of the outstanding authorities in the world on hydroelectric power.
In 1923 he was called back to the University of California to assist the school in its alumni program. At his retirement 27 years later he had built the California Alumni Assn. into an organization some four times larger than any similar group in existence, and had become the “elder statesman” of the American Alumni Council, whose membership includes all the major colleges and Universities in the nation.
In accepting the Homecoming invitation, Prof. Sibley said, “I think of my years with the University of Montana as one of the most enjoyable of my life.” He and Mrs. Sibley expect to arrive in Missoula Friday afternoon, Oct. 7, and Homecoming officials said they are hopeful that his sister, Frances, who is Mrs. M. H. Lorenz of Atlanta, Ga., will find it possible to be here for Homecoming as a 1905 graduate of the University.
The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on September 30, 1955
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