LEBANON PA TO DR. GEO. LESLIE OMWOKE  URSINUS COLLEGE  COLLEGEVILLE PA   MAY 1910

PROFESSOR OMWOKE WOULD BE PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE, 1912-36.


(1c McKINLEY POSTAL CARD)


CONTENT:
J. CALVIN FISHER WISHES DR. OMWOKE TO SEND INVITATIONS FOR A COMMENCEMENT
TO THREE RELIGIOUS MEN WHO WERE STUDENTS AT FREELAND SEMINARY.
ALSO AN INVITATION TO A PROSPECTIVE SOPHMORE.



J. D. SALINGER ATTENDED URSINUS COLLEGE IN 1938.  LEFT AFTER A SEMESTER.  (SEE BELOW)

 A TRAIN SCENE IN :"CATCHER IN THE RYE" IS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY HIS RIDE HOME
 TO NEW YORK CITY WHEN LEAVING THE COLLEGE.







Ursinus College is a private liberal arts college in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, United States.[7] It was founded in 1869 and occupies a 170-acre (0.69 km2) campus.[7] Ursinus College's forerunner was the Freeland Seminary founded in 1848.[8] It enrolls about 1,500 undergraduate students.[3]

In 1867, members of the German Reformed Church began plans to establish a Christian college. The founders hoped to establish an alternative to the seminary at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania (the present-day Lancaster Theological Seminary), a school they believed was increasingly heretical to traditional Reformed faith

Two years later, the college was granted a charter by the Legislature of Pennsylvania to begin operations on the grounds of Todd's School (founded 1832) and the adjacent Freeland Seminary (founded 1848). John Bomberger served as the college's first president from 1869 until his death in 1890.Bomberger proposed naming the college after Zacharias Ursinus, a 16th-century German theologian and a figure in the Protestant Reformation.

In 1870, instruction began at the college in September;[9]: 13  on October 4, the Zwinglian Literary Society was founded.[9]: 35–36  For many years the annual opening meetings of "Zwing" and its rival society, Schaff, were the major events of the student year.[9]: 35–36 

Women were first admitted in 1881,[10] as a direct consequence of the closing of the Pennsylvania Female College in 1880.[9]: 32  A separate literary society for women, The Olevian, was formed in 1885.[9]: 36 

The town of Freeland was officially incorporated as the Borough of Collegeville in 1896. The Reading Railroad had named it that in 1869 because of the Pennsylvania Female College and not, as many believe, because of Ursinus, which had just been founded.[9]: 8 

The Ruby, Ursinus' yearbook, was first published by the Class of 1897. The name was a tribute to Professor Samuel Vernon Ruby,[9]: 16  who collapsed as he was entering Bomberger Hall in 1896 and died in its chapel, surrounded by students and teachers who had gathered there for morning prayers.[9]: 70 [non-primary source needed]



J.D. Salinger attended Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, for a single semester in the fall of 1938. 
While a student there, he never graduated, but he left an interesting mark on the campus: 
  • Campus Columnist: He wrote a regular feature called "The Skipped Diploma" for the student newspaper, covering movie reviews and campus life.
  • Creative Writing Award: Ursinus offers a creative writing scholarship that occasionally grants an incoming student the opportunity to live in Salinger's actual old dorm room. 
After leaving Ursinus, he went on to take night classes at Columbia University

  • Catsche In The Rye..... The Train Scene: Salinger abruptly left Ursinus in December 1938. The train voyage home to New York City is widely believed to be the inspiration for a similar train scene in The Catcher in the Rye, where Holden Caulfield chats with the mother of his classmate, Ernest Morrow. 
  • Campus Disillusionment: Salinger’s time at the small liberal-arts school (which he found a bit pretentious) added to his general disillusionment with academia.
  • The Dorm: Salinger lived in a cramped room in Curtis Hall. Ursinus actually established a scholarship that allows students to live in Salinger’s old dorm room. Room 300.

    • Professor George Leslie Omwake was a prominent educator and long-time president of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Around 1910, Omwake served as a key administrator and dean, securing his position at the college during a tumultuous board meeting in March 1910 before assuming the presidency from 1912 to 1936.
    Omwake was instrumental in the institution's growth and later inaugurated as the college's president on October 7, 1913