When Larry Goulette lived in Shaw Hall in 1973, the world was a different place.
The Vietnam War was close to ending, the Watergate scandal was on the rise and the art of streaking was much more popular than it is today.
“I remember we went through that cafeteria without the benefit of clothing,” said Goulette, an MSU alumnus who now lives in Allen Park. “I had a lot of fun there. Probably too much fun.”
Now, nearly 30 years later, daughter Beth Goulette will be among the more than 1,000 students moving back into Shaw Hall after a $12 million, 16-month renovation.
The hall, named for 11th MSU President Robert Shaw, officially will reopen today with a 2 p.m. ceremony in the Shaw dining hall.
“It’s really exciting,” Shaw Hall manager Carol Noud said. “The neatest thing about this whole process is talking to all the alumni and hearing about their experiences here.”
Michigan State College officials planned the dorm, which opened in 1949 as a men-only residence hall, to be a central site on the growing campus. Women moved into the dorm some 20 years later.
The building, designed in a modern style unlike the college gothic or Tudor dorms on north campus, cost $3.5 million - nearly a third of the cost to renovate it - to construct.
Renovations to the building include the installation of a sprinkler system, new flooring, painting and new furniture for the dorm rooms. The new beds can be adjusted to several heights, allowing students to create lofts without replacing the existing furniture.
The dorm’s community bathrooms were completely gutted and remodeled with shower-changing stalls, lockers, a garbage disposal and even a television.
“We spent over $12 million. We certainly could have spent more,” Noud said. “We just picked and chose what was the most beneficial to the students.”
Shaw Hall has a colorful history that also makes it attractive to students. The building’s site had been a gathering place for area Native Americans in the 1800s. The body of one of the famous Ojibway Chief Okemos’ daughters was carried down the Red Cedar River from the building’s site to her burial ground near Portland, according to the Shaw Hall manager’s history of the building.
During Shaw Hall’s 53-year history, numerous political figures and well-known people have lived within its walls while studying at the university. Teamsters union President James Hoffa Jr., the son of former Teamsters President James R. Hoffa, who disappeared mysteriously in 1975, Gov. John Engler and MSU President M. Peter McPherson lived in the dorm while students.
But it wasn’t the famous people who once lived there that led Beth Goulette to sign up to live in Shaw Hall. Instead, the Spanish sophomore picked the dorm for its central location - and her father’s stories.
“He said Shaw was the only fun dorm,” she said.
Beth and Larry Goulette went on a tour of the building Friday to see the renovations. The building is in its final phase of construction and will not be finished for today’s ceremony.
“My dad was impressed with the entire bathroom,” Beth Goulette said. “He got a kick out of the TV.”
Larry Goulette said Shaw has drastically changed from how he remembered it in the early ’70s.
“It’s much cleaner,” he said. “When I lived there - ever seen the movie ‘Animal House’? - that was what it was like.
“It was extremely wild. Every weekend there was a party - not a lot of serious studying was going on there, I’ll tell you that.”
But despite his own time in Shaw Hall, Goulette said he hopes his daughter doesn’t follow exactly in his footsteps - especially the naked, barefoot runs.
“She better not,” he said. “Or if she does - I don’t want to hear about it.”
