Kean history: Kean Rocks Through the Ages

Published by May 9, 2018 | By Leanne Manna

While many people know about the academics at Kean, students may overlook the rich history of performers the university has hosted.

Starting in the 60s and continuing through the 90s Kean hosted hundreds of performers on the Union Campus. Such well known names as The Four Seasons, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper and Fleetwood Mac. Throughout the 70s over 68 different groups had performed on campus.

All of this was made possible by the college Center board which was established in 1960. They then partnered with the Capitol Theater in Passaic to bring all these big names on campus. The relationship lasted until Capitol Theater closed in the 90s. Even after Kean continued to bring names such as Kanye West and Prince Royce on campus, especially for events such as homecoming.

In the 1960s, Kean’s Union campus had just opened and was still transitioning from a teacher’s college to a full fledged liberal arts college. The purpose of these concerts were probably two fold in the beginning. The college wanted to attract new students with a wide variety of pop culture offerings and they wanted to keep their current students, who were stuck in this transition period, happy with their choice to come here.

Kean Rocks Through the Ages is an exhibit currently on display in the Cougars Den. It was curated by Frank Harpster using materials from the Kean University Archives and Special Collections.

Harpster, a big classic rock fan himself, was inspired when looking through yearbooks and student newspapers and realized just how many classic idols have performed on campus. He believes that the history of campus concerts “reflects the history of a campus community, the evolution of the music industry, technology and the role that music played in social movements that affected change in America.”

The exhibit features ticket stubs, albums, an 8-track, CDs, concert posters and images from yearbooks and newspapers that reconstructs a timeline of the artists who performed on campus from the 1960s to 2017.

If students want to rock out while going through the exhibit, Harpster has also created a “Kean Rocks Through the Ages” playlist on Spotify featuring the best tracks from artists in the year they performed at Kean.

Thank you to the Kean University Archives and Special Collections and especially Frank Harpster for the information!

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