Yes there really is such a thing as Wilkes University. It’s in a curious place far far away – a place called Wilkes–Barre, Pennsylvania. I’ve got the hat, and the shot glass, to prove it.
My brother Steve mentioned Wilkes U. about ten years ago. He was in the area on a business trip and happened across it. Before that time, none of our family had ever been to Wilkes–Barre, although I’d long harbored a bit of curiosity about the name. Wilkes U. was still just a College back then.
My sister Joan was in the area a few years later and confirmed the existence of an actual Wilkes College. For a few more years it remained just an odd curiosity to the family. But it occupied a vacant spot on my “life list,“ and eventually I’d travel a long distance to see it for myself. It was one of the things we did on our “Retirement Odyssey, 2004.”
The towns of Wilkes–Barre and Scranton lie close together in the heart of the coal mining country of NW Pennsylvania. It’s not a place I’d call “beautiful” or “charming,” In fact the whole area looks as though it’s been dying for a very long time. Yet it’s compelling in a sad sort of way. Those who defined the “Rust Belt of America” had places like this in mind.
On the way to Wilkes-Barre, Interstate 81 passes miles of un-reclaimed mining land covered with piles of discarded rock overburden and mine slag. Rusted abandoned tractors, graders, and shovels stand idle in denuded hollows and valleys where the coal played out long ago. They’re waiting for a call that will never come, the ghosts of an outdated technology bypassed by even more massive, even more ruthless earthmoving equipment.
In addition to a declining coal economy, the historical center of Wilkes–Barre underwent the disastrous process of “urban renewal.” It was a time when most of the country seemed locked in a race to the bottom, determined to destroy its irreplaceable patrimony as quickly and profitably as possible in the short term with no realistic plan to clean up and properly develop the resulting mess of vacant land and city-killing parking lots. Like most American cities, Wilkes-Barre could not resist the lure of easy Federal money.
And then there was the flood. In 1972 the remnants of Hurricane Agnes swept through the area with torrential rains. The Susquehanna River leapt its banks, right at the point where it bends to the southwest in downtown Wilkes–Barre, and flooded much of the old part of the community – including the campus.
Wilkes-Barre has seen some rough times.
Today, just a little west of the remaining downtown core, sits the quiet tree-shaded campus of Wilkes University. We exit the freeway and follow the signs to this small urban university, that happens to be named for an eccentric ancestor of mine.
I stop at the admissions office and ask around about the history of the University. When I mention my connection to the namesake of Wilkes U, I get a nice tour from the director of the library and she takes my picture with the statue of John Wilkes that stands at the western end of the central greensward. I stare for moment at his bronze face to verify an important detail. I want to make sure they got it right and I can just make it out. Yes the statue is indeed cross-eyed.
Then it’s off to meet the Provost who’s extremely interested in Wilkesian history, and seemed to know much more about it than I did. I become even more of a minor celebrity when I give the Library a copy of the book I wrote in memory of my brother. They’re delighted to add a title from someone named Wilkes.
John Wilkes was a rakish character, strident journalist, and free speech advocate who was well known in London at the time of King George III and the American Revolution. Wilkes published scandalous broadsides that opposed certain public policies and were transparently critical of the King. He ran for Parliament from Middlesex and won several times, but each time the results were thrown out by the Government. After he was actually banned from running, he won on a write-in vote, but he was never allowed to take his seat.
Wilkes was once described by the essayist Hogarth as “...capable of a degree of abuse for which licentious seems too mild a word.” He was well known to the literati and was an acquaintance of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, among others. It may well have been because of King George’s preoccupation with the outrageous antics and constant needling of Wilkes that he failed to pay sufficient attention to events beyond the Atlantic, and ended up losing the Thirteen Colonies. It must have been an interesting time to live in London.
Wilkes later invested in a mining venture (in partnership with Barre) in the former colonies. There are several books about this interesting individual, including one with the memorable title of “That Rascal Wilkes.” I hope to read most of them someday when we get our books unpacked. Today there’s a city and a University named for him in a distant land he never saw.
Wilkes University maintains a broad undergraduate curriculum with Colleges in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Science and Engineering, Business and Leadership, and Pharmacy and Nursing. They offer graduate degrees in Business, Computer Science, Creative Writing, Education, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Nursing.
More information is available at: 1–800–WILKES–U or www.wilkes.edu.
