Lordy, lordy look who’s 140
With the aid of alumni, KSL plans to commemorate Case history

The Case School of Engineering began as the Case School of Applied Science in 1880, launched by a visionary gift from the estate of Leonard Case Jr. But classes actually began in the Case home in downtown Cleveland the next year, September 1881. That makes this fall the 140th anniversary of the start of classes.
And that, says the Kelvin Smith Library, is something to commemorate.
The library formed a project team that has been pulling together pieces of Case history — in the form of archival documents, maps, stories and photographs— to populate a multimedia website that will tell the story of one of the nation’s oldest schools of engineering.
Daniela Solomon, KSL’s Research Services Librarian for Engineering and Chemistry and the project leader, said the website remains a work in progress but is good enough to launch. She hopes that Case alumni will go to https://scalar.case.edu/caseschool/index and begin to gain a deeper understanding of what they are a part of.
“I want the alumni to be able to discover,” she said.
A live presentation will soon animate the online resource. Solomon’s team includes two alumni with a deep knowledge of Case: former Dean Tom Kicher ’59, MS ’62, PhD ’65, and Emeritus Professor Frank Merat ’72, MS ’75, PhD ’78. They plan to share some of the project’s findings at a presentation during Homecoming weekend.
The Case legacy with Kicher & Merat: Highlights from 140 years of Case history begins at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, in Nord Hall and will also be live streamed. Learn more at www.casealumni.org/homecoming.