SUNY Geneseo time capsules set to be opened in 50 years

Photo of SUNY Geneseo Gazebo via Kate Rodgers

It was recently announced that SUNY Geneseo will be burying a time capsule with letters to future students alongside a capsule buried in 1996. Both are set to be opened in 2071.

Students may write letters in three different ways according to SUNY Geneseo Events; in-person writing by visiting the Union lobby on Monday, May 2: 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, May 3: 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. It is possible to download a PDF of the letter form or handwrite your letter to turn in during Time Capsule Tabling (see dates/times above). Envelopes are provided and handwritten submissions are preferred. Students should complete an online form by May 1, as late submissions will not be accepted.

Tracy Gagnier, Assistant Director of Alumni Relations, explained, “I was one of the professional staff members selected to help with 150th celebration. I'm the liaison for alumni, for the community, and for students and the student group. I’m also the advisor of the undergraduate Alumni Association or we call ourselves UAA is our shortened name. We do a lot with tradition, school spirit, class pride, and just preserving history here at Geneseo of the student experience.”

Gagnier went on, “Writing a letter allows every student to participate. If it was just a committee [of] people selecting items to put into a time capsule, it would be a pretty small group of participants that were really actively getting involved in the project. The idea that every student on campus can participate and just write this letter—we're providing the envelopes and sealing them up in this capsule—allows everyone to be part of it.”

She described, “I think what's really cool in this case is we are putting our time capsule right on top of the one they buried in 1996 for the 125th anniversary of the college and when they buried that one in 1996, they set it to come up at the 200th anniversary of the college so both will come up at the same time. I suspect on Founders Day on September 13, 2071, there will be the opportunity to dig up both capsules. I'll probably look at the one from 1996 first and then they'll open ours.”

Gagnier described the process of finding the previous capsule from 1996. “We looked at old archive photos to really identify the location, we pulled in some people that we knew were here then, and we were able to figure it out and facilities were able to confirm the location. So, we've identified a large rock and we made a plan that's going to indicate where both time capsules live and that that is where we should dig in 50 years to bring up both.”

She pointed out, “We're targeting 300 letters. We would be really pleased if we had 300 students participate. Now, if we had all, like 5,000, that would be amazing. The case is pretty big—it's fifteen by nineteen by eight [ft] and it's a big, rugged plastic case that will seal.”

Dr. Fletcher had recently unearthed his class's time capsule from 20 years ago. During 2001-2002, Kurt Fletcher was awarded the Geneseo Alumni Association Supported Professorship. As a part of the professorship, Fletcher was able to teach any course he wanted and thus taught “Living in the Future – 2022 AD” to eleven students.

Within his time teaching, Fletcher explained, “The whole thing was to try to imagine what life would be like 20 years in the future…As part of this force, we, you know, we had a group, a project that involved both groups working together and also as individuals, the students submitted things to a time capsule.”

Some of the information included, he explained, “They actually came up with a kind of a mock, a little booklet, of things…so here was like a picture that somebody thought cars would look like in the future. And then they kind of viewed it as sort of like a magazine format.”

Fletcher admitted, “I built that in originally with the course knowing…I picked 20 years because it was kind of a short enough period of time. I suspected that I would still be here, and that I would be able to, you know, that I could be alive and that I'd be able to sort of take care of it and stuff like that. So, that seemed like a good length of time. And it's also sort of like a long enough time to make predictions that some of them might be right.”

Fletcher left off with, “I would say [that] we get bombarded with a lot of bad news, and then sometimes it's easy to be pessimistic about the future. I think that there are lots of good reasons to be optimistic about the future and to think positively about the way that the world is going to evolve. And if we work to, if we can imagine, the practice of making some predictions and thinking about them, about what your future life will be, [it] might help you to make the future a little bit better.”