In the 1963 Elan yearbook, there is an image of two female students unveiling a large statue of the Pioneer mascot and the last known bit of Space Age theming is the 1965 Elan, with rocket ships on the cover and the first ten pages being a countdown to “blast off!” While there are other interpretations of the Pioneer that appear throughout the first half of the 1960s, particularly on student hand books of more cartoonish, “Jetsons-esque” looking drawings, the state seal incarnation of The Pioneer seems to be the most “official” of the time period. The Pioneer is standing next to the Great Seal of the State of California which is surrounded by a red ring that reads “Alameda County State College” with “Pioneers” in black below the encircled state seal. The first known appearance of “The Pioneer,” what the mascot was originally called, is a drawing from 1961 of an astronaut in a red, black, and white space-suit with a helmet, the only visible physical features of the Pioneer being a nose and an eye, making the figure androgynous and mysterious. NASA’s unmanned Pioneer Space Program had begun in 1958, and the feeling of breaking new ground (literally) with the hilltop campus and an association with President Kennedy’s “New Frontier” at the time led to the selection of a “Pioneer” theme to represent the new college – represented by an astronaut mascot - along with a cosmic set of colors for the college: red, black, and white. At the same time that the new college was coming into being, the United States was locked in the beginnings of a Cold War-spawned Space Race with the Soviet Union. As the current Hayward Hills location was not yet ready to house the university, classes initiated at Foothill High School downtown. By Robyn Perry Cal State East Bay history majorĪlameda County State College was established by the California state legislature in 1957 and first opened its doors to students in September of 1959.
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