Archives West Finding Aid

Records of the class governments include minutes, correspondence, programs, broadsides, class lists and other papers.

Among the major student political organizations during the first fifty years of Washington State University were the class governments. Each group of students would, when entering school as freshmen, establish a political organization that would often far outlast their four years of college attendance. Remnants are still seen today in class reunions and Golden Grad celebrations every spring. But up until the post-war years, the student government as provided by the class organizations was the principle means of student organization and activities. With the rise of the Associated Students of Washington State University (ASWSU) the class organizations were relegated to a more social than political role. The student's voice to the university administration was now channelled through the ASWSU, thereby drawing on the support of all the students en masse rather than the approximately one-quarter of the student body which comprised an individual class. And in the early days particularly there was sufficient inter-class rivalry that any unified action was nearly prohibited. E. A. Bryan's Historical Sketch of the college has almost no mention of the associated students although he lists the presidents of that group from 1901.