This information about the G.C.L. Riemer Student Center and G.C.L. Riemer is provided in the dedication program:
G.C.L. Riemer Student Center:
"Providing added social, recreational and meeting facilities for students, alumni and other college groups in line with Clarion's rapidly expanding student body is the G.C.L. Riemer Student Center. Located at the northwest intersection of Payne and Wilson streets, this facility was built at a cost of more than $1 million and covers an area of 24,110 square feet. Its construction features a structural steel frame on concrete with reinforced concrete block foundation. It has a brick exterior, beige pre-cast concrete paneling and aluminum windows. A bituminous access road, parking area and terrace will complete the setting. On the lower level, the student center will incorporate much needed additional food service facilities for 400. A ballroom or all purpose room for banquets, theater, recitals, etc., in addition to meeting rooms, office space and lounge facilities are included in the upper level. The center is scheduled for completion in August, 1971."
G.C.L. Riemer:
"Dr. G.C.L. Riemer would doubtless be pleased that the college is dedicating its Student Center as a memorial to him, as he would be pleased also to see that Clarion State College has survived and flourished. For as President from 1928 to 1937, his administration spanned the depths of the Great Depression when the future was much in doubt. That the college survived those difficult years must in generous measure be attributed to his careful administration, his devotion to the institution, and his hardy faith in things to come. Dr. Riemer came to the college with extensive professional experience and an academic background of unusual strength. He had graduated from Clarion Normal in 1892 and by 1896 had earned his A.B. and A.M. at Bucknell University. He attended Harvard between 1899 and 1901, earning a second A.M., and studied in Europe from 1903 until 1905, receiving the Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Leipzig. In addition to public school teaching, he had held a professorship at Bucknell, had served the Commonwealth Department of Public Instruction for five years, and has been Principal of Bloomsburg State Normal during the four years immediately prior to his coming to Clarion. He was the last administrator to be called Principal of the Normal School and the first to hold the title of President of the College. The national economy was in high gear and the future looked bright for the college with its new degree granting status. But the Crash of 1929 altered the prospect. Enrollments shrank from the usual three hundred fifty or more to less than two hundred and the state appropriation dropped by more than sixty percent to less than $70,000 annually. Faculty salaries were cut and positions were left vacant. But Dr. Riemer, regardless of the odds, worked on. Harvey Gymnasium was completed, moves to close the institution were opposed, and the college was kept alive with small enrollments. Dr. Riemer looked to the future, and in the words of his children, dreamed of a place for the students to meet for the priceless personal contacts that make college years such happy ones. Everyone here for the dedication must agree that his work and his faith and his dreams have surely been justified."
