University Christian Movement in New England.

The bulk of this addendum to Record Group 88 documents the University Christian Movement in New England from 1975 to 1996. The Reverend Christine Blackburn was hired as director of the UCMNE in 1978 and under her leadership the organization flourished, sponsoring Winter, Spring and Fall Conferences annually, as well as Summer workshops, on specific, relevant "hot topics" of the time. In the last quarter of the 20th century alone, UCMNE organized more than fifty major conferences, attracting students and others from around the country.

Certainly the peak of the UCMNE's "Golden Age" of activity was its 50th anniversary celebration held at First Church in Cambridge, MA, on the morning of Sunday, October 21, 1984. Planning for the event had consumed the energies of the organization for more than a year, and when the day itself arrived, hundreds of honored guests, alumni, friends, and current student members assembled to celebrate. The glow of that event seemed to energize the organization for the following decade; but by 1990s there were signs of trouble.

In April of 1996, the director, Lee Ann Hopkins, and her staff submitted a letter to the Board of Directors recommending that UCMNE be dissolved for a number of reasons: lack of student interest and involvement, the decline of liberal campus ministries, a lack of funding, and the problem of gaining access to college campuses. The Board directed that there should be a "needs assessment" taken and authorized the hiring of qualified people to do the task. Interest in the organization, however, continued to wane in spite of the efforts of Lee Ann Hopkins, who had succeeded Blackburn as director in 1993. Hopkins resigned in July, 1996, and was followed by Paige Blair who resigned only a year later. In May, 1997, Nancy Richards became the last director and valiantly attempted to re-energize the organization. For a while it seemed those efforts would succeed, but it was not to be. After sixty-six years of service to the Church, the University Christian Movement in New England came to an end, merging into the Boston-Cambridge Ministry in Higher Education. The latest documents in this collection date from 2000.

In 1934, the Student Christian Movement in New England came into being under the auspices of the YMCA and YWCA. As the years progressed, most Protestant denominations joined in support of the SCM through direct financial contributions or by contributing staff. Through the 1950s SCM units flourished on most campuses throughout New England. The SCM supported the workof these local units, facilitated regional conferences, and related to both national and international expressions of student Christian life. The early 1960s found most of the SCM units dissolving as students became more politicized and gravitated toward other organizations, often feeling that the Church was not responding to the urgent needs of the time. In 1967 the SCM decided to become a regional member of the national University Christian Movement and officially changed its name to the University Christian Movement in New England.

During the years 1968 to 1970 a two-year experiment was undertaken to develop an organizational style for the organization that would encourage student initiative in the creation of local action projects for social change. The major Protestant denominations supported this two-year experiment of the UCM via their involvement in United Ministries in Higher Education (UMHE). Efforts were made to build a communication network among various student and youth groups in New England who were not in the main stream of the church and to provide services to these groups that would help their local work. In 1970 two new women staff members were hired to give impetus to the new style of operation.

The UCM supported a variety of projects during the 1970s. In Maine, it supported the Franco-American Resource Group at the University of Maine and the Penobscot Native American Nation. In Vermont it supported the People's Free Clinic. In New Hampshire it supported the New Hampshire People's Press, which worked with local groups around community issues such as racism in the high schools and the Vietnam War. In Connecticut it supported the Women's Abortion Referral Service and the Women's Research Project, both based in New Haven. In Massachusetts it supported the For the People organization, which coordinated college students' activities on their campuses, such as women's centers and Black Student Unions.

The bulk of the documentation in this record group ends around 1975; the UCMNE still exists and additional archives will be added in the future.