The Freshman Bench, also known as the “Kissing Bench,” has been on campus for more than a century but still sees action today.

Located behind Davis Hall, the multi-stoned bench was the premier hook-up site for past NIU students.

The Freshman Bench was completed and dedicated by the freshman class of 1903. In a stunt more endearing than most high school senior pranks of today, the bench was erected the night before and unveiled with a poem in an oratory program under a large oak tree on campus.

The poem recited at the unveiling recounted the naive intentions of the bench as a place of memories for its class.

“We’ll sit here on this seat/And think how time does fleet/How happy and how sweet/Were freshman days,” the poem reads.

Luella Burke, who attended NIU in the mid-1940s, frequented the bench with her husband, Bob Burke.

“I remember that the bench had a gorgeous magnolia tree behind it,” Burke said. “Many people took pictures there.”

Burke said the bench was a pretty place where groups of people met – not necessarily a place for couples. The bench most likely gained its popularity as men returned home from war.

“It didn’t have a romantic [reputation] while I was at NIU,” Burke said. “We were lucky we had any guys on campus at all. During the war, there were none around.”

In the late 1940s and early ‘50s, the bench acquired its nickname as the “Kissing Bench.” A variety of legends circulated during the bench’s heyday – much to the benefit of upperclassmen males making the moves on freshmen females.

A 1946 article from the Northern Illinois, the Northern Star’s predecessor, claims that a female freshman is doomed not to graduate from NIU until kissed by an upperclassman on the bench. Another Northern Illinois story, from 1949, recounts a morphed version of that legend that, “You’re not officially a freshman until you’ve been made a freshman on the Freshman Bench.”

The bench benefited from a cleaning in 2002 when President John Peters ordered its restoration.

“We have to dismantle the so-called ‘Kissing Bench’ and clean it, repair it and put it back,” Peters said at the time. “Kisses will be available on the bench at some time this year, but you’ll have to find another place until then.”

Syracuse University in New York also has a legendary kissing bench on campus. SU’s bench, made of smooth granite, was erected by the class of 1912 and was the first memorial left by a class graduating from that university.

Like the NIU kissing bench, Syracuse’s bench carried a legend in the 1950s that if a female was kissed on the bench, she would have luck in love and would marry.

The legend of the Kissing Bench has died down in recent decades. While students today have heard about the legendary bench, few are aware of its past notoriety.

“I think they talked about it on the tour during orientation,” said Dan Walters, sophomore political science major.

When asked whether he would bring a romantic partner to the bench, Walters said, “Hell yeah – if I had someone.”