Noffsinger, Mark G.

Mark G. Noffsinger’s tenure as Associate Dean of Students at UMass Amherst was relatively brief, but tumultuous. Brought in during the fall semester 1964 as coordinator of student activities, he was promoted to Director of the Student Union in 1966 and Associate Dean of Students in 1968. Although he earned a reputation as a supporter of the student press, he became a focal point of controversy during the school year 1967-1968, when he prohibited the sale of the underground “hippie” newspaper, Mother of Voices on campus. Published by UMass students, the paper drew wider fire when John Norton and David Bourbeau were arrested and convicted on charges of selling obscene matter to a minor. The Mother of Voices folded in March 1969. After resigning in 1969 to accept a position at Baldwin-Wallace College, Noffsinger went on to a distinguished career as a university administrator before his death in 1994.

Tightly focused on the controversy in 1968 over banning sale of the Mother of Voices in the UMass Student Union, the Noffsinger collection includes a folder of newspaper clippings relating to underground press publications at UMass and other colleges in the Commonwealth, along with a run of the offending periodical retained by the office of the Dean of Students’ office. Additional copies of the periodical are located in the Social Change Periodicals Collection.