​I few years ago, I penned a post noting the locations of colleges and universities I had written about in this blog to that time. I noted that the going was slower than expected thanks to the pandemic. Indeed, I started the blog in December 2020 when travel was still limited thanks to the global shut down. At first, I relied heavily on photos from campus visits from years past. I was not travelling all that much thanks to Covid and would not have much in the way of current content to post. That along with the natural fact that life is frequently busy meant slow going for campus visits. Although I have continued to post with photos from years ago, 2024 was the first year since the pandemic that I was able to both visit and photograph campuses at a rate equivalent to what I had been doing pre-pandemic. In sum, I was able to visit and post about twenty-two colleges and universities this year. What’s more, I had never been to fifteen of them before. In terms of the blog, these additions means that schools from five states never reported on were added (Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, and Ohio). Not bad considering this is a hobby that has me largely visiting, researching, and writing posts solely on the weekends. It was good to get back into the swing of things again. The map below shows the states we’ve all been to as part of this blog to date. 

I was not able to get any colleges outside of the U.S. this year, and that is something I hope to rectify in 2025. But this has not stopped international readers from visiting the blog. I am pleased to say that people from around the world have visited. Traffic to the blog hit an all time high this year. The statistics pale in comparison to any commercial site and to many teenager’s Instagram accounts, but for a niche blog it has a good readership. Some universities see more traffic than others, and some see readers stay longer and explore longer than others. But every single institution I have written about over the last four years saw people drawn directly to their page via search engines like Bing and Google. I am thankful for the interest and the insights of those who have written responses.

​The significance of the blog being four years old is also notable to me. Four years is the time it takes to acquire a baccalaureate degree. As you might imagine, as a long time academic I think of time in terms of semesters and the time to complete degrees. It is also sufficient time for things to change on a campus, albeit subtly. Even in the case of institutions I have visited recently, new things are afoot. Blue Mountain College is now Blue Mountain Christian University. New buildings have been constructed on the campuses of a number of schools I have visited, and others have been significantly renovated. I have only been to 196 campuses in my life, so there are many more to see. Despite the fact that dozens of colleges have closed in recent years, the number of colleges in the U.S. still approaches 4,000. Although I am pleased with the increased pace in visiting schools this year, by the time I circle back to some of the ones covered in this blog they will likely look quite different. Some might even have closed. This makes me want to see more and hopefully 2025 will once again see me on the road and visiting a couple dozen new places. Thanks for reading, and I hope we all have a great new year!

I was in New Orleans for a board meeting of the nccPA Health Foundation this past weekend and thanks to a very early flight had some time to do some exploring. For many visitors to New Orleans, that would mean a trip to the French Quarter. For others, it might mean a visit to the National World War II Museum or perhaps the aquarium or zoo. For me, it meant the chance to visit a couple of college campuses. I have had the opportunity to visit New Orleans many times. It is a frequent host to scientific conferences and places where governing boards will host meetings. I have been to the Tulane University Medical campus and the LSU Health Sciences campus in town, so on this occasion I thought I would go over to Tulane's main campus and Loyola University New Orleans which sit side by side southwest of downtown. I had never been to either university and was eager to see them. I managed to visit both, and the topic of this post is the first stop of the day, Loyola.

I was staying at a downtown hotel and the St. Charles Avenue line of the New Orleans streetcar passed right in front of the building. Normally, I would either walk or catch a ride, but it was terribly cold that morning and I didn't feel like making the four-mile walk. Since the price of an all-day pass on the streetcar was only $3, I decided to try it. I will say that it was an easy and inexpensive way to travel back and forth. If you have the time, it is certainly worth the expense. But I will note two things. First, the line moves at an incredibly slow pace. In addition to having to stop for red lights like a bus, the line is extremely slow. On my return trip, joggers passed the streetcar while we were moving! I don't know how fast they actually move, but despite a scheduled time of 35 minutes, each direction took over 45 minutes (again for only about four miles of travel). That was fine in my case but be aware if you ever find yourself in need of quick transit. Second, and perhaps it was just the two drivers in my case, but the staff were extremely rude to people. I am sure that in a town with as many tourists as New Orleans people tire of having to repeatedly answer the same questions, but the guys operating each of the two trams I travelled upon were ridiculously rude to people asking directions and making sure they were going the correct direction. Mind you, I had downloaded the regional transit app on my phone and did not have to ask anything. I was simply observing. But their level of rudeness was surprising, and in one case the couple I witnessed asking a simple question sat down and talked about never returning to the city. Again, it worked out fine for me as it was a cheap form of transit. But the metro area of New Orleans has only about 1.3 million people and despite the numbers of tourists, which I am sure can be a pain for the locals, it is hardly big enough for me to expect that level of impolite behavior. But I digress. This is a blog about colleges, not transit.

Loyola is one of twenty-seven Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. today. It was founded by priests of the Society of Jesus in 1904, but the institution had been in the works for some time. The university traces it roots back to 1847, the year when seven Jesuit priests arrived in New Orleans with the intent to build a college. Although steps were taken in that direction, the major milestone of acquiring the land for a campus did not occur until 1884. That year, the site of a former sugar cane plantation about four miles from the heart of downtown New Orleans would be purchased for $75,500 (about $2.4 million in today’s value). Father Albert Biever was given a nickel to take the streetcar on the St. Charles line to create the new college in what is now the Uptown area of New Orleans. The new school would open until 1904 without the benefit of purpose-built buildings and classes began in an existing house. Biever would be the school’s first president. The first campus building, Marquette Hall, would not open for eight years (see below). The initial site was enormous compared to the size of the current campus. Loyola would sell the land off in parcels over the years to raise funds. Tulane University, which sits adjacent to Loyola, is on such land. 

The new institution was named Loyola College, although it also offered preparatory classes (high school/pre-college work). This was a fairly common practice in those days. A change in the organization of Jesuit schools in the area led the pre-college curriculum being dropped. In 1911, another Jesuit institution, the College of the Immaculate Conception, was chosen to be the preparatory school and was renamed Jesuit High School. It remains a high school to this day. Immaculate Conception’s college-level work went to Loyola, and in reflection of the growth the institution formally changed its name to Loyola University in 1912. A School of Dentistry was added in 1914 as was a School of Law. A College of Pharmacy was formed in 1919. Other colleges including business and music would be created later. Thanks to the creation of the medical units of Tulane University, Xavier University, and the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans, Pharmacy would close in 1965 and Dentistry in 1971. In 1984, nearby St. Mary's Dominican College, a liberal arts college for women founded in 1910 closed. Loyola acquired the St. Mary’s campus, and it continues as part of the university to this day. I was hoping to visit that campus as well, but time did not allow it.  

Readers in the U.S. will likely know that there are multiple institutions with the name Loyola. In addition to the current school, colleges in Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles carry the Loyola name. The oldest among them is Loyola University Maryland which opened in 1852. It would be followed by Loyola Marymount University in 1865, although it would carry two different names before acquiring the Loyola moniker in 1917, as it was founded as a Vincentian institution. The Jesuits did not arrive until 1911 and it was another six years before "Loyola" entered the name. Finally, Loyola University Chicago was founded in 1870. It was confusing to have these independent institutions with the same basic name, and I imagine at times it likely caused a bit of some contention. It was particularly the case for the New Orleans and Chicago schools. Loyola in Baltimore had always carried “Maryland” in its name. In Los Angeles, when the now named Loyola Marymount changed its name in 1917 it was Loyola College of Los Angeles and later Loyola University of Los Angeles. The Marymount would come later in 1973 when Loyola merged with nearby Marymount College. That left the Louisiana and Illinois universities using essentially the same name. The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, of which all Loyola’s are members, decided that the Illinois institution could keep the simplified “Loyola University” in 1996. Since then, the New Orleans school officially became Loyola University New Orleans. Today, Loyola has an endowment of well over $235 million and enrolls more than 4,500 students in its 146 degree programs. 

​I hopped off the streetcar at a stop directly in front of Loyola and walked the campus from St. Charles from south to north to its end at Freret Street. This post will follow that path. I took the photo below as I walked onto campus. The first building in the frame is Thomas Hall and the the chapel beyond is the McDermott Memorial Church of the Holy Name of Jesus. Both of these are also discussed below. 

The first two photos of the next set are of Thomas Hall. Designed by the architecture firm DeBuys, Churchill, and Labouisse, Thomas was completed in 1912. It was initially the home to the priests on campus. The colonnade you see in the second photo which connects Thomas to Marquette was added in 1913. Louise C. Thomas gave money to construct the building which she wanted to name in honor of her late husband Stanley O. Thomas. He had been a highly successful cotton broker in New Orleans and former president of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. Born in Ohio, Thomas moved south to Mississippi to practice law prior to the onset of the Civil War. He lived in Mississippi for such a period that when the war broke out, he joined the Confederate army as a private in Company G of the 25th Louisiana Infantry. His obituary stated that during the course of the war he became an officer, although I am not sure of his final rank. After the war he settled in New Orleans. Louisa (née Carroll) was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant. Stanley passed away in 1910 aged seventy-five. Louisa would live another twenty-eight years, passing in 1938 aged 94 or 95. They had no children.

The last two photos show the Communications/Music Complex. The building is home to the College of Music which dates back to 1932. That year, the previously independent New Orleans Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts, founded in 1919, was subsumed into the university. It has a really neat front façade but unfortunately, I had a smudge on my lens and the photos I took were unsalvageable. The 148,000-square-foot, four-story is home to a 600-seat theater complete with an orchestra pit, and a Black Box-type theater such as those found at Montana State University and the University of Evansville. It has a very interesting main façade which faces St. Charles Avenue. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me I had something on the lens of my camera phone and the photos I took were unusable. But, trust me, it is an interesting design on the front. What you see here is fairly nondescript, but it was all I had of the building that was worth posting. The building was designed by the Mathes Group who also designed the J. Edgar and Louise S. Monroe library (see below). Mathes Group has designed buildings on the campuses of Arizona State University, Baylor University, Goshen College, and Grambling University. The third photo is the side of the building which faces Thomas Hall. The last photo has the building in the center of the frame flanked by Thomas Hall on the right and Monroe Hall (see below) on the left.

Below we have three views of Marquette Hall, the first permanent building on campus. It was designed by the architecture firm DeBuys, Churchill, and Labouisse. Construction on Marquette began in 1907, but the work was slow to completion. Indeed, it was not completed until 1911. The first classes were held in the building on September 11, 1911. Its name, of course, is honor of the notable Jesuit priest and explorer Jacques Marquette. It was the catch all building when it opened, having classrooms, offices, a library, theater, and soon after it was completed a morgue and dissection suite on the top floor. The area was really the attic, and it was not accessible by stairs. For many years, cadavers had to be lifted to the morgue via a hand cranked crane on the roof. As a result, it is one of the buildings considered haunted, as several people have seen ghosts and encountered unexplainable phenomena. It had to a be sight and I imagine curious onlookers would stand and watch workers slowly turn the crank to get the bodies up to the top of the building. The building reminds me of Converse Hall at Westminster College (now Westminster University) and the James D. Westcott Building at Florida State. The building had a fire in 1965, but it was doused in time to save the structure. You can see some photos of the aftermath of the fire inside the building here, here, here, here, and here. I love that last historic photo with the old radio on the left and the TV on the right.

The first photo captures most of the front of the building. Unfortunately, the close up in the second photo is marred by the sun creeping in behind the building. I was there at the wrong time of day to take this without the sun in the background. The entryway to the first floor is offset under those above it, which allows for the colonnade you see in the third photo. 

The set below has two views of the magnificent McDermott Memorial Church of the Holy Name of Jesus. Kate McDermott donated $150,000 (about $4.7 million in today's money) to aid in the construction of the church in honor of her late brother Thomas. She would also leave substantial funds to the university in her estate. I am not sure when the groundbreaking actually occurred, but pile driving began on July 30, 1913. It was officially dedicated on December 9, 1918 by Archbishop John Bonzano. It was designed by the architecture firm DeBuys, Churchill, and Labouisse. As you can see in the second photo, a fence was surrounding the church, and some work was going on in the interior. It is a truly remarkable building. I would have loved to have gone inside, but with the work going on I was unable to do so. I have seen photos of the sanctuary online and it is just as beautiful as the outside. There is a video of the interior on YouTube that you can watch here. Inside, a marble altar which is made with Carrara stone from Italy, cost $12,000! That is nearly $300,000 in 2024 value. If you watch the video, you will see why. It is massive and the carving is intricate. I only wish I was able to see it myself. You can see two of the original architectural renderings here and here. 

The first two photos of the next set are of Stallings Hall. A groundbreaking for Stallings was held on March 313, 1947 and it opened to students on September 15, 1947. You read that quickly, it was completed in less than a year. That is a remarkably fast build for an academic building of this size. It cost only $165,000 to build. It did not receive its current name until 1955. It is named in honor of Olive A. Stallings who had donated better than half a million dollars in 1939. It was the largest donation to the university until the Danna donation in the 1960’s.

When I said that Loyola and Tulane are next to each other, I really meant that they are next to each other. It’s not that they are close, the campuses abut one another. In the first photo you can see the peaks of two buildings behind Stallings. On the left is Dinwiddie Hall and on the right is Richardson Memorial Hall on the Tulane campus. They are only separated from Stallings by West Road, which is more of small street than an actual road per se. The two universities also share a boarder on Freret Street. I have always liked the idea of two universities sharing a common boarder. It would seem to lend itself well to shared research, scholarship, and social life.

When the state of California was considering a new UC campus, I was of the opinion that they should locate it in Fresno, taking the farmland of the California State University Fresno north of Barstow Avenue to create their campus. It would have given more life to the city of Fresno, allowed students and faculty of both institutions to intermingle, and simplified the process as the University of California campus could use Fresno State classrooms and other supports as it began to get off the ground. The state chose a different route, and now they have the University of California Merced. I am sure they had their reasons, but I can’t help but think it was a lost opportunity. But just imagine, Fresno State has better than 23,000 students and UC Merced has just over 9,000 at the time of this post. What an economic impact that would have had for the city, and what an intellectual collective could have been formed. Even though UCM is a much smaller institution, it has the larger budget (around $400 million compared to Fresno State’s budget of around $360 million). Think of what the economic impact would have been for the city.

But I digress. The artwork you see here is a piece called Lily by Lin Emery. Made of aluminum, Lily was completed in 1998. Ms. Emery was based in New Orleans for many years. 

Sitting beside Stallings and directly behind Marquette is Bobet Hall, seen in the last three photos of this set. Edward J. Bobet and his wife Virginia (née Alker) Bobet gave the initial funds in the amount of $12,000 to create a library in Marquette Hall when it was under construction. Bobet Hall (pronounced bo-Bay) was constructed in the 1920’s and named in their honor thanks to this donation. I believe it was completed in 1924. The Louisiana Digital Library has a great photo of Bobet on its website. Its undated, but someone with better knowledge of the university’s history might be able to ballpark the time. As you can see here, there is merely a path in the grass to the front of the building. I have no idea what the white structure is in front of it in that photo, nor what is on the brick pedestal in front of the building. If you have any idea, please leave a comment as I would love to know more about it.

As you can see in the fourth photo, Bobet was the home to the College of Pharmacy and I believe the School of Dentistry prior to their closings.

The set below is of Monroe Hall and the Chapel of St. Ignatius. Monroe Hall is one of two buildings on campus to carry the Monroe name, with the other being the J. Edgar and Louise S. Monroe Library (see below). The building originally opened in 1969 at a cost of $6.7 million, which is about $60.4 million in 2024 dollars. You can see photos of it in various phases of construction here and here. If you take the time to look at those two photos and mine, you might come to the conclusion that they are not of the same building. It certainly does not look like it. That is because it is one of those campus structures which has been completely transformed via a renovation and addition. The building as it appears in those two older photos would have five floors and come in at about 170,000 square feet. It was, and is, the largest single building in terms of classroom space at the university. But as enrollment grew, it was evident that more space was needed. The building was also showing its age. In addition to the damage it and the rest of campus suffered during Hurricane Katrina, the building had some significant maintenance issues that needed to be addressed. The university decided to renovate and expand the building. Loyola is landlocked by residential housing, Tulane University next door, and some commercial areas. Since space was limited, the addition had the building grow vertically, with two additional floors and a rooftop greenhouse added to the existing structure. In all, some 100,000 square feet of space were added. Holly and Smith Architects and Holabird & Root did the design work which basically saw the building gutted and rebuilt. Since the university needed the classroom and office space and had no overflow or transitory space, the building continued to be in-use during the work. After five years of work, the building was finally completed in 2015. One of the former lecture halls was transformed into a music performance hall with seating for 300 people. The look was totally changed, with a new brick façade replacing a concrete surface. 

It is named for J. Edgar Monroe, a native of New Orleans. He was a veteran of World War I who later went into the ship building business. He and his wife Louise (née Stringer) Monroe gave generously to the university. They gave better than $30 million by the time of his passing in 1992. The university honored him with an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 1991.

In each of the photos of this set, the circular building is the Chapel of St. Ignatius, a new structure on campus. Designed by Trahan Architects, which has offices in New Orleans and New York, the chapel has 4,620 square feet of space. Included in the building is a sanctuary with seating for up to 120 congregants and a 50-seat multipurpose room. All of the interior rooms are themselves circular. The former library once stood in this general area. Construction on that building began in 1947 and it was dedicated in 1950. It was known as the Memorial Library, named in honor of the fifty-two Loyola students and alumni who died in World War II. When the J. Edgar and Louise S. Monroe Library opened in 1999, the collection moved out, but the building remained. It was ultimately demolished to make way for the chapel.

The last photo was taken across the university's ​Sculpture Garden, which is behind Marquette Hall.

The first two photos of the next set are of Miller Hall with the J. Edgar and Louise S. Monroe Library in the background. Miller was purpose-built for the university’s College of Law. In addition to classrooms and offices, it had a moot court facility. It received its name courtesy of a donation from the estate of Branch Miller’s daughter Alice. She left money in her estate with the intention of funding a building named in his honor. He was an attorney in New Orleans in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It was completed in 1973 and opened to students that fall. It cost $2.5 million to construct, which is about $18.8 million in 2024 value. The building was dedicated on April 27, 1974, some sixty years after the law school’s creation. At that ceremony, former Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Earl Warren received an honorary doctorate. The College of Law was not in the building for very long as it moved out in 1985 at which time the university’s business programs moved in. I believe the architectural elements seen in the roundabout in the second photo are from the now razed Memorial Library, but I cannot say for sure. If happen to know, please leave a comment.

The last six photos are of the front and inside of the Monroe Library. It is a nice space. You can see two dedicatory plaques which hang just inside the main entrance in the fourth and fifth photos. I walked around inside the building for a while, both to explore the space and to warm up a bit. It has a good amount of natural light entering the space and some nice common areas. The last two photos are just inside the building near the circulation desk.

​Edgar and Louise Monroe ​gave $7.5 million to aid in the construction of the library in 1991. Groundbreaking for the building did not occur until November 1996.  It was completed in October 1998, and the library collection was relocated there. It opened for use on January 11, 1999. Like the Communications/Music Complex, it was designed by the Mathes Group. It has 148,480 square feet of space and can hold 500,000 volumes. In total, it cost $20,000,000 to build and outfit, which is roughly $40 million in 2024 dollars. 

Below is the Danna Student Center, Tulane's student union. The name is in honor of Joseph A. Danna. Danna was a physician and headed Loyola’s former School of Medicine. When the U.S. entered World War I, Danna and many other Loyola physicians and dentists joined the effort by forming what they called the Loyola Unit, a medical outfit that would become part of U.S. Base Hospital Unit 102. Italy was on the ally side in that war, the 102 operated in service of both American and Italian personnel. He returned to Loyola after the war and brought with him the American and Italian flags that flew over the hospital during the war. For a number of years, they hung in Marquette Hall. Loyola closed its medical school in 1922, and Danna moved over to Tulane’s medical school, where he worked from 1926 until 1931. He passed away in 1955 and his will left $1 million (about $11.7 million in today’s value) to Loyola. The building was designed by architect Jules K. de la Vergne. It opened in 1963 and was formally dedicated in March 1964. It cost $1,475,000 to construct, which is about $15.3 million in 2024 value. You can see a great photo of both Danna and Biever Hall under construction here and here. 

The first photo of this set shows the Danna Center as you approach it from what is called the Peace Quad, or the Plaza De Los Martires De La Paz. It honors six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter murdered on the campus of Central American University in El Salvador in 1989 during the country’s civil war. The area where the Peace Quad and the Danna Student Center now stand was once the location of the university’s football stadium. This aerial photo taken on campus sometime between 1926 and 1928 gives a great view of what it looked like before. The football program was a large expense for what was a very small institution. After a number of years of losing money, the university decided to close the football program 1939.

The second and third photos show the front of the building. As you can see, there is a statue of St. Ignatius Loyola in front of the center. The building's dedicatory cornerstone, seen in the fourth photo, was almost hidden by a pair of recycling bins. The fifth photo is the building's sign which is located just above the cornerstone in the last photo. I don't know if the sign in this photo is original or not, but I love the tile work! The last photo was taken just inside the front doors. Danna has all of the usual accoutrements of student unions including various food services, a small convenience store, study areas, and student activities offices.

The area just behind the Danna Center contains a collection of residence halls. In the first photo below, you can see Biever Hall from across a green behind Danna. Biever and the Danna Center were under construction at the same time. It was completed in 1963 and dedicated in 1964. The building cost about $1,527,000, or $15.9 million in 2024 value to build. It can accommodate up to 404 residents. It was named for the university’s first president Father Albert Biever. You can see the building under construction here.

The second photo shows two dorms; Budding Hall and the Blanche and Norman C. Francis Family Hall. The Francis Family Hall is the smaller building on the right in the photo. Norman was the first African American to graduate from Loyola. He received his law degree in 1955. He became the first African American to serve as president of nearby Xavier University of Louisiana from 1968 to 2015. He was also the first non-clergy president of Xavier. He was the second African American president of any Catholic college or university in the U.S. The building was previously called Carrollton Hall, a name derived from a neighborhood close to the university. The building was completed in 1999 and can accommodate 330 residents. It was renamed in 2022.

The tall building facing the camera in the second photo is Buddig Hall. Construction on Buddig began in 1964 and it opened as a dorm for women 1966. It cost $2.5 million, or some $25.3 million today, to construct. It is twelve stories tall and can accommodate 429 residents. It takes its name in honor of Henrietta Buddig Legier, the late wife of long-serving Loyola Board of Regents member and alumnus John Legier.  He was a banker who was the Chairman of the Board of the New Orleans’ based National American Bank. She passed away in 1961 at age eighty-one. There is a cool photo of two people standing in front of the architectural rendering of Buddig (which was at that point still the working name of "Women's Dormitory" here. I could not find out who those two people are nor when the photo was taken. If you happen to know, please leave a comment. Buddig is the other building on campus that has reportedly been the home to a ghost and possibly a demon. There are stories online about a group of students using a Ouija board to contact a lost soul. You can read stories about it online, but they seem much more hype than reality. The story is similar to the one at Western Kentucky University where students in Potter Hall supposedly used a Ouija board to contact the ghost of a former resident. 

There is a new residence hall going up just behind this collection of dorms and adjacent to the Recreational Sports Complex (see below). It will be an apartment-style dorm which can accommodate 600 residents. It was designed by EskewDumezRipple of New Orleans. It is scheduled for completion some time next year and the university hopes to have students living in the building for the Fall 2025 semester. 

The set below begins with one photo of the Recreational Sports Complex. The building was completed in late 1987 and was formally dedicated in February 1988. It's a combination structure. In addition to housing the student recreation center, the building has double duty as a parking garage. It is built on the former site of the Loyola Fieldhouse. The Fieldhouse was home to the university’s Wolfpack basketball team until the decision was made to drop intercollegiate sports at the end of the 1971-1972 academic year. It was home to two professional basketball teams as well. The New Orleans Buccaneers of the failed American Basketball Association (ABA) played there for two seasons from 1967 to 1969. The NBA’s New Orleans Jazz (now the Utah Jazz) played some of their first season games in the arena in 1974-1975. The building sits at the end of the campus in terms of my walk across it and after taking this photo I crossed the street and on to the Tulane University campus.

The last two images in this set are examples of Loyola's versions of the ever present campus lamppost sign. These were taken in Palm Court in front of Monroe Hall and just behind the Communications/Music Complex. 
​
A recent article in the online journal InsideHIgherEd noted that a number of Catholic institutions have seen a notable uptick in their enrollment in recent years (see the article written by Sara Weissman here). This is notable given that overall college attendance is down thanks to both a lower number of traditional-aged college students and to less interest in and value of college education in recent years. Owing to their higher tuition rates, private institutions have been hit hard by these changes. The article noted that the institutions which have seen their enrollment increase have something in common: they have doubled down on religious aspects of being Catholic schools. Indeed, some other Christian colleges and universities were also mentioned as having enrollment increases thanks to their focus on religion as well. I don’t know if Loyola has taken this route or not, but it has had good enrollment in recent years. Regardless, it is a nice campus with some very beautiful buildings and nice open spaces as well. If you are ever in New Orleans and need a break from the frivolity of the French Quarter or a respite from your convention, I would recommend a visit.

I was walking across campus this morning and ran into a friend of mine here at the University of Memphis. He's a big college football fan and our conversation quickly turned to the results of this past weekend and the upcoming playoffs and bowl games. As we chatted the topic of stadiums came up. He had been to watch a game at a university whose name I will not mention and was not at all impressed by the stadium. I have heard others remark that it is lacking in many ways, but I haven't been there to have an opinion on it, so I will not mention the name. He reads this blog and has remarked more than once that I should place more attention on stadiums and arenas.

He and I are about the same age, and we talked a bit about how much stadiums have improved over the last thirty years. In my retrospective piece on Texas Tech's Jones AT&T Stadium, I mentioned how much that venue has improved in the last two and half decades. Its development has been a remarkable. Although you still must contend with the West Texas heat if you go to a game early in the season, it is a terrific example of a modern, big-time college football stadium. I have mentioned that Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee is my favorite. Like Jones Stadium, it has been modernized in many ways. Oddly enough, the number of seats in the place increased and then decreased a bit after I completed my undergraduate studies there. When I was an undergrad, the stadium was not completely enclosed on the upper deck. That changed in 1996, when the north upper deck was completed. Additional facilities were incorporated into that expansion, and although the then-available amenities were nothing like those available today, they too saw some upgrades. A new press box, suites, amenities, and a new brick façade followed. The addition of the luxury boxes actually caused a slight reduction in overall seating capacity. Anyway, I thought I would do a retrospective on Neyland Stadium tonight and have an additional post in the future with a current take on it. 

The stadium can bee seen on the right in the first photo, taken from the roof top deck of Carrick Hall in February 1990. It is the only photo I have that shows the bulk of the stadium prior to installation of north endzone upper deck in 1996 and the brick façade in the early 2000's. The second photo below is a view that no longer exists. This is a view looking south across the stadium in the summer of 1993. That portion of the stadium was enclosed by a new upper deck section three years later. Note that there is no press box on the east side of the stadium. The third photo is the start of the game against LSU on September 25, 1993. UT's Pride of the Southland Marching Band forms a "T" and the team and spirit squads run onto the field. You can clearly see the open upper deck on the north side. You can see some better photos of that area of Neyland in my post from last year on bowl games here. The last photo of the set is not of the stadium, per se, but rather of my brother and I at a game on September 2, 1995 in which we beat East Carolina 27 to 7. I am the one on the right. Just like Neyland, I have expanded a good bit over the years!

By July 1996, the upper deck addition on the north endzone side of the stadium was well underway. You can see the work progressing nicely in the first two photos of this set. The addition was complete by the time of the third photo, taken in December 1996. Finally, you have a good look at the stadium with the end zone complete taken on May 11, 1997. 

As is the case with Jones Stadium, photos from today would show a stadium very different than the one you see in these photos. Tennessee has added loads of new amenities and Neyland is very much a modern and quite luxurious college football stadium.

I can't help but wonder what the future of collegiate stadiums will be. The trend where colleges battle to “stay competitive” by building more support facilities and increasing the extravagance of stadiums and arenas is not slowing down. How far could it go? You can look to professional stadiums for a clue. It's not comparing apples to apples, but what those stadiums have is a precursor to what big time college teams will likely have in the future. Sure, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA, and AT&T Stadium in Dallas benefit from community investment (its generally the taxpayers, not the team owners who pay for the stadiums) which is typically not the case in collegiate athletics, but at least some of their top tier amenities could be within reach of programs like those at Michigan, Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama.

The University of Memphis does not have its own on-campus stadium or basketball arena. The men's basketball team plays in the FedEx Forum, the home to the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. It's a great facility and despite being miles from campus is in many respects worth the trade off of not having an arena on the university's grounds. I don't think we could have a venue as nice as the FedEx Forum on our own. I will note that I have known loads of students who hate the fact that they simply can't walk to a basketball game. The football team plays at the Liberty Bowl which is also a couple of miles from campus. But it is not in the same league as the FedEx Forum. It is lacking in many ways. It has extremely limited food options, limited to no loge or suite seating, and has a beat up and run-down appearance and condition. 

The Liberty Bowl is undergoing updates as I write this. Millions of dollars are being spent to try to modernize and improve it. The plan calls for some significant and decades overdue renovations. Yet, even when it is done, it will pale in comparison to Neyland Stadium, Jones Stadium, and most Power Four conference venues. Indeed, I would go far as to say that Neyland Stadium was far nicer and had as good or better amenities when I started college in 1988 as the Liberty Bowl has now in 2024 (before the completion of the renovations which are in-progress as I write this). The differences between the haves and the have nots is notable. The divide could get larger if the river of money flowing through the big time programs continues or gets bigger. To quote Joe Pesci’s character in Casino it's "always the dollars”. Having more money to spend on your stadium can bring in more dollars in the long run. And that may be what college athletics is all about these days.

The subject of today’s post is a university that just a couple of years ago would have not meant the same thing to me as it does today. Austin Peay State University is located in Clarksville, TN, about 45 miles or so northwest of Nashville. The university is about eight miles from the Kentucky border and just a hop from Fort Campbell, a large US Army base which is home to the 101st Airborne Division. But what makes it unique for me is that I am now an alumnus of the university. I decided to go back to school to get a second master’s degree in management more than two decades after I received my Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. I graduated during the first weekend in May 2024, nearly thirty years after I received my first master’s from the University of Tennessee. When I put that into writing it really stands out as an exceptionally long time. Think of it. In the intervening years between receiving my first master’s and my second, a person could have been born, gone all the way through college (even on a longer than the normal four-year plan), completed a master’s degree and have been out of school and working for a few years in the same amount of time. Man, I am getting old. When I was an undergraduate at UT there were, from time to time, older students in some of my classes. It turned out that I became one of those old people as well. But this post is not about me.

Austin Peay was founded as a teacher’s college, hence its original name of Austin Peay Normal School. It carried that name from its founding in 1927 to 1943. From 1943 to 1967 it was named Austin Peay State College. The name changed to its current Austin Peay State University in 1966 and so it remains to this day. What is unique about Austin Peay is that the university occupies a campus that has been the site of many other unrelated schools and colleges. Readers of the blog may recall a post from a few years ago on Rhodes College in which I detail the history of the site. The first school located on what is now the Austin Peay campus was the Rural Academy which stood there from 1806 to 1810. This was followed by the Mt. Pleasant Academy (1811-1824) and the Clarksville Academy (1825 to 1848). The first college would occupy the site beginning in 1849. It would be reorganized in 1851 as the Montgomery County Masonic College. Another reorganization came in 1855, when it was named Stewart College. Stewart would close in 1854. As noted in my earlier post, Rhodes began life with the name Southwestern Presbyterian College on the site in 1875. The name would change to Rhodes only after it moved to Memphis in 1925. The state of Tennessee would acquire the former Southwestern campus in 1927 to provide a home for the newly established Austin Peay.

Today Austin Peay has a headcount of about 11,000 students and has about 550 faculty. The campus sits on 182 acres pretty much in the heart of Clarksville. The university is named after former Tennessee Governor Austin Peay. He was a force for higher education in the state at the time, doing much for the advancement of public colleges and universities across the state. Public colleges in the state saw significant increases in their budgets during his administration and a building boom was underway thanks to his support. It was during his time in office that the college that would eventually bear his name was created. Because of this association, the university eventually settled on its athletic moniker - the Governors. Many of the buildings are named for various governors of the state as well.

My first stop on this visit was the Kimbrough Building. Kimbrough is the home to the College of Business. It recently underwent a $9 million renovation. I wanted to make sure to get a number of photos of the building since I am now an alumnus of the College of Business. Although not always the case, the business building(s) on campus are generally well-kept structures and are frequently some of the most up-to-date. This is thanks in part to the fact that the alumni of business schools tend to have greater incomes than graduates of many other programs and thus when they donate their contributions tend be larger. The same is frequently true of schools of medicine, law, and engineering. The building was completed in 1982 and has some 32,000 square feet of space. The College of Business has seen its enrollment increase in recent years and it has generally outgrown the space. The university plans to someday build an addition that would connect to the portion of the building on the left in the first photo. The addition would essentially make the building into a "U" shape. It is named in honor of Ben S. Kimbrough, an alumnus (Class of 1951) and his wife  Margaret. He was a local businessman and community leader. His sone Ben Jr. and wife Beverly Kimbrough are also donors to the university having endowed the Ben and Beverly Kimbrough Scholarship.

The first four photos show various views of the building's exterior. The first two are of the side facing Henry Street, the third on the Marion Street side of the building. The sculpture in the fifth photo is called Light Modulator. The piece is the work of artist Mike Andrews and was completed in 1985 and donated to Austin Peay in 1986. Andrews works out of a studio in Cunningham, Tennessee, a small community about nine miles from the university. 

The set below is the ​Foy Fitness and Recreation Center. It has all the accoutrements of a modern fitness center including cardio and weight training spaces and equipment, a multicourt gym, studio spaces, a wellness center, classroom and administrative space, locker rooms and showers, and a cafe. The building was designed by the Lyle Cook Martin Architects firm of Clarksville, Tennessee. The firm also designed the Joe Morgan Student Center on campus (see below). Readers may recall that they designed the University Village Phase II residential complex at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Completed in 2007, the 76,450 square foot Foy Center cost $8,762,000 to construct (which is about $14.1 million in today's value). It is named in honor of John N. Foy and his wife Trish. Mr. Foy is an alumnus of Austin Peay (Class of 1964). After a 44-year career with the real estate giant CBL, he founded the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based investment firm Noon Management. He is also a graduate of the School of Law at the University of Tennessee.

​The first two photos show the front façade of the building which faces Marion Street. One of things I like about the university is that they are very active in branding. They make great use of their colors, red and black like my other alma mater Texas Tech, and their various logos. In this case, you see the stylized face of the APSU Governor, the athletic team mascot. The dedicatory plaques, seen in photos three and four, are by the main entrance. The fifth and sixth photos show the building from the side which faces Fortera Stadium (see below).

The set below provides two views of the front of the Winfield Dunn Center and close up's of the state seal of Tennessee and the APSU seal which are on opposite sides on the building's front façade. The building faces Marion Street and there is an intramural field and a sand volleyball court between it and the street. The Dunn Center was once the home of the Governors basketball program. The program has moved to the F&M Bank Arena, but I did not get a photo of it during this visit. Construction on Dunn began in February 1973, and it opened in 1975 with the name Winfield Dunn Health and Physical Education Building and Convocation Complex. The first game in the arena was played on December 1, 1975, and saw the Governors beat the Old Dominion Monarchs 78 to 73. The last men’s game played in Dunn occurred on February 22, 2023, and again saw the Governors win, this time beating North Florida 73 to 71. Overall, the team had 350 wins and 144 losses in the arena. The 132,000 square foot building is now home to the Governors volleyball team. It cost $5.3 million to build, which is about $37.7 million in today's dollars. It is the first building on my tour that is named for a Tennessee governor. Winfield Dunn was a Mississippian by birth who came to Tennessee for dental school. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Mississippi (Class of 1950) and then went to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center for dental school (Class of 1955). The Dunn Dental Building at UTHSC is also named in his honor. He stayed in Memphis to practice and eventually went into politics. He was elected the 43rd governor of Tennessee in 1971. Buildings at Tennessee Tech and the University of Memphis are also named for him.

The set below is of a number of residence halls on campus. The first photo is of the Castle Heights building. The building, which is for first-year students, can accommodate up to 416 residents. Its name comes from the area in which it is located, which is in turn an homage to the former Castle Building (see below) on campus. It was completed in 2011, with a grand opening celebration being held on August 11th that year. The 140,000 square foot building was designed jointly by Lyle Cook Martin Architects and Clark and Associates Architects. 

The second photo shows two groups of residence halls. The building on the left is Governor's Terrace North. An identical building sits behind it and is called Governor's Terrace South. North is a coed facility for upper division students. It can house 116 people in double occupancy rooms. The building on the right is Eriksson Hall. It is a match for the two Governor's Terrace buildings. All three were completed in 2013 and have a combined 132,000 square feet of space. Cumulatively, they cost $31,338,813 (or about $43.7 million today) to build. Eriksson is for upper division women. Technically, it is called Martha Dickerson Eriksson Hall. Its namesake was an alumnae (Class of 1962) who spent more than thirty years as a public school teacher. Upon her passing, her husband made a substantial contribution to the university. In addition to this building, the College of Education is named in her honor as is a scholarship. I believe all three (Terrace North, South, and Eriksson) were designed by the Nashville, Tennessee firm Bauer Askew Architecture.

The buildings you see in the background between North and Eriksson are part of Hand Village. There are a total of eight buildings in the complex which can house 200 upper division residents in apartments. It is named after businessman and Austin Peay donor Charles Hand. 

The set below begins with a photo of two residence halls, Blount Hall in the foreground, and Sevier Hall. Although the façades look the same, Sevier is a much bigger building. I was not able to find out for certain, but I believe Sevier was expanded at some point. Sevier is L=shaped, and if you look at aerial photos online, you can see a line where it looks like an addition has been made. It makes sense that this was the case, as the buildings are otherwise very much alike.  

Blount is named for the first territorial governor of what would become Tennessee, William Blount. Blount, by the way, is pronounced by most Tennesseans as “blunt” as in a blunt instrument. I have met people from other regions of the U.S. with the same name and they all pronounced it “blau-nt” which has a Germanic sound to it. I once met a gentleman from Quebec City, Canada, and his French-Canadian pronunciation was a beautiful sounding “blue-ent”. William Blount was from North Carolina and at the time there was no Tennessee at all. He was a signer of the U.S. Constitution and was appointed to the governorship by President George Washington of what was called the “Federal Territory South of the River Ohio”, commonly referred to as the “Southwest Territory”. He was sworn in as governor on September 20, 1790, and the first territorial capital was located in Piney Flats in present day Sullivan County in east Tennessee. He would move the capital to James White Fort in an area he subsequently named Knoxville after U.S. Secretary of War Henry Knox. He had a storied life that is well beyond the scope of this blog. But after serving as territorial governor, he was a “shadow senator” for the territory (territories could not have official voting senators or members of congress) and an actual U.S. Senator for Tennessee when it became a state. He finished his political career as a state senator for Tennessee.  

Readers from Tennessee, and graduates of the University of Tennessee, may know that there is a Blount Hall on the campus in Knoxville. Of course, UT was once named Blount College, and there have been many things named for Governor Blount’s daughter there. The Hill, an iconic location at the center of campus at UT once carried the name “Barabara Hill” in her honor. There were not one but two buildings which carried the moniker “Barabara Blount Hall” there as well. There is also a county in east Tennessee named for Governor Blount as well as the city of Blountville, near Johnson City in the eastern portion of the state. Blount Hall can house up to 65 residents in traditional double occupancy rooms in its 22,675 square feet of space. It currently houses first year students. 

Sevier is for women only, and can house 188 people in traditional two-person rooms across its 47,085 square feet of space. It takes it name from John Sevier, the first governor of the state when it was formally established and carried the Tennessee name. He took office on March 30, 1796, and served three terms. Born in Virginia, Sevier had previously been a Congressman representing North Carolina for June 1790 until March 1791. He served in the Virginia Colonia Militia prior to the American Revolution, and the again in the Southwest Territorial Militia during the revolution. He would rise to the rank of Brigadier General. He died while conducting a survey of land in the Alabama Territory on September 24, 1815, at age seventy. He was initially buried near Fort Decatur in Alabama, but was he was reinterred in Knoxville in 1889. His importance to the state is reflected by numerous monuments and places and things being named in his honor. The city of Sevierville and Sevier County are both named for him. The Governor John Sevier Highway in Knox County, the John Sevier Middle School in Sullivan County, and the John Sevier Elementary School in Blount County are named in his honor as well. A statue of Sevier stands in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. 

A walkway which extends from near the Foy Fitness and Recreation Center from Marion Street to Harned Hall and the Food Hall building (see below) can be seen in the remaining five photos of this set. It is named the John Morgan Walk of History. He is the son of Joe Morgan, the university's fourth president. An alumnus of Austin Peay (Class of 1973), Morgan would go on to be the Chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) from 2010 until 2016. For many years, all of the states colleges and universities, including community colleges and technical colleges, were governed by this solitary board with the exception of the University of Tennessee System. The second, third, and fourth photos show the entryway to the Walk near Marion Street. The fifth photo is a fire department connection box along the walkway. I took the photo because of the image that is applied to it. What you see is the Castle Building, a fixture on the campus for many years. Indeed, the Castle Building pre-dates Austin Peay. Designed by Gallatin, Tennessee-based architect G.B. Vennoy, the Elizabethan style building stood on the campus for ninety-eight years. It was built at a time when the institution which occupied the campus was the Masonic College. It continued as part of Montgomery County Masonic College, Stewart College, Southwestern Presbyterian University (now Rhodes College), and finally, beginning in 1927, Austin Peay. It was both large and quite ornate. It cost the hefty sum of $32,000 to build (about $1.3 million today). The years were not easy on the building. By the 1940's, large cracks in the brick work could be seen on the outside of the building. It collapsed in 1948.

The last photo is of ​Marks Hall which stands at the end of the Walk. Marks is unusual in that it began life as a woodworking shop. During World War II, students who were part of the National Youth Administration built a woodshop that would eventually be transformed into the building you see today. When it opened, it was called the Marks Industrial Arts Building. It was modified and expanded for years beginning in 1948 and finally being completed in 1961. 

The set below begins with three photos of the Memorial Health Building, commonly referred to as the Red Barn. The building actually sits atop a grave. You read that correctly. At the conclusion of World War II, a flood of new students came to campus thanks to the G.I. Bill. Many were married and along with their families lived in old barracks converted for use as married student housing. The families took to cultivating a garden with the help of an old mule. The mule was also used to entertain their kids on the weekends. Kids would taking rides on the animal guided by one of the parents. The mule died in the late 1940's and the students buried him on campus near the old barracks. The site would become home to the university's new arena. So as not to disturb the grave, the building was built above it and left it untouched. The mule's grave is supposed to be near midcourt of the basketball court which is still inside. It opened in 1952, and the Memorial portion of its name denotes its dedication to those killed during the Second World War. It was expanded in 1954. Intercollegiate sports moved out with the completion of the Dunn Center. ​This is not the first grave site I have covered in a post. Readers may recall that Murray State University's first horse mascot, Violet Cactus, is buried inside Roy Stewart Stadium there. The first photo shows the building from across Marion Street near the Dunn Center. In the grass near the building on that side is a rock which was painted with the university logo during my visit. I don't know if its an imitation or not, but the University of Tennessee has its own iconic rock on campus which students have routinely painted for more than half a century.

The last photo is currently called the Food Hall. It opened as Catherine Evans Harvill Hall. Mrs. Harvill was the wife of Halbert Harvill, Austin Peay's second president (see below). I believe it was a cafeteria when it first opened. In the early 21st Century, it was renovated to be the university's bookstore. It was subsequently renovated and repurposed again as a food court building, re-opening in September 2024 as the Food Hall.

The set below begins with Harned Hall, a former dorm that has been converted to office space. The building’s full name is Myra McKay Harned Hall. I had thought the building was named for Perry L. Harned, a notable figure in public education in Tennessee. Harned was an educator who, among many other notable accomplishments, was Commissioner of Education for the State of Tennessee. In that capacity, he played a significant role in getting Austin Peay founded. It would make sense that the building would have his name as a result. However, that is not the case. Sources say that at the time, the tradition was to name buildings only in memoriam. Given his support of and role in getting Austin Peay started, many wanted to name a structure to recognize his support. But Harned was still alive, and thus naming something for him was not on the table. The decision was made to name it in honor of his late wife Myra who had passed away in 1926. The building opened in 1932 as a dorm for women. The first three photos show the front façade of the building. The second and third photos show the stylized "AP" the university uses as a logo in front of the building. I have often shown photos of various animals on the campuses I visit, from a cat at Rhodes College, to rabbits at Montana State and Wright State, and albino squirrels at Western Kentucky. It was natural, then, that I took the fourth photo of this set of a cat surveying the campus from in front of Harned.

The fifth photo is of a dormitory, Harvill Hall. It is a comparatively small building which houses about forty residents. Harvill is named in honor of Halbert Harvill, the second president of Austin Peay. He served in that capacity from 1946 until 1962. When he assumed office, Austin Peay was tiny, with only about 417 full-time equivalent (FTE) students. When he retired in 1962, the student body number about 2,118 FTE. As was the case for most universities in the U.S., the period of Harvill’s presidency was one of tremendous growth not only in students but also in the physical plant of the university. Some thirteen new buildings went up during his presidency. Harvill was a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University (then called the Middle Tennessee State Teacher’s College) in 1927. He joined Austin Peay in 1929 as a history professor. He would later become the registrar. His youngest brother, Richard A. Harvill was also a college president, serving in that capacity at the University of Arizona from 1951 to 1971. Arizona is an Association of American Universities (AAU) school, which is an organization of the elite research universities in the U.S. and Canada. The Richard A. Harvill Building on the Arizona campus is named in his honor. Which leaves me with two questions I had not thought of before: (1) I wonder how many siblings have been presidents of universities? and (2) how many collegiate buildings are named for siblings? Being the academician I am, I will have to look into that. Of course, the University of Arizona gained a great deal of media attention in the last year thanks to a budget misstep in which the university found itself in a deficit of over $100 million. 

The university placed a nice sitting area complete with a pergola just across from Harvill seen here in the sixth photo. I took a moment to sit there and I imagine it would be a good place to read, visit, or just hang out. 

The last two photos of this set are of the former cupola which once stood atop Clement Hall (see below). On January 22, 1999, an E3 tornado ripped through the Austin Peay campus. Trees were down all over campus, windows were broken, whole sections of the roofs of numerous buildings were ripped away, and the cupolas of both Clement and Browning were torn from their rooftops. As noted above, Harned Hall was in terrible shape. When the windows broke in the Music/Mass Communication Building, the fire suppression system went off and flooded the building. It was the largest single property loss in the Tennessee history at that time. It took years of effort to get the campus back to the shape it was in prior to the tornado. Clement's cupola was place in a spot near Harned, the Morgan University Center, and the Woodward Library as a memorial. It was placed as it was with no repairs, hence the tilt of the point on top. This marks the fourth campus covered in this blog which was hit by a tornado, with the University of Memphis, Lambuth, Union University, and the Mississippi University for Women being the other three.

The set below begins with twelve photos of the ​Morgan University Center, Austin Peay's student union. Morgan is named after APSU’s third president, Joe Morgan, who served in that role from 1963 to 1976. It was during his tenure that the institution’s name changed from Austin Peay State College to Austin Peay State University, which occurred in 1966. Students at the time appreciated Morgan’s forward thinking. He ended the previously required attendance at a midweek assembly and reduced/eliminated some antiquated policies requiring women to sign in and out of their dorms and prohibiting them from wearing shorts around campus. Prior to his time there were even curfews! Alumnae and former Dean of the Eriksson College of Education, Dr. Carlette Hardin, once reflected on the change stating things quickly moved from her having to wear dresses on campus to wearing hot pants. Quite the change indeed. The Morgan University Center was designed by Clarksville-based architects Lyle Cook Martin. It opened in 2002 at a cost of $12,200,000 (or about $21.2 million in 2024 value). Like most student unions, it has a cafeteria, fast food options, a ballroom, meeting space, offices, lounges, and recreation areas. It has about 100,000 square feet of space.

The photos give you various views of both the exterior and interior of the building. Some work was going on inside. It appeared as though they were renovating space for a fast food establishment. Austin Peay does a great job in branding itself, and I had to take a photo of the small dining services vehicle parked outside. 

The thirteenth photo is a monument to the many people involved in helping the university overcome the damage wrought by the tornado mentioned above. The sculpture you see in photos fourteen and fifteen is called The Sentinel and is the work of artist Olen Bryant. Bryant served on the faculty in the art department from 1963 to 1991. The piece is affectionately referred to as The Green Man by students and alumni alike. Bryant completed his undergraduate work at Murray State University (Class of 1950) and his master’s at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He passed away on July 17, 2017, at the age of 90.

Below we have the Felix G. Woodward Library, better known as simply the Woodward Library. It very much looks the part of the late 1960’s design that it is. When Austin Peay first opened, it had no free-standing library. This was not, and is not, unusual for a brand-new institution. From the time the university opened until 1950, the library collection was housed in the Stewart Building on the third floor. Its first librarian was Sarah O. Morrow, who for a time was its sole employee. The collection moved to Browning Hall when it opened in 1950. I had mentioned in my post on the Montana State University that moving a library was no easy task. In Austin Peay’s case, a chain of students, faculty, and staff lined up and passed each journal, item, and book hand to hand from one location to the next. The collection had grown from about 1,000 to 20,000 volumes by that point, and the time and effort it took to move everything must have been something. I would have loved to have seen it, or better yet, been a part of it. 

Construction of the Woodward Library began in 1965. It officially opened on February 20, 1967. The cost of construction came in at about $1.5 million (or about $14.9 million in today’s value). Part of the funding for the library came from the Library Services and Construction Act of 1964. Unlike the move from Stewart to Browning which was completed by students and staff (see below), the university hired a moving firm to relocate the collection, which by this point numbered well over 100,000 volumes. These days you not only see students eating and drinking in the stacks of any public university library, but you are also more often than not able to find a coffee shop or fast-food establishment located in them as well. When the new library opened in 1967 this was unheard of. No food was allowed. Smoking, however, was a different matter. Smoking was completely acceptable back then and more than 44% of adults smoked in the late 1960's. Thus, there were smoking areas in the building. I am old enough to remember smoking in public everywhere and recall walking into restaurants and other places so filled with smoke that they appeared foggy. My how times have changed! In 1967, a student could light up a cigar or cigarette but would likely face scorn if they brought in a bottle of soda and tried to take a sip. Today, smoking would never be allowed, but you can bring in a veritable buffet of foods and a giant cup of coffee and no one will bat an eye. 

I have mentioned the various classification systems libraries use in earlier posts on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Tennessee at Martin. Most university libraries use the Library of Congress Classification System to assign call numbers to their materials whereas most public libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Austin Peay used the Dewey system until 1975. Well, that’s not quite correct. I should have said until a change which began in December 1975. It took the staff nine years to complete the changeover! That means a process that began under President Ford was not completed until Ronald Reagan was president! In those nine years, numerous whole classes of students came and went. You could have been a freshman in the Fall of 1975, graduated in 1980, and came back for a visit several years later and the work would not have been completed! I don’t know for certain, but I imagine the card catalog was entirely on paper when it was started, so it was a massive undertaking. The staff reclassified about 15,000 books during each of those years. Although the library was probably open on the weekends, I imagine most if not all of the work was done during the week. That means there were something in the neighborhood of 250 working days per year for them to do that. Keep in mind, the process didn't involve a simple change of a number on a book. The Library of Congress system and the Dewey system would have books placed in quite different places in the stacks. It would be a complete overhaul of the entire collection. Thus, the library staff retagged, relocated, and created new cards for the card catalog to the tune of about sixty books a day for nine years. All the while the library was open, and people were using and checking out materials. That puts the nine years into perspective. Felix G. Woodward was the Dean of Faculty at Austin Peay. He retired in 1968, shortly after the library opened. His wife Laura would pass away that December, and he passed away on July 12, 1971.

The first photo shows the façade of the building as you approach it from the Morgan University Center. As I have mentioned, Austin Peay does a great job of branding and as you can see in the second photo they have branded the library's door in the official colors of the university. The sculpture you see in the third photo is a piece by artist Howard Brown called Synthesis. Brown is an an Austin Peay alumnus (Class of 1984). In addition to being an artist, he is an ordained minister. He completed the work, which is made from Tennessee black marble, in 1984. The hole in the piece is meant to evoke the Austin Peay community and the events on campus which draw students to the university. The winged elements represents the heights to which alumni can go as a result of graduating from APSU. There had been a message on the base that detailed the meaning of the piece, but it has weathered off. Synthesis was meant to be an indoor piece, but its weight prevented it from being installed in that fashion. The last photo was taken of the building near Clement Hall (see below).

The set below begins with two views of the front façade of McCord Hall. ​McCord opened in 1949 as a science building. Coming in at 52,222 square feet, it was a large building for its day and had a variety of classrooms and wet labs. It is named after Jim Nance McCord, who was elected governor in 1944 and served in that role for two terms (at that time, governors of Tennessee served only a two-year term). Currently, there are buildings named for him at Tennessee State University, Tennessee Tech University, the University of Memphis, and the University of Tennessee Knoxville. A building at the University of Tennessee at Martin was named for him, but it has since been razed.

The next six photos provide a number of views of the front of Browning Hall. Browing opened in 1950 and was for a time a multi-purpose building. It housed the university’s administrative offices, the library, and a small space which acted as a student union. The administrative portions opened in February of that year, and the library portion (the east wing of the building) opened later that spring. As mentioned above, classes were cancelled for a day so that students, faculty, and staff could form a human chain to pass books from the library’s previous home in Stewart Hall to the building. The cupola on top contains a clock and chimes which were a gift of the Pettus Foundation. The cupola was ripped off during the January 1999 tornado, but the chimes and the clockworks were left in good condition. Browing was named after two-term Governor Gordon Browning. I wrote about him in my post about the University of Tennessee at Martin where there is another Browning Hall. A third Browning Hall named for him is at the University of Memphis. The building at Austin Peay, which was inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia, comes in at 34,071 square feet of space.

The sculpture you see in the fourth and fifth photos is called The Gateway, and it is the work of artist and former Austin Peay faculty member James Diehr. He created the piece in 1986. Some sources say the piece is made of tin, but this is inaccurate. It is made of Cor-ten steel, a type of weather steel. The second half of that word is pronounced "tin" and I imagine this is where the confusion developed. Readers may recall that the sculpture Drum Rhythm No. 11 at the University of Texas at San Antonio Downtown is also made of Cor-ten steel. If you enlarge the photo, you will see that the center of the piece is a human figure. The bottom pieces are books, and the top is a crucible. 

The ninth and tenth photos are of Clement Hall. The building is one of five collegiate structures in Tennessee to carry his name. The building opened in 1962. There is a large dormitory with a cafeteria in it named Clement Hall at the University of Tennessee, and there are Clement Halls at Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, the University of Memphis, and the University of Tennessee at Martin. All are named for Frank Clement, the 41st governor of Tennessee. I wrote about the one at UT Martin in my recent post and refer readers to that post for more information about Governor Clement.

The quad area you see in photos eleven, twelve, and thirteen has recently been given a name and is now known as the F. Evans Harvill Quadrangle. He is the son of Halbert Harvill (see Harvill Hall above) and a two-time Austin Peay alumnus (Classes of 1944 and 1947). Owing to his father's presidency, he spent much of his childhood on the campus. It is a lovely area, and despite being close the street rather quiet. Of course, I was there on a Sunday so it may be that during the week the sound of traffic could be more noticeable. 

The last photo is the entrance gate to the campus on the Harvill Quad. It is not robust in its ornateness, but I very much like it and it fits with the campus. Sometimes, being a bit understated is more than enough. There are photos online of the aftermath of the 1999 tornado, and this area is covered with fallen trees and a toppled street light. Yet, as best I can tell, no damage to the gate nor to the stylized APSU occurred.

Claxton Hall is next in our visit and the first photo in the next set. It is one of a number of buildings on campus that is not named for a governor of Tennessee but rather for an Austin Peay president. It gets its name in honor of Philander P. Claxton, the second president of Austin Peay, who held that role from 1930 to 1946. Claxton was a two-time alumnus of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville having earned both his bachelor’s degree (Class of 1882) and master’s (Class of 1887) there. He left the state to become the superintendent of schools for the state of North Carolina, a position he held from 1883 to 1893. He then taught at the then-named North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) until 1902. He then returned to UT Knoxville where he helped establish the Department of Education (currently the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences). He stayed at UT until 1911 when he was appointed the U.S. Commissioner of Education by President Woodrow Wilson. He kept that position until 1921 when he left to be provost of University of Alabama for two years. He then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to be a school superintendent for six years until he took the presidency at Austin Peay. The College of Education at the University of Tennessee is housed in part in the Philander P. Claxton Hall. I had many classes in that building during my time there. There is a large auditorium-style classroom on the first floor, and I had a variety of first- and second-year classes there.

The second photo is of Archwood, a historic mansion on campus. It was the home of local businessman Samuel Rexinger. It is believed that Nashville-based architect John L. Smith designed the home. Work began on the house in March 1878. It cost $6,000 to construct (about $188,000 today). It was sold to the Southwestern Presbyterian University (Rhodes College) at some point and in the early 20th Century it was used as a residence for some of their faculty. During World War II, it was acquired by the Army and divided into apartments for service members. After the war, it was purchased and returned to a single family home. It was acquired by the university in 1965 and renovated for use as the home of the president. The university stopped using for that purpose in 1980, but it has returned to that use and current APSU president Michael Licari and his wife Kirsten live in the home. It was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1977. The last photo is the building's historic marker. 

​The set below is of three science buildings on campus. The first four photos of the set are of the Sundquist Science Complex. The building is named for Don Sundquist, a six-term U.S. Congressman and the 47th Governor of Tennessee. It opened on September 17, 2001. Currently, the Department of Biology, Department of Chemistry, Department of Physics and Astronomy, and, for the time being, the Department of Allied Health Sciences call Sundquist home. Allied Health will move into an entirely new building in a matter of months (see below). The building has lecture halls, classrooms, offices, and a variety of lab space. The building is quite large, coming in at 221,213 square feet. Sundquist cost $38 million to construct, which is about $67.3 million in today’s value.

Photos five through seven give you three views of the Technology Building. The building opened with the name Hemlock Semiconductor Building, thanks to its creation being a partnership between Austin Peay, the state of Tennessee, and the Hemlock Semiconductor Company. Hemlock was opening a large facility in Clarksville and donated $2 million to aid in construction of the building after which the university offered an Associate’s degree in Chemical Engineering Technology to support local labor force development. The name changed to its current moniker in 2015. The 20,068-square-foot two-story building has a solar focus. As you can see, the main façade is graced with a clock tower with a sun dial. The building has numerous solar panels installed with a maximum generating capacity of 33.6 kilowatts. It was designed by the local Clarksville architectural firm Rufus Johnson Associates in association with Bauer Askew Architecture. It opened in 2010 and had a grand opening on September 16th that year. 

The last photo in this set is the Maynard Mathematics and Computer Science building. Groundbreaking for the building occurred on August 17, 2012. The 27,327 square foot building was also designed by Rufus Johnson Associates. It's named after alumnus James “Jimmy” Maynard (Class of 1956). For years, Mr. Maynard paid the way for students from Montgomery County, Tennessee to attend Austin Peay. He also donated to other university initiatives. The building It was dedicated in a ceremony on November 18, 2013.

The set below begins with the ​Trahern Building, which is sometimes (at least historically) referred to as the Margaret Fort Trahern Art and Drama Complex. She taught English at Austin Peay for many years prior to her passing in 1966 at the young age of only sixty-three. Her son followed in her footsteps, being a English professor at the University of Illinois and then the University of Tennessee. He made a contribution to the university for the construction of the building. It has just over 60,000 square feet of space. There is a longstanding belief that the building is haunted (see here and here).

The second photo is the Art and Design Building, which was completed in the summer of 2017. The 46,000 square foot building was designed by Walter Smith of Street Dixon Rick Architecture of Nashville. The firm has since been acquired by Orcutt|Winslow which has a page on the building you can see here. The building, which cost $21.3 million to construct (about $28.2 million today), has two galleries, classrooms, a lecture hall, offices, and support spaces.

The first three photos of the next set are of a new building under construction, the Health Professions Building. The building was designed by the Nashville, Tennessee-based Hasting Architecture in collaboration with the Ayers Saint Gross architecture firm and will have some 114,000 square feet of space. It will combine units now spread across several different buildings. It will have classrooms, wet labs, simulation labs, two patient-serving clinics, and administrative offices. It is slated for completion in 2025 and when it opens it will be the largest academic building on campus. It will house four academic units including the Departments of Health and Human Performance, Medical Laboratory Science, Psychological Science and Counseling, Radiologic Technology, and Social Work as well as the School of Nursing. Ayers Saint Gross is very active in collegiate architecture and campus planning. The firm was responsible for the renovation of the Hayden Library at Arizona State University, and the most recent campus master plans for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Tennessee. 

The fourth and fifth photos of this set are of the Music/Mass Communication Building. It has a variety of performance and rehearsal space, classrooms, and media rooms. It is also home to a 600-seat concert hall and an 80-seat recital hall. A mobile TV/radio van, seen in the last photo of this set, was parked outside the building. It is yet another example of the extent to branding has a place at the university. It would be hard to miss that driving down the road, or to confuse it for something other than an Austin Peay vehicle.

Next, we have Fortera Stadium, home of the Governors football team. You would not know it to look at it, but the stadium dates back to 1946. It opened that year with the name Clarksville Municipal Stadium, and it was not actually owned by the university. Rather, the city of Clarksville owned the place and rented it out at cost to the university for the football program. It remained property of the city until 1970, when its ownership was divided equally between the city, the county, and APSU. The university eventually bought it outright in 1990. It upgraded the place and renamed it Governors Stadium. The Fortera Credit Union paid for naming rights in 2016, and it has carried their name since. It will carry it for a long time, as the agreement was for a whopping twenty-five years. When it opened in 1946, it had seating for 5,500 and today that number is up to 7,000, at least in terms of permanent seating. Additional bleachers can be added and have been from time to time. Indeed, on October 6, 2018, an all-time attendance record was set at 12,201 in a game that saw the Governors defeat the Tennessee State Tigers 49 to 34.

I had mentioned in my post on Arizona State University that at one time they were known as the “Normals”. It was, and is, a very bad name in my opinion. Well, it was one of those moments where I put my foot in my mouth. Not only was I being unfair to Arizona State, I was also showing my ignorance of one of my own alma mater’s former name. Austin Peay’s athletic teams had a couple of different names before they settled on Governors. The Governors moniker did not take hold until around 1937, and before that they were know conversely as the Warriors and - wait for it - the Normalites. Yes, the Normalites. I have to say, that is far worse than Normals. I had to laugh at that one.

I will close with Austin Peay's version of the ever present college lamppost sign. The first photo shows the sign that is most common around campus, and I have to say that I really like this one. First, I am partial to the combination of red and black for the school colors. My doctoral alma mater Texas Tech also has red and black as its official colors. The university has worked the tri-star figure from the state's flag into its overall logo scheme at present and it makes a good addition to this lamppost sign. The three stars represent the three regions (East, Middle, and West) of the state. The second photo shows the signs common around athletics facilities. 

I know I am biased, as any alumnus would be, but I really like the Austin Peay campus. The buildings are mostly modern in style, and they thus lack any uniqueness which some schools have. But it is a lovely green campus and the layout makes it easy to get around and does so in varying and pleasant atmospheres. If you ever find yourself passing through the area, I would encourage you to stop and have a look. 

I was on the road headed for Indianapolis for the weekend and had made one stop in Martin, Tennessee to visit the University of Tennessee at Martin. If you know the route from the Memphis metro area to Indianapolis, you may know that although it is a bit further, most mapping software would have you drive into Arkansas, up to Missouri, across Illinois, and into Indiana. I decided my route, a more direct path through Kentucky and straight to Indiana for the sole purpose of visiting a number of new colleges and universities. After UTM, my next stop was the University of Evansville. 

​As is often the case, the University of Evansville began with a different name. It also began in a different location. Evansville began its life in 1854 in the small community of Moore’s Hill, Indiana. Moore’s Hill is roughly two hundred miles from Evansville. It is actually closer to Cincinnati, Ohio, than Evansville. It was there that John Collins Moore, the son of the town’s founder and namesake, sought to create a college. Moore had little in the way of formal education, but none the nonetheless saw the need and the benefits of having a college in the town. He donated funds and twelve acres of land to help create the college. Along with other prominent citizens and with the aid of three local men’s groups, including the Mason’s, Odd Fellows, and the Sons of Temperance, sufficient funds were raised and on February 10, 1854, the institution was formally established as the Moore’s Hill Male and Female Collegiate Institute. It would be two years until the first classes were offered, but the institution was on its way.

Classes were started on September 9, 1856, and were held in the college’s first building although it was not yet completed. That would not occur until December that year, but things went well despite the incomplete nature of the building. The building would be called Moore Hall (some sources say Moores Hall), and it would remain the sole building on campus for the better part of fifty years. It was a rather large brick building which could hold up to 350 students in a variety of classrooms. Instruction was at all levels, K-12 and college. The first student to graduate would be Jane S. Churchill who completed her studies in 1858. In 1900, Stevens Gymnasium was completed on campus and a former store was purchased in 1903 for use as a science building. Another former store was purchased and converted into a dorm for women sometime in the early 20th Century.  
 
Another major academic building on campus would be made possible in large part by a donation from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. The cornerstone of that structure, which would be one of dozens of buildings on college campuses across the country called Carnegie Hall, would be laid in a ceremony on June 12, 1907. A grand, four-story structure, it was completed and dedicated the following year on June 18, 1908. The building cost about $48,000 to construct and outfit (which is about $1.6 million in 2024 value). It was designed by the Crapsey and Lamm architecture firm of Cincinnati, Ohio. The building would have steam heat and electric lighting (a point I note as it relates to the Olmsted Administration Building below). The building ended up going over budget, a fact that did not help the institution which had struggled with finances. Although the institution would eventually relocate, Carnegie Hall in Moores Hill still stands on the former campus. It was subsequently used as a public school and is now a museum. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. You can see it here. 

In the interim, the college had changed its name. It became Moores Hill College in 1887. Despite a growing curriculum and physical plant, the going was not easy, and the college struggled with financial issues. Moore Hall would catch fire and be consumed by the conflagration on November 4, 1915. With Moore Hall left in ruins, the college continued, but it was evident that change was needed to ensure its continued existence. The college had long struggled to maintain itself. Indeed, it had racked up a substantial debt to founder John Moore who continued to provide funding via loans from his business. This continued after his death with his estate continuing to support the institution. Salaries were drastically low compared to other institutions in the state, and at times the college reduced faculty and staff salaries by as much as a third because they simply could not afford to pay the remainder. By 1916, the debt was becoming overwhelming. The college had debts of at least $42,200 (or about $1.1 million in 2024 value) and only $220 (about $6,763 today) of cash on hand. There were a number of options which could be pursued to alleviate the problem, but many offered too little in the way of immediate or long-term promise. The most promising was a potential merger with DePauw University, another Methodist-affiliated college in Greencastle, Indiana. The idea was for Moores Hill to become a junior college feeder to DePauw, an idea which seemed well on its way to becoming reality in the year before the fire. Then president Harry A. King felt certain the merger would take place and left to take the presidency of Clark University in Atlanta.  

Meanwhile in Evansville, there had been talk of establishing a college. Local businessman and community leader George S. Clifford read about the fire in Moores Hill and seeing that the college was in need, consulted other local leaders and the Evansville Chamber of Commerce about relocating the school there. Receiving support for the idea, Clifford wrote to the board suggesting a move to Evansville. At the time, the merger with DePauw seemed imminent, and his offer was rebuked. Within a year, however, the merger was off. DePauw was not as sold on the idea as Moores Hill. The college was back at square one. King’s successor was Alfred F. Hughes, who joined the college in 1916. While getting settled in his office, Hughes found Clifford’s letter and brought it back to the attention of the board. Although a general consensus was reached that relocation to a bigger community would be a good idea, there was some discussion by leaders in the Methodist Church and the board about just where that should be. In addition to Evansville, Seymour, Indiana, which was closer to Moores Hill, was also in contention. Hughes and other representatives met with leaders in both communities. In Evansville, Clifford made the case by noting the city’s size and location. He provided a map which showed every college town in Indiana surrounded by a circle fifty miles in diameter. He included both Seymour and Moores Hill. Moores Hill’s circle intersected with ten other circles; Seymour intersected with several as well. But Evansville was more than 100 miles away from the nearest institution, including those out of state.  

Local citizens, led by Clifford then began a campaign to raise $500,000 to support the college in a move to Evansville with the condition that the Methodist Church match it. Before the fund raising had even begun, troubles mounted. First, although they were not interested in acquiring the college, leaders at DePauw were against the move. DePauw’s president George R. Gross felt it was improper for the church to fund what was essentially a defunct college when it and other Methodist-affiliated schools could use additional financial support from the church. Then on April 6, 1917, the U.S. entered World War I. Despite the hurdles, Clifford and the group in Evansville chose to move forward. Keep in mind that $500,000 is worth about $12.2 million today. But the support flowed in from all quarters. By May 3, 1917, the community had raised $514,000. The matching funds from the church would have to be raised by December. The campaign was not as robust on the church’s side, and in the end, it was only made possible when eight districts of the Methodist Church in Indiana signed a promissory note for nearly half of the funds. It was not ideal, but it was sufficient.  

The work was not over, for now the college would have to relocate, establish a campus, and first and foremost, get state approval for the move. The state obliged on February 17, 1919, with a charter to the effect that the new institution, to be called Evansville College, was a continuation of the Moores Hill thus easing the process. Interestingly, a provision of the new charter was that a major building on the campus be named in honor of John C. Moore since he was the founder in the original charter. This would happen, but not until 1958 when work would begin on a new Moore Hall (see below) on the Evansville campus. The college would open to students on September 16, 1919, but would do so without its own campus or buildings. Evansville would cobble together rented space in the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA), Evansville’s Central High School, and the basement of the Lockyear Business College in town. A space was even rented to provide dorm space for women. That fall, one hundred four students matriculated, with Norman D. Beach being the first to enroll.  

The troubles were not exactly over, and of course trials and tribulations continue for Evansville and all other colleges and universities, but the institution prevails. By the 1960’s, when enrollment was booming, the college’s offerings had become such that it changed its name to the University of Evansville. Today, more than 2,000 students are enrolled at the university which has an endowment of over $91 million. The university’s athletics teams, the Purple Aces, play in seventeen Division I sports. The university offers undergraduate studies in more than 85 majors, as well as a number of graduate degrees. 

When you arrive on campus, you are greeted by the sign in the first photo below. The area is known as Clifford Circle and the building beyond is the Olmsted Administration Building (more on both below). Behind the sign is a small area with a bench and the sign you see in the second photo. The site is dedicated to Michael E. Thorp, but I cannot find out anything about him or why the area is dedicated in his honor. I am not alone in my search. Blogger John G. West (no relation to me of which I am aware) visited Evansville in August 2009 and subsequently wrote that after some extensive searching he too was unable to find any information about Mr. Thorp. You can read his post here (read the one before this and you can see many photos of his visit sixteen years ago). If you know anything about Thorp, please leave a comment.

The first stop on my visit is the wonderful Olmsted Administration Building. I love collegiate gothic architecture, and this is a truly fine example of the genre. As you can tell from these photos, it was late in the day and quite overcast during my visit. That gives the building a bit of a foreboding vibe to it in this set, but it is a beautiful structure. A groundbreaking for the building was held on June 21, 1921, making it over one hundred three years old during my visit. The campus, which had been farmland prior to the college relocating there, still the remnants of rows of corn from the summer before. The work went quickly, and it was ready for students and staff the following year. The first classes were in the building on June 12, 1922. An unusual aspect of the building was the fact that it was constructed without electric lights! I’m not sure why this was the case. Many colleges and universities of that era (and even today in the 21st Century) have their own power plants. Perhaps electricity was not available in this area at the time and the university, having just relocated to Evansville, could not afford to create its own power plant. As noted above, the college had electric lights when it was located in Moores Hill prior to the move to Evansville. I was not able to find out why it was built sans electric lights nor when electricity was added to the building. If you know please leave a comment.  

As is often the case, when the structure opened it was simply called the Administration Building. It was designed by the Miller, Fullenwider & Dowling architecture firm of Chicago, Illinois. As a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, it looks very much like Ayers Hall on The Hill there. This is not a coincidence nor is it a matter of two buildings being of similar collegiate gothic architecture. The firm designed Ayers prior to Olmsted and indeed used Ayres as the starting point for their Evansville design. The construction uses Indiana limestone blocks which are broken rather than sawed on their vertical ends (the sides of the blocks as you look straight at the building). This is considered to be the first instance where Indiana limestone was used with this style of cutting. Miller, Fullenwider & Dowling would design other academic buildings in this style including a law school building at Cornell University in New York and France Hall at Heidelberg College in Ohio. Firm principal Grant C. Miller did the work on Ayres, but I am not certain about the others including Olmsted. There is a great photo of Olmsted under construction on the Indiana University library website that you can see here.

The building would be known simply as the Administration Building until 1981 when it was renamed in honor of long serving administrator and alumnus Ralph Olmstead. Ralph Evans Olmsted was both a fixture and pillar at Evansville and probably spent more time in the halls and in the service of the university than any other person. He was born in the tiny village of Shipman, Illinois, on September 13, 1899, the son of Charles Alpheus and Iola (née Williams) Olmsted. The youngest of eight children, he would first appear on the Evansville campus in 1919 as a member of the first class on the new campus. In a sense, he never left. He was there as a student at the groundbreaking for the building that would eventually carry his name. He even participated in the event. He graduated in 1923 and after a stint off campus as a reporter and teacher, was hired by then Evansville President Harper Earl Harper in 1925 as an assistant. He would stay with university for the rest of career and tallied forty-two years in the building. He became Executive Secretary (the Business Manager) in 1928, later taught journalism, and finally was the university’s archivist. His book From Institute to University (1973), provides a wonderful history of the institution to 1971, is a great read and something anyone interested in the university should acquire. He married Jane Elizabeth (née Wright) on June 12, 1924. They had four children, of whom daughter Susan spent more than twenty years working at the university.
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Olmsted is the keystone of a circular drive which surrounds a large green space. As noted above, it is called the Clifford Circle. It takes its name in honor of George Clifford and his wife Emily. The Clifford’s had been instrumental in bringing the college to Evansville and both would serve on the Board (Emily being the first woman to serve in such a capacity). Both would also receive honorary degrees for their service.

The set below begins with five views of the front façade of the building, which many on campus refer to simply as Olmstead. The fourteen photos that follow are of the interior on the first floor. The main entrance is covered in plaques honoring those who have served and donated to the university, many of whom have names that grace the other buildings on campus. Photos twenty through twenty-three of this set are of the front of the building again. I was taken but the details in the stonework, windows, and the lovely light. The last three photos are of Clifford Circle.

​The next set is of buildings which are connected to one another. First up is Hyde Hall. Eventually named for Evansville President Melvin Hyde, the building planned with the simple name “Classroom Building”. Owing to President Hyde’s successful twelve years in office, the decision was made to name the building in his honor. The building was one of fourteen structures completed on campus during the 1960’s as the Baby Boomers flooded campus. Much of this occurred during Hyde’s tenure which began in 1955 and ended in 1967. Enrollment increased from 1,091 FTE in 1955 to 2,859 in 1966. Hyde was the first layman to be president of Evansville. A native of South Dakota, he had previously been a dean at Dakota Wesleyan University and Mount Union College (now the University of Mount Union), and then as an assistant vice president at Drake University before coming to Evansville. He retired to Colorado in 1967 where he passed away in Estes Park in 1978. The building opened in 1967. The first photo shows the main façade of the building. A plaza area, as noted by the plaque in the second photo, was added in front of the building in 1983. You can see some of the seating in the plaza in the third photo, along with the large stylized "UE" used on many university documents, athletic team uniforms, and more. The fourth photo shows more of the plaza seating area with the Krannert Hall of Art and Music (see below) in the background. The last photo of this set shows where Hyde connects with the Shanklin Theater. It replaced an existing theater in the Olmsted Administration Building. Initially, the university considered updating the space in Olmsted, but something outside of that structure was considered a better plan. The decision was made to make it part of the planned Classroom Building (Hyde Hall) which would allow it to have its own space and footprint and yet offer economy over building a completely separate structure. It too was completed in 1967 and its opening on April 14, 1967 saw a production of Hamlet. It takes its name in honor of the Shanklin family owing to an endowed gift from Robert F. Shanklin. The Shanklin family is quite notable. Robert’s father, James Shanklin, was a colonel during the Civil War. His uncles owned the Evansville Courier newspaper. His uncle John Marshall Harlan and his cousin John Marshall Harlan II were both Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Harlan Kentucky, seat of Harlan County Kentucky, is named for his distant relatives. The last and most recent portion of the building, not visible here, is the May Studio Theatre. The addition is on the back side of the structure. Fundraising for a new lab theater began in 1992 and was dedicated in 1994. A black box-style theater (not unlike the one at Montana State University which is literally called the Black Box Theater), it is named for alumnae Alice George May (Class of 1934). Mrs. May and her husband were donors to many causes at Evansville.

The set below gives two views of what turns out to be the back of the Krannert Hall of Art and Music. I didn't realize it at the time, but the combined structure does not face Olmsted, but rather Rotherwood Avenue to the west. Its unfortunate that I missed that fact, as the more impressive side is the one we cannot see from this vantage point. The complex was completed in 1962 with a price tag of just under $2 million (just under $20.5 million in 2024 value). Herman C. Krannert was a highly successful businessman who founded and led a major producer of corrugated boxes called the Indland Container Company. He and wife Ellnora were philanthropists who gave to many causes and who were particularly supportive of higher education. They gave $400,000 (about $4 million today) to help fund the building and in recognition the building carries their name. A pipe burst in the building in 2019 and did considerable damage. The university used this as an opportunity and raised funds and fixed the damage and completely renovated the building which had a gala reopening on August 30, 2023.

Around the same time as their donation to Evansville, the pair donated $2.73 million (about $28.4 million today) to establish the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. It was the first named school at Purdue. That school would be renamed the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business in 2023 for Purdue's 12th president. I guess $28 million doesn't buy that much anymore since they changed the name. Later, they would fund the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at his alma mater, the University of Illinois. Their name also graces the campus of the University of Indianapolis' Krannert memorial Library. There is also addition to the Koch Center for Engineering and Science at Evansville which was supported by a large donation from the Krannert estate.

The set below is of Sampson Hall, home of the Crayton E. and  Ellen Mann Health Center, and the Schroeder Family School of Business  Administration Building. ​Sampson had originally opened as the university’s bookstore. It was completed in 1959 as part of the McCurdy Alumni Memorial Union (see below) and would remain as the bookstore until it moved to a former pharmacy off campus in the early 1990’s. It was then repurposed as the student health center. The name comes from serving psychology faculty member and former department chair Delbert Sampson. Sampson was instrumental in the growth of the department during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The building was renamed in his honor in 1995. It was during his time that the university opened a chapter of the Psi Chi Psychology Honor Society. He and wife Mary endowed a scholarship for members of the society. Crayton Mann was an Evansville alumnus (Class of 1941) who was a hospital administrator. He and wife Ellen left money to the university upon their passing. In addition to funding the clinic, which was named in their honor, they funded a scholarship for students with disabilities. 

A large portion of the structure is called the Schroeder Family School of Business  Administration Building. The older part  of the building was originally the campus union. Since it opened, the Olmsted Administration Building had a lounge which was meant for student use. Although not a full-fledged union, it sufficed. By the early 1940’s, it was evident that a student union was needed on campus. Then president Hale began fundraising for a new engineering building and a student union just as World War II broke out. Despite the war, donations flooded in, some from active-duty military members. But building during the war was impossible as construction was stymied as all supplies were devoted to the war effort and those things that directly supported the military. In 1946, a former Red Cross canteen which had been used to support troops as they moved about the country, was purchased an installed where Hyde Hall and the Shanklin Theater (see above) now stand. It was called the Temporary Union Building, or TUB. In 1947, local community leader Robert D. Mathias led a campaign to finalize funding for a new permanent union. By October, $1,265,000 had been raised (about $17.9 million today). A chunk of that was from the estate of William H. McCurdy. McCurdy had long been a supporter and benefactor of the university. The building was completed in 1951 and was named the McCurdy Alumni Memorial Union in honor of both Mr. McCurdy and for the alumni of the university who were killed in the war. It served the university as its union until the current Ridgeway University Center opened in 2008. Then the business school moved in.

An addition to the building was completed in 2007. Several generations of the Schroeder family have been associated with Evansville and it is through that association and the donations the family has given that the school of business carries their name. John H. (Henry) Schroeder was a member of and president of the Evansville Board when it was still called Evansville College. His son John C. Schroeder was also a member of the Board and board president. An interesting fact about both Henry and John Schroeder is that they were both graduates of Wabash College (Classes of 1942 and 1969 respectively) where they were both members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. The interesting part is not that they both went to the same college or were members of the same fraternity, as this is often the case with fathers and sons. But the interesting part is the Phi Gam connection as George Clifford and William Ridgway were Phi Gamma Delta men as well, albeit at different colleges. Clifford is memorialized on campus in the naming of Clifford Circle (mentioned above) and the Clifford Library (see below). The Evansville student union is named the Ridgway University Center (see below). I will admit, I have not looked for nor noticed a connection like this before although it could very well be the case for any number of colleges about which I have written.​

The first three photos show the side of the building as you walk your way from Olmsted. The portion on the right in the first and third photos is Sampson Hall. The arched doorway in the second photo is part of Sampson as well. The part on the left in these photos is Schroeder. The fourth photo shows the original entrance to the building, which is still actively used but which is supplemented by an entranceway in the new addition as well. The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library has a photo of this entrance online (see here). If you take a look, you will notice that the light fixtures by the entryway stairs are different. The earlier ones were taller and I rather like them better than the ones installed today. Inside you find the plaques seen in the fifth and sixth photos which are original to the structure honoring the students and alumni killed in World War II as well as Mr. McCurdy. There is also a large area recognizing the Schroeder family which can be seen in the seventh photo. The portrait was completed by Kentucky-based artist Jim Cantrell, who did his undergraduate work at the University of Nebraska (Class of 1958) and his master’s at the University of Northern Colorado (Class of 1965). The addition has a large atrium area, seen in the eighth photo, which was being prepped for an event of some sort during my visit. The last photo is the addition to the building. 

The next set of photos are all of the ​Koch Center for Engineering and Science. It is actually a combination building, consisting of three structures built decades apart from one another. The original portion of the building was began, I believe, in 1945. It was fully completed in 1947, with the entire structure being occupied that September. Parts of the building were already in use as early as 1946. I am uncertain of the total cost of the building at that point, but several sources ping the expense at around $700,000, which would place it at around $12.2 million in 2024 value. This would be the extent of the building for the next three decades. It was, for that time called the Engineering Building. What was first a large and enviable building became crowded and eventually overwhelmed by the mass influx of Baby Boomer students. An addition to the building was decided to be the best option. The addition would bring 30,000 square feet of new space for the sciences and engineering, bringing the total of the two buildings to about 90,000 square feet in total. A groundbreaking for the building was held in 1977 and it opened in (DATE). The building was made possible largely through donations in a dedicated fundraising campaign for the structure. The Krannert Charitable Trust donated $1 million to campaign in 1976, a figure that would be about $5.5 million in 2024 value. The space would be renamed in 1984 for Robert K. Koch and his family who had been generous donors to the university for some time and who donated $4.1 million to a development campaign in the early 1980’s. A final addition came less than thirty years later. In addition to enrollment growth, engineering and the sciences needed space to accommodate the multitude of new equipment in those areas. The addition brought additional space, a grand two-story atrium, and a large lecture hall. It was completed in 2002.

​The first photo in this set is the front entrance to the original 1940's section of the building. Matching the other buildings on campus at the time, it was designed in the collegiate gothic with the familiar stone. The second photo is looking northward with the original portion of the building in the foreground and the 1970's addition in the distance. The addition can be seen more clearly in the third and fourth photos. Although the color scheme matches the original, the style is completely modern. It might have looked just fine if it were not actually attached to the gothic original, but as is so often the case in such instances, it looks like a quick addition done to save money. The last photo of this set is the newest part of the building. Whereas the 1970's addition went the route of a modern structure that did not match the style of the original, takes the traditional approach. As such, it more closely resembles the original despite the fact that it did not open until 2002, more than half a century after the fact.

The photo below is of two residence halls. In the foreground is the Hale Residence Hall, the older of the two structures. It opened in 1966, one of the many buildings erected on campus in response to the demand placed on the university by the massive increase in students during the Baby Boomer period. It is a coed facility which can accommodate 180 residents. It is named in honor of the university's 18th president, Lincoln B. Hale. Hale was a three-time alumnus of Yale, including his undergraduate degree from the Yale Seminary. What's interesting about that is the fact that he was an ordained Presbyterian Minister, a somewhat unusual fact given that Evansville is a Methodist-affiliated institution. Hale arrived on campus in 1939 as dean and registrar. The local paper carried the news, and in reflection of a much simpler time, noted the address he and his wife had purchased. He became interim president in 1940 and then president in 1941. He stayed in the role until 1954. He was then immediately hired to head a U.S. government mission to Israel. He passed away unexpectedly at age 58 while giving a speech in New York City. He was speaking and without warning stumbled and fell, dying at the scene. He was a private in the Army in World War I, and thus his ashes are inurned in a columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Sallie Elizabeth “Sadie” (née Watton) Hale would live for another forty-eight years, passing away at age ninety-five in 1994.

The building in the background is the ​Mary Kuehn Powell Residence Hall. It is one of three buildings on campus (that I am aware) which were designed by Jack H. Kinkel, one of the "sons" who is part of the Evansville-based architectural firm Jack R. Kinkel and Sons. Kinkel is an Evansville alumnus (Class of 1962). Evansville did not, and does not have an architecture program. Kinkel's undergraduate work was in business, but he went on to the University of Kentucky from which he graduated with a degree in architecture in 1964. He also did the design work of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library and the Schroeder Residence Hall which are both detailed below. It too is coed and can accommodate ninety-six residents. It opened in 1993. Mrs. Powell was a long-serving trustee of the university. A native of Evansville, she graduated from Bosse High School and went on to earn an Associate's degree from Stephens College and a Bachelor's degree at Northwestern University. She met her husband there, he was a dishwasher for her chapter of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. He would go on to the chairman of the trucking and logistics firm Yellow Freight System (now YRC Worldwide). She passed away on ​February 14, 2011.​

The first photo in the next set is the Clifford Memorial Library. Clifford was the first dedicated building for the library. The library was initially located in the Olmsted Administration Building. Readers of this blog and armchair higher education historians will know that housing the library in the admin building is a very common theme in the history of many colleges and universities. The space in the admin building was quickly outgrown. Indeed, prior to Clifford’s construction, the Olmsted Building’s attic had to be used to store items that were not regularly used or checked out. In the years after World War II, the GI-Bill induced enrollment boom strained the space to the breaking point. Having long outgrown its space on Olmsted’s second floor, the library and its collection spread across the building as well as into a large temporary structure erected as part of a campus-side effort to cope with the massive influx of students. Evansville’s then President Hale went in search of funding and found a significant portion in the form of a challenge grant in the amount of $200,000 from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment. The Lilly Endowment, created by Josiah K. Lilly Sr. and sons Eli and Josiah of the famed pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company is one of the largest foundations in the U.S. and has donated to many colleges and universities and other causes for nearly 100 years. The grant came with the condition that the college had to raise the rest of the required amount, some $450,000, to necessary to complete the project. 

Hale would not stay on to see the library completed. The official groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 22, 1955, the very same day Hale’s successor, Melvin Hyde, would be sworn in as president. A time capsule was placed in the cornerstone the following year with microfilm and audio tapes (including one of Elvis Presley) and other items. Construction did not go perfectly as an error in the design work was found during construction. Libraries have to support far more weight that typical structures. The weight of books adds up quickly and when you have a collection that spaces multiple floors the framing must be substantial. The original plan failed to adequately address the issue of this enormous weight, but thankfully the issue was caught and corrected. I have written about the Herculean task of moving an academic library in the case of Montana State University and the University of Tennessee at Martin and the various means these and other schools have used to relocate thousands of books and other materials. In this case, the move was not too great in terms of distance as Clifford and Olmsted are in close proximity. In Evansville’s case, the director of the physical plant, a Mr. A.C. Biggs, devised a plan to connect the buildings via a cable car system. Along with a team of individuals, the system allowed the entire collection to be relocated in the new library in just two days. Although rearrangement and final tuning likely took place after, this was a remarkably fast relocation. 

The library is also named in honor of George and Emily Clifford. Their son James L. Clifford, a professor at Columbia University, was the speaker at the library’s dedication on March 19, 1957. His personal collection of books and papers are now held in the Evansville library. The new library was the first building on campus to be built with air conditioning and in addition to stacks, reading rooms, and study spaces, had an auditorium capable of seating 100 people. In all, Clifford has about 28,000 square feet of space.

The remaining photos in this set are of a second library, the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library, which is the principal library on the Evansville campus today. The post-war boom in enrollment was soon followed by another which was both larger and longer lasting. The Baby Boom generation began enrolling in college in the early 1960’s. Having more enrolled students equaled more demand for library materials and space. Clifford’s collection had roughly 40,000 books when it opened in 1957. By 1965, it had reached more than 66,000 and by 1970 it had passed 100,000 books. The number of periodicals and other materials likewise increased. The increases would not only continue but would amplify during the 1970’s. Clifford was quickly being outgrown. The increase in holdings was a reflection of the enrollment and the library’s space was far too small to provide seating for the number of students on campus. The building could simply not provide the necessary space for study and research for the population of students now matriculating at the college. An addition, completed at a cost of $290,00 (about $1.46 million in today’s value) did little to slake the need for space. It was evident that a major addition was needed.
​
A fundraising campaign began in 1983 with the goal of acquiring $5 million (nearly $16 million today) for construction of a 56,000 square foot addition designed by Jack H. Kinkel of the Evansville-based architectural firm Jack R. Kinkel and Sons. Among his many works are two dorms on the Evansville campus (see below), recreation center at the University of Southern Indiana, and a number of structures at Oakland City University, in the eponymously named city which is about thirty miles north of Evansville. A groundbreaking ceremony for Bower-Suhrheinrich was held on October 20, 1984. The addition was completed in 1986. American author and Indiana native Kurt Vonnegut spoke at the dedication on October 16, 1986. Although connected to the Clifford Library, the addition received its own name in recognition of a $1 million gift from Dallas Bower-Suhrheinrich. Her late husband William Suhrheinrich had been Vice Chairman and Treasurer of the university’s Board. It underwent a significant renovation which was completed in 2013. This saw a major makeover of the first floor. The design work for the renovation was completed by the architectural firm Hafer which has offices in Evansville and across the region.

The second photo is a view of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library as you walk toward it from the Olmsted building and the Clifford Memorial Library. The building on the left in that photo is the William L. Ridgway University Center (see below). The third photo shows the main entrance more clearly, and the fourth through seventh photos show other angles of the building as you walk around the structure toward the rear. The last two photos show the interior on the first floor including a dedicatory plaque just inside doorway.

The set below is of Memorial Plaza. It harkens back to a terrible tragedy for the university and the community. The 1977-1978 Purple Aces basketball season was meant to be something special. The university had decided to pursue greater attendance and competition and had sought and received permission to become an NCAA Division I school for basketball that year. Bobby Watson was hired as the new coach and the season began with much hope. The team lost its first two games of the season, first to Western Kentucky University at home and then to DePaul University on the road in Illinois. They came home to win the third game of the season against the University of Pittsburgh but lost the fourth to an Indiana State University squad featuring future Boston Celtics legend Larry Byrd. The team was scheduled to play Middle Tennessee State University on December 14, 1977, in Murfreesboro but fate would intervene. Shortly after takeoff on Tuesday, December 13, 1977, the DC-3 charter flight operated by Air Indiana as flight 216, crashed. Watson and all but one member of the team was killed in the crash (David Furr, a freshman on the team had stayed behind thanks to an ankle injury. The crash was caused by human error. The pilot had failed to remove the gust locks on the right side of the aircraft. This caused the center of gravity to shift and thanks to the plane being overloaded the combination resulted in a nose-up orientation that could not be overcome. In addition to the team, the plane carried three student managers, the Athletics Department business manager, controlled, and information director. Two donors and a sportscaster were also killed in the accident. The assistant coaches were not on board as they were on recruiting trips. Four people initially survived the crash, but three died on the scene after rescuers arrived and one died within hours after being located. Furr would also die tragically two weeks later in a car crash that also took the life of his younger brother. 

​The university had been planning to construct a plaza on campus, and the decision was made to make the site a memorial to those killed in the crash. Groundbreaking on the site occurred on March 30, 1978, but construction was not begun until after the relatives of all of the Evansville victims had been consulted. The two stone slabs you see lead to a cobblestone basin. The circular object is a fountain and when it is on provides a shape not unlike a basketball which some refer to as the “Weeping Basketball”. 

The next set has three views of Graves Hall, which sits next door to the Ridgway Student Union (see below). Graves is named after the university’s twentieth president, Wallace B. Graves. Graves was in the office for an astounding nineteen years from 1967 to 1986. He came to Evansville from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He was only forty-three when he took the reins of the presidency. Graves was a Texas native, having grown up in Fort Worth. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1943 and joined the army during World War II. He was a POW but escaped after five months. He went on to complete a master’s at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and a doctorate at the University of Texas. UT Austin, as it happens, is one of the most prolific institutions in terms of producing college presidents and has been for years. Graves took over at the height of the Vietnam war, but for the most part the Evansville campus was generally quiet and free of the more prolific protests and riots of that era. The university continued to grow in many ways as the Baby Boomers continued their progression through school and were subsequently replaced by their children, Generation X (or Gen X). I happen to be of that latter generation and have always thought the moniker was foolish. The Gen Z name that followed was even more ridiculous. We were, after all, called Generation X because ethnographers were uncertain as to what we would eventually be known for. The “X” was not a name; it was a placeholder. But I digress. The building holds nursing and health sciences and has had recent updates including some simulations labs. If I am not mistaken, there was once a dorm that sat next to Graves, called Hughes Hall. It was named after the first president, Alfred Hughes. It opened in 1958 and soldiered on before being shuttered in 2017. It was torn down in 2022 to make way for a new recreation center to replace the Carson Center (see below). I was not able to find out much in the way of details about Graves Hall, so if you know anything about it please leave a note in the comments. 

The set below is of the William L. Ridgway University Center. It’s a great looking structure that has an impressive appearance despite not being as large as many of the student unions I have covered in this blog. The building was designed by Mackey Mitchell Architects and the Hafer architectural firm, the same firm which did the plan for the renovation of the first floor of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library. As you can see, it is a lovely two-story building which has 95,000 square feet of space. Mackey Mitchell is a St. Louis, Missouri-based firm which specializes in collegiate architecture. The firm was also involved in the design work for the Charger Student Union at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the South 40 Housing and Dining building and the Olin Business School Building at Washington University St. Louis, the Downing Student Union at Western Kentucky University, as well as residence halls and other structures around the country. Ground was broken for the union in July 2007 and was completed in August the following year. It cost roughly $23.9 million (or about $36.2 million in 2024 value) to construct. It is named in honor of long-serving university trustee William Ridgway. The university has a campus on a former grand estate in the U.K. called Harlaxton. Although the university had been using the location for some time, it came to be owned by Evansville courtesy of Ridgway. He purchased Harlaxton in 1978 for $180,000 (about $866k today) and donated it to the university in 1987.

The first photo is the length of the building from the walkway beside the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library. There is a large courtyard in front of the building which you can see in the second photo. As you can see, one of the features is the university's Interfaith Peace Bell. I love when things like this are kept and put on display, so kudos to the university for that. Plus, the pedestal is incredible! It is, of course, a replica of the Olmsted Administration Building's tower. As such, it's a double treat. The third and fourth photos give two views of the building's main façade. The area behind where I was standing when I took the fourth photo is the planned home for a new student recreation center. The last three photos show some of the interior on the first floor including the lovely water feature and a plaque to Mr. Ridgway. The building has the standard array of food options, the campus bookstore, study areas, and support offices. 

The set below begins with three views of the Neu Chapel. When I was first reading about the university and ran across a note about the Neu Chapel, I assumed the “Neu” was the German word “new”, meaning this was a newer chapel on campus which had replaced an earlier one. This was not exactly the case. It is the German word for new, but its use in the case has to do with a person who was named New. Adam J. Neu was born in German Township, Indiana. His father died when he was only six, and he was raised in a single parent household by his mother in a small home in Evansville. He joined the Army in 1915 where he learned the art of baking, spending much of his time in the service as a baker stationed in the Philippines. He left the army in 1920 and returned to the states continuing his work as a baker for two years before starting his own business. He initially made bread but then expanded into cakes which his wife Georgia would hand decorate. The bakery did very well and eventually he took on a franchise of the Sunbeam Bread company and employed 150 people. He and Georgia were very active in the community and supported many causes in the city and region. He became a member of the Evansville Board in 1952. In 1964, the couple gave a donation of $350,000 (about $3.5 million in today’s value) for the construction of the chapel.  

The chapel was completed in December 1965 and held its first service on January 6, 1966. It was officially dedicated on March 15th that year by Methodist Bishop Richard C. Raines. The building is clad in Indiana Limestone and has a slate roof with shingles from Vermont. It houses a Holtkamp organ and can seat 450 people. In addition to regular church services, the chapel is a favorite spot for weddings. 

The last two photos in this set are of two dorms which sit adjacent to Neu Chapel and across the street from the Carson Center (see below). The fourth photo shows the front of New Residence Hall, a name I imagine is a placeholder until such time as a more formal name is chosen. A groundbreaking for the building was held on May 18, 2021, and it was finished in time to open to residents in 2022. It can house 293 people and has a “U” shape with the courtyard you see here in the middle. It has some 83,000 square feet of space. It cost $18 million to build. The building is located on the site of two former dorms, Bretano Hall and Morton Hall. The last photo shows the back of the dorm and in the distance, you can see the older Moore Residence Hall. Moore was built courtesy of a $500,000 gift from the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church, an amount equal to about $5.4 million today. It opened in 1960 and can accommodate 240 residents. An addition was completed in 1963. It was initially a women’s residence hall, but it has since become coed. In the area where Moore now stands was once the site of temporary residences to accommodate the post-World War II student boom. Consisting of former military barracks, these were officially called the Campus Court Apartments and housed married students. By the 1950’s students began calling them Tin City thanks to their metal siding. They were not fully removed until 1961. You can read more about them here. ​The name is honor of the university’s founder John Collins Moore, thus fulfilling the requirements of the charter to have a building with the Moore name on campus.

The set below begins with a bit of a distant photo of the Carson Center, the student recreation center on campus. Completed in 1962, Carson has multiple gyms, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, workout and weightlifting facilities, classrooms, and offices. I believe the facility is named after William A. Carson, local businessman and long serving university trustee.

​Attached to the Carson and seen in the second photo is the Fifth Third Bank Basketball Practice Facility. Evansville participates in Division I athletics and its most notable program is the men’s basketball team. Back in 2011, the team began playing in the Ford Center, a 290,000 square foot facility located about two miles from campus which seats 10,000 people. I wanted to swing by there, but time was not on my side. I have heard that it is a really nice facility. Despite that, and the fact that it is not too far from campus, both the men’s and the women’s basketball teams practice in the Fifth Third Bank Facility. It’s actually a little bit newer than the Ford Center. It opened in 2012 and provides 25,000 square feet of space. The initial cost, some $3.6 million (about $5 million in 2024 value) was made possible through donations to the athletic department. Although it’s not old by any means, it was none the less updated in 2019.

The building you see in the distance in the second photo is the Schroeder Residence Hall. It's a coed dorm with men and women on alternate floors. It can accommodate 150 residents. Some sources say the building opened in 1994 and others 1995. It is named for John H. Schroeder who was a member of the Evansville board. Like the Powell Residence Hall and the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library, it was designed by local architect Jack H. Kinkel of the architectural firm Jack R. Kinkel and Sons.

My time on the Evansville campus was brief, but I really enjoyed it. It is a smaller institution and the campus is structured in a way that makes getting around quite easy. Yet it has a spacious and green feel to it at the same time. As fate would have it, this past summer my family and I were on an extended road trip and on the way back to our home in the Memphis metro area we made a stop at a used bookstore in Nashville we frequent whenever we are there. I found a book there which, along with information found in other sources and on the internet, provided a good history of the university which aided in the writing of this post. If you are interested in learning more about the place, I recommend reading We Face the Future Unafraid: A Narrative History of the University of Evansville by George Klinger (University of Evansville Press, 2003). It is a good book and an easy read. I was able to get a like-new edition for $0.75! I told my wife at the time that I had I a backlog of books I wanted to read and didn't know if I would ever set foot on the campus but I could not pass up getting it for less than a dollar. Less than four months later, I was walking around campus.

The final set of photos show three examples of Evansville's lamppost sign. The first is the most common, and has the stylized UE on a field of purple. The second and third photos show a second style that also adorns campus with a photo on top and a slogan and the UE on the bottom. I have always remarked that these signs are now ubiquitous and virtually every campus I visit has them. As I walked around Evansville I began to wonder. Are these going to be a standard for an extended period of time? Or are they so common as to have lost their appeal? I imagine they will stick around, but since everyone has them they have lost a little of their uniqueness. Time will tell.