Wright State University

I had been on a road trip with my family, and we stopped in Dayton, Ohio, to take our sons to see the National Museum of the Air Force Museum. If you have not been to the Air Force Museum, I highly recommend a trip. It is massive! It is the largest collection of military aircraft in the world. Although it does not have civil aircraft, its collection is, I believe, larger than that of both locations of the National Air and Space Museum combined. Regardless, it is an awesome museum with much more on display than aircraft. There are loads of exhibits and you could spend a couple of days there if you took the time to read every display. Plus, it’s free. At dinner afterwards, I thought I might get up early and run over to Wright State University and look around. But, after a very long day at the museum and about a week on the road we were all exhausted and turned in early. As I drifted off, I figured we would sleep in and then be on our way and that a visit to Wright State would have to wait for another day. As fate would have it, I woke up at 5:30am fully rested and refreshed. While the family slept, I grabbed breakfast and headed over to campus just as the sun came up.

This was only my second time on campus and quite honestly, I did not remember a great deal about it from my first visit. I had interviewed for and been offered a job there when I was a doctoral student in early 2000. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago. The people were nice, but it just wasn’t the right place for me. I had not been back to the campus since. Indeed, aside from transiting through the Cleveland and Cincinnati airports, I had not really been to Ohio in decades. It had been hot (for the area) the day before but given the early hour it was a perfect morning for a long walk around the campus. 

As colleges and universities go, Wright State is a young institution. Most colleges and universities in the U.S. experienced significant gains in enrollment immediately after World War II. Veterans poured into higher education thanks to the GI Bill and schools had massive enrollments. These new college graduates helped fuel a massive economic boom beginning in the 1950’s. Manufacturing in the U.S. grew, new technologies fueled the economy, and the Baby Boom generation was swelling the population. Ohio played an important role in the economy. Manufacturing and high-tech industries could be found across the state. Dayton was part of this growth and benefited from the presence of the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Although the state benefitted from numerous public colleges and universities there remained a need and an interest in a new institution. Dayton is in an interesting location for such a school. It is within a rather short drive of two major population centers in the state – Cincinnati to the southwest and Columbus to the northeast. Both of these cities are blessed with large public universities in the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State. Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio to the northwest of Cincinnati, is also close. An outsider might think that trying to establish a new independent college, let alone a new university so close to these existing institutions would be foolhardy. If nothing else, it would seem to be an idea that these existing universities would oppose. After all, who wants additional competition so close? I am sure there were elements who held this view. Undoubtedly there was concern in administrative offices across the state. There were likely state representatives and senators who were vocally opposed to creating another public school, let alone one so close to existing universities. Yet, support for Wright State’s creation was, as such things go, easy. Public support in Dayton was strong, civic leaders in the city and the region worked together to get the institution going. And despite the competition that a new university would create, the leaders of both Ohio State and Miami University lent their support to help create what would become Wright State University. Their support was so strong and genuine that two buildings on Wright’s campus bear the names of presidents of these universities. As someone in higher education this is remarkable! It's hard to imagine the case where such a thing could happen. Such was the support Wright State enjoyed. 

There was talk getting a new public college in the area for some time and with good reason. The rise of the Baby Boom generation was being felt everywhere, and particularly so in Dayton. The metro area had a population of about 295,000 in 1940, but that swelled to 400,000 by 1960 and 540,000 by 1968. Growth was everywhere, and the people of Dayton wanted some of that for their hometown. Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes was very much an infrastructure man and during his time in office worked to increase the state’s transportation networks, parks and recreation facilities, and colleges. He wanted a public college to be within thirty miles of every Ohioan. Regular readers of this blog may recall in my post on Jackson State Community College, that during the same time frame, the state of Tennessee made the pledge to locate a public college within fifty miles of its citizenry. 

Although support for a new institution was received from most quarters, several people played crucial roles in its creation. Stanley Charles Allyn was the CEO of the Dayton-based giant National Cash Register, or NCR. If you are unfamiliar with the name or the acronym by which it was known for decades, it was far more than a cash register business. It was a high tech firm creating and using the latest cutting edge technology. He was keen on seeing a better and larger educated workforce in the area. He was the founder and first chair of the Area Progress Council, a group involved in a number of initiatives with the creation of new university chief among them. He led the charge along with other local leaders including Robert Oelman, David Rike, and Frederick White. Buildings are named after these individuals and with good reason. The Council estimated the need to raise $6 million for the creation of the university and together they and the companies they represented gave $3 million. Dr. Novice Fawcett was the president of Ohio State at the time and he came out in vocal support of a new institution. Dr. John Millett was president of Miami University in nearby Oxford, OH, and he too supported its creation. He was subsequently the first Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents and used his position there to help the institution get approved and become operational. Buildings carry the Fawcett and Millett names as well and rightfully so. In April 1962, a new fundraising group was created called the Combined University Building Fund. By June of that year over 10,000 people had contributed to the fund to the tune of $3 million. The university had the funds it needed to go forward. The federal government donated lands beside the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as did the state. Additional acreage was purchased. The state gave permission for the school to begin construction and operation as the Dayton Campus of Miami University and Ohio State University. At the time, the campus was too far away from any municipality to be connected to water and sewer services, so Wright-Patterson stepped in and connected the campus to its grid until a public connection could be made.

The university opened with great fanfare on September 8, 1964. Although still in its embryonic phase, 3,203 students were enrolled that fall. Given that the university was brand new and had use of only one purpose built structure, people flocked to enroll. They were greeted by fifty-five faculty. Among them was C. Dewitt Hardy who joined the university in 1963 and aided in its development and launch. The first faculty member to be hire, Hardy would stay at Wright until his retirement in 1976. In 1965, a level of independence was achieved from Miami and Ohio State when the legislature gave the institution its own Advisory Committee, a precursor to a formal board of regents. The state determined that full independence would be granted when the institution's enrollment hit 5,000 but not before July 1, 1967. Wright State would hit that number quickly and on October 1, 1967 became a fully independent institution. Today, Wright State has over 10,200 students on the campus in Dayton and in excess of another 1,200 on off-site campuses. Its endowment is pushing $100 million and they over 1,100 teaching faculty. Through good times and bad, the university has grown into a comprehensive research university.
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This post will follow the route I took around campus and begins with the Wright State sign signaling the main entrance to campus at Colonel Glenn Highway and University Boulevard. You may not be able to tell it in this photo, but it is a very large tower.

I began my visit at the ​Student Union. As you can tell see from the first photo, the sun was just coming up when arrived on campus. The photos in this set were taken as began and then ended my visit, so you have a combination of daybreak and early morning photos. The Student Union opened in 1969. It was initially called the University Center. The former is by far the common name for student centers, but I prefer the latter simply because that was the name we used during my time as a student at the University of Tennessee. Like Wright State, Tennessee now refers to its student center as a student union. Part of the current Student Union is the former James A. Rhodes Physical Education Building completed in 1973. The Physical Education Building was designed by the Columbus, Ohio-based firm Brubaker and Brand and is to the southeast of the original portion of building. It was combined with the University Center via an addition added in 1994. Today, the union has 308,000 square feet of space.
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The union was not open when I first got to campus, but by the time I had finished my tour and was making my way to my car the first people were showing up for work. They were prepping for orientation for new students. The tour guides and other personnel were just showing up as I finished up my tour. 

There’s something about student unions that I like. Whether it’s the middle of the day and the place is packed with people, or its early or late and the place is empty, there is a vitality to unions. They can be brand new or old, yet they all have common elements and frequently common smells. Libraries always have that old book smell. You know the one. It is a combination of the smells of the materials slowly decaying, mold, and other things causing the scent. You can read some interesting things about old smells here and here. Student unions frequently have the lingering smell of food. As I was leaving the building, I could smell coffee brewing. That and the smell of breakfast foods come to mind in the morning, and of course other foods at lunch and in the evening. Popcorn is another frequent, but less common smell. Even when it is not close to a mealtime, the combined odors of food linger in unions and give them a familiar scent. That smell is not universal, but close enough to say that you are more than likely to experience it. Unions are also a great place to gain an understanding of the culture of a college or university. Do students use the place for informal meetings? Do they spend time reading, sleeping, or lounging in the building? Over the last quarter century I have found that the more students you see in the union doing things other than eating is associated with a greater sense of community and, in many cases, a higher academic profile. In my post on the University of North Carolina, I noted that at better institutions, students not only use the library more often during the day, but they also cram into the library in the afternoons and evenings in large numbers. Use of the union is not necessarily correlated with academic performance to the same degree, but it is a sign of engagement. The coffee shops and restaurants in any given student union will be busy during peak times like breakfast and lunch. But when you see students hanging out in lounges and engaging with one another for long periods time outside those times, you can generally assume that they have the collective feeling that they are part of that school. You can also assume that compared with most schools where the union is only used as a place to grab a bite or buy a book, schools with busy unions have students with better entrance and performance metrics. At least, that is the impression I have had for several decades now. I’m sure it is not universal, but time has shown me that it is a fairly consistent association. It was far too early for the Wright State Union to have many people around in any case, let alone in the summer when fewer people are on campus anyway. But it did have the common smell and more than sufficient seating and other spaces to allow students to engage with one another at times other than when eating.

The photos below, taken when the sun was just coming up, are of the south side of the building. The southside of the building looks nothing like the original portion. Whereas the original portion’s exterior is concrete, the newer portion as well as the former physical education building now subsumed within the union are both clad in the familiar red brick seen in most of the other buildings on campus. The first four photos are of the newer portion. The graphic on the side of the building in the second photo was installed in 2020
 
The original portion of the union, seen here in photos five and six, sits on the northwest corner of the current combined complex. If you look at aerial photos, you can see that the union is a bit of a distance away from the original four buildings constructed on campus (see below). The university was blessed with a lot of space from the beginning, and the placement of the union in what was then a fair distance away from the principal parts of campus shows the administration was already thinking in terms of overall campus planning with an eye to what would be in between in the future. The roofline reminds me of Rust Hall at the now defunct Memphis College of Art. It was expanded by a 28,000 square foot addition in the early 1970’s designed by the architecture firm Sullivan, Lecklider, Jay, and Mitchell. The addition came with a $1 million price tag (about $7.8 million today).

The set below is both the ​Krishan & Vicky Joshi Research Center and the Fritz and Dolores Russ Engineering Center. The Joshi Center is the part of the structure clad in glass that is on the left of the first three photos below. The building is connected to the Russ Center which sits on the right (to the east) in these first three photos. Joshi has some 48,000 square feet of space across its four floors. It is named in honor of former Wright State professor Krishan Joshi and his wife. Joshi taught mathematics at the university. The Joshi’s have been significant donors to the university. Joshi founded the tech research firm UES, which has since been bought by the firm BlueHalo. The Joshi’s donated $10 million to aid in the construction of the building that bears their name.

The Russ Center opened in 1992. Fritz Russ was a member of the Wright State Board, the Ohio University Board, and the Ohio University Foundation Board. In 1994, Ohio University renamed its engineering school the Russ College of Engineering and Technology. The National Academy of Engineering awards the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, a $500,000 award for advancements in a critical engineering area, every two years. The Russ Nature Preserve in Green County, Ohio, was part of their land, the 90 acres being given for the creation of the park after Dolores’ passing in 2008. Fritz and Delores founded Systems Research Laboratories.

Photos four and five are the backside of the two structures, this time with Russ on the left and Joshi on the right. The last photo is a little bunny that was enjoying his breakfast behind the buildings. I think he was surprised a human was out and about that early. Although I regularly see squirrels and pigeons, this is only the second rabbit I have seen on a college campus, the other being about a year earlier at Montana State University. 

​The set below is principally photos of the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building. The building has 94,000 square feet of space and cost $37.5 million to construct. With the massive inflation we have experienced in the last few years, that would be $51.3 million today. You cannot tell it from these photos, but the building is L-shaped. Neuroscience is located in one wing and engineering in the other. Groundbreaking for the building took place in 2012 and it was completed in 2016. The building was designed by architecture firm Perkins+Will. If you are familiar with collegiate architecture, you likely have heard of the firm. Perkins+Will is a big firm, and they have designed dozens of buildings for colleges and universities around the world. Although it is not clad in the red brick which predominates campus, it still fits in. It is a lovely looking building despite its mismatch to most other Wright State buildings. 

The first two photos are the view of the buildings west side as viewed from Alumni Grove. Behind the Neuroscience Building on the right of the first photo, you can just make out part of the Frederick White Hall, the principal home to the Boonshoft School of Medicine. White takes its name from Frederick White, a high-level of General Motor's Dayton Operations. White was the business officer for the university when in the planning and development stage. His work was comprehensive. He oversaw the acquisition and purchase of land for the university, worked with local officials on zoning issues, the installation of electric power, water, and sewer services, and worked on campus planning. For a time, his Wright State office was in the home of a local family, the Warner's, whose land was purchased for the campus. The building has over 84,000 square feet of space. The last photo of this set is also of White Hall. The third and fourth photos are the southeast side of the building.

The Boonshoft School of Medicine is interesting to me for a couple of reasons. First, there were already schools of medicine at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio State, both which are relatively close to Dayton. Just about ninety-nine miles separate UC and OSU as the crow flies. It is interesting to me that the state would place a third public medical school in such close proximity to their two existing schools. Additionally, the College of Medicine at Cincinnati is the oldest (public) school in the state. True, both metro Cincinnati and Columbus today have populations in excess of two million and had a comparable amount fifty years ago. Yet, I would have thought that a state government would choose to expand the existing schools. Part of the reason had to do with the availability of federal funding. This is the second thing that makes it interesting to me. The timing of the creation of Boonshoft is really incredible. 

The Veterans Administration Medical School Assistance and Health Manpower Training Act (Public Law 92-541), commonly referred to as the Teague-Cranston Act, passed in 1972 and called for the creation of an additional five schools of medicine across the U.S. The Act supported all manner of things health related. But the creation of the new medical schools was meant to increase the number of physicians, particularly in underserved areas, to partner with the VA Medical System, and to support veterans in obtaining medical and health-related educations. Wright State was chosen to be the home of one of these schools and the Ohio General Assembly approved its creation in 1973. It was a great opportunity. The federal government would pay for the bulk of the creation of new schools of medicine over the course of several years with the proviso that state governments continue to fully fund the schools at the end of federal funding The others included Marshall University in Huntington, WV, Texas A&M University, East Tennessee State University, and the University of South Carolina. What is remarkable is that Wright State opened in 1963 and only became an independent college in 1967. Getting funding to start a medical school within a decade of coming online and a mere five years after becoming an independent, free-standing institution is remarkable. What is perhaps more remarkable is that the administration at Wright State began a feasibility study for a medical school in 1970, a mere three years after they had obtained independent status. They were thinking big, obviously, and it paid off. Part of the requirements to receive the funding from the Act was to establish and maintain a working relationship with a VA Medical Center, something Wright State did with the nearby Dayton VAMC, a relationship it maintains to this day.

While Hall is actually a combination of structures which have been combined. The building opened with the name “Frederick A. White Center for Ambulatory Care”. The original portion of the building was designed by the firm Richard Levin and Associates. In 2005, the Boonshoft’s family donated $28.5 million to the school of medicine to expand the building, fund scholarships, and support numerous other activities. The school was officially renamed the Boonshoft School of Medicine that year in recognition of what was then the largest single donation made to the university.

​The first three photos below are of the Alumni Tower at Alumni Grove. The tower is, in a way, one of the original structures on campus. I use the phrase "in a way" on purpose here as a means to tease out its history a bit. What you see is not the totality of the original tower, nor is it in the location the original tower stood. It is, however, of very similar design and made with many but not all of the same bricks. The original tower stood at the entrance of campus near where the tower in the first photo of this post now stands. That tower came as a bonus. Allyn Hall, the first building constructed on campus (see below), came in underbudget. Some of those funds were used to build the tower. I don’t know if they didn’t want it to have a bell or a clock, one or both of which are typical for such towers on college campuses, or simply did not have sufficient funds to install such items at the time. Whatever the reason, it was not built with such things and it was known as the “Bell-less Tower.” The tower originally had “Wright State” written on a different centerpiece in rather nondescript text. That centerpiece, as best I can tell from older photos available online, was a solid cube, whereas today the new Alumni Tower has four unconnected blocks. The original tower was much taller than the one you see here. For some reason, it was decided that it did not give the look some in the administration would like. It was subsequently demolished. I take it that many in the university community were not happy with the destruction of something from the founding of the university. The complaints were loud enough and lasted long enough that eventually the current tower was erected. The plaque in the fourth photo tells some of the story and the rest I pieced together from news reports from the era. The marker on the stone in the last photo of this set denotes that the area is the Alumni Grove.

The first five photos of the next set are of the ​Health Sciences Building. The building opened in 1986 after beginning construction in, I believe, 1984. As would be the case with the yet to be built University Hall (see below), Health Sciences was meant to be an interim name for the building. The Wright State Board was using the name as a placeholder for an eventual name of an important figure on campus, a member of the alumni, or donor. Initially during the planning period, it was also referred to as the Lab and Animal Resources Building. 

In the first photo you see the east façade of the building with the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building in the background. The art piece you see in that photo is in front of the Matthew O. Diggs, III Laboratory building (see below). It is "Double Helix" a piece by artist Jon Hudson of nearby Yellow Springs, Ohio. The piece is made of stainless steel and measures eight feet wide, eight feet tall, and twenty-five feet in length. It is a great looking piece, and as the sun was rising during my early morning visit it began to have some incredible reflections that made it quite beautiful. The second and third photos are views as you approach the building from the southeast. The fourth is the back of the building as seen from Alumni Grove. Finally, the fifth and sixth are of the entrance on the east side.

​The last four photos of this set are of the Medical Sciences Building. My findings on the history of the building were limited. I understand that it was built in two phases. I believe Phase I opened in 1976, although I am not quite sure of this as the dates I found online were contradictory. Phase II of the building began with a groundbreaking ceremony on March 30, 1979. The 30,000 square foot addition was designed by Cincinnati-based architectural firm Baxter, Hoddell, Donnelly, and Preston. Part of the addition included a 150-seat lecture hall. Its construction cost $3 million (about $13 million in 2024 value). The first photo is the entrance on the north east side of the building, near the amphitheater in front of the Biological Sciences I and II building (see below). The remaining photos are of the building's west and south sides.

The set below are photos of the ​Biological Sciences I and Biological Sciences II buildings. These two buildings are, more or less, two wings of the same building. Had construction taken place on a slightly different schedule, I don’t think they would carry the numeric designations as they do currently. Biological Sciences I was started earlier and opened prior to Biological Sciences II. But the two structure’s construction overlapped. As Biological Sciences I was finishing up in late 1974 and early 1975, work was underway on Biological Sciences II. Construction on Biological Sciences I began in 1973, and by November of that year site excavation was complete and the foundation was begun. The building was completed in August 1975. ​Biological Sciences II was completed in the fall of 1975, with the various faculty and departments moving in during late November that year. In the first photo of this set, you have the entrance to the building on the west side of the complex. In this view, Biological Sciences I is on the left and Biological Sciences II is on the right. The second the third photos are of the entrance on the east side. In the third photo, you can once again see the Double Helix art piece in front the Diggs Lab. On the northwest side of the complex is a large amphitheater with a below grade connection to the buildings, as can be seen in the last two photos of this set. In the background behind the amphitheater in the first photo is the Brehm Laboratory. I was not able to find out much about Brehm, but I believe it opened in 1973.

Amphitheaters are interesting things to me. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, numerous colleges and universities built them. They look nice and I like them. However, I rarely see them being used. When they are being used, it is simply as an outdoor seating area, not as a place for a lecture, presentation, or show of some sort. Perhaps that is because of the locations I frequent. In the southeast where I live, summers can be brutally hot. Since the Fall semester starts in August for most places, that means it is frequently far too hot and humid for anyone to want to be in an outdoor amphitheater. Of course, it does cool off and compared to other parts of the country, it is quite pleasant late into the semester. I don’t know if it’s the weather or not, but I have only seen an amphitheater being used for anything other than a place to sit on only one occasion in the last thirty years and that was at the University of Mississippi where it was being used by people leading a campus tour for prospective students and their families. I don’t know how much use the one at Wright State gets. If you are an employee or alumnus, leave a comment about it if you would.

The set below is of the Mathematical and Microbiological Sciences Building. I believe its original name was the Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Building, but I cannot swear to that fact. I have seen some internal documents from that era using this alternate name, but it may have been a working title. Or, conversely, it was the name and when engineering moved out that part was dropped. If you know for certain, please leave a comment. Regardless, the building was opened in 1984 or 1986 (various documents on Wright's website list one or the other date).

The sculpture you see in these photos is the work of David Black, a Columbus, OH, based artist. The piece was completed in 1998 and its official name is "Turning Points". The students came up with their own name for it "BART" which is an acronym for Big Artsy Red Thing. It stands seventeen feet high and is made of aluminum beams on top of granite pillars. His work also appears on the campuses of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, the Cincinnati State Community College, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio State University in nearby Columbus, and Youngstown State University. ​

The four original buildings constructed on campus are featured in the following set. These buildings make up Founder's Quadrangle with each building being named after one of four men who were instrumental in the creation of Wright State. In addition to being the original structures on campus, the Founder's Quadrangle was the site of the first commencement and many other firsts on campus. 

The first photo is of Allyn Hall. Allyn was the first building constructed on the campus. As such, it was the site of just about everything Wright had to offer in those early days. All of the offices and classrooms, the library, and the bookstore called Allyn home. There was no cafeteria, which was seen as nonessential given the commuter nature of the school at that point, but there was a room dedicated as a lounge with vending machines. Note that I wrote that Allyn was the home of most everything. A farmhouse which stood on the grounds when they were acquired for the university continued to soldier on and serve the nascent school. Biology had a lab in the old house and chemistry used the kitchen as a wet lab. Workers were still completing the final touches on the building during the first few weeks of the Fall 1964 semester. A professor once recalled that a worker was on a ladder in his class installing ceiling tiles. When the professor asked a question, the worker was the only one who raised his hand, so he was called on and correctly answered the query. The building is named for Stanley Charles Allyn, former president of NCR who, as noted above, was one of the driving forces which created the university.

The second photo was taken looking westward across the Founders Quadrangle with Allyn at the apex of the picture. In this photo, Oelman Hall (see below) is on the left and Millett Hall (see below) is on the right. The white structure in front of Allen in this photo and again in close ups in the third, fourth, and fifth photos is a dining facility now called The Hanger. In the early years, commencement would be held in this area. You cannot quite see it in this photo but Allyn and Millett are attached behind The Hanger. This was not always the case and photos from the 1960's clearly show that to be the case. I am uncertain as to when this addition was made. Groundbreaking for Allyn took place on May 31, 1963, at 3:00 p.m. Raymond Roesch, SM, the then-president of the University of Dayton was in attendance and gave a prayer.

The sixth through ninth photos of this set are of Oelman Hall, the second building constructed on campus. A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the building on March 31, 1965 and it was completed in 1966. It is named in honor of Robert S. Oelman, the former president of NCR. He was, as noted above, one of a core group of individuals who were largely responsible for the creation of the university. The building was designed with the name working name “Science and Engineering Building”. 

One of the features of the campus I would have liked to have seen and photographed was left out thanks to my early morning visit. As is the case with other institutions located in regions with particularly cold or hot weather, Wright State has connections between many of its buildings via a vast array of tunnels. My wife is an alumnae of the State University of New York at Buffalo, and she has many stories about avoiding the harsh winters by traversing campus in their tunnel system. Although Wright’s Ohio location is not nearly as cold or prone to as much snow as Buffalo, it has a large number of tunnels. In fact, currently the campus has nearly two miles of tunnels connecting twenty of the twenty-two buildings on the core part of campus. In 1966, the construction of Oelman Hall called for the creation of a tunnel for the purpose of connecting it to Allyn’s electrical system. It was not meant to be a passageway for the average Wright State citizen. None the less, students, faculty, and staff alike began to use the tunnel as a means of avoiding the winter weather. It took a while for the administration to formalize it, but discussions about having the tunnel system as a pedestrian mall began as new buildings came online. By the early 1970’s the tunnel system was formally operational, although again it was basically in use since 1966. Today, it is a bustling place in wintertime. It is also fully accessible. That is one of the things Wright State is known for – disability accessibility. Wright State has long been active in supporting students with disabilities and has a well-deserved reputation for excellence in this regard. It is one of a handful of colleges and universities in the U.S. to fully accessible and the administration is always on the lookout for ways to increase access and support people with disabilities. Anyway, the tunnel system is heavily used, and you can find maps online not merely for the tunnels but as a guide as to how to use them for exercise with various routes outlined with precise walking distances.

Photos ten through thirteen in this set are of Millett Hall, the third building constructed on campus.  A groundbreaking ceremony for the structure was held on July 2, 1965; it was completed in 1966. The building is named in honor of Dr. John D. Millett, who was the president of Miami University at the time and who later went on to become the first Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. He did his undergraduate work at DePauw University (Class of 1933) in his native Indiana. He later attended Columbia University from which he would earn his Ph.D. (Class of 1938). He began teaching at Columbia a year later. His time there was interrupted by World War II, during which time he served on the staff of General Brehon Somervell who commanded the Army Service Forces in Washington, DC. After the war he returned to Columbia. He served as the 16th president of Miami University from 1953 until 1964, a time of unprecedented growth. During his time there, enrollment doubled and, like many colleges and universities coping with such increases driven by the Baby Boom generation, oversaw a massive expansion of the university’s physical plant. Millett would be both a classroom building and a new, bigger home for the library which until that point was located in Allyn Hall. 

​​This set closes with four photos of Fawcett Hall. The fourth building constructed in the Founder’s Quadrangle, it is named in honor of Novice G. Fawcett, the president of Ohio State University at the time of the university's establishment. Completed in 1967, it was designed by the firm Lorenz, Williams, Williams, Lively, and Likely. Fawcett was fully supportive of a new institution in Dayton, a fact that is again surprising given that he was president of an institution less than one hundred miles away. Ohio State was and is the big dog in public higher education in the state, and his support proved immensely valuable in Wright State's creation. Enough time had passed for buildings to start to be open since I first arrived on campus, and I was able to visit the lobby inside the building as seen in the last three photos.

The first two photos of the next set is of the Tom Hanks Center for Motion Pictures. I imagine just about everyone in the world knows Tom Hanks. Just how many know about the Tom Hanks Center for Motion Pictures is another matter. I had not heard of it and did not it was located at Wright State. If you had asked me where it was prior to my visit, I would have guessed either the University of Southern California, thanks to their world-renowned film school, or UCLA. I might also have guessed Chabot College or the California State University, Sacramento, both of which he attended. I may have guessed any number of other schools in California, or even the University of Illinois where his brother is a long-serving faculty member. But I would not have guessed Wright State. Of course, I would have been wrong on all counts, and my not knowing about the center says something about me and not Wright State.

Hanks’ association with the university goes back quite a way. He came to the university in 1978 to perform in a Shakespeare production and has been a supporter of the university ever since.
It is the home of the Center for Motion Pictures which was previously housed in the Creative Arts Center. It has 14,500 square feet of space. Hanks came to campus for the dedication of the space in on April 19, 2006. You can watch a video of the dedication here. Hanks was co-chair of the “Rise. Shine.” fundraising campaign which brought in a whopping $150 million to the university. He had previously produced videos for the university and raise funds for motion pictures program.

The building you see behind the Hanks Center and in the remaining photos of this set are of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Library. The building opened in 1974 and was for many years simply referred to as the library. The building was renamed in honor of Dayton-native Paul Laurence Dunbar, a noted poet, in 1992. Dunbar began his writing at age six. He was a classmate of Orville Wright. Dunbar is the work of architect Don Hisaka. His most noted work was perhaps the Bartholomew County Jail in Columbus, Indiana. None the less, he designed dozens of notable homes and buildings. Among his work for colleges and universities would be the Mulford Health Science Library at the University of Toledo. Opened in 1973, it too is a Brutalist concrete structure. Hisaka designed the former University Center at Cleveland State University, which was razed in 2008. It was also a large concrete structure, and the combination of concrete and glass in the atrium led students to call it the Birdcage for both its appearance and its tendency to amplify noise. Hisaka died in 2013, aged 85.

The next set is four views of the ​Creative Arts Center, a massive structure on the east side of campus. The building opened in 1973 and looks very much like a structure of that era. It was expanded in 1990. The architectural firm Tweddell, Wheeler, Strickland, and Beumer of Cincinnati designed the original part of the building. It is a massive structure made with a façade of concrete and red brick. I was not able to go inside the building as it was too early for it to be open, but inside there is a four-story atrium that is apparently quite nice. The first three photos are the portion of the building nearest the library. The last photo is the south façade which faces White Hall.

The set below is of the ​Matthew O. Diggs, III Laboratory, a relatively new addition to campus. Diggs opened on November 8, 2007 and is a LEED® Gold Certified building. It comes in at 45,000 square feet. Diggs was designed by BHDP Architecture which has offices in Cincinnati and Columbus, as well as Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina. The firm has designed numerous collegiate buildings at such institutions as Bowling Green University, Bucknell University, Cedarville University, Lycoming College, Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati, and many others. It is a research building supporting both the Boonshoft School of Medicine and the College of Science and Mathematics. Matthew O. Diggs, Jr., and his wife Nancy donated funds to help support the construction of the facility. It is named in honor of their son who passed away in 2000. Mr. Diggs was on the Wright State board. Once again you can see the Double Helix art piece in the third and fourth photos. The first four photos show the main entrance and front of the building which is the south façade of the structure. The last four photos are of the southeast side of the building. 

The first five photos of the set below are of Rike Hall. The Rike name was once well known in Dayton, and I suppose it still is. The Rike Department Store was a fixture of downtown for decades. Rike Hall is named for David L. Rike, grandson of the founder of the store. Rike was leading the company during what I would imagine was one of the true golden eras of downtown department store shopping. Malls were already on the rise by the 1960's and within twenty years or so their presence had become so present that many stores abandoned downtown locations across the country. The Rike store in downtown Dayton was a midrise building with seven above grade floors that had some 650,000 square feet of space. It was known for its Christmas window displays. Rike's would become part of the Federated Department Stores chain in 1961. David Rike was dedicated to the Dayton community and he and his family donated to many causes including Wright State. Indeed, a building at the University of Dayton also carries the Rike name. He was a member of the Wright State Board from 1969 to 1973.

The building was designed by the architectural firm John Ruetschle and Associates. Ruetschle was born in Dayton in 1937. The firm began its life as the Hart firm, founded by Erskine Hart in Dayton. His son Jim joined the firm in the 1950’s and its name changed to Hart and Hart. Ruetschle joined the firm in 1957 as a draftsman. Erskine’s other son Dave joined the firm at some point, but after both had retired and passed away in the 1970’s, Ruetschle acquired the business and renamed named it John Ruetschle and Associates. He would retire in 2002 and passed away in 2019, but the firm continues on. He designed many buildings in the region, including schools, churches, businesses, and homes. The building was completed in 1981. The first three photos show the south side of the building and the fourth and fifth show the north side. It is home to the Raj Soin College of Business. The sixth through ninth photos show the interior of the building. Mr. Soin is a successful businessman and philanthropist who served on  board of both Bradley University and Wright State. He has donated significant funds to the Indu and Raj Soin Medical Center in Beavercreek, OH, and the Soin Pediatric Trauma and Emergency Center at Dayton Children’s Hospital.
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To the southwest of Rike is University Hall, seen in photos ten through twelve. Construction on University began in mid-1997. The building cost $15.3 million (nearly $30 million in today’s value) to construct and opened in 1999. Several names were considered for the building, including Wright Brothers Hall, which was a serious contender. In the end, the generic name that is still in use was chosen. The idea at the time was that the moniker would remain in place until someone donated enough funds for naming rights. The L-shaped building is simple yet quite attractive to me with its brick cladding and limestone trim. 

The set concludes with five photos of the Student Success Center, which sits next door to University Hall. 
The building comes in 67,000 square feet of space. In addition to housing student support services of various kinds, the building has classrooms, and a 220-seat lecture hall. It opened in 2015, a design of the Annette Miller Architects firm of Dayton. The firm has designed buildings at other colleges including Miami University, Ohio State University, and the University of Cincinnati. Construction costs came in at $17 million (about $23 million in 2024 value). In the last photo you can see a water tower in the distance behind the Student Success Center replete with the Wright State logo.

The first two photos in the next set are of ​Hamilton Hall. Hamilton was the first dorm constructed on the campus. Opening in 1970, Hamilton can accommodate 300 residents. You might think that the first dorm on any particular campus might carry the name of someone important to the university. I made that assumption when I saw the Hamilton name in this case. Not only is Hamilton not named for someone associated with Wright State, it is not named for a person at all. It is named for a river. If you are familiar with Dayton, you likely know that several rivers flow through the city and region. The Stillwater River merges with the Miami River just north of downtown. The Mad River joins in right at downtown. Wolf Creek merges with Miami River just south of where the Mad River comes in. So where exactly is the Hamilton? Underground, as it happens. The Hamilton River is a prehistoric river that flows through the substrata in the area. Just why it was chosen as the name is something I could not find out when researching for this post.

The university has many other dormitories, obviously. However, they are a bit of a walk from the heart of the campus. I was about to walk over to take a look at them and then thought better of it. It's one thing to take photos of a dorm in the middle of the day when they are surrounded by other, non-residential buildings. It is quite another to take photos of them very early in the morning when no one is about and when they are set off to themselves. Even though it was the summer, and thus likely that many of the dorms were closed, I didn't like the idea of walking around taking photos and so I skipped those. Since Hamilton is in the heart of campus and sits directly adjacent to the student union and several academic buildings, I figured it was okay if I took two snapshots of it.

Hamilton was designed by the firm Yount, Sullivan, and Lecklider. The plaza area you see here was once a parking lot, but was transitioned to its current appearance in the late 1990’s. When the building opened, it was known simply as the Wright State Residence Hall. It stayed that way for seven years. In 1976, university officials and students alike began the process of selecting a name for the structure. Several names were considered including Golding in honor of the university’s first president Brage Golding. Frederick White, the first Wright State faculty member and the namesake of the medical school building, suggested Hamilton. The ancient riverbed still exists and is still full of water. The name was formally adopted by the board in their May 1977 meeting.

​The seal you see in the third photo was a gift of the ’67 Society. The ’67 Society is a student group named for the year Wright State became an independent institution. It engages in activities to promote the university, its values, and traditions. It was the brainchild of students Holley Mapel (Class of 2019) and Markayla Clayton (Class of 2020). Installed in September 2020, the seal measures forty-eight inches in diameter and weighs 300 pounds. 

As is the usual case, I will close with Wright State's version of the campus lamppost sign. Wright State not only has such a sign, it has multiple versions all over campus. You can see the university’s mascot on the first lamppost sign. Although Wright State has been known as the Raiders since 1971, the mascot has not always been the same. The first mascot was a Viking with a red beard known as Rowdy Raider. The university would drop the Viking in 1997 in favor of a brown wolf. A decade later, it would change to a gray wolf in 2007 and so it remains.

There was really no one around during my visit thanks to the early hour, but I could imagine the place being crowded with students in the few short weeks after my visit when the fall term arrived. I imagine it buzzes with activity. Perhaps some day I can return and see it in action. Although I had taken my time exploring the campus, I returned to my car to find that it was still rather early. Realizing my family was likely just getting up, I decided to take the short drive over to the University of Dayton to look around. It will be the subject of my next post.