The evolution of higher education is nowhere better illustrated than in the institution located on Anderson’s east side.
Fifty-three years ago, I was completing my freshman year at Anderson College and Theological Seminary, as it was known then. I had classes in four buildings that year. Only two of them are still standing — and they are no longer freestanding.
Most of my classes were held in Old Main, an imposing block structure erected in 1906 as a communal home for workers in the Gospel Trumpet Publishing Co., which had just relocated from Moundsville, W.Va. A decade later, the Anderson Bible Training School was formed, which evolved into a liberal arts college. Initially both classes and student housing were accommodated in Old Main, but by the time I enrolled, it not only was limited to classroom space, administrative offices and food service, but the library, which took up the entire fourth floor, needed more space – which it got my freshman year.
Thus the Charles E. Wilson Library opened. Its fourth floor became a little theater, and some of my classes were held there as well.
Music and art classes were held in the old Park Place School at the corner of East Fifth Street and College Drive. It had been vacated when the newer Park Place Elementary was built a block away.
Gym classes were in the old Roundhouse, now an auditorium that carries the name of Byrum Hall.
Old-timers who haven’t visited Anderson in half a century wouldn’t recognize the place.
Wilson Library is still there, but it is now connected with the new School of Theology building with a lower-level entrance that forms the present Nicholson Library. And two dormitories, Morrison Hall and Dunn Hall (it was then known as the New Men’s Residence Hall) were in use at the start of my freshman year. A third dorm, now Martin Hall (then New Women’s Residence hall), replaced the Church of God’s former Old People’s Home, which by then was getting too old even for younger people.
O.C. Lewis Gym replaced the Roundhouse in the fall of 1962. The Old Main cafeteria and the old “rec hall” in the basement of Morrison Hall gave way to the Olt Student Center that same year. A couple of years later, Hartung Hall added classroom space for science students.
The biggest changes came with the demolition of Old Main in the early 1970s in favor of Decker Hall. Added to that was the Krannert Fine Arts Center. And Byrum Hall was linked with Olt Student Center.
Meanwhile, the student body since my college days has virtually tripled. And Anderson College has become Anderson University.
Such changes were beyond my wildest dreams at the time. And I would scarcely have guessed that one of my fellow men’s glee club members, Jim Edwards, would someday be the university’s president.
Jim Bailey’s reflections on Anderson’s past appear on Sunday. His regular column appears on Wednesday. He can be reached by e-mail at jameshenrybailey @earthlink.net.
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Jim Bailey
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April 3, 2010
When Anderson College became a university
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