Merging Past and Future

Perhaps not since the fall of 1824, when the 12-room, whitewashed-brick Franklin Hall opened for the first day of college classes, has Miami University faced such an exciting future.

Just as Franklin Hall, with its library, meeting room, and housing for 21 students, quickly became the hearth and heart of that new, 19th-century university, Miami is starting to build a new hearth and heart for the 21st-century student experience.

Following the lead of Franklin, which expanded and evolved into Old Main and later made way for today's Harrison Hall, this new structure – the Armstrong Student Center – is building on and linking to Miami's past.

The center will be southeast of the Hub with Upham Hall to its north and its main entrance on Spring Street. It will renovate and bring together Rowan, Gaskill, and Culler halls through a central structure with a towering Bicentennial Rotunda and a soaring skylight. The following shows how Miami will merge her past and her future, honoring both through the Armstrong Student Center.

Building the Future on the Foundations of the Past

The 203,000-square-foot heart of the Miami Experience will come together in two phases with Phase 1 including renovation of Rowan and Gaskill and the construction of the central structure.

	Rowan Hall, the Naval Science Armory, was completed in April 1949 and named after Rear Adm. Stephen Clegg Rowan, the first student from Miami to attend the U.S. Naval Academy. Born in Ireland in 1809, he came to Miami in 1825. He served as midshipman on the first naval vessel to sail around the world. Rowan Hall contains offices and a simulated Destroyer navigation bridge above a "main deck" housing anti-aircraft guns and a single-barrel gun mount of the Destroyer class. The ROTC building was the site of students' April 15, 1970, sit-in to protest the Vietnam War. As a result, ROTC was moved to Millett. CraftSummer is the primary occupant of Rowan today.
	Gaskill Hall, known as the Industrial Arts Building when it opened in 1925, was renamed the Fred C. Whitcomb Laboratories in 1948-49. An addition was added in 1951, and another in 1959, providing enlarged laboratory facilities for the department of industrial arts education and a new home for audio‐visual service. At that time, it was renamed after David Lewis Gaskill, a lawyer and Miami trustee, 1907-1939. It also has housed the print center, IT, and the photo studio. Gaskill was built just north of Miami's original heating plant (1907). Both buildings were expanded and joined in 1949. When the power plant became too small, it, along with its landmark smokestack that could be seen for miles, was demolished in 1981, and its location was turned into a parking lot.
	Culler Hall was dedicated in January 1961 to house physics, mathematics, and aeronautics. It is named after Joseph Albertus Culler, Miami's first physics professor, 1903‐1926. Culler may be best known to non-physics majors for its large, working pendulum that demonstrates the rotation of the Earth and for its rooftop astronomical observatory. Miami can actually boast of a much earlier, but apparently not too substantial, observatory, erected in 1838 and described in The Miami Years as the second astronomical observatory in the United States. A remnant of it – a sandstone pier with a fading inscription – can still be found a hundred feet from the entrance to Bishop Hall.

ROWAN HALL Rowan will become the Armstrong Student Center's prominent Spring Street entrance, opening into the Shade Family Room with images and memorabilia chronicling Miami's first 200 years. The room will include lounge-style seating conducive to small-group gatherings and a fireplace at one end. The other end will offer broad steps to a raised area that will double as a small stage while also leading outdoors to the South Court patio.	GASKILL HALL The Gaskill West entrance with its Joslin Family Terrace will be off the Hub. People entering this way will follow a representation of the iconic Slant Walk. The open walkway, naturally lit by skylight, will look down into the first-floor Commons. Its path will curve into the Bicentennial Rotunda atrium and then lead to the two-story Center for Student Engagement and Leadership and winding staircases to the first and third floors.	CULLER HALL Phase 2 starts with the physics department moving into a newly renovated Kreger Hall and involves renovating Culler and merging it with the center through an addition and East Court patio, similar to South Court (shown above). Across Spring Street from Culler, Shriver Center – built more than 50 years ago when the student body was a third of the size it is today – will continue to provide communitywide services.

Artist's rendering of aerial view of Armstrong Student Center

Armstrong Student Center

The call for a new student center began with eight consecutive student body presidents voicing the need until trustees approved the planning in 2008. Earlier this year, it was named after Mike '61 and Anne Gossett Armstrong '61 when they donated $15 million toward the building, which has an estimated cost of $50 million for Phase 1 and $12 million for Phase 2.

By repurposing Rowan, Gaskill, and Culler, Miami will save nearly 45 percent of the cost of a new building and realize environmental benefits.

Nestled in the heart of Miami's Oxford campus, the Armstrong Student Center will be situated at the crossroads of student activity. The center's intentional placement at the hub of campus activity signifies the central role it will play in student life.

Signature spaces include:

• Center for Student Engagement and Leadership – This two-story center will house or provide meeting space for Miami's more than 400 student-led groups through conference rooms, small-group meeting spaces, and student offices.

• The Commons – This large, open area will provide informal seating for 450 people wanting to grab a bite to eat or catch up over a cup of coffee between classes. Surrounding the Commons will be five specialty food places, each featuring its own unique cuisine.

• The 500-seat theatre with balcony seating – It will play host to various entertainment, ranging from movies to select student and professional artistic talent. It also will provide an impressive venue for hosting orientations and visiting students.

• The Pavilion – This event space will be larger than the Shriver Center's multipurpose rooms, and students will have first priority. It will support banquet seating for more than 600 and lecture-style seating for 900.

For more about the Armstrong Student Center, including the latest floor plans and renderings, go to www.muohio.edu/ArmstrongStudentCenter. Historical material in this article is from The Miami Years; Miami University, 1809-2009: Bicentennial Perspectives; and Miami University Libraries.