The one story brick structure (located where the Terrell Library now sits) houses agricultural and biology laboratories and a museum. The facility is absorbed as part of a new gymnasium, later known as the Temporary Union Building, or TUB, in 1901.
In 1969, the program that is today known as the WSU College of Nursing accepted its first class of 37 students. The WSU campus is rife with Vietnam war protests and student unrest.
WSU dedicates the French Administration Building in honor of former President C. Clement French.
On February 24, 1967, the Board of Regents selected Glenn Terrell to serve as the seventh president of Washington State University. Terrell took office on July 1, leaving his position as the dean of faculties at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
In addition to his positive relationships with faculty, President Terrell was known as the “student’s president.” He would walk from the President’s House to his campus office, stopping to talk with students, faculty, and staff on the way. He served as president until 1985. The Terrell Library and the Glenn Terrell Friendship Mall, the area in the center of campus, are named after President Terrell.
President French announced his retirement on his 65th birthday, October 24, 1966, but had actually notified the Regents in the spring of 1965. The Regents officially accepted his resignation in their May 31,1965 meeting. French stayed to provide stability while he selected his successor.
The first “skyscraper dorms,” Orton Hall and Rogers Hall, are built to accommodate the Baby Boom generation.
WSU joined the Athletic Association of Western Universities in 1962, the precursor of today’s Pac-12.
In September 1953, Dean S. Town Stephenson and a dozen science colleagues began planning to acquire a low-grade nuclear reactor for research. They received a $300,000 grant to construct a building to hold a swimming pool type reactor. In 1957 the Atomic Energy Commission gave $105,000 to purchase the equipment. In 1961, the WSU nuclear research program completes its first chain reaction.
The Honors Program is established under Sidney Hacker, professor of mathematics. In 2001, a grand opening was held for Honors Hall (formerly White Hall), the new home of the nationally-acclaimed WSU Honors College.
Washington State College officially becomes Washington State University.
Frances Penrose Owen is the first women named to the Board of Regents, she served for 18 years and was twice elected president. The Owen Science and Engineering Library is named in her honor. Owen was a life-long community volunteer, serving the boards of both the Seattle Childrens Hospital and the Seattle School Board. In 1990, Owen receives the Medal of Merit, the state’s highest award. Frances Penrose Owen passed away on March 9, 2002 in Seattle. She was 102.
On February 24, 1952, the Board of Regents selected C. Clement French to serve as the sixth president of Washington State University. He took the office April of that year, combining his inauguration with commencement.
President French was known as a pragmatist and diplomat. His administration is well known for the increase in enrollment and for building a better relationship with the University of Washington. French served as president until 1966. In 1968 the French Administration Building was named in his honor.
In the face of state budget cuts, the Regents order Compton to dismiss 182 employees, including the vice president. Compton resigns.
A surge in military veterans enrolling as students results in admission requirements imposed to manage enrollment.
On August 21, 1944, the Board of Regents selected Wilson M. Compton to serve as the fifth president. Compton accepted the position in October, leaving his position as an administrator and lobbyist for the lumber industry in Washington D.C.
President Compton’s administration is well known for equalizing teaching loads, allowing faculty time for research, allowing students to declare majors after freshmen year, and establishing modern budgeting system. Compton served as president through 1951. The Compton Student Union Building (CUB) was dedicated to him after its construction.
Soon after Pearl Harbor is attacked, the college began training soldiers to meet the challenges of World War II. Aviation, Japanese language, signal corps, radio, and gunnery are taught under government contract.
In May, 1936 more than 2,500 students protested the “ultra-conservative, dictatorial administrative policies,” including policies put in place by the dean of women, Annie Fertig. After the protest, Fertig was asked to take leave without pay and was later fired by President Holland. Fertig claimed the students were protesting policies that didn’t exist, like rules against wearing red dresses or using blankets during picnics. On May 8th, the Evergreen summed up the results of the protest in an article titled “All Requests Are Granted.”
He earns a degree in degree in speech while immersing himself in the campus culture during his four years in Pullman. Among his activities: president of the student body, actor in school plays, four-year participant in ROTC, debate team leader, member of Kappa Sigma fraternity, and president of the National Student Federation.
After college, Murrow works as a journalist in Europe during WW II, helps pioneer television news, and produces a series of reports that help lead to a censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Murrow was highly respected by journalists of his generation and praised for his honesty and integrity in delivering the news.
Murrow and his Kappa Sigma brothers at Washington State College.
Orin Ercel “Babe” Hollingbery begins a 17-year stint as head coach of the Cougar football team and earns legendary status in the process. He compiles a career win-loss record of 93–53–14, the most wins by any coach in Cougar football history. Under Hollingbery, Washington State goes undefeated at home from 1926 to 1935. He guides the team to the 1931 Rose Bowl against Alabama.
Hollingbery coaches some of the greatest names in Washington State history, including Turk Edwards, Mel Hein, Mel Dressel, Dale Gentry, Ed Goddard, Harold Ahlskog, Elmer Schwartz, Bob Kennedy, Nick Suseoff, Bill Sewell, John Bley, and Herbert “Butch” Meeker.
Hollingbery remains at WSC until World War II, when WSC temporarily ceases playing football.
Hollingbery Fieldhouse, built in 1929, and is renamed for the coach in 1963. In 1979, the College Football Hall of Fame selects him for membership.
La Verne Almon Barnes of Opportunity, Washington, receives WSC’s first Ph.D. He writes a dissertation titled Studies in Local Immunity and receives his doctorate was in bacteriology. Barnes earned his bachelor’s and master’s, also in bacteriology, at Washington State.
The building opens with “all the latest in equipment.” Later it’s renamed White Hall in honor of Mary Elmina White, who served 33 years as a WSC cooperative extension leader. In 2000, White Hall is remodeled to include a 117-student, 67-room dormitory area for Honors Program students. White Hall is renamed Honors Hall in fall semester 2001.
The building covers a part of one of the university’s most significant open spaces, the original walk to Thompson Hall (former Old Administration Building) from Reaney Park. The brick building mass is symmetrically balanced, making a cross formation with the central section protruding on the east/west axis. The overall style of the building is Georgian Revival, which creates an elegant architectural statement.
N.J. Aiken, head of the WSC vocational school and professor of business administration, launches the placement service. During the Great Depression, N.J. is commonly known as “No Job” Aiken.
Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honors organization, grants a charter to WSC. The chapter is one of the first founded at a land-grant university.
Only about 15 percent of the institutions of higher education in the United States have programs sufficiently strong in the sciences and liberal arts to warrant Phi Beta Kappa chapters.
Five-foot-five, 150-pound quarterback Herbert “Butch” Meeker becomes an instant Cougar legend after leading his 1-3-1 team to a stunning 17-12 win over a good USC team in Los Angeles—Washington State’s first-ever win over the Trojans. The team returns to Pullman and is treated to a hero’s welcome, with students let out of class to go to the Union Pacific depot to greet the players’ train.
Meeker repeats his football magic multiple times from 1925 to 1927, earning him the title of “the fightingest little football player ever to don a Cougar uniform.”
After Washington Governor Roland Hartley presents the college with its first live cougar mascot at halftime of a game in 1927, it is quickly named Butch in Meeker’s honor.
The radio station begins broadcasting from the Mechanic Arts Building, thanks to financial support from the Agricultural Extension Service, the Associated Students, and the Pullman Chamber of Commerce.
Known today as KWSU, the station’s founding goals remain in place:
The station is one of the oldest and largest university-owned radio stations in the country.
Two-thirds of the student body has disappeared from campus following the country’s entry into World War I in April 1917. More than 700 students and alumni are in the military or naval service or working to produce food and war materials for American military forces, allies, and the home front.
The federal government and the college sign a contract in May which converts considerable portions of the campus and educational facilities to military instruction. The Army begins sending units of 300 recruits to the campus for training every 2 months, beginning June 15. Shortly after the Armistice ending the war is signed on November 11, the Army cancels the contract.
C.C. Todd, professor of chemistry, serves as the founding dean. Although authorized in 1917, the school doesn’t get under way until 1922, after a few of the best researchers voluntarily organize themselves into a research council.
In June 1917, President Holland announces that the institution will reorganize into 5 colleges (Agriculture, Mechanical Arts and Engineering, Science and Arts, Veterinary Science, and Home Economics) and 4 schools (Mines, Education, Pharmacy, and Music and Applied Design), with deans as administrative heads. The College of Home Economics is to be one of the first of its kind in the nation. However, World War I interrupts these plans, delaying implementation of the new structure to the 1919-1920 school year.
The new president is 41, a former instructor in the English department at Indiana University who is serving as superintendent of schools in Louisville, Kentucky, when he is hired by the college.
Holland goes on to become the longest serving of WSU’s presidents. He reorganizes the administrative structure of the institution, establishing five colleges and four schools, a key step in the college’s pursuit of university status. He also encourages the recruitment of national fraternities and sororities to Pullman and signs an agreement with students to ease conservative social rules.
Holland serves as president until 1945. Holland Library is named in his honor after its construction in 1950.
The Associated Students vote to invest $2,000 in a co-op bookstore on campus which will sell books, supplies, and, as an Evergreen ad from that year notes, “hot chocolate, milk shakes, ice cream, soft drinks, and sandwiches.” The Students’ Book Corporation (SBC) becomes an instant hit for students who save 10 percent on all supplies.
The original Bookie operates in a small wood-frame building on the present site of Wilmer Hall until 1923, when a new brick building is constructed next to the music conservatory. A larger two-level red brick bookstore rises in the same location in 1954. The Bookie remains there until 2008, when it moves into its present location in the remodeled Compton Union Building.
The act links cooperative extension services to land-grant universities. The program is designed to keep citizens informed about developments in agriculture, home economics, public policy, economic development, and other subjects.
The house is built for a total cost of $25,000.
The football team vanquishes the Whitman College Fighting Missionaries, 23–0.
The decision ends a program implemented not long after WSC’s founding to offer high school-level coursework to teenagers in the era before high schools became commonplace in Washington. The primary non-college program began as the Preparatory School, was retitled the Elementary School in 1905, and later became the Department of Elementary Science. Several other programs offering pre-college level coursework existed side-by-side with their college-level counterparts, including ones in agriculture, artisanship, and business.
Program enrollment slowly decreased as the number of high schools in the state grew (when WSC opened the only high schools that existed were in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane). Following a brief increase in enrollment following WW I, enrollment decreased steadily until the program was discontinued after the 1925-26 academic year.
Van Doren Hall is built to house the domestic economy department. The building name honors Nancy Van Doren, an English instructor and the campus librarian.
The coursework is introduced with the arrival of Alfred A. Cleveland, assistant professor of psychology. The 1909-1911 course catalog describes the purpose of the education program as training physical science teachers who will further the application of science to industrial pursuits.
The Board of Regents grants the president 3 months of sick leave to recover. He returns to campus feeling refreshed from his first extended vacation since arriving in Pullman in 1893. The incident forces Bryan to realize he needs to share major administrative responsibilities, so he appoints faculty member O.L. Waller as his first vice president.
