Alumni House Renovation Diary

May 15, 2008
Martha Shackleford Addition Construction is Underway! 

Much activity on the Alumni House has occurred over the past two weeks, concrete footings for the Shackleford Addition were poured with the framing, walls and roof going up this week. This addition will meet all the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements for disabled visitors.

The room was named in honor of Dr. Martha Shackleford who taught biology for several years at the college. One of her students, Phyllis Hillery (Class of 1949) said that “We all remember Dr. Martha did not consider herself handicapped nor disabled but we all knew her limitations. We feel this will be a very fitting memorial to our beloved teacher.” 

April 16, 2008
Thorpe Estate Gift of $50,000 Brings Fundraising to More Than $250,000 

A gift from the estate of OCW Alumna Opel Thorpe provides a final building block to fundraising efforts. Currently, fundraising -- including many pledges -- for the Stevens Alumni House exceeds $250,000! That’s great news, but of course all the pledges need to be fulfilled before the renovation can be completed. 

April 12, 2008
New Windows Bring the Light Inside 

This week new windows are being installed in the house, giving the façade a fresh, sparkling appearance! Today the bay window facing the west is being demolished and redone, the rotten wood replaced with new trim and finishes.

The Stevens Alumni House Committee is now looking into furnishing the house. A recent gift from the college of furniture items belonging to the estate of Louise Waldorf are being considered for restoration to use in the alumni house.   The pieces will help us make the house a ‘home’ when the renovation is complete.
 

March 17, 2008
Demolition Underway, Hardhats Needed! 

After more than a year of fundraising and behind-the scenes planning, the dirty part of renovation on the Stevens Alumni House began with demolition in January.  The demolition is making way for the necessary electrical and mechanical system upgrades which will begin soon.  The good news is that the project completion deadline is still on schedule.  We are planning for a dedication ceremony of the Stevens Alumni House during the USAO Centennial Alumni Homecoming.  However, funds for the project are still being accepted via the brick paver program and specific room donations. Please contact the USAO Alumni Office for more information.  Keep checking the website for future updates!
 

January 2008
Alumni House Fund Raising Committee Announces Renovation Underway

The Stevens Alumni House Committee reported to the USAO Alumni Board that the first stage of the renovation project was to begin this month.  

Alumni President, Paulette Pogue applauded the efforts of the hard working committee. Members of the Stevens Alumni House Fund Raising Committee include: Angie Burruss, Chair; Elizabeth Working; Pat Heidlage; Lynda Holding; Art Evans; Helen Bolton; Phyllis Hillery; and Oweda Terry.

November 2007
Alumni House Project Funds Top $200,000 

Alumni who attended Homecoming this fall gave generously to make possible the envisioned Stevens Alumni House.  A delightful, surprise gift of $50,000 from real estate executive Mo Anderson of Austin, Texas, and a generous $30,000 pledge from Lou and Jane Adams Gapenski  of Gainesville, Florida, was announced by Stevens Alumni House Chair, Angie Burruss at the Hall of Fame banquet. The news brought a standing ovation from all in attendance.  Alumni also snapped up auction items at the homecoming banquet to raise another $2,000 towards the project.

October 25, 2007
Friends Gather for Homecoming and Alumni House Goundbreaking 

Hundreds of alumni from across America, and beyond, returned to Chickasha this weekend for a groundbreaking ceremony to launch the newly conceived Stevens Alumni House.

While the weekend featured a myriad of events, the groundbreaking marked an historic moment for the association, now celebrating its 90th year.

“Alumni have devoted themselves to supporting their alma mater – whether OCW, OCLA or USAO -- since 1917,” said Julie Bohannon, director of alumni development. “Finally the alumni who visit campus will have a place to call home. This new facility will provide meeting space, overnight accommodations and a museum-like quality for exhibiting some of its history.”

At the annual Alumni Homecoming event in November 2007, alumni gathered for a memorial white dove release honoring the Class of 1957 at the Greek Theatre on Saturday morning.  Moments later, a groundbreaking ceremony was held at the Stevens Alumni House, followed by class photographs in the Student Center Ballroom.

Other big events for Alumni Homecoming weekend included an awards luncheon for new USAO Alumni Hall of Fame inductees, a banquet for alumni scholars, a Drover king and queen coronation, a basketball game, an art exhibit and a staged readers theatre production of “Steel Magnolias.”

Hall of fame inductees included World War II pilot Paula Loop and music educator Mary Scrogin Wade. Young Alumni Award winners Paul Mays, metro artist, and language arts innovator Amy Brooks Ingram also were recognized.

Among other features of the homecoming as a regional art exhibit and a lecture by special guest speaker Linda Eisenmann, who presented the Jayne Nash Montgomery Library Series 2007 address. Eisenmann is the author of “Higher Education for Women in Postwar America 1945-1965.”
 

March 15, 2007
Fundraising Begins for Alumni House 

Already more than $100,000 has been contributed toward the restoration and renaming of the classic 1930 Home Management House to become the Stevens Alumni House.

The campaign will provide new offices for the Alumni Association, the Alumni Development Office, as well as meeting space and overnight accommodations for alumni guests. 

“We believe deeply in the worthiness of this project,” says Alumni Director Julie Bohannon.  “This is a labor of love to alums who know the unique history of this house.”

Cost of that project may exceed $300,000 to restore a structure used in the 1930s and ‘40s as a home economics laboratory where college students lived and cared for an infant as they practiced what they learned in domestic arts and sciences courses.

The first leadership gift has been given by a group of alumni calling itself the Fabulous Fifties.  A guest room on the second floor will bear their name for their gift of $30,000. In this campaign, benefactors who designate a gift of $30,000 or more may name a specific room in the project.

In January 2007, Lou and Jane Adams Gapenski of Florida made a gift of $15,000, which they hope to match this year with another gift, to name the sitting room.  Jane Gapenski remembers with great fondness her mentor, Virginia Embree, a retired staff member. This gift, says the couple, is to honor Jane’s warm memories as a student here – she graduated in 1963 -- and her mother, Alevna Adams, who received degrees here in 1931 and 1933, as well as her aunt, Lula Mae Watson.

Jane remembers, “These were the best four years of my life, I came from a small town, Hobart, and felt that I didn’t really know much about the world.  While at OCW, I met all these people from all over the United States.  My experiences and friends at OCW expanded my world.” 

Previously the couple endowed a scholarship fund in the USAO Foundation, the Alvena Adams and Jane Adams Gapenski Scholarship.

The new Stevens Alumni House will be a campus destination, a welcome center for the entire university and its guests, and the hub of alumni activities, says Alumni President Paulette Pogue.  “The alumni house will elevate the presence of the Alumni Association on campus and encourage membership. It will be a home away from home for visiting alumni.”

Planned features include a conference room, parlor, guest rooms, an open terrace for outside gatherings and offices.

The Home Management House was built in 1929-30 as a lab for the home economics department.  Built in the style of a large home – interior design by students and faculty – it was intended for use by eight senior students at a time.  Considered a model home for training at the time, other colleges requested copies of its architectural plans, according to college archives. Local architect E. H. Eads designed its exterior in Spanish Eclectic style.

“Home economics was one of the founding academic options of OCW’s ‘industrial institute’ beginnings,” says President John Feaver. “Along with secretarial training, or ‘commercial sciences,’ both were considered proper spheres of technical and vocational training for women.  While home economics remained a very important program throughout the OCW period, it is significant to note its early commingling with the college’s broader liberal arts purposes… While the vocational content of domestic arts and sciences aimed to produce ‘wise and happy queenship in the kingdom of the home,’ a 1910 catalog proclaimed, it was never separated from the rigors of a curriculum that offered education ‘so liberal and comprehensive, so modern and practical, as to satisfy the demands of our young women, whatever their ambitions …’”

A granite marker telling the grand history of the Home Management House is being installed this spring on the front lawn.

Music alumna Johnanna Jones McLaughlin has issued a $5,000 challenge gift to honor her favorite voice instructor, Virginia Anderson, as well as fine arts faculty members Derald Swineford and Clark Bailey. She is encouraging all fine arts graduates to help her establish a “Fine Arts Suite” in the Stevens Alumni House.

McLaughlin directed the Alumni Association to “use this gift as seed money toward a room memorial for teachers in the Fine Arts Department who are now deceased or retired.”

In addition to her favorite faculty, she encourages other alums whose lives were touched by their fine arts faculty members at OCW, OCLA or USAO to remember their mentors with a gift to this project. 

When gifts to the USAO Alumni Association for the “Fine Arts Room” reach $30,000, the room will be named and adorned with a plaque bearing the names of fine arts faculty and the donors who remember them so fondly.

Fall 2006
Who is Myrtle Stevens? 

The USAO Alumni Association Board resolved to raise money to renovate the Home Management House and requested that it be renamed the “Stevens Alumni House” to honor Myrtle Stevens’ service as director and advocate.

Myrtle Chandler Stevens has dedicated herself to higher education, the classroom, the community, and the farm. She served as USAO’s Alumni Director, USAO faculty member, as a teacher.  She has also been the partner in a large farming-ranching operation in Caddo County. The 1959 home economics graduate returned to OCW as an adult student. She received her master’s degree in home economics from the University of Oklahoma in 1966 and returned to USAO to earn a BA in Art Education in 1987. She taught home economics in high school and at USAO for 26 years. During Ms. Stevens’ service as a full-time Alumni Director, (199-2006), the USAO Alumni Association assets grew from three awardable scholarships in 1994 to 67 awardable scholarships in 2006.

About This Historic Building

You’ll find the following paragraphs etched on a granite marker on the front lawn of the Home Management House because it is one of the unique, historic structures that helped to qualify the USAO campus as a national historic district.  In 2001, the OCW National Historic District was named to the National Register of Historic Places.  And this structure, the Home Management House was listed among the 14 structures deemed “qualifying.”

The Home Management House

Conceived as a laboratory for the home economics department, the Home Management House was built 1929-30.  Planned in the style of a large home, it was intended for use by eight senior home economics students at a time, who were required to live in the house full-time to apply skills learned in domestic arts and science courses.

Assigned as a class project, the “practice house” interior was designed by home economics faculty and students.  Considered a model home for training, other colleges and universities requested copies of its architectural plans. Local architect E. H. Eads designed its exterior in Spanish Eclectic style.

Upon its completion in 1930, the College needed dormitory space. As a result, this structure became known as Southeast Hall and served as a dorm for 12-to-14 upper-division students and a hostess. During the Depression Years of the 1930s, a residence located at the northeast corner of campus was used as a temporary Home Management House. In the spring of 1940, this facility was returned to its original purpose.

Prior to the college’s becoming co-educational in 1965, this building was used for intensive foreign language instruction.  It later provided space for classes, as a family residence and as a temporary dormitory.

Why Was Home Economics Important?

Home economics was originally called “domestic arts and sciences” to imply the full range of the program’s concerns with teaching about home and family management.  It was one of the founding academic options of OCW’s “industrial institute” beginnings.  Along with secretarial training, or “commercial sciences,” both were considered proper spheres of technical and vocational training for women.  While home economics remained a very important program throughout the OCW period, it is significant to note its early commingling with the college’s broader liberal arts purposes.  The program was taught in such a way as to blur the lines of distinction between the domestic arts and sciences with the fine arts and traditional sciences.  An initial two-year home economics certificate was soon eliminated.  Thereafter all aspiring baccalaureate degree holders faced a stunningly rigorous four-year requirement of study in mathematics, history, English, foreign language, and science.  While the vocational content of domestic arts and sciences aimed to produce “wise and happy queenship in the kingdom of the home,” a 1910 catalog proclaimed, it was never separated from the rigors of a curriculum that offered education “so liberal and comprehensive, so modern and practical, as to satisfy the demands of our young women, whatever their ambitions …”