Saturday, May 5 marks the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the Franklin W. Olin Building. The building opened in February 1992, though it was not 100% complete, and so the formal dedication, with fairly elaborate ceremonies, took place near the end of the spring.
For those of us who have been around the college for a while, it’s hard to believe that twenty years have passed. And it’s hard to remember what a big deal the Olin Foundation grant was at the time, and what a game-changer the building was for the college.
Before Olin, we didn’t really have much in the way of educational technology. Most of our classrooms were pretty old-fashioned, with old desks, chalkboards, and for the most part, the rooms were all the same shade of off-white. The Olin Building was colorful (most of us were unfamiliar with peach, salmon, light blue, and lavender classrooms!), the desks and chairs were modern, and many of the rooms had video presenters, whiteboards, and lots more computers. The teaching theater, with its long desks and comfortable chairs, quickly became a popular meeting space. Olin replaced other places on campus where students wanted to study, and its computer labs were a considerable improvement over the old VAX lab in Main.
The Olin Foundation had rejected our initial grant request, prompting the college to refine and articulate its vision in a year-long planning process. They liked what they had encouraged us to do, and in 1989, awarded us a $5.5 million grant for this building, which was to house Wofford’s foreign languages, mathematics, computer science, and education departments. Information technology would be in the building as well. Other departments later moved to the building. Dr. B. G. Stephens managed much of the building’s planning and early use.
The college, with the leadership of Dr. Larry McGehee, planned a series of events to celebrate the building’s dedication. The dedication itself, held on the lawn in front of the building, featured representatives of the Olin Foundation, the campus, and the community. Four local fourth-graders, who would be potential members of Wofford’s class of 2004, were invited to cut the ribbon, and the college commissioned a work of music, the F. W. Olin Overture, to commemorate the occasion. The Olin Foundation folks told the college that they’d never had a musical work written for them before. I can say, from my readings in college records, that Larry McGehee was thinking about and planning the festivities a year in advance, and it set a pattern for really nice campus celebratory events in years to come.
As part of the festivities, the college hosted a symposium where 15 leaders in education and other fields talked about the liberal arts college’s mission, technology, and the role of the liberal arts in a good society. The symposium was recorded and later broadcast on South Carolina Educational Television.
I remember marching in the procession to the Olin Building for the dedication as a sophomore, and I remember the excitement that came with dedicating a very forward-looking addition to the campus. I also remember taking a class in the teaching theater in its first semester. It is hard to believe that there was a time that Olin was the newest and best thing on campus, but it’s important to remember that it was just the first of many steps toward creating a better Wofford.
