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ISU alums visit doomed dorms
By Michele Steinbacher
msteinbacher@pantagraph.com
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NORMAL — As part of this year’s Illinois State University homecoming weekend, Deborah Gabhart Hogan and Ken Hogan brought their two young boys on a tour of Walker Hall, where the couple met in the 1990s.

The tours, led by ISU alumni staff, marked a bittersweet moment for ISU history.

It’s likely the last homecoming at which alumni will be able to walk in Dunn, Barton and Walker halls. The three central campus dorms are expected to be razed this summer as part of a proposed $43.5 million project to build a Student Fitness and Kinesiology/Recreation Center.

“This gives them an opportunity to see Dunn-Barton and Walker halls one last time, to honor the legacy and share memories,” said Shanay Huerta, an ISU alumni relations staff member who helped organized the event. When she was an ISU student, Huerta also lived in the buildings.

“It’s sad. It’s part of our history, but time’s got to move on,” said Deborah Gabhart Hogan, a 1996 graduate. After the tour, the Urbana family joined about 100 central campus alumni in the building’s former dining hall.

Candles, tables spread with red tablecloths, and red velvet sheet cakes and punch welcomed guests.

More than half a century of memories had captured through photos and college newspaper articles. Those documents, along with yearbooks featuring group photographs labeled by floor and year, filled scrapbooks scattered throughout the room.

Stephanie Epp, ISU alumni relations director, led a program in which a number of ISU staff members discussed the buildings’ history and future plans for the fitness center.

Epp said the turnout for the event made for a crowded room.

Walker Hall had been a men’s dormitory, but in 1983 it became co-ed and home to the International House and the Honors House.

The I-House, which started in 1977, is the oldest such university housing program in the state. It now is in Atkin-Colby halls.

While it was in Walker, the weekly Global Review international studies program met in the conference room. In 2001, that room was dedicated to Eleanor Kong, an ISU student leader and resident hall coordinator who died while attending ISU.

Maureen Blair, university housing director, said if the buildings are razed, another room on campus will be dedicated in Kong’s honor.

Among attendees was central campus alumna Linda Bowman, who now is first lady of the university and a communication-disorders faculty member. Bowman lives on campus, but the alumni reunion brought visitors from across the Twin Cities from as far away as Florida and England.

ISU alums Don and Maxine Daniel Bitting traveled from their home near St. Petersburg, Fla. Maxine lived in Walker Hall in the late 1950s.

At one table, a group who lived in Dunn Hall from 1978 to 1982 reminisced. Two of the women are Nor-mal residents — Pat Lewis and Sherri Cox Lewis, no relation. Also at their table was Sue Scanlan Krenek of Lisle and Priscilla Sanders Parks of Wendell, N.C. The group talked of college pranks, friendships forged, and the charm of Dunn-Barton’s older feel.

“It had a lot of personality; not a lot of amenities, but we didn’t really mind,” said Krenek.

Parks recalled her floor’s motto: “3D is the place to be.”

Sherri Lewis said she remembers people’s teddy bears found dangling from dorm windows and other tomfoolery.

Max Albritton, of Normal, who lived in Walker Hall from 1966 to 1969, sat with his wife, Chris Albrit-ton, a former Dunn resident, and some of his former Walker floor-mates — all wearing light blue sweat-shirts celebrating the floor’s legacy with a drawing he’d made in 1967.

“The six best friends I have I met at Walker Hall,” said Max Albritton.

They searched group photos in a yearbook, searching for friends in the group of men wearing white Levis, dark suit jackets and ties.

The 1969 graduate remembers graduating, then heading overseas to serve in the U.S. military. The ISU dorm’s fame followed.

“I was in a Saigon bar, and I remember somebody tapping me on the shoulder and saying ‘Hey, you lived in Walker Hall, didn’t you?”

Some current students joined the alumni to share the old memories.

“Honestly, I’m disappointed,” said Amy Vito, an ISU sophomore from Schaumburg who leads central campus student government.

“It does need work. But I wish they would come in here, add air conditioning, do some of the other renovations and keep it,” she said.

Calling Dunn-Barton and Walker “visually unique, with its non-high-rise style, and with its pillars in front,” Vito mourns the planned destruction.

Dunn-Barton and Walker flank their own small quad between University and Main streets. Unlike ISU’s other dorms, the are long and low — only four stories — and built of the red brick common in academic buildings on campus.

Sherri Lewis said that structure created a close-knit feeling.

“We always knew what was going on,” she said. “I remember people on the sidewalk below calling up to their friends. There was this one girl on my floor, Shirley. They’d yell ‘Shirley. You want to go bowling?’ I always knew when she was bowling.”

Katie Gianatasio of Berwyn and Lora Carlstrom of Loves Park, who lived in Dunn Hall 20 years after Lewis graduated, shared her nostalgia for the area’s small community feeling.

“They are older buildings, so I guess I see why they have to go. But we all felt like we knew each other there,” said Carlstrom.

“It felt like being part of a small campus,” said Joe Schultz of Normal, who sat with his wife Lindsey Schuldt Schultz. The young married couple met while living in the hall just a few years ago.

Vito said tearing down ISU’s three oldest residence halls is a mistake and will result in architectural loss to the campus.

But Max Albritton called the decision to take down the old buildings “inevitable.”

“But it is history, and it’s hard to say goodbye,” added his wife, Chris Albritton.



Residence hall facts

Dunn-Barton

-- Built in 1950

-- 208 rooms

-- Faces University Street, connected with shared entrance

-- Capacity: 435

-- Total residents housed since opening: about 25,000

-- Named for Richard Dunn, early legal counsel to Teachers College Board; and Olive Lillian Barton, early 20th century dean of women at Illinois State Normal University

Walker

-- Built in 1954

-- 204 rooms

-- Faces Main Street

-- From 1983 to 1996, housed International and Honors houses and was home to Global Review weekly program

-- Capacity: 405

-- Total students housed since opening: About 22,000

-- Named for Lewis Walker, mid-20th century president of Teachers College Board

SOURCE: ISU University Housing Service

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Reader comments on this story - 6 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Barbara wrote on Oct 13, 2007 9:49 PM:

" My class was the first to move into Walker Hall in the fall of 1955. It was a girls' dormitory at that time. The drapes had not been installed when school began so we dressed in the dark at night. It was a very lovely dormitory with all the up-to-date facilities for the time. I remember seeing Mr. Walker when he came for the dedication, and I know he felt very honored to have such a nice building named for him. "

Matt wrote on Oct 13, 2007 11:40 AM:

" It was on the front page I am pretty sure. I know it was in the paper "

R.I.P. wrote on Oct 13, 2007 8:05 AM:

" The real Walker Hall died in the early 1980's when then Director of Rsidential Life Floyd Holting converted it from an animal house to International House and a quiet lifestyle dorm. "

Hmmmm.. wrote on Oct 13, 2007 7:54 AM:

" a "non-story". Wonder if this even made the print edition? "

Dunn Charter Member wrote on Oct 13, 2007 6:50 AM:

" As one of the students first to move into Dunn Hall in 1951, having to cross the muddy front lawn on wooden planks, let me suggest that the article would be more complete if it noted for whom the dorms were named. Dunn was for Richard Dunn, attorney for the Teachers College Board and a Bloomington resident whose son was later commanding general of the Illinois National Guard. Barton, I believe, was for a retired dean of women and Walker was for Lewis Walker. I do not recall what his affiliation to IS(N)U was. Dunn and Barton were built long before Walker and shared a common kitchen but the men and women ate in separate dining rooms. No co-ed anything! "

$43.5 million project wrote on Oct 13, 2007 5:14 AM:

" The whole state is bankrupt! $43.5 million project for a rec center! I think the only muscle that wont be exercised is the one between the ears. Dramatically speaking, I feel slashing my own sternocleidomastoid muscle. "
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