The Administration Building is finally coming down as part of an effort to restore the original campus gateway. As the university builds a future based on the past, it is important to remember what events led to this occasion.
BGSU has had an Administration Building nearly since it’s start, with the current University Hall once bearing the “Administration Building” name. However as the campus rapidly expanded following World War II, it became evident that all sorts of facilities on campus would require improvement and expansion to meet the increasing demands of a growing campus.
From the start of its construction, the new Administration Building was met with opposition. The BG News covered the state-level opposition on March 23, 1962, from the Ohio Legislature over the creation of such a large building for the administration, noting that there was an ongoing on campus housing crisis, and that many student facilities lacked air conditioning.
A Nov. 16, 1962 edition of the BG News cited the cost of the building as $1.5 million, which according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI inflation calculator, would be equivalent to $13,647,483.55 in Oct. of 2021.
The building was plagued with problems from a local level too, with a March 22, 1962 report from the Board of Trustees lamented slowed construction caused by picketing steel workers. Even during move-in, the campus publications noted the use of a former army machine called “The Big Yellow Monster,” which was used to aid the transition.
Despite these setbacks, the construction of the Administration was not all negative, especially following it’s opening in 1963. The considerations which went into making the building practical, including placing the most used facilities on lower levels, were commonly lauded. The tall building also provided an ideal host for a new TV antenna. The seventh floor also served as an ideal host for the IBM computer, as computers of the era were significantly larger than they are today.
As a prominent symbol of leadership on campus, the building proved to be a lightning rod for protests. Following the massacre of four students by national guardsmen at Kent State University, a BGSU sister school, on May 4, 1970, protests erupted across campus, with students occupying the administration building as part of these events.
In October 1975, the lingering spectre of the Ohio Legislature concerns would return, with a sit-in by philosophy students outside the administration building occurring to protest a lack of air conditioning in classroom environments, in addition to complaints of noise from ongoing construction. Not all demonstrations at the building were met with conflict – the ethnicity display case of 1993 attracted much positive attention from campus publications.
As time went on, the building lost its luster. Plans to tear down the Administration Building and restore the campus gateway have been in place since 2015, yet more pressing matters have delayed this action until now. For all it’s faults, the Administration building has played a historic role on campus, and as we move on, we should remember what it stood for.
