Graduate College

WMU Graduate Standard - Walwood History

WMU Graduate Standard: Graduate College Spotlight

A Brief History of Walwood Hall—by Carson Leftwich

“My husband and I met at a dance in the ballroom.” “We used to sunbathe on the ‘asphalt beach’ outside the second floor dorm rooms.” "I ate lunch at the cafeteria just to see the dance students.” Alumni frequently stop in to reminisce about good times at Walwood Union and Walwood Residence Hall. The pages of The Teachers College Herald, now called The Western Herald, abound with references to Walwood Hall. The soda bar was popular with students and community residents alike, who flocked to enjoy the “Walwood Hall Special Sundae” or a piece of pie with a “full quarter-pound of ice cream for only 15 cents!” When completed in 1939, the main floor of Walwood Union contained a general lounge, the Women’s League room, now the Bertha Davis Room, a powder room, a coat-check room, the soda fountain and the cafeteria, as well as a faculty dining room and a kitchen. On the second floor a 5,000 square foot ballroom had a raised stage and regularly hosted dances. Homecoming, hoe-downs, sock-hops, winter formals and Sadie Hawkins dances brought out “masculine faces beaming above and below fantastic corsages and female escorts smiling beneath their loads of hair brushes, combs and huge compacts.” Holding up to 800 dancers, the ballroom at Walwood was the center of social life on campus.

Community members also enjoyed the amenities; a photo of Shakespeare Company employees at their annual banquet in 1943 shows a small orchestra onstage playing for the diners.

The second floor also held the men’s union room, now the Emeriti Lounge, and a student council room. The connecting women’s dormitory provided rooms for 115 students who paid $7.50 per week for room and board. Sixty-five students worked in the cafeteria earning .30 cents an hour. During its first year of operation, the cafeteria served 85,000 meals and the soda bar catered to more than 141,000 patrons, according to historian Larry Massie’s 2003 book, Brown and Golden Memories: Western Michigan University’s first century.

Walwood Hall now houses the Graduate College, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Medieval Institute, Medieval Institute Publications, the Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies and Manuscript Research, the Center for Cistercian and Monastic Studies, the School of Public Affairs and Administration, the Center for Research on Instructional Change in Postsecondary Education (CRISPE), and the Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications.

Two entrances reflect Walwood Hall’s original dual role as a student union and the first dormitory on campus. The east entrance has Walwood Hall Residence carved into the limestone edifice above the heavy wood doors. The west entrance leads into a spacious lobby, dedicated in 1989 as the Harold and Beulah McKee Alumni Center. It was renovated first in 1992 to house Development and Alumni Relations and again in 2016 to provide a gathering place for graduate students, as well as faculty, staff and emeriti. Philippine mahogany woodwork, tall casement windows, exterior brickwork and lighting fixtures in many areas lend a feeling of grandeur, while the original artwork featured prominently throughout the building gives a glimpse into Western’s past. Murals in the northwest corner of the lobby painted by art instructor Kathryn Keillor in 1942 show a typically positivist mid-century view of Western’s history from the days of the one room schoolhouse to the establishment of Western Michigan Education College on the hill. The silhouettes of Victorian men and women parade under the word PROSPECT while founding fathers Henry Vandercook, Leslie Wood, Ernest Burnham and Dwight Waldo supervise approvingly. On the opposite corner, time marches on with the word FORWARD, showing early 1940s era students enjoying football, industrial arts, and the sciences under a jet trail while “Joe College” and “Betty Coed” represent the modern college student.

This is a photo of the mural that shows Western’s history as described in the paragraph above. From the days of the one room schoolhouse to the establishment of Western Michigan Education College on the hill. The silhouettes of Victorian men and women parade under the word PROSPECT while founding fathers Henry Vandercook, Leslie Wood, Ernest Burnham, and Dwight Waldo supervise approvingly.

This is a photo of the mural that shows time marches on with the word FORWARD, showing early 1940s era students enjoying football, industrial arts, and the sciences under a jet trail while Joe College and Betty Coed represent the modern college student. It also shows Waldo Stadium with a game of football in play as cars and a train pass close by on Stadium drive.

Another, sadder memorial lives on in the Honor Roll, a 1947 installation engraved with the names of over 1,450 alumni, faculty, staff and students who served in World War II. A star marks those who were killed or missing in action, but the list is incomplete.

This is a photo of the World War II memorial name wall in Walwood. The are nine large wooden plaques side by side that make the wall and bound together with one large frame. Each plaque is 44 inches tall by 20 inches wide. This makes the overall size a little over 15 feet long and almost 4 feet tall with the additional size of the wooden frame included.

Upstairs, two large oil panels depict scenes from campus life during the 1950s. These panels, painted by R. Rusling in the early 1960s, include a view of the long-vanished “Old Oak Tree” which functioned as a campus message center, and the “Faculty Dames Tea” which gathered the campus elite for civilized conversation and refreshments. These events were reported in local papers with detailed descriptions of the food, décor and distinguished guests.

This is a photo of the two large paintings that depict campus life in the 1950’s . The paintings are located at the top of the stairs from the West lobby of the first floor. There is a nice couch and two padded armchairs below the paintings for visitors to use.

In the Bertha Davis Room, a hand carved and gilded Art Deco plaque done by then-student Richard Riegel memorializes the presidents of the Women’s League from its founding in 1914 to 1938, while a sidelight continues the listing until 1963.

This is a photo of the art deco plaque in the Bertha Davis room. The plaque looks to be made in wood with carefully carved out designs and lettering. The carvings are highlighted in gold, maybe gold leaf applied to the wood, and many parts of the carved out areas have multilayered carvings in designs that add patterns that catch the light to add depth and style to the overall work.

According to Dr. Sharon Carlson of Zhang Legacy Center, Archives and Regional History Collections, the Dean of Women, Bertha Davis founded the group after learning with horror that a number of female students had gone downtown after a football game and “made a spectacle of themselves” at a movie theatre by laughing and talking loudly in public. Davis formed the Women’s League to “provide educational programs that further the best interests of and assist the students in realizing their individual abilities, talents and skills; to provide leadership opportunities; to uphold high academic and social values; and to sponsor philanthropic activities.”

Philanthropy at its best is demonstrated in the artwork that anchors perhaps the most stunning room today, Walwood Commons. Above the mantel of a substantial fireplace a pastoral oil painting of cattle represents the work of noted American Impressionist, George Glenn Newell. Fittingly, it was donated by W. E. Upjohn, founder of the Upjohn Company, whose animal health branch under Pfizer became what is now known as Zoetis Inc. The massive fireplace and hearth hasn’t warmed the room in decades, but the visual impact of the sea-green tiles in the Arts and Crafts style made by famous Michigan pottery Pewabic Tile Co. gives the room a sophisticated, yet warm appeal. Original light fixtures in the Art Deco style appear so modern they might have been created today.

This photo of Walwood commons has the large grouping of tables in the foreground that about 30 people can sit around. In the background to the left is the painting of nymphs and to the right is the green tiled fireplace with a painting of cattle above it. In the cattle painting we see a pasture in the background with trees framing the immediate foreground and thee cows. One standing closest on the left, one in the middle lying down in the grass, and further back on the right one is walking towards the others to join them. Two Art Deco light fixtures are visible at the top of the photo hanging from the ceiling.

Many of the public rooms at Walwood are available for use by the University community. The Bertha Davis Room and Walwood Commons are perfect for committee meetings, luncheons, staff retreats and smaller gatherings. The Emeriti Lounge functions as a meeting room for the retired faculty group, as well as other administrative meetings. Walwood Lobby is outfitted with study tables and comfortable seating for study groups and may be reserved for larger events such as receptions and open houses. The Graduate Student Commons is designed for more informal trainings and workshops.