nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

104 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
BUILDING PROGRAM
In the proposed building program it was necessary to get expert advice in
locating the prospective buildings. We employed Olmstead Brothers, Brookline,
Massachusetts, the landscape architects who surveyed the campus and placed
the present buildings, to advise us as to where the new buildings should be
erected. We do not yet have their recommendation, but we are happy to report
that we have this expert counsel and advice to make sure that the beauty of the
campus will be enhanced and not marred by the new buildings.
The chapel was originally planned to be erected where we are now building
the aditional wing to Norton Hall. It was obvious that our need for additional
classrooms was so urgent, and that the originally planned chapel was so
inadequate, that we hardly had any choice in the matter of utilizing the space
on the northwest corner of Norton Hall for the site of the much-needed classrooms.
By the time the Convention meets in Miami, we hope to have in hand the
full amount of $250,000 which the alumni set out to raise for the building of
the memorial chapel. It is our hope that we can begin this chapel this summer.
The only uncertainty grows out of Government' regulations with respect
to building.
We have on hand about $35,000 which have been given by friends for the
erection of twenty-four additional bedrooms to Barnard Hall, the dormitory
for girls in the School of Church Music. Our builders feel reasonably certain
that these rooms will be ready for occupancy by September 1.
We have on hand, also, $35,000 for the erection of an apartment dormitory
for furloughed missionaries. It is our hope that this money will build an
apartment house with six house-keeping units and that this building can be
completed by September 1.
Our outstanding need is for apartment dormitories for married students.
It will take two buildings the size of Mullins Hall to provide housing facilities
for our piesent student body. In all probability, our landscape architects will
recommend that we plan to build two separate dormitories rather than one large
dormitory. Olmstead Brothers will recommend the proper location for these
buildings.
If Southern Baptists can reach their goal of $6,000,000 for the Co-operative
Program in 1946, the Southern Seminary will receive this year $450,000 for
capital needs. If the Miami Convention approves the proposed goal for 1947,
the Southern Seminary will receive $967,000 for capital needs. These facts
inspire us to hope for at least one of the apartment dormitories in the near
future.
Our dining room is too small. There is no satisfactory way to enlarge it.
We hope to increase its efficiency by installing a cafeteria. In this way we can
serve a larger number of students without increasing its size.
Likewise, the kitchen is too small, but we hope by modernizing it to increase
its efficiency to the extent that it will meet our actual needs.
We have no funds to build an infirmary. The health of the entire student
body will be constantly in danger until we get an adequate infirmary. We are
using at present six bedrooms on one floor of Mullins Hall as an infirmary for
a student body of about 1,000. In case of an epidemic, we would be absolutely
helpless. We will ask Olmstead Brothers to determine the proper location
for the infirmary and pray that in some way funds will be provided to
build it.
The second floor of the wing in Norton Hall set apart for professors'
offices was left unfinished. We have converted about half of the floor into
professors' offices and hope to convert the other half into offices this summer.
This will give the Seminary adequate office space for its teaching staff. The
new wing, which is now in process of construction, will meet some definite
needs of the Seminary. On the first floor we shall operate a student supply
center. On the third floor there will be two speech rooms and six seminar rooms.
The.se additional rooms will make it possible for us to use the present seminar
rooms adjacent or near the Library as collaboration rooms for graduate students.
This will meet a very definite need in the Library itself as the reading
room has proven to be altogether too small.
Our gymnasium is too small. We have no money to enlarge it. It is possible
that we can make it meet our needs by employing a Physical Education Director