St. Mary's College of Maryland Preservation Master Plan

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St. Mary’s College of MarylandPreservation Master PlanHistoric St. Mary’s City February 2008The trustees selected Miss Anna May Russell, an energetic,highly qualified young teacher from St. Mary’s County, asthe next President of St. Mary’s Female Seminary JuniorCollege. A graduate of Western Maryland College with amaster’s degree from Columbia and additional graduatework at other universities, May Russell was an experiencedteacher and aviator, and brought enthusiasm, problemsolvingability, and fresh ideas to her new position. Afteraccepting the job in July 1948 and taking up residencein Alumnae Lodge, she immediately set about pursuingshort-term goals of remaking the school as a two-yearcoeducational junior college.Expansion of campus facilities was part of PresidentRussell’s intent from early in her tenure. In her first yearshe proposed remodeling Calvert Hall’s interior to createmore dormitory space and erecting a new classroombuilding, although this did not occur immediately. In May1950 she began preparing for a greater future at St. Mary’sby acquiring the first sizable piece of land since the school’sfounding. A four-acre parcel between Rt. 5 and the TrinityChurch rectory was purchased from trustee J. SpenceHoward and his wife Jeannette, principal heiress of theBrome family landholdings in St. Mary’s City. The schoolsecured a $500,000 appropriation and soon constructed twonew buildings on the parcel. Margaret Brent Hall was built in1951 to provide faculty housing (previously, many teachersresided in Calvert Hall with their students). The much largerAnne Arundel Hall was built in 1954 as the school’s firstbuilding designed exclusively for use as classrooms (Fausz1990:100-102). In 1953, Calvert Hall received its currentname after nearly 30 years of being known as “the mainbuilding” or “the Seminary” (Board of Trustees 1953:March28).In May 1956, St. Mary’s acquired 119.63 acres in the firstof several transactions that were to take place over thefollowing 13 years. This $118,000 parcel, purchased fromthe defunct Slavic Farmers Association of Maryland, waslocated on the opposite side of Rt. 5, over half a mile north ofthe original campus. During the 1959-1960 school year, theschool hired the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecturefirm to design a master plan for the expanded campus.The firm recommended that the school be split into a northcampus and a south campus. The new North Campus wouldcontain a library, a dining facility, an auditorium, an infirmary,up to four new dormitories, and a field house and athleticfields. The existing South Campus buildings would be usedas academic and classroom space (Fausz 1990:107-108).In the meantime, the trustees and President Russellpresented Annapolis with a Ten-Year Development Plan inPortrait of President Anna May Russell, 1969(Courtesy of SMCM Archives).Historical pageant, Birth of Tolerance,” at St.Mary’s Seminary-Junior College, 1950 (Courtesyof SMCM Archives).Historical pageant, Birth of Tolerance,” at St.Mary’s Seminary-Junior College, 1950 (Courtesyof SMCM Archives).Page 2-27
St. Mary’s College of MarylandPreservation Master PlanHistoric St. Mary’s City February 2008View from East Campus in 1967, showing1950s buildings in backround (Courtesy ofSMCM Archives).Queen Anne Hall, consructed 1964-1965(Courtesy of SMCM Archives).1959, seeking funding to expand the college, with PresidentRussell still harboring the intent to eventually convert theschool into a four-year college. The proposal stagnateduntil shortly after the trustees openly announced their owndetermination to have a four-year public college in SouthernMaryland. Local political support for this idea grew. In acreative political move, President Russell and the schoolconvened a Governor’s Day in Calvert Hall in November1961, at which 100 Maryland politicians gathered to honorGovernor J. Millard Tawes, reflect upon the site’s history, anddiscuss the future of St. Mary’s. Soon afterward, the Tawesadministration made an unexpected allocation of $890,000in the January 1962 supplemental state budget to supportdevelopment on the North Campus, including constructionof one dormitory.However, before the funding was released to the school inJune of the following year, another land acquisition opportunityarose. Jeannette Brome Howard, whose family still ownedmuch of the land around the original campus, offered tosell a 38-acre tract to the school. This key parcel, locatedmostly east of the old campus and Rt. 5, included almostan acre of riverfront property and formed a geographicallink to the North Campus. With the Governor’s support, thefunding legislation was amended to permit construction onthe adjacent East Campus instead of the more remote NorthCampus, and the land purchase was made in July 1963.Gov. Tawes, an ardent supporter of public education inMaryland, also approved a name change on April 17, 1964,to St. Mary’s College of Maryland, although this was not yetan approval of the school’s hoped-for conversion from juniorcollege to four-year college. It did, however, signal that theschool’s future was to be a coeducational college.Construction of Somerset Hall, 1968 (Courtesyof SMCM Archives).Page 2-28Construction began in 1964 on Queen Anne’s Hall, and in1965, a development committee of trustees and PresidentRussell acquired another 93 acres adjoining the previouspurchases. Also in 1964, the school received the giftof a Boathouse from the Alumni Association, which wasconstructed on the new waterfront property and soonbecame the nucleus of a thriving sailing and water sportsprogram. 1965 proved to be a benchmark year as anotherlarge appropriation of $932,000 was granted, the schoolbecame fully coeducational with the first male studentstaking up residence in Calvert Hall, and Queen Anne’s Hallopened as a women’s dormitory on St. John’s Pond, officiallyinaugurating the East Campus.Both money and new buildings were plentiful in the followingyears. Between 1965 and 1970 seven new buildingswere constructed: Dorchester Hall (men’s dormitory)and Charles Hall (student center and dining hall) in 1966,
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