It’s out with the old and in with the new this week as the new Truman Arnold Student Center opens its doors for the first time.
Meanwhile, the old Student Center still houses security, KTXK radio, journalism and the literacy council.
“The building is still structurally sounds- it is just outdated,” Barry Murdock, director of facilities and services, explained. “We are doing a study now regarding the cost of remodeling it.”
The remodeling will have to wait until the new Social Sciences Building is completed, Murdock said. Then the old Social Sciences Building will be used for the services now in the old Student Center during the remodeling.
“Spring 1995 is tentative completion time for the new Social Sciences Building,” Murdock said. “Then the old student center will be remodeled to house continuing education and community services.”
Sue Works remembers
Since its completion in 1958 the old Student Center has been the site of many of TC’s student activities. Many faculty members remember what it used to be like.
“The faculty was a lot smaller than it is now,” Sue Works, PE professor, recalled. “The campus was concentrated around the old Student Center. There was a faculty lounge downstairs, and we would go over and visit with fellow faculty members. Now sometimes we don’t see each other all so much.
“I remember the dances upstairs in the ballroom,” she continued. “My husband and I were both faculty members and we went as sponsors to a nice Circle K dance when the guest was a Playboy Bunny. Of course, my husband was a lot more excited about that than I was.”
Works also co-sponsored the Blue Jackets Club, a service organization of young women chosen on the basis of scholarship, leadership and service to serve the college in all its activities.
“All kinds of club meetings were held in the Student Center,” Works said. “The Blue Jackets had meetings there and dances in the ballroom.”
Joel McGee recollects
College favorites such as campus sweethearts, campus beau, most popular girl and boy, best all-around girl and boy, and Miss Texarkana College were presented in the ballroom at the school’s annual Presentation Ball.
“The guys would dress up in tuxes,” Joel McGee, biology professor, remembered, “and gals would wear their formal gowns. Beautiful!”
“There was a bowling alley where the bookstore is now,” he continued. “It had two lanes, and pins were placed manually. There were also two pool tables.”
Back in those days, TC had a football team, the Bulldogs, and in the Student Center they had a trophy case.
“We were a traditional junior college then- plans to enter the NFL,” McGee said. “Some of those guys lived on campus, and because the cafeteria had fewer meals, a day the snack bar began then.”
McGee remembers when the college ran buses to place like DeQueen and DeKalb within a 50-mile radius of the school.
Students sometimes drove the buses, taking them home at night and then running the routes again in the morning.
Robert Mills recalls
Robert Mills, business professor, recalled that textbooks were issued each semester and turned back in, the way public schools did today.
“The first year I was here, they didn’t have the Student Center,” he continued. “I remember sitting out on the side of the Administration Building (now the Business Building) and issuing textbooks to students.”
Building costs: then & now
In 1959 the old Student Center was constructed for $465,000, a cost of $12.74 per square foot for 36,500 square feet of building space.
Thirty-four years later the new Truman Arnold Student Center cost $3,779,000. It has 52,500 square feet at a price per square foot of $71.98.
(upper right) For sale: Student Jimmy Lindsey stops to check out some of the merchandise offered in the new two-story bookstore, above. The new Truman Arnold Student Center, left, is centrally located, north of the Stilwell Humanities Building and south of ETSU.