Mary Lyon Residence Hall
| Mary Lyon Residence Hall | |
|---|---|
Mary Lyon Residence Hall Today
|
|
 Location within Oxford Ohio
|
|
| General information | |
| Type | Residential Living/ Student Housing |
| Location | Oxford, Ohio |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 39°30′13.18″N 84°43′38.56″W / 39.5036611°N 84.7273778°W |
| Current tenants | 81 Miami University undergraduate students |
| Construction started | 1923 |
| Completed | 1925 |
| Inaugurated | 13 June 1925 |
| Cost | $106,000 |
| Owner | Miami University |
| Technical details | |
| Structural system | Limestone |
| Floor count | 3 plus basement |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | WW Boyd |
| Main contractor | Joe Wespiser |
| Website | |
| www |
|
| References | |
Mary Lyon Residence Hall is a three story building on Western Campus at Miami University. It is a co-ed dormitory and only the first and second floors are used for living space. The third floor remains vacant and only the employees of the Physical Facility Department have keys to enter that story. The building is made of limestone. Currently, 81 students live there. Three of the 81 are residence hall agents and there is only one hall adviser.
Mary Lyon is well kept by the Miami University Physical Facilities Department. The Office of Residence Life at the university keeps track of who lives in the building and who works there. In spring and summer of 2011 some work was done to re-wire the electricity so that the building was safer and able to support new technology. Building was part of Miami University’s purchase of Western College Women’s Seminary. They seminary was designed after Mount Holyoke Seminary for Women, established by Mary Lyon. Therefore, in order to understand why Mary Lyon is a significant name for this residence hall, one must understand the values of Western College to imagine what activities used to occur at the Mary Lyon Building.
An announcement has been made that Mary Lyon Hall is set for deconstruction in June 2016. It will be replaced with green space landscaped in Western College vernacular with stone work and a stone marker noting location of Mary Lyon Hall.
Although Mary Lyon was built in 1925, it was not named until 1934. It is built on ground received from the Patterson Estate.
Mary Lyon was a strong Christian woman who founded a women’s seminary for middle class women called Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Mount Holyoke was unique for its strong values, operation and administration, and its purpose. Mount Holyoke was highly regarded and was modeled by numerous schools. One of the earliest to adapt the women’s seminary style school for higher education was Western College for Women, in Ohio. Western College was often referred to as the "Mount Holyoke of the West." It opened in 1855 by a woman named Helen Peabody. Peabody could not have opened the Seminary without the help of a young man named Daniel Tenny, who became the first president of the campus. He was married to a Holyoke graduate, and he came to Miami University in 1851. He was excited about the level of education at Miami, and wanted to help establish a similar seminary for women that would also focus heavily on solid academics. He believed in higher education for women. So, he found land and gave a lot of energy toward creating it. By 1853 he incorporated a governing board of "The Western Female Seminary."The Virgin Daughter of Holyoke," they called it—forever consecrated to the material ideals and practices. Tenny became president of trustees, and said he could do so because he was a pastor. In 1855 when it opened, there were 150 pupils. The teachers were graduates and former staff from Holyoke itself.
...
Wikipedia