At a quarter past seven, a dozen students strolled into the 103-year-old stately living room of the Mynders Hall dormitory.
Some dropped their bags near the glass door entrance and began to do homework under the flame-shaped light bulbs which produce little light. The others reclined on the Victorian-style couches and plotted ways to keep their beloved Mynders from becoming a museum.
This is the first generation of male and female students to share the historically all women’s dorm since World War II. But these also may be the last students to live in Mynders.
University of Memphis officials plan to ship students out of the historic “E” shaped building at the end of the semester and in the fall into the nearly-finished Centennial Place, which boosts an impressive 24 six-bedroom apartments, 300 single rooms and a $53 million price tag.
Yet many Mynderners aren’t wooed. Those who gathered under the portrait of the University’s first president said, “They can have Centennial Place. We’ll keep our un-air-conditioned Mynders’ rooms.”
Now mobilized, residents wrote up a petition with dozens of signatures and started the “Save Mynders Hall” Facebook page in hopes of persuading U of M administrators to keep Mynders Hall open for the students.
“I’m not going to give up hope. I think this building will stay open for students.”
Closing Mynders will end a close-knit community that exists in no other dorm at the University, according to the students at this impromptu meeting.
Freshman Brianna Boyd lived in Richardson Towers before she came to Mynders. The “feel” was totally different, she said. She said students at Richardson interacted, but the dorm was too big to have a family feeling.
“This is the only dorm that has achieved a full family vibe,” Boyd said. “We eat and study together. When someone goes to the hospital, we go see if they are okay — that’s what happened when I was sick.”
This Mynders family is in many ways a happy accident, caused by a surge of students applying for residency at the U of M.
“This building (Mynders) was closed during spring 2014, and there were no plans to reopen it,” said sophomore Christina Haskins, a resident advisor at Mynders, who was an RA at the Living Learning Complex at that time. “I got a phone call July 22 and was asked to apply for an opening at Mynders. They renovated this place within a month. By August, students started moving in.”
These students established a bond almost immediately, Haskin explained.
“The first month we arrived in here, we asked permission to sleep in this room,” Haskins said, gesturing to the elegant living room. For two weeks, the students slept in the only air conditioned room in the building, under the portrait of Elizabeth Mynders, whom the dorm is named for.
Elizabeth, a newlywed, who died several months before the school opened, was the daughter of the school’s first president and founder Seymour A. Mynders.
President Mynders ordered the dorm’s layout be constructed in the shape of the letter “E,” according to some accounts. An aerial view of the student hall suggests that this might be true. It’s also known that President Mynders managed nearly every aspect of the school’s creation —including faculty selection, curriculum creation and building construction.
Mynders Hall first greeted students in 1912 when it housed the first 100 female students. The dorm was one of only three original buildings on campus when the institution was named West Tennessee State Normal School and aimed to train teachers. The Administration Building, still standing, and the president’s home, since torn down, were the other two original buildings.
“I’d rather live at home than in a different dorm.”
President Mynders died one year after the school was opened, yet the Mynders family influence rippled throughout the years. The president’s wife, Pobricita Richerson Mynders, continued to serve the institution long after her husband and daughter’s death. Known affectionately as “Mother Mynders,” she sponsored the Seymour Mynders Fraternity and the sister group, Sigma Alpha Mu, Greek letters chosen because they formed the late president’s initials.
For most of its 103 years Mynders Hall exclusively housed women students and male students were forbidden to enter by Dean of Women and dormitory matron Nellie Angel Smith, for whom another U of M dormitory is now named. During the brief time that women students shared Mynders with male military servicemen during World War II, Smith, who was also the first woman to head the department of foreign languages, watched their movements very closely.
This year, nearly 100 male and female students have called Mynders hall home, though their time is running out. Many of them said they would prefer to live off campus than live in a dorm that wasn’t Mynders.
“I’d rather live at home than in a different dorm,” freshman Kevin Rotzoll said, causing many in the living room to nod their heads in approval.
An hour into the meeting, freshman Augustus Gatlin walked into the living room that has meant so much to so many generations of students. Gatlin is likely the first and maybe the last male RA in Mynders’ history, and he is optimistic about the future of Mynders.
“I’m not going to give up hope. I think this building will stay open for students,” Gatlin said.
The 103-year-old Mynders Hall opened its doors to male students for the first time since World War II—but it may also be the last time. The historic “E” shaped dorm will close its doors to students at the end of this semester. Garrett Bowen, a ROTC Army student and international studies major, talks to Brianna Boyd, political science sophomore, and Brittany Bowers, second year freshmen who’s kicked her feet up on the couch located at Mynders living room. A portrait of Elizabeth Mynders sits in the background by the fireplace.
The historic "E" shaped dormitory will close at the end of this semester--much to the disappointment to those who live there. Aoife Whiteacre, 20-year-old psychology senior and a resident assistant in Mynders, stands in front of a portrait of Elisabeth Mynders, daughter to The University of Memphis's first president. Some say Mynders' ghost roams the halls. (Photo by Jonathan A Capriel)
