Read Hall: A Cornerstone of Indiana University Bloomington's History

Read Hall, named in honor of Daniel Read, stands prominently on the Indiana University Bloomington campus at the corner of Jordan Avenue and Jones Road. Its location places it conveniently across from the Simon Music Center and the Musical Arts Center. More than just a residence hall, Read Hall is a microcosm of the university's vibrant community, offering a unique living experience and a range of amenities to its residents.

Architectural Layout and Residential Life

The building's design is notable for its "X" shaped layout, comprising four distinct wings: Beck, Clark, Curry, and Landes. This design fosters a sense of community, with the wings connecting through a central "hub" on floors 2 through 6. This open environment encourages interaction among residents.

Read Hall is a co-ed residence hall, with men residing in the Beck and Curry wings and women living in the Clark and Landes wings. The rooms on floors 2 through 5 are mostly doubles, with two single rooms available at the ends of each floor, and are approximately the same size; the hub rooms are an exception as some are oddly shaped and larger than the wing rooms. The 6th floor rooms are all singles, and they are several feet shorter from the door to the window than the rooms on the lower floors. The floor lounges are also located in the hub. A unique feature to Read is that there are half-baths between each room.

Dining Options Within Read Hall

Read Hall boasts three distinct dining options, catering to a variety of tastes and preferences.

The "Hoos": This smallest dining area offers a la carte items, including fruit, chips, granola bars, and select meal options like chicken strips or sandwiches.

Read also: Decoding Academic Records
The Traditional Dining Area ("Tradish"): This buffet-style dining hall is known for its diverse dinner options, including a grill line for sandwiches and burgers, as well as a salad bar.
El Bistro: Replacing a former McDonald's, El Bistro opened in October 2007 in the basement of the Clark wing. It features three distinct food options: breakfast items (waffles, omelets, bagels, and muffins), Mexican cuisine (nachos and burritos in the style of Chipotle and Qdoba), and sandwiches similar to those offered at Dagwood's Subs. El Bistro has been very well-received by the student body.

Indiana University Bloomington: An Overview

Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public research university. Indiana's state government in Corydon established Indiana University on January 20, 1820, as the "State Seminary". Construction began in 1822 at what is now called Seminary Square Park near the intersection of Second Street and College Avenue. Classes began on April 4, 1825. The first professor was Baynard Rush Hall, a Presbyterian minister who taught all of the classes in 1825-27. In the first year, he taught twelve students and was paid $250. Hall was a classicist who focused on Greek and Latin and believed that the study of classical philosophy and languages formed the basis of the best education. The first class graduated in 1830. In 1829, Andrew Wylie became the first president, serving until his death in 1851. The school's name was changed to "Indiana College" in 1829, and to "Indiana University" in 1838.

A Legacy of Firsts and Growth

IU admitted its first woman student, Sarah Parke Morrison, in 1867, making IU the fourth public university to admit women on an equal basis with men. Morrison went on to become the first female professor at IU in 1873. Mathematician Joseph Swain was IU's first Hoosier-born president, 1893 to 1902. He established Kirkwood Hall in 1894; a gymnasium for men in 1896, which later was named Assembly Hall; and Kirkwood Observatory in 1900. He began construction for Science Hall in 1901. In 1883, IU awarded its first PhD and played its first intercollegiate sport (baseball), prefiguring the school's future status as a major research institution and a power in collegiate athletics. But another incident that year was of more immediate concern: the original campus in Seminary Square burned to the ground. The college was rebuilt between 1884 and 1908 at the far eastern edge of Bloomington. (Today, the city has expanded eastward, and the "new" campus is once again in the midst of the city.) One challenge was that Bloomington's limited water supply was inadequate for its population of 12,000 and could not handle university expansion. In 1902, IU enrolled 1203 undergraduates; all but 65 were Hoosiers. There were 82 graduate students including ten from out-of-state.

Academic Expansion and Endowments

The first extension office of IU was opened in Indianapolis in 1916. In 1920/1921 the School of Music and the School of Commerce and Finance (what later became the Kelley School of Business) were opened. In the 1940s Indiana University opened extension campuses in Kokomo and Fort Wayne. During the Great Depression, Indiana University fared much better than most state schools thanks to the entrepreneurship of its young president Herman Wells. He collaborated with Frederick L. Hovde, the president of Purdue; together they approached the Indiana delegation to Congress, indicating their highest priorities. For Wells, it was to build a world-class music school, replacing dilapidated facilities. As a result of these efforts, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built one of the finest facilities in the country. He added matching funds from the state legislature and opened a full-scale fund-raising campaign among alumni and the business community. In 1942, Wells reported that "The past five years have been the greatest single period of expansion in the physical plant of the University in its entire history.

Controversies and Challenges

In 1960, the IU student body elected Thomas Atkins, an African-American from Elkhart, Indiana, to the position of president of the student body. A throng of white students protested the result by parading around campus waving Confederate flags and allegedly blamed Atkins' victory on a "bunch of beatniks". Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights initiated a federal investigation of Indiana University's Title IX compliance, encompassing more than 450 sexual harassment and violence complaints filed with the university between 2011 and 2015. The complaints involved both students and university staff or faculty. The investigation revealed concerns with timeliness of response, lack of documentation, not preventing retaliation, and the creation of sexually hostile environments at the campus. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights initiated another Title IX investigation into Indiana University for failing to hold a university student accountable for an off-campus rape of another student and failing to follow proper Title IX procedures subsequent to the reporting of the incident. The university also charged the victim a dorm-relocation fee after the suspected rapist continued to harass the victim around her dormitory, which also went without intervention by the university. In November 2023, Indiana University Student Government treasurer Alex Kaswan and co-director of DEI Makiah Pickett resigned after accusing other student government leadership members of antisemitism and failure to represent the cultural whole of the student body. Representative Jim Banks sent a letter to university president Pamela Whitten denouncing such conduct, identifying it as a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and threatened the continued federal funding for the university if the conduct was tolerated by the university administration. Also in November 2023, the university attracted national attention when the university barred a faculty member from teaching after alleging that he improperly assisted the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group, in reserving a space on campus. Shortly thereafter, the university's administrators also cancelled a planned art exhibition by Samia Halaby, a Palestinian-American artist. Both of these events occurred after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and in the wake of national attention on antisemitism on college and university campuses. They also occurred in the midst of changes to Indiana laws that some perceived as attacking academic freedom. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights again initiated a federal investigation of the university in response to a complaint of the violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The complaint was filed by Dr. In 2025, the Indiana General Assembly passed a state budget bill mandating that Indiana's public universities phase out programs that produce fewer than 10 students in an associate degree program, 15 students in a bachelor's degree program, 7 students in a master's degree program, and 3 students in a doctorate degree program, unless the institution received permission from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to continue offering the program. Significant cuts were made to the university's programs in foreign languages, for which it is internationally recognized, due to their low enrollment numbers.

The Enduring Beauty of the Campus

The Indiana University Bloomington campus of 1,933 acres (7.82 km2) includes abundant green space and historic buildings dating to the university's reconstruction in the late nineteenth century. The campus rests on a bed of Indiana Limestone, specifically Salem Limestone and Harrodsburg Limestone, with outcroppings of St. The "Campus River" is a stream flowing through the center of campus. Many of the campus's buildings, especially the older central buildings, are made from Indiana Limestone quarried locally. The Works Progress Administration built much of the campus's core during the Great Depression. Many of the campus's buildings were built and most of its land acquired during the 1950s and 1960s when first soldiers attending under the GI Bill and then the baby boom swelled the university's enrollment from 5,403 in 1940 to 30,368 in 1970. Some buildings on campus underwent similar expansion. As additions were constructed by building onto the outside of existing buildings, exterior surfaces were incorporated into their new interiors, making this expansion visible in the affected buildings' architecture. The Chemistry and Biology buildings serve as examples, where two of the interior walls of the latter's library were clearly constructed as limestone exteriors. Nine of the oldest buildings are included in a national historic district known as The Old Crescent. The Sample Gates serve as the entryway to Indiana University's campus and the Old Crescent. The 1979 movie Breaking Away was filmed on location in Bloomington and the IU campus. It also featured a reenactment of the annual Little 500 bicycle race. The IU campus also has trails that many utilize for biking and running. The over 500,000-square-foot (46,000 m2) Indiana Memorial Union (IMU) is the second-largest student union in the world. It was built in 1932. In addition to stores and restaurants, it features an eight-story student activities tower (home to the Indiana University Student Association, Indiana Memorial Union Board, and a variety of other student organizations), a 189-room hotel, a 400-seat theatre, a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) Alumni Hall, 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) of meeting space, and a bowling alley. The IMU houses a collection of Indiana art including artists from Brown County, the Hoosier Group, Richmond Group and others. The Biddle Hotel and Conference Center was added in 1960. Today, IU Auditorium presents Broadway touring acts, popular musical artists, comedians, classical musicians and more. IU Auditorium's Hall of Murals is the home of the Indiana Murals, created by American artist Thomas Hart Benton. The Eskenazi Museum of Art, formerly known as the Indiana University Art Museum, was established in 1941 and has occupied a building designed by the world-renowned architecture firm I.M. Pei and Partners since 1982. The museum houses a collection of over 40,000 objects and includes works by Claude Monet, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Jackson Pollock. The museum has particular strengths in the art of Africa, Oceania, the Americas, Ancient Greece and Rome, and European Modernism. The IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology consists of an estimated 5 million archaeological artifacts, 30,000 ethnographic objects, 20,000 photographs, and a supporting library and archive. The collections represent cultures from each of the world's inhabited continents. These materials have been collected and curated to serve the museum's primary mission as a teaching museum within a university setting. The ethnology collections' strengths include traditional musical instruments, photographs of Native Americans and the Bloomington community, Inupiaq and Yupik Eskimo materials, and Pawnee material culture, among others. The Grunwald Gallery of Art, a contemporary art museum hosted by the university. The gallery was established in 1983 as the School of Fina Arts Gallery (SoFA Gallery) in what was formerly University's art museum space when that museum relocated to a new building. The museum exhibits experimental works by emerging and established artists as well as works by faculty and students within the Department of Studio Art. It is located at 1201 East 7th Street. It was named in honor of Indiana University alumnus John A. IU Bloomington's Von Lee Theatre building is LEED Certified. The "More Art, Less Trash" recycling initiative included a design contest for recycling bin artwork and promotes both recycling and outdoor art. The university employs a group of student sustainability interns each summer, and students can get involved in campus and community-based sustainability initiatives through the Volunteers in Sustainability coordination group or the Student Sustainability Council. IU launched its Environmental Resiliency Institute in 2017 to enable more efficient collaboration between the university, local communities, and businesses on greenhouse gas reduction and sustainability projects. A campus bus system operates several routes on a regular schedule around the IUB campus throughout the semesters. The campus buses are free to all IU affiliates and are handicap accessible.

Academic Divisions and Programs

The College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University is the largest academic division, housing over 40 percent of the university's undergraduates and offering a wide range of disciplines, from traditional fields like biology, history, and philosophy to specialized areas such as Jewish studies, gender studies, and climate science. It provides instruction in over 50 foreign languages, including unique programs like Hungarian and the first doctoral program in Gender Studies. The college is home to various renowned departments, research institutes, and autonomous schools, including the School of Art + Design and the Media School. It also features IU's Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, the nation's only degree-granting Department of Central Eurasian Studies, and a world-class cyclotron in physics. Within the College of Arts and Sciences, the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design houses fourteen different areas in art, architecture, design, and merchandising. The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies is an international affairs school composed of over 500 students from four academic departments and twenty-one institutes and centers. The Media School was established on July 1, 2014, bringing together journalism, communications, and film studies programs under the College of Arts and Sciences. Led by Dean David Tolchinsky as of September 2023, the school offers undergraduate degrees in journalism, media, cinematic arts, and game design, along with graduate degrees in media and media arts and sciences. It also provides various minors and certificates. Located primarily in Franklin Hall with additional facilities in the Radio-Television Building, the school hosts the Michael I. Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism, the Black Film Center & Archive, and the Center for Documentary Research and Practice. The Kelley School of Business was founded in 1920 as the university's School of Commerce and Finance. Approximately 6,100 students are enrolled in undergraduate, graduate Accountancy and Information Systems degrees, MBA and PhD programs, and in …

Time Capsules: Preserving History

Indiana University has a long tradition of commemorating its past, present, and future with time capsules. “Today we find our sermon in a stone. A multitude of people are gathered here…and all are gathered about a senseless block of granite. What is there in this polished cube to justify such an assemblage? What motive or inspiration can there be in a mass of limestone? How was this rock transformed into a swift and subtle magnet which could draw about it the mind of the State, and evoke from it this stately ceremony…The stone before us is more than worthy of this presence and this ceremonial. Wylie Hall, circa 1889. Only six days before the cornerstone was to be laid, the Board of Trustees appointed President Moss, along with James D. The Student Building cornerstone is laid on June 21, 1904. On June 21, 1904, a cornerstone was laid at the new Student Building, still under construction, following an alumni reception as part of that year’s commencement ceremonies. Items placed in the cornerstone, which can be found on the southeast corner of the building, included copies of letters from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (who donated to Swain’s fundraising campaign), programs and pamphlets, “copy of history of movement, by Mrs. Just last year, it was renamed the Frances Morgan Swain Student Building as part of a bicentennial initiative to increase public recognition of important women, such as Swain, and other underrepresented individuals throughout IU history. The Memorial Hall cornerstone is laid on October 20, 1924. Photo courtesy Indiana University News-Letter, Vol. Along with the IMU and the original Memorial Stadium located on 10th St., the Memorial Fund Drive allowed for the construction of a new women’s dormitory, Memorial Hall. Today, the Memorial Hall cornerstone can be found on the southwest corner of the building’s archway. The building was funded by the same Memorial Fund Drive as Memorial Hall and the original Memorial Stadium on 10th Street. Items placed inside included various university, Bloomington, and state publications, photos of the campus, students, staff, and faculty, an autographed copy of “The Spirit of Indiana” written by President Bryan, and a list of all IU men and women who served in the military in all wars. The IU Memorial Fund Campaign’s “Flying Squadron” with President Harding, May 1, 1922. This photo was placed in both the IMU and Memorial Hall cornerstones. According to a letter sent to architects Granger and Bollenbach, Bryan arranged for “sundry articles” to be placed in a 12”x6”x8” copper box which went into the cornerstone on the northwest corner of the building. Indiana Governor Paul V. “In the stone was placed photographs of the University administrative officers and members of the Board of Trustees. A copy of the University catalogue for 1935-36 and a copy of the current issue of the Alumni Quarterly also are to be sealed in the stone…As representative of the student publications, copies of the Red Book, the Arbutus, and the two Commencement issues of the Daily Student will be placed in the stone. University history to go in the stone will include the Centennial volume of the University, published in 1920, and the History of Indiana University, written by the late Dr. Theophilus A. A drawing of the March 8, 1922 bonfire, which celebrated the Memorial Campaign Fund surpassing $413,000, was placed into the IMU time capsule. Copies of two books by President Bryan, “Spirit of Indiana” and “The President’s Column,” also are to be included in the list of articles placed in the stone. Autographed photographs of Dr. Administration Building East entrance, circa 1937. Due to the efforts of numerous people, particularly women in the cases of The Student Building and Memorial Hall, a vibrant historical record now awaits researchers all around our campus. [1] “Oration delivered at the laying of the cornerstone of a new university building,” speech by William Lowe Bryan. [3] “Owen/Wylie Hall Rededication,” speech by Kenneth R.R. Gros Louis. [4] Letter from Frances Morgan Swain. [6] Indiana University News-Letter, vol. [7] Construction report. [8] Letter from President Bryan to Granger and Bollenbacher.

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