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Upham Hall

Upham Hall
Center Section of Upham Hall on Miami University's Campus
General information
Type	Academic
Architectural style	Georgian
Location	100 Bishop Woods, Oxford, Ohio 45056
Coordinates	39°30′31.23″N 84°43′59.42″W
Completed	dedicated on February 17 1946 Completed Center - 1949, North Wing - 1950 Southeast Wing - 1965 Costing $3,460,400 with an area of 160,792 square feet
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Center Section - C.F. Cellarius, North Wing and Southeast Wing - Cellarius & Hilmer

History

Upham Hall can be found on the Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio. It is located in the center of campus in the academic quad near the university’s seal and the hub. Miami University was founded in 1809 and the first class graduated in 1824.

Uses

Upham hall is the home to many different departments at Miami University. They include anthropology, the center for environmental education, the Scripps gerontology center, history, humanities center, Jewish studies, pre-law programs, sociology and gerontology, and statistics. In addition to being the home of these departments, this academic hall is the home to many professors offices and classrooms. The different rooms in Upham can hold a variety of numbers of students. Some of the rooms hold a Dell computer, a 17” LCD monitor and a TV, VCR, and DVD player.

Construction

Upham Hall began to be built February 16, 1946 with the laying of the cornerstone in honor of Dr. Alfred H. Upham. When Upham Hall was in the plans to be built it was to be the biggest building on campus. The first part constructed consisted of eighteen classrooms, two seminar rooms, 29 faculty offices, and other service rooms. In the cornerstone on this building was placed a box which contained information about Dr. Upham’s life and death. Some of the materials included in this box were a student directory, newspapers, the 1946 campus yearbook which was dedicated to Dr. Upham, and a photograph of the current president of Miami.

Alfred H. Upham

Dr. Upham was born March 2, 1877 and is from Eaton, Ohio. He first came to Miami University as a freshman undergraduate in 1896. He received his Master's Degree from Harvard University in 1901 and his Ph. D from Columbia University in 1908. He married Mary Collins McClintock on June 28, 1905. With her he had one daughter, Margaret Louise. He was president of the University of Idaho from 1920 to 1928, when he then became the president of Miami University until his death on February 17, 1945. He led Miami during the difficult times of the Great Depression and World War II. Dr. Upham is famous for many of his writings. Among these writings is the “Old Miami” anthem that was written in 1909 for Miami University Centennial. Upham also wrote the book “Old Miami, the Yale of the early West.”

Upham Arch

Perhaps the most famous part of Upham Hall is the Upham Hall Arch which is located in the middle of the building as a walk way for students to walk under instead of walking all the way around the large building. This arch which was added to the building in 1948 and contains the words “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. The arch was a midpoint between the two parts of campus. To the west of the arch was the campus that already existed, and to the east was the part of Miami’s campus not yet built.

The legend of Upham Hall Arch is “if you kiss your true love under the Upham Hall Arch, you will marry and the bond will never be broken.” This may be one of the most famous of the Miami University Legends, and one that is most acted upon. From this legend came the term “Miami Mergers.” This term is used to identity two graduates of Miami that have married each other. As a way to recognize these mergers, Miami sends them a Valentine’s Day card every year they are married, a tradition that started in 1973. Miami has an unusually large number of their students that marry each other, approximately 14%, which other colleges tend to be around 3-4%.

On June 20, 2009 Miami broke a world record due to their long legend of Miami Mergers. 1,087 couples renewed their wedding vowels under the Upham Hall Arch. This constituted a Guinness World Record for the most people renewing their wedding vowels at once. This number almost doubled the previous record. All 26,472 mergers were invited to the event.

A sketch of the center section of Upham Hall from the Miami University Archives.