Waukesha Unlocked

Doug and Nancy Hastad Hall (2018)

Doug and Nancy Hastad Hall was dedicated January 12, 2018. The building is named in honor of President Douglas N. Hastad and his wife Nancy. Hastad served as president at Carroll for 11 years, from 2006-2017. Doug and Nancy Hastad Hall replaced Lowry Hall and houses the nursing, physics/engineering and exercise science programs, as well as provides space for other academic classroom needs for Carroll students and faculty. It is physically connected to the Michael and Mary Jaharis Science Laboratories building. Hastad Hall hosted its first classes in January, 2018.

  

Ganfield Gymnasium (1924)

The Ganfield Gymnasium was opened in 1924. Named after Carroll's sixth president, William Arthur Ganfield, the gymnasium is the smaller of two athletic facilities at Carroll.

Ganfield was highly educated, completing a master’s degree at Cornell, later graduate work at the University of Chicago, as well as being awarded honorary doctorates from Carroll, the University of Kentucky and Cornell. He also attended McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago before being ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1901. After his ordination, Ganfield and his family moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he served as the minister for First Presbyterian Church. In 1904, he came to Carroll as a professor, teaching history and economics. He left Carroll from 1915 to 1921, and served as the President of Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky. Carroll’s board recruited Ganfield back in 1921, asking him to serve as President of Carroll after Wilbur O. Carrier.

Ganfield was an enthusiastic booster of athletics; during his time as President of Centre College, the school played a now-famous upset game over national favorite Harvard University. He took this spirit to Carroll, boasting in 1921 that Carroll’s football team would soon beat the Badgers and recruiting former Centre College tackle Norris “Army” Armstrong as Carroll’s football coach. By 1925, the football team had a perfect season and the school had a new gymnasium.

Before Ganfield Gymnasium opened in June 1924, student athletes used the gym in the basement of Main Hall. The new gym was a state-of-the-art facility, with ample space for teams and 3,500 spectators, as well as shared use as a recreational center for the entire campus. The first campus event held in the gym in September 1924 was the “New Gym Shaker”- a dance for students, alumni, faculty, trustees and friends. It drew over 400 people. Ganfield resigned as President in 1939 in failing health, and died in October 1940 in Chicago.
 

Rankin Hall 

Built in 1906, Rankin Hall was named after Carroll's third president, Walter Rankin (1866-1871 and 1893-1903). The building contains the biology and psychology programs and laboratories.

Walter Lowrie Rankin was born in India in 1841 while his parents worked for the American Board of Foreign Missions. The family returned to New Jersey in 1848, and in 1857, Rankin entered Princeton University as a sophomore, graduating third in his class of ninety in 1860 at age 19. He taught school in Elizabeth, N.J. and studied law, before being asked to serve as the second president of Carroll College in 1866. Throughout his career at Carroll he also taught Latin. His tenure started with a class of fifteen students – the college had been closed since 1863, due to a student shortage during the Civil War, and had very little financial support. Rankin was a tireless promoter and fundraiser, gradually increasing enrollment and the college’s stature between 1866 and 1903. Though Carroll retained its college charter from the beginning, during Rankin’s tenure the school operated strictly as a pre-collegiate institution and junior college (under direction of the board.) Walter Rankin, however, was strict with educational standards, for both men and women, and worked to make Carroll an outstanding academy, sending many well-prepared graduates on to higher education in the East.

During Rankin’s first year in Waukesha, he met and married a local woman, Mary Jane Nickell, and they went on to have four children: May N. Rankin (1868-1931), Walter Rankin Jr. (1870-1944), Sarah Rankin (1875-1876), and C. Adela Rankin (1880-1955). Walter Rankin had two absences from Carroll College during his long tenure, both caused by serious financial issues at the college. From 1871-1873, Rankin took a professorship at Pennsylvania Female College in Pittsburgh and returned after the board was able to guarantee his salary (previously it had been tied to how much fundraising he was able to do.) From 1879-1881, Rankin taught at Lake Forest College in Illinois, and when he returned to Carroll in 1881, brought back substantial Chicago Presbyterian connections to Waukesha, which was just coming into its own as a springs resort town. During the 1890s, Rankin renewed contact with a childhood friend, Ralph Voorhees, who, with his wife Elizabeth, was generously funding a number of religiously based colleges, Carroll included. The Voorhees’ donations between 1896 and 1906 totaled $200,000 and helped to set the college on sound financial footing. Their contributions funded the construction of three buildings on campus, one being the Rankin Hall of Science, which was completed in 1906. By the turn of the century, Walter Rankin was in poor health, and retired at the end of 1903 as both a professor, college president, and chief fundraiser. During the last few years of his life he lectured occasionally, and studied and published articles on astronomy. After a trip to Biloxi, Mississippi during the winter of 1909-1910 with his wife Mary, Rankin died in June 1910.

The building underwent major renovations in 2018 to reconfigure the historic structure into a modern facility, ready to meet the needs of Carroll's newest generation of students. As the third, and final piece of a multi-phase plan to improve academic spaces on campus, Carroll University's Board of Trustees authorized $11 million for improvements. Most of the upgrades were confined to the building's interior because of the historic-nature of the building. Rankin Hall was rededicated on Sept. 14, 2018 and now houses nine technology-infused classrooms, a number of student spaces and 25 offices for faculty predominantly in environmental science, psychology and biology. Carroll University was honored with the 2019 George Gunn Award for Excellence in Architectural Preservation and Historic Restoration from the City of Waukesha Landmarks Commission for the restoration of Rankin Hall.

 

Todd Wehr Memorial Library (1942)

The Todd Wehr Memorial Library, formerly the Carrier Memorial Library, was built in 1942. In 1940, president Gerrit T. Vander Lugt announced a fund drive for the creation of a new library, which previously had been housed on the second floor of Main Hall and then Morgan Manor (MacAllister Hall). By 1941, $200,000 of the expected $400,000 had been raised and construction began. The first major renovation occurred in 1965, in which the $400,000 three-floor, 43,700-square-foot Frank James addition was built. The addition was made in honor of retired advertising executive Frank James, a 1910 graduate and Carroll Trustee from 1927 to 1946. The third floor was finished in 1975, and the library now had the capacity to hold 190,000 books and 600 periodicals. The library housed the FitzGerald Civil War collection, once part of Carroll’s Civil War Institute. Donated by Mrs. W. Norman FitzGerald in 1972, the collection contains more than 1700 books, 400 pamphlets and 75 maps.

The most extensive renovations took place in 1998. The $2.8 million renovation included a new portico and a plaza incorporating bricks honoring Carroll friends and alumni on the outside. On the inside was a new elevator, new paint, furniture, carpeting, windows, air conditioning and humidity control systems, group study rooms, the Ganfield Browsing Room, and a computer classroom. Technologically, the library also updated its online catalog system, allowing for easy access to the college’s numerous online databases and book information. The project was made possible in part due a $650,000 grant from the Todd Wehr Foundation of Milwaukee, a foundation that supports higher education and public facilities in Wisconsin. Originally named in honor of Carroll’s fourth president, Wilbur Oscar Carrier (1903-1917), the name was changed to the Todd Wehr Memorial Library in honor of the foundation’s grant.

The building is also home to the Learning Commons study center, which offers subject tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, workshops, the Math Center and Writing Center, and the location of Career Services on campus. And for coffee lovers, the Ganfield Browsing Room includes a Stone Creek café.
 

The Idea Lab at Carroll University (2020)

The Idea Lab, opened in the fall of 2020 in Frontier Hall, is purpose-designed to serve as the hub for innovation and collaboration on campus. Its flexible spaces are outfitted with the latest technology for conferencing, research or study. The Idea Lab also houses the Analytics and Business Intelligence Consortium at the Carroll University School of Business, which hosts monthly in-person and online meetings.

The Idea Lab features uniquely configurable spaces ideal for conferencing, classrooms, small meetings and even individual workspaces. Garage doors in the large open space can be raised or lowered to create rooms suitable for gatherings of various sizes or for breakout sessions. The latest tech is standard throughout, with fast wi-fi and bright, high-resolution monitors for presentations and virtual meetings.

Three private cubicles and two height-variable workstations provide space for individual work. Art work from Carroll University’s Wisconsin Artists Collection is displayed throughout, adding an extra boost of inspiration and creativity in this bright and airy space.