This series consists of Alumni Association records related to building dormitories for students and the Alumni House Conference Center. Beginning in 1921 the Alumni Association created a Dormitory Committee/Residence Hall Building Fund with the goal of raising funds to purchase land and build dormitories, especially for women. In 1921 the College's only residential building was Syddum Hall, housing 29 female students. The great majority of students commuted from home, lived in boarding houses throughout the City of Albany, fraternity or sorority houses or at the YWCA. In 1935 Pierce Hall opened to house female students and in 1941, Sayles Hall opened for men.
Many files in this series document this decades-long endeavor to build more college dormitories and include committee minutes, reports, correspondence, lists of pledges by classes, newsclippings and outreach materials designed to secure financial commitment from alumni, students and the community in the funding drive. Professor John Sayles, future College president, and Dr. Erastus Corning, a member of the college board of trustees, served successive terms as chairs of the Dormitory Committee in the 1920s. The City of Albany and its citizens also pledged its support and dollars.
Of interest to researchers will be the pamphlets and other outreach materials created to encourage fund-raising among the various constituencies. An editorial in the Alumni Quarterly written by a member of the Class of 1920 compares the "meager equipment" and "impossible housing conditions" of State to Vassar College. Pamphlets for district chairmen of the fund-raising campaign liken it to a machine that must be embolden and put into motion. A newsclipping from 1922 notes how members of the Eta Phi sorority will walk home from college that year and instead pledge the money earmarked for their train fares home to the dormitory fund.
Please see Series 6, Benevolent Association, for additional files related to the acquisition of land for residence halls and operation of the dormitories. The Benevolent Association, incorporated in 1926, managed the campus residence halls until 1967.
The series also contains records which document the construction of Alumni House, begun in 1974, and its subsequent use as a conference center on campus and gathering point for alumni. Like the dormitory effort, the Alumni Association formed an Alumni House Building Committee in 1972 and the series contains files on the Committee, correspondence, construction plans, photographs, and event materials.
Please see the related Alumni Memorabilia Collection for Anna Pierce's materials from the Class of 1884 and Marialla Conklin Whitbeck's files from the Class of 1899, both of which contain additional information about campus buildings and dormitories.