Dear Friends,
One of the most important venues on the UCA Campus, since 1934, has been the Mirror Room in McAlister Hall. The Mirror Room has long provided UCA students with a formal place to meet other students, as well as their professors. Soon after its construction, the Mirror Room was used as a gathering place for new students to meet the faculty. Typically, at the start of each new school year, a reception was held in the Mirror Room for new students. The purpose was for the new students to be officially introduced to the college faculty.
It was a very elaborate affair and the male faculty wore tuxedos and the female faculty members wore long evening dresses. The new students were very impressed that the reception was being held in such a proper setting, and they were also impressed that the faculty wore tuxedos and evening dresses. The students wrote home to their parents and told them about the formal reception and the elegance of Arkansas State Teachers College. Due to Arkansas being primarily an agricultural state, and the vast majority of the students were from a farm background, the reception that took place in the Mirror Room was a new and positive experience for those students.
The Mirror Room has been immensely important to UCA for many decades as a gathering place for male and female students. Countless married couples first met in the Mirror Room; as is the case with my wife’s parents, who first met there and were soon married.
McAlister Hall was dedicated on May 20, 1934. U.S. Senator Hattie Caraway, the nation’s first elected female U.S. Senator, gave the dedicatory address. Senator Caraway was introduced by Arkansas Governor Marion Futrell to the crowd of over 2,000 people.
Music for the dedication came from several sources, including the band of the Arkansas National Guard’s 153rd Infantry. Frances Burt performed at the dedication by playing Mendelssohn’s “Concerto in G Minor.” Other musical selections were performed by the College Chapel Choir, directed by Homer Hess, and by the Girls’ Orchestra, also known as the String Sextet, under the direction of Mrs. W.C. Thompson. The dedication program ended with the singing of the Arkansas State Teachers College (now University of Central Arkansas) alma mater by the female residents of McAlister Hall.
THE PHOTOGRAPH OF SENATOR HATTIE W. CARAWAY IS COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT.
