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USF's Old Marshall Center Draws A Crowd Of Memories

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 24, 2008

TAMPA - For nearly half a century, hundreds of thousands of University of South Florida students filed into and out of the Marshall Student Center.

Opening in 1960, the building was an architectural sign of the times: boxy, squat, not that attractive but extremely functional.

Students -- there were 2,000 enrolled then -- came to eat, to socialize, to buy books or even to protest a war.

Alas, the university outgrew the building, which in 1994 was named the Phyllis P. Marshall Center for the first director, the one credited with creating "student life" on a campus known for commuter enrollment. Today, more than 36,000 students attend the Tampa campus.

University staff, students and alumni gathered this morning at the old student center, slated for an encounter with a wrecking ball in the next few months. The new center opened in August.

"We're here to say goodbye to a structure," said Vice President of Student Affairs Jennifer Meningall. "We're not here to say goodbye to a number of memories and connections."

It's a place where lifelong friendships were forged, and maybe a few marriage proposals made. If the walls could talk, Meningall said, "they would say, 'Although my walls are coming down, the memories that have been birthed in this building remain.' "

Her comments were made during a short ceremony with about 100 people attending, not including the stream of students walking into the adjacent new center.

University President Judy Genshaft said Phyllis Marshall was "all about student life," and "she would really be pleased to see the new facility."

Jim Vastine is a member of the first graduating class at the Tampa campus, in 1964, and worked In the library there for 35 years before retiring.

"The university center was, in fact, the university's center," he said. "It was our universe."

Forty-eight years ago, the campus was in the middle of nowhere, he said. Fletcher Avenue ended at 42nd Street, and there was one restaurant on Fowler Avenue. On campus, he said, "there was the university center, the administration building and the chemistry building."

Classes were held in the center, and that's were students lounged between class.

An open plaza and amphitheater will mark the spot it occupied for 48 years, never once closing its doors.

Nearby looms the new Marshall Student Center, with more of just about everything the old center had -- except memories.

Greg Jackson, who took a job in the Marshall Center as a game room director, hired by Marshal herself, is assistant director of the new center. Recalling talent nights, "slappy hours" at the little bar called the Empty Keg and a weekly flea market, Jackson said he will miss the feeling of the old building.

Samuel Wright, an adjunct professor of African studies and a graduate of USF's doctoral program, started working for Marshall in 1985, he said.

"What I liked most about her is that she was well-respected not only by the students but by everyone and that she embraced diversity," he said. "She was a real fighter."

Wright, who now has an office in the new building where he advises students, said it will be a sad day when the wrecking ball comes.

"I have a lot of fond memories here," he said.

The new center is part of a $282 million expansion on the Tampa campus. It cost $65 million, is four-stories high and features a 57-foot atrium.

There are computer rooms, study lounges, nearly a dozen restaurants, a 710-seat theater and a ballroom more than three times the size of the one in the old center. The old center had 106,000 square feet. The new one: 235,000 square feet.

Kathy Betancourt, a 1968 USF graduate and now a university lobbyist who took part in or watched lots of sit-ins and protests at the old center, said it "was our living room. The center was the heartbeat of the university."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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