Adams Hall was named after Karl Adams, NIU president from 1929 to 1948.

Glen Gildemeister, director of NIU’s Regional History Center, said the building likely would have a different name today if Adams hadn’t died prior to the building’s opening.

“There was a groundswell of support because this poor man had been there 20 years,” Gildemeister said. “If he had not died, they might have named it after him, but I doubt it. It was circumstance that he dropped dead as they were naming the building. Timing is everything, I guess.”

Genevieve Lawless Raudenbush, a class of 1940 alumna, said at the dedication ceremony that Adams would have been proud of the building that bears his name.

Adams Hall, which was built in the late 1940s, served as a women’s dormitory until 1967. It currently houses the graduate school, testing services, the office for teaching assistant training and development and faculty offices.

Greg Barker, assistant director of testing services, said he admires Adams Hall’s architecture.

“It’s a nice old building from the outside,” he said. “It’s just that the inside is a bit dated.”