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The new dormitory was named for the donor's father, Isaac Rector, a trustee of Indiana Asbury University at the time of the introduction of coeducation. This handsome and commodious structure was the first of several campus buildings designed by Robert Frost Daggett, son of the founder of the firm which did the architectural work for the gymnasium. Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Daggett mingled elements of the Classical Revival and Italian Renaissance styles to create a dormitory majestic in appearance and at the same time highly functional. Its dark red brick walls, constructed on an H-shaped floor-plan three stories high, enclosed a spacious reception hall and dining facilities as well as both single and double sleeping rooms.

Daggett also designed the Studebaker Memorial Administration Building erected in 1918 on Locust Street to house the offices of the president, dean, registrar, treasurer, and other members of a growing administrative staff. The gift of the family of Clem Studebaker, the recently deceased industrialist and longtime DePauw trustee, the two-story brick and limestone building boasted a large classical columned entrance. Inside was an ornate marble stairway with busts of Clement and Anne Wilburn Studebaker on the first landing, along with a statuary group of the three Studebaker children as youths in romantic pose. On the second floor of the building was a large, well furnished Trustees' Room, which came also to be used for faculty meetings.

The more sophisticated style and relatively lavish decor of these new structures represent a significant departure from the austere, utilitarian designs of the early DePauw years. The old dream of someday relocating the campus to remote University Park had been long abandoned, and most of the acreage surrounding McKim Observatory originally purchased for that purpose was sold. In 1917 the trustees engaged the services of landscape architect Ralph M. Weinrichter of Rochester, N.Y. to draw up a comprehensive campus plan. His chief contribution turned out to be the planting of 2,500 shrubs in the first systemic landscaping effort at DePauw University.

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The Studebaker Administration Building on
Locust Street is shown under construction.
It was dedicated and completed in 1918
and allowed all the scattered university
offices to be centralized.
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In 1918, Women's Hall, whose residents now took their meals in the superior dining facilities of Rector Hall, was extensively remodeled and renamed Mansfield Hall in honor of its first preceptress, Belle Mansfield. At the same time Florence Hall, which had housed women since 1904, reverted to its original use as a men's dormitory, with a sleeping porch added for additional space. "Flossie," as its residents more or less affectionately dubbed the hall, was chiefly occupied by non-organization men, for most members of fraternities preferred to live in their chapter houses. The far greater need for dormitory rooms for women than for men arose from the administration's insistence that all freshman women reside in university halls as well as from the fact that sororities claimed a much smaller number of members than did the fraternities.
 

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Interior view of the mezzanine landing of the
administration building with the statues of Mr. and Mrs. Clem Studebaker and their children, which originally were in the Studebaker home in South Bend.  The door is the entrance to a later addition to the building.
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Clem Studebaker, carriage manufacturer of South Bend,
was on the Indiana Asbury-DePauw Board of Trustees
from 1881 to 1892.  He was a major benefactor to the
school and was honored by his family with their gift of
Studebaker Hall, the DePauw administration
building, in 1916.
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Mrs. Clem Studebaker and her sons provided
$58,000 in 1916 for the DePauw Administration
Building in honor of her husband, although she did
not live to see the building completed.  Her first gift
to the university was the donation of a grand
piano in 1882.
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The DePauw Summer School, which had its origins in the special summer classes first held in 1893, expanded its operations considerably at this time. Courses in domestic science offered in the summer of 1915 for prospective teachers of that subject led to the organization of a regular department of home economics in the fall of that year under the guidance of a series of young women instructors. Classes were held first in Simpson Hall, no longer needed since the demise of the Art School, and later in a house remodeled for that purpose on the corner of Spring Avenue and Simpson Street. Eventually a small student cafeteria was established nearby that was operated by the home economics department for about a decade.

In 1913 the board of trustees shifted control of organized sports at DePauw from the student-faculty board to a committee made up of nine alumni, chiefly residents of Indianapolis. Taking complete charge of the athletic program, this Alumni Athletic Board ushered in a new era of increased emphasis on intercollegiate competition. Coeds, who were excluded from such activities, organized their own Women's Athletic Association in 1915 to sponsor intramural contests in such sports as basketball, swimming, and tennis. In that same year a women's tennis team played the first recorded intercollegiate match with Butler University. Two years later the W.A.A. awarded letters and numerals to outstanding DePauw women athletes.
 

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       The waiters of Ladie's Hall (Mansfield
       after 1912) on its steps in 1910.  Mrs.
       Lucy Black was put in charge of the
       dining room in 1900 and managed it with
       noteworthy efficiency.  Second from the
       left on the fourth row of this picture is
       Clyde Wildman, who became president of
       the university in 1936.
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