O'Kelly Hall

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

O'Kelly Hall is a building that stands on the University of North Dakota's campus. The building's west wing was completed in 1948 and the east in 1953. In 1963 Ireland Hall was added to its south side. It was built to serve as the Medical School building and did so until the medical school expanded in 1981and moved to the former St. Michael's Hospital. Since then the building has housed the communications, history, and geography departments. It now also holds the Teaching Transformation and Development Academy. In recent years it has gone through a number of renovations to its interior for modernization. Many UND alumni and former students have had at least one class in O'Kelly Hall.

Images

Front entrance of O'Kelly Hall

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The University of North Dakota’s O’Kelly Hall is a building on campus that has served UND since 1948. However, in 1948 it was not known as O’Kelly Hall, but as the University’s new med school building named Science Hall. In 1945 the North Dakota legislature approved $250,000 to build this structure, but due to labor and material shortages only the western half was built beginning in 1947. The western part of the hall was completed in late 1948, and in 1949 it began to hold classes. In 1953, using proceeds from the state's medical center mill levy, the eastern half of the hall was completed. It was designed in the Collegiate Gothic design which would be quite popular for the UND campus for several decades. In addition to the main building, the Guy and Bertha Ireland Research Center was attached to the south side of the hall in 1963. In 1981 the University signed a 10-year lease agreement with the former St. Michael’s Hospital, and that began the process for Science Hall to no longer house the school of medicine.

The former Science Hall was renamed O’Kelly Hall after Dr. Bernard O’Kelly, who served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UND for 29 years. O'Kelly came to UND in 1966 and retired in 1995 after having received numerous awards and distinctions, including being named the Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences. It was in late 1995 that the State Board of Higher Education approved to rename the Medical Science Building to O’Kelly Hall. The dedication for the change was on December 7, 1995. After its name was changed, the building began undergoing refurbishing so that it could house the School of Communications.

Since its renaming, O’Kelly Hall has continued to hold classes for a number of different majors, and has gone through multiple renovations. Additional renovations will be begin in summer of 2021. Most of the renovations that have happened to O’Kelly Hall have had more to do with the inside of the building and not its outward appearance. In the summer of 2017, $7 million of renovations were done to the first floor and basement of the hall. It was mainly to add mechanical upgrades and to give it a more modern interior design. Today, O’Kelly Hall is home to UND’s History, American Indian Studies, and Geography department. It also houses the Teaching Transformation and Development Academy. It temporarily offered a coffee shop and convenience store while UND was building a new Memorial Union nearby. There also is a Math Active Learning Lab situated in the basement. Ireland Hall, which was built and connected to O'Kelly, holds the Anthropology department as well as a display for the Living Art Museum. The display there relates to the new Scale Up classrooms that have been added to O'Kelly Hall. The Scale Up classrooms began to be added in 2012 and utilize a state-of-the-art learning environment that has computers and video screens. These new classrooms were made to get students more engaged in the classroom. Starting in the summer of 2021, they are renovating the second floor, and replacing windows and external doors. They will also be adding a connector between O’Kelly and Gillette Hall.

Sources

Administrator, G. (2016, April 13). UND's O'Kelly Hall to see Partial renovation. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/4008994-unds-okelly-hall-see-partial-renovation

Brannon, M. (1948, October). Review Medical School History. Alumni Review, pp. 2-3.

Faculty & Staff: Department of history & American Indian Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://arts-sciences.und.edu/academics/history/faculty.html

University of North Dakota. (2012). University of North Dakota: A Grand Forks Historic District [Brochure]. Grand Forks, ND: Author.

University of North Dakota. (1995). The Dedication of O’Kelly Hall.

Johnson, Brian. Learning on a Grander 'SCALE', November 12th 2012. Accessed May 4th 2021. https://www1.und.edu/features/2012/11/scale-up-classroom-ribbon-cutting.cfm.

Living Art Museum: Ireland Hall, University of North Dakota. Accessed May 4th 2021. https://commons.und.edu/lam-ih/.

Bernard O'Kelly obituary, February 11th 2005. Accessed May 6th 2021. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailyherald/obituary.aspx?n=bernard-okelly&pid=3152444.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Henry Rubish