Grace Phillips Johnson Memorial Visual Arts Center | Click on
image titles for larger views. || | As early as 1853, students
at Bethany College began to petition for a place of amusement
and physical exercise. It was not until 1870 that they succeeded
in having a baseball field. In the fall of 1889, the student
body began rallying for a gymnasium, and President Archibald
McLean provided for this need for physical fitness by converting
Commencement Hall in Old Main into a gymnasium by February 1890.
In 1902, Bethany had its first physical director, and for the
first time physical education classes were part of the class
offerings. At a meeting of the Bethany College Board of Trustees
on June 17, 1903, the unanimous decision was made to proceed at
once to build a gymnasium. Mark Mordecai Cochran (class of 1875)
began an alumni movement to procure alumni subscriptions. In the
fall of 1903-04, the gymnasium in Commencement Hall was
converted into Norman A. Phillips Dormitory for men, and a small
gymnasium behind