New SEMO residence hall gets official name

Nearly five years after being built, Southeast Missouri State University's newest residence hall has its official name.

The board of regents voted Friday to name the residence hall on Henderson Avenue after the school's fifth president, Willard Duncan Vandiver, who later coined the "Show Me State" slogan.

The name was one of three recommended to the regents by a student government committee.

Regent Al Spradling III said Vandiver seemed an appropriate name given the former university president's connection to the state's nickname and the fact that the university is home to the Show Me Center.

Willard Duncan Vandiver

Vandiver -- who looked somewhat like Mark Twain -- served as the school's president from 1893 to 1897 when the college was known as the Third District Normal School.

As president, Vandiver faced declining enrollment due to a national depression and an attempt to abolish the Normal School system. The attempt failed and Vandiver focused on increasing enrollment, student leaders said in their report to the regents.

Vandiver was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1896. He resigned as university president in March 1897.

As a congressman, he reportedly used the "show me" phrase during a political debate.

"I am from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri," Vandiver was quoted as saying. "You have got to show me."

mbliss@semissourian.com

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