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A SALUTARY INFLUENCE Ground was broken on June 4,1949 for the first new campus building, except for the bookstore, in twenty years.108 Designed to accommodate about one hundred women and include quarters for a head resident and four sororities, it was ready for use in the fall of 1950 and was dedicated on November 3 of that year. On the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary in the White House, in 1948, the trustees had decided to name the first new building, other than the chapel, in the president's honor, but the dormitory was finally named the Elizabeth Painter and Henry W.A. Hanson Hall, in order to recognize the contributions of both members of the campus first family. The cost, according to the finance committee's report in December 1951, was $342,772, not including furnishings. "It has long been a dream of my own," President Hanson told the board in June 1951, "that I would live to see on our campus a House of Worship which would serve as a challenge to every student." By that date the dream was becoming a reality. A year earlier, the board had selected the location, one intended to be the center of the campus, and had determined that the structure should be large enough to seat twelve hundred persons. Ground was broken on May 13, 1951 and the cornerstone was laid on November 3. Construction extended over a period of two years and the building was first used when College opened in the fall of 1953. Christ Chapel was dedicated on October 17, 1953, with President Emeritus Hanson delivering the dedicatory sermon. The cost was $592,871.109 In 1963 the bell once used in Old Dorm and then briefly in Glatfelter Hall was brought out of storage and installed in the chapel tower. The planning for a new chapel forced the trustees to consider what use, if any, should be made of the old one. As early as December 1949 they approved converting Brua into the music and dramatic center of the campus. Professors Wagnild and Arms met with the 108J. Alfred Hamme continued to be the College architect until his death in 1965. Many criticized his designs of postwar College buildings as unimaginative. Actually, as he himself explained, he operated within general architectural and financial guidelines which the trustees determined. 10flThe trustees chose the name Christ Chapel in June 1951. President Hanson suggested the theme for the mural placed above and behind the altar: Christ blessing a graduating student shown leaving the chapel, with John 14:6 as the text. In December 1952 the trustees granted President Langsam's request that a curtain be installed which could be drawn over the mural when the chapel was being used for other-than- worship purposes. Later, when some expressed their opposition to what the mural meant to them, the curtain remained drawn. Efforts to reopen the matter in the board of trustees in the early 1970s led nowhere. The January 1954 issue of the GCB included a list of memorials and designated gifts for the chapel. In May 1954 the Alumni Association dedicated a bronze plaque in the narthex in memory of sixty-four Gettysburg graduates killed in World War II. The figures for construction during 1950-1962 are taken from the GCB for February 1963. After that date they are taken from a report prepared by the bursar. 83