Sargent Hall was named after Fred Wesley Sargent, a former member of the university Board of Trustees. The completion of the hall, which housed 175 men, in the fall of 1950 came with a hefty $1.23 million price tag. However, it was also a great relief to the university, which had been facing a critical housing shortage for men. During this period, 600 men had been living in metal quonset huts, which had to be removed by June 1951.
A poem found in the 1974 yearbook:
Sargent Hall’s sterling walls are not like days of yore
They made them out of concrete, the way they made the floors.
Downstairs there’re many people waiting in a row
To enter in to eat their meat on which they’re told they’ll grow.
If a Grayhound bus were stolen or lost its way downtown
It would feel at home in Sargent hall and there it would be found.
So if you find you have no room to come back to in the fall
Do not complain, do not protest, it’s better than Sargent Hall.
Sargent was indeed a men's dorm. An electric shaver outlet and bureau with illuminated mirror stood on each side of the door, along with a large wardrobe. Storage cabinets lined the entire length of one door, and the desk surfaces were a blond-walnut plastic that could not be damaged by lit cigarettes and spilled liquids. Sargent men also enjoyed an eight foot expanse of windows in each room.
Sargent’s dorms included another feature similar to Shepard’s – studio couches. The daytime sofa could be converted into a bed simply by folding the backrests up out of the way. This helped maximize space usage in the rooms. Both dated 1950.
Sargent’s lounge – simple, clean, functional. Dated 1950.
With a 300-person capacity, Sargent’s dining hall came with an acoustical ceiling, plaster walls and an asphalt tile floor. Four private dining rooms with a combined capacity of 100 were also available. It was built to be a centralized dining hall for men's dormitories, replacing a cafeteria in Lunt and a grill in Goodrich. It is indeed interesting to consider that today, Sargent still remains the dining hall to flock to for students having classes up North. Dated 1950.