“I have often thought that no student can walk the paths of the College Green for four years—if he has any sensitivity at all—without learning something from the appearance, something from the atmosphere that its buildings breathe, something from the way history looks down upon him.”
–President Henry Wriston (1937 - 1955)
In the 1860s, the space behind University Hall became more than just the back yard of “pumps and privies.” With the addition of Rogers Hall (built in 1862, now the Richard and Edna Salomon Center for Teaching), a new row of buildings began to fill in. Accompanying the donation for the construction of Sayles Hall (dedicated in 1881) came money for the re-grading and landscaping of the College Green in front of the building. Thus, the University’s focus turned inward toward the space then called Middle Campus. It was renamed the College Green in 1947 and serves a myriad of functions from park to playing field, from living room to classroom, from protest platform to dance floor.