SHARE YOUR MEMORIES OF AYRES HALL!
Do you remember your college days when you climbed the monumental “Hill” to get to a class in Ayres Hall? Once you made it to the top and paused for a deep breath, you could look out over all of campus. At that moment, everything in the world seemed possible.
Ayres Hall has become a campus icon, a building that holds lots of memories for all UT students and alumni.
As we anticipate the re-opening of Ayres Hall, we invite you to reminisce with us. Please share your memories below and read the comments of your classmates, friends and teachers.
I had the best butt of my life when I had classes on The Hill.
There was no parking on The Hill in the early hours, and I lived just a few blocks away. No matter how I looked at it, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it, there was no way to go but up. One hundred steps. Every day.
But it didn’t matter: once I reached the top, reached Ayres Hall, and saw the view, I forgot about the steps.
I only had one class in Ayres – Calculus – during the spring of my freshmen year (2000). I thought the building was so pretty on top of the hill and was excited to take a class in the “symbol of UT.” However, my gratitude for Ayres and Calculus came years later when a boy I met in that class became my husband. I remember helping Taylor with his homework outside in the hall before class, with no idea that he would be one of the most important things I gained from UT. Ayres Hall reminds him of how he picked me out as the girl he would marry, after only a few conversations.
We have a painting of Ayres hanging in our living room reminding us of how we came together on the top of the hill during one of the best times of our lives.
My first college class was in Ayres Hall in the fall of 1975. College algebra. I was scared to death. I think the place will be fabulous, and I can’t wait to see it.
I hope the plans call for floodlighting the exterior the way it should be done – from the sidewalk all the way to the top. Those dinky little lights around the base of the tower never have gotten the job done.
Next we need to cross the street and rescue the Hoskins Library. Whoever thought to take the main reading room and cut it up into cubicles ought to be led away in handcuffs.
I remember climbing up those well worn stone steps of the staircase from the back entrance of Ayres Hall. Each stone stair tread was worn into a very pronounced concave shape on top. I hope they have retained that staircase because those worn steps are a very poignant reminder of the many student footsteps that have passed there since Ayres Hall was built.
Those steps led to my favorite class of the four years that I spent at UT Knoxville. That class was Calculus I and II taught by Dr. Edgar D. Eaves and lasted for the entire six quarters of my first two years. Dr. Eaves taught Calculus from a practical standpoint by teaching it as a tool to be used in solving engineering problems. We engineers loved this. He would give a ten minute test at the start of every class covering the homework assignment for the previous night. If you studied your homework assignments you could make a 100 on these tests which counted as one third of your quarter grade. The midterm and final counted as the other two thirds.
This class room was located in a large room on the front side of Ayres Hall just across from the stairs. There was a slightly raised platform and blackboard running the entire width of the class room. When I was there in 2008, fifty years from when I was a student, the entire room was filled with some kind of electronic test lab. I asked the lab personnel if I could see if the raised platform and blackboard was still there. He showed me a spot where a small portion of the platform and blackboard could still be seen. I hope it’s still there after the renovation.
The well worn steps that begin the trek up to the third floor always stand out in my memory. It was like following in the great footsteps that UTK alumni had left for a path through life. May these steps be left as a memory of all who have been blessed to attend UTK.